From Page 3 to Page 1: An SEO Case Study w/ Heidi Thompson

podcast

May 29

“You always stood out to me because you explain SEO in a very down-to-earth way. You make it so practical & doable.”

I’m BACK with another former SEO & Grow grad & another epic case study episode—and this one has me doing a happy dance!

Heidi Thompson, wedding industry marketing expert and SEO program grad, is here sharing exactly what's changed in her business since getting her SEO strategy locked in.

Spoiler: her average Google position went from 30 to 8. That's page 3 to page 1—across ALL her keywords. 👀

In this episode with Heidi, you get a behind-the-scenes look of what it's like to do SEO when you help a LOT of different types of clients, how SEO fits perfectly into her "life first" business style, & why her next project has her even more excited about SEO!

Topics covered in this podcast episode:

Why Heidi chose SEO & Grow over other SEO programs or resources
What she expected going in vs what the experience actually delivered
How she uses case studies strategically for both SEO and social proof
How she’s successfully leveraged SEO for her podcast and case studies
The podcast-to-case-study workflow she's built with help from Claude
Why SEO is a perfect fit for "life first" entrepreneurs
The mindset shift that happens when you stop treating content as disposable
What her Google Search Console data looks like now compared to “before” SEO & Grow
The keyword mistake she was making that made everything feel harder than it needed to be
Why just 2 hours a week was enough to make actual progress with SEO

Whether you’re coming into the world of SEO as a newbie or you’re coming in with a bit of knowledge and just wanna get your website optimized for SEO (like Heidi)—SEO & Grow 🌱 is here to support your journey!

If you have any questions as you’re listening—about SEO, the coaching program, or anything in between—I’d love to hear from you!

Say hi on Instagram or leave a comment below. 😉

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Meet: Heidi Thompson

Heidi Thompson is the best-selling author of Clone Your Best Clients and the wedding business coach & marketing strategist behind Evolve Your Wedding Business where she helps wedding professionals stop throwing everything at the wall and build a focused, strategic marketing system that books ideal clients consistently without living on Instagram or working 60-hour weeks.

Mentioned Resources:

🔗SEO Data Dashboard (use code BRITT20 for 20% off)

🔗Clone Your Best Clients (Heidi’s book)

🔗SEO & Grow 🌱

🔗5-Day SEO Sprint💨

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

Brittany Herzberg:

Hello, and welcome back to the Basic B Podcast. I'm your host and favorite SEO coach, Brittany Herzberg, and we are back with another case study. Because I cannot help myself. I love talking to these people and getting to see where they're at and how things have changed since they've been doing SEO. So I have yet another SEO and Grow grad. We have Heidi Thompson with us today. Say hi, Heidi.

Heidi Thompson: Hey.

Brittany Herzberg: I'm really thrilled to have you here and just so grateful that you're like, yeah, sure, I'll come on the show.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, of course you asked me, and I was like, yeah, obviously, anytime I get to hang out with you, I'm happy to do that.

Brittany Herzberg: Ditto. All right. Tell the people of the world what you do and how you help people in the world. What's going on in your corner.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. So I work with wedding professionals of all different kinds, so planners, photographers, DJs, stationery, designers, you name it. And I help teach them how to market in a way that actually works for them and isn't, you know, completely overwhelming. So I'm really all about helping them actually get more of, like, the clients they love to work with without having a business that requires like, 60, 80 hours a week.

Brittany Herzberg: Exactly. We love that. And it kind of sounds familiar. So how in the world did SEO jump on your radar and what made SEO and Grow stand out to you?

