Full Transcript for DFY SEO Case Study with Dolly Delong

help. 00:02:16.941 --> 00:02:21.104 And then the second group, not business owners, but I am a service provider. 00:02:21.104 --> 00:02:33.683 I am a Nashville-based family photographer, where I have been serving families with motherhood portraits, newborn maternity, all the types of family milestones. 00:02:33.683 --> 00:02:37.506 So I do two very vastly different types of businesses. 00:02:37.687 --> 00:02:43.021 And that's why you came into my world for the done for you SEO. 00:02:43.021 --> 00:02:45.103 So hopefully that helped answer the question. 00:02:45.103 --> 00:02:46.520 Did I answer all the questions? 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:47.180 That was perfect. 00:02:47.180 --> 00:02:47.419 Okay. 00:02:47.419 --> 00:02:51.353 And you know this, but not everyone may know this, especially if you're newer to the podcast. 00:02:51.353 --> 00:03:07.144 But the reason I asked that is because that's part of your North Star, which is what we identify before we go into anything, whether that's me guiding photographers in Dali Society, anyone coming in for workshops, done for you, SEO, the SEO sprint, we're starting with your North Star. 00:03:07.144 --> 00:03:09.366 And specifically who are you helping? 00:03:09.366 --> 00:03:10.926 How are you helping them? 00:03:10.926 --> 00:03:14.389 And why are you like the best option in your industry? 00:03:14.408 --> 00:03:15.710 That was beautiful. 00:03:16.662 --> 00:03:22.967 With that, for the Done for You SEO, like you mentioned, we were focused on your education side of your business. 00:03:22.967 --> 00:03:25.808 So what was it that made you go, It's time. 00:03:25.808 --> 00:03:27.340 SEO is the thing? 00:03:27.693 --> 00:03:35.669 Okay, so I'm trying to condense this as much as I can without like making it like into a long, long two hour talk. 00:03:35.669 --> 00:03:42.645 But essentially before I begin the education side of my business, I have always been a family photographer. 00:03:42.645 --> 00:03:48.448 I'm going into year eight of being a full time business owner for photography. 00:03:48.549 --> 00:03:55.873 And because of 2020, that helped me see like the importance of diversifying my income. 00:03:55.873 --> 00:04:00.787 Because I could not provide a service for a certain number of months before I am in the United States. 00:04:00.787 --> 00:04:03.078 And so I was like, what am I good at? 00:04:03.078 --> 00:04:06.219 What do people actually ask me for that I find fun? 00:04:06.219 --> 00:04:09.162 And for me, that was systems and workflows. 00:04:09.162 --> 00:04:10.693 I didn't even know what it was called. 00:04:10.693 --> 00:04:18.757 I just knew I was really organized and was able to run my family photography business, being a stay-at-home mom and still run my business. 00:04:18.757 --> 00:04:22.786 And so that's kind of where my systems journey began in 2020. 00:04:22.786 --> 00:04:25.648 And it's really had so many different iterations. 00:04:25.648 --> 00:04:29.130 I've been like, I feel like I've been on a wild ride of a journey. 00:04:29.130 --> 00:04:49.007 And I've finally like figured out what my superpower is, is like staying consistent with marketing and being really good about promoting my photography business and like getting clients in through SEO, through organic marketing, through a wide ecosystem of marketing. 00:04:49.007 --> 00:04:52.769 And so this was like four years ago. 00:04:52.800 --> 00:05:01.016 when I was pregnant with Jack, my now middle child, because spoiler, I'm pregnant with a third baby now. 00:05:01.076 --> 00:05:08.333 And so when I was pregnant with Jack, I was like, I have to separate both of my websites because it's confusing the client journey. 00:05:08.333 --> 00:05:16.730 Like my clients coming in for just family photography services, they were like, well, we don't know what systems are. 00:05:16.730 --> 00:05:20.492 So is are you a photographer or am I getting education? 00:05:20.492 --> 00:05:23.108 So I was like, I need to divide and conquer. 00:05:23.108 --> 00:05:30.105 And I knew I did not have the cash flow, like to just hire all the people out to do all the websites. 00:05:30.105 --> 00:05:33.548 And so I did everything manually four years ago. 00:05:33.548 --> 00:05:38.781 So I split up my website to two websites, one Dolly-Delung Photography. 00:05:38.781 --> 00:05:42.125 And then the second one was systems and workflow education. 00:05:42.125 --> 00:05:46.658 And then I concentrated just on SEO for Dolly-Delung Photography. 00:05:46.658 --> 00:05:48.439 I worked on optimizing that. 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:56.358 And then about two years ago, A year and a half ago, I was like, time to optimize systems of work below magic. 00:05:56.358 --> 00:05:57.855 And so that's where you came in. 00:05:57.855 --> 00:06:02.423 I was like, I know, like I had saved up enough cash. 00:06:02.423 --> 00:06:05.625 I'm just like really big on like saving up for my investment. 00:06:05.625 --> 00:06:08.634 So I saved up for my investment to work with you. 00:06:08.634 --> 00:06:13.961 And pretty much I was like, Brittany, just please do it all for me because yeah, I I can't even think. 00:06:13.961 --> 00:06:14.521 I don't even know. 00:06:14.521 --> 00:06:16.612 I just know I trust you. 00:06:17.173 --> 00:06:21.516 I know your work, your capability, your superpower is SEO. 00:06:21.516 --> 00:06:24.456 And so I was like, I know who I'm serving. 00:06:24.456 --> 00:06:33.420 I'm serving family photographers who need help with marketing and like with a twist of like systems and workflows, like how to make it all work together. 00:06:33.420 --> 00:06:34.701 But how do I describe that? 00:06:34.701 --> 00:06:36.122 How do I explain it? 00:06:36.122 --> 00:06:38.392 And so that's where you came in. 00:06:38.392 --> 00:06:46.086 And so you've been working with me, especially in the last year, to help like make that more buttoned up. 00:06:46.086 --> 00:06:49.882 And so I finally like it's been four years in

