In this episode we dive deep on the subject creating a website and why the first thing we do when building a new website is SEO Research and Strategy – before design and before picking what pages we think we need. Search Engine Optimization, otherwise known as SEO, is mistakenly done last by many owners and we want to help fix that to the benefit of any business owner that applies this knowledge.
In this short episode we obliterate certain myths while providing ationable advice anyone can take to improve their website, rank better and grow their business.
Chad:
Okay. This is the Worry Free Marketing Podcast. This is Matt and Chad. We are the co-owners and
founders of Worry Free Marketing. A pretty good marketing company as far as I’m concerned. What do
you think, Matt?
Matt:
We don’t suck, that’s what our clients say. I think that’s most of the testimonials, “They don’t suck,”
Business Owner A.
Chad:
The purpose of this podcast is really to help people who … They might be business owners, they might
have a role of running the marketing of the companies. We are attempting to provide knowledge to you
that you can use to improve your marketing results.
Matt:
Yeah.
Chad:
Would you say that sums it up, huh?
Matt:
Yeah, I think so. One of the ideas we have here is that after decades in business and sales and almost a
decade having a digital marketing company and helping hundreds of businesses across six key industries,
that we have forgotten how much we know.
Matt:
And both of us, when we sit down and have a conversation with business owners, some of the things
that they will bring up as challenges, sometimes it’s technology related or marketing related.
Matt:
Or they’ll say, “I don’t know how to reach this market or do that.” Very quickly, it’s sort of almost matter
of fact sometimes for us to say, “Oh. Well, yeah. You know, you, blah, blah, blah.” And they go, “What?”
I had a client once, a prospect, still a client. It was four years ago, and they were looking for a new
marketing company.
Matt:
They weren’t with us yet. And one of the other marketing companies they found wanted to charge them
$30,000 to fix something. It had something to do with a bunch of broken links on their website. And I
looked at the problem in this meeting and I said, “I’d love for you to give me $30,000, but I’d rather it be
because we’re helping you create your future. Do you want me to tell you how to fix this problem for
free so you don’t have to spend any money on it?”
Matt:
His mouth hit the floor. His jaw dropped. And I told him exactly what to do. It took a couple of minutes
to explain. He went off and had his developer do it, and the problem was completely fixed and they
hired us within a week and they’re still with us. And so it’s that kind of a thing. You forget what people
are running into. So from that, we’ve got this podcast and we want to try to help people out and drop
nuggets of wisdom wherever we can to help people.
Chad:
Right. Yesterday we established that we were going to start discussing how we analyze a website to see
what improvements could be made and how it could get better results, with the idea being in mind that
the website is not a brochure. It’s not like a static thing.
Chad:
It is an actual … It’s a machine that attracts a certain type of prospect, runs them through that machine
and pops them out the other end as a prospect, as a lead. That’s kind of the view that we have of
websites. And so a lot of times our first interactions with a potential client for us will be … They’ll
request that we look over their site and offer suggestions.
Matt:
Right. Yep.
Chad:
I thought it might be interesting to kind of break down. This will be … We can’t do it all in one episode. It
would just be too disgustingly long, but we can break down the four basic components of what we look
at and kind of discuss each one of those so that anybody who’s listening could then turn around and
take a look at their website and go, “Oh, I see.”
Matt:
Right.
Chad:
Kind of do their own analysis.
Matt:
I think that would be helpful. They could at least then take a look and see whether or not the basics
were in place. We do see people spending a lot of money trying to make their website successful when
these basic categories and components you’re talking about are not well-covered, and so it ends up
being a waste of their precious marketing funds. So yeah, I think that’d be great for them.
Chad:
Right. I was thinking about this one, because the first thing we’re going to talk about, and it made me
laugh. The first thing we’re going to talk about is SEO.
Matt:
Okay.
Chad:
That’s one of the first things that we look at when we pull up a website and
Matt:
Let’s spell that out. So, SEO: search engine optimization.
