Get Started Today With SEO Strategies That Age Like Fine Wine with Guest, Brittany Herzberg
Grab a pen and paper–you’ll want to take notes so you can optimize your website immediately. SEO expert, Brittany Herzberg shares so many easy-to-implement nuggets in this episode.
The “O” in SEO doesn’t have to represent ‘overwhelm’ or ‘overthinking.’ Brittany has simple, down-to-earth tactics to get started optimizing your website. And just like fine wine and aged cheeses, once you start the SEO optimization process, the payoff comes in the future. Start where you are, but do start. You’ll be so glad you did.
Don’t Miss Inside This Episode:
- Gain a simplified definition of SEO and the importance it plays in increasing your visibility, building trust, and connecting with your ideal audience.
- Learn Brittany’s ‘Start Where You Are’ approach with practical strategies for optimizing blog content, including headlines, SEO titles, and meta descriptions, so you can improve search engine ranking and attract the right audience.
- The ‘payoff’ from doing the work, starting now, to optimize your website content. Hint: It’s like aged cheese or fine wine; it gets better with time.
- You can write content that shows off your personality and still pleases the search engine bots. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Brittany’s tip on approaching this is golden.
- The impact of guest appearances on podcasts and HARO entries in building website traffic and domain authority.
Links and products mentioned in today’s episode:
Get Brittany’s free SEO checklist
Books mentioned:
They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan. The latest edition was published in August 2019.
You Are A Badass At Making Money by Jen Sincero
You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero
Marisa Corcoran–Founder of The Copy Chat and The Copy Confidence Society
HARO–Help a Reporter Out–Now rebranded to Connectively
About My Guest, Brittany Herzberg
We all know visibility is important, but it can be intimidating & time-consuming. (But who wants to remain the internet’s best-kept secret?)
As a massage therapist-turned-copywriter, my guest Brittany Herzberg believes having a connection-driven approach to business is more important than ever. That’s why she helps people harness the power of social proof marketing & SEO copywriting to get their businesses found online organically & to make their content *really* count!
Brittany’s Website
Check out Brittany’s website at BrittanyHerzberg.com
Connect With Brittany on Social
Instagram: @brittany_herzberg
LinkedIn: @brittany-herzberg
About Your Host
Melissa Brown, MD – Coach, Author, Speaker, Teacher, and Podcast Host.
After leaving medical practice in 2009, Melissa discovered the online world and never looked back! After coach certification, she began a healthy lifestyle coaching practice online and quickly fell in love with blogging, writing, and content marketing.
Melissa believes that coaches have the power to change the world. Unfortunately, too many coaches get discouraged by the amount of content they need to create for marketing their business and this can lead to overwhelm and giving up on their dreams. There’s such a ripple effect when a dream dies, so Melissa is on a mission to help coaches and solopreneurs overcome the overwhelm when it comes to content creation so they keep those dreams alive.
Your content can impact massive amounts of people and positively change the world. You’ve got content in there inside you; let’s get it out into the world.
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She’s Got Content Facebook group:
Get your FREE Never Run Out of Content Ideas Tool Kit/Workbook
Thanks for listening!
Thanks so much for listening to this podcast. It means the world to me to have you here on this journey! If you got value from this episode, please share it on social media, and recommend it to your business besties.
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Transcript
Hello there, content creators. You're listening to the She's Got
Speaker:Content podcast, where it's all about creating content for
Speaker:your coaching business. I'm your host, Doctor
Speaker:Melissa Brown, and I'm here every week to help you get your content
Speaker:out of your head, out of your heart, and out there into the world
Speaker:where that information and your services can impact the
Speaker:most people. Get ready to take notes today, and
Speaker:then Take action, content creators. Let's dive in with
Speaker:today's episode because you've got content to get out
Speaker:there. I am so excited to introduce you to my
Speaker:next guest. We all know visibility is important, but
Speaker:it can be intimidating, and it can be time consuming. But
Speaker:as we talk about a lot here on She's Got Content
Speaker:podcast, who wants to remain the Internet's best
Speaker:kept secret? My guest today, Britney Hertzberg,
Speaker:is a massage therapist turned copywriter. She
Speaker:believes it's more important than ever to have a connection driven approach to
Speaker:business. That's why she helps people harness the power of
Speaker:social proof marketing and SEO copywriting to get their
Speaker:businesses found online organically and make
Speaker:their content really, really count. Welcome, Britney.
Speaker:Hi. Thank you so much for having me. Oh my gosh. We have
Speaker:so much to talk about today. Yeah. We do. I'm so excited about this. But
Speaker:before we get into today's nuggets, I got a question here from our
Speaker:audience. Okay. The listeners wanna know
Speaker:how my guests are using content in their business.
Speaker:Content means different things to different people. There's no right and wrong here.
Speaker:I'm just curious. How do you best use content in
Speaker:your business? This is a good question because I'm actually
Speaker:in the midst of switching up my strategy a little bit.
