Service Based Business Society Podcast

Season: 1
Episode: 19
Title: Skipping Ahead to Christmas + SEO Part 2

Hello, and welcome to the service based business society podcast. I'm your host, Tiffany-Ann Bottcher. At our weekly episodes, we will dig into everything you need to know about scaling your service based business without losing sleep. With my experience in creating over seven figures per month, and a passion for marketing, finance and automation, this show will provide tangible tips and techniques for scaling your business. Let's get started.

Hey, guys, welcome back to another episode we are carrying on with our SEO series. This is episode number two of our SEO series. And we're also going to be diving into Christmas. Right now you might be wondering why on earth we're talking about Christmas, it's still summer, if you're in the United States, the kids just went back to school if you're in Canada, but kids have not even gone back to school yet. I feel a little bit like Costco. You know, Costco always has the Christmas stuff out way early. And really, Falstaff has only just hit the stores. But we're going to touch on it at the end of the episode because as business owners, we need to be prepared. And when it comes to Christmas, this requires a fair bit of planning, whether that is for work schedules, client gifts, vendor gifts, your holidays, no matter what it is, we need to dive in, we need to talk about it. So we're gonna touch on that at the end.

You know, it has been an absolutely crazy week. And I just love the energy that comes with the end of summer. It's like this new fresh energy washes over everyone. And people who have been less engaged over the last couple of months enjoying summer enjoying whatever they have going on in their personal life. It's like they are back in the game, tasks are getting crushed. All sorts of good things are going on. And I love it, you know, I have spent the majority of my life in school. And September is such a great time, I would say it's almost more of the new year than really like the traditional December 31. Calendar New Year is for me, just this last week, I made a trip down to target. Now the target used to be in Canada but is not here anymore. And I love Target. I also love school supply shopping. So I printed off the school supply list, headed on down to the local Target and got to, you know, outfit the kids with everything on the list, except for a few things I couldn't find, of course, and you know, it's back to this new fresh energy. And overall, I just could not be more excited for it. When it comes to September, often, you know, in addition to everyone really wrapping up those kinds of summer holidays, and whatnot, it's that it's that final push of the year. And if you have, you know, these unresolved goals, if you have some big things to do in the last few months of the year, is the time to really buckle down and get clear on what's left. You know, I was just earlier today looking through some sales numbers.

Our agency has some clients who are on some seriously amazing growth trajectories, having, you know, amazing years and really starting to look at what is realistic in terms of sales targets for the rest of the year and what that really means for the following year. You know, it's this last push of 2020 to where we really need to be, you know, looking into what has gone really well this year. What is an area that perhaps we need to be, you know, making some more detailed action plans for for next year. Because as we move into the fall, we're going to need to be doing budgets closing out the year and making big plans. So today we're not talking about budgets. Today we are going to be talking about SEO. So no worries, but just getting that you know, I always say You know, keeping some of these things top of mind. So that as we approach these times, you have already had that time to process. I don't know about you, but I do my best thinking, when it's not under pressure.

So well, that's not necessarily true, I do some great work under pressure. And it wasn't always that way. But when it comes to really thinking big, and being able to process what that means, and what is needed to be able to execute on some big visions, I do need a little bit of time. And, you know, it's, it's often for me that time is driving in the car, or going for a walk, something that I'm not necessarily, you know, sitting, staring at a piece of paper, or whiteboard, or, you know, blinking cursor. But really that, you know, there's some kind of other action going on. But it's allowing my mind to wander, as someone who truly focuses on the details, it's actually a bit of a challenge for me to step back to that 30,000 foot view, and really focus on the big vision.

And so whether you are a big vision person, or you are you no more focused on the details, when it comes to making big plans, you ultimately are always going to be restricted by the size of your vision, it's not very often that people go and build a life that is significantly larger, or more impactful, more successful than they visualized. And so when it comes time to be creating plans for next year, and you know, really thinking about the next pieces for your business, it's important to take the time that you need in the mind space that you need to be in, to really think about what that means for you. And it's not always about bigger sales. Sometimes it's about the same amount of sales, with more profit, or sometimes it's the same amount of profit, the same amount of sales and less work. You know, it's, it's this balance always between, you know, working to live and living to work, which I remember a long time ago, when my husband and I were dating, he said, Well, it's not like, you know, we live to work.