Chad:
Search engine optimization.
Matt:
Define that too, right? And then we’ll …
Chad:
Yeah. This is the actions taken to make a website visible to your prospects.
Matt:
Right, on search engines. Yeah, so that people find it. Not just when they’re Googling your company
name, but especially when they’re searching for solutions or generic terms. Okay. Go ahead.
Chad:
Precisely, precisely. And I got kind of excited when I started thinking about it, because sometimes when
we do a website analysis, you can get super into the weeds on this. You might’ve heard … If you’ve ever
talked to an “SEO person” and they’re throwing around a bunch of language and terminology and talking
about what you’re going to be doing with SEO.
Chad:
Ongoing monthly Bacharachs and all this kind of stuff, it can be like a rather confused issue. But
sometimes SEO comes down to really simple, basic things. It started to make me laugh.
Matt:
Okay. Like what?
Chad:
You remember.
Matt:
Are we going to name names?
Chad:
No! No, I don’t think we should. I just remember one time you gave me a prospect to look at on their
website. This is one of those things that I get kind of passionate about because I’m looking over the site
and this fairly … I mean, by any standard, it’s kind of an attractive site.
Chad:
There’s nice language on it sensibly. I’m sure that the owner was very happy with the site because it said
over and over again how they provided innovative financial solutions to address risk management in
groups or something like this. Remember that one?
Matt:
I’m not remembering exactly which one, because we’ve actually helped a lot of people in that category,
and most of them suffered from exactly what you’re talking about. And so it’s more like, do I remember
those ones.
Chad:
This is the funniest aspect of SEO to me, Matt, is that someone can wonder, “Well, why am I not getting
enough site traffic? I need to hire this guy,” and he ends up spamming Russian blogs to post to
your site onto the comments or something in an effort to get your site ranked well or whatever.
Chad:
And meanwhile, I’m digging around on the site and I’m getting more and more frustrated because I can’t
figure out what the fuck this guy sells.
Matt:
Oh, yeah.
Chad:
Like, what does he actually do? I can’t figure it out. Finally, after digging through numerous links and
clicking on all sorts of pages, I figure out, “Oh, this guy sells insurance.”
Chad:
And so the entire analysis regarding their SEO came down to ‘tell people what you sell.’ Just say the
word insurance. You don’t need to make up a new language or use euphemisms for what it is that you
sell.
Chad:
And to me, this is something that again, when we’re talking about as a business owner, you kind of get
so close to the problem that you start to try to create additional language or try to make what you do
sound exciting. But that is exactly the opposite of what you need to do from an SEO perspective, which
is tell people what you do.
Matt:
Yeah. What do we find on that? That’s such a good point. It’s creating the language of your website. You
can either create it like other financial advisors are reading it, or you can create it like your prospects
and customers who really don’t know about this subject.
Matt:
They don’t have their series six. They haven’t gone in, done their study, done their licensing. CPAs,
financial advisors, oftentime attorneys, information technology professionals. They make websites that
sometimes would make other professionals in their exact same sphere jealous. You know, like if you’re a
financial advisor, you’d laugh.
Chad:
Yeah! Right, right, right. They’re talking to other financial advisors.
Matt:
Right. There’s an [crosstalk 00:09:27] thing going on there. They’re like, “I want to have a website that
talks the most about how I assess multi-generational family units and their risk management aversion
strategy.”
Chad:
Oh my God, [crosstalk 00:09:39].
Matt:
Properly capitalize equity, like, wait a second. What do you do? It’s like, oh … And you can actually talk
about, because those are all features. To your point, you can not only … I talk about this a lot but you
have people talk about features and benefits.
Matt:
You can actually talk about the impact of those benefits and do it really well. Like you sell insurance, and
so what’s the benefit? Well, you’re covered if something happens. What’s the impact on the life of you,
or if you pass and your family …
Matt:
We’re talking about life insurance for a second. If you pass away, what is the impact on your family
because you had insurance? You can talk about these things without getting into multisyllabic devil
speak. That would really fit well in the novel 1984.
