I think the action item here is when's the last time you , as a listener , googled your own business name , your own name personally ? Are you kind of keeping an eye on what is showing up and is it what you want to be showing up there ? Really , really important to do that every few months just to check in on what's going on .
Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast , with your host , josh Hall , helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love .
Hey , great to have you here for this episode of the Web Design Business Podcast , where we're going to take a little deep dive into local SEO . Now it's been a while since we've talked about SEO on the podcast and there have been a lot of changes that have been going on in the SEO landscape .
Of course , there's a lot of chatter about how AI is affecting SEO and how to rank it locally for not only your web design business , but to offer this as a service for clients . So I could not think of anyone better to take a deep dive into this subject with than Sarah Dunn , who is an SEO coach for web designers .
Now , if you don't know Sarah first off , i'm going to highly recommend that you follow her on the socials . You can connect with her on Instagram at SarahDoesSEO , or on TikTok at SarahDoesSEO and her website . You know what's coming is SarahDoesSEOcom .
She really is a complete vault , wealth of knowledge , incredible archive of SEO information , and I followed her for a little while on social media now and I really enjoyed seeing her post and seeing what she shared .
And then , upon talking with her , i found out that not only does she have a lot of just general , basic , foundational SEO principles that she makes simple , like she simplifies it , but she also knows a whole heck of a lot about targeting long tail and long phrase key terms , but also local SEO .
So that's mainly what we dive into in this episode to help you again with local SEO and for your clients if you've yet to offer SEO as a service . So that's what we're going to get into here with Sarah . Now , one thing I did want to make note of before I bring her on is Sarah .
After this conversation , i was like would you like to come into my community web designer pro and do a live training and really take the next step of local SEO ? And she said she would be happy to .
So we've got some time at the time of this episode coming up , as Sarah is going to be coming into web designer pro in November of 2023 to do a guest expert training on local SEO . If you didn't know , inside of web designer pro , every month I bring in a guest expert on a topic .
Then , like in this case , sarah is going to do one on local SEO and then their archive . So anytime you join , you get access to those live training . So if you've yet to join web designer pro , come join us , try it out . There is now a monthly option available for those of you who want to give it a go and not have a full annual commitment yet .
So you can do that . Go to joshallco , i'll see it in there , and for right now , enjoy my conversation with Sarah done about local SEO . I'll follow up at the end of this episode with some additional links , but for right now here's our chat . Well , sarah , welcome officially to the show . What a pleasure to chat with you here for a little while .
Well , i'm so glad to be here and chat , seo , chat , web design and wherever you want to take this .
That we were just chatting before I hit record . Like I have intentionally made a concerted effort to be more and more conversational , which means zero preparation . Like no bullet points we're going to cover , unless there's a few topics I think I might want to hit on . But yeah , we're , we're going to blind here .
But the topic is the SEO , and I find SEO fascinating . I've actually learned to love it more and more . Like , did you ? I guess ? two part question uh , number one , what do you do ? And then I'd love to hear , like , how you got into the world of SEO . If you could hit those two .
So , believe it or not , i now focus exclusively on SEO for the wedding industry . So my clients now are wedding planners , photographers , venues , florists that type of businesses that serve engaged couples , which is super specific . But it was not always that way And I actually started in my business doing website design . So my business in 2012, .
I was actually doing something different entirely And the most fun that I had was putting the website together And I realized that this was something that came fairly naturally to me and that I really enjoyed and that other people struggled more with .
So I quickly found out if I could figure out web design , other people would pay me for it And it became my business in 2012 . I grew that business into a small agency . We did digital products , We did um graphic design logos , i had a small team and um , it was really fun . I always really enjoyed the website strategy .
But in about 2017 , i decided I wanted to niche down and one of my favorite things as part of an SEO pro , as part of a website project , was always doing a little bit of keyword research and seeing if I could help that client's website rank higher on Google .
So I really dug into SEO um ended up doing an SEO project for a wedding planner who was very well connected in the wedding industry , and she started referring me all around and talking about me And , um , i ended up doing SEO full time for the wedding industry starting in 2018 .
So that's the very short version of my journey , but it's really fun to jump in with you because I know that web designers are your community and that that used to be me too , so I really have a heart for web designers , especially anyone who's self taught .
Yeah , So you have a kind of a two pronged business wedding specific SEO , which I have so many questions about . And then , yeah , you frame yourself as an SEO coach for web designers , which I I like , especially because you have the credibility behind you with growing your agency and having that interest in strategy and SEO .
Now strategy and SEO for a business that wants to have that for the long term , i would imagine , is completely different than the strategy for a wedding . It's going to be over . So my first question with wedding is like why the heck worry about SEO for a wedding ?
Like you're not going to invite some random person who found you on Google Unless , does that happen ? Like how the heck do why ? how the heck does wedding SEO exist ?
So , if you think about this , i work with people who they work with engaged couples , so all of my clients are the businesses that serve people who are getting married . So what's ?
interesting about the wedding industry , so that went right past my head . That makes sense now . So you're like wedding planners , wedding bookers , stuff like that Exactly .
Yes , djs and florists And what's so great about this industry is that they need to be visible on an ongoing basis because they have no repeat business . They have to find a new roster of clients every single year , so visibility and marketing is super important for that niche of business , and so that's why it's been really fun for me .
It's also a very creative industry , so I get to work with a lot of really fun content and help that get found , and in that process , i've worked now with a lot of websites that other people have designed , and that's when I discovered I really needed to maybe be offering something to website designers who didn't know anything about SEO , because I was seeing a
lot of really bad situations that were created by a professional web designer with great intentions who maybe just didn't know what they didn't know , and that's when I decided for the first time actually just a few weeks ago , i did my first SEO for web designers workshop , which was wonderful and I really enjoyed it .
And OK , so that answers my question . So it's the it's wedding industry SEO . It's not weddings per se , like it's not bride SEO , because I was like , why the heck would they care about their website being on SEO And many things ? they'd want to de-index it from Google . Okay , so that makes total sense .
