Why You Shouldn't Sleep on SEO Featuring Laura Jawad

And specifically why I think this is ultra valuable for you , the listener , is because she also helped me with my website . Embarrassingly so , my website was not even visible by Google , and so she helped me set that in order .

And for you listening to this episode , listen up , because I know sometimes SEO gets a bad rep or there are charlatans , you know , going under the SEO umbrella and they want to do things that take forever . But Laura is all about action and I've seen her work this SEO on my website and it's really , really helped .

So she's built two successful businesses through SEO and that's what qualifies her to be talking with you today . She's demonstrated firsthand the transformative power of well-executed SEO and competitive markets , and so combine that with get this . Her PhD Dang Respect , respect I don't even have a master's and her deep passion for helping women-owned businesses thrive .

Laura is the go-to if you want to fill your client roster without relying on social media . Welcome to the show , laura .

So , laura , I am super curious , since this first episode is getting to know you for the listener .

We already have gotten to know you , but how is it that you first cut your teeth on SEO and please share how you knocked the ball out of the park , so to speak , with your previous business as far as SEO goes , and how that helped you become the SEO phenom that you are today ?

I was in academic science for almost two decades , and when I became pregnant with my first child , I found that the services and support that I needed at that time were severely lacking , and so I ended up leaving my academic position and I started a pregnancy and postpartum personal training business and later a birth doula business , and both of those businesses

became fully booked out businesses built on SEO , and what I learned with those businesses is that I don't thrive in the social media realm .

And so as I got some traction both in the online fitness space and then in my local doula market , I invested more and more into learning SEO and getting better at SEO , and as those businesses thrived , I had my colleagues coming to me for help getting their businesses found online , and so that kind of drew the line from those pregnancy and postpartum businesses

into the SEO business that I have now those pregnancy and postpartum businesses into the SEO business that I have now .

You know , when I started my businesses , like they , they teach you how they reach you right .

Like all my business coaches that I had early on like told me that in order to be successful with my businesses , I had to be on Instagram , I had to be showing up every day , posting consistently , selling in the DMS , like you know this story right , and I really did try and it really isn't me , but what I did find is that when I was posting , the things

I enjoyed posting were like those 2200 character captions , like I really liked maxing it out , like the long form captions , that's a lot I like to write and so I would write these really long captions , and at some point I started putting those on my website in the blogs , and that's when I started seeing traction on my website .

So that's really when I started learning about SEO , because I was like huh , like the more I put stuff on my website , like , the more traffic I get from my website . And so that is really what compelled me to shift that focus , and I had so much more success once I shifted into a marketing model that aligned with my personality , my interests , my energy .

And I still have my Instagram .

I still think it's great as like a nurture tool and a connection tool , and I'm not advocating for anyone to give it up , but really what I like to share from my own journey is just there is more than one way to market an online business , and I I think that again , like when you are only learning from folks in one place , like , let's say , instagram , you're

missing out on this breadth of strategies that can really be quite powerful and effective .

Right , because Google is starting to pay attention to what you're doing off your website , because they're trying to , they're trying to fit , to come up with ways to figure out who's a real person , who's a real brand , not just like like AI spam . From that perspective , like having a broad online footprint is important .

But I think also , I mean I hope that in you know , 2024 , going into 2025 , we've learned not to put all our eggs in one digital basket .

Like everything is an algorithm , everything , and so I've had my instagram hacked and taken away , right , and like google updates its algorithms and the 2023 helpful content update , like really hit a lot of small businesses quite hard , and so I think I think diversifying is always smart , you know .

But I think it's just natural to then gravitate towards one platform that's like your preferred platform , but I wouldn't advocate getting rid of the others , like I think it's just then you're playing with fire .

Like I definitely am not an introvert and quite quite comfortable though I don't dance on camera a lot I'm quite comfortable making content and churning out content for the Instagram hamster wheel , if you will , feeding the beast to keep them happy .

What I'm really curious about is , since or now , two businesses you've done a great job at using SEO to attract the right clients to you . How long did it take you , the first and then the second time , to get that system going ?

So local SEO there's different types of SEO , right Like there's different strategies that you can take Local SEO you can spin up a lot faster . It's less competitive when you're working on like a , you know , let's say , national scale as opposed to a local scale and using like more top of funnel content to build an email list . That takes longer .

So I know that's not a great answer , but the local stuff that definitely spun up in a short number of months and the content marketing took longer , probably closer to a year to really start filling the funnel and building my list

.