Heidi Thompson: So it's one of those things that, you know is always like, you should do this, you should do this. You should really work on this. This should be something that you're doing. And then I don't even remember how I initially came across you. I think it might have been from your podcast possibly, like, quite a while ago, but you always stood out to me, and SEO and Girl really stood out to me because you explain SEO in a very down to earth, this is not this whole confusing technical world sort of way that makes it very practical and very doable. So I knew that with SEO and Grow, it was going to be very step by step. It wasn't like I was going to be just, like, thrown in and, you know, left to figure it out. Because there's a lot of things with SEO where it's like, okay, we have to find keywords, and that opens up like a million more questions. So I just knew from the way that you teach and the way that you structure things that it was going to be a very guided experience where I could get the help that I needed, but then still be like, okay, I have what I need. I can go do my thing.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I love hearing that, because I really do try to get that across in, like, the free ways that I can. And then once you're in the program. So let me ask you this, because so many people, and actually a couple of people that are in my world right now have signed up for coaching programs or signed up for things, and then they get in there and they, like, either don't see the person or the thing that was promised is, like, nowhere to be found. It's not even, like, hiding in a corner. It's just, like, not there at all. So how was that from, like, what you saw? Sales page conversations with me, things I might have said into the actual experience. Did it feel like the things that were said were there?

Heidi Thompson: It was more, actually. I really love the fact that, you know, you put something together, and by the time you're done with it, it's like, I don't even know if this, like, matches what I was trying to do, if I accomplished what I wanted to do. And you open yourself up so much to be like, let me look at it. Let me audit it. Let me review it, and. And give you suggestions. And I think that is something that is so essential, especially with this kind of work, because, you know, you go into it and you're like, okay, I'm gonna do it in this particular way. I'm gonna follow these instructions. But then you go down so many tangents and so many rabbit holes about what you could do, that by the end, it's like, did I do it? Did I accomplish what I was trying to do? Yeah.

Brittany Herzberg: Oh, gosh, that's so true. And especially when you're going down the rabbit hole, it's like, well, this person says this and Chat says that, and Claude says this, and this other person says that. And it's like, rein it in. Come back. We had these steps. It can be very intriguing, enticing, to be like, put this thing over here. This, like, shiny object. I want to go, like, touch it and play with it.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And you are very good at, like, yanking people back out of, like, the rabbit holes of, like, but this, but this, but this. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Come back to me. This is what we're gonna focus on right now.

Brittany Herzberg: Listen to the sound of my voice. That's true every single group. And I'm one of those people, too, where I'm like, but I saw this thing. And I think that's maybe why I do tug people back. Cause I'm like, I know where you're Going, we don't need to go there. That's not gonna get you where you actually wanna go. And, like, as humans, just as an aside, we always want to throw obstacles in our way for whatever reason, whatever mindset trash we have going on, limiting beliefs, whatever, you name it, but it's just. It's not gonna serve you. And you came in my program for a reason. So I'm gonna be like, nope, this is not gonna get you to that destination. We're getting back on this path. Here you go.

Heidi Thompson: And I love people like that. Like, I don't need people that are like, let me support you on your tirade. Going off on something completely different. Like, no,

Brittany Herzberg: that was not the plan. Oh, my gosh, that is really funny. What were your expectations of just, like, going in and doing anything with SEO, whether it was with me or with someone else? Like, what did you have in your head that that would look like?

Heidi Thompson: So I came into it with, like, definitely some familiarity of, okay, I know I need to do, like, this keyword research. I know I need to fit these pieces in, and, like, everything that I create needs to have these different things plugged in. But the exact how to of that felt very squishy and amorphous and, like, well, in this situation this and this situation that. And it was like, I really just need a framework that I can follow, and that's really what I was looking for. And I know you're very like, no, we can go off in that world later, but this is the direction. This is what we need to do. Step one, step two, step three. And it really helps from getting sucked into those different areas. So I really like that we initially work on, you know, like, the core pages, because obviously that's super important, but then get into the other pieces of content, whether that's, you know, blog posts or case studies that are also blog posts or podcasts. Because podcast SEO was something that I never really dug too much into. I don't know why I feel like there aren't that many people talking about it, but it is a huge opportunity.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, it really is. We should totally go with this, because you're one person that I've had on the podcast who has a podcast and has blogs. I would say you're really on it with your marketing. I mean, as, of course, one would expect, because you're talking about marketing. So speak to that a little bit, because you do have the podcast, you do have the blogs. I know you have case studies. Now, how was that? Because I think you've done A lot of implementing of that stuff, like tail end of the program and then even since you've been out of the program, right?

