Transcript
Speaker: It's definitely a long game.
Speaker: And a lot of times people don't have the patience for it.
Speaker: It can just be easier to be like, I'm just going to pay for a Google ad and show up there.
Speaker: But the thing is, the second you stop paying for it, it's gone.
Speaker: You're not bringing in any traffic.
Speaker: But if you actually take the time to create content and to have an optimized website, that just compounds over time.
Speaker: Welcome to the She Can't Systemize podcast, where we are helping business owners like you learn to love and implement systems in their business.
Speaker: From conversations about CRM tools like Dubsado or automating the ish out of your business to helping your system match the level of detail your business does.
Speaker: My name is Taryn Rochelle, your girlfriend with a plan, CEO and founder of The Socialized Cell Co.
Speaker: and someone who's just a little systems obsessed.
Speaker: I'm about to help make your life and business way more systemized so you can live a socialized style you love.
Speaker: Welcome to She Can Systemize.
Speaker: Hey guys, welcome back to She Can Systemize.
Speaker: I am your host, Taryn Rochelle, and this is week two of our series, How to Use Systems to Stand Out in a Saturated Industry.
Speaker: I am joined by Abby, co-founder of Duo Collective, along with her business bestie, Courtney, who, while we are recording this episode, she is getting ready to have her baby.
Speaker: So I have Abby here with me, and they have a boutique organic marketing agency specializing in search and design for small business owners and creative entrepreneurs.
Speaker: They are obsessed with finding ways to help you grow organically and
Speaker: without needing to spend a dime on paid ads, which I am obsessed with because I don't do currently, as we were recording this in 2023, I don't do any paid advertising.
Speaker: Everything right now is organic.
Speaker: And, you know, I think I can take that organic side to the next level when it comes to really incorporating way more SEO and what I'm doing.
Speaker: But I love that you guys specialize in that because I think that's something that people think they need to just go straight to paid advertising.
Speaker: So I'm super glad to have you here with me, Abby.
Speaker: Thanks for joining me.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm so excited.
Speaker: Anytime I can nerd out about SEO, it's like my favorite thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like me with systems.
Speaker: I'm like, anytime people are like, oh, can you come talk about my systems?
Speaker: I'm like, done.
Speaker: Like what?
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: You don't need to pay me.
Speaker: I'll just show up, like show up anyway.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I feel like with SEO and you probably feel the same way with SEO that I do with systems is like for us, it is like we know it like the back of our hand and it just seems like
Speaker: such common knowledge to us, but to others who don't even know maybe what SEO even stands for, it is like a foreign thing.
Speaker: Like we are speaking a different language, but for us, it's just like, oh, like, doesn't everyone know this?
Speaker: And then when we start talking about it, people are like, whoa.
Speaker: So I really knew that this conversation was super important, especially for this series, because we're talking all about standing out in a saturated market.
Speaker: And if you guys are not new to my community, you know, I'm doing air quotes right now.
Speaker: with saying the word saturated, because I know all of our industries, there's a lot of people.
Speaker: But there are ways to stand out.
Speaker: There are ways to still market your services and have people coming to you and coming back and referring you.
Speaker: And SEO is a big part of this, of really attracting your ideal leads and clients and community.
Speaker: So Abby, for anyone that like has no idea what SEO is or what you guys do at your agency, can you explain a little bit about that?
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: So SEO just stands for search engine optimization, which sounds super technical.
Speaker: But if you break it down, it's really search engine is anything from Google to Bing to DuckDuckGo, anywhere that essentially has a search bar.
Speaker: And it just means optimizing your content or your website for search.
Speaker: So to make sure that you can be found on search, to make sure that when people are searching for you specifically, because you'll, you'd be shocked to hear the amount of people that like their business name doesn't even pop up.
Speaker: when they're searching for themselves.
Speaker: So different things like that, just making sure that your website is optimized so people can find you and the content that you create.
Speaker: And that is really what it is.
Speaker: And it's not something where it's a one and done, check the box.
Speaker: I've done SEO, I'm good.
Speaker: It's something that you continue to work on
Speaker: throughout time and you can use different strategies to do so.
Speaker: Step one is making sure your website is optimized.
Speaker: But then after that, you need to be doing more to continue to make sure that you get found and you stay relevant online.
Speaker: So it's really ongoing, not something that's like a box you check and then you move on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And correct me if I'm wrong, it is something that is more of a long game than a short game when it comes to SEO.
Speaker: At least in most cases, I feel like
Speaker: you know, if you take a second to optimize your nameplate on Instagram, which is one of the places that a lot of people miss with strong keywords and stuff that can be a little quick win, like I've made little changes and then like had someone find me from a search on Instagram, but like bigger SEO, like on your website and keywords and stuff like that, that's more of a long game, correct?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And yeah, your handle is a great example.
Speaker: So if people don't know your Instagram yet, they should go look at it because it's a great example of using keywords in other places.
Speaker: But it's definitely a long game.
Speaker: And a lot of times people don't have the patience for it.
Speaker: It can just be easier to be like, I'm just going to pay for a Google ad and show up there.
Speaker: But the thing is, the second you stop paying for it, it's gone.
Speaker: You're not bringing in any traffic.
Speaker: But if you actually take the time to create content and to have an optimized website, that
Speaker: just compounds over time.
Speaker: And a blog post you write five years ago can bring you thousands of hits a month today.
Speaker: And you can't say the same thing with an Instagram post or a Pinterest pin all the time.
Speaker: This is definitely something where if you create a good piece of content and people like it and you get ranked high on a search engine, it's going to continue to work for you forever.
