What is SEO and how to manage it yourself

G’day folks. Tracy Sheen, The Digital Guide here, how you doing? Hope you're having a fabulous day. We are here today again, talking about what are we talking about? SEO. I should have known that's like the most important topic that anybody's ever going to speak peak to you about.

Before we get into that, a little bit about me and why I'm sitting on this side of the desk instead of you. I'm a 30 year veteran in marketing and sales. I'll say that a little slowly. Cause you know, I've probably got jeans older than some of you. So 30 years started in 1990, worked my way through various major Australian retailers. I was a trainer inside of Telstra and Optus. So used to fly around the country, training the retail guys on how to put devices and how to market to the public.

And then around about 11 years ago, I went out on my own and started my own coffee business. Yeah. I love coffee, still got it. We roast about six ton a week and we sell coffee all over the Eastern seaboard and sell machines. And then kind of got bored with that, so started podcasting, cause I'd had a time as a radio and TV person. So yeah, in case you didn't get that, I was the millennial change in jobs before that was popular.

So while we still have a coffee business these days. I spend most of my time doing this kind of stuff. So I train small business owners to embrace technology. Basically, really to help them market and sell in their business. So anything from SEO, that we're going to talk about today to understand Google analytics, to creating content, to creating podcasts, you name it. I kind of work across the whole genre.

So lucky you, you are tuning into SEO. You going to have this nailed in about 30 minutes, it's going to be fun. I hope you’ve got a coffee. You know, it can get a little anyway. You'll find out.

What is SEO (search engine optimisation)?

So to me, you are who Google says you are. So if Google don't know who you are, then sadly you're probably not going to have a business in another couple of years, unless we do something about that.

So Google is pretty much the be all and end all now in terms of search engines. You know, there are a few others out there. I think Jeeves might still be operating. I hear people talk about Bing every once in a while, but really, Google is where it's at.

And what you need to know around how you're going to rank yourself, and get known by Google is what's often referred to as SEO or search engine optimization. So there's about, you know, like imagine the longest movie you've ever watched. I dunno. Dances with Wolves, Game of Thrones. I don't know something like that. It's like that. But on steroids, when it comes to SEO, there is so much stuff that you never got to know it. So what I'm going to show you today and what I'm going to walk you through is kind of the basics to help you get an understanding.

And more importantly, probably. So at some point you can know who to work with. So you'll know that they're doing the right thing by your business. Don't always think that the best solution is for you to internalize it and do this stuff yourself, because here's the thing. I know when a violin is played well. But you give me a violin and I'm going to sound like a screeching cat. So sometimes you need to hand stuff off in your business to get it done well.

But they ask them like cool little hacks and some tips and some tricks when it comes to SEO that I'm going to walk you through in the next wee while.

Rankings and Visibility

So the first thing that we want to think about is what is SEO. So at its core, SEO kind of dictates two things - Rankings and Visibility.

So if you think about rankings as an I'm just going to ride this here, cause I thought it was pretty cool. It's the process that search engines use to determine where to place a web page in a search engine result page.

So let's kind of work through what that means. So when you Google something, let's say, ‘Car yard near me’. If you're in the Moreton Bay area, you might say ‘car yard near me’ or you might say ‘car yard Redcliffe’. So then what happens is you type that into Google ,or I could be cheeky and say, you know, you said it to Google, but I could set something off here that would make the people go a little bit mad at me. So I'll say that for later when I know they're falling asleep.

You type something into the thing and then Google kind of goes away and it looks through like really, really quickly all of the websites, and it brings you the most relevant information to match your search. That's a ranking. How quickly do you appear on that page? Are you even on page one? Or would you believe it there's more than one page to Google?

So like, if you, you look at the bottom, it's got like one of, you know, couple of million, depending on what you're searching for. So some people never make it into page one. What we're going to talk about today is a little bit to help you kind of try to get yourself on to page one of Google. So the first one's rankings, when you search for something, how does your site appear compared to other people?

The other one is Visibility. So that is how prominent is your site in a search. So they're kind of go hand in hand, right? Your ranking and what's your visibility? How well does Google know you basically? And trust me Google knows you pretty darn well.

So let's talk about how Google knows how to rank a page. How does this even happen? What's this magic that goes on in the background. So, at its core what Google's trying to do is give you the best answer to match your question. So if I was to type in and a lot of people do now, just think of Google as like their virtual assistant. They'll say, you know, what's the weather today.