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. So I've created a couple different case studies that have been incredibly helpful, both from an SEO perspective. It's very helpful in my case because I work with a group of people who probably aren't searching for that group name, you know, so if you're a photographer, you're probably not searching for marketing for wedding professionals. You might be, but you're also searching for like that subgroup for photographers, for wedding photographers. So I have all of these subgroups and it's like, ah, this is a lot of, you know, individual groups of people to manage. And the case studies are really helpful for that because then I can drill down into what this one wedding planner did for her marketing and really get into telling the story for that. So that's been really good for getting really specific for keywords, also for podcasts, because with it, I always start off with the podcast and I have had, you know, previous clients on my podcast. And so I start there and start pulling it apart because I have the meat of this person's journey and so I can pull from that. And it makes it so much better than just, you know, like, here's a podcast with this person so I can actually like lay out this is where they were, this is what they did, these are the steps, this is, you know, what their result looked like. And then it has been really helpful too, just in my marketing, to be able to point to them, you know, when I have someone that either fits that person's situation or fits that kind of business that they're running or the kind of struggle they're running up against, I can say, well, you know, here's how we would handle that situation and here's exactly how we did it with this particular person. And it is such a strong piece of social proof because it isn't just the testimonial. You know, it shows the full journey that someone has. So it is. It hits the mark in multiple different ways. You know, from the SEO side, from podcast content, from like a nice long form piece on the website to then just being able to be something that you can reference and feel like not enough people are doing them.

Brittany Herzberg: They're not. And they weren't even back when I was talking about them and talking about case studies with SEO, people were like, huh, what? Why would you do that? And I'm like, why would you not? It's right here you have the SEO title and meta description you have these keywords. People are looking for stories, for examples, for things that they can relate to. And especially with, I think with, like, you've got the membership, I've got programs, we've got like one to one offers, whatever it is that you have, when it's not a physical product where you can go, yep, the water bottle works. It's like, what's the program like? What's the host like? What's the experience like? Did you actually have any positive results? Like, are you in a different spot now? That's a positive spot. So you want to do the whole, like, try before you buy. And with a service, I feel like case studies are the ultimate way to do that. And I love that you're seeing the whole thing through, unlike one of us and doing the podcast and the full blog post.

Heidi Thompson: I love that it's so much easier when you have the podcast too. So for anyone that's thinking about doing this sort of thing, if you have a podcast, even if you don't just record the conversation and then it gives you the meat, like, it gives you the framework to kind of fill in. And I've been able to, you know, kind of train Claude on, like, okay, here's the structure I want to follow. Like, pull out the pieces and then just we start kind of rewriting and massaging different pieces. But it's not starting from scratch. And I feel like that's the scariest part to start from.

Brittany Herzberg: Oh, my gosh. It really is. And that's a great point. I'm always telling people, just record the conversation and never has to see the light of day. But you're ultimately looking for the case study, the before, the during, the after. It's like, that's it. Like, it can be that simple. And then find some keywords to help it make it even more discoverable.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, it's so powerful. And, you know, it makes for great podcast content too. So if you have a podcast, you know, definitely be doing them, do it.

Brittany Herzberg: And I would say, I think Leah, my podcast producer usually says at least once a quarter, but if you have more people than that, you could even do it like once a month. Yeah, the possibilities are endless over here. Yeah. So we kind of talked about the experience, we talked about the before, but I didn't really tee up, like, what other things do you have going on in your life? Like, yes, there's you, the human, and you have this business, but do you have any other, like, factors or considerations in your life?