Speaker: years and years and years until you want to transition.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: And for someone that is just getting started with SEO or this is maybe the first time they're hearing about it or the first time that they're ready to take those steps in implementing SEO in their business, is keywords the first place that someone would start to figure things out or what are those kind of first steps for someone getting started with SEO?
Speaker: Yeah, I think a lot of times we have to think about, okay, just even without bringing in the complicated tools
Speaker: and all of the things to figure out what keywords are there.
Speaker: Just think in general, what words do you think people are typing in to find you?
Speaker: Are they typing in service, an industry, a pain point, a problem they're having?
Speaker: What are they typing into that search bar?
Speaker: And then go look at your website.
Speaker: Do those words exist anywhere on your website?
Speaker: And if the answer is no, then Google or any other search engine isn't going to know that you can serve the person searching for them.
Speaker: So that's usually step number one is just making sure that you're using those words in your website somewhere.
Speaker: Like even if it's an FAQ or in your description, there's so many places that you can use them.
Speaker: And then to supplement that, you can create blog posts and content that further articulate all of that.
Speaker: But using those words, and I think a lot of times people struggle with the fact that
Speaker: They want a really pretty simple website with limited words.
Speaker: And we want just pictures because that's what we do.
Speaker: We want to just show like video and we don't want to bog them down with words.
Speaker: People do skim and like that's why you should have your content in chunks so that it's really friendly.
Speaker: But having that content there isn't only for your audience.
Speaker: It's for a search engine because if a search engine doesn't have that content, they can't read your images.
Speaker: They can't watch your videos.
Speaker: So a search engine isn't going to know that you do what you do if you don't actually articulate it on your website.
Speaker: So that's usually step number one is just let's get those words on your website somewhere in some way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if you're struggling to figure out what those words are, because I feel like a lot of times people are like, well, I don't know what words people would search for.
Speaker: Ask your community.
Speaker: Even if you have a community of 50 people on Instagram, those are 50 people that follow you for a reason and
Speaker: And ask them, you know, do a poll or if you have a small audience, like I've just personally like slid in the DMs of people that have been in my community for a while and have been, you know, eating up my content, you know, they're commenting on it and things like that.
Speaker: I'm asking them, you know, hey, like what words would you look for if you were, you know, or search for if you were looking for someone like me to help you with what we do?
Speaker: And, you know, they were able to give me certain words and that's where.
Speaker: you know, a lot of our client experience and stuff like that has like really been a strong keyword for us because a lot of people are searching for that when it comes to what we do.
Speaker: Like we don't just handle your systems.
Speaker: Like we're taking your systems, but thinking about the client experience journey along the way.
Speaker: And people were saying, you know, branding and stuff like that, because we put a lot of your branding into your systems.
Speaker: It's not just some
Speaker: you know, ugly looking system tool, like we are making it look completely like your brand as it should.
Speaker: So, you know, knowing that these are the things that our ideal clients are looking for.
Speaker: that we can make sure are on our website, are in our alt text on our photos, are on our social media, on our captions and stuff like that too.
Speaker: Because even one of the things I want to talk about too is like SEO is really rising even in social media platforms and having those strong keywords in your nameplate or on your social media posts is super important too.
Speaker: Because you can search like I went on Instagram the other day, I was looking for a specific thing, put in a couple keywords, a bunch of posts came up for exactly what I was looking for, because those people had strong keywords in there.
Speaker: Same thing with Pinterest and things like what's your take on you know, how social media is now really incorporating a lot more SEO than I feel like it did.
Speaker: even just a year ago.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, this question we get a lot often through hashtags, like, should I use hashtags anymore?
Speaker: Are hashtags even relevant?
Speaker: And all of that.
Speaker: And really the whole, like the platform changed.
Speaker: You didn't used to be able to search for things in a search bar.
Speaker: The way you searched was by a hashtag.
Speaker: So hashtags were essentially your way of doing SEO on Instagram.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: You no longer have to do that.
Speaker: You can just type in a keyword and search for a keyword.
Speaker: It doesn't need to be a hashtag.
Speaker: So hashtags are, unless someone is following a hashtag, kind of irrelevant because people aren't using them to search anymore.
Speaker: So I always tell people to like, if you're going to use them, just use five, like don't use 30.
Speaker: Like, let's just stop the whole 30 hashtag kind of trend and the stress about it and just eliminate that from our vocabulary.
Speaker: But now the keywords people are searching for, they're coming through in a number of different places, whether that's like your nameplate, your bio, but also your social media captions.
Speaker: So like, are you using those words to talk about things in your posts?
Speaker: Because when people search that posts can pop up relevant posts, recent posts, all of that.
Speaker: Instagram guides, like in the Instagram guides section.
Speaker: It's like a mini blog for Instagram.
Speaker: That's a whole slew of keywords that you can use in a bunch of different places.
Speaker: And images now have alt text in Instagram too.
Speaker: So if you are like a photographer or
Speaker: If you sell products, like in general, whatever it is that people might visually be looking for, which hello, Instagram is visual.
Speaker: So like everything people are looking for visual.
Speaker: You can add in that alt text and that further describes it too.
Speaker: So there's so many ways to take the SEO strategies that you apply to your website and apply them to search engines like Instagram and Pinterest and anywhere else where there is a search bar.
Speaker: Because if there's a search bar, you can optimize for it.
Speaker: In an easy to understand way for anyone that just heard you say like alt text and they're like, what is she saying?
Speaker: Over my head.
Speaker: Yeah, over my head.
Speaker: What is alt text?
Speaker: Because it is so important and especially because social media platforms and things like that are using it too.
Speaker: And it's not just your website.
Speaker: So I feel like it's something that people really need to be utilizing.
