Helping Creative Businesses Get Started With SEO

On this episode of She's Crafted to Thrive, our guest is Galen Mooney. She is an online educator and strategist helping local creative entrepreneurs kill the SEO game. What we talk about in this episode is why it's so important to have an SEO game in your business, because you guys, we have all been there when we've gone on Instagram and Facebook and it is down, we have been blocked, or some crazy willingness going on with social media, and we need a place for our people to be able to find us, and it all starts with our website and SEO. So in this episode She shares with us some different tips and tools that we need to implement in our business, and it's not as overwhelming as you think. She makes it easy and fun. And I am not an expert in SEO, you guys. I don't even like it. But after this conversation, I am really motivated to put it into my business even more so. So definitely stay tuned. Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and this show is for all the ladies who are making and creating things that they love. You will hear conversations about the real everyday struggles struggles of juggling life and business while trying to maintain passion and harmony. As women, we have the skill of getting things done, but sometimes we get in our own way. It's here where you'll see that you're not alone. You'll discover that success does not mean perfection. Fear and negative thoughts and challenges are all a part of the journey. And on this podcast, you'll find the inspiration and tools you need to have a life and business that thrives.

Well, I'm so excited to have, um, Galen on the show. She is a social— I shouldn't say— I keep saying social media, and I know it's not social media, you guys, because we talk about social media so much, but this is like beyond that. We're talking about SEO and how you can use it in your business, especially if you're local. Like, if you're a photographer or if you're a maker or crafter or anything like that, this will help you, um, figure out some really quick and easy ways. It's not as overwhelming as you might think it is, even though I feel like it is. Guys, I'm not gonna lie, SEO is not my friend, but I'm super excited to have this wonderful expert on because she's going to share a little bit with us about her journey to this path and sharing this wonderful tool for your business. So welcome, welcome.

Hi, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here, and I can't wait to debunk a bunch of SEO myths and get you guys excited about about SEO because it's not as scary as a lot of you may think it is. But so yeah, so I run The Local Creative Company and previously named Photography Squares. And I basically got started with this a couple years ago. I had played around with a couple of their business ideas too. I worked for a digital agency right out of college and I loved it. Like it should have been my dream job. It should have been something I was so excited about. And it was like, I got to work with Fortune 500 clients and like doing all this really cool stuff. And I just was like, this does not fit me. Like, this is not what I want to do. This is— I don't want to be my boss. And I looked at my boss and his job was great. He got paid way more than I did, but like, I didn't want to do his job. So I was like, okay, you know, if I don't want to be him, that's the next logical step in this ladder that I'm climbing. What else can I do? And again, this is like the first year out of college, my first ever job. I didn't give it probably as long as I should have. My parents were like, stick it out a little longer. And I'm like, nope, this is, this is not for me. This is not what I want to do. I want to work for myself and I want to find another way to make money and to do something that's fulfilling for me personally. So I left and I moved home and I rented a cheap apartment and I had the money that I had saved and I started a web design and a photography business. Completely self-taught web designer. I didn't go to school for that. I just sort of taught myself on the side, watching YouTube videos, reading articles online. And I was doing photography at that time as well. And also learning a little bit about SEO. SEO was heavily involved in my digital agency job. And so it was something I was already really passionate about, but I also had this like creative side of me that wanted to build things and design things. And so I started that business with no clients and I built it up locally, just really getting, you know, my network down in my local area, building up that SEO. And after doing that for a few years, it just sort of started to snowball into the online space and continuing to build up that SEO. And after I had worked with tons and tons of local businesses as my clients, I noticed this recurring thing where people really were struggling with SEO. They had the creative side of their business down, but search engine optimization was something that was so foreign to them and I was offering it as a service. And what sort of came about is I realized that these business owners were so much better equipped to do it for themselves than, you know, it was better for them to do it for themselves than I could do for them because they really had their own voice and I didn't necessarily want to write in their voice. I wanted it to come from them. It's not that hard. It's really not that difficult, especially if we're just talking about getting started with SEO and getting found locally and things like that. So I wanted to work with a lot of the business owners, similar business owners to ones that I'd already done a lot of one-on-one work with. And I transitioned into more of an educational model where I now teach local creative business owners how to optimize their site for SEO and how to get found online.

Wow. First of all, I think I love that you're like, no, this is not for me. I'm going right into this. Like, I'm going to do the thing that I think I need to be doing. I love that. And I think it's really cool that You kind of worked your way, you taught yourself everything you've learned and you've seen the success of it in your own business. That's like amazing.