Now Google automatically knows that I'm in Kippa Ring, and it's going to give me the weather for this location. But if I'm typing in a broader search than it needs to pull relevant data that might be global compared to just very, very localized. So it needs to be able to pull all that data and pull it together to give you the best possible match that it can to the question that you've asked. So that's what it's trying to do at its core.

So when it comes to it, it's looking for, for relevance and authority. So, I want you to think about this in terms of when you're creating content, when you're putting stuff onto your website, you want to try and create content that's as relevant to the questions that you know your clients are asking you as you can possibly get.

So give you an example. If you're in tourism, for example, and you know, one of the biggest questions you get is what's the weather like in Brisbane in July, then you could create an article, for example, that would say, ‘the typical weather in Brisbane in July’. So if I type in what's the weather like in Brisbane in July, and you've got an article that says here's what's the weather like in July in Brisbane, then Google is going to go, Hey question? That's like a really good match. Yay.

The importance of relevant content

Relevant is basically what we're looking for. How relevant is your content compared to what people are asking?

So the way that Google does that is through a topic or keyword. Now you've probably heard of keywords or key phrases when you've come across SEO stuff before, and that is keywords or things like Brisbane, weather, video, content, digital marketing, Fish and chips. Whatever your industry is, you know, we'll have keywords and topics that Google are looking for to match answers to questions.

Website and page authority

The next one is authority. Now, the way that Google measures your authority of your website is pretty convoluted. And there's a whole bunch of like, you know, like monkeys typing on typewriters in the background that developed their algorithms. I'm not joking. I actually think that's real, but I don't know that CSRO will ever allow us in to see how they've trained the monkey. So we just have to keep suspecting that that's how it actually works.

So the way that they determine the authority is to see how many people are visiting your website, how long they're hanging around on the website, how many pages they're visiting, all that kind of stuff.

Now, if you want a bit more insight into that, that was a Google Analytics. And I'm going to link back to that idea in another one on Google Analytics 101. It kind of goes hand in hand with the SEO stuff. So if you're going to watch this, I probably suggest a Bex and a good lay down and then get back up and watch Google analytics because it all kind of fits in together.

So, authority is measured on how many people are visiting your website, how long they're hanging around all that kind of stuff.

Three key areas for website optimisation

So there's really three main components to thinking about creating or getting a bit of an SEO strategy together for yourself, and really starting to get a bit of a handle on what this whole thing means.

So if you're going to optimize your site, and ultimately when we're talking about search engine optimization, SEO, what we're talking about is optimizing our site. How can we make our site the best it can be for our clients? That's what we're talking about. So if we're going to optimize our site, there's three main areas we need to be considering when we're starting to work on this stuff.

Now, the first one is the technical setup and we’re going to talk a little bit about these in a second. The second one is your content, and the third one is links.

So let's take a look at the technical setup. Now, so technical setup is really what we're talking about when we talk about onsite optimization. Now for your website to rank. For Google to see it, there's a few things that needs to happen. First of all, Google needs to see it. Right. So you can't just have a site that is all audio, for example. Right now, Google is deaf. So, you know, when, our premier does her updates about things and she's got the wonderful sign interpreter. When Anastasia Palaszczuk has her sign interpreter, that's kind of what Google needs right now. And their working on it. It's happening in the States when they will reach a point where we will be able to have a lot of audio on our site and Google will be able to reference it.

Right now, all Google can see and read his words. So we need to make sure that our site is set up for Google to be able to see us. That's the first thing.

It needs to be able to scan our site for topics and keywords. And I'm going to go through a little bit about how you can easily amend some of the content on your site to help you get found for keywords and topics.

But keep that in mind, think, start to think about or what are my topics, what are my keywords, what are, what are people asking me about that I need to be thinking about?

And the third one, yeah. Is Google needs to be able to add them - your topics, your keyword, your pages, their database of content.

So if you think about Google is basically just the largest library that you are in, they're going to find, right?

So every single site out there Google has to kind of go through and read. Okay. That one's about, you know, creating media content, or that one's about a fish and chip shop. That one's a bit, you know, whatever it's about, Google needs to be able to rate all of this stuff and put them into categories and know where to, and how to access them as quickly and as easily as it probably can.

