When SEO Works: How to Maintain a Strategic Balance In Life

Follow Through FridaysWhen SEO Works

0:00CrystalAll right, my friend, welcome back to the simple and smart SEO show podcast.

0:04This is follow through Fridays, which happens to be recorded on Sunday because life, right?

0:11But I did have this idea last week that I wanted to do like a SWOT analysis recap of the past week.

0:18So I was like, you know what, I'm just going to get up early and do this.

0:21And just share my process for analyzing what's going on in our business.

0:25What we're going to talk about in this super short and sweet episode is just a recap of last week.

0:31And the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats that I experienced and some key takeaways.

0:39And if you didn't know, we are having a three day challenge at the end of February.

0:44So if you have SEO questions and you want to strengthen your SEO in just three days, the challenge is free and you can sign up at three day challenge spelled out three day challenge.

0:56com forward slash SEO.

0:58Okay, so let's start with strengths.

1:00The strengths of last week included So we've been having a great session with the founding members of the SEO squad, and we've been meeting on Wednesdays for the last month.

1:09And we've covered so much. We've talked about Google business profiles, content creation, jobs theory, and jobs to be done.

1:18And, setting up everybody's Google search console so we can actually start capturing real data from our websites.

1:24So that's been really cool.

1:25And seeing everyone's wins have been great.

1:27So far we've got some really great feedback. And I'm excited for where the membership's going to go.

1:32There's just so much potential, so much going on in SEO.

1:35It's the perfect time to be in an SEO group, if I do say so myself.

1:39Some other strengths.

1:40We had the best January ever in my business, Collage and Wood.

1:45I've been designing these custom photo letters and numbers like a crazy person.

1:50It has just been insane in the membrane over here. And what was cool is that the sources for those sales included Google, Pinterest, direct and then the ones that had no conversion details at all.

2:04But I was excited to see Pinterest getting credit for a click.

2:07Because my impressions and pin saves and click throughs over on Pinterest.

2:13Are at some of the highest levels I've seen in a couple of years. So thank you pinterest and Thank you january because that was a crazy fun month.

2:23On the SEO agency side of things, I finished some case studies for one of my clients and another client who's a new client saw a new milestone in her previously kind of latent and dormant site.

2:36She had 120 clicks last month.

2:38So that was pretty exciting.

2:39All right, so weaknesses.

2:41Okay, this is where things got a little rough. The overwhelm was so real last week.

2:47And I had this dream of 2024 being the year of working until noon.

2:52And that was not an option in January. So I think I'm gonna revamp that idea and that goal.

2:58Into something a little bit more reasonable.

3:00Maybe go back to, having Friday fully off.

3:03And it's the first time I've seriously thought about hiring another designer for the Photoshop work that I do.

3:11That crossed my mind.

3:13Then unfortunately the postal service fumbled an overnight package.

3:19It's going from North Carolina to Washington.

3:21Left North Carolina fine, got to Washington, stayed in a processing center for three or four days.

3:27And then was delivered late to the customer.

3:29So that was unfortunate.

3:31But okay, let's go back to something a little bit more positive. Opportunities.

3:36Oh, but you know what it showed me that there was a gap in my process.

3:41Because a few months ago, I don't know if you listened to this episode and I'd have to figure out which one it was.

3:46But a few months ago I was talking about how I wanted to use honey book to improve the client experience at collage and wood.

3:53com.

3:54And so what I did was I mapped out the entire experience from, The time that they purchased the collage. Till the time that the collage is delivered

4:02Now once I ship it, The next step was to say hey, how is your collage did everything arrive okay?

4:07but what I never thought about was creating something between the shipping of the object and the follow up of the shipping.

4:17So here's what I mean.

4:18If somebody orders like a physical collage and it doesn't get there on time, it doesn't have to be so devastating.

4:25Because what I can do is I can create a digital design in the version of a poster.

4:31And send it digitally to the person or to a staples nearby the person.

4:35So they can at least pick that up and have something to give on that senior night.

4:40But that was not the case because my customer didn't know that she could tell me. When the collage wasn't there.

4:48She didn't tell me until it was too late, but if I had let her know that there is an option, if the package is running late.

4:55We could have avoided some of the pain of that experience. As bad as that was, it really did create a new opportunity.

5:02So speaking of opportunities.

5:05We're launching the free Supercharge Your SEO three day challenge at the end of February. It's February 27th, 28th and 29th on our fun little leap year date.

5:17And you can sign up right now.

5:18It's totally free.

5:20Three day challenge. com forward slash SEO.

5:23Another opportunityI went back to handwritten thank you notes.

5:27I purchased some nice, upleveled thank you cards that are personalized with my photo and my address and my name.

5:34So I've been putting those in there and hoping that's going to continue to bring in reviews.

5:39If I was smart, I would have put a QR code on the back of the card to say, Hey, scan this QR code to leave a review on my Google business page.

5:48But that's an opportunity for the future, right?

5:50Let's go on to threats. We've had strengths, weaknesses, opportunities.

5:54Really the biggest threat to my business is time.

5:58And health and my husband has been sick off and on.

6:02For the last few weeks, there's lots of little viruses going around.

6:05And he's a teacher and he's also a type one diabetic.

6:09Which means his body has a harder time fighting off these little bugs than other people.

6:14So we've been dealing with that.

6:17And then also my son is 11, but he woke up a teenager one day this week and I'm like, wow, like some of the things that he said.

6:27And so when he lost his iPad privileges this weekend, the emotional results were devastating for all of us.

6:35So it's got me completely rethinking screen time.

6:38And my own Work screen time as well.

6:41To be more present with him.

6:43So that's been the evaluation of the week and I think there's so many great positives, so many great things with the SEO squad.

6:53So many great opportunities and, just seeing some of the things that I've identified as opportunities implemented now and seeing the fruit of that and seeing that, things are improving or, the customer experience journey is more hands on and the feedback from my customers has just been amazing.

7:09They really feel cared about. And That I'm touching base with them. All of those things were positive.

7:15And, anytime that there are weaknesses or threats, I always believe that weaknesses can be turned into opportunities.

7:22And that threats can be mitigated. And it's just important to take a step back.

7:26And I don't know if you've heard the story of the businessman and the fishermen, but I heard that again this week. And so I'll just share my version with you here real quick.

7:37A fisherman was on his fishing boat near the dock.

7:40And a, rich, successful businessman came to the dock and said, wow, you really could make some money with what you're doing. How do you spend your days?

7:49And the guy said, I, I fish and then I go home and I read and I spend time with my family and go to bed.

7:56And the guy said you could have a really successful business.

8:00And then once you make all that money you could sell the business and, you'd just be really wealthy.

8:07And the guy on the boat said, oh, that sounds interesting, but how long would that take?

8:12And the businessman said you'd have to work really hard for about 10 years.

8:17But then once that was over, you could, spend time on your boat, have time with your kids and your family and read every night.

8:24And so it just goes to show that sometimes we think we're working towards the goals to get us everything we want.

8:32And when we stop for a minute, we realize we already have everything we need.

8:36So just wanted to share that with you.

8:39I hope that's encouraging in some way.

8:40Thank you for listening to follow through Fridays.

8:43Keep moving forward, and I will see you again on Wednesday.