Yeah. And it's, it's so like kudos to my parents for not being like, what are you doing? They supported me along the whole way. And I was just like, you know, I'm quitting. I don't know what I'm going to do for money, but I'm going to figure it out. Like, this is going to be fine. I think it's Marie Forleo. I think she's like that new book coming out, but like everything is figureoutable. That like when I heard that for the first time, I was like, yes. This is my life, I'm living this. If I got asked to do something for a client and I didn't know how, I would just say yes and figure it out later. Like, that's always been my motto throughout life. Um, and so at that point too, I was like, I'm going to figure this out. And it started really small and it just sort of grew organically over time. Um, but I, I love taking technical topics, web design related, SEO related, and really simplifying them for people in creative fields. Because it's something that I like to make it fun. There's a lot of people teaching SEO out there and it's still very technical and it's still very, um, it's still very like structured in a way that's not fun. I try to make my brand really fun and I try to make the courses fun. Um, we do like a free challenge every once in a while, like all that, like it's all based around like, let's keep it simple, let's keep it easy and let's make it enjoyable for you and your business. Yeah.

I'm, I think that's so important when you're learning anything new. Like if, especially if you're a creative person. Like, we first of all don't want to be doing the other stuff. Like, we don't want to be doing this stuff. Like, we just want to create our stuff and like go sell it and be like, 'Yay, somebody bought it! We're so happy!' Or somebody hired us as a client to take their images, and I'm just happy I got, you know, we don't want to spend hours of listening and trying to dig into the endless world of blah blah blah. Like, we just want to know how to do it. Get it done and let's be over with, you know, especially when it comes to SEO. I think first of all, SEO, if you're trying to hire it out to like when you're a small company, I know for myself when I was thinking about doing SEO, I was trying to hire it out and it's so expensive. Like it's like these people that are out there and they think you're like, you know, Martha Stewart or something and you're like, no, I'm not Martha Stewart. I'm like Kita's Bakery in my kitchen. Like you don't understand. Like I'm not really that person. I can't afford it. Or, you know, $2,500 worth of SEO services. So I like that you've made it easier for people to kind of like bite-size it, and it's their own thing that they can do, and it's budget-friendly. I think that's a big thing too, that's hugely budget-friendly, because SEO, when you look that up on Google, it's not usually budget-friendly. It's not.

No.

And it's ongoing too. So a lot of these SEO services require like a 6-month contract or something, and like, I could do that for you if you wanted me to, but I would so much rather teach you everything you need to know in little bite-sized chunks and videos and just get you started. Just get you started with these small wins, these small steps that are going to get you wins right away. So do you see those results? And then you slowly like build on top of them because it is something that builds up over time. I always compare SEO to social media and I don't recommend putting all your eggs in one basket on either side, but I always think of social media like, is anyone ever going to see that post on Instagram from 6 months ago? Like, probably not. Like once that post is out of your top 9 or whatever, like it's kind of— it's down there, and maybe someone will scroll back and see it, but probably not. But content that you add to your website, even content from a year ago that you add to your website, whether it's blogging or just a page that you added, that page is going to be there. And if it's valuable and it's evergreen content, or content that's still relevant today, your potential customers and clients are going to find that. And that's what's so cool about SEO.

Yeah, you know, you make a really good point about that. You know, that that, what is it, about 12 posts? I think it's on average that people actually see, and they don't go past those 12 posts. So if, you know, you've been doing something for, you know, if you're someone that's posting more than once a day, oh my gosh, you know, people really aren't seeing like all that like a day or two later. They're just not. And so it's a good point. I, I know for myself, for my website, I use Squarespace, which everybody knows I'm a big Squarespace fan, so I know you are too. And like, you know, it's so great for makers and, you know, you can customize it and there's all these cool things. And of course, you guys, you know, I'll talk about that in the show notes. But what I love about it is that I, I'm not a blogger, hence why I started a podcast. But there are blog posts that I put out there that I did somewhat of a good job, I guess, for SEO that I still get I still have people coming through on my website that are looking at things that I did almost 2 years ago. And so I know it's getting, you know, it's valuable content and people are still seeing it. So it's really important. And I love that you said that, that you kind of diversify your content that you're creating from not just social media. And I know that's an easy go-to grab, but I think using SEO to do this makes it you know, evergreen in multiple ways. So even if you're putting the information on, on social media, I think you definitely, if you can find a way to put it on your website too, because in a blog post or however you want to do it, that you can get that content.