Heidi Thompson: Good question. So I have a very strong priority of not working all the time. Imagine that. So I know there's a lot of people with like, oh, you know, I have kids. Oh, you know, I have like these health concerns. I'm like, yes, I'm gonna do that style, but I don't have that particular struggle. I just, I don't wanna work a lot. Like, I wanna do what I wanna do and then I wanna be out and enjoying my life. So doing things in my business that I know are gon for me always take priority. Whether that's SEO or something that, you know, SEO is one of those things that it's just a workhorse, you know, it just continues to work. And it's crazy. Like, I see so many of my own clients put so much time and effort and energy into things like Instagram and it's like, great if it works for you, but at the same time that's going to be dead in a week if that, you know, that's probably not going to generate anything for you. So. Because like, I'm very much like a life first kind of person when it comes to business. I really prioritize things that are like, okay, once I get this ball rolling, it's just going to keep rolling and then I can start another one and roll it down the hill and like, you know, just keep it moving as opposed to, I feel like a lot of times a lot of the things we do, I think social media is a great example of this is like you're just starting from scratch over and over and over again. And it's like, it's exhausting.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, it really is. And I think so many people see the work that they have to put into social media for that marketing style, marketing strategy. And then they're like, I'm gonna double my workload because I'm gonna add SEO in. And it's like, no, no, no, no. This is actually going to lighten things because you have content working for you for months and years to come, as opposed to like 48 hours and it's dead.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And like I have stuff that has been getting found for years, continues to get found. And then I think if you're going to do a lot of work on social, start with the SEO stuff because that's working in the background. And then you can just take it and turn it into social media posts.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, and that's even the stuff that I've like that we talk about in the group program too, is even just like optimizing your profile. And people are like, what? I don't just Put, like, random words here. I don't just put, like, my name. I can do more. Yeah, you can do more. So it's like all these opportunities that are, like, right in front of our faces. We just may or may not know what they are. If we do know what they are and we haven't acted on them, it's generally because you don't know what to put there and you don't see how the big whole thing comes together. So that's one thing that I think, since you were in the program, I ended up making it four months long because three months felt okay. But four months was even better because we were able to, like, just stretch it a little bit more. So it's like knock out the website, get into content, get into anything, profiles or whatever that's off your website. And it's all going to work together, especially with AI searches, because I'm finding that AI is like, okay, you know, Heidi's over here, Angie's over here, and she's over here. Okay, Brittany's over here and here and here. And it's able to just put together this, like, really good understanding of you, your business, where you are, what you do, who you help, how you help them, and then show you, serve you in the right search results for the right people.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And I think a lot of people get excited about AI and don't realize that it's going off of SEO. So that part is super important.

Brittany Herzberg: Thank you, Heidi. Gosh, if you didn't hear me say it, Heidi said it. Okay.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, like, those foundations are crucial. And I feel like the way you teach SEO is like, layers, you know, like, okay, we have to get the base, get it down, and then we can add this, then we can add this, then we can add this. And it just makes it so much more doable because it's like, okay, I know let's say I have, like, a ton on my plate right now, but I know at some point I want to create a blog post around this topic. And I know I'm going to focus on this sort of transformation for this person or these particular keywords. The goal is to get it found in these particular searches. It is fine if it doesn't get done right now. And I think going into it, like, I definitely had that anxiety of, like,

Brittany Herzberg: I feel like I need to do

Heidi Thompson: everything now, but I feel like as long as I'm approaching it with the right mindset going forward, it's like, okay, this stuff's just working. Like, I have this going when I can Add another layer. Cool. But whether that's this month or next month or the month after, in the grand scheme of things doesn't actually matter. So it, like, takes some of the pressure off.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. That is so true for so many of us. And I've. I've found myself recently attracting a lot of people who relate to me also as a perfectionist or a procrastinator or whatever, because it's like, I can fill my plate and it's fine. It'll all get done. No, it's not all going to get done right now. And it's okay because it's something that you can chip away at, which some people hate, hearing that about SEO. But even as you're talking, it's almost like a very good marketing strategy for anyone who does have those, like, anxious tendencies, which I definitely do. It's like, I have to get all this done. Like, right now, it's like, no, do this, then do this. And that is definitely my hope with the program, is that I am like, here's step one, here's step two, and, like, see it all the way through. And then you can get to the point where you're doing content and profiles and whatever that other stuff is, and you can take advantage of that on a monthly basis. That part doesn't have to be in any set order, but getting your website set up, like, does need to be in a certain order.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And it makes it very easy to take action on because it helps you zoom in on, like, okay, what is actually going to make an impact. And like, yeah, then I can do things like optimize these images I haven't gotten to yet. Which, by the way, is something I taught my VA how to do from learning from you. And it was like, go find everything we haven't done and we can start knocking this out.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. I love hearing that. That's another good point. It is something that you can bring a team member on, and you could even bring Claude or whatever on board and be like, this is what needs to happen. This keyword, this thing, this order, this many characters like you. At that point, you know what needs to be done, and it's you delegating with specific instructions.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, yeah. And it really just has given every piece of content I'm creating more direction, more purpose, more function. So I'm getting more out of it than just like, okay, I'm going to create something on this and, like, treating it as disposable. Like, we do so often on social.