Speaker: But just again, like SEO, don't fully understand it just in like an easy to understand way.
Speaker: So are you able to explain that for the listeners?
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: So it serves two purposes.
Speaker: And the first one is more important than the second.
Speaker: So the first one is for visually impaired users.
Speaker: It should always be used for someone who is using a visual tool to speak to them and tell them what is being articulated on the page.
Speaker: So if someone is using these tools to view Instagram or to view your website, they're not going to be able to see the image, but it can articulate the image for them so they can still consume your content in the same format.
Speaker: So that is number one.
Speaker: Number two is for search engines to understand the content that's going on.
Speaker: So if you've ever searched in Google Images to find something, those images that appear are likely using alt text in the background.
Speaker: So it's a perfect world when you can combine the two of them, right?
Speaker: Like you can use keywords while also describing the image.
Speaker: That can't always happen.
Speaker: So you should always defer to the one.
Speaker: You should always be using your alt text to speak to people who are visually impaired because that's the purpose of the tool to begin with.
Speaker: And if you're using it in a different way by stuffing in keywords, that would kind of be more of a negative where a search engine isn't going to like that and the opposite is going to happen to you.
Speaker: So those are kind of the two ways.
Speaker: And I think, especially now, we need to make sure that our websites are accessible for everyone.
Speaker: So that's something where you can download like Chrome extensions and like different extensions to actually like, hey, I want to see if my website is accessible.
Speaker: like accessible to someone who's using a Chrome reader and kind of go through it that way, because that's definitely something that they look for to make sure that your website is compliant.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so helpful.
Speaker: Thank you so much for breaking that down.
Speaker: Because I think because there are the two purposes of it, I think people either lean more towards like one, they feel like, oh, well, you know, I don't, I don't know, I fully understand how to make it accessible for everyone.
Speaker: And so they don't have those things in there.
Speaker: Or they're just focused so much on the SEO side and our keyword stuffing to where it wouldn't make any sense if someone was using it for accessibility and for the search engine.
Speaker: The search engine's like, what do you mean?
Speaker: Like system tech stack, like all these different words.
Speaker: And they're like, what is happening?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But if you're like, you know, how to tech stack your system tools, you know, it's like that's explaining what this image is about.
Speaker: It still has strong keywords in there.
Speaker: But it's not just like all these random keywords that if someone was using it for accessibility, they would have no idea what this image is trying to say.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think we sometimes can use them in the wrong way, even in the first way too of like making it more accessible is like we can – an image is there to show someone at ease at a computer –
Speaker: like because they have a good client experience in place.
Speaker: Like that's a good description of it rather than saying someone wearing a blue shirt with blonde hair sitting at a brown table.
Speaker: Like you don't need to explain it in that way, but explain it in the context of your website.
Speaker: Why is that image there?
Speaker: What purpose is it serving?
Speaker: And then explain it in that light, because that's how someone will want to understand your website.
Speaker: Otherwise, it's going to be like dog holding a Frisbee.
Speaker: And you're like, why is that there?
Speaker: I'm so confused.
Speaker: So just by helping articulate what the image means in the context of your website can help you use keywords while also helping someone who's using a screen reader understand the content.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: That's such a good example because I could see that definitely happening.
Speaker: I'm sure you've seen stuff like that in doing audits and things.
Speaker: It's definitely something that you need to fully understand.
Speaker: So take the time to understand alt text and this part of SEO and obviously for accessibility so that you are implementing it the right way throughout your website and your social media handles.
Speaker: Like with social media, there's so many different places we've talked about this a little bit that where you can implement the SEO side of things.
Speaker: And this episode in this part of this series is all about using SEO to attract your leads and then systems to convert them.
Speaker: And, you know, a lot of times you can gain a lot of visibility from strong SEO, but then may not have a system to support that.
Speaker: And, you know, it is important to do the two.
Speaker: So if we're looking at Instagram, for example, one of the places that we were talking about is your nameplate.
Speaker: So this is the bolded part that's underneath your profile photo, not your handle.
Speaker: And I see often I used to be in the social media world.
Speaker: And so it is like engraved in my brain to like tell people about their nameplate still, because I'll still see them and it will have a
Speaker: their business name only there when their business name is also in their handle.
Speaker: And if your handle is already your business name and someone searches on Instagram, you will already pop up.
Speaker: But if someone is looking for an SEO strategist, or they are looking for like a certified Dubsado specialist, and they put those keywords in and that those words are nowhere to be found in your nameplate, you will not show up on Instagram searches.
Speaker: And I feel like that is a place that gets like missed a lot on Instagram.
Speaker: And a lot of people still don't know about that.
Speaker: But I still feel like, you know, it still, again, needs to make sense and not just like have a bunch of random keywords in there.
Speaker: but still makes sense for your ideal audience and your ideal leads.
Speaker: But then when they're coming in there, like what's that next step in the process?
Speaker: You know, is your system set up for those new eyes?
Speaker: So Abby and Courtney, you guys were on Gold Digger, which is a huge podcast, Jenna Kutcher's podcast.
Speaker: And we had talked about this because I was on their podcast and we were talking about this.
Speaker: What was your guys' experience of having, you know, a lot more eyes on you guys through?
Speaker: Obviously, Jenna is crazy about SEO.
Speaker: So her SEO is like insane.
Speaker: And she already has a huge community in general.
Speaker: So what was your experience of having an influx of people on your business?
Speaker: And then once the episode aired, what happened?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, first, I'll just say two.
Speaker: Actually pitching to be on other people's podcasts is an SEO strategy.
Speaker: Like a lot of people don't think about this, but it's a really great strategy because you get a backlink on someone's website as long as the podcast has show notes.