Yeah. And another thing you mentioned that I love, so Squarespace, so many creatives are told that if you want to have success with SEO, you have to use WordPress. And WordPress is great. I actually started as a WordPress developer and I can custom code an entire WordPress site for you, but Squarespace is so much more fun and enjoyable. To use for me. Like, even though I can do all that custom coding, 9 times out of 10, I would much rather build a website on Squarespace because the, the interface is just easy and seamless and it's just beautiful right out of the box. But there's all this talk out there like, you can't be successful with SEO if you have Squarespace, it's just not comparable to WordPress in any way. And, and Google is fairly platform agnostic. So there are some very tiny aspects that WordPress might tower, um, might step, be a step above, um, Squarespace in SEO. But for the most part, for the average business, for probably like 90% of businesses out there, Squarespace is more than enough. And it's not so much about what platform you use because Google's not really paying attention to that as much. It's, it's much more about the actual content on your pages. So some of the Squarespace templates right out of the box, are not great for SEO. Like if you just drag and drop images into the little spacer, like into the template that they have for you, your site's probably not going to rank that well. But if you take a Squarespace template, you know what you're looking for in terms of SEO and what's going to do well. And what I always say, what's good for SEO is also good for your potential customers and clients. So don't do anything that's not going to benefit your potential customers and clients. They have to go hand in hand. We're not writing content for robots. Right? We're not ignoring your potential customers and writing content for robots. It should all be very seamless. We're always thinking about who you're trying to serve and we're always adding content that's going to benefit those people. And in doing that, we're also helping your site rank better in Google. And you can do that on Squarespace. You can do it in WordPress. It really doesn't matter as much. I personally, again, prefer to use Squarespace because of how fun and beautiful it is. Um, you can have success. You just have to know like where those little settings are. And I go into that a lot. Again, I love Squarespace. I love to help you find all those little SEO settings that are hidden and they're making changes all the time to make Squarespace even easier to optimize than it has been in the past.

Yeah, they are. They definitely are. So I want to dig in, kind of shift a little bit into your story, a little bit about SEO and how did you come to really like love it and bring it into your business the way you have, so much, so much so that now it's a part of your business, actually what you do.

Yeah. So I guess like when I was in college and even through those first few years of learning outside of college, I've sort of been a jack of all trades. Like I really love learning. I love, like, I'm self-taught coder, I'm self-taught SEO, self-taught graphic design, like all of that. Like I did not learn that in school. It's just something I really enjoy doing. And when I was applying for a job just out of college, I remember there was an SEO job available and I scheduled the interview and then I realized I knew nothing about SEO. And so I was like, well, I have to figure something out between now and a week or two weeks from now when the interview is. And so I went online. I actually remember I bought, um, like a $1.99 ebook, like, uh, on Amazon or something like that. And it was like a cartoonist ebook about SEO. So it was mostly pictures. And I remember I like took an, uh, an online course that I was looking at. I watched a bunch of videos. Videos. I actually was trying to like reverse engineer Google results and I just needed like a base level of knowledge to start this job. And I went through the interview, I crushed it. Like, and again, this is just based off of what I learned in like the 2 weeks leading up to this interview. I got called back for another interview. Like it was crazy. And I ended up like turning down the job. They asked me to come back. I was like, wow, like all you have to do in, in any career path that you have is if you're interviewing or you are meeting with a potential client is just off of that little bit that little bit of extra knowledge or take that extra step, whatever it is. The fact that I went ahead and learned a little bit more than they expected me to know just by researching and learning myself, like they were so impressed. I'm like, wow, that's something I'm also going to take with me in life is just putting in that little bit of extra work, taking that. And it didn't take that long. It just was going out of my way to learn that. But I mean, everything is figureoutable. You can learn anything you need to know to be successful on your own, almost anything. I'm not going to become a surgeon from YouTube, but, um, But for the most part, like a lot of that stuff you can learn on your own. And my goal is to just help people package that and put that all together in a really fun, easy way, specifically for creative local businesses. So you're not like all over Google finding misinformation or, you know, finding all this information, all these different places. I want it to be cohesive and I want it to be enjoyable and easy.

I had Jasmine Starr on the show and part of her story is that she's like, her husband after she quit law school, she decided that she wanted to be a photographer, but she didn't even own a camera. And so it's like, she's like, yeah, but that didn't stop me. And I feel like, you know, sometimes we allow the fact that we don't have something to stop us from even pursuing it. And I love that you're just like, hey, I can figure it out. I can just Google it and research it and figure it out. And I love that you did that. Was there anything that you felt like a little bit of fear about? Like, going in like, oh my gosh, did I just do that? Like, did you have that kind of apprehension?