You know, we work to live. And in that moment, I remember thinking, Well, I don't really know about that. But I didn't say anything, because I was like, I really love what I do. I absolutely do live a life that's pretty focused on my business, and, you know, my future and goals and whatnot, because in my mind, that really supports the lifestyle. You know, it's the flexibility that comes with, you know, if you have been listening to podcasts for a while you will know that flexibility doesn't necessarily always come in the most conventional forms. You know, when we start on an entrepreneur journey, we often think, oh, you know, oh, it'd be so nice to work for ourselves. And then we can set our own hours and, you know, do this and do that, it doesn't always work out that way. Because sometimes, especially when you are in the early stages, there isn't, you know, there isn't a huge amount of flexibility, because you're working fairly consistently.

If you you know, you think about getting your business off the ground, if your business is going from, you know, the idea of phase two, you know, building infrastructure or building a vision marketing plan, you know, all of these different pieces and you're assembling your business, and you are making that happen. Ultimately, you can always choose how much time you invest into, you know, your business and your goals and whatnot. But as someone who isn't often the most patient, I can't imagine, you know, prioritizing a lot of downtime when I could be, you know, digging into my business. Now. That doesn't mean that's right for everyone. I know lots of people really do choose to, you know, be conscious of that work life balance. It has to feel right for you. And I think that that's the freedom that we all truly as entrepreneurs aspire to is creating, whatever life, whatever balance looks like for you. That's, that's the part. And so for me, it's, it's being able to say, hey, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I am going to take the next couple hours off, I'm going to go to school pickup, you know, maybe we're gonna stop and grab, like an after school tree, or we're gonna go to sports practice, and we're gonna do these things. And you know what, most likely, I'm gonna get back on the computer later, or I'm going to, you know, you'll often catch me sitting at the picnic table at a park while the kids are playing or whatever with my notebook.

Maybe it's listening to a podcast with one air pot in or a book, audio book, these types of things. But I have the freedom to do that. And if I decide that two o'clock is that time, then that is freedom. And so, you know, there's so much pressure almost right now. And you know, a lot of times people you know, will say, Well, hey, but you automate it, you know, you are, you know, the efficiency queen, you automate everything. Why do you work so much, because I choose to fill that time with more growth, more development of my business. And I don't necessarily, you know, choose to take that time and spend it, making dinner every night.

This episode is brought to you by Eleanor l&r helps you create an automated business and provides a custom tailored solution to track conversions and metrics, deliver workflows, and provide you with all of the tools you need to succeed, Eleanor ensures you can go from an overwhelmed business owner to a competent CEO that has more time, less stress and bigger profits. As a listener of the show, you can get 25% Off with discount code society, go to eleanor.io and use code society. That's E L E, N, O R e.io, discount code society. All of that to say, hey, there is no right or wrong answer, the flexibility that we're all building our businesses around is whatever you want it to be.

This is your business, this is your life. You have to make it all work together. And, you know, it's okay. You don't need to justify where things are, how long something took, like it is what it is. But we often feel the need for that, like reassurance, or, you know, one of the most enjoyable things I do all week long, we do this called War Room. And so once a week, we get on the call, it's outside of all of the other aspects of the program. So we do. The navigator program is a 12 month program. And we work through a number of different topics, things like budgeting, marketing, planning for certain seasons, we work through certain challenges, looking at systems and processes and all these different pieces. But there's like this educational component. And then we do one on one strategy sessions. So there's this focus on each individual entrepreneur, and their business. And then we have a war room. And so we're super optional.

So some weeks, we have one or two people join and other weeks we have everybody join, you know, depending on time zones, and what everyone has going on, everyone gets on this call, and, you know, we talk through what are the wins for the week? What are the challenges for the week, you know, we solve as many challenges right in that call as we can amazing entrepreneurs that we've had, you know, in Navigator in 2022, you can see so much growth and transformation in the process in the way that each person delivers their wins their challenges, you know, their non negotiables over the year. And I love the community and camaraderie that comes with sharing, you know, with each other and sometimes the win is hey, I actually got away and took a few days and went you know, on a trip here or I went into this other times, you know, it's Hey, this is like a super busy season for my business this next few weeks.

My win is that I stayed healthy, I managed to get a certain amount of sleep. You know I delivered this incredible experience. For all my clients at the end, as much as I was barely holding on, you know, because I was, it's been such a crazy few weeks, you know, the win is that I still felt really good and delivered that best experience. So, you know, as we've gone through, I love the community. And I think that entrepreneurship often ends up being like a fairly so low activity. And so then when you know, you get to a different, you know, relationship, whether that is with a potential vendor or a business coach, or a mentor or whatever, then you feel like you need to explain, it's my business. And if I am making a decision, right, wrong, or indifferent, I will deal with it. You know, it's that same thing of procrastinating on something because you're like, hey, I don't really want to do that task, or, you know, you don't want to make that call, or you don't want to have that conversation. At the end of the day, no one else is coming. And so you'll have to deal with it eventually. And you know, that you are the business owner, you are the CEO, if you have decided you want to move ahead with something, move ahead with it, if you have decided it doesn't feel right.

