107: Creating SEO Friendly Content for Your Subscription Box Business

Small business owners are content creators. Yep, I said it, and I'm going to say it every day if I have to. Today I'm chatting with the co-host of the Simple and Smart SEO Show about how e-commerce sellers can create content to drive people back to their websites. Let's get more visible and grow our audiences. Come listen.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. I have a special guest today and we're talking about the power of content and SEO. And I've got Krystal Waddell Hill from her own podcast, The Simple and Smart SEO Show. She is an e-commerce and content creator. She helps business owners communicate the value of their products and services through content. So we're gonna break it all down for you today. Crystal, welcome to the Launch Your Box Show. I'm excited to have you.

Thanks, Sarah. I'm so excited to be here.

We gotta kind of start backwards because I have to let our audience know like where you're coming from, what we're doing, why I invited you on the show. And just so that you know, I don't invite too many outsiders onto the LauncherBox podcast. Almost every guest, with the exception of 2 people, have been LauncherBox members. So this is a special episode. But Crystal, why don't you just tell them a little bit about your e-commerce business and then how you transitioned into becoming an SEO expert?

Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you. But yeah, let me, let me back it up to 2012 when I had my son, I realized I couldn't I didn't work outside my house, right? And I was a teacher at the time in North Carolina. Teachers didn't make a lot of money. We still don't make a lot of money, but back then it just didn't make any sense to go to work and pay for daycare. I mean, essentially what I took home would be what I paid for daycare. Yeah. So I was trying to find something that could help our family financially while at the same time being flexible enough that I could take care of my son. You know, the only thing I had ever done was I had made these photo collages on wooden letters for volleyball players, like my team members. I coached a club team. The end of the year, I put all their pictures on their first initial, and I mean, it was awful. I almost quit after the first one. I had 11 players and I'm like, oh my God, I can't do this. But I did it. Their parents loved it. They loved it. Their parents loved it. I loved watching them open it, and it was just so special. And they tell me even, you know, like a decade later, they still have those letters, right?

Yeah.

So my friend was like, you should sell on Etsy. So I said, okay, I'm gonna sell on Etsy. So I opened up my shop. The first sale I ever had, Black Friday, $19 special for my photo collages, right? I went to go buy shipping. Shipping cost $26. So yeah.

Oh my gosh. What did you do?

Oh, I had a lot to learn. I mean, honestly, I'm one of those people. It's like I can find the positive in just about anything. And I was like, somebody wants to buy my stuff. I mean, I didn't even care that I was losing money. It's like it's a business. But anyway, it took me a while to learn some of those things along the way. But you know, I really, you know, grabbed onto all the resources that Etsy provided. One of the things that they said to do was to pin your products to Pinterest. And so I bought into that like early, you know, and I mean, I was getting massive traffic from Pinterest. I was so excited. But then one day I got this horrible, horrible awakening of how that was actually working, because what would happen is if you you clicked on my pin, Pinterest would send you back to my product. But guess what was happening underneath my product?

They were featuring other people that made the same thing.

Yes. Oh, I was hot, girl. I was like, oh no. So that was the day that I said I am opening up my own e-commerce store. And I, you know, did the best that I could to redirect all of those pins. To my e-commerce store. It was a GoDaddy online store. It was horrible. Oh my gosh. But it took me a while. But finally I worked up the nerve probably about 2 or 3 years ago to switch to Shopify. And although Shopify seemed really overwhelming at first, you know, it has so many integrations with other platforms like Pinterest and Verified Merchant Program and all those types of things. You know, now that traffic that I worked so hard to generate, you know, those hundreds of thousands of impressions and and saves and different things I'm getting from Pinterest, they all go to my store, not to Etsy. I still have my Etsy shop, but my pins point to my store where people see my stuff and, you know, not my competitors. So, so that was something really big that happened. And then, you know, we were talking just a little bit before the show in 2020, you know, things got so crazy and we were at home and I, you know, jumped on the newest thing at the time, which was Clubhouse. Right.

I did. I did too. And it's a— it was a time suck.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was crazy. And right before that, I'd had a heart attack. So in September, I'd had this heart attack. It's called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. My mom said, did you say taco soup bowl? And I'm like, no, it's Takotsubo. But basically it's something called broken heart syndrome. And my heart literally almost broke based on how I was feeling about some of the things that were going on at the time. And so I was on my way to cardiac rehab trying to have conversations on Clubhouse, and I'm on the treadmill at cardiac rehab having conversations at Clubhouse. And I was like, this is so great. I had time off of work and I could talk to all these other entrepreneurs. But that's where I found out about SEO. Okay. And I was like, that is it. That's what I've been missing because it's like, I can drive traffic from Pinterest. That's cool. I got that. But how do people find you on the internet? You know, how do I get my stuff right in front of that person at the time they are looking for what I have to offer? And the answer is search engine optimization. Now I do have one caveat, okay? Because when I learned about search engine optimization and then also knowing about Pinterest, I realized that As much as SEO is the answer, it has like this little sidekick and that sidekick is content.