Oh yes. I remember when I took on my first couple of clients, I was like, I was, I knew I had the skills and this was like after I quit my job, I was taking on my first couple of clients, but I was like, I just hope that I can deliver. And I knew that I could, like deep down I knew I had the skills and I knew I could do it. But you know, you're just getting started. These are like your first 3 clients ever. Like I've done this for an agency, I've done this for other people, like in an agency format, but like on my own, it's just me. I'm I'm the one responsible for this. Like, that was pretty scary for starting out. But there's also, when you are your own boss, like, your boss is as nice to you as you are nice to yourself. And so I knew that if I did mess up, like, worst, I always think like, what's the worst thing that could happen? And I'm like, I guess like I say, sorry. And I give them their money back, like, possible case scenario. And you know what ended up was great. And I learned a ton and then I had, you know, 50 more clients after that. But it's just cool to, you really have to think about like the worst situations, not that bad. You're gonna be fine. Like no one's, you know, maybe there's some haters out there. But for the most part, like you're gonna be okay. And it's all gonna end up fine. You just have to put yourself out there. You know, and really just push out of your comfort zone a little bit each day.

What would you say, okay, so if I'm, you know, a photographer, or maybe I make jewelry and I go to local crafting events, or I'm working with local people. What is the number one thing that someone should start to think about when they are wanting to implement like SEO into their business?

Yeah. So the biggest thing that I tell everyone to do right away is just start by setting up all the different analytics profiles that you need. And it's pretty easy, but if you don't know your numbers and you're not starting to collect that data, you're not going to have any idea if you're actually seeing improvement down the line. And so I always talk about the big 3, uh, for SEO, which for me is setting up Google Analytics— again, totally free— um, Google My Business, which is your local business listing on Google Maps, which you can set up even if you don't have a physical location. Most people don't know that, but if you're a photographer and you work out of your house and you meet clients at their locations, you can still set up and verify your own Google My Business Maps listing and just choose to hide your address. And you just say, I don't serve customers at my location, but I am in this location and I serve customers in this general area. And you'll get on Google Maps, and that's that top, top listings when you first search for like ice cream places near me, photographers near me, whatever it is. It's like that top section. So that's huge.

That's the—

those are the first two. And then the third one is the Google Search Console or Google Webmaster Tools. Again, totally free. And if you've set up Google Analytics first, it basically auto-verifies your Google Search Console site. And Search Console and Google Analytics talk to one another, and you could just get some really cool information like, what keywords are people using to find me? And, um, you know, where are different people coming from? Like, what channels are most valuable to my business? Is it Instagram that's driving the most people? Is it Google that's driving the most people? How are they finding me? Where are they coming from? So setting that up is like phase 1, just making sure we start capturing that data so that we can look at it down the line.

Wow.

So I feel like that was a lot of information. So I will definitely have all that kind of breaking down in the show notes. Um, and you might just need to repeat to listen to this part, but, um, or I believe you have a checklist on your website on like some, some of these things that they can look at to do. But you know, I do know that a lot of people really don't know that. Like, you know, they think you have to have a physical brick and mortar place in order to do that. And so that's a really good tip for people to know. So now that they've set up their Google Analytics and all that stuff, what's the next thing they should start thinking about? Maybe like their content or—

Yes. So to keep it simple, I just wanna look at their homepage first. Let's take their homepage. It's the most visited page on your website typically. I'll look at that homepage and the first thing I ask is this homepage telling your potential customers when they land there exactly what they need to know about your business? So you'd be surprised how many times I go to a photographer's website and I can't actually tell where that photographer is located. Like, they could be in New Mexico, they could be in Wyoming, I don't know. And there's nothing on the homepage of their website telling me that. So if I found them in Google search for Wyoming photographer, great. But if I found them in Google search for family photographer, that's not really helping me. Or if I found them on Instagram and I lost their location, but I bookmarked their site and I go back there, I have no idea where they're from. So just making sure that your homepage isn't just displaying your work, um, it isn't just, you know, it doesn't just have an image on it. It has to have text content. It has to be able to tell Google and your potential clients or customers exactly who you are, what you do and where you're located. That's like huge is just to have that basic information there. It's super valuable to Google and it's really important to make someone feel like they're in the right place when they land on your website because you're going to end up confusing a lot of people and sending them away to go find somebody else who does what you do.

