 Let's face it, at the end of the day, Google is the only search engine that matters to your business because that's where the majority of people are searching. Welcome to the We Are Slam show where you'll learn marketing agency insights, best practices, and ideas to help your business grow. This show is all for the marketing professional, the person that is actually getting in and doing the work, the person that's leading a team. Whether you're a marketing director or a small business owner that really day in and day out is responsible for your own sales and marketing, this is the show for you. And so today it's been a while since we've talked about SEO. And so today I want to talk about SEO. What is SEO? What is search engine optimization? I know as a marketing director, as a small business owner, you're probably getting lots of email on a weekly basis from people that want to help you improve your search engine results, your rankings, your page optimization. And sometimes this can just be overwhelming. Overwhelming in terms of who to believe, what to believe, and really what makes a difference when it comes to ranking higher in search engines like Google. But let's face it at the end of the day, Google is the only search engine that matters to your business because that's where the majority of people are searching. So in this show, I want to share with you what you can be doing on a consistent basis to improve your search engine rankings. Are you ready for this? Now I want you to understand what SEO is and what SEO isn't. When you go to Google and you do a search, you're going to come across different types of results. Generally, if it's a competitive term, what you're going to see at the top of the page is a series of ads. These ads are listed as sponsored listings. And these are there because people are paying to have these ads show up on this search phrase or term. And so that's called pay per click, PPC for short. You might have heard this term before, PPC. If you're doing PPC, although some of the techniques might be similar to SEO, it's not SEO. SEO is something completely different. So somebody emailing you and asking you to optimize your page for better search engine results, they're not talking about pay per click. In fact, pay per click is something that is completely separate. It's done through Google ads. And generally, I would recommend that if you're going to do pay per click on a level that's more than a few thousand dollars a month, then you're going to want to get a partner involved, a Google partner. Google partners are those who adhere to certain best practices. They keep educated in terms of what to do, what not to do. And they have proven their ability by spending and maintaining a spend of a certain amount. I think it's 90,000 every three months or something like that. But the point is Google partners are, they're educated. They prove that they're educated by passing tests. They're adhering to best practices in the accounts that they manage and they consistently manage lots of money. With that said, PPC is not SEO. And today we're talking about SEO. The second type of search that a result that you might come across on Google when you're searching for your business, if you are a local business, is the Google map pack. So this is generally, you see a map and you see some listings where you can click on their website. You can click to call their phone number. These are the types of things that you see on the map pack. SEO, the topic that we're talking about today, is not map pack. Map pack is actually called local SEO. And this process of ranking higher in the map pack is, although it's similar to SEO, it's a completely different process with different techniques and tactics. And we've actually done a show on local SEO and how to get the best ranking for you Google my business listing. And I'll post a link to that show in the show notes. But today is about SEO. Why did I bring up PPC and local SEO? Because I want you to know the difference. I want you to know what SEO is and what SEO isn't. Generally, when you are engaging in SEO, you're going for those organic results. And if it's a competitive phrase or a local listing, then before you get to those SEO results, what happens? You're going to see pay per click and you're going to see a map pack. So generally, if it's a local search that's highly competitive, meaning that it has advertising on it, then the organic results aren't even going to pop up until the bottom of the page. And that's okay. But the beauty in organic SEO is that it places you and allows your business to be discovered in many, many more places, some of which aren't necessarily highly competitive, i.e. they don't have pay per click listings on them. And so you're at the top of the page for highly specific terms. Of course, if it's a specific term, what does that mean? It means that the buyer is more knowledgeable. They're a little bit further along in the buying cycle. And if you pop up as a solution to the question or the problem that they're searching out an answer for, then what happens? You instantly gain credibility and you can really push them along in that buying cycle. And that brings me to the power of search. You know, search is an instant answer solution. When you go to Google and you start typing in a search, you are expecting an instant answer. And so rather than you going out as a business owner or a marketing director and looking for customers and hunting for customers and, you know, like interrupting customers, the beauty of search is that you can be there in their moment of need with a solution that fits and that resolves their pain point. And so I always like to say with search that you're not hunting. You're not going out and hunting for your customers. Instead, they're hunting for you. Your customer picks the keyword and boom, there you are. Search engine optimization is the process by which you are creating content and optimizing it in a way that it shows up in those results, that it's able to be discovered by people that are people that fit your target customer profile, your buyer personas. And so you're speaking directly to them. Search allows you to sell what your customers want when they want it. It's an