Speaker:So I say it jokingly, but it's turned into a real thing that
Speaker:I live on Instagram. So it started out as just something
Speaker:funny that I would say, but I really do love the conversations over there. I
Speaker:love the community that I have over there. So I would say initial
Speaker:response is that I use content for relationship building, and it
Speaker:has definitely been fruitful for me. I've gotten
Speaker:collaborations. I've gotten clients. I've gotten visibility, publicity, things
Speaker:like that. Mhmm. So it's definitely been helpful for me. However,
Speaker:and this is very ironic As I am an SEO and case study copywriter,
Speaker:I have neglected my blog Mhmm. Which is not
Speaker:super wonderful. So I'm starting to put out more blogs more
Speaker:frequently. I started out at the beginning of the year having this ridiculous
Speaker:goal of, I'm gonna write 1 blog a week, and it stuck for a little
Speaker:while. And then my boyfriend and I We're living in different Airbnbs while we house
Speaker:hunt, and it got challenging. So I I took the pressure off. I was
Speaker:like, that's okay. I'll come back to it. And Now last week, I wrote 2
Speaker:blogs in 1 week, so I definitely started with more social
Speaker:media, Instagram heavy content just to build relationships and
Speaker:and form connections with people. But now my goal is really to use my
Speaker:blog content to drive traffic to my site, bring in
Speaker:warm to hot traffic, and then have People convert into whatever
Speaker:it may be, podcast listener, email, subscriber, or client.
Speaker:I love that. I have a mastermind group, and the
Speaker:book that we're reading we read a different growth and development book or
Speaker:business building book every month. And this month, The book
Speaker:is They Ask, You Answer. Oh, oh, by
Speaker:Marcus Sheridan. His philosophy, it's The relationship
Speaker:building, it's answering the questions that the customers, the
Speaker:the clients, the potential leads have, and having
Speaker:that content Sit on your site so that it
Speaker:draws people in. And by the time they actually have a sales
Speaker:conversation with you, They're ready to purchase. They already know they're gonna
Speaker:purchase. Our buying habits have changed so
Speaker:much over the years. People just research, research, research. They wanna
Speaker:look at reviews. They wanna look at case studies. They wanna
Speaker:look at all of the information before they make a buying decision,
Speaker:so I love that's how you're using your content. And I
Speaker:love also the fact that you said, you set a goal,
Speaker:found it was a little bit unrealistic. Mhmm. Because I'm in that same boat
Speaker:too. I have neglected my blog. I have had more
Speaker:content out in The podcast in the show notes. Yeah.
Speaker:But I do have a blog and that got a little bit neglected
Speaker:this past year. Mhmm. So, Hey. We can always revisit
Speaker:that, reset new goals. So Yeah. And
Speaker:speaking of blogs and Podcast show notes.
Speaker:I am so interested in what we're gonna talk about today. So
Speaker:your area of expertise is SEO. So Yeah. Let's just
Speaker:start Right there with that. What is SEO? What's
Speaker:your definition? So my definition, it's a cutesy one, but it really
Speaker:drives it home. So SEO, in case you're not familiar with the three
Speaker:letters, stands for search engine optimization, but that
Speaker:doesn't mean much to many people. So I came up with Saying this
Speaker:because it seemed to hit home a little bit better. SEO is how you
Speaker:show up as the answer to a Googled question. So to tie that
Speaker:into what you just said, You are answering people's questions.
Speaker:Think about your own behavior when you are trying to solve a
Speaker:problem. One problem I'm solving right now is I need an oil change.
Speaker:I'm a little bit beyond the sticker, and I'm in a new
Speaker:state. I don't know who to go to. I really loved my crew that I
Speaker:would go see in North Carolina and in Connecticut. So what do I do? My
Speaker:boyfriend and I are renting an apartment, so I'm gonna ask my landlord. Who do
Speaker:you like to go see? And then I'm going to go on Google
Speaker:And check out whoever he recommends or if there are 3 people
Speaker:that recommend different places. I'm gonna go investigate online.
Speaker:So that's me being, like, a very intentional, warm, really hot
Speaker:lead where I've asked a person, and I'm going to that
Speaker:site to check that Brand or company your business out.
Speaker:But if I'm maybe let's say I don't know people here. I'm
Speaker:brand new. I'm desperate. I really need an oil change urgently. I'm gonna go to
Speaker:Google first. So if I'm typing in a question like oil
Speaker:change place in whatever city and state, Then
Speaker:I'm gonna get whatever results I'm gonna get. Yes. You need to be
Speaker:thinking about the questions or the search queries
Speaker:or just the words and phrases that your people are typing on search
Speaker:engines to find someone like you, a product like
Speaker:yours, a program like yours. It takes a little bit of work at
Speaker:the beginning, and that can really be intimidating to some
Speaker:people. It just seems like this giant mountain that they're never gonna be able to
Speaker:traverse. And In reality, it just it's front loaded with
Speaker:work, but then the workflow is so easy, and the payoff
Speaker:is massive. Okay. Tell us about that.
Speaker:The payoff. The payoff. What is
Speaker:well, let's just go with that. What is the payoff for doing this
Speaker:work up front. And, also, I
Speaker:know that some people are gonna be asking, well, if I've Been
Speaker:blogging for a while, or if I've been out there and I've got a website,
Speaker:but I haven't really done anything with SEO, is it too late?
Speaker:So kinda can you tie that in there with that answer?
Speaker:So let's start with the time thing, and then you might have to pull me
Speaker:back to where we're going with what's the pay off, but with the time thing.
