The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 110. Making SEO Make Sense with Faith Hanan

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Something that we are always trying to do on this podcast (and with our students in the bootcamp) is explain more to you and help you understand more in regards to your blog. We have brought on Faith Hanan to help SEO make more sense! Faith shares more about her personal journey into SEO and the importance of producing content that supports your business goals. She shares more on keyword research, understanding your audience, originality in blogging, and how to make SEO more accessible for bloggers. If you want to learn more about SEO, tune in to today’s episode!Thanks for listening! Let us know your thoughts on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsWe would love to have you join us in the Ultimate Blog Membership in 2024. HERE is the link to join!Get 20% off of Keysearch Starter Plan using this link and code: KSDISCCheck out the show notes (link below) for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode110

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm, and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success, and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life, all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. One of the biggest questions and one of the biggest requests we get is how to know more about SEO, how to get more traffic to your website. And so today we're excited to bring on Faith to talk to us because she has some unique perspectives on SEO and writing content that will actually connect with your audience. Faith is a Jesus lover, wife, barrel racer, worship leader, accidental SEO expert, copywriter, podcaster, and wrangler of tiny humans. She has a very busy life. She podcasts at Simple SEO and Marketing. She shares practical tips on scaling your online business. And she believes that SEO should not require a Harvard degree. We agree

with that. So we're excited to learn more from you today. Welcome, Faith. Well, thank you guys so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and chat with you and your audience. Yeah. So tell us just a little bit about how you stumbled into learning more about SEO. Well, so I've always been like I'm a writer and a marketer by nature. And I'd started my own blog. And then I was like, Well, I want to do this for other people. So I started blogging for other people on I was taking on clients. And I got access to the back end of a client's website. And I remember looking at their traffic and they had an extra digit of traffic than I did. And meanwhile, I thought their website was so ugly. And I had just spent all this time and effort shining up my website and making it just so beautiful. I was like, why? Why are they getting all this traffic?

And so I just started digging into it. And the more I dug, the more confused I got. And I was like, what? What do these words even mean? Like, I feel like I need to put on my Urkel suspenders and like pocket protector and like go back to school to figure out what these words mean. But I just kept digging and digging and digging.

And then I had a client who hired me to fix a bunch of stuff, knowing that I didn't know all the things, but like that I'd figure it out. And I had just had this big epiphany moment while I was finishing up some of her SEO work. It took me hours to find simple definitions for some terms. And I just remember slamming my fist down on the table, my card table in my bedroom office and being so frustrated that none of it made sense to me. And I'm not stupid, I'm not dumb, but like why can nobody write these definitions in normal human language?

And so from there, I just started to literally construct at a whiteboard where I was writing out, okay, this is what they say this word is, this is what it means in normal human language. This is what they say this word is. This is what I mean. And so I just started doing that for myself. And then I was like, oh my gosh, there's so many people who this could help. And so I just started diving into more and more SEO stuff. And I got to experiment with, you know, client after client after client, and it worked. And then it worked again. And then it worked again. And I started seeing traffic increases in like 50% in a month, or 30% in three months, or 1300% in six months. And I just checked the client's analytics last week. And I've been working with them for

less than a year. And I've seen 6800% traffic increase in less than a year. And I was like, hundred percent traffic increase in less than a year. And I was like, this is so cool. And so, yeah, so that's kind of how the whole SEO journey has been. And it's been really fun to be able to take these things that I've figured out that work and put them into normal human language and help business owners grow their website traffic and ultimately sales because they're getting traffic with all the point in the air, booty shaking social media stuff. Yeah, I love it. I mean, we have a lot of people I think who can relate to so much of what you just said, a not having to like dance for social media. And then be like, SEO stuff being in another language. And it's not that they're not smart. It's not that they're not capable. But as

bloggers and online business owners, we have to wear so many hats. We have to learn so many things. So I love the fact that you've made it simple. So can you start with maybe just a few of the things that you've defined in a way that are, I guess, more meaningful and helpful to that beginner person who wants to implement some of this? Sure. What I'm going to do is I'm going to actually pull up my cheat sheet spreadsheet. Okay. Perfect. And I share because I'm like, listen, my brain is very full of all of the baby human things. And while you're doing that, I would love if you would start with just like a