Brittany Herzberg: So. So True. All right, so with this part of like actually being in the program, learning things, doing things, do you have any guess for like, on average each week, how much time you were putting into the SEO stuff? And it could be a rough guess.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, I was setting aside, I asked Brittany, but immediately when I signed up, I was like, it has to be a block on my calendar or it's not going to happen. You need to do it right now. Tell me how much time to put out. And I think I set aside maybe like two hours a week. Whether I used the full two hours, you know, depending what I was working on. And I still have it. It's just like that block. It's SEO work and I can go and just see like, okay, what's going on right now? What's one thing I can do? And then I do that one thing and then I move on.

Brittany Herzberg: And that's gotta feel some type of way. So, like, how does that feel, being able to do that really good.

Heidi Thompson: It feels like a much easier lift. You know, it's one of those things. It's like, you know, building a muscle. Like, you don't see results overnight, but as you do the rep, it's like, oh, this is getting easier. Oh, I'm starting to see the results of this and it's very encouraging. And it feels like, okay, this is something I can do that is going to impact the long term health of my business in a pretty short amount of time that I'm dedicating to it.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I love hearing that. All right, so we've been out of the program for like three, four months, I think.

Heidi Thompson: Something like that. Yeah.

Brittany Herzberg: How is your SEO life now?

Heidi Thompson: So I totally back burnered some things because I was like, okay, I had a summit. There were some other things I had going on where it was just like, I can put a pin in this. But I felt good about putting a pin in it. I didn't feel like I'm falling behind because that's the worst feeling, you know? Yeah, it wasn't like I'm slipping. I'm. I'm losing what I've been working on. Like, all of this stuff is just building in the background. So that was really nice to know that I can put a pin in this and it's not going to fall apart while I do that. You know, it's just going to continue to hold or continue to build. And I've gone in and, you know, continued to create blog posts and content on different topics that I know is going to get me found. I was looking at my search console and since we started just like across. Across the board, my average position of where I'm being found has jumped significantly. Like across all keywords. I'm talking.

Brittany Herzberg: Wow.

Heidi Thompson: Beforehand, my average position was like 30ish. And now it's like 8.

Brittany Herzberg: Oh my gosh. Really? Okay, I'll put that in context for anyone who's like, what does that even mean? Practically, there's about 10 results on a Google search results page. So if she was showing up in the 30s, that was page three. And then being in position eight, you're on page one, which is amazing.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And that's an average position. So that's across a large swath of keywords.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. Because you have a ton of keywords. I mean, you help all sorts of wedding professionals do all sorts of marketing. You cover quite a range.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. So that has been really cool to see. And you know, with the dashboard we set up, and I have been less active in that area for sure I need to get back into it. But it's really nice to be able to see like, okay, this is the change. This is what's happening. Because before I knew how to measure that, it was just like, I don't know. Hope that works.

Brittany Herzberg: There's a number there.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, I guess that's good.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. At least there's something that's true though. I mean, so now you're able to go in and see the numbers and actually make sense of them and then have you even gone so far as to like, not just make sense of them, but like, make some marketing moves based on what you're seeing?

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, there have been things that I've seen, you know, changes in like, oh, weird, this page is doing better or this page is doing worse. You know, maybe based on that. These are different topics that, that I need to focus on more or less. Like, given just what's happening in the market, what people are searching for, it's really nice to be able to make decisions off of an observation of something that's happening than like, I gotta come up with something off the top of my head to talk about.