Speaker:I like to remind people it's never ever too early
Speaker:or too late to get started with SEO, and you're even hearing me. Like
Speaker:I said, I'm an Quote, unquote SEO pro. I have neglected my blog.
Speaker:I've been doing other things that have given me SEO payoff, which, again, we'll get
Speaker:back to you. But It's never too early. It's never too late. And
Speaker:life happens. You get busy with business, and you start serving
Speaker:your clients, and then And your stuff kind of falls down the to do list.
Speaker:It happens a lot to a lot of us, and that's okay. So you have
Speaker:to give yourself grace. Understand that you can start now. Like,
Speaker:you're hearing this. Use this as, like, a spark so that you get going with
Speaker:it again. You can always, Always, always, always,
Speaker:always go back and optimize your web copy,
Speaker:your blog posts. Even if you wanna go back and optimize your
Speaker:podcast show notes, You can go back and optimize content
Speaker:anytime as long as you have access to it still, and that's something
Speaker:that I talk about a lot with my clients and even on Other podcast
Speaker:interviews and my podcast as well is optimization.
Speaker:The o of SEO is so often overlooked and
Speaker:forgotten. So, yes, you can go back and optimize. In fact, that
Speaker:can even be a great place to start. If you just wanna dip your feet
Speaker:in the SEO pool, you can go and Not create something from
Speaker:scratch, but go and optimize stuff. So for the
Speaker:payoff of using SEO, You're gonna increase
Speaker:your visibility, which can feel a little bit scary, but you're gonna increase your visibility,
Speaker:which increases how Authoritative, you
Speaker:seem to be. How much of an expert, you seem to be. It's going
Speaker:to boost trust, build trust quickly
Speaker:With you, if we want to speak in general terms, we hear know,
Speaker:like, trust a lot. Yes. Putting out content and
Speaker:building up your SEO strategy Helps with that
Speaker:know, like, trust factor. And I remember when I was
Speaker:answering the questions to come on the show, you said something about, like, what
Speaker:are some things you talk about or what are some questions. And
Speaker:SEO is really how you can become
Speaker:trustworthy in the eyes of the robots and humans. So it's not
Speaker:1 or the other. It's both because one of the things I love to do
Speaker:is play matchmaker. And I can do this I need to think
Speaker:of the word, but I can do this not by me doing it
Speaker:if I can help someone with their SEO strategy, if I can do some SEO
Speaker:copywriting or content writing for You can make your
Speaker:content be that matchmaker.
Speaker:So I'll stop there before I get too far. I actually
Speaker:love that your content is the matchmaker, the
Speaker:matchmaker between Google and the person who's looking
Speaker:for an answer. Right. Yeah. And because they're gonna be
Speaker:typing in something in the search bar, you're gonna optimize let's
Speaker:just keep it simple and say you're gonna optimize your blogs. Mhmm. And that's
Speaker:gonna make it easier for Google and other search engines to play that
Speaker:matchmaker for you because they're gonna go, person is looking for
Speaker:blank. Oh, look. You have a blog about blank. Your website
Speaker:is well respected. Your content is well respected. I need to let them know
Speaker:about you, and then it shows your blog in the search results.
Speaker:So when you say writing or
Speaker:optimizing for or bots as well as for people.
Speaker:I want you to talk more about that because I heard some people say, well,
Speaker:I don't really bother with SEO because I'm writing for
Speaker:people. Mhmm. So talk to
Speaker:us about that. How can we do this so that our
Speaker:content is optimized for both the bot and for the people.
Speaker:And this is my sweet spot. I'm on this tightrope. It feels like a
Speaker:lull sometimes, but you read some SEO, like, keyword
Speaker:rich copy, and it reads really dry and very boring and,
Speaker:like, only a robot might find that interesting. Then
Speaker:you have the copy. You and I are both in Marissa Corcoran's CCS
Speaker:program. She leans into personality real heavy, And that's
Speaker:great for the people. But how do we get the people to your
Speaker:website? We have to have those keywords, and then the personality keeps
Speaker:them on your website. That's what they connect with. So you have to
Speaker:figure out a way if we take one example of just headlines.
Speaker:When you're writing a blog, there's an h one headline. It's That big one at
Speaker:the top of the page, you and I both are familiar with it. Hopefully, listeners
Speaker:will be too. There can only be 1 h one Per
Speaker:page. And the reason there's only 1 is really territorial,
Speaker:and search engines really weight that heavily When
Speaker:they are analyzing February, the keywords, what is this piece about? What
Speaker:question does it answer? Who can I matchmake this with? Like, what
Speaker:search Do I need to show this as a result?
Speaker:So when you're writing headlines, a really good example of this is just
Speaker:recently, pretty well known Person in the copywriting
Speaker:space wrote to me and said, I see that you're doing SEO. I hired an
Speaker:expert. My voice feels like it's been stripped from these
Speaker:headlines. So he felt like his personality had been stripped from the
Speaker:headlines, but keywords were there. And he's like, how do I same question. How do
Speaker:I marry these? How do I merge the personality and the keywords? So my biggest
Speaker:tip there is to write the headline with personality
Speaker:first. Write whatever you wanna write, And then do keyword
Speaker:research and figure out what keyword you want to weave into that headline.
