SEO Best Practice #2: Create Content 📝

We need to talk about 2 tiny emotionally-packed words: Content Creation

When I first started doing SEO for people, I knew I wanted them to have their website SEO solid, AND I knew it was important for them to create content like blog posts on their website. 

But I was so eager for them to “do” any kind of SEO that I wasn’t focused on a streamlined approach. Things have changed. Now I see how critical it is to approach SEO in a strategic way AND I’m no longer like “yeah, it’s fine if you don’t have a blog, your website SEO will be enough to support you.”

Nope. I’ve been proven wrong. So first—I want to apologize for ever saying that.

And now I want to talk through what you might be noticing—slower website traffic, less inquiries, etc.—& what to do about it. Let’s go!

LINKS & RESOURCES:

SEO Workshop Episode

The AI Thread

DFY Website SEO Optimization

Mini SEO Audit

SEO & Grow Group Coaching Program

SEO Case Study Template

Podcast SEO Download

Business Owners’ Guide to Blogging

DFY Blog Optimization

Write a review for The Basic B podcast & share a screenshot with me at hello@brittanyherzberg.com for a chance to win a Mini SEO Audit! 📝

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Transcript

0:03

welcome back to the Basic Bee Podcast. I'm your host, Brittany Herzberg, the SEO strategist you can count on to show you exactly how SEO can bring in new leads easily without you needing to chase people around. The gram hit burnout Want to rebuild your entire life? You know all the dramatic stuff. I am coming to you live post launch week. Those are always very intense weeks. If you've ever done any kind of launch, even if it's like a baby launch, you know exactly what I mean. There are so many incredible entrepreneurs ready to rock and roll with SEO in this July cohort and there are already five entrepreneurs ready to go for the November group. If you're interested in the SEO and Grow group coaching program. But July didn't feel quite like a fit. I want you to know that the next round is happening in November. I don't have the dates solid just yet, and that you can get on an extended payment plan. I'm offering a six month payment plan that allows you to lock in the current rate because I frankly have no clue if the price is going to stay the same or if it's going to go up for the November round. So just know that I am so pumped and you know I'll be back with more updates as the months unfold. For today, the topic is another best practice for SEO. We're talking creating content. I talked about this a bit in my SEO workshop and I'll link that episode below. Today I want to get into the conversations that I'm having why it's a bad idea not to create content. I have a bit of an AI tangent and of course we'll talk through what to do and what support options are available to you. When I first started doing SEO for people, I was honestly a little all over the place. I knew I wanted them to have their website SEO solid and I knew it was important for them to create content like blog posts on their website. And and I was just so eager for them to do any kind of SEO that I wasn't focused on a streamlined approach. Things have changed. Now I can see how critical it is to approach SEO in a prioritized, step by step manner. And I'm no longer like, yeah, it's totally fine if you don't have a blog. Your website SEO is going to be enough to support you. No, I've been proven wrong on that. So first I want to apologize for ever saying that. And now I want to talk through what you might be noticing and what you can do about it. Some of the Conversations I'm having IRL with real people who have businesses are going like this. My traffic was doing great, but now it's falling. Meanwhile, they haven't posted a single blog since we talked. And I don't know, maybe that's you. Maybe you can relate to this next one. I don't have time to blog. Meanwhile they're panic posting daily to Instagram, feeling overwhelmed and and spread way, way too thin. I have more thoughts on this, so stick with me. Another conversation is I'm not ranking for XYZ keyword. Meanwhile they're again not blogging or creating content of any kind. And we'll get into what the different types of content can look like. But you cannot not create content, period. Search engines need to get to know you. Now I haven't ever been on dating apps, but I have friends who have. And I know that you have to share some information about yourself so the other person can review that and see if they want to get to know you more. Right? Blog posts are the professional version of this. You need to create content so Google and the gang can sense who you are, what you're all about, who you help, how you help them, what you're known for, all that kind of stuff. Step one of that is giving your website as a whole an SEO strategy. And that does help them big time. You may even see that spike in traffic like a lot of my people do. But the next phase of this is to create content. The fun doesn't stop once your website SEO strategy is in place. Let's zoom out for a second. The SEO and Grow method has three phases. Phase one is where you understand SEO. You're