Brittany Herzberg: So true. So, okay, you're seeing stuff happening in Google search console and Google Analytics. Have you seen anything by way of like, inquiries or people signing up for the membership or, or asking you more specific questions or anything like that?

Heidi Thompson: So I am terrible at measuring this. I will like cars on the table. So bad at measuring, like, the path because it's so messy, I think, especially in my kind of business, because a lot of times it's like, people will find me and then they'll join me for a webinar or they'll join me for a summit and then they'll join the membership and then it's like, what is the attribution? Because all of it played a role. So it.

Brittany Herzberg: Right.

Heidi Thompson: I think it's messy for everybody, but I think especially when you're not working specifically one on one with someone and it's like a one to many kind of thing, like a webinar, it's messy. But I have definitely found, yeah, more people have been finding me through my organic content, for sure. So I have a webinar that works very well for me and I've created content that is adjacent to that. I've optimized the webinar page, so. Which is not something I did. Like, usually when I put funnels together for a training or something, I'm like, placeholder title, not gonna do any of this. So, like, you know, it's something I host on a regular basis. Duh, Heidi. It makes sense that you want to optimize that.

Brittany Herzberg: Hey, but we learned.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, yeah. So there are definitely more people finding that. And that is a very big point of entry for people to then come into my membership.

Brittany Herzberg: So that is so exciting. I love that. What about any of the other places, like, any directories that you might be listed on or social media or anything like that? Are you having people find you there yet?

Heidi Thompson: It's hard to tell if it's like, from the changes, but I've definitely had more DM conversations where clearly the way I'm describing myself in my Instagram bio is clicking more with people because I will have people message me and like, reference that. Like, oh, you do this, like, tell me about this, or can you help me with this particular thing? So it's so hard to describe what you do when you're in it every day and going through SEO and grow. I know you always take people back to your three questions and it's like, what do I do? What do I do every day? And how do I explain it? But, like, being held to that, it has been really helpful.

Brittany Herzberg: You don't love it when you're in it, but it really does help.

Heidi Thompson: Like, I don't know.

Brittany Herzberg: I think it was Cecily in her case study interview. She's like, oh, God, fine, I'm not going to get around this. I have to answer the questions. It's like, yep. And I'm still like, I don't know. A year later, still being like, okay, those three questions she'll come to me with something. I'm like, your answer over here. Has this changed? No. Okay. I know it is so hard to answer those, but it does really help long term. Like, is this kind of content, the kind of content that my ideal person is going to be looking for, is it really going to fill the thing that I want to be filling? Like, any of that stuff? It. It all just like, points back to that. So as much as you hate me, I'm going to be making you fill that out.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And like, getting to observe you doing stuff, like, with people, for people, you know, working through someone's page and you're like, okay, let, let me play with this. Let me look at this. And just seeing the way you do it really unlocks some things for me because I had it. And I don't know if this is just old school SEO or what, but I had it in my mind that, like, the whole phrase, the whole keyword, like, has to be that and has to be in that order and cannot come apart in any sort of way. And that was like, really messing me up with. Yeah, I can't turn this into something that sounds normal for a title. And just seeing how you work with it and you kind of allow yourself to play with it, it's like, oh, okay, this actually still works. And you can take it apart and play with it in different ways. So it isn't as restrictive as, like, I have to fit Wedding planner marketing. I have to fit this in and I can't figure out how to do it.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, well, I mean, huge props to you because the questions that you would ask and even the fact that I feel like you more than any other person just like, pushed me to, like, do the messy thing on camera, Brittany, like, share it. Just, like talk us through. Like, I can see what you're doing. So, like, I'm really grateful because even with these, like, next rounds of the program, I've been able to do that and I'm always like, Heidi was interested in this, so I'm going to do it this way.