I totally agree with you. That's in anything. Like, I feel like those three things have to be on everything, not just your website. It needs to be on your Instagram, needs to be on your Facebook. I totally agree with you. I have had so many clients where I go to their stuff and I'm like, I don't even know where you are. Like, where are you? How am I supposed to know that, you know, you're a photographer and I need photography pictures, but— and I love your work, but I'm in Florida and you're in— I don't know. It's like, I don't know where you are. You know, it's really important for you to let people know where you are and what you do and who you serve because it makes it clear. And it also gets rid of like all those really annoying questions that you might get to your contact us page when you're like, well, where are you located? Well, if you just told them in the first place, you wouldn't get people that weren't where you were serving. And so I think that's a really good reminder just in general for your businesses to have that kind of stuff on everything. Like everything needs to be everywhere.

Yes. Yeah. You want to qualify people before they reach out to you. You want someone to feel like they're in the right place. You want them to feel like they're speaking to you. And so another thing too is is niching down, niching down. Or so whether you're a photographer or you design things or, you know, whatever business you have, figuring out exactly who your ideal customer is, not just what they do or what they're looking for, but like who they are. Is it, you know, what's their age range? What, um, are their likes and dislikes? Like, what kind of is their vibe? Like, who is that person? Picture them in your head and then write the content on your homepage for that person. What do they struggle with? What what are you helping them with? If you're a family photographer, people think, okay, well that's niching down, right? That's very specific. I only do families. It's like, no, that's the tip of the iceberg. What kind of family photographer are you? Are you the black backdrop? Everybody is in white collared shirts and blue jeans and everyone's smiling at the camera. Are you the, you know, in a field candid, like everyone's smiling, but no one's really looking at the camera and it's just much more like emotional and sort of like in the moment. What type of family photographer are you? Because that makes a huge difference. People aren't just looking for all of those things. They're looking for one or the other, and you want to fit into that box and you want to make people feel when they arrive at your site that they are there for a reason and they're in the right place.

Yes, exactly. Yes. Amen to all of what you just said. I love it. I love it. So I want to touch on something you just said about niching down. That's such a hard thing for local creative market, like crafters and makers, like they like don't necessarily understand how to do that. And so you were just breaking that down a little bit about, you know, if you're a photographer, how do you break that down? So are there keywords they should be looking for when they decide how to niche down?

So the biggest thing is you can do kind of like very specific keyword research. You can go into the Google Keyword Tool, but that's not always necessary. So like if you are a family photographer, your main keyword would be something like family photographer. But what I always tell people is use adjectives. Like, don't be afraid of using adjectives on your site. Like, you're not just a family photographer, you are a lifestyle family photographer, or a candid lifestyle family photographer, or you are more of a formal family photographer, formal headshots, like whatever it is. So just being very specific and using adjectives, uh, the more adjectives you can sort of incorporate all over your site just to get very specific into what you do and who you target, you're going to help people feel that emotion that you're adding to the content on your site. It's not going to feel as bland. It's going to feel more engaging. And that's key. Not just again, not just for people visiting your site, but also for Google.

Okay. Yeah, that was really good. I'm glad you said that because I feel like we feel like we have to do all this keyword research and be very specific about certain things. Like, so I like that you brought that out. So Now that they've gotten that homepage down and gotten, you know, the niche down a bit, what's the next step they should be taking? Is there another step? Yeah.

Oh, of course there's always more you can do, but I just like to start out simple and cover the basics. And then we sort of build onto that depending on how much time you have. Because again, we're all super busy business owners. We don't always have time to spend a whole week optimizing our site. We take it one step at a time. So once you've got you've got your analytics set up, you've done your homepage. I also like to look at the meta descriptions and the page titles behind all your pages on your site. It's not just your homepage, actually each and every page on your site, um, should be optimized in that way. And for different things, like if you have a pricing page or products page, whatever it is, just making sure that those individual pages are optimized. And I also look at not just getting people to your site, but also how once we get them there, how do we get them to convert? So whether that's reaching out to you via email, purchasing your product, whatever it is, what— how do we encourage them to take that next step? And typically that means designing your site in a way that's friendly to people coming to your site, right? It should be mobile optimized. It should be easy to navigate. It should be very clear how they can get in touch with you. And if it's not, again, you're going to send people away. You spend all this time and energy Okay, getting people to your site, how do we make sure that they stay for a while? And that goes into like content creation and blogging and it's, it's quality is better than quantity. So don't write 100 blog posts that are, that are kind of okay, right? Spend more time on fewer pieces of content that are really valuable for your potential clients. You can answer frequently asked questions, you can help them make difficult decisions, you can help them compare different things.. So like in that decision-making process that happens before they decide to hire you or before they purchase whatever you're selling, think about how you can incorporate those topics into your blog. Don't just share your work. I mean, that's great too, but think about, again, what are the decisions that need to happen before they work with you, before they purchase from you? How can you help them through that decision-making process with content? And that content is going to go out and rank well in search engines.

