SEO Is NOT That Techy—Here's What It Really Takes

"I'm not a techy person, Brittany." I heard this SO many times recently—on coaching calls, in DMs, everywhere! And every single time, I want to shake them (lovingly 😂) and say: “NEITHER AM I!” That's a huge part of why I went into SEO in the first place.

But I also hear what's underneath that statement. You don't want to mess it up. You don't want to break your website. You don't want to do something you can't undo. I see you, I hear you, & I've got you.

In this episode, I'm breaking down what SEO actually requires (hint: it's not a bunch of dashboards or coding skills) so you can stop letting the tech fear keep you stuck.

→ Get the full show notes here!

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Transcript

Brittany Herzberg:

Hello and welcome to the Basic Bee Podcast. I'm your host and favorite SEO coach, Brittany Herzberg. Several times this week, during coaching calls, even in DM conversations, I heard the thing. I am not a techy person, Brittany. girl, look, neither am I. That's a big part of the reason I even went into SEO, because if I can do it, so can you. But I also hear what's under that statement. I don't want to mess it up, I don't want to break my website. I don't want to do something that I can't fix. I see you, I hear you, and I've got you. Period. That was the exact reason I hosted my first ever five day SEO Sprint this week. And it's why I'm doing it all over again in June. We're going to start that one 22 June, and if you sign up right now, you save $500. I'm just saying. So in this Sprint and there were 14 business owners, I walked everyone through finding the right keywords, creating effective SEO strategies, and getting all of that plugged into their site. And this coming week, we have one final bonus call where they'll be able to ask me any follow up questions and we'll get to talk about what monthly SEO maintenance looks like, which is the easy part. 

Now let me back up a little bit, because at the beginning of any SEO work with anyone, I ask them to get clear on their vision for themselves, for me, and for the bots that are going to be using the SEO strategies to understand who to put their site in front of. Because SEO doesn't start with broken links or fancy dashboards. At least I firmly believe that should not be your first step. That is a recipe to make things more confusing, which, funny enough, big agencies love to do. Shocker. Instead, SEO, if it's something you want to understand and feel encouraged to continue to check in on, should start with your vision. 

With that, here's what SEO actually requires. Clarity. What is your vision, Your ideal client, your offers, all of that good stuff. So this is how I phrase it in my world. Your who, AKA your clients, your groups of people that you're helping, your what, AKA your offers or products, or the transformation that you're guiding people through. And your why, also known as why you? Why are you their best chance at getting the thing? All of that comes together to give clarity to you, gives you a really clear focus on what you need to be doing. Focusing on how you're going to move this needle, what you're going to talk about where you're going to share things. It gives me again, a sense of clarity about what's going on in your world so I can better help you and better assist you and guide you and point out the keywords and give you suggestions on website page organization, even things like blog posts. So this is the foundation for a very specific reason. It can be very confronting, it can be very, oh my gosh, like make you honestly question everything. I have felt that when I'm answering these questions, clients have felt that answering these questions, that's very, very normal. There's a podcast episode that I recorded all about that to help kind of like talk you through that. If you start answering these questions and do find yourself just going, I don't know. So I'll link that below. But these things are very important again, like I said, for you, for me, and especially for those robots, like I said earlier, they're the ones that are crawling your website at lightning speed. They're crawling your entire online existence. And to get a sense of what it is that you do, why is your business here? Who needs to know about it? What's happening over there? So clarity, that's the first thing. 

It's also going to require a comprehensive approach. Same message everywhere. Your website, social media, profiles, podcast and or podcast interviews, all that stuff. You get the idea. They all need to make sense together. Especially now because the way you show up in AI searches is by ensuring that there's a comprehensive message, that all of your profiles, guests, spots, your online existence help to paint cohesively together. It's a team effort. This is a team sport. It's not just golf. This isn't the best example because they still have caddies. But just bear with me, okay? It's not just one athlete doing one thing to get the medal or get the thing. This is going sideways. But it's not just one person, it's a team sport. It's basketball, it's football, it's soccer, it's baseball. It's all of these pieces that have to play together so that you can have that success. So comprehensive approach, just making sure that what's on your website is what's on your social profiles, is what's on any directory listing, is what's on any kind of guesting stuff that you have going on. And of course, you know, if you've been around for a while that I say you start with your website because that's ultimately where we want people coming back to that is home based. That's what we want to drive people back to time and time and time again. 