Also a really interesting distinction there that I hadn't really thought of is that SEO I mean I guess it could be for recurring clients and previous clients that may come back to you , but that what you just said , made me realize that SEO is really for acquisition , like it really is for new clients , because if you have a same pool of clients paying you over
and over , it's unlikely they're going to be googling through your service if they already know , like and trust you and they're coming back . So that's an interesting way to think about SEO , i feel like is that it is oh so important for leads and particularly it could be a level back , like if somebody discovers you and then they search you .
You want to make sure your SEO game is enough to at least fill up . I was going to say the first page of Google but , as you probably know , now it's not the first page anymore , it's just the you know , the first few scrolls . You at least want to have a good presence in the first couple of scrolls . Yes , SEO .
I like to think about that . It is for discovery . So my job as an SEO is to help businesses get discovered when people either are searching for the products and services they offer Or people are searching for advice that that business owner has . So SEO is so powerful for discovery to bring people in .
And then the web design is so important to convert those visitors who are cold . They've never heard of this business before . The web design is such a key part of that to convert that visitor into taking an action , whatever the desired action is . So it all works together . It does .
Yeah , it totally does . Well , first off , luckily , your parents gave you a great name for SEO . Like Sarah does SEO , it just rings off the tongue At least it wasn't like Gertrude does SEO , you know it's like , ah , it just doesn't rhyme at all , doesn't go . So very good on your parents for having the foresight to have an SEO sounding name .
I actually , and all and all seriousness , i would love to talk about this page , the Google page thing , because I don't know if you'll change this , sarah , but as of right now , sarah does SEOcom says it's time for you to go . It says it's time for you to shine on Google's page one .
But more recently actually it was funny We discovered this live in my community Web Designer Pro . Every week we do Q and A's and hot seats and we were literally looking at some search results of someone And then I was like , oh my gosh , there's no pages anymore .
It literally like you don't do page one , page two , page three , you literally just keep on scrolling . It's like a feed . Now , what's your , what are your thoughts on that ? Is that good , bad ? Are you going to change your website now ? Are you , are you , are you still working clients in with the idea of page . Like you know , a page style approach to SEO .
So I think it's great The fact that the user doesn't have to click to page two anymore And we're actually seeing more clicks further down in the search results . But because it's really easy to just like scroll through till something catches your eye in this new infinite scroll version of Google . Google's also brought in more visual aspects .
So if you have a featured image associated with a page , a lot of times Google is bringing that in as a little square image on the right side on desktop . So people are doing more scrolling and you actually have more opportunity with Google than ever because of that that scrolling behavior , as opposed to the , the paginated behavior .
I will say , though , most people come to me and they're still like Sarah , i'm on like page seven of Google . Can you fix it ? So people are still thinking about Google as having pages , and I never try to present myself as talking about SEO in a way that my clients don't talk about it Like I want to be on their level and make it really approachable .
So I'm happy to keep page one on the homepage of my site until I notice that my clients aren't using that phrasing anymore .
There it is . That's a great point . Yeah , you got to keep your lingo resonating with your customers So they understand it . Because , yeah , it is like if you were to tell a client , I'm going to get you on the first scroll of Google , They'll be like what , what , what did ?
you say What does that mean ?
Yeah , Yeah , So that makes total sense , that that clients , I mean it . just I just realized it less than a couple . I don't know when they made that change , but it was pretty recent , I think . Um , cause I hadn't seen that previously . And then , yeah , I was like oh my gosh .
And then I felt yeah . It didn't even happen in all search results at the same time . So Google started testing it with different searches , but so sometimes one day you would still see the page numbers at the bottom to click through .
And then , as Google does , they kind of watch the searcher behavior and then decide if it seems to be creating a better experience , and then they rolled it out to more and more searches .
So occasionally I still see paginated results instead of the infinite scroll version , but I do think that it's likely that all searches mobile and desktop will be just infinite scroll in the future .
Wow , i didn't realize they rolled it out piece by piece like that . I thought it was just a night and day switch . So I wonder if maybe it was based off of the volume of search terms or industry-wide . That's really interesting . Yeah , it wasn't available to the masses .
Yeah , well then you know , us SEO geeks are always noticing different experiments that Google's doing . So when you get as deep into SEO Twitter as I am , people will post screenshots , like just noticed this search engine results page behavior that I've never seen before . Has anyone else seen it ?
And then everyone will kind of chime in And once in a while someone posts something that most of the community hasn't seen before , and sometimes that change becomes normal , and sometimes it really was just a test that Google just rolls back and no one ever sees it again . So that's the real geek level of SEO is looking for new treasures .
What are some of your favorite follows for SEO , like certain Twitter profiles or websites ? Yeah , where do you get your SEO ? know how from ?
So a lot of the SEO that I do is local SEO , so that means my clients are trying to get found for a service in a specific local area . So I follow a lot of local SEO related accounts like Sterling Sky , lily Ray , local you . Those are all local related SEO accounts that do a really good job , and that's kind of the part of the world that I live in .
Okay , okay , so one more time . Sterling Sky Inc Is that right , i think . Local SEO agency , that sounds cool . What was the other couple you mentioned ? I would love to link these .
Lily Ray For anyone . Let's see , yeah , she's at Lily Ray , nyc . Okay , super smart . Very cool Marie . Haynes is another good SEO follower .
Lily Ray SEO D Dan drummer . I might have to try to get her on too , because that's fascinating . Very similar to like the wedding industry too , i imagine the DJ stuff . So how it makes total sense that SEO is really important . Yeah , lily Ray is super cool .
And then local university . Let's see Local you at local you live on Twitter .
Okay , that's most of the education online conferences in person .
Okay , cool .
I wanted to throw those out there just in case anyone's curious , as as am . I actually just recently joined Twitter .
I haven't posted anything yet , but I'm just starting to creep , i take I just I have not had the bandwidth for any more than I'm doing , but more recently I'm like okay , i think I'm ready to venture into Twitter just to partake in some of the conversations And , honestly , twitter seems to be such a great resource for the up to date kind of stuff that's
industry specific in real time . That's interesting too . It's like the value of things and updates happening real time . That's what's hard to find right now , because it does take a while to write a blog post about it or somebody produce a video sometimes .
But I feel like podcasts and Twitter , honestly , are probably two of the best places to find something that's real time , unless it's a live call or something like that .