super simple definition of SEO. Yeah. Yeah. So really search engine optimization is what SEO stands for. But really what you're doing is you're creating content in a way that gets found by the Googles. And it's really just formulating your great ideas in such a way that Google likes them and puts them in front of people. It's not supposed to be rocket science, but it has unfortunately turned into that. Yes, I think people have very much overcomplicated this and they dissect it in a million different ways. And I appreciate that for those that want to do that. But quite honestly, especially when starting out, a lot of people don't have time to spend 20 to 30 hours a week dissecting their keywords and SEO. I mean, it's just... It needs to be more approachable. And so I like that you keep it simple. I think that that's a win. And that sometimes we tell ourselves it has to be really complicated in order to do it well. We tell ourselves it has to be really complicated in order to do it well. And I like that you simplify it and say, just start where you are,

learn where you are, because we all have to start somewhere. So one of the words that I get asked about a lot is keywords. Like, what is a keyword? How does a keyword matter? Like, what's the difference between a long tail keyword and a short tail keyword? A keyword is simply the word or the phrase that you want to get found for. Like, period. That's it.

It's just the main focus of that piece of content and what you're hoping people find you for. And like keyword trend is a keyword getting more or less popular. Like Travis Kels was not popular in July. Now Travis Kels is hugely searched. Stuff like that. That's like, you just kind of need to know where people are going, where things are trending. Like HTML markup, like it's just simply how you structure a website using computer language.

And that's it. The headings map is like the hierarchy of importance and how Google categorizes the content on your website, which is important because you don't want the disclaimers at the bottom of your blog to get the same amount of credibility and focus as you do the title of your blog. So the headings map and the hierarchy there is important. And when you can use it correctly, it can really, really help you get found. A lot of people ask questions about alt text and how to use that for SEO. A lot of people ask about naming their images and indexing and like how to structure your site, orphan pages. I mean, we could, we could go on and have a whole spreadsheet. I'll give you a better.

Implementing keyword research and competition analysis into your content strategy is a surefire way to improve your chances of people finding your content. And we love how simple KeySearch makes it to find keywords we actually want to use in our posts. KeySearch is a powerful keyword research tool that makes finding relevant, low competition keywords for your blog simple and easy. If you think optimizing your blog and doing keyword research has to be hard, think again. Give this powerhouse tool a try and see how much easier it will be to create content for your blog. Not only is it reasonably priced even for beginning bloggers, but you can use our code for 20% off your subscription. Click the link in our show notes to learn more. So when you're thinking about creating new content, what is the place where you start?

Do you start with keywords and trying to figure out keywords that people are searching for? Or how do you get inspired in terms of what kind of content to create for your audience or your client's audience? So I do things maybe a little bit backwards, but I do it this way because I want to still enjoy creating content 10 years from now. I always start with why and like my why for my each client and why for myself, why am I in business? Why do I have this thing that I want to serve people with? And then I try to connect that to my customers. Why? Like, why are they buying things? Why are they searching for this? And when you can really get to the core of that, you can create a content wheel. I call it my wagon wheel method of just like all of the things that you can talk about to serve. Because ultimately, we're in business to serve people with our gifts. And so if

I can create content that serves people, then I can finagle words easily to be searchable. And so I honestly, I don't do keyword research until I am done with the outline and the first draft. I just write what I know is going to serve people. What I know is connecting with my, the why of my business, my clients, why, and probably some product or service because that's structured, you know, built into my why. And then I do keyword research. And so like, if I'm creating a piece of content around how to get more clients, and I do the keyword research, and I find that lead generation is a better keyword phrase for my business and my size, then I'm going to use lead generation instead of get more clients, right? Same idea, same content, but lead generation is getting searched and therefore found

more than maybe get more clients. That really is what it is. And I think that's what we mean when we say overcomplicate it is sometimes it is just a different play on words. And we kind of overcomplicate it to make it more than it needs to be. I use the example often from a couple years ago of I was making a recipe with sloppy joe stuffed sweet potatoes is what it ended up being. And Jennifer and I went like around and around with what to title this particular post. And that search term, that final thing is just that's what people searched more of. I think the initial thing was like sweet potato sloppy joes or something.