getting familiar with the basics, with how SEO works, and especially with how keywords work. Phase two is where you implement SEO on your website. You're really focusing on your website here because again, that's home base and that's where we want to drive people back to no matter where they're finding us. You're giving your site an SEO strategy here. Really thoughtful, really specific, really clear. Phase three, you're maintaining SEO. This is where content creation comes in as well as tracking metrics. But today we're focusing on content. The reason content is here in phase three is because your content is going to reinforce to Google that this is what you're known for and how you help people. This is your expertise. Look, this is what you've helped person ABC do. You don't really want to start with creating content because the lacking or not dialed in SEO strategy of your website will be confusing with whatever content you're sharing. Your entire digital footprint. I'm talking your website, your blog, your social media profiles. All of that need to feel cohesive and give an easy to understand picture to search engines. And you also don't want to skip content creation altogether because again, the sheer fact that you have your content on your site about your area of expertise is one thing that's showing the search engines that you can be trusted and that you do in fact know what you're talking about. All right, you're convinced you need to create content. But what should that look like for you? As always, in my world, you have options when it comes to creating content. If you like writing, create a blog post at least once a month for a more dramatic or faster impact. Aim for one to two blog posts per week. Do not panic. You do not have to do that many. But think of me, for example. I create these podcast episodes each week. Each week there's a guaranteed blog post that's going to be created from each episode. So I have a guaranteed four blogs per month. Anything on top of that, if I take an email and I repurpose it as a blog post, that is bonus, that is on top, that is additional. But at least having that cadence, that pace is really perfect. Okay, so speaking of this, if you like talking, start a podcast and then turn each episode into a blog post. If you are listening to this and you're like, but Brittany, I've been podcasting for God knows how long and I have so many podcast episodes. What do I do? You could, if you have a big enough team, or if you have the capacity, or if you have the support, you could go back and turn every single one of those podcast episodes into a blog post. Or you could focus on your top 10 podcast episodes. Or if there are certain podcast episodes where you're like, man, I really wish more people were seeing this and absorbing this information, focus on creating those, turning those into blog posts. Your frequency is going to depend on you, your life, your capacity. But I will say I've seen the best results when podcasters release weekly episodes and in tandem with that, release weekly blog posts. Like turn each episode into a blog post. If you like being on video, get on YouTube and create a blog post on your site for each video. When you create these blogs, you're able to give the website visitor all of the goods in one place. The video, the links, your summary, et cetera, and even link to other pages on your site. Plus, those video views count toward the YouTube metrics as well. Same goes for podcasts. So when someone listens to your episode on your site, it still counts as a download on your podcast host timeout. Because we need to talk about the big giant elephant in the room. AI. I am not anti AI, nor am I. AI is the be all, end all. It's like the best thing ever. I'm Goldilocks. I'm right in the middle. And there are things we need to talk about. Two things in particular. First is that yes, I am seeing AI impact people's website traffic. It's also summer as I'm recording this and we had the 4th of July in the US traffic is down with many websites. I'm also seeing websites that have a lot of traffic going up. So wherever you land on that, just know that either of them could be happening. We have the seasonal impact of summer and we have something called zero click searches that are happening. So zero click searches, if you're not familiar with this term, it's where people are seeing those AI overviews at the top on a Google search, for example, and they're like, that's enough information. I don't need to click on a website. So they're getting their information, but they are not clicking on anything because they have that AI overview at the top. I really want you to think about what are blog posts, what is content that I could create that would dig deeper than something that would be a surface level question or a surface level thing that someone might be searching for? What is that deeper thing that I could focus on that would get people to my website? Actually coming to that blog post to learn more, to read more, to explore more. Because that's where the money is, my friend. So yes, I'm seeing these zero click searches, but I'm seeing that lead to more interested, more serious leads