Fix Your Lead Gen Problem with SEO in 4 Steps
“Has anyone ever used a lead gen specialist?”
This week in one of the groups I’m a member of, someone asked that question. And let me tell you—I could not respond fast enough. That's literally what I do.
I mean, how many times have you heard me say SEO is the easiest way to bring in new leads consistently? A lot!
I shared some advice with her so she can get more people coming to her new lead magnet, which is really what her question was all about.
Because you can—and should—be weaving in SEO into every single page on your website, social media profile, etc.
And that got me thinking about steps I could share with you that you can take if you also feel like you have a bit of a lead gen problem. So, here you are!
Topics covered in this podcast episode:
Why a rebrand or business pivot is the best time to get started with SEO
How focusing on SEO can actually improve your client experience
How the BIG 3 questions help you find better keywords (that your people are actually searching for)
The 2 SEO pieces you need to strategize, create, & implement—like yesterday
The only places you need/want to use your name or business name in your SEO strategy
The BEST content creation strategy (using SEO) when you’re in a slow season of business
How walking myself through these steps has actually shifted my offer suite
I’ve been seeing how my lack of attention on my own SEO has impacted my business—and I don’t like what I’m seeing. So I’m doing something about it. I’m following my own advice!
And if you're in a similar season, this is something you could to do, too. I want you to know exactly what to do, in what order, and I want you to have help—if you’d like it.
Explore all the resources below & leave a comment or DM me on Instagram if you have any questions!
Mentioned Resources:
SEO & Grow group coaching program
Related Episodes:
🎧Dr Cecily | SEO Made Her a Savvier Business Owner
🎧SEO titles & meta descriptions
Connect w/ Brittany:
This episode of The Basic B podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.! Help me reach more service providers like you by following the show & leaving a rating or review on Apple & Spotify!
The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of The Basic B podcast follows
Hello and welcome back to the Basic B Podcast. I'm your host and favorite SEO coach, Brittany Herzberg.
You may not know this, you may know this, I also happen to be an SEO strategist, SEO consultant, SEO specialist, SEO expert. There are so many names that I could go by. I would bet that you would not expect someone who knows exactly what to do to not be following her own advice, but here we are.
I, Brittany, have put much, much more time and effort into helping my clients see success with SEO versus focused on my own SEO. But that is changing now. I'm actually mapping out a whole freaking video series and I'll start to share that very, very soon on Instagram. I'm of course going to keep all of my podcasts and my email peeps in the loop too. Do not worry. But if you want to see some ridiculous and probably helpful videos, Make sure you're following me over there. I'm Brittany_Herzberg.
And already everyone inside SEO and Grow is starting to see me take action on my own site, my own business. Even this week, I was sharing my Google Doc that houses all of my SEO strategies and my updated website copy. I don't know that I've actually said this part out loud either.
Over the last year, I've grown a ton personally. Professionally, but it also feels internal. It doesn't feel like it's reflected yet in my branding, my content, my website words. So I've been slowly rewriting my website copy in a Google Doc, slowly shifting my content, and slowly revamping my funnels.
But this week I asked for even more support because I really want to get serious about this. So I've got Jenna of Sundai Studio helping me with rebranding. We're talking new fonts, logo, colors, all that good jazz. And I've got Colie James helping me with strategy for my systems and my client experience, because I want to beef that up a little bit more. I've also, of course, got Meg Yelaney as my business coach, helping me think like 4+ steps ahead and encouraging me to do scary things, but important things that are already moving the needle for my business. I've got Mickey coming in hot as tech support and the amazing Leah Bryant supporting me with this podcast so I can bring you a really great experience here as well. It's getting really, really real, folks.
But enough about me. Let's move this along to the meat and potatoes of the episode. The thing you are really here for. So this week, I'm part of a few groups, and this week, in one of said groups, someone asked the question, has anyone ever used a lead gen specialist? And let me tell you, I could not respond fast enough.
That's literally what I do. I mean, how many times have you heard me say SEO is the easiest way to bring in new leads consistently? A lot, right? I say that quite a lot. I shared some advice with her so she can get more people coming to her new lead magnet, which is really what her question was all about.