the making. 00:06:49.882 --> 00:06:52.543 Like two of my websites are working for me. 00:06:52.543 --> 00:06:54.175 And I'm just so excited. 00:06:54.175 --> 00:07:10.031 I know like I was sharing with you before we hit record, like my education side, my system side is it's a slower train because I'm communicating an offer that's very vastly different from actually providing family photography services. 00:07:10.031 --> 00:07:15.531 Cause family photography services is like normally a one and done thing. 00:07:15.531 --> 00:07:18.646 people can conceptualize it because of the visuals. 00:07:18.646 --> 00:07:23.552 Like I have a membership for f family photographers who need help with consistent marketing. 00:07:23.552 --> 00:07:26.004 That's like a different marketing ballgame. 00:07:26.004 --> 00:07:28.987 And so both are very vastly different. 00:07:29.067 --> 00:07:29.867 Yeah, they are. 00:07:29.867 --> 00:07:35.641 And one thing I want to highlight is that you didn't have to come to me with any keywords in mind. 00:07:35.641 --> 00:07:41.105 You may have had keywords in mind, but I'm never expecting clients to be like, this is my list of keywords. 00:07:41.105 --> 00:07:45.108 No, I just need you to bring to me who's your audience that you want to get in front of. 00:07:45.108 --> 00:07:46.848 What is it that you're offering? 00:07:46.848 --> 00:07:50.031 And then yeah, share with me like how you're different in your field. 00:07:50.031 --> 00:07:54.613 Some fields I know more about than others, like photographers or therapists or things like that. 00:07:54.613 --> 00:07:56.815 But you know, I wanna hear it from you. 00:07:56.815 --> 00:08:02.466 I wanna know just like I wanna be able to tell people like you're coming to me for SEO because this. 00:08:02.466 --> 00:08:05.511 I wanna hear whatever that is from you about your stuff. 00:08:05.511 --> 00:08:07.072 So just wanna highlight that. 00:08:07.072 --> 00:08:10.387 Dolly didn't have to know the keywords before she came to me. 00:08:10.509 --> 00:08:22.158 And listeners like I struggle with thinking I have to know everything before I'm ready for a project or before I work one-to-one with whatever client I'm working with. 00:08:22.158 --> 00:08:27.923 So it is a struggle with me so much because I'm like, I have to be perfect. 00:08:27.923 --> 00:08:31.026 And it's just a mentality thing with me. 00:08:31.026 --> 00:08:35.038 And so it was a breath of fresh air working with you, Britney, because you were like, it's true. 00:08:35.038 --> 00:08:40.077 You were like, you don't have to have all of your perfectly curated. 00:08:40.077 --> 00:08:44.565 keywords, like, let's just like hash out who you want to serve. 00:08:44.565 --> 00:08:51.514 All your North Star questions were really helpful for me because I was like, oh, of course, of course I overcomplicated that too. 00:08:51.514 --> 00:08:53.738 And then you helped me rein it in. 00:08:53.857 --> 00:08:56.701 Also glad you brought that up

because I'm honestly the same way. 00:08:56.701 --> 00:09:03.417 I want to give someone, no matter what the project is, I want to be able to feel like I'm giving someone something that's like clean and easy to work with. 00:09:03.417 --> 00:09:09.604 Even like when I record the solo podcast, if I fumble over words, I'm like, my gosh, Leah, I'm so sorry. 00:09:09.604 --> 00:09:12.797 I'm like I messed up over the words, like ha. 00:09:12.797 --> 00:09:15.158 And she's like, no, that's what I'm here for. 00:09:15.158 --> 00:09:16.980 So I mean, I say that. 00:09:16.980 --> 00:09:18.600 I'm glad you shared that. 00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:23.397 No one who's providing a service is really expecting you to come in with things buttoned up. 00:09:23.397 --> 00:09:27.062 Like we want the messy version so that we can make it look all pretty and nice. 00:09:27.169 --> 00:09:27.529 Yes. 00:09:27.529 --> 00:09:39.695 And you know, like it really helped me like when I was finally like got over my stupid perfectionist mindset and we were working through who I wanted to help, like what set me apart. 00:09:39.695 --> 00:09:44.302 That working through the quote unquote mess of it. 00:09:44.302 --> 00:09:46.018 I'm like using air quotes. 00:09:46.018 --> 00:09:55.642 Like that was more distilling for me to like know, okay, like this is who I want to serve and this is how I'm different. 00:09:55.642 --> 00:09:56.062 Yeah. 00:09:56.062 --> 00:10:00.625 From other marketing strategists who also teach family photographers. 00:10:00.625 --> 00:10:06.200 So it was a really good exercise in homework, pre-homework. 00:10:06.200 --> 00:10:11.676 So I do want to share some of the keywords, but before I get into that, I am curious. 00:10:11.676 --> 00:10:16.922 Definitely the answers to those questions were helpful for me with finding keywords with putting your SEO strategy together. 00:10:16.922 --> 00:10:21.066 Did you find it a helpful exercise beyond something just for SEO? 00:10:21.066 --> 00:10:24.750 Like were you able to take that into other areas and things? 00:10:24.750 --> 00:10:28.433 I can give you exact examples, but I'm trying not to fill it words. 00:10:28.750 --> 00:10:36.937 Hopefully we're on the same wavelength, but you shared a really good keyword research tool called Key Search. 