Speaker: So there are plenty of times where a podcast might not supplement their podcast episodes with a blog post or show notes on their website.
Speaker: And if they don't, then there really isn't an SEO benefit to it.
Speaker: But if they do, which I would say like 90% of them do, then you get a link on their website, which is called a backlink.
Speaker: So anytime someone links you on someone else's website, that's called a backlink.
Speaker: And a backlink is basically Google's word of mouth.
Speaker: It's basically like if someone tells you about another friend's services, you're going to hold that with a higher standard because you heard about it from a friend that you trust.
Speaker: Google feels the same way.
Speaker: So when Google sees that you are being featured on someone else's website, they are saying like, okay, wow, they must know their stuff.
Speaker: They must know what they're talking about.
Speaker: It kind of puts you with a higher authority.
Speaker: And those backlinks help boost something called domain authority.
Speaker: Stick with me if I'm going over your head.
Speaker: But domain authority is basically Google saying how authoritative are you in your industry and the topics you talk about and the services you have.
Speaker: The higher that number is, the easier it's going to be for you to rank higher on a search engine page.
Speaker: So working on your backlinks in ways like just simple ways, like being in a member directory,
Speaker: guest blogging on someone's blog, being featured on someone's podcast, all of those kind of things can help to boost that authority.
Speaker: So it's a strategy that people don't think about because we think about creating new content for our website.
Speaker: We don't always think about living on other people's websites and the importance of that.
Speaker: And if this is something that's brand new to you too, we have an email challenge that I can send over to
Speaker: so that you guys can kind of sign up for that.
Speaker: It's completely free, but it's just a process that walks you through how to get a backlink with some email templates and everything, making it easy.
Speaker: So that's exactly what we did for Gold Digger.
Speaker: We pitched to be on the podcast because it's a great opportunity to have a backlink.
Speaker: I also am huge fans of the podcast.
Speaker: I listened to it before our business even existed, and I listened for every SEO episode because I was like, yes, this is what I want to talk about.
Speaker: And there hadn't been one in a while.
Speaker: So that's why I was like, well, this is a good opportunity to pitch it.
Speaker: So we did that.
Speaker: The process to be on big podcasts is time-consuming, right?
Speaker: We pitched in the spring.
Speaker: It didn't – or we pitched probably in winter, I'd say.
Speaker: We were on – we recorded it in the spring.
Speaker: It didn't go live until November.
Speaker: So the – we had plenty of time to prep, but we didn't quite understand –
Speaker: the impact that it might bring in because we had been on podcasts before.
Speaker: We had done different things before where we had really high expectations for like, oh, it's going to bring in so much business, right?
Speaker: And you never really know.
Speaker: And so we were definitely just like super excited, can't wait.
Speaker: And then it aired and it was like,
Speaker: overwhelming.
Speaker: It was amazing.
Speaker: I messaged Courtney one day and I was tears of joy crying.
Speaker: I was like, I'm crying out of gratitude, but I was like, this is also an insane amount, an influx of people we can help.
Speaker: So when we were talking on the podcast, on our podcast last time, we were talking about how this is something we so needed in place.
Speaker: And it was like, it would have been great if
Speaker: but just like for sanity's sake.
Speaker: But a few things that we could have done better were like automatic responses to website leads, like having an automated response with expectations, letting them know when we'd get back to them and also expectations on timelines.
Speaker: Because we are now booked out two to three months for anything to do with SEO.
Speaker: So that's something that I just want people to understand because as they come in, I don't want them to be disappointed because
Speaker: when we can't do it within the first few weeks.
Speaker: So those kind of expectations would have been really great.
Speaker: And then also just setting expectations on what it is that we do offer.
Speaker: Because we talk about a slew of things from organic marketing strategies, but we don't often, we'll often get things coming to us or inquiries coming to us for different offerings that we don't provide.
Speaker: So I think that kind of expectation is definitely something that we could have automated rather than having repeated conversations with people over and over again while still maintaining a good client experience.
Speaker: And we use Dubsado for our business.
Speaker: So this was definitely something that I was like, I use it and we do.
Speaker: We've made a lot of changes, but...
Speaker: We used to only use it for existing clients.
Speaker: And we really didn't take advantage of the lead functionality and the workflows that you can put into that.
Speaker: And really just like that process to converting a lead to a paying client, which is so important, that whole experience.
Speaker: We did all of that manually.
Speaker: So then when they became a paying client, then we had systems in place.
Speaker: But we didn't have that system before because we thought...
Speaker: we needed to be 100% present.
Speaker: And I think that's oftentimes the misconception with systems and automations is that you think you need to be 100% present and you can still create a really killer client experience while having a little bit of automation infused into that process.
Speaker: So that's just some of the things we probably could have done better.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think like you sometimes...
Speaker: You don't know until it happens or, you know, and that's why I wanted to bring this conversation to the podcast, because, you know, I want you guys listening to get out there.
Speaker: I'm all about shooting your shot.
Speaker: And, you know, they shot their shot with Jenna Kutcher and it landed in.
Speaker: And they hit a slam dunk with it.
Speaker: And it was amazing.
Speaker: But then they had this like, I'm so excited, but also I'm so overwhelmed moment.
Speaker: And that's not what we want you guys to have.
Speaker: We want you to feel confident in that process.
Speaker: And a lot of times too, like, so if you don't mind us asking this, like, so when, before you guys were on that podcast, like on average, like how many like inquiries were coming in like per month compared to maybe the month that it aired.
Speaker: Cause I know like when it aired,
Speaker: It was insane.
Speaker: So what was that kind of difference there?
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: I should have looked that up.