Speaker:It's much easier to do that, I have found,
Speaker:For most people, then to do the opposite of, like, finding the keyword and
Speaker:writing something that's personality driven after the fact.
Speaker:So write whatever you wanna write To get your
Speaker:point across in your words, find that keyword, and then weave it
Speaker:in. That is a huge tip right there.
Speaker:Mhmm. Alright. Because you're right. It's like,
Speaker:if you're writing for the bot for those h one headlines,
Speaker:then it's gonna be very dry and, You know? The
Speaker:the people who are reading it are like, skip. Skip. Skip. Go on.
Speaker:And that's go to some other blog or some other resource, And we don't want
Speaker:them to. We want them to see your expertise and feel your knowledge
Speaker:and feel your support and your help. And I love
Speaker:that analogy of marrying the
Speaker:personality with writing the keywords for the bot.
Speaker:I never really looked at it that way. That is like a real takeaway for
Speaker:me here is that you can do both. Yes. It doesn't have to be
Speaker:just 1 or the other. You can marry them together. Yeah. And
Speaker:that I mean, honestly, same. I didn't think about the fact
Speaker:that that's part of the reason why people love me, Like, love
Speaker:working with me. Not love me, but, like, love working with me. You too. I'm
Speaker:sure. I mean, I've heard that as well. But they love working with me
Speaker:because I make sure their voice is there, but I make sure
Speaker:that the keywords are there too. Because, again, the keywords the
Speaker:SEO strategy is going to get the right people to your website.
Speaker:But once they're there, you have to deliver that personality piece to keep
Speaker:them there, to get them engaged, to make them feel connected to you, To build
Speaker:that trust and then to convert whatever that may mean for them.
Speaker:So the answer to the question is, what's the importance of
Speaker:SEO, is that It increases your visibility. You're found more easily,
Speaker:and you increase the trust in the person who
Speaker:finds you. And then They get to know and like you
Speaker:based on that personality that you've added into
Speaker:your content. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Look at you. You're
Speaker:an SEO pro now. Oh, I can't
Speaker:wait to go SEO optimize my website because I think it's it's
Speaker:Lacking there. Yeah. And so many of us feel like that. And
Speaker:even this summer again, I'm an, quote, unquote, SEO
Speaker:expert, And I put it in quotes because I still feel like I'm always learning.
Speaker:This thing is always evolving, always changing, and I'm forever gonna be a student of
Speaker:it. Yeah. Mhmm. But this summer, I took some time, and I
Speaker:rewrote my website pages, and I restructured the
Speaker:SEO strategy. And it is time consuming, But I'm having a
Speaker:good payoff from it. And SEO, one amazing thing about it
Speaker:was that it's kind of like a fine wine or, like, a nice aged cheese.
Speaker:It gets better with time. Mhmm. So by starting like I said
Speaker:earlier, by starting now, wherever you may be, you may be 10 years into your
Speaker:business, you may be 2 months into your business, Start implementing some
Speaker:things now, and that will have a really amazing payoff
Speaker:for you in at least 6 months. That's another question that
Speaker:I get. Mhmm. I'll just throw this question out of myself. Okay. Good.
Speaker:But a lot of times, it takes roughly 3 to 6
Speaker:months for a blog piece to rank or to
Speaker:start bringing in the right traffic. There are some things you can do to speed
Speaker:that up. You also might be in a really pretty situation
Speaker:where you have half a:Speaker:Instagram, and they do know to go over to your website And you do
Speaker:plug your blog, and they are going and looking at those resources. Everyone's situation is
Speaker:different, and there are some very smart strategic things you can do.
Speaker:But it's really nice just to set that expectation of, okay, it's gonna take 3
Speaker:to 6 months at least. It's the long game. It is. It's the long
Speaker:game. Just like podcasting is, I mean, it's a long game. Yeah. It's like you
Speaker:can't expect to see miracles happen overnight. No.
Speaker:But once it starts happening, you're like, oh, wow. I'm so glad I did that.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. And I have to say, in preparing for today's
Speaker:interview with you, I've been stalking you on your website. And I'm you. Thank
Speaker:you. I love the copy Copy on your website. I Thank you. I
Speaker:feel like I know you from way back now based
Speaker:on just a few pages of your website. So
Speaker:It really is important to infuse that personality
Speaker:in there because now I I know you better. Yeah.
Speaker:Exactly. So much better. That's such a that's thank you. I appreciate
Speaker:that. And that was what I was doing that part well before I
Speaker:even realized that I was a copywriter. I had a massage practice. My massage
Speaker:clients were coming in, and there was one point where I was asking
Speaker:everyone, why'd you choose to work with me? I'm a stranger to you. They
Speaker:would say, I made sure I had pictures on there because they're coming in, and
Speaker:you're spending a decent chunk of time alone with me in a room. You might
Speaker:as well know who you're gonna be meeting and see if you like me and
Speaker:Whatnot. So I heard a lot as
Speaker:their response that they felt like they knew me because of what they saw on
Speaker:my website, and I was just writing in in a way that I would want
Speaker:someone to talk to me. So I was writing how I speak
Speaker:and Yeah. And it was very seamless by the time they got in to actually
Speaker:meet, Not digital, Britney. Yeah. Real
Speaker:life Britney. Yeah. Well so
Speaker:tell me. Let's just use me for an example.