Because you can and should be weaving in SEO into every single one of your website pages and opt-ins and sales pages and services pages and blog posts and social media profiles, just everything. That got me thinking about steps I could share with you that you can take if you also feel like you have a bit of a lead gen problem. So here we go.
First one, answer the big 3 questions. It doesn't matter if you're listening to the podcast, if you are reading a blog post, if you are in a workshop with me, if you're in the SEO Grow program, it doesn't matter. These 3 questions are our North Star, and you are going to have to answer them no matter how many times you try not to. You can go back and listen to Cecily's episode because she even said that in there. She was like, oh my gosh, I'm not going to be able to get past it. No, you're going to have to answer these questions because this is the very first part of the process. And if you miss this, or if you just completely ignore this, you're not going to be able to do any of the future steps. Find the keywords, put the SEO strategies together, know what content to put, none of it.
So those big 3 questions, if you're not familiar, if you're new around here, hi, welcome. The big 3 questions are, who do you help? How do you help them? And what do you want to be known for or get found for? So let's break this down a little bit. Just know this going in, this is a bit of a tricky, very confronting series of questions. So if you're like, oh cool, I got this, and then you go to write this down on a notepad or you go to type something in your computer and you freeze, just know that that's a very normal response and listen to what I'm saying and just try to get something on paper. This is an internal document, so write as much or as little as you want. You could write a sentence, you could write a partial thought, you could write 3 partial thoughts, you could write a paragraph. It doesn't matter. Just get something out.
So the big 3 questions, let's get into them a little bit more. Who do you help? This is really getting at your audience, and it could be the audience that you currently have, or it could be an audience that you want to shift toward. Let's say you are a photographer and you've been doing lots of maternity photography, but you really want to shift into family photography. That's totally a thing. Let's say you've been doing family photography and you want to switch into boudoir photography. I actually had a friend that thought happened with, you can do that. So whatever it is, the audience that you want to start working with or that you want to work with in this upcoming season, write that down. It could be maybe a few different groups of people. Maybe you're working with moms and business owners and fill in the blank. Maybe you're working with just one group of people, like I work with established entrepreneurs. Whatever that looks like for you and your business and your industry, Jot that down. So who do you help?
Next is how do you help them? And this really gets to your offers, how your offers are structured. Are you doing one-to-one coaching? Are you doing a group coaching program? Do you only have digital or physical products? You know, therapists, I've had so many therapists come in my world and I love working with them. And one big differentiator there is are we doing in-person therapy? Are we doing virtual or online therapy sessions? So what does that look like for you? Again, you might have a mixture. So like I've got digital products and I have workshops and I have the group coaching program. So I've got a variety and I would write down all of those answers for myself, which I have in my very own document because I'm doing the work myself now. So offer suite, jot that down. Whatever, again, you want to start offering in this next season. What do we really want to offer? What do you really want to focus on filling? So jot that down.
And then the third question, what do you want to be known for or get found for? This one is probably the biggest one that trips people up, and I understand why. And the biggest reason why is that it's unclear, maybe, what I'm asking, what I'm trying to get at. So what I'm really looking at or looking for in that answer is, if I'm referring someone to you, if I'm like, oh my gosh, Leah, you have to go and check out so-and-so's work because you've been talking about this thing and that's what they do. That's more of, I want you to play out that conversation in your head with that answer. So how is someone speaking about you? What are they saying when they're referring someone to you? That could be something you could think of.
I've had a lot of people jot down values that are important to them. They've tried to also actually just like work in keyword phrases in that answer. Those two things are totally fine. And it's not really what I'm getting at because people aren't necessarily typing in any kind of value, again, necessarily. It's more what are they saying when they're referring someone to you. It could kind of sort of be what are you hoping to show up for in a Google search so that people actually come to your website. Like, you could say that that's part of what you're getting at, but really it's that referral. What does it sound like when someone is referring people to you? What's your differentiator? What makes you the best photographer for new moms? What makes you the best therapist for eldest daughters? You know what I'm saying? So what makes you so amazing at that thing? What makes you stand out in your industry?
