Show notes
Welcome to episode 012 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is David Christopher, Director of Marketing and Growth at Tailwind, and an SEO and digital marketing expert. David and I talk in depth about what bloggers need to know to win at SEO, and how there is serious traffic to be had on Google, if you just understand certain SEO strategies. If there's one thing I hope you take away from this episode, it is that you don't need to be technical or geeky to do SEO well, and it doesn't even take a lot of time. In this episode, we discuss what exactly Google is looking for, and how easy it is to give Google exactly what it wants. This episode is filled with quick, actionable steps you can take today to get free traffic to your site. Resources: Tailwind BigWing Interactive SEMrush MiloTree Some of these links may be affiliate. Subscribe to The Blogger Genius Podcast: iTunes Google Play Stitcher Transcript – What Bloggers Need to Know to WIN at SEO Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. Today, my guest is David Christopher. David is the co-founder of Big Wing Interactive, which is a digital marketing agency. It is on the most recommended list of SEO companies and currently, he's the Director of Marketing and Growth at Tailwind. What does Tailwind do for Pinterest and Instagram? Jillian: [00:00:32] For those of you who don't know, Tailwind is a... well, actually, here, David, why don't you share what Tailwind is because we use it, and we would be nowhere without it? So welcome. David: [00:00:44] Hi. Yes, so Tailwiind is a Pinterest and Instagram scheduling and analytics platform. Our mission is to make world class marketing easy for everyone. Jillian: [00:00:55] So we use Tailwind everyday to schedule all of our pins, to watch our growth, to be strategic, and we've been using Tailwind for years now. Jillian: [00:01:08] Anyway, David, we met about a week ago at Social Media Marketing World, and it's a very big conference in San Diego. David, you were my first friend. I was there. I was overwhelmed, and I met you and you were like this breath of fresh air. David: [00:01:28] So I'm a one-in-4000 kind of guy. Jillian: [00:01:32] Yes, you are. So the reason why I invited you on the show today is to talk about SEO, which means search engine optimization. Which is how you put content out, Google finds that content, and then Google serves it up to people who are searching. Jillian: [00:01:53] For bloggers, I would say, SEO, it just seems so abstract and difficult. Google seems like this black box. I want us to really dig in on how as a blogger, who might not be very technical, how you as a blogger should start to think about SEO. David: [00:02:17] Yes, I think that's a great topic, Jillian. I'm excited to talk about it. A lot of what I've been doing over the last many years is trying to make that specific topic more and more simple, both for myself so that I can do better at it, and for other people whom I work with. David: [00:02:36] Having to run an SEO team and a team of content marketers and tried to sort of bridge that gap. I've put a lot of energy and thought into this, so I'm excited to kind of boil it down. Jillian: [00:02:49] Great. Somehow, SEO does not seem anywhere near as sexy as posting on Instagram. David: [00:02:55] No, it's not. It doesn't, does it? Jillian: [00:02:59] And I know a lot of bloggers who therefore go, "I'm not going to dig in there. I'm just going to work on my Instagram." If you understand SEO, you can get a ton of traffic from Google for free! David: [00:03:05] Yeah. And unfortunately, the truth is that there is a ton of traffic to be gotten from Google. There's a ton of traffic, and it's extremely motivated traffic as well, because this is traffic that has a specific question, but it's turned to Google to get the answer to that question. David: [00:03:36] Google has crawled the web and it says, "Well, here are the 10 best answers to your question that exist on the web." And of course, if you're the first best answer to that question on the whole world wide web, then tons of traffic is going to come your way. David: [00:03:55] That traffic has already basically been validated that your article is awesome. So it's really a fantastic source of traffic. Those who are using it for traffic and getting traffic from it know that. What I'd like to kind of talk about is where does that start. David: [00:04:16] How do you find your way into SEO into Google traffic? The way that I find my way in is... I think of Google, I think of those people who are approaching Google. What are they asking, the questions that they're asking that I can answer. It's as simple as that, really. For SEO, ask yourself what are people searching for on Google? David: [00:04:39] And there are a few different ways to kind of come across an answer to that question. The first is by instinct. If you don't even want to touch a tool, you can do good SEO without doing any research or anything like that, just through really thinking about the kinds of questions that you hear people ask in your