actually coming to websites. They're buying digital products, signing up for email lists, joining memberships, filling out inquiry forms. They are taking a next action after coming to that website. I have one client whose Traffic dropped about 25% and yes, we both know that his traffic was largely coming to his site for the free stuff. So the way I'm seeing things play out with him in particular is that the fact that these people are dropping off, maybe it's a little bit of dead weight or fluff. The people who just wanted free stuff, they're getting cut. So that's what I'm talking about with the AI overview. How can you go deeper with some of the blogs that you're creating? We're in an adjustment Period. With his site. All of us are in an adjustment period because again, AI is new, it's evolving, it's on the scene, it's not going anywhere. But we're all kind of figuring out, what does that mean? These are just some of the things to keep in mind because maybe the same is true for you. Maybe you are seeing a drop in traffic, but what's the context? What's the full picture? Zoom out for me, what is really going on? The other big thing that I want to emphasize is that your website, your blog posts, without those things, AI does not exist. AI is pulling from content that already exists. It is not a sentient being. It is not something that has its own thoughts, has its own experiences, has any of that. It is pulling from content that already exists. The absolute worst thing you could do right now would be to give up, to stop creating content or to stop before you even get started creating content. You do that, you definitely don't have a chance of showing up in any place where someone is searching for what you offer the type of content you want to double down on. Like I said, it's going to be going deeper in different aspects of things. So it's going to be more results focused, it's going to be more story focused, it's going to be more experience focused. This is going to look like you talking about your process or the results you've gotten for clients or how you got started doing this thing that you're doing. AI cannot and will not ever be able to create this content, that type of content. It won't. That's why we're seeing more and more and more people talking about authenticity. They want the real and it's time to get real. Friend. What are your thoughts? What are your opinions? What are you noticing? What bold claims have you avoided making? How are you actually impacting someone's life and or business? Truly take some time, write those things down and then go be bold. I've been doing this more recently and I'm honestly shocked at the response. People are loving it, they're eating it up and they're asking for more. And little old me was over here just happily avoiding that and not rocking the boat. But I've been giving this a try and after getting this feedback, I am so dedicated to this and I am so much more confident in what I have to say. And that can happen for you too. I posted some extra thoughts about AI and SEO on thread, so I'll make sure to link that post below for you as well. Our final Stop. What kind of support is available to you if you want to get your website SEO in tip top shape, you've got my done for you SEO service or the mini SEO Audit if you just want to dip your toe in the water. The bestest thing to do if you want to learn along the way is going to be SEO and grow. And like I mentioned, we're just getting started with the July round, but the November one will be here before we even know it. So if you want to secure your spot for that one, let me know. You can DM me on Instagram, it's brittneyherzberg. Or you can fill out the form on my contact page and I'll get in touch with you. If you already have your website SEO right and tight, it's time to move on to content. If you want to DIY this, you have a few options. You could grab the podcast SEO Download which will help you turn podcast episodes into blog posts. There are video trainings in there and there are templates and checklists and all kinds of goodies in there. Or you could get the Business Owner's Guide to Blogging which will give you everything you need. Again, more video trainings, more templates, more checklists to create optimized blog posts that drive sales. Or you could get the SEO Case Study template which will show you exactly what to do to share more of those stories. The story based content the client wins in a way that actually gets people flocking to your website. Or you can inquire about done for your blog optimization and I'll say I only have a couple spots available for that right now, so if you're interested, fill out the form on my contact page and again I'll get back in touch with you. No matter what, know this content you create with SEO in mind will attract more of those dreamy aligned clients you actually want to work with who are actually looking for you and actually happy to pay you for what you're offering. You get a way better return on your investment of time, money and effort when you create long lasting content with an SEO strategy. I will leave you with that and until next time, I'm cheering you on on your SEO journey.