Speaker: We switched.
Speaker: So originally, our leads were coming through ShowIt, and then now they come through Dubsado.
Speaker: So I have to track them differently.
Speaker: It's actually not as easy to track leads through ShowIt, I'd say, as it is to track them through Dubsado, which is nice to have that transition now.
Speaker: But I would say we would get like a couple leads a week or, you know, like anywhere between like four to six a month maybe or something like that.
Speaker: And then after the episode aired, we were getting like five to six a day.
Speaker: And it was an insane amount of – it was just like an insane influx.
Speaker: And then the other piece of that is we have 30-minute calls with people for every inquiry.
Speaker: So we tracked everything because we wanted to know like how many clients we secured from the podcast.
Speaker: Like we wanted to know the results of it.
Speaker: So we definitely tracked everything.
Speaker: But then that process of like –
Speaker: having that 30 minute call, like our, and I have very limited hours because I have limited childcare.
Speaker: So my boys go to preschool three hours a day.
Speaker: One day they go four hours, only three days a week.
Speaker: So my time away from my boys was spent doing discovery calls the whole time.
Speaker: And then I somehow had to work when I was with them.
Speaker: And then my whole like work-life balance was just like thrown for a loop.
Speaker: And I was just like, wow, this is like we need to adjust this.
Speaker: So we are getting to a much better place right now.
Speaker: But it was definitely a learning experience where we were like, this is amazing.
Speaker: And I'm very grateful for it.
Speaker: But it was definitely a shock to the system to figure out like, OK, how are we going to manage this?
Speaker: Before we go any further in this week's episode, I want to see if you've ever had this thought, I need to show my team how to do this task, but it'll take me longer to explain it than to just do it myself.
Speaker: Well, I want to officially invite you to remove that limiting belief from your head space, especially because our friends at tango make creating and sharing SOPs as easy as clicking one button.
Speaker: Use Tango to capture your process and share with your team and clients, especially for all those frequently asked questions we get as service providers.
Speaker: And because we love you guys, you can use code systems 20 for a free month of their pro version.
Speaker: See Tango in action on our Instagram and look in the show notes for a link to try out Tango for yourself.
Speaker: Now let's get back to this week's episode.
Speaker: Well, and that, that change there is huge.
Speaker: So like, if you guys think about it, like
Speaker: four to six a month, you know, that, that amount of people, I wouldn't, if someone came to me and they were like, Oh, I'm responding to four to six inquiries manually a month.
Speaker: I wouldn't be like, Whoa, what are you doing?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I would still say, let's automate that.
Speaker: But I wouldn't be like, Oh my gosh, like this is crazy.
Speaker: But
Speaker: four to five to six a day.
Speaker: I cannot imagine that process.
Speaker: And then also the discovery call process, especially when, and I could be wrong, I'm sure some of them were maybe not qualified for your services.
Speaker: They could have been asking for other services that you guys didn't offer.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: There's so many things maybe they had, they wanted it done tomorrow and you guys were two to three months booked out.
Speaker: So there's so many factors that go into that, that in a tool like Dubsado with some conditional logic coding, there is some ways that you can
Speaker: really figure out if these leads are even qualified or ready for the service that they are looking for, or that you even offer.
Speaker: And so that's something that like we have implemented, which really has helped me cut down the amount of time that I am on, we call them vibe checks, because I am only getting on those if you are ready to go
Speaker: for our bigger builds.
Speaker: Our smaller projects, I don't even take them anymore and they can just book them.
Speaker: But anything that's like our system builds in Deptado or ClickUp, we are doing a 15 minute vibe check together.
Speaker: But through our lead capture, we can use conditional logic to really figure out if this person is right for this service.
Speaker: So depending on certain way they answer certain questions, like it'll tell them their minimum investment.
Speaker: So based on how many services you have, how many, how big your team is, that's going to up the price of our build because the build gets larger depending on those answers.
Speaker: So that kind of helps qualify them.
Speaker: And then if they, you know, put in certain criteria, that's an automatic no.
Speaker: they go into our not a good fit workflow in Dubsado.
Speaker: So that just automatically just helps me go through, especially when there's an influx of people.
Speaker: So for example, like not as large of a scale as like on Gold Digger for you guys, but like being on your guys's podcast, I have had so many people come from your guys's podcast to my community.
Speaker: And I have loved that.
Speaker: And I think one thing that's really helped, and I started implementing this right before I was on your podcast, is I put very specific things in that podcast to know that someone came over from that podcast.
Speaker: So anyone that's coming over asking to get on my close friends list, which I don't talk about that anymore, unless really like you were listening to that podcast episode.
Speaker: I know they came from your podcast.
Speaker: And I will ask them like, cause they'll come in my DMS and be like, they'll just put close friends.
Speaker: And I'm like, Oh, like, you know, you're on the list.
Speaker: Did you come from duo on air?
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, I did like love the episode.
Speaker: So I know that they came from that.
Speaker: But that's like really helped me to to see like that, you know, being on your podcast was like so great for my SEO, like through your podcast.
Speaker: And but then, you know, having a system in place, even just on the Instagram DMs.
Speaker: I know what that word means.
Speaker: I know what the process is.
Speaker: My team knows what the process is.
Speaker: If someone puts that message in the direct messages and then they're in my close friends and they're coming there.
Speaker: And another thing is I know that they're coming there because they want to know about automations because the reason why they're coming to my close friends is I have a training that is specific.
Speaker: If you're on my close friends list is the only way you can see this training.
Speaker: And so then I know, oh, this person's interested in automations.
Speaker: So
Speaker: A lot of those people have then booked Zapier hotlines with me because then they want automations.