space. David: [00:05:06] It can really be as simple as that. Lately, I've been hearing a lot of people ask, for example, how much traffic Pinterest can send me because in Facebook, traffic is going down because they are limiting the reach of businesses. David: [00:05:23] So people are turning to other networks. Pinterest is one of the networks that is known for sending traffic. I know that people are asking the question, "Do I really need to do keyword research to validate that?" Not necessarily. I can just say, "I believe that that's what people are searching for." David: [00:05:45] The next question is, "How are they searching for it? What words are they using?" And the answer to that is, "What was it that they used when they asked you about that question? When you've heard that question posed, how do real people talk about this?" Jillian: [00:06:00] Okay, so let's say I am a food blogger. Let's say I am a niched food blogger. Let's say I am a vegan food blogger. So what I do is I sit in my kitchen, and I come up with cool vegan recipes. David: [00:06:17] Yes, so you're sitting in your kitchen, you're coming up with cool vegan recipes, you're thinking specifically about vegan food, and you're thinking about the kinds of things that people would be interested in. David: [00:06:32] It might be vegan chocolate desserts. It might be vegan bread and vegan this and that. All the different kinds of things that you know are popular and the words that people use for them. David: [00:06:48] When you're thinking about your vegan chocolate cake, you've been calling it a vegan Chocy Puff Puff. Kids love that, right? Jillian: [00:06:59] Is that a British thing? David: [00:07:01] It's not. I just made that up but it sounds frou frou. Jillian: [00:07:05] It sounds fun. David: [00:07:07] Yes. So the Chocy Puff Puff, the vegan Chocy Puff Puff, when it comes time to write your recipe up and name it, you're not necessarily going to want to call it the vegan Chocy Puff Puff everywhere because people won't be searching for that. David: [00:07:27] Because you made that up until such times as this thing really takes off, and everybody is talking about the vegan Chocy Puff Puff. For SEO, use keywords in the name, title, and throughout your post David: [00:07:36] When it comes to search, SEO, for Pinterest too because Pinterest is a search engine in many ways, you're going to want to use the words that people use. You look at your vegan Chocy Puff Puff, and you think, "How would somebody describe this?" If the answer is, "It's a vegan chocolate cake", then you have to use those words for both the naming, the title of your recipe and throughout your recipe. David: [00:08:10] One way in it is, "I want to make my vegan Chocy Puff Puff. I want to put that out there." That's one way, but the other way in is, "What are people really looking for right now? What are they really interested in?" What is keyword research for SEO? David: [00:08:29] That way, you start with what's called keyword research. I already talked to you about instinct but there are other very simple ways to give you a little bit more of a leg up. Jillian: [00:08:40] Could you just very briefly describe what a keyword is? David: [00:08:46] Okay. Yes, thank you, Jillian. Keep bringing me back to this. I like that. Okay, so a keyword is simply a word that you have identified as being key to some kind of search intent. David: [00:09:04] So somebody is searching for a thing. Let's say that your title for your recipe now is vegan chocolate cake. Well, I forgot what it was - chocy puff puff, delicious Chocy Puff Puff. Now, your keywords here are vegan chocolate cake because those are the ones that people are going to search when they're looking for vegan chocolate cakes. David: [00:09:34] Your Chocy Puff Puff, that's more of sort of a branded term. Those aren't really keywords because nobody else will ever use them. Jillian: [00:09:45] Got it. David: [00:09:45] So keywords really are words that have search intent behind them. Jillian: [00:09:53] Got it. Start keyword research with Google Auto-Suggest David: [00:09:54] So we've figured out some topics based on instinct, what we think people looking for. Another great way in to finding new ideas for keywords in different plays on things is with a tool called Google Auto-Suggest. David: [00:10:13] All that is is you load up google.com, and you start typing the words that you think people are interested in. If I was to load up google.com and start typing, if I was to start, let's try it. I'm going to load up google.com right now. I'm going to start typing vegan. David: [00:10:42] What it's showing me is a bunch of searches that people have done. It actually orders them based on how popular those searches are. So the first thing it's showing me is vegan recipes. David: [00:10:53] It says vegan diet, vegan cheese, vegan pancakes, vegan food near me, vegan breakfast, etc. This is rudimentary keyword research. It couldn't be easier. All I did was started typing a word and Google's telling me, "Here are other things that people commonly search when