But it was adding the word stuffed that made that even better and made those search terms a little bit more adequate for my blog size and volume that I needed. And so it's just being creative in that. And I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we're sitting down to do keyword research. What are some tips that you would give people like when they when they're thinking about this, like what kind of mindset do they need to be in when they're sitting down to do keyword research? So I actually have people come up with terms, ideas for keywords before they even open a keyword research tool. Because I think we get in the keyword research tool and we're like, Oh my gosh, what do all these things mean? What are these buttons do? And then we just get like deer in the headlights look about content. And then we see all these keywords and we're like,

I don't know what to say about that. Whereas if you just like settle your noodles and write down some notes and come up with ideas of topics first and then research, everything's going to flow so much more naturally. It's going to sound more much more naturally. It's going to sound more like a human. It's going to come out easier. It's going to be better received. And just it's going to feel a lot less like work and a lot more like the fun that you started this business for. Yeah, because you have to have some joy in the content that you're creating. And I think that that that intangible thing comes through to your readers when you are writing blog posts, creating that content. They're going to know if you feel passionate about that, if you really feel excited about creating that versus like you're just

creating it because you saw the keywords and so we were just going to fill in a gap. I think that's important to feel that and to keep yourself going and to feel inspired. So we often talk about just kind of like having a notebook and writing down ideas as they come. And then you'll get inspired by all kinds of different things, whether it's somebody emailing you a question, or you're getting a comment on your blog, or you see something on social media. And you're like, well, I have a solution for that. So just always staying open and inspired and keeping ideas written down,

I think is a great place to start. Yeah. Now, when you actually sit down to write a blog post, I think a common thing that people are struggling with right now is people are using a chat GPT, some kind of other AI to write out their content. They're questioning themselves, kind of other AI to write out their content. They're questioning themselves, should I be doing that? Do I just need to write like this, I don't know, kind of boring outline because that's what Google wants? How do you suggest sitting down to write a blog post? What are the most important components that you see into creating a blog post that is going to be received well by your audience, but people are going to be able to find original content, original content. I mean, yes, chat GPT is a thing. It has changed the landscape, but Google's also not stupid. Like they can see, oh, there's 900,000 blogs,

all with the exact same content on this one topic. And then yours that you're talking about baby poop flying against the wall while you're changing your kid or whatever, like, like, whatever your, whatever your original story is, that's going to stand out. And that's going to make a difference. And all you have to do is structure it in a way that makes Google happy. I mean, I honestly hardly ever use AI, or chat GPT, like if I have to, like, if I'm desperate for ideas and I need just some more title ideas or just a few other things, I'll hop in there. But I would, I hate editing like with a burning fiery passion. So I would rather write like 10 brand new things from scratch than to have chat GPT generate something for me and have to edit it. Like, it's just not my style,

which I know is not everybody's. So I think you can use ChatGPT or whatever AI tool you like strategically. You can use it to start ideas or refine ideas, but you really cannot use it to just be like, write me a blog, okay, bye. I totally agree with that. I think that's where bloggers are going to get into trouble, honestly, if they do that. I think that we are on the forefront of not knowing the ramifications that could come down the pipeline here if we utilize AI in that way. So I think that what you're sharing here and your thought process on that is really important. That yes, we have these tools nowadays that can help us create content. But at the end of the day, original content is still very necessary.

And you can get in a lot of trouble if you are not producing original content. So not to be like party pooper here, but that just is what it is. And original content is really important. And that's how your readers are going to connect with you as well. I think a lot of times people think that with keyword research, they feel like they lose the fun in blogging. And they're not able to write about the things that they want to write about. I like that the way that you've shared this is that you can write about the things that you want to write about, write about it, and then brainstorm your keywords after. I think this is really the solution for people that that's their goal, that they feel like that's what they want is to be able to write. A lot of people start blogging to write and then feel like they can't continue to do that.

It's just a different way of looking through a different lens of how you're going to create your content and maybe doing it kind of this... I'm going to say backwards, but you know what I mean. This backwards way, then it just gives you a different lens to look through when you're sitting down. And maybe it allows you to feel more creative in your process versus the person who does their keyword research first and then creates the content. I think what's really important with SEO is understanding that different strokes for different folks. We're each going to have something that impacts us.

And that is the answer in our business. So if you're listening to this today and you just have not been able to figure keyword research out, like you just have not been able to do it, I think that this is a really good way to think of it in an out of the box way. Yeah.