Speaker: So you have to think about like, what's that next step in your journey?
Speaker: Or you want that next step in their journey with you?
Speaker: What do you want that to be?
Speaker: And what is the next process or next service of how you can help them?
Speaker: And so, you know, you can use SEO, you can be on podcasts, you can do all these things.
Speaker: But obviously at the end of the day, like unless your business is just like a hobby, like we are in it to make money.
Speaker: So we now want to then convert them into paying clients or get them even further into your circle on your email list or, you know, whatever your long game is.
Speaker: And you need to have that plan in place.
Speaker: So then when you do have an influx of eyes on you
Speaker: you're ready for it.
Speaker: And their example of being on gold digger is a huge, important one in a lesson for like, I'm sure you guys felt that anyone listening is like, Oh, like, you know, I'm going to do this and, you know, really get more eyes on me.
Speaker: I need to make sure that like, I have my, my shit together and that everything is ready to go.
Speaker: for when those leads come in and then you don't feel that overwhelm.
Speaker: You know, you're a mom.
Speaker: I'm a mom too.
Speaker: Like hearing you talk about that, like I totally get it because I'm about to go into like summertime with my kids of being out of school.
Speaker: And like, I have had the, I feel like the luxury of both my kids are in full-time school now.
Speaker: And I am like, what is this life?
Speaker: Like, I don't understand.
Speaker: But now I'm about to go back backwards into summertime when they're home 24 sevens.
Speaker: So I'm like, oh my gosh, like, what is that going to look like?
Speaker: So I'm batching podcast episodes, you know, like there's so many things to prepare.
Speaker: for those seasons of life.
Speaker: And especially when you are a mom or your time is limited to use your system tools and take advantage of them.
Speaker: Was that like moment of being on gold digger?
Speaker: Is that what helped you, you guys realize that you needed to utilize Dubsado more for your leads or like, were you already feeling that way of like, Oh, maybe I'm not using the system tool to its fullest potential before.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I definitely felt that way.
Speaker: I mean, there's a reason why there's Dubsado experts because it's not – the tool is amazing, but it is – like, it's an uphill learning battle a little bit.
Speaker: Like, you just have to figure out everything in there and all of the capabilities.
Speaker: And then also, like, I am – in terms of our business partnership with me and Cort –
Speaker: Cort is the one that makes everything look beautiful and cohesive and align with our brand strategy.
Speaker: And I'm the one that's doing the majority of the systems and behind the scenes, all of those details.
Speaker: So what's interesting about Dubsado is for us,
Speaker: It's like such a meld of our two worlds.
Speaker: And then it's like figuring out like, okay, how can we work together to like make this work?
Speaker: But anyways, we had, I'd say prior to being on Gold Digger, I was like, you know, gold star.
Speaker: I've got a gold star client experience.
Speaker: I feel freaking great about it.
Speaker: Like I really did.
Speaker: And I was like, yep, we have email.
Speaker: We had email templates in place.
Speaker: We still do.
Speaker: We use email templates all the time.
Speaker: We customize them.
Speaker: But we have templates in place that allow us to save time while creating a good experience and not missing anything because that's also something that I feel like if you forget to mention something in a timeline or you forget to mention a certain detail, it can kind of be just an uphill process to then go back and fix it.
Speaker: So email templates have been a lifesaver in our business for years and years.
Speaker: So
Speaker: That has been great.
Speaker: We had an experience guide in a PDF format that we loved and it was great.
Speaker: It walked through everything.
Speaker: The problem with those two things is that the email template still required me to send the email templates.
Speaker: And the PDF, we noticed people weren't opening it.
Speaker: And it was something where then we'd hop on a call and they'd be like, oh, yeah, I don't have budget for this.
Speaker: And it's like, that's why you should have looked at the experience guide.
Speaker: But a lot of times people didn't notice it was there.
Speaker: And the guide was also like, because we love to make pretty things and I love to talk and I could talk forever.
Speaker: The guide was like 35 pages long.
Speaker: It's so amazing.
Speaker: You can skim it, but it was still pretty long.
Speaker: So post the being on Gold Digger, we have tweaked our email templates.
Speaker: We've set up processes in Dubsado, and we've also digitized our PDF.
Speaker: So you can now see it online.
Speaker: It's a much simpler experience.
Speaker: rather than having that PDF.
Speaker: And the other thing I always laughed with Courtney on was the PDF was a little, it was too big when you downloaded it from Canva.
Speaker: So I couldn't email it.
Speaker: So Courtney always had to go adjust the size for me.
Speaker: And then because I didn't have the whatever PDF acrobat or whatever it is.
Speaker: And so it was so funny because I was like, hey, Court, can you shrink this file so I can email it?
Speaker: And with her going on maternity leave, I was like, this is not ideal.
Speaker: We need to fix this process ASAP.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: And I feel like, again, you don't see those things.
Speaker: And you guys could have h ad a great client experience.
Speaker: It still was a little manual and not as automated as it could have been.
Speaker: But I feel like what people don't understand is they hear the words client experience.
Speaker: And they think it's just when you have the client, like a paid client.
Speaker: The client experience starts when someone is a lead all the way through when they are sending you referrals and testimonials.
Speaker: And I think that's where a lot of people get confused.
Speaker: And that's like a myth in the client experience systems world.
Speaker: It's like, oh, my client experience is great.
Speaker: Like it's, you know, when someone books with me, like I'm good and like through the project, but how are they going to become a client is the beginning experience of when they are a lead to where they want to get into that experience.
Speaker: And so I think for you guys, like you guys were working so much on that, like
Speaker: like during project client experience, but that lead process was what was missing.