So you need to make sure that you're creating your site, or your site is created, in a way that Google can see it. There's a few things that happen for that.

Things like website navigation. So thinking about just like I said, Google can't see images. They can't hear audio right now. So making sure that your texts and your layout of your site is easily read by Google. Your URL structure. So that's the www.aonemedia.com.au. I hope that's the right address. You should check them out. Tim's amazing. Or whatever website it is that you're trying to get. So think about you URL structure and try and keep those words short. Yeah. It helps Google to see and recognize.

So if we're talking about Tracy Sheen, the digital guide, www.tracysheen.com.au/about. It makes it nice and easy for Google to go, that's the about page. We're good. And it can move on.

Page load speed

Page speed. It's looking for things like how quickly does your site take to load. Now, if you have a lot, a lot of images, like if you're a photographer, this can be a killer man. So make sure when you load your site up or when you go to www.Tracysheen.com.au. And I know this because I had to fix it cause it was a pain. When you load it. You want to make sure that you're going 1, 2, good, I'm on the site. If it's anything longer than five seconds, we're gone. Our attention is really, really short now. And so is Google's, they will mark you down considerably if you're a site not loading in under five seconds. So think about that. Have a look at your images. Have they been optimized? Are they small enough for web.

Have a look for dead links and broken links. Now I'm going to let you in a little sacred. I want you to write this down. You got a pen. Okay, good. Uber suggests.

It's a site that was created by a guy called Neil Patel, who is an American digital marketer. Really, really well known globally. Has created some great stuff. Check him out. It's worth having a look at, but Uber suggests is a website where you can pop your website in and it will go through and give you a bit of a really quick SEO audit of any broken links you've got on your website. If your load speeds is too slow. Stuff that you can get and change.

Broken links

And one of the big things that Google dislikes are broken links. The other thing to a site where you've typed in an address and you get a 404 error or you get an, Oh, sorry, we're not here. Google hates that stuff. So you want to be going through your site and making sure, sure that you have none of that. You just clear it out, get rid of it, fix it, fix the link, do whatever you need to do.

Duplicate content

The other one Google dislikes is duplicate content. Now if you've created a blog or an article, and then you've gone ahead and just copied and pasted that stuff and chucked it on your Google My business profile. Google, don’t like it. Don't do it. Stop it, stop it. Go. And re write that blog for you. Google my business site, or go and rewrite that blog for your social media or for your LinkedIn profile. Do not use duplicate content. Okay. That's really quick things that you can do. And remember it was Uber suggests looking at you, Mary. Uber suggest.

Got it. Okay, good. So check that side out, put your domain in and it will give you a rundown of all the things that we've just kind of gone through there that you can fix yourself really nice and quickly. That is some of the technical setup stuff that's going to immediately give you a nice kick along on your SEO.

Now, if you've watched the Google analytics, one that we did. You know, probably in your space continuum, I don't know. Maybe it was an hour or so ago that you went and watched it or it's two hours in your future. You'll understand what I mean by that a little more, cause they also said kind of connect in together.

All right. So you've had a look at the technical setup. You've kind of got your head around, you know, I've got some broken links I've got to fix, I've got some image sizes I need to fix. Awesome. You can go and do that. That's all going to help with your SEO. And it's all going to start to give you a nice kick along.

Your content is what gives you visability

The second thing you need to think about is your content. So from an SEO viewpoint, your content is what gives you visibility. Okay. If you don't have regular blogs, regular articles going on your website, Google thinks that your site's been abandoned. You know, it's like the old West with the tumbleweeds kind of going through in the background.

Well, even you can go out my way out the darling downs right now. There's tumbleweeds going across the roads out there cause it's windy and I'm off track again, but that's beside the point.

So when it comes to content, that's what creates your visibility. So I know, I know, I know what you're thinking. I get it all the time. Oh my God. I hate writing blogs. I'm sorry. Get over at Google love them. Google love fresh content. How often should you be putting it out? Look, it depends on your business. I would say at least monthly, put something fresh on your site. If you can put it out more frequently to that and you can stick to it, do it.

But here's the thing. If you're going to go, Oh, I'm going to write a blog every week. It's going to be fantastic and you do it for four weeks. And then when you go on holidays and you don't do it for two, and then you come back and you write for three weeks and then you don't do it for a month. Does you no favours. Start once a month. But keep that momentum up. Google loves fresh content.