Yeah , i know you're on TikTok too , josh , but I know you're not big on TikTok either .
I know , i know you , i know you're saying you listened to that interview I did recently with James . He was trying to convince me to get to TikTok and I'm like I , i , i might , uh , it would just be a matter of how I can disperse the time through through all the socials . But I don't know . I mean how , tell me ?
you tell me , i know TikTok is a big one for you now , is it ? is it good for like the up to date kind of stuff ? I mean , what type of content is helpful for you on TikTok ?
Yeah , I mean , people do post kind of in real time . So , because it's not that polished , you can just put up a pretty quick video reacting to something that's that's news or a new feature or something like that . It's funny . I don't spend a lot of time on TikTok .
I spend the most time when people send me videos that you know and it's always like the most outrageous things that get the most shares . And so it's people that are like , okay , this TikTok video says Google is dead , What do you think about it ? And I'm like , yes , they are reacting to the news .
They are reacting times about 10 to get more attention and we all need to calm down . So that's what I find for TikTok . It's like , yes , things that are new and as outrageous as possible .
Gotcha . Yeah , that makes sense , but a good resource is so far . I'm definitely going to consider that And we'll . Now that I'm kind of I'm creeper status on Twitter right now , i'll definitely check out some of these profiles we mentioned .
I'm kind of curious , though do you worry about other browsers , and by worry I mean do you pay attention to how results look on DuckDuckGo or I don't know the browser share statistics or if there's a good resource for that . But yeah , like , or do you just kind of play by Google's rules and everything else seems to fall in place ?
Yeah , so Google has more than 90% of the search engine market . So most of us that do SEO full time , we really try to appeal to Google The most . That's where most traffic comes from , and the other search engines being DuckDuckGo , et cetera , they're usually trailing behind , trying to figure out how Google did what it did .
So we do do the most tracking of Google results , and that is the algorithm that we study the most in order to show up and get the most traffic .
I see , yeah , i wondered if there was going to be a segment of the market that's going to be like SEO for DuckDuckGo or something like that . Ooh , that has a good nice ring to it . You know what I mean . Like , i wonder if there's going to be a bunch of programs that are courses . I mean , i guess there could if there's things that are different .
but it would make sense that the principles that Google rolls with , that we're all used to , are going to filter down . One thing I was kind of curious about now , since you're helping web designers , i think it's easy to figure out what misconceptions clients have with getting to the quote unquote top of Google or first page of Google .
But what are some of the things that you've seen designers and web designers have wrong about SEO or maybe just not understand ? Like what are some things that might be kind of like web designer misconception about SEO ?
Yeah , i think the most common misconception is SEO isn't my job . I didn't get hired to do SEO .
So I see a lot of websites that are really beautiful that someone spent a lot of time on and they haven't thought about SEO , they haven't thought about keywords , they haven't set up SEO settings properly And I always think that that is really , you know , a disservice to the client to not have the basic level of knowledge about SEO to help that business possibly
show up in more searches and get more traffic for free . I will say to any web designer though that doesn't know much about SEO , it's not necessarily that the website is the end , all be all like . The web designer can't do everything that's necessary in most cases to get a website to rank higher .
So Google isn't just looking at the website and going this one's the best , i'll put that business at the top . There's other factors , like how many links the website has from other websites on the internet . How good is that business's reputation online ? Do they have good reviews ? Have they been mentioned in a lot of places ?
So it's not necessarily the website's job to rank higher on Google . The problem is that the website is the end source of truth . So even though the web designer can't always get it to number one , the web designer can make some mistakes that confuse Google and can actually cause rankings to really decline if some things aren't set up properly .
And that's the real problem and why I think most web designers should know SEO basics .
So what are ? this could be a whole separate thing , but what are the basics in your mind ? There's just a few . You know , if somebody felt like , if somebody was in that situation , sarah , where they're like I don't do SEO , but you're like if it's just you and you're not partnering with somebody , you gotta at least have a foundation . What's that foundation ?
look like The bare bones .
Yes . So there's two things that I recommend all web designers know . The first and most important thing to understand is that Google stores information about pages based on the URL . So your most important job as a web designer handling a redesign is to make sure that pages don't break when your new website is launched .
So let's imagine a situation where you're designing a brand new website for Joe's widgets and his old about page was at joeswidgetscom forward slash about . Well , in your redesign you decide it's going to be about us , and so now the URL is forward slash about dash us .
The problem is when that new website launches , any link that existed online whether it's Pinterest , google , someone's bookmarks to forward slash about that's now broken because the web designer didn't take the time to either make sure to keep it the same or redirect that URL using a redirects plugin .
So knowing that Google stores information by URL is really important , because you want to protect those rankings by making sure the pages continue to exist or they redirect in their new location . I would say , not setting up redirects Mm . Hmm , yep .
I'll go ahead then .
I would say that not setting up redirects is the number one issue that I see with rankings drops after a new website launches . So it's really , really important if you want to do right by the client and protect their traffic .
So if you wanted to do better SEO for a client like , let's say , their URLs are trash and the permalinks are all wild and they have dates for about pay . You know you can do like in WordPress a permalink that has the date when it's posted , when it's a service page or something .
So if I wanted to do better SEO but not mess with the URL structure that Google already knows in place , what is the advice ? just to do better titles and metadata and content on those pages to get a jumpstart .
So you could totally do that , or you can change the URLs to clean them up and fix them . You just want to make sure the old URL redirects to the new . One redirects Yep . So for your listeners using WordPress , i usually use the redirection plugin . It's made for redirects .
You can even set it up to monitor changes to permalink so that it creates redirects automatically If URLs are changed in the future . So redirection is my favorite and what we use for all WordPress client projects is .
I think I even use the same one too . It's just redirects , a redirection by John Goodley . Godly , exactly , yeah , okay , yeah , i'm using that one as well , highly rated , by the way , almost 505 stars Compatible . So I've got that . I'll make sure we link that as well . A lot of good links , a lot of good resources . So yeah , that's .
I was going to ask at some point about the redesign thing . So that makes total sense . What about , yeah , what about anything else ? as far as misconceptions , i mean , that makes total sense that the linking structure is huge . But , yeah , any other biggies that you've seen with web designers in particular .