And even if you don't know why, even if you just think I can't put my finger on it, but this doesn't feel right to me, then don't do it, you do not owe anyone else an explanation, it is your business, you take on the risk, the reward, and you know what, good, bad or indifferent, you're going to deal with the consequences, you're going to deal with whatever comes from those decisions, and you're gonna get through it. So as we move forward, and we talk about, you know, SEO and we talk about business owners and and how many people you know, I'm interacting with and discussing SEO, and, and their businesses and their results. Okay, we're gonna delete that section, back back. It's just really important that you keep in mind that it is your business, good, bad or indifferent, you will deal with whatever comes your way. And so you don't owe anyone else an explanation.

Okay, guys, we're going to dive in to our SEO series, part two. Today, we're going to be talking about on page SEO, we're going to be talking about the technical side of SEO, and really, where should you be focusing, SEO is one of these things that you can do a little bit here, or you can do a lot, you can invest 1000s of dollars a month, or you can invest a little bit of your own time, the variations of ultimately, what you do, what is needed, is going to be different for every business, and every location.

So, you know, if you're in a super competitive geographic region, so we're talking major city centers, New York, Miami, Denver, Los Angeles, you know, these are the types of areas that have significantly more people and more businesses. If you think about the online space, as you know, real estate, and they talk about location, location, location, SEO is a little bit similar. They're still good locations, and they're still less ideal locations. And so everyone ultimately wants the best. But not everyone can have the best, it's competitive. And so whether you are in a competitive area because of the size, or if you're in a competitive industry, or you know, whatever applies to your business, sometimes some industries only need a few tips, tricks, techniques, etc.

Other industries, or businesses need all of the tips, tricks and techniques. And so start with a little and see how it goes. SEO is the long game if you want traffic tomorrow, if you need leads tomorrow, SEO is not going to be the strategy to get you there. If you want traffic leads, or phone calls tomorrow, you're going to have to, you know, use other techniques. You know, paid traffic would be one, doing way more on social media, lots of live content, anything that's going to get you in front of people right away.

SEO is a long game because the changes and techniques you're implementing today are not going to create an impact tomorrow, this is something that you're going to build on. So start with some of the basics, and see where it goes, there's a lot of these things that you can do for yourself. And then as you, you know, want to grow and focus more on your SEO strategy, that's when you can, you know, hire a professional, you know, this is a service that our agency provides. And so you can hire someone like myself, you can learn next level SEO techniques and whatnot. So lots of different variations.

Today, we're going to focus on a few things in terms of on page SEO, technical SEO, that almost anyone can do, that can really create, you know, that positive momentum. So one of the first things we're going to talk about is your website, images. Website images are one of the pieces that it seems like such a small thing, you know, you're just going to quickly upload some images. And in your mind, you automatically are thinking about, you know, does the image look good, is providing good is the content of the picture Correct.

One of the things that I often run into when we're doing website design is what's called the hero image, which is that big image just below the header of the website, in the position that they call above the fold. So when you first open a website, typically there's some kind of image at the top before you scroll, it's usually like a fairly wide image, and they call it the hero image. And so often, depending on the photos you have available, that image is hard to pick, because it's something that you usually want a little space for some text, and perhaps a call to action button. So, you know, there's this, this content piece of, you know, the images, but then when we're going to get into a little bit more of the structural pieces, there's some, there's some additional steps that we need to think about.

So number one, when we are uploading images to our website, we want to make sure that we are compressing them first, worst thing to do is upload super large image sizes, or really high resolution images. Because ultimately, if the website is never going to display them in the resolution that you're uploading them, it's really just taking up extra space for no reason. And so every single, you know, oversized image that you're uploading that is not compressed is actually slowing your speed of your website down. And this is an area that can ultimately really create some issues in conversion rate and user experience.

So we always want to compress our images. And so often, a website has so many images. And so if they've all been uploaded as super large files, it can be a really big task to compress them and re-upload them. So I always like to make mention right at the beginning that if you're uploading images, you should be compressing them right from the start. Staying in that same vein, talking about images, some more, we also want to be naming our images, we don't want to, you know, if you think about if you whether you have, you know, taking them from a phone or a photographer, or you know, you've exported some from like Canva, or Photoshop and other graphic design program, and you have a whole bunch of graphics in there called Image one, Image two, Image three, image four, and four, b. And now you compress them all.

