How to Prioritize Tasks to Improve SEO w/ Sarah Light

Knowing what to tasks to prioritize in order to improve your SEO sounds… daunting. (I felt the same way when I jumped into SEO!) For those of us (🙌) with never-ending to do lists—both personally and professionally—adding something else like SEO doesn’t sound appealing in the least. Well… that’s before you hear my conversation with Sarah Light! That’s because as a mom of five & a business of her own, Sarah knows a thing or two about prioritization & productivity. (She also knows the power of SEO.) Not only is she joining me inside SEO & Grow 🌱 as a guest expert, we created this podcast episode so everyone could have access to a timeless SEO resource.

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Transcript

0:06

Hello, and welcome back to the Basic Bee Podcast. I'm so thrilled to have you back here, and I've got a really fun guest to introduce you to. I'm joined by Sarah Light, who I met. I think it was in, like, 2019 or 2020. I don't know. It feels like forever ago. We're going to be talking about a little bit about her planner, because I use it, and I absolutely love it, and it has helped me do the thing that we're going to talk about, which is prioritizing different tasks. So today, we're specifically going to be talking about prioritizing SEO tasks, especially for those of us who are solopreneurs. We're wearing all the hats. We're doing all the things ourselves. And I really am excited to use this conversation as a resource for my students, my clients, but also you, if you're just, like, in my world, consuming the podcast. I'm so excited that you're here, and I want this to be a resource for you as well. So before I bring her on. Sarah Light is the creator of the Soul Planner, which is a paper planner designed to help entrepreneurs break down their goals into doable daily tasks so they know exactly what to focus on. She's a mom of five, and her husband is on the staff with Young Life, which is a nonprofit serving high school students. So their home constantly has young people in it, and Sarah is constantly feeding them. Sarah is focused on helping women reach their goals without sacrificing their core values, and primarily does that through her planner and her accountability program. My friend, I'm so excited to have you here. Thanks for having me. Yes, of course. I couldn't think of anyone better to talk about this with, so I'm stoked to get into it. I love talking about it. Thanks for letting me nerd out with you. Oh, my gosh, anytime. All right, so I'm going to ask you the question that I ask everyone, and as a reminder for the audience and for you, there are no wrong answers. Which do you believe is the most important for sales? SEO storytelling or social proof? Wow. That. That's pretty much always the reaction I get is like, oh, yeah. I mean, since we're on an SEO podcast, I feel like that's the answer, but my gut would have said storytelling. Go with storytelling. Tell me more about why that came to mind. Well, I feel like that helps you stand out and people connect with you. There's just so many brands out there, so. But they're not gonna find you if you don't have SEO. So. So the answer is that it is all three, like in my head, but there really, truly are no wrong answers. The reason I ask it is because I love seeing different perspectives. And like I said, like, why did your brain go there? Tell me a little bit more. So good job, Prabha. Well done. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, so obviously you have this planner. We're talking about prioritization and I would love to just start with like, do you have a message for anyone who possibly has, I don't know, like me, a never ending to do list? Yeah, I don't know if I've ever met a small business owner that completed all their tasks every day. So a never ending to do list I think a lot of people can relate to. And I really think that knowing what matters most to you, especially in this season, is the biggest thing. Because I mean, productivity kind of has a bad rap too. Like, how much stuff can you get done? Like, you don't want to just be a machine checking things off all the time. So I feel like as a small business owner, just our job is to figure out what the best and wisest use of our time is. It's a thousand decisions a day. So if your to do list looks like it's never going to get done or it's overwhelming, I just encourage you to just make a choice. Like first try something. Like, if you think this is the most important, just try it. Because the feedback you get from that, like, whoa, that was not the right thing. Or like, okay, yeah, yeah, I'm winning here. And look at the feedback and what's happening as just data. I think sometimes we're just like, oh, I failed. Or like, I didn't get my to do list done. And there's a lot of negative emotions around that. A never ending to do list can be a very negative feeling. But if you know what matters most, it helps you sort through some of those things and at least prioritize. I personally love to make a to do list and then rank my list like 1 to 10. Yeah, I mean, my to do list is way longer than 10, but I only rank like the top six to 10 items. And then after that I realize anything after this is probably not getting done. And I like have to come to terms with that. So I guess in terms of a message, just getting clear on what matters and ranking your to do list might be like a practical week to week task you could do or method you could do. I like that a lot. And that was actually one of my favorite parts of your Planner. I'm still going to be plugging this because I swear by this