Yeah , So the other thing that I recommend that all web designers do at a minimum is to make sure to put the business's name and most important keyword in the homepage SEO panel . So SEO titles are one of those stupid SEO things that actually only exist in the settings panel . You just have to figure out where that is in the builder that you use .
And then you want to make sure that you always update the homepage SEO title So it doesn't just say home in the browser tab . Josh , have you ever looked at a website ? and up in the tab it just says home at the homepage .
I mean , I would never have personally done that for like six years , but I've seen it before . Yeah .
Totally , and the problem with that is that the homepage SEO title is one of the most important places that Google looks in order to understand what the whole website is actually about , and you can have a big impact for your clients SEO if you choose a good keyword to put in that homepage SEO title .
If they're a local business , it's usually their location , like a city , and then the service that they offer .
Right , what about if you have the title in the settings panel but then you use like SEO Yoast or Rank Math , and then on the homepage then cover it up with the SEO settings for through the plugin , like do those conflict with each other ? Do you know , or does the plugin always overwrite what's in the settings ?
Thankfully , the plugins are made to kind of take precedent . So whatever you put in the homepage SEO settings and Yoast or Rank Math , that's what's used And that's definitely the place that you want to do it .
So if you do Word plus websites , I definitely recommend the Yoast plugin or Rank Math and making sure that the one of those is installed on every website you build .
Gotcha , can I take a wild guess about the next tip that you have for us ? Ooh go , because I would guess that the next important step would be location pages or service specific pages . Am I right , sarah ? Did I pass the test ?
Yes that is really that's super important for SEO . And sometimes we get in this great area as web designers like what is actually our job versus what is the copywriter's job ? who's on the project or what's it up to the client to decide .
And sometimes as the web designer , you don't get to dictate the architecture of the website and suggest to them what pages they have . It is great if you have that power to recommend to your clients . they do have a separate page for each service that they offer And that's because Google's going to rank that page better for that service .
So if you're working with , like an HVAC company , you can have a page about air conditioning repair and a page about heating repair and talk about those separately . I think to me that gets into a little bit more of intermediate level SEO as a web designer , when you're really suggesting certain site structure based on keyword research .
So I would I would say if anyone's listening they're like oh my gosh , i don't know what you're talking about . I would say that's definitely not required as the web designer to do that level of direction . Do you tend to recommend that clients , your students , get really involved in their website design ?
structure . Yep , i do recommend that , that's what . So I have an SEO course as well , and that's what I recommend that you at least tell your clients , you know , if you want to have a strong SEO foundation . It's everything we've just covered , along with service pages for the main services .
Now , a level back from that is where the location stuff gets into , which I wanted to pick your brain on . But at minimum and and you're right , as web designers , like it's it's what we might recommend to a client , but the client has to sign off on it .
So we would just , as web designers , need to explain the benefit and to tell them , like it's not enough And in the way I always framed it to clients when I finally got into the SEO world or I should say , finally embrace the reality that I'm doing SEO , i'm just not charging for it . Shame on me . I needed somebody to tell me that you know years ago .
But what I told my clients was it makes sense if you're going to Google air conditioning services or heating services or plumbing , like if you have all those terms on one page , the IE , the homepage . Google doesn't understand which one to pull up , so a separate service page for each is really great . By the way , i'll let the cat out of the bag here .
A little secret I teach in a couple of my courses is that by doing that , you're now going from like a $2,000 or $3,000 project to a $5,000 or $6,000 project because you're doing a lot more work on these individual pages .
So for anyone who's like what goes into a $5,000 project , it's it's stuff like that That takes it from like a three page brochure site to like Oh now , this is a content rich , more robust , and it's not crazy , but it's just location specific . So that's kind of how I teach that approach .
Ooh , i love that . I love the way that you think about how , when you can take the reins and really recommend a certain site strategy , you can also position yourself as the expert and charge more as the total projects , because you're suggesting high value add ons for that project and the web design client . That's awesome .
Plan B is to break it down phases . So the clients like , listen , we , we have three grand right now . It's a redesign , we're going to do the basics And I'll say , okay , cool , we could do the , the redesign phase two . Let's plan to do that in like three months So we could phase it out or we could spread You could .
This is when you could use like a subscription style web design model on top of the web design project is you could say , for like a year , for like 299 a month , we'll add one page every month . First is the air conditioning next month We'll do heating . Next month We'll do break repair , whatever it is . And that's how you could .
You know you could eventually spread it out to be like a $5,000 project over a year , kind of like that . So yeah , anyway I don't want to get too far into my coaching recommendations , but yeah , that's what , that's what I advise , at least in that front .
Yeah , i think that's really smart And I think , even if we kind of step back from that level of strategy , what I want to recommend to all web designers is that they clearly define for their clients what they're going to do as far as SEO work .
So one thing that I see a lot is that website owners come to me as an SEO specialist and they have complaints about the service that their web designer has provided , and usually it's expectations , mismanagement . So what has happened is the web designer has said we include SEO and like that's how they define it .
We include basic SEO , but they haven't outlined what that actually means . And if you don't outline exactly what you're doing in saying we do SEO or our sites are SEO friendly , your client is going to have a wildly different opinion about what you should be doing . Some clients will be thrilled You did anything .
Other clients will be furious that you didn't add alt text to 500 images on their website . So it's really , really important to define . If you say the word SEO , you need to define the extent of the work that you're doing . So that's one I'm going to optimize the homepage image , seo something else , but put limits on it and make sure the client understands .
So you set that expectation because that gets in the content collection too , doesn't it ? It's like , oh , they're going to do SEO , so they're going to write all the content from my site , and it's like , whoa , that's a whole different ballgame .
Yes , they work together , but adding a title and refining content that's already there , versus creating content and doing research . Yeah , that's where there's those separate levels . Yeah , my SEO course I essentially teach like the basic , intermediate and advanced , and you can charge accordingly for .
But just like you said , sarah , you have to set constraints and expectations and deliverables to what's in each one of those tiers and those packages .