Now, the other thing you need to know is Google like long content. Now you need to kind of temper this with your audience. So depending on who is you're working with, yeah. You guys might actually prefer a really short rate. They might like something that's 300 or 400 words.

That's, you know, straight to the point it's punchy. It's, you know, it's not making them read war and peace. So you've got to kind of walk that fine line between you should always write for your people first, always right for your clients first. It's gotta be about your people. If you help your clients, it will help your business. So always write for your people first.

But keep in mind, Google love long form content. Google love things around 2000 words, because it builds your authority and it builds your credibility with Google.

Here's an SEO tip. It needs to have a minimum of 300 words for Google to be able to read it anything less than 300 words and Google just, it's not there. It's not there. So often I see this with contact us pages where people struggle because they just want to go, Hey, contact us at blah, and then I'll get an error in their SEO reporting or in their Google analytics to say this site, this page couldn't be read that's because it doesn't have 300 words on that. So just keep that in mind when you all thinking about creating content.

Now, Google will use your content to help figure out your authority, and your credibility in that space. So the more content, and this is where it comes in really handy for you to get into a regular little vibe of creating fresh content.

Now, if you like doing video or if you like doing audio as an example. Awesome. You do you fantastic. Just get a transcription, whack the transcription on the site, Google or read the transcription. You got the video happy days. You've got the audio happy days, whatever you got the transcription makes Google happy and let's be honest. It also helps out if you've got any members of the deaf community and things like that, it speaks to a more diverse clientele.

Keywords and keyword research

All right. So some other keyword or content considerations. Do some keyword research. Now again, I keep coming back to keyword cause that's what search engine optimization is all about. It's going to optimize to a key words or key phrases with topic.

So if you're unsure of what people are looking for in your industry. All right. Get the pen and paper out again. Answerthepublic.com. It is a fantastic little site where you can just type in, for example, ‘digital marketing’ and the site goes and trawls Google today, and then gives you a bunch of questions that people are asking around Australia about digital marketing.

So that'll start to give you some really good ideas of what topics, what keywords etc. that people are looking for. If you run Google Chrome as your internet browser, you can also download an extension called keywordsurfer, or keywordsanywhere. They’re extensions that you can write on Google Chrome and the neat thing that happens, anytime you type in a question into Google Chrome on the little right hand side of your box, it will give you other examples of things that are ranking in that industry or in that topic. So if you feel stuck, you feel like I have no idea what people are looking for, I have no idea what my keywords, or what my topics would be keywordssurfer, keywordsanywhere, answerthepublic, you’re welcome, they’re all free downloads. Go do it. Cause you need to know this stuff if you want to improve your SEO.

Keyword optimization. All right. This one is a bit of a, you know, we're going down a bit of a rabbit hole here now. So hang in there with me this worth it. And this will give you a real bump along with your content and help your organic SEO, which is what we're all about.

Elements of an SEO-rich blog

Right. So, okay. I've created a blog. Fantastic. Yeah, you don't run away yet. Don't drop the mic. You've got a lot of work to do. So the first thing you need to do is think about your title. Like what is my blog title and put a keyword in there. Okay. So again, if we're talking digital marketing and I've created a blog about ‘what is digital marketing’, guess what a good title for that block might be? ‘What is digital marketing?’ It's got the key word right there in the title. Does what it says on the box. That's a big tick for Google. When it comes to looking immediately, someone jumps online. What is, what is digital marketing? I've written a blog. What is digital marketing? Google goes. Hey, happy days.

The next thing you want to do is when you create that URL, if you can, now this might not be something you can do. This might be a web thing. But have a look to include a key word. So for example, in your services, when people go to the services, perhaps in one of the drop downs, you might have, as your URL, ‘digital marketing services’. So see I’m trying to get that key word, that phrase back in there again.

Have a look at your H1 tag. Yep, getting a little technical. Hang in there. If you go to the backend. Alright, so. Hi, H one tag, if you go into the back end of your website now, right? Okay. Whether it's Wix, whether it's WordPress, whether it's Squarespace, whatever you are using. You need to get a little bit familiar with the backend of your stuff. You need to know, you know, the magic behind Oz, what's going on behind the curtain. One of the things you need to look at is your H1 tag. That’s your header. So what format is your H1 tag, and you need to make sure that you do have a header in there, because again, Google is looking for ‘what is digital marketing’ his blog, what is digital marketing? And the blog name is I header one tag. Boom, happy days.