00:10:36.937 --> 00:10:37.778 Okay. 00:10:37.778 --> 00:10:38.638 Key Search. 00:10:38.638 --> 00:10:49.778 And that tool I not only used for the education side of my business, but it's been really helpful for the family photography side of my business. 00:10:49.778 --> 00:10:50.818 Oh, cool. 00:10:50.818 --> 00:11:02.121 And so you teaching me like, okay, this is how you do basic keyword research because That is what stumped me the most, like getting started with keyword research. 00:11:02.121 --> 00:11:05.421 Cause I literally sometimes I still overcomplicate it. 00:11:05.421 --> 00:11:16.278 I'm like, what is the perfect keyword that I need to formulate on my blogs, on my headers, on my website, on whatever pages, in order for people to find me. 00:11:16.278 --> 00:11:19.239 Cause if it's the wrong one, it's gonna be a disaster. 00:11:19.239 --> 00:11:24.221 Like I'm just letting all all of you guys know like the inner workings of Dolly's brain. 00:11:24.221 --> 00:11:26.808 It's really It's scary sometimes. 00:11:26.808 --> 00:11:46.947 And so I you teaching me that tool kind of like, okay, that calmed down my fears because you said in several calls with me and then with the members of the society, you're like, Okay, this could literally be a 30 minute exercise, or you could potentially go down a rabbit trail and spend hours. 00:11:46.947 --> 00:11:48.106 Don't do that. 00:11:48.106 --> 00:11:55.822 Just do the 30 minutes of basic keyword research, like you taught me, like the search What is it called? 00:11:55.822 --> 00:11:56.893 The search volume? 00:11:56.893 --> 00:12:03.027 Search for the number and the number and like go between zero to one thousand, not over. 00:12:03.027 --> 00:12:04.298 And that was so helpful. 00:12:04.298 --> 00:12:08.870 So I don't even know if I helped answer your question, but that is what helped me out the most. 00:12:08.870 --> 00:12:13.793 Like learning how to do keyword research without spiraling. 00:12:13.966 --> 00:12:14.895 Oh, that's good. 00:12:14.895 --> 00:12:15.846 I like that. 00:12:15.846 --> 00:12:17.167 Let's stick with keywords. 00:12:17.167 --> 00:12:21.109 There was another like facet that I wanted to get to, but let's stick with keywords. 00:12:21.109 --> 00:12:22.519 I'm glad that that was helpful. 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:22.970 Yes. 00:12:22.970 --> 00:12:29.371 Keyword research is definitely something that I would say stumps like 95% of the people that I end up interacting with. 00:12:29.371 --> 00:12:35.855 And it's not that keywords are the end all be all for SEO, but it is a very, very, very, very helpful foundational tool. 00:12:35.855 --> 00:12:43.447 And when you have a good philosophy and you understand your North Star and you're able to put all of that information, it just makes keyword research easier. 00:12:43.447 --> 00:12:48.672 So we were able to find keywords like marketing for photographers. 00:12:48.672 --> 00:12:50.643 Cause again, Dolly said she has the membership. 00:12:50.643 --> 00:12:55.456 Membership for photographers, marketing and photography business, sustainable business marketing. 00:12:55.456 --> 00:12:57.868 Let me see if there's a couple of others. 00:12:57.868 --> 00:13:01.890 Even like one thing that you always say is like education for photographers. 00:13:01.890 --> 00:13:03.312 That was one too. 00:13:03.412 --> 00:13:05.666 Marketing coach, I remember that one. 00:13:05.666 --> 00:13:06.635 Yeah. 00:13:06.796 --> 00:13:07.515 scary for me. 00:13:07.515 --> 00:13:09.711 I'm like, well I'm not really a coach. 00:13:09.711 --> 00:13:13.519 I just teach other family photographers. 00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:16.384 And then finally

I was like, well that's kinda like being a coach. 00:13:16.384 --> 00:13:19.099 But What is it if it's not that? 00:13:19.099 --> 00:13:23.003 And you were like, I don't know, let's just go with that, I guess go with coach. 00:13:23.003 --> 00:13:28.523 But to me, coach is such like a I grew up in like the athletic world. 00:13:28.523 --> 00:13:32.285 So I'm like, I am not, I'm not a D one coach. 00:13:32.447 --> 00:13:41.951 I'm just Dolly and I am just trying to help other family photographers think like marketers and think in ways to promote themselves. 00:13:41.971 --> 00:13:44.032 But you were right. 00:13:44.032 --> 00:13:48.961 It is like I am coaching them, but it was such a scary term to like admit to. 00:13:48.961 --> 00:13:49.231 It is. 00:13:49.231 --> 00:13:53.346 It's very different in like thinking of it from when we grew up to now. 00:13:53.346 --> 00:13:56.868 Now online coaching, online business, that's a thing. 00:13:56.868 --> 00:14:06.697 And the people who are business owners, especially in an online space, which your people I would say are very familiar with it, because if nothing else, they're trying to market their business on Instagram. 00:14:06.697 --> 00:14:09.078 That is something that they're familiar with. 00:14:09.078 --> 00:14:14.283 So it feels like a scary term for us, but sometimes you just gotta call a spade a spade. 00:14:14.283 --> 00:14:24.832 And I'm glad that we brought this up too, because This is something that also gets called into question with people when they are working with me, whether it's in the sprint or if it's done for you SEO. 00:14:24.832 --> 00:14:26.673 It's like, what do I call myself? 00:14:26.673 --> 00:14:31.916 There we have all these like mini existential crises when we're working together for SEO. 00:14:31.916 --> 00:14:34.898 And what do I call myself is definitely one of those things. 