Yes , super smart , and that's the way to kind of protect your client experience , because you don't want to go through a whole project and you think the client's thrilled , but behind their back they're emailing me and they're like my web designer . Let me down on the SEO front , because that's how you lose a positive review , it's how you lose referrals .
So make sure you're defining what you're going to deliver .
That's beautiful . One thing I was curious about from your perspective , being that you're in the local SEO world , is I have heard so much back and forth and so much conflicting information about local SEO and targeting services locally .
My mindset with this is I always look at just what is actually working when I Google something , and what I mean by that is I've heard that now Google is dinging sites that have like like so I'm in Columbus , ohio , so the suburbs around Columbus there's like Grove City where I'm at .
So if I did web design Grove City and then web design Hillier , web design Dublin , web design New Albany , which is another suburb like , i've heard that Google is dinging that of their certain repetitive content and stuff like that .
However , one of my colleagues , who I consider an SEO guru , did this years ago and that's how he built his business purely through SEO . David . anyone who's been through my SEO course , you've seen this . David did a webinar in there And that's literally what he did And that's how he grew a six figure web design business through zero in person .
networking was that exact strategy And to this day he still is ranking and on the above the fold and page one on SEO . So to you share . Sarah . what are your thoughts on that And what ? what's your take on the local SEO dinging and stuff like that ?
Okay . so it's still a really common strategy to do location based landing pages , but what most SEOs will recommend now is that you make sure that the page is actually unique content .
So you can do web design Hillier and web design Grove City , but what you can't do is essentially have the same page with the same text and just swap the word Hillier for Grove City , because that is essentially duplicate content . that is , adding no unique value based on the searcher's location .
So instead can you create a location page that shows your work with Hillier located businesses and you have a portfolio that's more localized and specific . Can you talk about anything that you are related to in that specific suburb ? Did you sponsor a sports team ? Have you received an award ? Are you a part of the Chamber of Commerce ?
So how do you make that content actually unique and have unique value ? And that is definitely still a strategy we do . The problem you run into is when too much of the page is just duplicated with other pages .
We've all run into websites where someone created 50 of the same page , just swapped out the city and expected that to work , and in most cases that's not going to work .
Yeah , there's a popular well was popular . I don't know if it is now , but there was an agency that I mean I think they had , like every major United States city , seo'd And it was , yeah , it was the same thing . It was basically global elements , repeatable elements of template , but they just swapped out the words , which I'm not blaming anybody .
I used that strategy for a while And the thing is it's like my colleague , david , i mean , he did that back in 2014 , i think is when he did that And it still is working . So maybe it's just a matter of time or maybe there's just not better SEO options in that case , and there's a lot of other variables to SEO , like you've already mentioned .
However , it makes total sense that Google is getting really careful about duplicated content , which is a perfect segue to the question I knew we were going to get to , which is AI and SEO .
So one apprehension I have about AI and SEO when people are like just prompting chat , chat , gpt to write them , an article was like well , is chat , gpt with the same prompts going to kick out the same content ?
And then suddenly you've got , you know , you got a hundred repeated articles online like and it's different than plagiarism , unless somebody cuss and let somebody customizes it . So , yeah , what's your thoughts on duplicate content with like AI involved now ?
So I never recommend to any business owner to just go into an AI writing tool and write write me a thousand words on X topic . So definitely that is not the way to use AI to just have it spit out a full blog post for you , copy and paste and put it on your website . And there's a couple of reasons for this .
First is yeah , we don't know if it's actually unique , you don't know if it's actually accurate , so you always want to read through , change things , put them in your voice , add your own opinion , make sure that it's not providing inaccurate information you don't actually agree with , because it's going to be on your website and representing you , and so we don't want
just AI written content copy and pasted , copy paste straight onto a website . I think Google will also . There's no evidence of this now and Google says they don't care who writes content as long as it's helpful for the end user .
But I do think that Google will probably work with some AI detection tools and try to figure out what's actually human written versus AI written .
So , for the long term of your website , i do recommend , if you do use AI writing tools , to customize that content that it spits out , to maybe use it for prompts instead of writing for you or outlines or supportive ways to write , and that you still put your unique advice and spin .
The other reason I don't recommend just AI written content is that Google has recently really emphasized content that comes from firsthand experience , and I really think that this is because it wants to combat AI written content . When you think about AI written content , it can only write what already exists on the internet and write it in a slightly different way .
So what Google is looking for is firsthand experience that actually says something that's never been said before , that has an opinion or perspective that can't be found somewhere else online , because that really indicates that it's probably unique , human-written firsthand experience type of content .
So I'm now recommending to all my clients , when they write , to actually write who they are and why they know that type of information . So , as a web designer for 10 years , here are the common mistakes that I've seen clients make when it comes to their logo , colors or something like that .
If that's your topic , so put in why you're writing this , what your perspective is and what your actual experience is if you want that content to rank better .
I love that approach , specifically that story element . I totally agree where AI is not . I'm not worried about AI in that standpoint of , yeah , the experience and the story and the human element and the weird way we talk .
Like I've really worked hard over the years to write like I talk for good or for bad , so I'll probably put a lot of like cools in there or like goofball or hot dog something like that . Like I'll put that in my writing AI is never gonna say hot dog , what a goofball SEO move . It's gonna be really corporate , really stiff sounding .
So I actually think there's a huge benefit for adding like your personality and your story and your quirkiness And hopefully , as long as it's done with intention , i think , yeah , it sounds like that's actually a benefit for SEO .
Now , Yeah , totally , and it's helpful for the reader too . Like , if you think about you're gonna go to a blog post and actually read it , you'd like to know why the person reading , the person who wrote it , actually knows what they're talking about .
So it's good for the reader too , to ground them in who you are in the beginning of an article and why you know what you know . But also , I think , there is going to be a big push toward video and , Josh , I think with your YouTube , like you're well positioned with that , it's harder to fake video versus written content . So as much as possible .
I think , people should be embedding video in their blog content and elsewhere .
That's a great point . I did it . I mean , I know the power of video . I'm actually reinvigorating my YouTube now . I spent a long time just doing the podcast and not really doing like quicker videos and more concise content , tutorials and stuff , But I'm getting back to it now In a large part of that .