Yeah, I think all of those, like, those were great examples of things that they need to have in place, like thinking about the quality over the quantity. I think, yeah, I just think that's a great thing to keep in mind. And I also want to mention that if you're listening to this and you're thinking, oh my gosh, this is like another thing I have to do. What's beautiful about this is that if you set up your content and you're creating this content, it should be able to go to everywhere else. You should be able to repurpose it to be on your social media, to be in videos, supposed to be in on a podcast, it should be very easy for you to reconvert or repurpose your content. So you're not really recreating something. You're actually creating a foundation for your business to live and breathe really well through SEO so that it's not just, you know, on Instagram. Now you have it on Facebook. Now you have it on your blog. I like to say your website is like your real estate. It's this is my land, this is who I am. And then everything else should come from there, really, honestly.

Yeah.

In order for your business to grow and continue to capture all of the information. I don't know if I said it just now in the show or when we were talking before the show, but Instagram, like, goes down, like, on a regular lately. So you don't want your, your people to only come to you because of Instagram. You want them to be able to reach out to you even without out social media. And the best way, and a really good way to do that, is to be using SEO properly and creating that content. So it's not as overwhelming as you might feel it might be because you're actually creating that foundation for your business.

Yeah, it should be about 20% content creation and 80% promotion. So if you write one blog post and you put a lot of effort into this blog post, you can then create create 5, 10 Instagram posts that all kind of relate to this blog post, whether it's pulling quotes, pulling images, whatever it is, just keep it super simple. Don't kill yourself trying to constantly create new things. Just focus on creating a few really good pieces of content for your website and then curating those or pulling them out of that, pulling pieces out of that to post on social media. And it's, you want to be sending people from social media back to your website, not the other way around. Sadly, your Instagram account could get shut down tomorrow. It could get flagged for something you didn't do. It could get hacked, whatever it is. And a lot of times you can get it back. So it's not like the end of the world, but you own your website, you own your domain, you have your website hosted, you own that content. So that's not going anywhere. That's really where you want— that's your home on the internet. Like you said, it's your real estate. That's where you want people to come back to. And once they're there, you want to give them a really easy way to either purchase from you or reach out to you to get in touch to continue that sales process.

Yes. Okay, great. So I'm going— I know you guys know there's like more steps, but I'm going to obviously put in the show notes and have a great way for you guys to reach out so she can share even more amazing ways for you guys to optimize your SEO. But I want to kind of shift gears a little bit and kind of get a little bit more personal. Are there any things that you ever feel like as a business owner that you wish you had more control over or Are there any things that you ever feel overwhelmed by just being, you know, an entrepreneur and supporting other entrepreneurs?

I think one of the most difficult things that I find on a day-to-day basis is struggling to balance serving my clients and serving the people I work with and also finding time to make sure that I'm growing my business all, all together. So I feel like I have this huge to-do list of things that I'm I'm always trying to get through, and I have a couple things that I'm working on to try to get better at this, but I just have this massive to-do list that I'm working through. And I just— I always try to serve my clients first because they keep my business afloat. Um, they're amazing. I love them. I— most of my clients that, especially one-on-one clients, I've been working with for a very long time now. I'm typically not taking on new one-on-one clients. I forward most of the new people who come to me to my online resources and my educational courses and things like that. Um, so I really want serve the people who have been with me the longest and who I work with on a regular basis. But I have to also focus on continually growing my business. And it's the same struggle with any kind of business that you have. If you're a creative business owner, like you want to work with your clients, you want to make your products better, but you also need to make sure that you're still putting yourself out there and you're still creating content and you're still spending time, um, growing the business. So it's all about prioritizing. And that's definitely something I struggle with a ton on a regular basis.

So have you found some ways that you can kind of balance that? I know, I mean, it's kind of like we all are always working on something, right? Like we're always working on something in our, in our life, in our business to try to make that balance, kind of not feel that kind of pressure, but also be able to, you know, move through that challenge.