00:14:34.898 --> 00:14:37.818 So I'm glad we were able to work through that. 00:14:37.818 --> 00:14:40.759 With that, let's stick with this train for a little bit. 00:14:40.759 --> 00:14:44.577 That was one aspect of like the experience of working with me for done for you. 00:14:44.577 --> 00:14:48.385 Was there anything else, any other moments like that that stand out for you? 00:14:49.038 --> 00:14:49.677 Three things. 00:14:49.677 --> 00:14:56.221 The first thing was, of course, I forget the name of the extension tool, but there it looks like a D. 00:14:56.221 --> 00:14:57.398 What's it called? 00:14:58.143 --> 00:14:59.153 Detailed SEO. 00:14:59.153 --> 00:14:59.734 There we go. 00:14:59.734 --> 00:15:01.283 I knew there was a D. 00:15:01.524 --> 00:15:11.519 I learned that from you on multiple occasions, not just one-to-one, but you've offered free classes on like basic SEO tools to use. 00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:13.551 And like it finally stuck with me. 00:15:13.551 --> 00:15:31.086 And so I have been faithfully using detailed SEO to check on my different pages for whenever I publish a blog post

to make sure there's one H1 in the meta description is the right amount of characters and there are keywords in it and the flow is right. 00:15:31.086 --> 00:15:34.989 So that is my number one favorite thing I learned from you. 00:15:35.068 --> 00:15:38.292 Also, I don't know if this is sounds stupid or petty. 00:15:38.292 --> 00:15:41.222 Sometimes when I'm like feeling like I'm not doing enough. 00:15:41.222 --> 00:15:44.956 I'm not Yeah, I'm in comparison mode. 00:15:44.956 --> 00:15:47.967 I will go to my competitors website. 00:15:47.967 --> 00:15:51.929 And I will check their SEO and it's all over the place. 00:15:51.929 --> 00:15:53.600 I'm like, what? 00:15:53.600 --> 00:15:55.451 They need to talk to Brittany. 00:15:55.451 --> 00:15:58.043 And it makes it makes me feel better. 00:15:58.043 --> 00:15:59.673 Again, is that petty? 00:15:59.673 --> 00:16:00.291 I don't know. 00:16:00.291 --> 00:16:03.005 I I just am like, I'm not doing anything right. 00:16:03.005 --> 00:16:06.807 And then I see, okay, yeah, I I am doing some things right. 00:16:06.827 --> 00:16:09.830 And then of course I want to tell them, hey, go to Brittany. 00:16:09.830 --> 00:16:10.971 She's gonna help you. 00:16:10.971 --> 00:16:12.201 And I probably will. 00:16:12.201 --> 00:16:16.234 And like, because I want people to get the basics right. 00:16:16.234 --> 00:16:20.768 And so When I have those moments, I see, okay, I have my foundation right. 00:16:20.768 --> 00:16:22.288 I'm doing everything right. 00:16:22.288 --> 00:16:25.219 Just like my business journey is gonna look slow. 00:16:25.219 --> 00:16:26.240 It's gonna be different. 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:27.831 Everybody's pace is different. 00:16:27.831 --> 00:16:28.532 Yeah. 00:16:28.532 --> 00:16:34.894 And so that was weirdly comforting me knowing, okay, my foundations are just fine. 00:16:34.894 --> 00:16:37.856 I just need to continue pressing on. 00:16:37.856 --> 00:16:40.577 So that was one thing, as silly as that sounds. 00:16:40.587 --> 00:16:42.701 I wanna let you know, that's like so normal. 00:16:42.701 --> 00:16:45.043 You're not the first person to tell me that. 00:16:45.043 --> 00:16:45.335 man. 00:16:45.335 --> 00:16:48.464 Well people are gonna hear this and be like, Wow, Dolly, wow. 00:16:48.464 --> 00:16:51.302 Oh No, they're gonna be like, that's such a great idea. 00:16:51.302 --> 00:16:52.075 Let me go do that. 00:16:52.075 --> 00:16:54.369 What's this detailed SEO extension? 00:16:54.519 --> 00:17:01.812 It seriously helps at the end of the day, it helps my brain just know, okay, all my pages look healthy and they're doing their job. 00:17:01.812 --> 00:17:11.477 And that kind of leads me to the second thing is I had completely have been neglecting submitting my blog post. 00:17:11.477 --> 00:17:22.240 Like after talking to you, of course, like I've been doing this faithfully for a year, but before talking to you, I was not submitting my sitemap to Google Search Console. 00:17:22.240 --> 00:17:24.501 I wasn't um submitting any. 00:17:24.645 --> 00:17:26.986 new pages that I've been making. 00:17:26.986 --> 00:17:29.728 I just didn't know anything about Google Search Console. 00:17:29.728 --> 00:17:35.020 I had it set up, but I was like, I don't this is too technical for me. 00:17:35.020 --> 00:17:57.711 I d I don't know anything about and so submitting my site map, submitting new content that I'm creating, that has been really helpful for me to know, okay, like now Google is crawling my website and the pages are in the right I don't even know if I'm using the correct term, but like hierarchy of H1, H2s, H3s. 00:17:57.711 --> 00:17:59.912 I am doing everything in my power. 00:17:59.912 --> 00:18:05.007 Like, so that's like with like detailed SEO extension and then Google Search Console. 00:18:05.007 --> 00:18:11.491 So those are the two things that really like have been ingrained in me because of you. 00:18:11.491 --> 00:18:21.589 And then the third thing that has been ingrained in me because of you is making sure that my character count for my page titles and my meta descriptions. 00:18:21.713 --> 00:18:25.336 are within the good limits for I for my website. 00:18:25.336 --> 00:18:26.227 So I use show it. 00:18:26.227 --> 00:18:32.932 So like the way you described it, I was like, oh, how come I've never been taught this before? 00:18:32.932 --> 00:18:40.126 Like describing the page and not leaving because a lot of photographers I've noticed are doing this. 00:18:40.126 --> 00:18:44.109 They just leave the template page description up. 00:18:44.109 --> 00:18:44.430 Yep. 00:18:44.430 --> 00:18:49.182 They either don't know or they neglect to update the page title. 