Then we have consistency, but not in a like, gotta be doing something daily kind of way. Again, just by being consistent with your message, presenting a consistent picture of you, your business, your offers, your ideal client, your title, or like what you're called, your expertise, all of that is really helping to put out this really clear bat signal everywhere online. So that no matter what search bar someone is typing in, whether it's an Instagram search bar or a Spotify search bar or a Google search bar or something in an AI search engine situation like Claude or chat, you're showing up when and where you need to. And then, yes, there are small consistent actions you need to be doing each month. I've said before that SEO is a front loaded project. There is more work on the front end, especially because it's not typically something that has been done or has been done well for your business or your website before. But once you move into the monthly maintenance phase, we're talking a few things, just three things like fixing issues like broken links and not even doing all of that in the same day, but just as having that as a project that you're consistently working on, chipping away at either over weeks, over months, it's okay. Like SEO is this ongoing thing and finding and fixing issues are one of those things. It's kind of like an ongoing project. Another thing is creating content. And this can be way, way, way different from what we've been trained to do. On Instagram, you could post four blogs one month, one blog the next, and eight the following month. And that is okay. No algorithm police are going to come out and get you. You won't be demoted. Like nothing bad is going to happen. Oh, and by the by, your previous blogs are still going to be out there working for you. It is not content that dies after 36 hours like on social media. Same thing goes if you have podcast SEO going on, or even like YouTube videos that you're sharing and, and hopefully optimizing those for SEO as well. Last thing is checking in with your data once a month, which only takes about 30 minutes, especially if you use the data dashboard that I highly recommend, which will be linked below. This way you're seeing what's working, what's not, and you know exactly where to direct your attention. You know if you should pause your efforts with paid ads or with posting on threads, or if you should double down on blogging because you're getting found super fast for a certain phrase or something. So again, monthly maintenance, finding and fixing issues, creating and or optimizing existing content and reviewing your data. 

The final thing that is really truly required for SEO is courage. Because it can be pretty confronting to step into a new identity, which is just naturally going to happen. But it can also be really freeing to be your full self, to share your true vision for your life and your business, and to break free from some of the chains of things like limiting beliefs or a not so supportive social circle, whatever that looks like for you that you feel like is kind of keeping you stuck. And one of those limiting beliefs, for example, could be, oh my gosh, marketing on social media is the only way to do it. No, that is just flat out not true. But it's what so many of us have taken on to be as the truth. This is something I've been experiencing more and more and more as I get more refined on my messaging share hot takes like this one, even like the new branding photos and claiming things that I've only dreamed of. Like the whole SEO queen thing. I just thought it was cute and fun and it is. But it's got this energy behind it of hey, I know what to do here. You can rely on me, you can trust my process. Look, it's worked for this person and this person and this person. And that all starts with your ANSWERS to those three questions, which once again for the 5,000 millionth time is who do you help, how do you help them, and why you? So to recap what is actually required for SEO? Clarity, a comprehensive approach, consistency. But in not like a doing something every kind of day sort of thing and courage. 

Now where it does get techy are with things like broken links, page load time, duplicated SEO pieces, schema and other coded things, and again finding and fixing certain types of errors. Some of this is optional and most of it is stuff that most of my clients have learned to do, like the broken links and the SEO pieces. There's a tiny learning curve to it, but once you do it and see how to do it, your skills build and with that your confidence builds. But we are not starting out with the techie things. The most technical we get in the beginning, like working with me through my SEO and Grow method is setting up your Google Analytics and Search Console accounts if you don't already have them set up and then plugging in things in the back end of your site. That's it. 

So knowing all of that, here's what you can do today. A gentle step would be to download the SEO Playbook previously the SEO Basics Checklist you actually gotta face the lift. Get this. If you're brand, brand new to SEO and just wanna dip your baby toe in the water, there's a Google Doc and a video tutorial that welcomes you into the magical world of SEO. And from there you get weekly emails from me. But again, this is just like a gentle first step. A slightly more committed step would be to save your seat for the June five day SEO sprint. We start this on June 22nd and there's an amazing discount available if you sign up right now. This is where you want to go to get hands on support to get your website SEO done in one week. Not just understanding the concepts, but actually doing something about it. Like in a very big way that can move the needle in a super huge way for your business and your website. Finding the keywords, creating the SEO pieces and plugging them into your website with me there every single step of the way. 

Of course, reach out with any questions that you have about SEO in general to see if the Sprint is the best place for you. Anything, anything at all. You can find me on Instagram or you can text the show with the link below or if you're tuning in on the blog page. Hi. You can leave a comment below. I pinky swear that if I can do this SEO thing with the very limited technical things necessary, and that you can do this too. Next week's episode is actually a case study interview with one of the entrepreneurs who's been through the SEO and Grow program with me, which is basically the longer version of the SEO Sprint. So come back to hear everything she shares about her prior SEO experience, what the program was like, her favorite parts, and where she and her business are now that she's got SEO on her side. Go forth. You got this. And remember, I'm over here cheering you on on your SEO journey.