Speaker: And then still some like automations through your client experience during projects.
Speaker: So I think like, you know, anyone listening, really think about your client experience from the moment someone finds you to when they are referring you to someone else.
Speaker: Because that is what is going to get those referrals.
Speaker: That is what is going to get you those testimonials is people like word of mouth of like, wow, this experience was amazing from the minute I found them to the minute I was now sending them to someone else.
Speaker: And you also, as the business owner, want to feel like that was an amazing experience because I
Speaker: I had these leads come in while I'm sitting at the pool.
Speaker: They got emails from me.
Speaker: They already know my pricing.
Speaker: They're ready to go.
Speaker: And I didn't do a thing like that is like the best feeling for me, especially being a mom and knowing I'm going into summer season is like, I know things can work for me while I am spending time with my kids.
Speaker: And because the reason is because I have system tools.
Speaker: And I know, listen, you guys, anyone listening to this is like, well, Taryn, you like are a systems expert.
Speaker: And, but that is why this podcast is here.
Speaker: That is why this community is here so that you guys can learn how to love and implement systems in your business.
Speaker: And I always say that first step is get your inquiry process, like so automated and stop thinking that you need to put your personal touch on every single email that goes out to leads and
Speaker: You still can through canned emails is what they're called in Dubsado or templated emails.
Speaker: You can still put your brand voice in them, throw a GIF in there, put emojis, customize it by putting their name in there.
Speaker: Like there are so many ways to do it.
Speaker: You just have to learn the system tool.
Speaker: and make sure that it can do what you need it to do.
Speaker: And if it can't, then that's a sign that you may have outgrown the system tool that you are currently using, which is what happened to me and my business and why I personally moved over to Dubsado.
Speaker: I outgrew the tool that I was using and I needed something more robust, something that I could still sound like me with it being automated.
Speaker: With you, final things of SEO, any common myths or mistakes that you see people using when it comes to SEO that you want to bust so anyone listening doesn't make those mistakes now going into their SEO journey?
Speaker: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker: I could talk for like an hour just on this one topic.
Speaker: Yeah, I think there are like some common ones I feel like are getting like they're getting less common now because people are becoming more knowledgeable about the issues.
Speaker: But they're kind of called black hat strategies.
Speaker: which basically just means like you're trying to cheat the system.
Speaker: Like if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Speaker: Like we've talked about this before on how SEO is a long, it's a long game.
Speaker: Like it takes time.
Speaker: And if someone is promising you something else through their service or anything,
Speaker: If you find this tip or trick that's going to like boost you to page one, it's probably not going to actually help you.
Speaker: And if anything, it's going to hurt you in the long run because you'll get blocked or your website will get removed from search, like which absolutely can happen.
Speaker: So there's definitely things like keyword stuffing.
Speaker: I know people have heard most people have heard about this before, and it's basically where you just jam pack as many keywords as possible into certain areas of your website and
Speaker: which is definitely not something that's great, or within blog content, stuff like that.
Speaker: I see this a lot in...
Speaker: local businesses and local service providers.
Speaker: So I see a lot of times people creating duplicate pages for cities.
Speaker: So for example, say you are a wedding photographer and you can serve six different major cities in your area.
Speaker: You take your services page and you duplicate it six times and then you swap out the headline wedding services for X city on each page, but everything else is the same.
Speaker: This has been like a really common strategy that I've seen for local businesses.
Speaker: And it's old, like it's an old, outdated strategy and approach to growing SEO.
Speaker: And I've had multiple clients come to me and I've seen this on their website and their SEO has tanked in recent years.
Speaker: And it's because Google is smarter than us, like a lot smarter than us.
Speaker: And Google knows that's duplicated content.
Speaker: So it's not going to help you because basically what Google says is when you see duplicated content like that, it automatically hides the pages and it doesn't tell you which ones.
Speaker: And it doesn't tell you...
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: And to get it re-listed is a lot of hard work.
Speaker: It takes time.
Speaker: Like you have to get back in the good graces of Google.
Speaker: And so it's definitely something that I see a lot and it's an old strategy and I still have heard of SEO agencies doing it.
Speaker: And it's like just heartbreaking to like still see that happen.
Speaker: So that's like a huge no-no.
Speaker: We've talked about not using enough words on your website.
Speaker: So that's a huge thing that I think people often miss.
Speaker: And then the last thing, although I could talk about this forever, but the last thing I'll mention is people forget about Google Search Console.
Speaker: And a lot of times people confuse it with analytics.
Speaker: It's actually a completely different tool.
Speaker: It's also different than your Google business profile, which is like basically how you show up on Maps if you're a local business.
Speaker: You need all of them.
Speaker: All of them are really great.
Speaker: But Google Search Console specifically gets missed a lot.
Speaker: And this tool connects with your domain.
Speaker: So think Google Domains, GoDaddy, Namecheap, wherever your domain is hosted, it will connect with your domain.
Speaker: And this tool tells you how you show up on a search engine on Google specifically because it's Google Search Console.
Speaker: There is a different alternate version for Bing.
Speaker: And it's called Bing Webmasters.
Speaker: So you can sync them together so that you can see both of them and how you appear on Google versus how you appear on Bing.
Speaker: But this tool specifically, whenever someone comes to me and says, like, I can't find my website easily or I'm getting no traffic from search, like what is happening?
Speaker: All 99% of the time, they don't have Google Search Console implemented.
Speaker: And if you don't have it implemented and connected to your domain, you
Speaker: then Google doesn't know about your website.
Speaker: Like I always tell them, it's not your fault.
Speaker: Google didn't know about you.
Speaker: Like you can't be found if you're not on the search engine.