00:18:49.182 --> 00:18:53.016 And so that's something I'm like, I have to change it right away. 00:18:53.016 --> 00:19:00.279 Whenever I make a new page or a blog post or whatever, I have to make sure it matches what the information on the page is about. 00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:00.789 Yeah. 00:19:00.789 --> 00:19:02.611 I'm glad that you're doing that. 00:19:02.611 --> 00:19:07.583 And that is something that I mean, I even just had a it was a discovery call, but not really yesterday. 00:19:07.583 --> 00:19:08.993 It was a a return client. 00:19:08.993 --> 00:19:14.205 We worked together three years ago and sh she had used the SEO strategy that I created. 00:19:14.205 --> 00:19:15.497 It was a brand new website. 00:19:15.497 --> 00:19:18.357 She was getting loads of inquiries. 00:19:18.498 --> 00:19:21.529 She updated her website, moved it to a different platform. 00:19:21.529 --> 00:19:25.382 That website designer like, I'll do SEO, like I'll update that. 00:19:25.382 --> 00:19:26.592 It tanked. 00:19:26.894 --> 00:19:33.957 So I went and looked and I was like, I'm gonna have to take some time with this, but let me see if I can just figure anything out at a quick glance. 00:19:34.116 --> 00:19:35.917 SEO titles were too long. 00:19:35.917 --> 00:19:38.318 Some of them

didn't even really make any sense. 00:19:38.358 --> 00:19:40.700 The meta descriptions were all too long. 00:19:40.700 --> 00:19:51.464 Some of the SEO titles had, like you were saying, there's certain formatting that with any website, it just gives you like a tail on the SEO title, which automatically makes the SEO title too long. 00:19:51.464 --> 00:19:52.914 And it's usually nothing that's helpful. 00:19:52.914 --> 00:19:55.125 It's like our name or our business name. 00:19:55.316 --> 00:20:02.434 And so it was just a lot of like things that an SEO person or someone who's saying that they know how to do SEO would catch and should catch. 00:20:02.434 --> 00:20:08.392 But most business owners, like you said, we just don't know until we are shown and then it's like, oh, that's what it is. 00:20:08.618 --> 00:20:11.329 I'm so glad you brought that up because it made me think of something else. 00:20:11.329 --> 00:20:20.506 Like I did have for the photography side of my business, I did for a lot of the pages Dolly DeLong photography as a page title. 00:20:20.586 --> 00:20:31.023 And the way you described it, you're like, Yes, that's your business name, but people aren't searching for your business name because they don't know that you are the answer to their question yet. 00:20:31.023 --> 00:20:35.948 They just know that they're looking for a family photographer or like newborn photographer. 00:20:35.948 --> 00:20:44.914 And so That kinda like switched something in my brain to help me think, Oh, yeah, I don't need to put my business name on every single title of the page. 00:20:44.914 --> 00:20:46.407 Like that makes absolutely no sense. 00:20:46.407 --> 00:20:48.500 Yeah, that that makes sense now. 00:20:48.814 --> 00:20:53.036 And I think so many of us do that because it's what the websites automatically populate. 00:20:53.036 --> 00:21:01.369 And then to your point, we'll go look at a competitor, not knowing if that competitor has any SEO knowledge, worked with any SEO person, whatever. 00:21:01.369 --> 00:21:06.061 We just like go and look at their site and we know and or think that they're doing better than we are. 00:21:06.061 --> 00:21:08.522 And so we're like, I should do what they're doing. 00:21:09.163 --> 00:21:10.723 We don't necessarily know that. 00:21:10.723 --> 00:21:15.455 So sometimes we're following advice that we think is good but isn't actually helpful at all. 00:21:15.564 --> 00:21:16.473 Yes. 00:21:16.734 --> 00:21:17.726 And then one more thing. 00:21:17.726 --> 00:21:24.902 Hearing your advice about only having one H1 per page is been so helpful for me. 00:21:24.902 --> 00:21:28.035 Every everything I say is like this, that's been a game changer. 00:21:28.035 --> 00:21:32.074 Everything you teach me is a game changer, Brittany, to make your head even bigger. 00:21:32.074 --> 00:21:33.509 But seriously. 00:21:33.750 --> 00:21:39.493 But seriously, knowing like there is this good rule that there should be one H1 per page. 00:21:39.574 --> 00:21:43.587 And I even tell other people about that. 00:21:43.587 --> 00:21:53.195 Like that detailed SEO thing, I will go and show people on their website, hey, just by the way, there are twenty one H1s on your home page. 00:21:53.195 --> 00:21:54.346 You should change that. 00:21:54.346 --> 00:21:58.938 And like I had pushback on it once about like, it doesn't matter. 00:21:58.938 --> 00:22:02.209 The hierarchy doesn't and I was like, okay. 00:22:02.209 --> 00:22:09.491 And I didn't have the energy to fight back because I'm like, well y because then I'm like, well, you know, I'm not an SEO expert. 00:22:09.491 --> 00:22:12.233 So I just I'm just gonna let this one go. 00:22:12.233 --> 00:22:17.278 Like I but But I know that there should only be one H one 'cause that's what Brittany told me. 00:22:17.278 --> 00:22:19.711 And I'm just gonna stay by that. 00:22:19.711 --> 00:22:20.838 But I didn't fight back. 00:22:20.838 --> 00:22:23.534 I was like, okay, but I told you. 00:22:24.056 --> 00:22:26.828 Don't come for me later when you find out it really matters. 00:22:26.828 --> 00:22:36.917 I've actually learned in the like last few months that it's really, really important to have one H one, not just for SEO and discoverability, also for accessibility. 