they search for this." Jillian: [00:11:14] So just based on that, this is the way that I think about it, I would immediately get in my kitchen and start making vegan pancakes. Do you think that's a good idea, or do you feel like vegan pancakes, because it is one of the first options or suggestions, that it is such a crowded space, that I shouldn't even try to make vegan pancakes and try to rank for that in Google? David: [00:11:42] Yes. So a part of this will depend on how strong you think you are as a content creator, and how strong you think your website is compared to other people's in this space. David: [00:11:55] Now, I wouldn't worry too much about that second one, how strong you think your website is. Because ultimately, if you can do the first one right, be the best content creator out there, then Google will, in time, respect your website and send you traffic. David: [00:12:14] The answer to that for me is you Google the thing that you're thinking about creating. Now, we've decided "Alright, we were going to do a chocolate recipe but vegan pancakes sounds really interesting. It's saying that there's tons of traffic for this so we're going to Google vegan pancakes." David: [00:12:40] We're going to look at the results. What we see is a five minute vegan pancake recipe, All Recipes vegan pancake recipe, light and fluffy vegan pancakes, how to make easy vegan pancakes without eggs and milk, and whole grain vegan pancakes. Those are the top five results. How much traffic do the top results on Google get? David: [00:13:08] That's what I would tell you to do. Look at the top five results because most of the traffic will go there. In fact, around about 20 percent of the traffic for that keyword search will go to the first results. David: [00:13:24] Each one down will get about half as much traffic as you go down that page. Those top five are where you really have to be if you want to get a good amount of traffic. I described each of those titles for each of the pieces, and did you notice how each one was slightly different? They each had something going for it, didn't it? Jillian: [00:13:43] Yes. David: [00:13:43] One was a five-minute, sounds nice and easy. One was light and fluffy. One was how to make easy ones without eggs and milk, specific about not being with eggs and milk. The other one was whole grain. Ask yourself how your content is different to stand out in Google David: [00:13:56] They've all got something going on. The question that you would then have for yourself is - It's like any marketing question really - "How am I different? How's my content different? How's it going to stand out here? David: [00:14:10] Can I make something that really does stand out that nobody else has done here, but I know that people who are looking for vegan pancakes are really going to love. Jillian: [00:14:19] So would you say that words like easy, five-minute, those kinds of things, are part of your keywords like when you're coming up with what your vegan pancake recipe will be, that you should really be thinking about, that even the word easy can be beneficial? David: [00:14:42] Yeah. So I would differentiate them from keywords because they likely won't have a ton of search intent. People might be searching for easy vegan pancake recipes, and if you believe that to be the case, then easy is then one of your keywords. David: [00:15:01] You are deliberately going to try and rank for easy vegan pancake recipes. If that's not the case, and really just going for a vegan pancake recipes, then the easy part or the whole grain part is more about positioning. David: [00:15:19] It's more about saying, "This is what I think people will be excited to click on when they see this list of recipes." We often see that with things like the ultimate guide to -. Jillian: [00:15:29] Yes, best, top, those kinds of things, I never know whether I should be using those words in my titles. David: [00:15:38] Well the answer to that is - I'm going to now explain how Google decides where to rank your piece of content. Okay, so let's say we've actually finished our recipe. David: [00:15:56] We've typed it up on the blog. We've done the very basics of SEO which I can't like neglect. I'm going to say them now and they are use the keywords in the title of the post. That's essential. If you don't do that, you won't rank. David: [00:16:14] It's as simple as that. The second one is you use your keywords throughout your post. Simple as that. Jillian: [00:16:23] Now, here's one question which is, it used to be that you would want to repeat the exact keywords like five times in the post and then I've read that Google's smarter than that and then ultimately you can mix it up a little bit. Jillian: [00:16:37] Let's say it's easy vegan pancakes that you might say these vegan pancakes are the easiest. You don't have to say easy vegan pancakes five times in your post. David: [00:16:51] Yeah. I would say that yes, the truth now is that Google's very smart at telling what your post is about. The most important t…
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