And if you're using a tool that doesn't make sense to you, find a new tool. Yeah. There are so many out there. I love Ubersuggest because it's a one-time fee. Ain't nobody want to be paying 200 bucks a month for a keyword research tool. That's precious, but I have a lot of other things I want to spend money on right now. And I like Ubersuggest gets

a one-time fee. It makes sense for my brain and I can just hop in there, do keyword research and be done. And there's just so many tools. It's like, if I've learned anything in the last several years of business, it's like, God gave me this brain for a reason. I need to create processes that work for my brain and my strengths instead of just bucking the system and trying to be somebody that I'm not and do things in a way that I'm not wired to do them. And for keyword research, that's just that's worked really well for me. And that's obviously been successful for you, too. I mean, you've seen lots of improvements in traffic and all of that. I think the one

question I want to clarify is when you're talking about creating original content, I think people get confused. How much of my story do I share? How much of this is focused on the problem I'm solving for someone? How do you find story do I share? How much of this is focused on the problem I'm solving for someone? How do you find the good balance in creating that content that's optimized, but still like infusing your own personality into it? That's a good question. Well, I don't have any problem infusing personality into things, right, wrong or indifferent. I just am who I am and what I am and God bless me. Love it.

My husband's like, oh my gosh, you did not just say that. I was like, I did. It came out. I'm sorry. For me, it's like, if I am writing about something, I'm doing it because I have something to say in a didactic teaching manner. I'm not just fiddle farting around saying stuff to say stuff. I'm pretty straightforward, you know, straight shooter. And so if I have something to help somebody, I probably have some life experience to back that up. And so no, my blog posts for myself and for clients are not going to be 9000 words. I'm not giving you my life story with every point. But if I have a three point, you know, three tips for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I probably have

some either fatty failures or decent successes to use as illustrations there. And then I really do. I believe in infusing my voice in everything I do because ultimately my clients are going to connect with me. Like there's a bunch of SEO people out there, but not everybody, you know, talks the way I talk and breaks things down the way I break things down. And that's okay. Right? Like they can have their people and I can have my people and God bless us all. But if you're not writing in a way that sounds like a human, you're probably not going to connect with humans. At the end of the day, you're going to keep those people coming back to your blog more and more. And instead of just writing to the people that you're trying to get new traffic to your site from Google, you're actually going to maintain a

lot of those people because they come back to you because they know they can connect with you. They understand your story. They feel like they can relate to you. And in my business, honestly, the more I've just not cared and not given a darn, my give a darn has been busted for a long time. So there's that. But the less I've cared about fitting into the mold, the more my business has grown. And the more I've connected with people who are the right people. for bloggers especially to wrap their minds around is when we start blogging, we want to connect with everyone. And what we slowly have to learn is that we're actually going to be more impactful when you know who you're talking to exactly and how you can serve them. Instead of trying to be everything to everybody, ask yourself, how can I show up for the community that I'm meant to create and create the content for the people who really need to find it that I can relate to the most. Your website is your own personal thing.

It's your baby. It's your space on the internet. You own it. And I think that owning how we are connecting with our people is really important. It's a really important piece of that. And you can share as much or as little of your story as you want. But knowing that, I think, taking the time to see... Because I think we do live in a day and age that you have to focus a little bit on keyword research. We can't just sit down at our computer and write to write. As much as I would love to tell you that we can do that, gone are those days of blogging. That's okay. You can, but not if the goal is monetization, most likely. So if monetization is the goal, if building the business is the goal, if driving traffic is the goal, then this is a part of your business that you're going to need to incorporate.

And finding somebody who you connect with is important. And yes, there's lots of different SEO experts out there. And everybody kind of has their own take on things. So I think the important thing with making sure especially here on the podcast, what we share is that there's a lot of different ways to learn about it, too. So what kind of things do you share like on your podcast as well? I would love to just kind of showcase that for a little bit here that kind of help break that down for people as a way that they could connect and learn a little bit more about SEO. Well, honestly, I don't hold much back on my podcast. As far as like, this is how you do it. Point by point, step by step style. I

just recorded one for a launch where I was like, here's how you can check how effective your keywords are for free. And I did like a click here, type this, click here, type this type of step by step because I just, I need things broken down. And I know when I can just be like, okay, step one, step two, step three, that's super helpful for me. And if somebody can walk away from my podcast with actionable steps that move the needle forward in their business, even if they never spent a dime with me, then I've still accomplished my purpose. and their business, even if they never spent a dime with me, then I've still accomplished my purpose. And so I really try to break things down into super simple, but actionable things. And I mean, I can sit and talk about anything forever. Very Gabby, very multi passionate,