00:22:36.917 --> 00:22:43.124 It matters for anyone who's like visually impaired who's using what they call a screen reader to read the page to them. 00:22:43.124 --> 00:22:45.710 It needs to know what the H one is. 00:22:45.710 --> 00:22:48.218 What the main point of the whole page is. 00:22:48.218 --> 00:22:52.354 Yeah, I maybe I need a little bit more fire in me because I was like, Okay. 00:22:52.354 --> 00:22:53.653 You can't send them to me. 00:22:53.653 --> 00:22:55.914 Just be like, go talk to Brittany. 00:22:56.914 --> 00:22:57.664 Think what you want. 00:22:57.664 --> 00:23:00.915 But when you want some advice, go talk to Brittany. 00:23:00.955 --> 00:23:05.037 But again, some people that we just don't know what we don't know until we know it. 00:23:05.037 --> 00:23:10.159 And then at that point, if you're ignoring it, then it's just, you know, a whole other conversation. 00:23:10.159 --> 00:23:30.761 Let me bring us back to anything that came through with SEO working together, not so much in the lens of SEO, like keywords or anything like that, but were there some main points that helped you, I don't know, figure out what content to write or helped you in other areas of business, whether it was for the photography business or for the education side. 00:23:31.500 --> 00:23:39.432 know that with like the keyword research, that helped me understand what levers of blogging to pull. 00:23:39.432 --> 00:23:44.565 Because I also, like you, am a firm believer that blogging is not dead. 00:23:44.565 --> 00:23:46.965 It's just what it works differently. 00:23:46.965 --> 00:23:52.969 And I think it's more of a long game play for a lot of business owners. 00:23:52.969 -->

00:24:09.903 And so that has helped me out tremendously knowing like if I pull certain levers, like when I input more blogs to my website, I have better output, like meaning my family photography side of my business. 00:24:09.903 --> 00:24:23.558 I know when I blog more consistently with a cadence, I get better inquiries because they are searching for a specific type of session, newborn session or maternity session. 00:24:23.558 --> 00:24:28.280 And and it goes back to like I knew what keywords to put in. 00:24:28.280 --> 00:24:32.220 And then it goes back to well, I knew How to research those. 00:24:32.220 --> 00:24:35.181 And then it goes back to like, who am I serving? 00:24:35.181 --> 00:24:40.092 And then it just played into like those are the keywords you need to use. 00:24:40.192 --> 00:24:56.977 And so for me, it was writing more blogs, not like spending more time, like waste, like spending 80 hours a week on blogs, but just like knowing how to write better quality blogs and having that input for my business. 00:24:56.977 --> 00:24:57.416 Yeah. 00:24:57.416 --> 00:24:58.877 Did I go in the right direction? 00:24:58.877 --> 00:25:00.238 Yeah, you went in the direction. 00:25:00.238 --> 00:25:01.058 Okay. 00:25:01.058 --> 00:25:08.224 I'm happy that this is coming up as well because you can't just stop at optimizing your core website pages for SEO. 00:25:08.224 --> 00:25:12.388 And for a while I actually did say that because a lot of people were like, I don't want to blog. 00:25:12.388 --> 00:25:14.450 And I'm like, okay, well, we can do this and it should be enough. 00:25:14.450 --> 00:25:18.493 um You see a rise in traffic, you see a rise in inquiries. 00:25:18.493 --> 00:25:22.847 And if you don't continue on that path, especially with blogging, I don't even care if you have a podcast. 00:25:22.847 --> 00:25:24.239 Dolly and I both have podcasts. 00:25:24.239 --> 00:25:28.182 We're still blogging and we're still embedding the episodes in the blog pages. 00:25:28.193 --> 00:25:34.597 But if you just leave it at optimizing your core website pages, you'll see the spike in traffic in inquiries. 00:25:34.597 --> 00:25:39.116 And then it's going to drop off because there's nothing to like carry the boat and keep the water up high. 00:25:39.116 --> 00:25:42.054 I don't know what the analogy was that I just brought up. 00:25:42.481 --> 00:25:44.982 I'm curious because I have a lot of moms in my world. 00:25:44.982 --> 00:25:46.104 I love working with moms. 00:25:46.104 --> 00:25:50.846 SEO is an extremely supportive marketing strategy for moms and business owners. 00:25:50.846 --> 00:25:54.188 So I'm curious, what does it look like on a monthly basis? 00:25:54.188 --> 00:25:57.910 Like thinking through anything, everything that you do for SEO. 00:25:57.910 --> 00:26:01.872 What does it look like for you to spend time marketing and including SEO in that? 00:26:01.872 --> 00:26:04.594 'Cause so many people think it's gonna be so much harder. 00:26:04.594 --> 00:26:11.178 It's gonna take over your life, it's gonna be way more time consuming than social media marketing, but I don't find it to be that way. 00:26:11.478 --> 00:26:12.568 Yeah, that's so true. 00:26:12.568 --> 00:26:21.464 And I think we also overcomplicate it with being like, Well, I don't have forty hours a week to work, so therefore I'm just not gonna do it. 00:26:21.464 --> 00:26:26.667 And then we spiral or we don't have this perfectly curated work week. 00:26:26.949 --> 00:26:32.132 I'm just gonna talk to all the moms like that's never gonna happen, that perfectly curated work week. 00:26:32.132 --> 00:26:33.532 It's not gonna happen. 00:26:33.532 --> 00:26:43.035 Just I would say for me, what has helped me and my brain out is to know my family's schedule. 00:26:43.155 --> 00:26:46.199 Like both me and my husband manage the house together. 00:26:46.199 --> 00:26:49.461 So I know when both of my boys are going to be occupied. 00:26:49.461 --> 00:26:51.313 And now I have number three coming. 