I didn't think about it like that , but it is to show proof of that content And I do think they work really , really well with a blog post Like . So I recently did a video on content collection and I'm gonna follow it up with a big old honker of a blog post on content collection .
But of course , I'm gonna embed the little 10 minute video and or eight minute video . And the cool thing is , too , is like I could also link to the content collection resources that I have on my site and eventually to the lesson of my business course , which covers content collection . So it is kind of cool .
I think And that goes back to what you talked about early on when it comes to SEO it's like a client could write a blog post , but what are the additional resources that surround that ? Because those really do amplify the blog post . I mean , we're getting a couple levels deeper with SEO .
But I mean they all work together , which is fascinating , And I've learned it over the years . That , like doing a video on YouTube , you think , okay , it's a whole separate thing than writing a blog post . Well , actually , it benefits greatly and it's very , very tied into that .
And , at the end of the day , each of these things are different ways to answer the questions that searchers have . So at some level , you have to think about what type of content are people looking for when they search for a certain thing .
If it's Divi tutorial , they probably wanna see a video , but you can add extra value if you embed that video on your website with some additional written content .
So , at the end of the day , as far as SEO , i always try to think about the end person who's actually gonna be searching for that thing , rather than just thinking about it as keywords and alt text and optimization steps Like what is that person who's searching for this really want and how can we deliver it to the best of our ability with really interesting and
helpful content ?
So I imagine that's the approach you take with the wedding industry , seo , with DJs and planners . I'm curious for somebody who comes to you and they wanna implement that strategy of the duplicated location stuff with just a different location in there . What's your ? how do you deter them ? How do you tell them , like actually there's a better option ?
How do you go about that ? Cause I'm sure everyone listening are gonna have that , they're gonna have that client . That's like I heard this guy , josh , say the location pages are a good idea , so let's just duplicate the content . Can we do that ? Like what would you tell them ? How would you tell them to deter that ?
Yeah , so you have to remind people that SEO changes over time , so it's really important to look for information that is up to date and current . Sometimes clients get themselves in trouble because they read an article from 10 years ago and they think that that advice still applies today .
So it's really important to remind your clients that there are current tactics and techniques and some things that are out of date that don't work as well as they used to , and that kind of like just content spinning , where you change one word , whether it's a location or a service or some other types of keywords that just doesn't work as well as it used to ,
because Google has de-emphasized that kind of content in the search results in most cases .
So we wanna reach toward unique , helpful content And you know , ai does make it easier to write and create some of these things where you're not just changing one word , but you can have an AI writing tool , take a paragraph and rewrite it to have the same kind of flair and feeling , but be completely unique words and word choice .
So it's easier than ever before to actually create unique content for very similar pages .
Gotcha . Yeah , i wondered if you were a fan of using AI as , like , a template or a starting point but then filling in the unique experience from there .
Yes , for sure . I think AI is a great helper . I love it for outlining or take the sentence and write it in a different way , or take the sentence and change the tone that it's written in It can . I love chat GPT because of that back and forth conversation where you can actually reference something that it's spit out already .
Okay , take that , but make it less professional , make it more casual , and it will actually rewrite things in a different tone of voice . So I definitely believe in using AI , but not having it do your whole job for you .
Yeah .
So my example earlier with , like the humanisms of saying things like cool or hot dog , what's going to happen is somebody is going to prompt JAPGPT to say , write an article like Josh Hall , the business , web design , business coach , and then it's going to come back with those And I'm just , you know , i'm going to be , i'm going to be publicly ashamed because it
can totally probably do that when it comes to the tone and everything . But I do agree , for all the reasons we've just covered . I think there's a big , big difference between using AI 100% and then using it as a helper and as a tool in your toolbox .
So I'm glad to hear your approach on that , because I know that's that's an interesting polarizing topic right now , with people who are super , super pro AI versus people who are like , yeah , we're going to use it , but I'm not so sure I fall on that camp for sure .
Oh yeah , and it's good to think about the fact that AI can actually make getting online much more approachable for a lot of people . So you can give it your unique ideas , but if you're not good with spelling or grammar , you can give it a prompt and have it write something for you that maybe sounds a little more polished and professional .
So it's a great tool that helps a lot more people to get online , put their ideas online , without having to hire someone to write for them .
Yeah , oh yeah , there's a lot of uses for , particularly in the SEO world . Like , i mean everything , everything we just mentioned for prompts , for title ideas , description ideas Oh my gosh , yeah , so much . I mean how far .
One thing I'm interested in as an SEO person is , like , how far do you have different tiers that you offer when it comes to keyword research and how much content you'll do ? Because with SEO , i found it really hard sometimes to make those clear distinctions and the clear constraints like we talked about .
I tried my best but inevitably it's hard to know though down those expectations and what a client is thinking and understanding what's involved . Like , how do you decipher how much you'll do per package ? Yeah , what are your thoughts on that ?
So for my clients now this is a lot of an easier question because I'm so niche , so all of my clients being small , local businesses in the wedding industry , i'm able to pretty clearly define like this is what I know you'll need in order to get the exposure that you're looking for .
At our top level of service , it's usually a full keyword research project , seo strategy , usually two new pieces of content written for them , more if they want it , and then we do a lot of offsite SEO work too , which I don't think usually falls into the purview of web designers .
But if someone is really looking to make SEO a key part of their traffic driving strategy , there needs to be some SEO work that goes beyond just on page content , on page optimization .
You need to start looking at PR , backlink building , online awards , online reviews , some of those things that are off of the website itself , and so my advice for web designers is , if your client is like obsessed with getting found on Google , it might be a good idea to bring in an SEO professional , because their work does go beyond just the website design .
If you're not 100% confident that you can get them results , it might be time to bring in someone who you either have subcontract or you just refer to that can fully handle the SEO piece . What do you think of that ?
Josh . I don't really , oh , absolutely . I totally agree . What is interesting about that is I don't teach much offsite SEO because I just don't quite know about how to do that . So those are really interesting things you can do .
But how do we as web designers , i guess if we were interested in taking that on ourselves , like I mean , you're really getting more in a digital marketing , i would think in that case , right , because if it's offsite , then you're talking with their customers . You're probably prompting reviews .