Next one, meta title and your meta description. Now meta-description, the easiest way to think about that. You know when you Google a website and it comes up with that couple of lawns of whatever it is about the business on the neighborhood. So if I look for aONE media and might have a one media is the most awesome media production house in the Southern hemisphere was created by and then it's got.dot dot. That means because Tim has not gone to the trouble of creating meta data or I meta description.

You've got about 120 characters. You get to play with that. So with your blog, think about what's that two lines that if someone's Googled, what is digital marketing? All right. It's come up with a header ‘What is digital marketing?’ Boom. But now. I want that person to read that first two lines of my blog or that first two lines to think about. Yeah, this is something I want to read. So what can you put in there that is a) going to entice a client to click on that link and read it. But also for Google to go, Oh yeah, this is really relevant to what the client has asked or what this person has put into the search query.

The next one is your image titles and people like miss this one all the time. And this is huge. When you load images to your website, you have the opportunity to give your image a name really, really, really, really, really, really. Really, I'm not on a loop. I'm just emphasizing how important this is really important that you label your photos, particularly if you're working within a really confined geographical area.

So I think about. Thai restaurant or any kind of restaurant or cafe where really traditionally kind of pulling from a small geographical range that you're trying to pull those clients into. So if I load up a photo of an awesome crying tiger. There we go. And I just put up crying tiger. I'm missing out on a huge opportunity here. I could go crying tiger. Redcliff. Crying tiger cafe, you know what? I can label it as the dish. Which is a key word. I can give it the suburb, which also then helps Google that when I'm searching ‘best Thai restaurant Moreton Bay’, it's going to link up. This is in the Moreton Bay region and it's got Thai dish. Perfect. Happy days. It starts to serve that up.

Now, the other place, just as an aside bonus content. If you are working with a local industry and you have your Google, my business account set up, and if you don't around about 40% of your SEO is based on your Google My Business. So you get on it.

Anyway, when you load a photo up to GMB, tag it as well. So again, crying tiger redcliff cafe, you know, whatever it is, that is going to start to really give you a big local SEO ping and give you really good bang for buck.

Consider semantic keywords

The last one that you need to consider is semantic keywords. Semantic keywords are just things that could be sounds like. So think about another way that people might search for Thai restaurant red cliff. Is it, Thai cafe? Is it Malaysian? Is it? I know that's, you know, separate separate countries. I completely understand that. But what else could your clients potentially search for when they're searching for your business that you can weave into the content because Google, like those semantic key words, semantic phrases.

What that does for Google is show the additional credibility and authority in your content when they're trying to match your answer with a search query. So think about how can you build in semantic or words, phrases sound like similar to, you know, sounds like that helps with the search content.

All right. So some other non-key related but fit into the content side of SEO to think about, and to look at when you're wanting to manage your own SEO from scratch.

External and Internal Links

External links. So when you're writing an article or when you're putting together a blog for your website, or even you're writing the content for your regular site. Think about whose site can you link to that will add credibility to your website. So for example, if I'm writing an article for Smallville, which is a small business publication, I can link to some research that I've done from The Age, for example. So The Age has really good credibility in that kind of new space. Depends on what side of the political fence you, I understand that, but just play along with me for a second. So the age has goodl authority in the Google space that if I linked to that for an article for Smallville, I'm getting a double whammy. So you want to think about where can you go back some research that you've done. So, you know, 78.5% of stats are made up on the spot. And then you would link to the article that you read that in. So you've got an external link. So again, Google. When they're trolling through and their little bots going through and reading it, they can go, Oh yeah, it's got some good, external links are going to some good places yet happy days.

You also want to think about internal links. So what other blogs, what other content have you created that you can link? So. If I talk about the example around, you know, what is digital marketing is. I've written a blog on. I might get to like the second paragraph and say, you know, I've previously written an article on how digital marketing will impact your SEO, and then I could hyperlink that is just. Hyperlink is just, you know, click here and it takes you to there. I can hyperlink back to that previous article or that video or that audio that I have created.

So what that is it's doing is enticing the clients to spend longer on my site, because they're writing that article, then they're going off to that article. Then they're watching that video etc.