Speaker:I have kind of subscribed to the philosophy of just
Speaker:writing content for humans, not necessarily bots.
Speaker:And I have a WordPress website. I have
Speaker:Yoast plug in put in, Not paid for, the free
Speaker:version. That's fine. Okay. So what
Speaker:would be someone like me, what would be my first step in order
Speaker:to Start the process. And I'm sure it's a
Speaker:process. It's not gonna happen just like blogging. It doesn't happen overnight to
Speaker:start SEO optimizing. Yeah. No. It doesn't start overnight,
Speaker:but you can make baby steps and they start to pay off. And then you
Speaker:start to feel good and you want to continue with it. So You have
Speaker:a blog. That's great. I would encourage you to start with and I started doing
Speaker:this for myself as well when I was adding more blogs. Go look at your
Speaker:top performing blogs. Okay. So you don't wanna just spend your time.
Speaker:A number that's coming to mind, my boyfriend has 80 blogs or something like that.
Speaker:And I was like, that's a lot. So, you know, if you Eighty Blogs
Speaker:or 80 blog posts? Like, posts. Yeah. Oh. Oh, okay.
Speaker:Blog posts. Yeah. Post in 1 webs okay. I've started to think
Speaker:eighty Different Oh, I see. I see. Thank you for clarifying. No.
Speaker:He has 80 blog posts, like, articles. Okay. Okay. Alright. And so,
Speaker:like, let's say that that's the number of blogs you have. That's That's gonna feel
Speaker:very overwhelming if you're like, I'm gonna go optimize all 80 of them.
Speaker:Let's start simple. So what are your top 5 or top 10,
Speaker:however ambitious you feel like being? And then I want you
Speaker:to go look at it. What does the headline
Speaker:say? Do you notice any keywords in there? What you could do is
Speaker:take that headline, Copy the whole thing, paste it into Google,
Speaker:and then you could look at what other results are showing up.
Speaker:Then you could also make sure you download I love using
Speaker:Ubersuggest. It's a free Chrome extension. Mhmm. And
Speaker:the only reason I want you to download that is so you can see what's
Speaker:called the search volume. That means
Speaker:how many people on average each month are typing
Speaker:in a phrase like that where you might be able to to show
Speaker:up. And a really good number to stick within is, like,
Speaker:Zero to a:Speaker:So There's more Back up one one second, though. UberSuggest, it's this is
Speaker:a Chrome extension. Yes. Is it free? Yes. Is
Speaker:it a paid? It's free. Free. Okay. They have a
Speaker:paid option, but just get the free one. You don't need the Unless you're
Speaker:gonna be me like an SEO pro in a little while, you don't need to
Speaker:pay for it. Got it. Okay. So take that headline, copy and paste
Speaker:it into Google, Make sure Ubersuggest is plugged in
Speaker:and hit enter. You're going to look at that search volume.
Speaker:What's it doing? If it's 0, it's fine. If it's over
Speaker:a:Speaker:you seeing to make it so that the search volume is less than
Speaker:a:Speaker:headline. So that's one simple thing that you could do.
Speaker:Another super simple, and this is actually where I started, thing that you
Speaker:could do is look to see if those blogs, those
Speaker:top 5 to 10 blogs, have something called an SEO
Speaker:title. It might also be called a title tag or
Speaker:a page title. If you don't have that,
Speaker:That's not so great. And what it is is when you
Speaker:look at that search results page, the blue hyperlinked
Speaker:text, That is the SEO title or the title tag or the page
Speaker:title. And then you'll see a couple of gray sentences under
Speaker:that. That's called a meta description or an SEO description
Speaker:or a page description. Every website calls it different things.
Speaker:But you want to make sure you have both of those fields filled
Speaker:out, and it's gonna be something that's on the back end. It's not gonna be
Speaker:something that people see unless they go and See that on a Google
Speaker:search results page. So you really just wanna make sure that's
Speaker:filled out. There are a couple stipulations. I actually
Speaker:built an entire SEO basic checklist around all of
Speaker:this stuff that will help you figure out what to put where. It
Speaker:even walks you through keyword research. So the stuff that I just shared,
Speaker:don't get hit over the head with too much information right now. Like, this is
Speaker:something you can take 1 step at a time. Yeah. But I would definitely start
Speaker:by optimizing the headline and then by making sure you have that
Speaker:SEO title and meta description.
Speaker:Okay. So you could just do that for each of those top 5
Speaker:performing Mhmm. Or top 10 performing depending on if you've got a lot of
Speaker:content on your website. So we're talking about
Speaker:blog content. Mhmm. This is the place to start would be the blog
Speaker:content because that's really your expert Content that you're getting out there to
Speaker:attract your ideal clients. That's a starting place,
Speaker:and that's a really good starting place, and it's often where people's brains go when
Speaker:it comes to content, but I'll offer one other thing as well. So my
Speaker:boyfriend has grown his website with blog content, website traffic.