Yeah.

And content on your website. And that's the words on the page, the words on your website. That's what gets people to, you know, find you and see your products and learn all about you.

Because SEO doesn't have any fuel without the content. It's like SEO is the car. But our content is the gas that goes in the car. So if we don't have any gas, our car's just stalled out, right? Like we need both of those to run and to drive. So that's really the piece. They have to come together. You've gotta have content. It's gotta be good content. It's gotta be relevant content. It's gotta be, you know, like it's gotta be, what's the word I'm looking for? Content that serves, aligns content that people, yes, are looking for. It can't just be fluff content is what I'm trying to say in the right words.

Yeah, exactly. And how I like to think about it is, you know, that idea of a customer journey. You know, if a cus— if you think about like how your customer lives their life before they need what you have to sell, that, that's the customer journey. So, you know, in, in my situation where I sell photo collages for athletes, you know, like my volleyball players, you know, I try to think about, you know, my number one customer is a sports mom, you know. So I try to think about what does a sports mom need in her life, you know, what are What are her problems? What are her challenges? And what is she doing like right before she might wanna buy a gift for her senior? That's what I started doing. I started creating content about senior night, you know, about how to get ready for senior night, what to wear on senior night, every sports senior night, you know, I, I wrote an article about it and then I linked it to my products. And so content also allows you to become your own best affiliate. And that's what I hope a lot of product sellers understand is that you can be a voice for yourself on the internet. You know, you don't have to wait for someone else to shout from the rooftops about your product. You can create content for your person before they need you and bring them into your world before they're ready to buy so that when they're ready to buy, they know who you are.

I love that. And I think that when we're talking about content, let's break it down for the listeners today. So I know what you mean by content, but someone's listening like, okay, sure, I just need to do content. Krystal, what, what kind of content do I need to be providing? Is that in the form of blogs? Is that in the form of opt-ins? What else on my website can I do? Where, what kind of content can I put where?

Okay. So, you know, what really matters here is number one, what do you want to be known for? You know, that has got to be the guiding question. Like, what do you want to be known for? And how, how are you serving somebody? How are you helping them?

Mm-hmm.

And Once you can identify that one thing, I mean, maybe you have more than one, but let's just like exhaust everything for this one thing that you wanna be known for. Well, then you just answer that question. How can I be helpful to this person before I actually sell them something? And who knows, maybe you're being your most helpful by selling them something. So those are just the questions that you have to answer. But if it's something, let's say that you can be helpful without selling them something, by providing them information about this next thing, this next event, or this next stage of life that they're about to go through, which will then lead them across your product. That's content. So it's— so for me, I break it down like this. I, I write a blog, and so I write a blog about that. And my very first blog, I had no resources, I used no tools. It was just what I knew because as business owners, we also have to get back to the place where we trust ourselves as the expert for what we sell. You know, there's a lot of different, you know, tactics and, and tools that we can use, but it ultimately comes down to how well you know your product and how you can help people with your product, right? So everybody can take a deep breath and just relax. You know what you need to know to create content. Yeah. Okay. So this blog that I wrote a few years ago, it was before I knew anything about SEO. It was just me talking about senior night and my experience with senior night and what I did around senior night for my own players or whatever, you know, and it's just being helpful. And then once I created that, then I made a pin for it, put it over on Pinterest, you know, to say, hey, if you wanna read about this particular topic, come check it out over here. And I, you know, made another graphic for Instagram. You know, and you know, I like to put things in different places, but the smartest place that you can put your content is first on your website and then second on a platform that has kind of that evergreen thing going on, like a Pinterest or Pinterest.

Some of my best pins are pins that I've done 5 and 6 years ago, and they are still in my top 10 every single month. When we're talking about content, I think most of my audience knows who they're for. That's the biggest— that's the first thing that we do when we're building our subscription box businesses is really niching down, which is also great for content when we are niche specific and we really focus on niching down to the right person. So they know who their, their person is and they've curated their subscription box for this person. So now if I've never blogged before, you're, you're saying blog is a number one piece of content that you can build SEO. In. So I, I can blog. I've never blogged before. That's okay. I just need to create some topics that would be relevant to my ideal customer. And I think we've talked about this a little bit before, but is blogging the only source of content that can help us with our SEO?