Chad:
Multisyllabic. That’s a such a nice word there. That’s really good. You did that right.
Matt:
Thanks. Wait, am I guilty of it? Did I just do it?
Chad:
No, no, no.
Matt:
[crosstalk 00:10:35]. is that too much?
Chad:
Yeah, there’s a balance there. Right? I know that some people are very concerned about using language
that’s representative of their brand or whatever.
Matt:
Sure.
Chad:
But at the same time, you got to recognize when you’re looking at your website, you got to strip away
and kind of pretend, “Okay. I’m looking for dentistry. My teeth hurt. My teeth hurt.” Does the website
say that you can handle the guy’s teeth when they hurt?
Matt:
Right.
Chad:
How simple can you get? It flies straight over the head. I’ve seen guys pay thousands of dollars a month
to handle their SEO. And then you go look at their site-
Matt:
Oh, yeah.
Chad:
… and it’s like, oh, you don’t say where you are. You don’t say who you are, what you do. It’s so core
basic, I start stuttering because it makes me so angry.
Matt:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Chad:
So as far as a piece of advice goes-
Matt:
Keep it simple.
Chad:
Keep it simple. Take a look at your site, read it as though you didn’t know what you did and you were
looking for it. Can you discover what you do?
Matt:
Yeah. Can you discover what problems you solve? What is the generic term for the item you sell or the
service you offer? And is it as simply stated as possible? There’s something we should say here as a
critique.
Matt:
By the way, it started to rain. I don’t know if you can hear that, but it started to … That doesn’t mean
that you don’t say a lot about what you do. You still want to provide a lot of information. The ideal
website has between 300 and 500 words per page, but not a bunch of gobbledygook.
Chad:
Right. Right. Yeah. Corporate speak, definitely. This advice really, Matt, now that I think about it, we’re
talking 60 years ago. Pre-internet this advice existed.
Matt:
You’re talking about Confessions Of an Ad Man?
Chad:
I’m talking about [inaudible 00:13:15].
Matt:
[inaudible 00:13:15]. Yeah, exactly. You know who else talks about it, is Warren buffet. If you read his
advice on writing and if you’ve ever read Warren Buffett’s annual report, he’s like … And then multiple
people have said this, but don’t ever use a bigger word when a smaller word will do.
Chad:
Right. Yeah. Yeah. [inaudible 00:13:31] says the same thing. There’s that aspect of it. I think that is one
of the really important components of search engine optimization, because Google is quite literal.
Matt:
Oh, yeah.
Chad:
It’s ones and zeros looking at other ones and zeros, trying to prioritize ones and zeros. And so if your
‘about page’ is named about, Google knows quite firmly that this page is about …
Matt:
Yeah. They’re going to say, “Okay, about what?” And then go to the page and then read all the contents.
And if someone says services, they know it’s about services. They don’t know what kind of services it’s
about. They just know it’s about services. But if you said instead of services, if you said concrete repair,
and then you’ve talked about your concrete repair services.
Matt:
Well, right off the bat, Google knows you said this is a page about concrete repair. And then they go and
you talk about concrete repair and the problems and when to replace and when they will repair, and
how to maintain it. You get into an explanation there that really helps the customer go, “Yeah. These
people know what they’re talking about. I get it.” Well, Google is also going to have the same conclusion
and it’s going to bring people to your website.
Chad:
Right.
Matt:
Yeah. No, look, I get it. You have a homepage and it’s still called a homepage, but we would get more
technical if we went down this rabbit hole, because it’s always a homepage. Your business.com is a
homepage.
Chad:
Yeah.