but I try to just cut to the chase and get to the rat killing in about everything I turn out there because I don't have time to sit and listen to an hour and a half long podcast. Right. So I mean, I just assume nobody does. I mean, maybe they do, but I sure don't. Yeah, I think that's appreciated, especially around this topic that can be so nuanced and so confusing to so many people. So let's just talk about it from a beginner's point of view, somebody who is like, okay, I think I can do it this way that she explains. What are the first three tips that you would give somebody who is like, okay, I think I can do it this way that she explains. What are the first three tips that you would give somebody who is going to say, okay, I'm going to focus on keyword research in this way? What are like the first three steps? Like do this, this, this, just to simplify it for anybody who might be in that boat today. So I think you need to be really honest

with yourself about the size of keywords that you can go for. And I've created, I've actually formulated a formula because I was like, okay, this is, this is what works for these people. And this, these people, these people, I've included that in my course, because it's like a little bit to break down. But be honest with yourself, because we all want to go for those like 500,000 searches a month keywords, like, it ain't happening. Yeah, right. Right. And so it's better to get found for, you know, in a smaller pond than to get lost in a big pond. And so be honest with yourself about the size of keywords that you need to go for.

And then you have to, have to, have to please, for the love of all things holy, have some keywords in your page titles, your main website page titles. I have seen those changes alone going for the right size keywords and then formulating your page titles correctly. I have seen those changes alone double somebody's traffic in 30 days. Oh, wow. And I mean, like I'm sitting back there like,

whoa, I didn't know it worked that good. Like I knew it worked, but I didn't know it worked that good. You know, sometimes just as shocked as everybody else at how good it works. But even those two changes alone will make a huge difference for your traffic. And then formulating your blog posts in such a way that they're SEO friendly.

Because a lot of times people will be like, oh, I have this thing to say. And they just word vomit a Word document onto the internet. And nobody's finding it because they haven't written their H2s and their H3s and their P text correctly. And they're just, you know, hoping it floats around and gets found for the right things. So including the right size keywords in your page titles and then formulating your blog posts with your H1, H2, H3 and P text correctly formatted

so that it gets found makes a huge difference. And those are just such simple things to start with. Like you said, we're making it so complicated. And I think just really, like for anybody who's feeling overwhelmed by this, just really starting with these basics and just working with things that you feel inspired with. I think that's the best place to start.

And sometimes I tell people like, go back to your high school English days where you had to outline an essay with the Roman numerals and like this is the this is Roman numeral one and then your thesis statement like put your brain back in that box and that will help you structure a blog in really like a five paragraph essay format. God bless our English teachers and then just put your keywords in there correctly and you're pretty well good to go.

Welcome to 2024. Is this the year that you want to go all in with your blog? Are you ready to learn new things and connect with other bloggers to level up your business? If you're ready, we are ready for you in the Ultimate Blog Membership. The Ultimate Blog Membership is our blogging membership that is for the blogger who wants to stay up to date on the latest and also build a network of blogging buddies to hold you accountable and push you toward your goals. We have two coaching calls each month. One is a live Q&A session where you will join us both and ask any and all questions you have about your blog or blogging in general. The other call is a coaching call where we bring in guest experts or teach ourselves and teach you new ways to level up your blogging business.

You also gain access to us all month long to answer your questions in our online forum, discuss new opportunities you're considering, connect with other bloggers and keep you accountable in your blogging business. If this sounds like what you've been missing in your blogging business, click the link to apply in our show notes. We hope to see you in the ultimate blog membership in 2024. I like that you've given our audience just tangible action steps to take forward. I think that that is helpful. I think it's a different way of thinking about SEO. We've often shared things from a very technical side. And this is definitely not the technical side. And I think that this is going to speak to people too. So thank you, Faith, for just sharing your way of looking at SEO.

I think it's going to be helpful. Can you please tell our audience where they can connect with you and learn from you? So my podcast is where I spend most of my time and effort right now, especially as I prep for maternity leave, which is just simple SEO and marketing. My website is faithhannon.com. And I have all kinds of freebies to just shoot your way. If you're like, what does this even mean? And then I love to love on my email list,

like just love on them and serve them. And then I have a course, the Organic Marketing Framework, where I walk you through the exact steps that I took to grow like clients' website traffic from, you know, sometimes 50%, but up to 6800%. And this is exactly what I did. Screen share tutorial, take it, leave it, learn how to fish kind of deal. Awesome. We will include all of those in the show notes so you can learn from Faith. And thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you guys so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you so much for being here today. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts.

You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the ultimate blog bootcamp. The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.