So those are the 3 questions. Who do you help? How do you help them? What do you want to be known for or get found for? Just jot down whatever comes to mind. So definitely I would encourage you just pause right now, take 10 or 15 minutes, even set a timer. Go ahead, answer those and treat it again like an internal document. Don't think that anybody else is going to see this because that'll allow you to free write a little bit better.
The second thing is SEO titles and meta descriptions. I guess I should say are SEO titles and meta descriptions, but this is another thing that you could focus on that you could actually create that would help you with your lead gen problem. So SEO titles and meta descriptions. The reason I have you answer those 3 questions, who do you help, how do you help them, what do you want to be known for, get found for, is because that's going to inform the keywords that you find, which is then going to inform how you're going to fill out these SEO strategy pieces.
And if you're not familiar with SEO titles and meta descriptions, there's an episode where I went really in depth with this, so I'll make sure I link it. SEO titles and meta descriptions are plugged in on the backend of your site, and the only time they come out to play where people see them and it actually really needs to do its job is when someone is searching Google or Bing or whatever. So someone goes to Google, they type something in the search bar, they hit enter, that giant search results page populates. What you're seeing are SEO titles and meta descriptions. The SEO titles are the blue hyperlinked headlines. The meta descriptions are the gray 1 to 2 sentences underneath, and they really should be summarizing the page. The meta descriptions, I have found they work best when they're written in first person. So it reads almost like a mini little love letter from you to the reader.
The SEO titles work really well when it's incorporating the right type of keywords for the different pages. So like the homepage, you want to be speaking to who you help and how. Hint, hint, again, answer those 3 questions and it'll be right there for you. The meta descriptions, like I said, you really want that to be first person, a summary of what's on the page. That's going to be a little bit more where you can put your vibe in. Your wording, your phrases, but the two of them together really give someone the best impression, the best quick-hitting summary. 'Cause we're all like squirrels. We have 2 seconds of attention and then it's like scrolling down to the next thing. So you have to capture people's attention and you have to be really thorough in a very tiny amount of space. It's one of my favorite puzzles to figure out, but it is a puzzle and it can be really daunting.
But again, this is why those answers really help you because they get you focused on really the core of the who you want to help, the core of your offers, the core of what you want to get found for and what makes you different. So answer those questions, then do your keyword research, then make sure every page, like I was saying earlier, blog posts, website pages, opt-in pages, services pages, sales page, any of those things, we want those to have unique SEO titles and unique meta descriptions. You do not want to have duplicate. I actually had this recently where someone, I gave them a one-page SEO strategy for their homepage and they were like, cool, I applied it to all of the pages on my website. And I was like, okay, you're going to need to go undo that. So you need them to be customized for each individual page.
The only time that I really recommend having your name or your business name anywhere would be an about page SEO title or a contact page SEO title. It does not really do anything to benefit you on any of the other pages. So bear that in mind as well. But SEO titles, meta descriptions, start with your homepage and then do any of those other pages you see in the navigation bar, any of the pages listed in the footer, any of the pages behind the scenes that may not be linked, like right front and center for your website., but that you want people to come to. That is going to be so game changer for your lead generation.
The third thing that you're going to want to do is create content. And I know that is going to just tick some of you off to no end. I had a discovery call this week with someone and she's like, I hate this stuff. I just want to do my job. I want to go in. I want to help clients. I don't give a crap about the content or the SEO. I'm like, I know. And I wish I could tell you in good conscience that you could just optimize your website and that would be enough and you wouldn't have to worry about content. And I used to say that, but I have actually studied and looked at the data and it doesn't work. You see an uptick in traffic after you optimize your website, but if you don't create content, and I'm talking like one blog a month, it could be 500 words minimum once a month, like that can be enough. If you don't have at least that amount of content going out, you're going to see this uptick in traffic and possibly even in inquiries, maybe even in sales.