So the backlink like I've heard different conflicting topics on backlinks now , whether or not you should comment on pages or doing I don't know . So what's involved with offsite SEO and it's going to work well .
Yeah . So if you're going to really start offering full SEO packages that include offsite too , i highly recommend investing in SEO education , so a course that covers all of these things from a trusted resource .
There's great ones on lyndacom , through LinkedIn learning , but definitely recommend not just trying to pick up tips here and there from the internet because you don't know what's actually up to date , what's working right now . So I would go to a trusted resource and really take a course to learn different strategies for all of these things .
And offsite SEO varies a lot depending on the client , so I've chosen to focus on local SEO , and that means a lot of our offsite is looking at link building , but also like links from local websites . So if someone's trying to rank in their local area , google actually looks at what area do they seem to have influence in .
So if I'm in Chicago , i want to be linked by a lot of other businesses in Chicago . Maybe buy a Chicago related magazines , maybe buy the Chicago Chamber of Commerce or something close to me .
So Google's actually looking at backlink profiles to understand what location you're connected in , which is very different than if someone's an e-commerce product store , where they need to be known as experts in that type of product and they probably need to do more PR influencers outreach , getting reviews and mentions of their products in major articles , and that becomes
more of PR work than link building . So it really depends on the type of clients that you work with what off page SEO really needs to look like .
That's interesting , definitely makes sense that it would be very niche and industry related . as far as what types of content would do well , for example , the wedding thing yeah , i imagine there's like a bridal magazine . my gosh , if there's stuff in there that could link back to the site an advertisement or a sponsorship in there .
I didn't even think about that being related to SEO . but yeah , if somebody sees that sponsorship or an ad and they're like , oh yeah , i want to check out that cake company or whatever , and they Google it , then you just you got yourself a Google and a click which is going to help SEO . So it is interesting how SEO bleeds into the real realm .
I guess that's so off site SEO is in some way like real world SEO too , isn't it , if you're literally doing things like in the physical realm ?
Yes . Well , when we think about it , google's trying to return real , legitimate , high quality businesses in the search results , not just whoever's website is best at SEO , and that's why all these factors are important .
If you can prove to Google that you're awarded , you're well connected , you have positive reviews online , that's going to give Google more trust in your business as an entity .
And all of these things come in because SEO people like me have figured out how to like kind of like scam the algorithm , and then Google starts looking for more real world signals that are harder to fake , and so that's why it's a lot of work to do off site SEO in a way that is actually high quality , getting real links to the website , because Google wants
it to be hard work . You have to prove that you're actually well connected and not just putting a bunch of keywords on your website .
I see , yeah , and I was thinking I was just looking up at a couple of examples , because there was a video company , a production company in Columbus , ohio , that really the website wasn't anything terribly impressive as far as how it was built out or I mean a basic SEO on place , but they were always on the top of the search for a lot of different video
production terms And one thing I realized is that this company had also been around for like 17 years and they were one of the first in Columbus to be like the premier video company . So they had all these offsite external things that you wouldn't see online . There wasn't that many blog posts that said like video production Columbus , ohio , who's our team ?
it was like they were probably mentioned in the Columbus Chamber of Commerce and all these other places that yeah , they were subsequently directed , that were offsite . So really really interesting stuff , valuable mindset shift for me , at least personally , with this idea of offsite SEO and what that actually looked like , because I never wrapped my head around that .
Yeah , it's all about authority building and expertise And more and more , that's where Google shifting . Google's trying to figure out who are the people behind this website and do they have actual expertise in what they're talking about . Of course , this is particularly important in categories they call YMYL . So your money , your life .
So it's even more important if you're a financial related website or a doctor or something medical , google is actually trying to pick up signals on are you legitimate ? Do you have medical degree ? Do you have published resources online ? really trying to understand , is this quality information coming from a real expert or not ?
So that's like a whole next level of SEO . When you really need to build out expertise , authoritativeness and trustworthiness for a business , how do you help them be seen as an expert that can really help a website to rank better ? So maybe that video production service obviously not YMYL , but they might have won some awards there .
Maybe someone who works there has spoken at some conferences around video production and Google looks at that type of thing and says , oh , this company is full of people who are experts and well respected in their industry .
And that , on the flip side , is so dangerous If you have a negative review or a series of negative reviews that are on Google like .
I will never forget this super frustrating experience I had with a lawyer and attorney who I was recommended by from another attorney I worked with And this guy had one like bad client experience , or the client basically said that he was I forget what happened . It was a negative review and he was penalized for something .
I don't know the whole story , but he had all these like good testimonials and stuff that were buried because there was one negative review and then it got on a publication and then got like on some sort of sort of directory And so we had like a few searches around this incident And my client who introduced me to him was , like Josh can help you out , of
course , you know , easy , they had just talked to Josh , he'll do it , and he didn't want to build a website .
He didn't want to invest in a website , and I'm like you're , like when people search , which for lawyers of all industries , a Google search is crucial like because people are looking at reviews and looking at all the sorts of things involved with , like them taking over a personal situation .
But he didn't want to invest in a website And I was very fairly priced I think it was a few grand to do at least just a basic website .
I told him I was like this is probably costing you tens , hundreds of thousands of dollars because you have these negative representation management like right here , like you need a freaking website and you need some good stuff . So I don't know , i don't know if you backed me up on that , but I was like , yeah , your website . I mean , he never did .
I don't know what happened to . He's probably out of business now because he didn't work with me . But hey , what can you say ?
Yeah , no , you're totally right . There's like this whole part of SEO that's also online reputation management . So how can we influence properties that show you in a positive light to show up higher on Google ?
If there is something that you know everyone has , that one crazy client , and if that person has left some negative reviews in some places , you can use SEO to improve profiles that show you positively , especially your website , which should always show up first in searches for your business name . You get to fully control the narrative there .
So I think that was the right advice for that client And sad for him , he didn't speak .
Speaking of controlling the narrative , we had a really interesting case study last year .
I have to give a shout out to so many members in my community web designer pro who have been through my business course , because my business course got ripped off a few years back and it was starting to populate on all these sites that I just spread to when people would search Josh Hall business course .