Speaker:I've grown my website traffic and kinda like my SEO report
Speaker:card, which is called your domain authority, which is, again, how
Speaker:credible and reliable and authoritative do search engines that
Speaker:people think you are. I've done that by going and being a guest on
Speaker:podcasts, by starting my own podcast, And
Speaker:by responding to HARO
Speaker:entries, if you've heard of that. So help a reporter out. I think it's
Speaker:changed its name recently. Leah. I think they did do an update,
Speaker:and I've gotta learn that name. Okay. But you know what? I'll do a I'll
Speaker:do a Google search and put that into the show notes. Amazing.
Speaker:So what you can do there is journalists and other PR people are
Speaker:looking for A response to a question, and they want to be able to point
Speaker:people to you. So I responded to that. So I've been cited in articles. Guess
Speaker:what? They link to my website. Guess what the podcasts do? They link to
Speaker:my website. So that's another strategy. And if you've been doing
Speaker:that and not paying so much attention to your blog, that's fine. That's Helping
Speaker:you out too. Okay. So having
Speaker:all these links linking back to Your website is
Speaker:another strategy. Yeah. Okay. So the first
Speaker:step, if someone really wants to start getting optimized.
Speaker:Mhmm. And, again, The SEO, o stands for optimize. It
Speaker:doesn't stand for overwhelmed. We're we're
Speaker:thinking of Optimizing, not getting overwhelmed. So the 1st step is
Speaker:just look at what are the top 5 pieces of content, expert content
Speaker:you have on your website. Or if you don't have any, Start writing some
Speaker:Mhmm. And then start looking at
Speaker:those headlines. So really just starting with the headlines. Yeah. Just keep
Speaker:it simple. Start with the headline. Make sure there's a keyword in there.
Speaker:Mhmm. And then make sure that you're writing that SEO title and the page
Speaker:description And so that Google can say, hey. This is
Speaker:an option. You could go check out this blog. Now you mentioned an SEO
Speaker:checklist. Is that something is that something that you have on your
Speaker:website? It is. Yes. It is. And I'm I'll definitely make
Speaker:sure you have the link for anyone listening who's interested in it. It's on my
Speaker:website. It was something that I created in CCS with Marissa. It was
Speaker:my very first project that I created. The whole community helped me
Speaker:name it, Fill it out, figure out what I needed to include, and
Speaker:then explain it to everybody. But one thing I did with that
Speaker:and I hesitate to talk about URL slugs because People want to go and
Speaker:overhaul their entire website. Mhmm. Take this as something
Speaker:that you can move forward with, knowledge that you can move forward with. So don't
Speaker:worry about doing the older stuff, the existing stuff.
Speaker:Mhmm. It's just gonna be too big of a project, and it's probably fine.
Speaker:So with that freebie, I actually have the slug as
Speaker:brittanyhirsberg.com/seodashbasicsdashchecklist.
Speaker:It's a keyword. It's something that people are searching for, and it's the
Speaker:thing that I have. So that's another way that you can
Speaker:again, moving forward, That's another thing that you can think through, and
Speaker:that's on the checklist, which is something that I walk you through. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker:So, yeah, I'm sure people are gonna Gonna wanna get their hands on it. And
Speaker:this is a free resource that you have on your on your website? Okay.
Speaker:So I'm gonna make sure that we have that in the show notes so everybody
Speaker:can run over They're to your website. And also, that they can go over to
Speaker:your website and really just read more about how you've really
Speaker:infused personality into your website because everybody's gonna
Speaker:know you once they read a few of your pages over there. It's Aw. Thank
Speaker:you. Really, really cool. That's the biggest compliment. Okay.
Speaker:So I don't wanna go too far into the weeds today
Speaker:because I think we're just sort of touching on
Speaker:how you can Get started Yeah. And what the
Speaker:importance is. And I think this content that you've given me
Speaker:so far To share with the listeners is just really
Speaker:golden. Let me just look here and see if I have any other questions
Speaker:I have written down. Okay. Can we go back for a minute? When
Speaker:I mentioned about these WordPress plug ins Yes.
Speaker:Can you just say a few words about that? Is that something that we all
Speaker:need to have? Is there a best one, and do we have to pay for
Speaker:that? So Can you just fill in the blanks there, please?
Speaker:Sure. So the most common one the most
Speaker:commonly referred to one is Yoast, And that's on WordPress.
Speaker:To my knowledge, I don't think it can show up on any other websites.
Speaker:Okay. But I definitely hear people talking about WordPress and having Yoast. When I had
Speaker:my very first blog way back when, I didn't even know what SEO was, so
Speaker:I didn't touch it. I didn't have Yoast on my own WordPress blog or anything
Speaker:like that. What I have learned is to not
Speaker:take it it does these, like, lights. So it's kinda like a stoplight
Speaker:where you've got green is good, yellow is, hey. There's Something to look at here.
Speaker:Red is, quote, unquote, bad. Don't
Speaker:bend over backwards to make all of those lights green. Okay. It's
Speaker:gonna be okay. And this is coming from I was a straight a student.