planner, I absolutely love it. It's like the prettiest, like, the bulkiest. I don't know. If you're a planner person, you're absolutely going to love it. But at the front of it, if I think. Yeah, it's always been at the front. I think you have this, like, checklist of values. And I did the same thing that you're talking about. Even with those, it's like, okay, what matters? And so I went through and I checked all of them, and then I ranked them and I found my top three, because that's something that we definitely hear a lot in the business world is like, okay, what are your top three values? What are your top three, like, guiding, whatever. And that was really helpful to see so many options laid out, but then to really think through that and throughout the year, use that as a filter of, okay, what really matters to me, what is really important in my life, to me, to others, in the way I want to show up and just, like, help others and exist in the world. Yes. And you don't realize, like, that I think there's 40 values listed on there, which. There's way more values in the world. But you can't have 40 values. Like, they can't all be important to you. So I have you rank it by most important, like, next important, and like, least important. Yeah. And you're right. It makes you, like, face like, what are the three most important things to me. Yeah. And I have people do that. Similarly with the three questions that I ask about SEO. And we'll tie this all together. Don't worry. Hang on. But the three questions I ask with SEO are who do you help? How do you help them? And what do you want to be known for? Or as. And the same idea there is. Use that as a filter for the types of things that people might be searching for, the types of ways that you could help people, the words that you want to be weaving in, but sticking with productivity and time management. And I know you have an interesting statistic about this, but, like, why do you think it is that so few people complete things? Whether that's a planner or a course or even seeing a goal through. Yeah. There's so many people that start a course and don't finish it. And as a planner creator, it's the number one objective I hear is like, I've just started so many planners and I never finished them. Yeah. Why is that? And science even shows us that only 8% of people reach their goals and 70% of Americans set a goal, like in January. That's like a really high number. The majority of us are setting a goal, but only 8% of us are actually reaching them. Like, that's so low. So can I, like, go through a couple things? It might take a second, but yeah, I have from researching. I love to research and learn, so I'm a big nerd. But there are four things that really can bump that 8% up. And I think this is why we have a hard time finishing some things, because we're dropping one or all of these things. So the four things. And this will increase your chance of reaching your goals from 8% up to 95%. Whoa. Yeah. So the first one is just writing your goals down. There's a lot of people actually set a goal and never write it down. I don't think that's most small business owners, to be honest. I think we're pretty good and we know that. But there are some. So we lose some there not writing them down. So write them down and then breaking them down. And I know you and I are going to go through like an example in a little bit, but not breaking them down and not breaking them down small enough. We lose some people there too. And then this is a surprising. Actually this is one of the most influential steps is telling a friend. It seems so, like warm and fuzzy, but it's. It's actually very important step in goal setting or following through on things. And it's just having some kind of accountability. Telling a friend or any kind of accountability partner and sharing your intention, like, I really want to do this and why, and then reviewing them regularly. You can review them regularly on your own, but it's even better if you review them regularly with somebody else. If you do those four things, it's almost a guarantee you're going to reach your goal. So courses that have like a live component that there's accountability showing up will have a greater completion rate. When you use a planner, if you shoot a picture of it to somebody or the paper itself is actually a form of accountability too, because you're writing down how you want to spend your time and you're looking at it. And even that is a type of accountability that helps you follow through. That is really fascinating that it jumps it from 8%, like actually seeing it through to 95. And none of this is like mind blowing. It's not like, wow, I didn't expect that. It's all like so simple. It's just easy to Ignore. It's always the simple stuff. Yeah. What is something that you wish more people, especially entrepreneurs, actually understood about time management and prioritizing tasks? Yeah, good question. I wish everyone could think of their plan or their goals like a map. And this is actually printed in the beginning of my planner. Like, think of your goals and your planner like a map. Especially like a map if you're on a boat. Sometimes when we're driving on a road, it's like more concrete, but life is not as concrete as that. So a picture, you're in the middle of the sea and you have a. Have a map and like, you need to route out your plan on how to get there. But you know so many things are going to come up. There's going to be a storm you have to avoid. There's going to be winds that blow you off course. Like, there's going to be those things. And so I wish people looked at their goals and their