Matt:
But the thing that helps you escape, Google being like ‘home is home is home is home,’ is what’s called
an SEO title. And it is what is the title in the background that you give to that page? When that page
appears in search is it just going to say home? Is it going to say concrete repair home, or is it going to say
…
Matt:
I’m going to keep using this concrete repair example. Is it going to say concrete repair and replacement,
Tampa, Florida. Is that what it’s going to say when it appears in search? You can control that. People
don’t realize. They can control how every single page of their website appears when it appears in search.
And doing so, Google is so appreciative when you do it because most people skip it, they just skip it.
That’s how you overcome that.
Chad:
Right. Yeah. 25 billion results for home in .99 seconds.
Matt:
Okay. So 25 billion, and then let’s use this other one. I said concrete repair, 455 million. So for now 455
million still seems like a lot, but 455 million is what percent of 25 billion?
Chad:
About 2%, I guess. We’re marketers, we’re not mathematicians.
Matt:
Well, no. That’s about right. So you get literally a 2% of the amount of results. Now you put a city name
in like Tampa, you’re down to 16 million results. I’m using Tampa because that’s where I am right now,
that area. I can see here, Tampa concrete contractor, driveway, stairway and patio repair. You can
control how it appears to people when they search for items, and specific is terrific. How about that?
Chad:
Right, right, right. Yep, specific is terrific. Let’s say that you actually do driveway repair, concrete
driveway repair in Tampa, Florida. Now you’re down to 8 million results.
Matt:
Interesting. Yeah. Like if you say sidewalk or more specifically the driveway.
Chad:
Right.
Matt:
If I say patio concrete repair in Tampa, we’re still around 16 million. But yeah, it stays very, very specific.
It stays in that zone, so it’s a good point.
Chad:
And the whole role really when you’re talking about SEO is to find those areas where there’s a low
competition for the word ideally, right? Where there aren’t that many people attempting to rank for a
certain search term.
Matt:
Right.
Chad:
But there’s a decent volume. And that’s one of the things that we look at, and I know that I just got
extremely technical and I just opened a can of worms there with two minutes left on this podcast.
Matt:
I know.
Chad:
I think what I’m going to do is I’m just going to recommend, “Hey, look, hopefully we gave you some
things to look at. But if you want, either one of us would be happy to look over your website and do a
website analysis.”
Matt:
Sure, sure.
Chad:
And it might be fun actually, if someone’s listening and they’d like some advice or if they have a question
that we can answer in a podcast. Or even if you want us to analyze your site on the podcast, that would
be pretty funny.
Matt:
Are they brave enough?
Chad:
Are you brave enough?
Matt:
We’re pretty nice, but no. Are they brave enough to have us sort of do it live? And I think they should,
because people would then get exposed to their business and could see kind of what we point out.
Matt:
We know that our prospects and our customers don’t know what they don’t know, and we love to
empower and educate. And so after our conversation with us or having us as a marketing company, our
clients are always smarter than when they started. And actually, so are our prospects; smarter after
talking with us. They know more, they feel more empowered than beforehand, and I think that can be a
powerful thing.
Chad:
Well, that’s right. The goals of when we do an analysis are to have you walk away with some actionable
things to do, even if you’re not paying us.
Matt:
Right. Right. Okay. Awesome. Well, we’re almost at that 20 minute mark where we like to kind of cut
ourselves off and it’s about how long it would take someone to drive to work or do a drive. So anything
we want to close out with specifically any?
Matt:
Our main call to action is keep it simple and speak to your prospects and not to your other industry
peers on your website. I said that nicely, and that’s our main takeaway. Anything else we want to close
out with?
Chad:
You can reach out to us via website worryfreemarketing.com. Either one of us,
chad@worryfreemarketing.com or matt@worryfree marketing.com. If you’re brave enough to have us
analyze your site via a podcast, definitely reach out to us and let us know.
Matt:
Awesome. I love it. All right. Thank you everyone for listening. Talk to you soon, Chad.
Chad:
All right.