Speaker:I needed everything to be okay. I'm a recovering perfectionist. Trust me. I'm with you
Speaker:on this and anyone listening, but Don't stress out if it's not all
Speaker:green. Just use it as a check-in point,
Speaker:and don't put too much stock in it. I don't think,
Speaker:Personally, that it's worth it to pay for that plug
Speaker:in. I don't know of any of of the other ones,
Speaker:But I just for me, focusing on what is the strategy,
Speaker:how can I go into writing this new piece of content, and putting that
Speaker:out there with the best SEO strategy, Or how can I go
Speaker:back in and optimize it? Because knowing where to put the keywords and
Speaker:how to use them and how to incorporate links and all of that stuff,
Speaker:That's gonna serve you so much better. So getting something like that SEO
Speaker:basics checklist is gonna help you better because you're gonna be more
Speaker:knowledgeable. You're gonna understand that you're gonna be able to move through it a little
Speaker:bit faster each and every time you create content, and then you don't have
Speaker:to worry about the plugins. Yeah. I am
Speaker:Really excited to get my hands on that SEO checklist of yours,
Speaker:and I'm sure our listeners are gonna be also. Alright. If you've got
Speaker:a WordPress website, you wanna plug in the Yoast plug in
Speaker:free. The free version is Fine. Fine. Yeah.
Speaker:Okay. So you don't have to spend a lot of money on a plug in
Speaker:and learn how to use it. Yeah. No. Okay.
Speaker:Like I said before, I don't think we wanna get too far into the weeds.
Speaker:I think we have really got some Solid information
Speaker:here for people to get started with optimizing. And
Speaker:remember, the o is optimizing. It's not Being overwhelmed or
Speaker:overachieving or, overthinking things. It's
Speaker:optimizing. So let's keep that in mind. So We've got some
Speaker:great tips from you, Britney, for getting started with
Speaker:that. Yeah. So I'm gonna just kind of
Speaker:Switch gears here and ask a couple of my fast on your
Speaker:feet questions. Okay. And remember, there's no wrong answers here to these
Speaker:either. So Yeah. Tell us, What's the best business advice you've ever
Speaker:been given? Oh, what is it?
Speaker:I don't even know that it was advice that I was given, or maybe I
Speaker:just, like, kind of Picked it up on my own, but to just
Speaker:start where you're at, just and you know what? When it comes to
Speaker:content, here's a perfect example. I'm starting a YouTube channel. And I
Speaker:said earlier, I'm a recovering perfectionist. Yeah. So instead of letting
Speaker:myself get stuck at, I'm gonna have to get all this editing
Speaker:software. I'm gonna have to learn how to do that. I need to master the
Speaker:thing before I put it out there. I'm just gonna start putting things out
Speaker:there With the sole intention of, I have knowledge.
Speaker:I want to help people. They want that information. Cool.
Speaker:Let me just put it out there. They can find it, And magic will happen,
Speaker:and I'll get better, and I will improve my skills. So just have a
Speaker:little grace with yourself and start with where you're at, and you can always
Speaker:get better. Oh, I love that. Yeah. That's how
Speaker:I that's kinda how I started the podcast. I know if I go back and
Speaker:listen to the first few, I'll cringe.
Speaker:And next year, I'll cringe with how I'm doing it right now
Speaker:because it's always getting better. It's always getting better. So,
Speaker:just start where you are. Love that. Okay.
Speaker:Tell me about a book. What would be a book you'd recommend
Speaker:everybody read, And why would that be?
Speaker:I'm actually gonna dig it out of my bag because I have
Speaker:it right next to me. I read this. It's called you are a badass at
Speaker:making money, and I needed this big time this year.
Speaker:I I've been on, like, a really big healing journey, and,
Speaker:interestingly, Money was one of the things that I really needed to focus
Speaker:on, and that's been huge. It's a little bit woo,
Speaker:but she keeps you've read it. Right? I I haven't read that one. I've read
Speaker:you are a badass. I I've read that one, the first one. I think that
Speaker:was This is a good one. I'm sure it's got the same tone, her same
Speaker:snarky humor. Yeah. She she tells it like it is, and she's
Speaker:very direct with you. There's no BS. But she's this may seem woo, but just
Speaker:try it. Anything. Kinda like with the SEO. This
Speaker:may sound stupid, but try it. Just try it. Yeah.
Speaker:Right. Alright. You are a badass at making money. That's the name of
Speaker:it. Yeah. It's amazing for business owners. One thing that I hear a lot of
Speaker:questions about is pricing. Mhmm. Right? We all kinda get hung up about pricing. We
Speaker:all get hung up about how How do I price? What do I do with
Speaker:my money? Like, it's a very new world when you come into being a business
Speaker:owner, let alone being in the the online space. Yeah.
Speaker:Actually, that book that I mentioned at the beginning, they ask you answer, he's
Speaker:like, put out your prices on your website. Yes, please.
Speaker:Yes. Well, if you think about it, and I started examining my own
Speaker:researching habits, I look for the prices. I'm looking for
Speaker:prices. So Don't be ashamed of your prices. Put them out
Speaker:there. Yeah. Because that's in my mind,
Speaker:with my own buying behavior, if I don't see your prices, that makes me trust
Speaker:you less. Mhmm. If I know that you have a higher price point than I
Speaker:can afford right now, that's okay. I'm gonna have eyes on your
Speaker:product. I'm going to know that I want Save up to be in your program.
Speaker:That's fine. That's not pushing people away. That's just being
Speaker:transparent with people, and people really appreciate that. It's qualifying.