And now we have image one compressed image to compress, you get the picture. Now you upload those to your website, this is really a missed opportunity, you want to be adding in key words to the image names before you upload them. All of your image names are still crawlable from a search engine optimization standpoint. So if you think about, you know, adding in some keywords and whatnot, right into your image names, this can also offer some, you know, SEO improvement. So when we're thinking images, we always want to use those high quality images that have the right content, etc, which is typically something that someone is thinking about before they start uploading, but then we want to take that next step and we want to compress them and we also want to make sure we're naming them correctly. Now depending on how you A website is built, where you're uploading these and whatnot, sometimes it looks a little bit different on if we'll say, the back end of the website. But if you have an area for alt text for your images, this is something you also want to be filling out. So if you think about alt text as a written description of what your image is, this can help with search engine optimization, and can also help, you know, for visually impaired people who might be looking at your website, or, you know, if you have ever tried to open our website, and we had had some connectivity issues, you know, maybe slow WiFi speed, those types of things, sometimes the images don't load. And so if you're using alt text, we'll still be able to know what the image should be. So those are the three main tips for image optimizations, we want to compress those images.

Now, if you are looking for a way to do that, and you're wondering, Where do I even start compressing images, this is not something that I know how to do, you can actually depending on the type of images you have, whether it's a PNG or a JPEG, you can go right on Google and look up a free png compression tool. JPEG compression tool, and it will actually, you know, depending on which tool you go with, there's so many different ones, some of them will let you do, you know, only a few photos at a time for free. So unless you're uploading tons and tons of photos, you can usually compress them for no charge. And it can really make a difference to the speed of your website. Okay, so we've talked about the images. Now we're going to talk about those key words.

When we, you know, think of SEO keywords as such a big piece. And realistically, it is so important but it really is only one piece of the equation. So when we're looking at key words, I really want to highlight that your business name isn't or shouldn't be one of your focused keywords. Here's why. If your business name is let's go with Santos workshop because we're gonna talk about Christmas in just a second. So for you know if your business name is Santos workshop, and you have your ideal client looking for your business and they know your business name is Santa's workshop, and they know they want to reach Santos workshop, they will be able to find it.

If you know you have your appropriate Google business profile, which of course you do, because we've already talked about that in a previous episode. They'll be able to find you. You have your domain, you have your social media profiles, all of which have your you know website linked on them. If your Google business profile, you have all of these things, finding you by your business name is going to be the easiest thing, the easiest way to find you as long as you don't have some very common name. You know, sidenote, one of the business automation tools called Integra mat recently changed their name to make. So I can say that when you're looking for them online by their domain, this is not a good keyword. Because how many other business names YouTube videos pieces of content have the word make in them versus Integra mat. Like if you go onto YouTube and you type Integra mat into the search bar, you're going to get hundreds if not 1000s of videos all related to Integra mat. How to do this in Integra mat how to do that in Integra mat because it is unique. If you go into YouTube and you type make in the subject line. I mean, you could make pajama pants, you could make strawberry jam, you could I I'm not sure what the vision for the name change was here, but I am not a fan. I'm just gonna say so depending on your business name, thinking that your business name is most likely more unique than mine. People will be able to find you by your name.

So if you are using your keyword areas, you know your, your alt tags, your image descriptions, all these different things in your, you're just repeatedly using your business name. This is not a good use of space. Because ultimately, if someone is looking for you and your business online by the name, they will already find you. But if instead you're using that time, and space, and if instead you're using that keyword real estate, if you will, for the keywords that your client will be looking for your prospective client, this is going to be a much better use of the space. Because if we already know we're looking for Santa's workshop, we can go online on Google, and we can say, Santos workshop. But if we are just in the north pole, and we are looking for toys, but we don't know who Santa is. We then could type, you know, toy shop in the North Pole. Now every toy shop that is in the north pole is going to come up, you know, and you might think, why are we talking about this, because it's a great analogy for if someone already knows they're looking for Santa's workshop, and they type Santa's workshop online, you're gonna get Santas, Facebook, Google business, profile, website, all of these different options, all of which have your phone number, all of which have your email.

If someone has your name, they will find you. But those are ultimately those clients that are not completely they are aware of your existence. If you are also trying to reach people who might not know you exist, they don't know who Santa is. Now, they just know that they're in the north pole, and they are looking for toys. So now if you're using some of these keyword spots, for, you know, handmade toys in the North Pole, Toy Shop, North Pole, you know, all like, now this is a better use of keyword space.