But if you're not creating and sharing content regularly, that's going to drop and you won't be sustaining that lovely, beautiful stuff that SEO can bring you. The leads, the sales, all that good stuff. So content, like I said, one blog, 500 words minimum, at least once a month. If you're in a season where you're like, I really want to have more traffic coming to my website, consider really going all in with blogging. Maybe you have one blog post that you publish a week. So we're talking like 4 posts per month. Give that a shot for like 1 to 2 months and just see how it goes. You don't have to sustain that for a long, long time, but especially if you're in a season, I've shared this with clients and they've actually implemented this and it has helped their traffic increase. It has helped their inquiries increase, even their sales.
When you're in a slower season and you're like, I want more people, I want more stuff, I want more happening on my website, focus on it a little bit more. And this goes for me. This is part of why I have been like, okay, Brittany, you need to focus on your own SEO strategy because I've been a little bit lazy with my content. I've been turning these podcast episodes into blog posts, but I haven't been publishing any like quote unquote normal regular blog posts where it's just a topic and I'm writing about it. But I'm seeing how that's playing out with my data and I don't like what I'm seeing. So I know that this is one thing I need to do. And if you're in a similar season, this is something you need to do as well.
The fourth and final thing is get SEO support. I'm sure I have said things and you've been like, what are you even talking about? How does this stuff work? What is a, where do I find, you know, all of those questions that have been bouncing around your head as you've been listening to me so far. It helps to have support. It helps to have someone walking alongside you in this journey. It helps to have someone who can explain what these terms are, who can say, oh, don't worry about that error because blah, blah, blah. Oh, I see this, but you actually aren't able to get into that on the backend of your website. Oh, this is, you know, maybe a couple of characters less or a couple of characters more, but it's okay because blah, blah, blah. Or yeah, go ahead and write this blog post that seems a little bit out there that doesn't really have a great keyword that you can optimize for, but you know your people have been saying this to you. Any of those types of things, it helps to be able to have someone to tell you, yeah, it's okay. You can go ahead and do this. This will still work. Let's try this. Like, this is good.
And this is precisely why I created an easy-to-follow 3-part SEO coaching program, because I wanted all of that stuff in one place. I wanted to be able to give you all of the tools, all of the templates, all of the things, and to have a spot where I could hold your hand along the way. I want you to know exactly what to do, in what order, and I want you to have help. And you might have seen my recent email, if you're on my email list, where I shared that the way to work with me now is by joining this program. I have spent a few months fighting the realization that I had where I just literally was like, I love teaching. I love hosting groups. And I want this group program to be the focus of my offer suite. So again, see how this all ties together, even going back to those 3 questions? That's not to say that I'll never ever open my doors again for done-for-you website SEO work, but at least for now, the program is it. There are still DIY templates and tutorials and resources, but if you are serious about SEO, the program has everything. Video trainings, resources for learning how to do keyword research right and create solid SEO strategies that will work for you, and even content that will go work for you, as well as guest expert sessions and live coaching calls with me and one-to-one support with me, even in your Google Docs as you're working through the material in real time.
I'm looking at everything. So yes, you're doing stuff, but you get to be like, Brittany, will you check my work? Yes, I'm happy to. I'm actually going to be doing that after I record this. The really fun thing is that I'm taking the program evergreen. So what that means for you is that you don't have to wait 2, 3, 4 months to join. When you decide you're ready, you can join right then and there. I'll do a more robust episode on how that's all going to flow. But for now, just know that there's a link below to learn more about the SEO and Grow group coaching program.
And that's it. Those are the 4 things. So you're going to answer those big 3 questions, take 10 to 15 minutes, literally just set a timer. You're going to focus on creating unique SEO titles and meta descriptions for all of your core website pages. Then you're going to look at creating content and really creating the content that's going to naturally allow you to be like, oh, and sign up for this program, sign up for this freebie, go check this thing out, go get this digital product. You want to create content where that naturally flows. And then the fourth thing is getting SEO support when you need it, whatever kind of support that looks like for you. If you have any questions, of course, just ask.
You can always, always send a text or voice note to me on Instagram or leave a comment if you're listening to this on the blog page or send a smoke signal, like, I will find you. Thanks for joining me for this episode. I would love to hear what action you're taking after listening to this. Please find me and tell me. And remember, I'm always over here cheering you on on your SEO journey.