Speaker: So this is a tool that you use to make sure that your website is indexed.
Speaker: And so what, like regardless of where you are in the stage of your website, or if you're thinking about doing a new website, this is an absolute must.
Speaker: And if you don't have this tool, then you just might not be found at all.
Speaker: So super important.
Speaker: Those are so good.
Speaker: I had a follow-up question on the one you talked about of like creating the duplicate pages in that scenario, because we have a lot of people obviously in the wedding and event industry that serve, you know, different cities.
Speaker: In that scenario, would it just be best to just make sure that like on their services page, they have, you know, as many times as it's not, you know, keyword stuffing of making sure that they explain that they serve and what those cities are throughout the one page.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker: So I always, you don't need to do it like as many times as possible.
Speaker: You just need to include it in a headline, I'd say.
Speaker: It doesn't need to be like your main headline on top of your page, but if your headline is something about like wedding photography, then maybe underneath it, you'll say serving these cities and then you'll have those cities filled in there.
Speaker: So that's definitely something that I think is super important.
Speaker: I also love to tell people to include it in their footer.
Speaker: So a lot, because that will show up on every single page.
Speaker: So if you use it in your footer, then you can have your different
Speaker: cities all mentioned down there in that area.
Speaker: And then that will just be like, and I've seen this a lot and people might do it already of just like now serving these cities or serving these areas.
Speaker: I would also search for it too, because you don't need to include really small cities, like only include cities that people are actually searching for.
Speaker: And then you can write in your FAQs, what areas do you serve?
Speaker: Because that is super keyword rich.
Speaker: So put that in your FAQs on your contact page so that you can articulate like, hey, I know I mentioned everywhere that I serve these major cities, but I also serve within a 50 mile radius or I also travel and do destinations or whatever it may be.
Speaker: So including that piece of content throughout your website can be really important because then Google can index the content without thinking it's duplicated content.
Speaker: I think a lot of people sleep on frequently asked questions.
Speaker: Like frequently asked questions are something that you can utilize everywhere.
Speaker: Like I use them in every proposal, you know, that I create, you know, on your social media posts, on your website, like frequently asked questions are just so misunderutilized and it really helps people.
Speaker: It helps you with searching of having keywords, you know, on your website.
Speaker: It helps to prepare people for your services, what you offer, what you don't offer.
Speaker: These myths or misconceptions of your industry, do a frequently asked questions, blog posts about them or Instagram posts.
Speaker: Have those things on your proposal so people will get through that process.
Speaker: We're talking about
Speaker: attracting leads and then converting them.
Speaker: So when they get to that proposal stage, we want to convert them quickly.
Speaker: We don't need the emails back and forth or the Instagram DMs asking all these questions.
Speaker: The questions that you get all the time, they need to be in your frequently asked questions.
Speaker: So then you're not getting bombarded with those questions all the time.
Speaker: And it's an easy converting process.
Speaker: So listen, people, don't sleep on your frequently asked questions because they're so important.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's also a section in Google too.
Speaker: If you Google a question or a topic or whatever it is that you might be writing a blog post on or writing your page about,
Speaker: There's this new-ish, it's not super new, but there's a section now where it says people also ask.
Speaker: And it gives you a bunch of questions people also ask when they're searching this term.
Speaker: And every time you click on a question, it populates more questions getting uber specific into the initial thing that you search for and
Speaker: the things that you're clicking on.
Speaker: And that right there is how you write your blog posts.
Speaker: And that's how you answer your FAQs.
Speaker: That's your outline.
Speaker: Like Google is literally giving you the answers.
Speaker: You don't need a fancy tool.
Speaker: Like you can just use Google.
Speaker: So that section is one of my favorite things to share with people.
Speaker: Cause I'm like, if you're not sure what to write about and you're like sitting, staring at a blank cursor for a blog page, Google it and then see what people are asking and answer those with straight headlines so that then you appear to
Speaker: because you can optimize for the answers to those questions.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, that's a gold right there.
Speaker: And just a mic drop for this episode.
Speaker: I know this is going to be so important for so many people in a very popular episode for people to refer back to.
Speaker: How can anyone get in contact with you guys to learn more about what you guys do and to work with you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So our website is duocollective.com.
Speaker: So you can see everything we do there.
Speaker: We're also really active on Instagram.
Speaker: So duo.collective.
Speaker: Right now, our Instagram, Courtney, completely prepped all the content for me before maternity leave.
Speaker: It's like beautiful.
Speaker: So it's just all happening.
Speaker: I'll add on a few things, but it is amazing.
Speaker: And I am beyond grateful for her.
Speaker: So that's awesome.
Speaker: But I love Instagram voice messages and I will just like chat with you if you have questions on anything.
Speaker: And then we also have our own podcast, which is like my favorite thing ever.
Speaker: So Duo On Air is how you can find us there.
Speaker: And if you haven't listened to Taryn's episode, go listen to that one too, because that one's really great.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: I'll make sure everything is linked in the show notes and the podcast.
Speaker: I'll put the podcast episode that we did together in the show notes at
Speaker: And also your email series that you mentioned.
Speaker: We'll make sure that is accessible for you guys.
Speaker: Thank you so much for joining me, Abby.
Speaker: I'm so glad that you were able to be here with me.
Speaker: Courtney, we missed you, but we will definitely have both of you guys back on here because I know people are going to be wanting more and more of this SEO conversation.
Speaker: Thank you guys so much for joining this episode.
Speaker: Again, this is week two of series, how to use systems to stand out in a saturated industry.
Speaker: And I will see you guys on the next episode.
Speaker: Thanks so much, Abby.
Speaker: Thank you.