Dwell Time

Google has this magic number. It's called three minutes and it's called dwell time. If you can get people to hang out on your site for three minutes, because they've read that article in the bounce over here and watched that video, and then they've gone over here and downloaded that template or done whatever they want to do. Again, that helps with your SEO and, you know, quick plug back to the Google analytics, go and watch that one.

How it all starts to link in and they feed off each other. So think about, you know, what other article have I written? What other video have I produced? Can I link that at the end of my thing? You know, if you'd like to know more information about how I can assist with digital marketing strategy, click here, and then maybe it goes off to your services page that talks about digital marketing strategy.

So it all you need to be thinking about, who can I link out to? What else can I link into? And yeah, in terms of my website, that will help with the strategy.

Optimal length of content

All right. Content length. So we talked about, yep. Sorry. I Googled typically like longer content. The best ranking home pages on websites now have over 1800 words. So you want to break that out with a few images, maybe some video, an infographic, you know, whatever. But think about how can you create longer form content. Not everywhere, not all the time I get it. Your audience may not like long form content. Google does. Walk the tight rope. Maybe one month, it's a 500 word article because you know your folks like that with an infographic at the bottom, the next month, that's 2000 or 2,500, because Google likes that. And then just see, what is getting you the best traction?

And we talked about dwell time. So using things like videos, infographics, audio, things like that. That all builds up your dwell time or how long people are dwelling hanging around on your site, which will be reflected in your Google analytics, but helps with your search engine because it builds your credibility. It builds your authority in the eyes of Google.

Quality link building

All right. So we've done the technical stuff. You still with me so well done you. Yep. We've done the contents. And now we're going to talk about the third thing that will impact your SEO and that's links.

So you need to focus on good quality link building.

So remembering the content we talked about, you know, potentially linking out to an external site, like the age, don't just randomly link out to the age, you know, please use one that's relevant for your industry.

And internal linking as well. So you want to be thinking about good quality links. So think about sites that you would consider an authority. So for example, if I'm talking about the digital marketing space, I recommended Ubersuggest to you. Neil Patel is kind of like a bit of a guru in the digital marketing space in the US. So if I wrote an article and said, you might want to go and check out Uber suggest. That site has really good or authority on Google. So yeah, it's going to give me a nice little bump along because I'm giving credible links to Google, to follow, to see that I'm writing relevant content similar to, but not the same as what Neil Patel is producing.

So sites that carry or authority with Google, LinkedIn, you know, things like that, will carry a higher weighting when it comes to your link value.

The relevance of the topic will carry your authority. So some things I've seen, done crazy things, and you guys would never do this, so I can talk about this without it going any further. I've seen people create articles where let's say they're a digital marketing agency, and then they've just randomly linked to an article about fishing because that fishing site got amazing traffic.

Like, you know, it doesn't take much to kind of go well, where's the, I don't see any connection there. If you can't see a connection there. Guess what? Google, can't see a connection there. If Google can't see a connection there. They're going to go. You're just doing this because those guys get good hits. We're going to penalize you for that because that's a no, no.

So links from trustworthy sites, as I said, they carry the higher rating. So think about. Who who are the stall warts in your industry, in your community that you can use? If you're an accountant, can you link to zero? Can you link to MYOB? Can you link to Reckon or QuickBooks or wherever they are this week? Who can you use within your, the industry that, you know, has authority and credibility that kind of by association, you get that nice little, you know, that nice little rub, that nice little nod.

So when it comes to link building, I'm sure I'm like pretty confident that you've received those emails. Like I do every single day of the week. Dear mr. I am a SEO agency and I've just done on your website and I can see that you're only getting 18% and I give good link ratings and we get you page one and you know, whatever it is, we've all got them.

Please don't fall for those emails. Just just don't stop it. Don't even think about it. Junk them straight away. It's not worth it.

But when you are thinking about building a link strategy, or you are thinking about working with an SEO business to improve your life overall rankings, there are some link strategies that you need to consider.

So we talked about linking out to sites with authority, like zero, like MYOB, that kind of thing. that's relevant to your industry. You need to think about. How do you build your organic links? So how can you be working with, other companies that have your clients that work with the same clients as you before or after you that aren't in competition with you.

So if I'm in digital marketing, an accountant is a good referral source for me because they working with business owners that need marketing, right. So I could chat to my accountant and say, you know, Hey, I've just written this awesome article. I think it's really relevant to your people. Would you mind putting a link to it or, you know, so that's an organic link.