Yeah. I think for me, I was listening to something the other day. I can't remember where, but it was basically, we were talking, it was talking about productivity and again, I forget who it was, but it was something along the lines of, when you say, I don't have time for this, or I don't have enough time in the day, what you're really saying is, I don't prioritize this thing. This thing is not a priority for me. And so if I'm saying, okay, I don't have enough time to create new content, um, to SEO optimize that I know is going to— or to optimize for my site that I know is going to benefit me long term, but I just don't have time right now— what I'm saying is I'm not prioritizing that thing. And to me, that means that I need to reprioritize prioritize. So I'm focusing right now on trying to come up with 3 things, 3 big things every day that I want to get done on my to-do list. And at least one of those things has to be growth-focused. 2 of them can be client-related or just things that I like have to do in my life or whatever it is. But one thing on that to-do list of those top 3 things has to be growth-focused, whether that's writing content, promoting content, reaching out to, you know, other podcasts or whatever just like trying to get myself out there and trying to grow my business more. One of those things has to be related to that. And then I do those 3 things during the day before I get to anything else on my to-do list. And I refresh those 3 things every day. If I end up not getting to one for whatever reason, it moves on to the next day. So just making sure that I'm really taking the time to write down and focus on 3 things and then anything I get done after that is purely bonus. Um, it's tough. It's very tough to choose 3 things because I feel like my list is 20 things long., but I'm forcing myself to do that, to prioritize, to make sure I keep growth as a continuous goal.

I love that. That is my theory. I've talked about this on the show multiple times about having that list of 3 things you must do. Um, I think that's great. I love it when I hear other entrepreneurs say it because I always feel like really weird because I think, I think in 3s, and I don't know if it's because I have like the photography background or something in my head, but I always think the rule of thirds.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The rule of thirds. I always have that in my head, But I just feel like it makes things so much more attainable when you have those 3 things that you're like, okay, this is what I need to work with. And I love that you categorize them like, this is for my growth. These other 2 things seem to be a part of what I need to prioritize. I love that you've done that. And I think that's really great for all, you know, anyone that's listening. I don't care where you are in your business, whether you're just starting, whether you've been in business for years. I feel like it's so important to have that list that you, you know, you're going to complete, like, you know, you're going to complete those 3 things. It just makes your mind, I think it makes your mind and your soul just less panicked and less scared and less, you just feel like, okay, well, I did those things and I'm good. I do have 20 other things to do, but they can wait because they'll at some point, if they're really important, they'll be on that top 3. But if they're not in the top 3, they really that important. And I think that's such a good way of looking at things. And I love that you mentioned that.

There's definitely that little dopamine rush too, when you like check that either that digital checkbox or that actual physical checkbox on a piece of paper, like you just feel good when you check those things off. I like to compare it to somebody who wants to start running. Like when you first start running, it's really difficult. Like I try, I hate running personally, but I tried, I was training for like a 10K or something and I was like, okay, I'm going to start running. And somebody might approach that and say, "All right, day 1, I'm going to run 2 miles. I'll run 2 miles every day this week." And they run 2 miles the first day. They're so sore. Maybe they're not a runner at all and that's a lot. For me, that would be a lot the first time. And they're miserable after that first day and then they kind of quit. They fall off the bandwagon because the first day was just miserable and it was a lot and they overwhelmed themselves. It's like, no, okay. If you're just starting with something, whether it's running or whether it's SEO, like if that's totally new for you, instead of being like, all right, I'm gonna spend an hour a day every day this week. It's like, no, start with what feels easy. Like so easy. Like you're like, I could do that. That's not a big deal at all. Like 5 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day, whatever it is, just starting at that, like find what's attainable. And then maybe even take one step below that, like start even a little bit easier than what feels attainable because you're so much more likely to stick to it.

Yes.

It just feels so easy and it feels like you can do it without really having a second thought.

Exactly. I say that my husband is the, you know, I'm gonna run a 10K next week and I'm gonna do like 50 today. And I'm like, you ain't even run like half a mile a second ago. I like, that's totally like his personality. He's like, I'll just do the whole thing. And then he's like, hates it the next day. And I totally agree with you. It's just so much easier and you set yourself up for success. You set yourself up for a long— and not just success right now, but for long-term success when you do it that way. And I love, I love it, love it, love it, love it. Um, so tell us a little bit about some of the tools you're using in your business, or some tools that you have used, your clients use, that have really helped them maybe in the SEO process.