00:26:51.313 --> 00:26:53.845 So I'll be learning a brand new schedule. 00:26:53.845 --> 00:26:56.317 So we'll see what happens in a couple months. 00:26:56.317 --> 00:27:05.105 But for now, I know it's easier now that my my oldest is in in school and my youngest is about to start like a little preschool program. 00:27:05.105 --> 00:27:08.317 But I know when my free moments are. 00:27:08.317 --> 00:27:11.512 And so I take advantage of those free moments. 00:27:11.512 --> 00:27:14.965 So my free moments right now are nap time. 00:27:14.965 --> 00:27:18.438 And so I get two hours every day to work. 00:27:18.438 --> 00:27:23.352 And then I do have a sitter that comes in during the school year once a week. 00:27:23.352 --> 00:27:24.893 And so those are my work hours. 00:27:24.893 --> 00:27:30.886 So I know my work hours and I know versus my service hours. 00:27:30.886 --> 00:27:35.579 My service hours for family photography are on Saturdays usually or in the evenings. 00:27:35.579 --> 00:27:40.659 So I don't include those hours just So my work hours, I know where my work hours are. 00:27:40.659 --> 00:27:48.763 And so I make sure at least once a week I am spending two hours of the week on marketing my business. 00:27:48.763 --> 00:27:51.464 And that includes SEO tasks. 00:27:51.464 --> 00:27:59.509 So blogging, um, keyword research, just like any myriad of things to promote my business. 00:27:59.829 --> 00:28:04.051 Knowing my hours, knowing my capacity. 00:28:04.051 --> 00:28:08.298 And so I work around my capacity again. 00:28:08.298 --> 00:28:11.140 I do this on a week by week basis. 00:28:11.181 --> 00:28:18.556 You will hear business owners say, you can batch out one month at a time, and that might work for you. 00:28:18.556 --> 00:28:27.173 And I used to do one month at a time batching sessions, but now I do one week at a time batching sessions, like with my marketing and SEO. 00:28:27.173 --> 00:28:35.140 And so I would say,

especially to the moms, do what works best for you and like your family rhythm. 00:28:35.140 --> 00:28:37.430 But I know everybody listening. 00:28:37.430 --> 00:28:40.592 you have at least one hour of free time every week. 00:28:40.592 --> 00:28:50.940 Like instead of you picking up your phone and scrolling and doing something on social media, filming something, why not use that one hour to do like something SEO and marketing related? 00:28:50.940 --> 00:28:58.385 And that's something that I constantly preach to the members inside my family photographers marketing society. 00:28:58.385 --> 00:29:04.779 I give them a marketing template every single week based on email marketing. 00:29:04.855 --> 00:29:15.069 keywords to use for that week, Instagram marketing ideas, and then of course SEO from our resident SEO expert, aka Brittany. 00:29:15.170 --> 00:29:19.281 And I walk them through the template like I am their marketing coach. 00:29:19.281 --> 00:29:24.013 And then um I have a section called the capacity section. 00:29:24.013 --> 00:29:28.115 And I'm like, okay, if you have 15 minutes of capacity, this is what I would do. 00:29:28.115 --> 00:29:30.776 If you have one hour capacity, this is what I would do. 00:29:30.776 --> 00:29:34.922 If you have three hours of capacity, this is what I would work on. 00:29:34.922 --> 00:29:42.948 And so it just all comes down to knowing your capacity every single week, if you're able to, every single month. 00:29:42.948 --> 00:29:47.090 And then just know like every season is different. 00:29:47.090 --> 00:29:53.075 That was something that I really struggled with when I first became a mom eight years ago. 00:29:53.075 --> 00:29:56.977 I thought like, oh, like it'll all be. 00:29:57.898 --> 00:30:00.871 I'm sure every mother who has children is laughing at me. 00:30:00.871 --> 00:30:05.230 But as a new mom, I was like, be able to like balance it all. 00:30:05.230 --> 00:30:07.111 Like this will be easy. 00:30:07.210 --> 00:30:09.201 I learned the very hard way. 00:30:09.201 --> 00:30:19.176 It's I needed to like learn my capacity and enjoy motherhood while balancing out work. 00:30:19.176 --> 00:30:22.438 And if that meant like learning a new schedule. 00:30:22.438 --> 00:30:27.881 So I didn't even know if I helped answer that question, but that's where my brain went. 00:30:27.881 --> 00:30:28.684 I love it so much. 00:30:28.684 --> 00:30:29.501 Yes. 00:30:29.501 --> 00:30:39.680 Let's wrap with what do you wish people, maybe who are just getting started with SEO or thinking of getting started with SEO, what do you wish they knew about it? 00:30:39.834 --> 00:30:44.306 I wish that they knew that they need to start now rather than later. 00:30:44.306 --> 00:30:59.561 That something that I am very glad that in my own family photography journey for my business, I had started the year that I began my business. 00:30:59.561 --> 00:31:01.093 It's important to learn about SEO. 00:31:01.093 --> 00:31:04.663 So I just was like, somebody told me it's important to learn about SEO. 00:31:04.663 --> 00:31:06.164 So I'm gonna learn about it. 00:31:06.164 --> 00:31:08.428 But then I like, of course, dropped the ball. 00:31:08.428 --> 00:31:09.528 with other aspects. 00:31:09.528 --> 00:31:15.440 But I think for me, learning about SEO early on in my business was beneficial. 00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:20.912 But then what I needed to do was maintain it and learn how to have maintenance. 00:31:20.912 --> 00:31:23.281 Cause it's kind of like buying a car. 00:31:23.281 --> 00:31:27.884 Like you just don't buy a car and expect it to run smoothly for the next X amount of years. 