planner like a live map. That is just. It constantly is rerouting. And that's okay. That's why it's there. It's like a live thing you need to be interacting with all the time and adjusting and changing. And that doesn't mean the plan is failing. You're just working with it. If you never had the map, there's no way you would get to your destination. You would be blown so off course for years. You'd be lost at sea. And some of us feel that way. We're lost at sea. Yeah. So if it doesn't go according to plan, that's okay. But having the plan is still important. I really like that visual because it's so true that it's more of a map and you're out to see and you've got the storms and you've got the waves and you're obviously going to be knocked off course. And it's not just once, it's going to happen multiple times. That's right. I'm laughing so much because I'm thinking about the last year that I had and it's been a hot mess. And it feels like there were like storms after storms after waves after sharks after, like, get in the lifeboat, get back in the boat. Oh, my gosh. Make sure everyone gets on that other ship with you. Yeah. That's the whole thing. Cling to a buoy for dear light. For a couple days. Yeah. No, I feel like that is such an applicable visual and it really helps because I'm definitely someone where I'll set a goal and if I don't hit it. Or if I miss something on the planner. I have historically done the whole, like, shame spiral. It's like, you suck. That wasn't good enough. What were you thinking? You didn't add that. So it's a great reminder that we're not failing, that we should expect that things are going to happen, because that's just how life goes. Yeah. And that we're rerouting. I'm thinking about, like, you know, the Siri rerouting. Yeah. Like, I love when she comes on and reroutes. I'm like, oh, good. I don't have to turn around. I can just keep going a different. A different way. Oh, that's so good. I have a lot of people that are coming in and they want, you know, more time, more money, more attention to build their authority. And SEO can definitely support all of these goals. It helps you get in front of more people, make a bigger impact, save time, feel more productive, because your stuff that you're making is actually out there helping you market for years instead of the 24 hours that we typically get with social media. So, I mean, just hearing all of that, is there any, like, mistake or, I don't know, almost like a bad way of approaching SEO? Good question. So I think what I notice, and you might even have this on your own to do list. Someone listening is because I had it on mine for a while, it was improve my website SEO. Like, that is a great intention, but if that's on your to do list, like, what the heck do you do to actually improve your website SEO? We have to go way smaller than that. So I think improve website SEO might be a great goal, like your annual goal or maybe a quarterly goal. But on your to do list, it needs to look a lot different. And I know from working with you that the first step was to do an SEO audit because we need to find and fix the errors that are already there. But even SEO audit is still too broad of a to do item. Yeah, maybe that's like part of a monthly goal is performing the SEO audit. So what would it look like to go even smaller than that? It's different for everybody, but I think it could be like research SEO experts, and since they know you already done check that off. Okay. Next would be to contact Brink, that is to contact Brittany and reach out to her. Those are things you can check off. Scheduling a call with you, like actually getting it on your calendar, that's something they can check off. And then once you do the audit for them, reviewing it with you, you Want to go so small that the task, the thing that you need to cross off could fit into a work session. And you might have 15 minute work sessions. You could have like multiple hour long. You can have a whole day long. So everyone is different. If you are like me where you're have a large family and your business is like less than 10 hours a week, I have very small work sessions and so my to do items have to be very small and most people don't go small enough. So go so small that you could check it off within a work session. So after the SEO audit and after they review it with you, then it would be what, fixing the errors? Actually working through. Yeah, working through the report. And that is one thing that I do for the done for you side of things. But also I'll be talking about this in the group coaching program is what are these errors? And then prioritizing those. And this is the benefit of working with an SEO person. Some of them it's like, yeah, that's not even worth your time to do that thing. Yeah, like nothing is generally a burning fire. But we want to make sure people can get to the pages, that they can get to other pages that they can contact you. You know all the things that is entrepreneurs were like, yeah, I want someone to be able to do that. Yeah. So if your to do item is fix SEO errors, that's still like way too big. I mean because the list could be. Very long, could be. So breaking that down even further and like you said, you probably walk them through this on how to prioritize it, but be thinking again about the season and what matters. Like if you have a big collaboration coming up, you might want to, I don't know, work on backlinks or I don't know what you would recommend, but depending on like what your business has coming up, you might have a collaboration, you might have a product launcher, you might have something coming up