amazing thing. So what is a search engine? A search engine is made up of three parts. And I know I'm going to take it back to SEO 101, but it's important because you need to understand how this all works. Number one, there's a crawler. And this crawler could be called a robot, like search engine robots, spiders. Like there's all these different ways to describe the crawling aspect of a search engine. But essentially what a crawler does is it will crawl your page and it will kind of consume your page, spider your page and it will follow like a spider links, links in the web of the internet and it will follow these links and then arrive on new pages and spider those and index those. And that brings me to the second part of the search engine and that's the index or catalog. Essentially the index is where all the information that's crawled and gathered is stored. It's stored on Google servers and Google will categorize and catalog this information in the same way a library might. The third part of the search engine is the search interface. And what the search interface does, this is where you go on google.com and you search what it does is it pulls data from the index. It pulls results from the index and it shows you the results based on your search and based on what they believe the intent of your search is, i.e. what you're looking for. If their results that they give you are relevant then you are going to have a good search experience. If they're not relevant then you're going to have a poor search experience. And if you were on the internet 20 years ago when there were lots of search engine options then you'll remember that some search engines did a better job and others did a you know a poor job at being relevant. Sometimes you would search and the results on the page were nowhere close to what you were looking for. And so I think what that taught many of us who were seeking out information in those days is how to really you know get in and do efficient searching and how to find the answers and be resourceful. But that's another story. The fact is google is where they are today because they earned a reputation for being relevant. And that's the key. Google rewards relevancy. So when we talk about SEO the first thing that we always mention if you've ever been to a marketing conference you're going to hear it is you have to be relevant. And this is because google rewards relevancy. You just need to create relevant content and you need to like we always say know your customers understand their pain points and create content based on where they are in that buying cycle or in those stages of awareness. Remember sometimes they are not aware of who you are what you do. And so you need to create content for them in that stage or maybe they're like ready to buy now. And so you need to create content for them when they're in that stage of awareness wherever they are along the consumer journey the buyer's journey you need to be able to present them a message that fits where they are in that time and place. And so good search engine optimization strategy is just relevant content. So if that's the only thing you take from the show then you are head and shoulders above your competition. But here's the thing. I hear this a lot I get calls about this all the time. What about the google algorithm? Do I need to be in tune with what's happening with the search engine algorithm as a marketing director as a business owner? Do I need to know when they change the algorithm when they change the rules? Well here's the thing. The algorithm changes almost daily sometimes multiple times a day. And as you know this is not public information so we don't necessarily know when it changes or why it changes. Sometimes Google will give us the information that's you know if it's a big change they might publicize it but a lot of times they do things and test things far before they ever tell us. And there are people like Rand Fishkin over at Moz or you know search engine publications that keep up on you know all the small details and all the small changes. But as a business owner as a marketing director is this something that you need to keep up on? Well I would say no. Because if you're being relevant then none of that stuff really matters. If you're playing by the rules even though sometimes the rules might change none of that stuff matters. If your website is valuable to your consumer to your customer if they're getting value out of your website and your content and you're producing content and you're doing it in a way that is for your target customer and not necessarily for the search engine then you're going to be rewarded. Consistent content that's relevant over time is rewarded. There's no rule that Google's ever going to do that's going to change that fact. The point is if your content is relevant to your users then that will shine a good light on Google when they send people to that content because they know that they're getting a good experience good information. So along these lines I want you to think about this I want you to think about what are my customers searching for? Okay you got to figure out what are they searching for? Like I said with anything in marketing you have to know your buyer inside now you have to understand their pain points you have to understand what they're trying to overcome whether it's a fear an anxiety a situation what is it that your service that your product can help them to achieve? Where are they before your product? Where are they after your product? You got to make these connections why? Because now it's time to think about what are they searching for? How are they going to find the solution? Remember the stages of awareness Eugene Schwartz super important super important way to visualize the consumer journey sometimes the consumer is not aware of their problem sometimes they're not aware of the solution to their problem sometimes they're not aware of a product or service that can provide the solution to their problem and sometimes they're not aware of the brand that provides the product or service that can provide the solution to their problem and then sometimes they're not aware of your brand which is the preferred brand for you of course that provides the solution