00:31:27.884 --> 00:31:29.040 You have to maintain it. 00:31:29.040 --> 00:31:38.384 You have to like change the oil, rotate the tires, like actually take care of it and not trash it and run it into the ground and then wonder Why isn't my car working? 00:31:38.384 --> 00:31:41.974 Like, I don't even know if that's a good analogy, but that's what I think. 00:31:43.115 --> 00:31:46.936 Expect to have a six pack after going to the gym one time. 00:31:46.936 --> 00:31:49.717 And you're like, you're like, it's not this is not working out for me. 00:31:49.717 --> 00:31:53.057 I guess I'm gonna go back to eating donuts every day. 00:31:53.057 --> 00:31:58.880 But like, if you want to have good health, you have to maintain, like have good consistency. 00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:01.661 There's no easy pill for that. 00:32:01.661 --> 00:32:05.971 Just like you have to, like, if you want to have a good, healthy car, you have to maintain it. 00:32:05.971 --> 00:32:14.561 And so With SEO, with running a business, there has to be some sort of maintenance that goes into running your business and having a healthy SEO. 00:32:14.561 --> 00:32:18.104 And that's something that I learned the hard way. 00:32:18.104 --> 00:32:25.788 Like, yes, I had started with good SEO, but then I just dropped the ball because I didn't understand what it took to maintain it. 00:32:25.788 --> 00:32:31.211 I thought it would be overly complicated to maintain it, but it's not. 00:32:31.211 --> 00:32:32.201 It really isn't. 00:32:32.201 --> 00:32:35.273 It takes me like an hour, maybe two hours max. 00:32:35.576 --> 00:32:40.615 to maintain it and I have great outputs because of that. 00:32:40.864 --> 00:32:41.414 Yeah. 00:32:41.414 --> 00:32:42.474 I love hearing that so much. 00:32:42.474 --> 00:32:45.137 Especially that last part of the like it's so doable. 00:32:45.137 --> 00:32:49.290 I mean, I kinda like what you were saying earlier too about your template that you share with people in the society. 00:32:49.290 --> 00:32:49.852 Yes. 00:32:49.852 --> 00:33:01.541 If you have X amount of capacity for the week, it's going to much better serve you if you put that towards something with SEO as opposed to doing something that's like got a twenty-four to thirty-six hour shelf life. 00:33:01.541 --> 00:33:01.882 Exactly. 00:33:01.882 --> 00:33:05.594

Like you have to think about this in a longer term capacity. 00:33:05.594 --> 00:33:06.675 Oh my gosh. 00:33:06.675 --> 00:33:07.175 I love you. 00:33:07.175 --> 00:33:07.727 I adore you. 00:33:07.727 --> 00:33:09.518 I'm so glad that you came on. 00:33:09.569 --> 00:33:11.358 I really appreciate you. 00:33:11.519 --> 00:33:14.807 You and I adore you so much. 00:33:14.807 --> 00:33:15.688 This has been so, so good. 00:33:15.688 --> 00:33:21.250 I'll make sure that we have a link for the society below, that we have a link for Dolly's podcast, which I've been a guest on. 00:33:21.250 --> 00:33:23.063 So I'll make sure that's below. 00:33:23.063 --> 00:33:28.365 And then if you are like, okay, fine, Brittany and Dolly, I will do something about my SEO. 00:33:28.365 --> 00:33:29.215 Where do you start? 00:33:29.215 --> 00:33:32.588 You can either start with a done with you SEO sprint. 00:33:32.588 --> 00:33:33.788 I run those every other month. 00:33:33.788 --> 00:33:36.810 I'll have the link below and you'll be able to see what's coming up next. 00:33:36.810 --> 00:33:42.453 And then you also have the opportunity to do done for you SEO, like Dolly did. 00:33:42.546 --> 00:33:42.875 Mm-hmm. 00:33:42.875 --> 00:33:48.819 I take one client a month there and I'm typically booked like two to three months in advance, but I'll have the link. 00:33:48.819 --> 00:33:59.635 If you are even remotely interested, go ahead and fill out the form on my website and we can start having a chat about it so we can come up with a game plan and you can feel really prepared, like Dolly was mentioning. 00:33:59.635 --> 00:34:04.057 Not that you have to have everything done because you really don't, but we can talk through what those steps look like. 00:34:04.057 --> 00:34:06.009 So I look forward to hearing from you. 00:34:06.009 --> 00:34:08.840 I'm so glad that you were able to join us today, Dolly. 00:34:08.840 --> 00:34:09.340 Thank you. 00:34:09.340 --> 00:34:11.735 And of course I'll have your contact info below too. 00:34:11.735 --> 00:34:13.076 Go say hi to her on Instagram. 00:34:13.076 --> 00:34:14.327 She's like super sweet. 00:34:14.327 --> 00:34:17.739 I I am I feel like I am very sweet. 00:34:17.739 --> 00:34:30.210 But also at the same time, I was telling Brittany every time I'm pregnant, I am just so straightforward about everything because I'm like I'm like I'm growing human, so I'm just gonna be so straightforward with people. 00:34:30.210 --> 00:34:33.842 So but I I try to maintain my sweetness in it. 00:34:33.842 --> 00:34:35.666 So You're very kind. 00:34:35.666 --> 00:34:39.291 I don't think you could be unkind if you tried, especially to someone new. 00:34:39.291 --> 00:34:42.753 Like maybe if someone like did something to you, but not just like a new person. 00:34:42.753 --> 00:34:43.987 Well, thank you so much. 00:34:43.987 --> 00:34:45.860 I'm like, you should talk to my boys. 00:34:45.860 --> 00:34:48.768 They probably have differing opinions about mommy right now. 00:34:48.768 --> 00:34:49.581 But you're a momma. 00:34:49.581 --> 00:34:50.523 Code for them. 00:34:50.523 --> 00:34:51.443 This is so funny. 00:34:51.443 --> 00:34:52.155 Well thank you. 00:34:52.155 --> 00:34:55.369 I'll have all the links below and come say hi. 00:34:55.369 --> 00:34:57.192 We would love to chat with you. 00:34:57.192 --> 00:35:01.557 Until next time, remember I'm cheering you on on your SEO journey.