No. And there's— I also wanna ask you a question, like kind of kick it back to you.

Mm-hmm.

Do you want that Do you want a shortcut way or do you want the long way as well? Because I got both of them for you.

I mean, of course we want the shortcut way. So listen, Krystal, I'm going to just help you with my audience here. My audience are mostly solo entrepreneurs. They are the shipping department, they are the design department. Sometimes they're the manufacturers, they are their social media marketers, like they are all the things. So anywhere we can shortcut things, let's do that.

Okay, so there's a tool that I use. It's called Surfer SEO.

Okay.

And Surfer has something in there called a keyword planner. And so basically, if you go into Surfer and you put in a word, you know, or a product that you want to be known for, Surfer does all of the hard work for you. I know you've said you've talked a little bit about keyword research and, and that type of stuff, but Surfer does the keyword research for you. And groups things by topical authority.

Okay. Okay.

Because that's something that's really important to understand as we're moving forward on the internet. It's no longer just about siloed keywords like ranking for this particular term. It's about showing Google and the world that you are an authority in that space. And so that's what Surfer does for you. It, it creates all of these different articles options for you to choose from, and you get to choose from. You don't have to do all of them. You just choose one at a time, you know, and just do it until it's done and then worry about the next one. Don't worry about everything else, but choose the one that most aligns with your strategy and your goals and write that particular article. It tells you all the keywords to use, how many times to use them, what your different elements should be. Not to get too technical, but like your H1 or your different headings, you know, just where the words should go. So if you've never blogged before, it just provides you that framework. And it's also gamified, so you get this score. So once you've used enough words, it— this gas gauge will start to turn green. And the idea is you want it to get to like 70, and a 70 score is perfect. It tells you how many images to use, you know, because it's all based on what, what is already ranking on Google. So that's the shortcut.

Okay. So we're gonna put your link in our show notes for Surfer SEO so you guys can go to the show notes and find that. So is blogging the only way that we can create content? What other forms of content can we create?

Okay, well, if we're talking specifically on your website, Google ranks in a variety of different ways. Google's gonna rank your text, which is like the blog and the writing and your product descriptions, all that type of stuff on the page. But there's also images.

Okay.

So let's just say just subscription box is gonna be our keyword. Okay. Right. When you, when you upload an image to your website, a lot of times it's defaulted to like IMG 30592ABT, you know, whatever. Instead of that, just make it subscription-box. Okay. Or specific to the type of subscription box, right, that you offer.

Like monogram subscription box? Yes. Okay.

Perfect. Yes, exactly. Because there are other places that you can show up in search on Google and that there's the, the text, then there's images and there's video and there's shopping. You know, there's all of these different search results that show up where you can then be on page 1 in multiple places. So that's a strategy, especially if you're trying to rank in a very, very competitive market. Mm-hmm. Maybe try to rank for the images or for the videos rather than the text.

The text. So even if I don't blog and maybe I don't have the capacity to blog, I can still work on SEO on my website in different ways. You're saying through images, you're saying through video. We've talked a little bit about it in Launch Your Box this month about about your product descriptions, your product titles, your product pictures. Even those of us that we have like, uh, subscription box sales pages, all of those images on our sales page need to have those keywords in them as descriptions for those pictures that are on our pages, right?

Yes. And this— and what I'm talking about is the actual name of the file that is before you upload, right?

So we want to save it to our computer with this file. We were talking about this, um, just last week inside, uh, membership about how— if we, we like to do that here at our warehouse because then we know what the heck this is because we've got thousands of products, right? So we'll name it like Blue Leopard Monogrammed Quarter Zip Pullover or something like that. So we know exactly what item that is if the image doesn't pop up when we're looking for a picture. And so because we save it like that, then when we upload it onto our website, that those words that we just used are also keywords. And when people search for a monogrammed pullover or a blue leopard, whatever, or, you know, whatever those combinations, but all those keywords that are saved in that image. Now it's better organized for me on the back end as the business owner, but every time I upload it, no matter where I upload that image, it's going to have those keywords all over my site. So if I put that image on a landing page as one of my landing page images, all those keywords are on that landing page. Now, if I put that into a product, all those keywords are now in that product right there. When someone's searching for whatever those keywords are that I have in that picture. If I put that anywhere else, it's just that pic— that image goes everywhere. And so that's a very, very easy way that we can use SEO and everything that we do for our product-based businesses.