It's also an outright strategy where I can be thinking about who has my clients, my ideal clients, before or after me, that aren't in competition with me. So if we're thinking about, Digital marketing agency, accountants, business, coaches, solicitors, people like that are all working, we're all working with the same people, but we don't cross over.

You don't want financial advice from me. Trust me. It's not gonna end well. And I'll give you legal advice, but that's probably not going to end well either, but we all work with the same people. So there's no crossover, so I can easily create content for those guys and vice versa. That means I'm getting fresh stuff on my website.

They're getting fresh stuff on their website. We're linking back to each other. So we're giving each other this nice little organic boost through an outright outreach campaign.

The other one is guest blogging. So. You could think about, you know, Media these days is no longer what I would call traditional.

You know, if we think about the old days of, you know, if you want to get known, you would go to radio or TV. A lot of it now is done virally, right? It happens through podcasts. It happens through word of mouth, through social, etc. So who has your people, your community that you want to get in front of that you could potentially guest post for?

Is there an online magazine? Is there an online website that has a community of your people that you could potentially post something for? So again, if you're an accountant, perhaps you go to zero and have a look, they often have guest posts.

Could you write something that would be relevant for your community that you could post on their sites. Think about how you could build your links through outreach and guest blogging and things like that.

So, ultimately, here's what I want you to know. Marketing is a numbers game, right? You need to know your data. I've talked about it in Google analytics. They cross over. They really do. I know I'm kind of rubbing that one in, but there's a lot of stuff that I talk about here that we talk about in Google analytics and a lot of stuff in Google analytics that we're covering here as well. You need to understand what your numbers are telling you, and if you don't have access to your numbers, your business is dead in the water. Like, I really hate to say that, but these days it really is.

Do not be throwing money at Google ads or Facebook ads or anything like that. If you don't know who your client is, what their problem is, how you can solve it for them and what types of content they want. You need to know those things now in order to be able to grow and leverage your business.

So measuring your SEO. It just basically means that you need to understand the traffic and the engagement that is coming through. So you're going to measure things like your organic traffic growth right now, all of this, as I said, we cover in Google analytics.

So go and watch that one. And you'll see what I mean about where you're going to get that data, but you need to be monitoring what's going on. So, you know, all right. If I wrote a blog that's 500 words, I'm picking up an extra 5% to my website, but if I write a blog, that's 2000 words, I'm getting an extra 20% to my website. Until you actually know your numbers, you don't know what's going to work. So you need to really get comfortable with understanding where you can get that data from an understanding, you know, for your SEO, what are your key words? What are your topics? you know, and then you need to get comfortable with your Google analytics stats. How long are people spending on your website? What are your best pages for you? What’s your link growth? Like? You know, you need to be using that Uber suggest page kind of probably every three months just to be running it through and to make sure that none of those links are broken. So if you're doing a lot of external links, You need to make sure that they're not breaking.

That those sites are still active, that they're still refreshing the content. And if you have a lot of old blogs on your website and by old, I mean, you know, last year. We really are in fast content, fast fashion, fast, everything aren't we? So if you've written content that from 2019. The easiest place to start is to go back and refresh that blog.

So if you had the top five things you need to know about holidaying in Moreton Bay, you could go back and change that to the five, the five top tips we have for traveling in Moreton Bay in 2020 and update some of the content and then that's going to give you an automatic kick with your SEO because it's relevant to right now. So Google will look for fresh content. Remember? So if that's 12 months ago, that's, you know, clueless to Google. They can't, they can't even see that it's like, bye Felicia. Then you're going to know what's going on with that.

So keep it be content fresh. Anything more than kind of 12 months, go back and refresh it, give it a 2020 overhaul. You know, I usually post about, you know, my five favorite business podcasts each year. So I'll always make sure that I'll go in and discuss about what's going on with that.

All right. My challenge for you is this. Really right now, what I want you to always get comfortable with your keywords, know what they are. Just get really, really familiar with what people are searching for to find you, and start to think about how you can weave that in start to do some research on SEO. Just begin to understand it, because if you can do that, you'll see an automatic flow on throughout your content, the number of visitors to website, the engagement levels that you're getting, because you're starting to produce stuff that people are looking for.

Have a great afternoon.