where Brittany will know what SEO pieces to prioritize. I usually don't recommend just going from the top to the bottom or going from the easiest and the quickest, but going for the what matters the most in the season, even within one item. Like fix SEO errors. Yeah, I like that a lot. And I mean even I had to do that myself when I went down the rabbit hole of SEO and I was like, I'm going to learn this, I'm going to master it for myself and then I'm going to help other people and kind of forget my own stuff. But when I did that, I started with SEO titles and meta descriptions. And I do have an episode where I dive into that. So I'll link that so you can look for the link. But those two pieces are what are showing up on those search results pages, which are either going to entice people to click over to your website or not. And of course we want them to. So those things really, really matter. Yeah. So is that generally the top priority? It's definitely one of the top ones that I encourage people to do because it's an easy place to add keywords. There are parameters, like there are character counts that you want to stick with for each of these and it's already out there on the Internet and if it's not filled in, Google and everybody else is going to auto populate something and you might as well tell them what you want them to know so that people again, they're more inclined to click over because they can see that you can help them. And I would think that's a big difference between like googling a checklist for SEO. Like make sure your website has these 10 things so you could go that route. Or working with you, you get that prioritization because you've asked them like, who are you? Who do you serve? How do you serve them? I'm assuming you use all that information to help them prioritize. So having a prioritized list already puts you way ahead and just like a checklist off Google. Yeah, it really does. And like you said, I think this is the brick wall that a lot of people run into is improve SEO, fix the errors, create content, build backlinks. There's a lot of questions that pop up immediately as I say those things. And a lot of us just shut down in that moment and it's like, okay, that sounds too hard. Yeah, no thanks. Or very technical like SEO. I know people always laugh because it's like what you're doing SEO, but you say you're not a techie person. Like, I'm really not. I know how to talk to people. I have a really good, like you were talking about. I have a really good indicator like in me where I've done this so many times with clients and with myself, where I'm like, I know what people need to see, I know the places that we really need to maximize, where we're putting in keywords, what we're saying, how we're saying it. So again, that's just like the shortcut of the benefit of working with someone is that you get the shortcuts and you have someone else helping you figure out what to prioritize. Absolutely. Such a big thing. Well, that's been really cool to be able to walk through that as we wrap up. Is there anything else that you want to highlight or bring to light for people? No, I just want to go back to remembering what matters most in this season that you're in and keeping in mind it doesn't have to be like your forever life. Like this matters my whole life, but just in the season. If you're a small business owner, your business is going to ebb and flow in season. So especially if this is the season for SEO, then you're in the right place. I love that reminder too, because that's one thing that with those three questions of who do you help? How do you help them? What do you want to be known for? Or as the topic of niching comes up a lot. And people have a very. It can be a very polarizing word. And people, what I notice, especially with working with my clients and students, as they don't want to pigeonhole themselves and one thing I remind them is like, you're not married to that niche, you're just dating it. So similar to what you're saying with you're in that season of what's important to you and how you're going to use that filter to run tasks through it. Yeah. So good. All right, tell us where we can find you online and then tell us about the planner and where we can find that too, because I definitely want to link that. Okay. Yes. My website is just soul planners.com and SOL is SOL planners, like the Sun. And I also have an Instagram which is just Soul Planners. But yeah, the 2025 Soul Planner is recently released. And if you're someone that has a goal and you want to track your goal and your time together, that'd be a great planner for you. It's so pretty and it's got, you know. So I've gone through my fair share of planners, and this one really holds up. I was using it as a massage therapist because I really loved the time blocks. And for a little while I was like, well, maybe I don't need this as an SEO copywriter. Nope, still need it. So it works whether you're an online business owner, whether you're new to planners, whether you've had some before. Like, yours is really robust, but in the best way. Like, you really do use this puppy. Thank you. It's a map and it's kind of soggy at the end of the year because it's so well used. Love it. But it doesn't look terrible at the end. She still looks cute. It really holds up. Yeah. You've put a lot of time and effort. I can tell. Into creating a product that really does last. Yes. Oh, my gosh. This has been so fun. Thank you so much for helping us talk through that and just breaking down the big giant I need to improve my SEO. Yes. Thanks for having me. Yes, of course. All right, I will catch you next time.