So I was paying a company 300 bucks a month to get it taken down and they did get the directories like they did take a lot of them down , but every month they were just popping up and I'm like I have got to control . This is what I the realization I came to .
I need to control the first set of results and that time , the first two pages , or at least the first page of when people search for my business course , what do they see ? Because everything is dead past page two . Now , everything is maybe not dead , but you know the first few scrolls are really important .
So what I had everyone who had been through the business course and a lot of my members and pro I just made an honest request said guys , here's the situation . I don't know you paid for the course . How does it feel to know that it's ripped off and people are accessing a lot of it for free .
They were just screenshots and stuff , not the whole kitten caboodle , but still a lot of the information was out there And I said would you be willing to write a blog post about ? my course in your own words and your own unique experience with it . What were the takeaways ? How to help , how to help your business .
Also a great way to have testimonials , by the way , if you have students do that . But we looked more recently and it's been over a year since we've done that . It seems to be probably longer now And yeah , there is no mention in the first page or first couple of scrolls , with any like ripped off .
course , now It's a lot of blog posts from my students that are populating about my business course , so it was just a prime example that actually worked as a case study with reputation management and being in control of what people see . So that's kind of the moral of the story from what I've taken away from this .
Yes , yes , so true , i think the action item here is when's the last time you , as a listener , googled your own business name , your own name personally ? are you kind of keeping an eye on what is showing up and is it what you want to be showing up there ? Really , really important to do that every few months just to check in on what's going on .
Oh , that's a beautiful thought as we get ready to wrap this up . Speaking of call to action , I have one final question for you , But before we get to that , Sarah , because I know you have a call shortly where would you like people to go to connect with you ? And I think you mentioned you have like a free , is it like a lunch and learn ?
Yeah , where would you like people to go to connect with you after this ?
So I am most active on Instagram . So I'm at Sarah does SEO on Instagram And I do offer every single month a 30 minute free SEO lunch and learn . It is a no pitch live event .
Just I want to make sure that people are getting good , up to date , current SEO information and that they have an opportunity , if they've had a burning SEO question , to get that question answered , and so I welcome web designers , wedding professionals everybody comes together and learn something small and actionable about SEO every single month at SEO lunch and learn .
So that's Sarah does SEOcom forward slash learn .
Oh , that's so cool . I'm going to look at the schedule to see if I can join one , because I might just pop in the chat there and pick your brain as well . That's super , super cool . I love that you're doing that . Yeah , so we'll make sure we have that linked as well . Sarah , does SEOcom slash learn ?
Final question for you , sarah , for those who have loved this conversation , like myself , but then you're like you're kind of stuck in analysis , paralysis , it's like this is all great , but what do I do ? What would be like a step for somebody that you would recommend ? or what ? all the strategies we mentioned ? what would you recommend ? Or what's your favorite ?
Yeah , what you know ? anything to that end ?
So what to do next ? as a web designer who wants to learn a little bit more about SEO , one of my favorite things to do is to play with an SEO tool . So there's one that I always recommend to my students .
It's called Uber suggest And it's a pretty robust and easy to use tool that gives you a few free searches a day , so you don't even need to pay for it , but you can put in any keyword idea you have , or you can put in someone else's website URL and you can see more keyword ideas .
You can start to understand what people are actually searching for online , and that's really step one with SEO is to understand what are people looking for online and what is Google serving to them as the results . That's the number one thing that I would recommend to someone as a next step Go play with Uber suggest and get familiar with the idea of keywords .
That's awesome . Yeah , neil Patel's tool We've talked about that a couple of times in some SEO episodes . I haven't used it myself , but I've heard very good things , like no one's ever like , yeah , uber suggest was kind of cool . It's always like , oh , you got to check out Uber suggest , so Sarah suggested it .
I recommend go check it out , uber suggests for sure . Well , sarah , thank you so much for your time . I've really enjoyed this conversation . I don't think this will be the last one . Yeah , i love people in the SEO world . For the most part , there are some sharks out there .
Maybe it's different now from when I was running my agency with some of the scammy digital media folk , but man , the good quality SEO people are second to none .
So thanks so much for and that's one of you , by the way So , thank you , thanks so much for sharing your journey and expertise , and we've got a podcast episode here that can't be ripped off by AI because it's real and it's based off experience . So thank you .
Of course . Well , I'm glad to be here and I hope I've given listeners a little bit of SEO hope and a way to move forward . So thanks so much , Josh .
That should be your new brand name SEO hope for web designers . Yeah , that's good , and I I hope the lag wasn't bad for everybody , for on my end there's been a little bit of a lag I don't know if it's my wifi or yours but there's been a couple points where we kind of had some some pausing , but hopefully , hopefully , that came through All right .
So , yeah , what what fun , sarah . Thanks for making SEO fun today for us .
Thank you , josh , great to see you .
Well , i hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sarah as much as I did . Honestly , i learned so much from this talk . I could talk with Sarah all day about SEO . So , again , to connect with her , you can go to her website s or Sarah does SEOcom . She also has an SEO for web designers workshop that I highly recommend you check out .
We'll have that linked in the show notes as well . Again , wealth of knowledge , very , very tactical information that Sarah dishes out on her website and on the social . So if you have not yet followed her , go to Instagram and just you can find her at Sarah does SEO . Same thing on tick talk at Sarah does SEO . I'm not sure if she's active anywhere else .
Those are the two links she sent me . So highly recommend connecting with her there and send her a note . Let her know that you heard her on the web design business podcast with me and that if you enjoyed the episode , maybe just share something you learned . I'm sure she would get a kick out of that .
And if you would like to connect with Sarah and answer questions with her directly about SEO , just a reminder she is coming into web designer pro this fall of 2023 , in November , to do a live guest training , so we got a few months at the time of this release , but definitely recommend you join us over there and pro of you've yet to try that out .
Every month , guest experts come in and Sarah is going to be coming in and I can't wait for that one because it's going to be visual And we're going to take a deeper dive into local SEO . But for right now , friends , i hope this helps with not only your website but potentially offering this for clients as well . Seo is not rocket science .
It can be made easy And I hope to help you there And Sarah will definitely help you . So check her out . Sarah does SEOcom . Thank you for joining . See you on the next episode .