I think I took two courses . I continue to take courses , but the basics . I never paid anyone to do my SEO for me . I learned how to do it myself and implemented it myself and you know all self-taught through the internet and courses .

Really they think like tech , they think stuff they can't do themselves , and again , we'll get into this more in the next episode but SEO really rests on several pillars , one of which is tech , but three of which are keywords and content , user experience and brand authority , and those are things that you need no technical knowledge to implement , and so I think

people get hung up in the wrong place , right , like they get so hyper-focused on this stuff that they can't do that they don't do the stuff they can do , and it's like that stuff they can't do doesn't even matter unless they've done all this other stuff . Does that answer the question ?

I haven't posted on my socials since April and I know I need to get back in there . I did run ads for a bit , so I ran Facebook ads for some time as both a list building and I think they were always . I think the ads I ran were always going to opt-ins or to just traffic to send people to blog posts and Facebook posts and that sort of thing .

It's been a minute since I did that , but yeah , I certainly tried . Tried in quote , social media and ads .

That takes some time and even once you're in the index , it takes some time to to really start getting referrals from that . But I think so that first year was frustrating for me , as I like discovered all of this . But I think also , like the first year of business is like hard for anyone , right .

Like what do they say for like a service-based business , it takes an average of five years to really build up like a solid clientele . And so I think , whatever your marketing strategy is , it takes time to have that solid influx of clients . And so certainly , and like God , am I out of it yet ?

Like I don't even know , but like I was definitely frustrated early on when I didn't feel like I had enough clients coming in or stuff wasn't happening fast enough . But I think , no matter what your marketing channel is , that is going to be the case . I can tell you that right now . So I pivoted to offering SEO as a service at the end of 2023 .

And I launched a new website and , of course , it takes time for SEO to vest and to start getting needs through the website .

So I'm getting email subscribers through my website , but I'm not getting a ton of clients through my website yet , and so I was using my socials more as I launched this business to get the word out and to reconnect with people , and so , ironically , I was bringing in most of my business early , earlier in the year , in particular through Instagram , which was wild

to me , because in my fitness business I don't think I ever got a client through Instagram , but I . But I think it's a beautiful example of like , of the importance of layering your marketing strategies . And so , and again like when I'm working with someone who is just starting with SEO , I don't encourage anyone to get rid of their social media , right ?

Because in that early period where you're waiting for your SEO to vest , in particular , you need , like , a quicker source of leads and maybe that socials , maybe it's ads , maybe it is , like some , like hardcore referral marketing , but this year for me , I've gotten . My clients have all come either from Instagram or from referrals from my network .

Yeah , and I would say actually my number one source of business this year has been through word of mouth and referrals . So , I think I've danced a little bit away from the original question , so maybe I'll just I'll put a pin in it and leave it there , all right .

And as I was listening to you , I was thinking of YouTube when I started doing YouTube versus like Instagram , for example , like YouTube is great and they call it like the king of social media . You know , but you can't just start YouTube overnight .

However , in serving clients like some of the clients that have the most robust funnels end up having a very solid YouTube funnel that they've invested the time in to develop and now their leads just come in .

And I would say that's the same for some of my clients that have that actually get leads from SEO , like they didn't do it overnight , but once they're ranked and discoverable by Google , it's like these leads , these search leads , come in organically and it's not like they're doing a ton to maintain like that lead flow .

You know they're publishing , yes , like content at a somewhat regular basis , but it's pretty cool from what I've seen on the end I mean I could not keep up with the client inquiries .

All the strategies complement one another .

But what do you mean by Vest when you talk ?

You buy a stock today , maybe it goes up a little , maybe it goes down a little by tomorrow , but there's not gonna be a dramatic change . And even by next month we're not gonna see a dramatic change . But if you wait 10 years , maybe that initial $100 investment now is worth like $40,000 . And SEO is the same way . You don't have to wait 10 years .

That was probably the timeline to choose . But the work that you do today , the optimizations , the content you create , it matures over a timescale of six to 12 months . The more content you create , the more backdoors into your website you create , the more keyword opportunities you create .

Over time it snowballs , it snowballs , snowballs and before you know it , you will have high quality leads coming into your website right in whatever type of funnel you set up . But it's not going to happen .

It's not going to happen overnight and , just like the stock market , there can be ups and downs , right , like the long-term trajectory is always going to be up , right .

But because of compound interest , there will be a point where your money starts to out earn your active income and that's like what we're all doing as we invest for retirement . Final thought right now , laura , would be awesome , and then we'll finish up this episode .

Laura Jawad , thank you for being on this podcast and sharing a bit with us .