to their problem. Do you see how this works? So this is important. Where are they in that level of what stage of awareness are they in because this is going to determine how they search. So an activity, a good activity. I give my students at MDC, Miami-Dade, IDIS Center this challenge. I asked them to do this. Ask yourself, what are your customers searching for? And along each of those stages of awareness, whether they're not aware of their problem and they're searching to become aware of their problem, the solution, the product, the brand. At each of those stages of awareness, how might they be searching? What are the words that they're typing into the search engine? And here's the thing. You just have to, number one, ask your customers. If you don't have any real customers, it's difficult to do this. So ask your customers, figure out what they were searching each step of the way. But then, test it. And test it in the same way that you test search. If there's something that you know that you're looking for, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the buyer. Spend some time in their mind and start typing in Google and start seeing, how does my search change? How do the results change? How can I figure out more and more about my problem or solution or the products that offer it? What paths am I taking? And then you'll begin to get insight into what types of search terms you should be creating content for so that you can optimize your pages for these search terms so that you can appear in the search results when people are typing in the same searches that you were going through. So write down the list of terms. Like you don't have to do a big 10,000 word list. Just start with 20 for each stage and figure out what are people typing into the search engines. Go through this exercise, it's super important. Another thing I want you to think about is what are the questions that I'm receiving or that my sales staff or if you're a business owner yourself, like what are you receiving? What are the questions that your customers are asking? You know, a lot of times we want to write content around these big broad terms and we want to spend a lot of energy, time, energy and resources in trying to rank for these big terms when in reality the best search engine approach is just to answer the questions that your real customers are asking. So go back in time and think about what are some of the questions that I've received? What questions do I get over and over and over again? Whatever that question is, that should become a blog post. You should answer that question whether it's about pricing or about comparisons or about, you know, just like how things work in the industry. I guarantee you're thinking right now of a series of questions that you get over and over and over again. Go to your homepage, take this, you know, make a list of the questions and then go to your homepage and tell me how easy is it on a scale of one to five to find the answers as a user to those questions? Is there a button somewhere that leads them to that question? Is there, you know, the question answered right then and there? What is it? How easy is it to find? If it's not a five, then I guarantee you that you're losing people. And it's the same way in search. If you want to get discovered, you have to answer the questions that you're getting from your customers because I guarantee you what's happening is they're going to search and they're going to Google and they're typing in these questions in one way or another and they're looking for these answers. As you know, 70% of the buying decision is made up before a person ever picks up the phone and calls you before they ever fill out your form, before they ever walk through your door. 70% of their mind is made up. And so what does this mean? It means that they're learning, they're educating themselves, they're making up their mind on the internet with the content that they're absorbing. There's 77 touches, 77 touches that it takes for somebody that's not familiar with your brand to be familiar with your brand enough that they might take an action, a desired action with your brand. 77 opportunities, 77 searches, 77, like I said, opportunities for you to be a part of that message, to be a part of that conversation and it happens with content. So when you think about search engine optimization, it starts with content. Content is the solution, content is the way to get it going. And if you're not producing content on a regular basis, then you are fighting an uphill battle. Now to make sure that all of this hard work that you're putting in isn't going to be penalized in any way for some technical reason, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put into the show notes of this show five technical things that you need to do in order to make your content discoverable and to avoid it from being penalized, okay? So five technical SEO things that you should be doing in the show notes of this show. Of course, that's slamagency.com or wherever you're watching or listening right now, you'll find a direct link to the show notes of this show. Now, if this is your first time tuning in, I just wanna say thank you, thank you for tuning in. And if you would, go ahead and leave a review. Let me know who you are and what you got out of this show today. But also, leave us a rating, five star is preferred. Let us know whether it's Apple iTunes, Spotify, whatever the case may be. These things are super important, subscribing, rating and reviewing. What it does is it helps us to get in front of more people. The more people that engage with the show, the more likely the show is going to be shown like in recommendations and these sorts of things. So thank you for doing that. I greatly appreciate it. But thank you also just for tuning in and for spending some time with me. This is something that we do on a weekly basis for marketing directors and business owners just like you. So join us next week. Thank you for tuning in. I'll see you then. Thanks for watching. If you like what you saw, subscribe and hit that bell. You'll be the first to be notified when new content goes live. After that, you can watch more videos from Slam Agency. We picked something we think you'll love.