Heidi Thompson: It is just like, show me how you would do this. But. Because then you do things and it's like, wait, wait, wait, why? Why did you just do that? And then I can change something about how I'm doing. Felt so restrictive and difficult before because I was trying to fit things into like a phrase that's like, well, there's no keyword volume for that. And like, yeah, because I'm trying to get like this five word phrase. Why isn't this exact five word phrase ranking for anything. And it's like, no. It can be pieces that you put together and Google's smart enough to figure it out.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, that is one of my favorite things to tell people. And I'm always like, am I doing it wrong? But then I see things working. I'm like, nope, I'm going with that because it is really restrictive and it is like not how you would say things or not how someone else would say a phrase or how a client would phrase something to you. So it's like, okay, just be a normal human, write it how you would say it and then just check to make sure that those words are in there. And like nine times out of ten, you're usually good.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And a lot of times it's like a small change. Like if I'm talking about my audience, like sometimes there's a surprising difference between wedding pro, wedding professional wedding vendor, wedding business, and it's like, oh, okay, those are very interchangeable. I can just go with whatever one has the highest volume.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, exactly. Any other just like internal emotional, like how you felt versus how you're feeling now.

Heidi Thompson: Going in, I was like, this is gonna be a big climb. This is gonna be like this whole big project. And now I feel like it's this very just integrated part of my business where I can go in and like, couple of tweaks, get out and know that I did something that is useful, that's going to make an impact. So it's like, how do I build an entire car versus how do I like go quickly do a little tune up and deal with a very specific problem or just improve performance just a tiny little bit. Having the confidence to do that and to know like, it can be a small thing, it can be a tweak and tweaks, make bigger differences than you would think is huge.

Brittany Herzberg: I love that so very much. What are you excited about next? I know that you said some things around the back burner. So like, what do you feel like you're excited about next? Any kind of projects that you have that you might be working on that were inspired by SEO or might include SEO, anything like that.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. So I actually noticed through SEO and Grow that I don't have a ton of great like thought leader content on one particular framework that I use that I, I've written a book on and I'm relaunching my book. So it's like all of it's coming together to be like, okay, this is a really good opportunity to create more thought leader content on this specific topic that it's like, I feel like I've talked about it and I have, but it's not all in one easy to digest place. So that's definitely my next SEO move, is really trying to optimize for some of those keywords around that particular framework around my book. So yeah, I'm really excited about that because when I initially wrote the book, I wrote it in 2017, I've updated it and I'm rereleasing, but it is just like a way to give like all of this new fresh life and fresh air to something that I feel like I've done. But then when I actually started digging in, when I was looking into like internal linking and I was like, oh yeah, I should probably link to this. And I'm like, do I really not have like a good meaty piece on this that I've set, you know, the intention to be like, this is the thing that's going to rank for this. And no, apparently not. So I found myself a good opportunity.

Brittany Herzberg: Exactly. And like, aside, but related the book definitely optimize the book page. And then you can even do like Amazon keywords and categories. And if you are your self published author, for you and anybody else listening, that is something that you have access to and you have the capability, the control over to go in and tweak and change those things. And I happen to know that because I happen to share an apartment with someone who does that, especially for nonfiction authors. So like, there are a lot of opportunities for SEO that we just may or may not know about, like I said earlier, and even books could be a thing as well.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And that's making me think like on those pages did I do meta descriptions. I need to go look.

Brittany Herzberg: You can do it now. I've definitely done that with clients, especially like done for you clients before, where I'm like, you have a book. Okay, we have to do this for your book. Again, it's just an opportunity that's there and why not take advantage of it and just see if anything happens. The worst that could happen is you make changes and it doesn't, it doesn't positively impact it, it won't negatively impact it, but it could positively. Like the hope is there, the possibility is there. I did not ask you specifically about your podcast, but have you implemented stuff on your podcast as far as SEO goes? And have you seen any shifts there?

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. So I need to look to see if friendship.

Brittany Herzberg: That's your homework.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, that happened in like listenership. But I started implementing Tags which I had not used because everyone said they weren't a thing that mattered, and apparently they do. I've definitely improved my overall show note structure. So going into any podcast now, the title is stronger. The description in the Show Notes is significantly stronger, and the places where I'm taking people, because before I would just, like, take them to the show Notes page on the website. Like, no, no, no. We're including, like, more links, more things in the show Notes, so it is significantly stronger than it was before. And sometimes I listen to podcasts and I swipe over to the Show Notes, and it's just like, one line. I'm like, mm, mm. You're not doing it right.