That's a great question. So again, going back to those 3 I mentioned earlier, um, all the Google tools, basically Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google My Business. Totally free, awesome, awesome SEO tools. There's a bunch of other ones out there too, but for small business owners on a budget, that's the best possible place to start. If you get, you know, you start getting a lot of traffic to your site and you want to figure out other ways to convert those leads into sales, you can play around with things like email marketing. That's great to get into once you've sort of gotten over the initial hump of just getting people to your website and you're ready to actually invest in email marketing, there's free services like MailChimp. I personally use ConvertKit and I love ConvertKit. Um, and then even looking at like CRM solutions, like two that I've used that I've had a lot of success with, um, or that I recommend to clients are Dubsado and HoneyBook. Just making it really easy for people to reach out to you and to have some sort of follow up ready to go and be able to track like where people are. Okay, they've reached out, but they haven't signed the contract yet. Or I've sent them, um, they've reached out, but I haven't sent them the contract yet. Like just knowing where people are so you can keep track of it. Um, but those are things that you can wait to sign up with until you're actually bringing in people and you're starting to get to a point where like, I need to automate some of this stuff. Like it's starting to overwhelm me. In the early stages, again, that won't be an issue, but as you grow, And especially if you're, if you're investing in SEO just from a time perspective, you're going to start bringing in a lot more people to your website on a consistent basis. And you're going to want tools to help you keep track of those people and just automate all your systems so that you're not driving yourself nuts responding to emails one by one and trying to remember exactly where each and every person is in the sales process.

I totally agree with that. All of those things, like those are great tools and great reminders to have in mind for sure for your business, especially when you're doing SEO. And I think totally take everything one thing at a time. Don't feel overwhelmed. Just, you know, maybe once a week, you know, like, okay, I'm going to try to implement this or go to this Google dashboard and see what this is all about. Like, you can slowly but surely integrate this into your business for sure. Who are women that you're inspired by? I know you mentioned Maria Foglio, but if you could like interview them or meet them in person, would you like go goo goo gaga over?

Oh, that's a great question. I actually just listened to your interview with Jasmine Star. I'm a huge J-Star fan. I actually just joined Social Curator because I got some SEO is my strong point. Instagram is something I struggle with a little bit. So I figured, you know what, I love Jasmine. I thought that'd be really fun and she just has an amazing brand. So I follow her. I love it. I would love to interview her as well.

Yeah, she is amazing. Yeah, there's a lot of good things about that woman. Let's just say that. Okay. And I'm glad you're part of the Curators. I am too, obviously.

But I love Facebook groups in general.

Yes, I do too. But I've been in some Facebook groups where I'm just like, there's too much mess going on in there. And I like positive, actual working groups. And I feel like her group is definitely that. And it's hard to find those type of groups. There are a few of them, but hers is pretty unique.

You'll have to check out ours as well. So we have the Local Creative Co Facebook group and it's all about SEO and Squarespace tips and it's very focused. So like all the questions are specifically business related. But yeah, I, I've got like my core group of Facebook groups that I'm a member of and I like live in there a lot of times. It's like very easy to get distracted, but there's so much information, like just hearing about other people's successes and what people are working on. It's amazing.

It's such—

so great to find that community online.

Yeah, I love it. And it's a great way to collaborate with people too. I think it's a great way to do that too. Well, thank you so, so much for being on. Tell us how we can find you online and all that jazz. What some— do you have some courses out or anything exciting coming up soon that we should know about? Let us know.

Sure. So I have a free SEO checklist on my website right now. It's at localcreativeco.com. Uh, or you can follow me on Instagram at The Local Creative Company, but all the good stuff again happens over on my website. And, uh, I send out some emails. I've got a free email course that comes after you sign up for the checklist that basically walks you through a lot of what we talked about here and just breaks it down for you so that you can, um, go through everything step by step and just take your time implementing these little steps along the way to eventually reach the those big wins. And SEO really doesn't take as long as you think it would to start to see success. If you're a total newcomer to SEO, you can see results in just a few weeks. So I highly recommend you get started. I just want to encourage people to take that first step.

All right, ladies, that's a wrap for this episode of She's Crafted to Thrive. Thank you so much for joining me. Please share with your friends and be sure to like and subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes.

In the meantime, check us out at sheescrafted.com to check out the show notes for all the goodies and things that we talked about and there'll be links there for you guys. So in the meantime, just remember, you are crafted to thrive.