Speaker:It's qualifying the leads. Anyway, I would highly recommend book. I
Speaker:would highly recommend his book. He's actually got there's a second
Speaker:Edition. I think it was in:Speaker:It's really good. He focuses a lot on big corporations,
Speaker:And he's worked mostly with big companies, and
Speaker:he also had a brick and mortar company that he kind of honed these skills
Speaker:with. But All of these principles can be applied
Speaker:to solopreneurs and small business.
Speaker:So That's great. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker:Do you have a favorite quote?
Speaker:The first thing that popped to mind, I've I've shared this on another
Speaker:podcast too. My mom had this, Like, little tiny, like, wind up
Speaker:pillow thing that was, like, very old school, something that, like, you would think
Speaker:your grandma would have. And it wound up, and it it would play noise,
Speaker:But it was I don't know the right word. Embroidered maybe Oh, yeah. With a
Speaker:saying, and it said, if you see someone without a smile, give them one of
Speaker:yours. Aw. I've pretty much all I had that on my bed since I
Speaker:was, like, teeny tiny, so that's just always been my thing.
Speaker:I would never make it in New York City
Speaker:Ever. Yeah. I grew up on a farm in the country in
Speaker:Ohio, and Now I live in New Jersey, so we're
Speaker:in New York. Well, I won't say a lot, but enough.
Speaker:But you could always Share your smiles with everybody.
Speaker:That looks Yeah. I love that. I love that. And here's my
Speaker:last fast on your feet question. If you had 1
Speaker:takeaway from our talk today, what 1 nugget would you wish for
Speaker:everyone to leave with?
Speaker:That SEO can be simple. It can
Speaker:be really honestly free and just take a little bit of your
Speaker:time. It's a little bit of work on the front end, but there's a huge
Speaker:payoff. And I would say, why not give it a try? I mean,
Speaker:it's like extra credit for business owners, so Couldn't hear
Speaker:you. I love that too. Alright. That was, like, 3 in
Speaker:1. That's but that's fine. Well, marry
Speaker:them all together. Yeah. That's kind of the theme for
Speaker:today. It seems like that. Alright. So You've got
Speaker:that freebie. Can you give us that URL again for the
Speaker:freebie, that checklist? Yes. It's brittneyherzberg.com
Speaker:/seodashbasicsdashchecklist.
Speaker:And I'll make sure that I give you the link so they can just click
Speaker:it in the show Okay. Alright. And where do you
Speaker:you mentioned Instagram. Is that the best place to find
Speaker:Current content. Like, you're putting out your content over there frequently.
Speaker:Yeah. Definitely Instagram for sure. My handle is brittany_hersberg,
Speaker:And then I'm over on LinkedIn a good bit now. I'm trying to hang out
Speaker:over there. I really like the community that I found over there too. So
Speaker:Instagram and LinkedIn. Yeah. Okay. Those links will be in the show notes. And
Speaker:your website is your name. Right? My name is complicated, but I
Speaker:try to make that all of my handles and things. So at least by the
Speaker:time you get to spelling my name here. Like, oh, I can go over here
Speaker:and find her. Alright. Well, we'll have all of that in the
Speaker:show notes so everybody can just Go over there and read on your
Speaker:website, and they can opt in over for that checklist. I'm gonna be going
Speaker:over there and getting that checklist Awesome. Right away.
Speaker:Alright. So it's been such a pleasure to have you here on the show today,
Speaker:Britney. This is such great information. I'm sure the audience is gonna
Speaker:just eat this up And love it. So thank you so much.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Alright. And thank you all
Speaker:listeners for tuning in today to the She's Got Content podcast.
Speaker:And be sure to take action with these nuggets that Britney's shared to help the
Speaker:search engines help those people who are looking for what you're putting
Speaker:out there. They're waiting to hear from you. They need your help.
Speaker:Keep publishing your expert content to reach them, and make sure that all
Speaker:that content is Search engine friendly. See
Speaker:you all next week. Thank you for tuning in to this
Speaker:episode of the She's Got Content podcast. I hope you
Speaker:got at least 1 nugget to take action on this week. If you
Speaker:got value from today's episode, I would be so grateful When you leave
Speaker:a 5 star rating wherever you listen to podcast, it only takes a
Speaker:second, and it really helps me get my message out to impact Even more
Speaker:people so they can, in turn, keep the ripple going. If you're listening
Speaker:on Apple Podcast and leave a review of the show, It would really
Speaker:make my day, and you just might receive a shout out on the show as
Speaker:my content creator of the week when I read out your review.
Speaker:And last but never least, if you want an endless supply of just right
Speaker:ideas for content you can write about for your blog post,
Speaker:Your emails, your videos, podcast episodes, all the content
Speaker:things, then you wanna head over to my website at she's got
Speaker:content.com forward slash content, and pick up your free
Speaker:workbook. Never run out of content ideas. Look for that link in
Speaker:the show notes today along with the other links mentioned in today's
Speaker:episode. Until next time, content creators. You've got an
Speaker:audience waiting to hear from you, and you've got content to share with them.
Speaker:Stop being the best kept secret and make a bigger impact when
Speaker:you've got content out there in the world.