Brittany Herzberg: You're messing this up. Also, where do I get that thing you talked about?

Heidi Thompson: Exactly. Yeah. Like, I want it. Let me on your email list. Let me thing from you.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. Oh, totally. Well, this has been really exciting. Is there anything else that you want to share or say or anything that we might have missed?

Heidi Thompson: If you're thinking about joining SEO and Grow and you're not sure because you're like, I'm uncomfortable with this, or this is a whole thing, or this is a whole new world for me, or I feel like this won't work for my particular business. Britney will prove you wrong in the best way possible, and she'll make it easy and doable, which, like, what more can you ask for?

Brittany Herzberg: Aw, thank you. I love hearing that reflected back, because that is my biggest hope, is that it does feel doable and easy. And, I mean, it's not going to be like, you pick it up the next day, but it is something that you can learn and figure out and understand how all the pieces fit together, and then you're looking for those opportunities.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah. And even the way, like, you go about. Okay, on a monthly basis, like, these are the metrics we're looking for. Did it go up? Did it go down? Don't freak out if it went down. Things happen, but you know people. You preempt people with, like, stop.

Brittany Herzberg: If you're saying this, take a deep breath.

Heidi Thompson: And then like, okay, what are like, one to three things in the next month? And even just having the structure, like, the limitation of the structure of, like, okay, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna look at these specific things. They're gonna tell me these specific opportunities I have, and then these are the opportunities I'm going to take action on. Is so much more doable, is so much easier than just, like, what I feel like. Just SEO feels like is like, let's do SEO. And it's like, that's a full time job for many people. Like, I don't have time to do all that all the time. What's the one thing I need to take action on?

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, totally. Ugh, I love hearing that. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being in SEO and Grow. You were absolutely just a joy to work with in there. It was so much fun.

Heidi Thompson: Thank you so much. And for being like the kind of coach who's like, being able to be like, hey, I don't get why you're doing this. I don't get how you're doing this. Like, show me. And then you're like, done. Okay, let's go. Let's walk through this. And then I just walk away, like, oh, okay, I can do this. Great. Yeah.

Brittany Herzberg: And then you would turn in homework, like the next day or something. You're like, I did the thing. I saw you do it.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah.

Brittany Herzberg: Because it's easy. That is so great. I need to do more of these case study episodes. They're so fun to do. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll make sure to link to stuff talked about the book being re released. Do you have anything else that's new and happening in your world?

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, I'll give you the link to the book. We can link to my podcast. You can see some of the case studies on my own website. You'll see Brittany's format coming through loud and clear and oh, it's so good. It just makes things so much easier. I feel like Brittany just gives you. She gives you the playground, you know, she gives you the sandbox. Like, just play here. It's like, okay, I feel safe now.

Brittany Herzberg: I love that visual so much. Here's your pail. Here's your shovel. Stay here.

Heidi Thompson: Yeah, just be in the sandbox. You don't gotta worry about what's going on outside of it. Just hang out here.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah.

Heidi Thompson: Have a good time and everything will be all right. Thank you so much.

Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, thank you. We're just gonna turn this into a love vest at this point. If you're listening and you're like, okay, what? Let me give this SEO thing a chart. You actually have a couple options right now because by the time this is coming out, you'll be able to sign up for the five day June SEO sprint. Because, yes, I have turned this into a five day situation that you can get your whole website. Well, I say seven to 10 pages. You could get your whole website. You'll get your SEO strategy plugged. In for those core website pages, those real meaty ones like Heidi was talking about. You'll get them. The bat signal will be built out. It will be plugged in so you can do that. The Sprint. If you're looking for something that's just like quick to the point, get it in, be done with it. If you are interested in the four month SEO and Grow group coaching program that is now Evergreen so you don't have to wait for a certain date if you're hearing this you're excited about it, you can go sign up. If you have any questions come find me. I joke that I live in my Instagram DMs but it's not a joke. If you have a question come find me. There's also the text link below but smoke signal, anything just ask a question. I'll be over here and I'll make sure I have all of Heidi's links below and I will catch you next time.

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