So I really want you to think about that. Over and over again, I see so many businesses using this, you know, limited real estate, limited space, you know, you have only so many characters, where you can be describing things adding in keywords. And if you're using all of those for your business name, it's really not helping you. It's only helping for people that already know you exists. Really focus on what what people who don't know you exist, but are looking for your service. What would they be typing, or, you know, the next piece.

So we've talked about images, we've talked about keywords, obviously, I could go on for days about keywords. But I the first piece is really identifying what keywords are relevant for your business. And so keeping you know our Santas workshop versus toys at the North Pole. Keep that in your mind, what is the equivalent of this analogy for your business.

Our third piece is really looking at structure and how it plays a role in your websites. This is the last tip for today for our SEO series to we're looking at structure using our h1 h2 headings appropriately. So often these are misconstrued with you know, h1 is going to be the biggest text on the page and it's this font, then we're going to save h2 as this other font. This you know goes back to our originally when everyone started using Microsoft Word, and you can set these different headings you know in your word processor and ultimately it was a bit of a time saver because you could save your like font sizes and stuff. That is one use of h1, h2, etc headings.

However, when it comes to SEO, it's so much more than fun. Because we are actually telling Google what is most important. You want to make sure your keywords who you are, what you do, etc. are in the appropriate heading spots, things like errors. If you have a WordPress site, keep it updated. Make sure it's functioning correctly. Make sure if you're linking pages, all of these different types of things that the actual links themselves. The links, the errors, the maintenance of your site, super important.

Okay, so we've talked about keywords, we've talked about structure, we've talked about making sure that your site is in good repair, if you will. And we've talked about images. If you did not grab our SEO, Site Audit, it's totally free on our agency website, I'm going to drop the link in the show notes. You can head over there, you can plug in your URL, and it's going to tell you exactly what your website has four h1 tags, h2 tags, what do your alt tags look like? You know, are your images named appropriately? Is your speed? Is your site super fast? Or perhaps Did you upload a whole bunch of large images, and now your site is slow. Keeping in mind that there are a number of different things that can make your site slow down. But the first and easiest thing to look at is, do you have a lot of images that have not been compressed.

All of this information is available to you in one super simple report, you literally just plug your URL in. And in three minutes or less, it's going to give you all of this information. So if you did not do that, after our episode two weeks ago, head on over, grab that report that is going to give you all the details, and really help you in pinpointing some of these areas that you can create the biggest. Okay, guys, I promised we would just talk just for a brief moment about Christmas, because Christmas is coming. I know it's crazy when we start to think about these types of things heading into fall, we need to be thinking about just a few little pieces. Number one, how does this affect your clients? Over lot of times, if you have a specific industry, like if you do home renovation, I can safely tell you that people do not want their kitchen and living room and you know, main bathroom to be completely in shambles and apart for Christmas, if they're having a whole bunch of people over, chances are they want it done before Christmas.

So knowing, you know, in terms of actual service delivery, what projects need to be wrapped up beforehand, or, you know, do you have someone who's perhaps going out of town over Christmas, and that means that their space will be available, and they would love for their renovations to be completed by the time they get back. So these are the kinds of things we need to keeping in mind that you are ensuring that you are meeting those deadlines, that you're not taking on a big project that's going to have something, you know, taken apart, and that's going to be a real negative for the client.

So from a service perspective, we need to be planning that in knowing, you know, if you are shipping something out to your client, what is the last date that you can be accepting those orders before the cutoff, making sure that something is to that client in their hands when they need it? There are a couple factors. Number two thinking about Christmas? Are we doing something for the clients for Christmas? Is there something to do with marketing that you need to be doing for the holidays? Now, what about your staff, your team? Or yourself? Are you taking time off? How does this factor in your team taking time off? So there's so many different pieces that we need to be thinking about starting to think about those dates.

When is the last day that you can accept orders if you have to ship them out? You know, you don't want someone to be purchasing your Christmas gift from you. And you know it arrives a week after Christmas. You want to be factoring those dates in and making sure that if you are running, you know promotions. If you are running you know marketing material and whatnot that you have your date set appropriately. Now's the time to start thinking about these things, you know, and really planning to make sure that you execute on the best experience and wrap up the year with your claim.

Well, we are all out of time for today. If you guys have not joined the service based business society Facebook community, make sure you head on over to Facebook and we can continue the conversation. Be sure to also follow the show by going to any podcast app and searching surface based business society. Click subscribe, click the fifth star, and leave us a written review.

Have a great week and we will see you soon