And do you use those same images in Pinterest pins? Yes, because it does the same thing there as well.

So Yes, all over the place. So just do it once. Okay, listen to us, everybody listening, listen to us. Name your images correctly and with SEO keywords in them. And no matter where you put that image, you've got SEO and you didn't even know it. You've got SEO without even thinking about it again, without going in and writing a blog, without beefing up your descriptions, nothing. You've got it in the image, and that is the simplest, easiest thing that you can do as a product base business owner.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I think a lot of people get kind of like nervous when they hear the, the acronym SEO.

I know, that's why, that's why you're here, because everyone's scared and I needed to talk about it with somebody.

Oh, and I want you to know, my friend, if you're listening right now and SEO's got you nervous, don't be nervous. SEO is simply the words that describe something. Yeah, that's it.

That's it. To help people find you. You're just helping people find you when you stop being lost in the corner of the interworldwide web, somewhere in the shadows, in the, in the long closet in the back of the hallway where just keep your mops. Okay? That's where we're at right now. And we're trying to get in the foyer.

Okay?

We're trying to get up front for everybody to see us, but they can't find us if we're not searchable. And that's really what we're talking about. We just need to leverage organic traffic in every way possible. And SEO is the best way that we can do that.

Right.

Crystal, you've given us like a ton of tips. Do you have a number one tip of anything that they can do right now? I mean, we talked about the images and the way you should save them, but aside from that, do you have a tip that you, that everyone could do?

I do. This tip is, it has to do with the word it, it, okay. "it." And I think, what is "it"? What type of speech is that? Is that a pronoun? I think it might be a pronoun.

You're the teacher in this conversation, not me.

Okay, well, the point is, don't, don't describe "it" as "it." Use the words to describe the thing.

Insert the keyword for the word "it." Okay, never use the word "it." Always use the thing for it. That's easy. I, I wonder if we went back and looked at, say, like a landing page of mine, how many times I've used the word it on that page. I'm gonna go audit that. I'm gonna go do that. That's something that I can do today. You guys can do it on your product descriptions. You can check your landing and sales pages. You could check blog articles. But how many times are you using it when we could put a keyword there? Right.

Yeah. Because no one's searching for it.

You're right. It's just an easy way to call our stuff it.

Okay.

That's a great term. Now I found Krystal because I've been listening to her podcast. And I think that if you are, whether you're a product-based business or a service-based business, you're gonna find lots of juicy content on her podcast. Um, Krystal, tell us a little bit about your podcast and where they can find you there.

Oh man, my, my podcast is actually our podcast. I, I started it with my friend B, Brittany Herzberg. She's an SEO copywriter. She's got like a whole bunch of fancy names I can't always remember, but she primarily does case studies. So she's like that. I do the e-commerce side. I love Shopify, and we have conversations all the time. We've been having conversations since 2018. When we first met. And we said, you know what, we should record our conversations. And as we were learning about SEO, we were like, yeah, let's talk about SEO and call it the Simple and Smart SEO Show. And just talk about where people can put SEO on their websites and make it fun and just make it conversational. So that's what we do, the Simple and Smart SEO Show podcast with me and Bee. We usually drop episodes every Wednesday and we try to, you know, focus on something every week that you can, you know, kind of implement, something you could take and run with.

A little tidbit that you go deep in every single week and you can learn more about. It's just, it's an easy show to listen to. I like listening to it. It's very conversational, so it doesn't feel like, you know, you're like in a classroom learning something. You're listening to these conversations, you're, you feel like you're part of the conversation sometimes, and you're just learning a little bit more about one thing at a time. And that's why I like listening to it. So if you've been diving into SEO because you've been, you're a member of Launch Your Box and you're working on all the things that I taught you this month and you're just realizing how much more organic traffic you can build with SEO. I'm gonna invite you to go over and listen to Crystal and Brittany's show. Um, once a week it says it drops the same day that mine does. Um, so you can listen to us both every Wednesday and I've got the link to her show in my show notes today. Any final words to give our listeners for SEO? Tips or strategies today?

Well, I did want to share one thing because you guys are also product sellers like myself. And something recently that I learned was to make sure that you're incorporating the words of your customer as well. So a lot of time with SEO, we get distracted by what words can I use to describe this? And since I use that one, let me get a different one. Like on Pinterest where you're like putting the words, then the bar, and then the words into the bar or whatever. With your product descriptions, think about incorporating something that your customers have said, like pulling out a review, like some words like, oh my gosh, I love it, you know, or why they love it, or that type of thing.

But don't use the word it.

Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly. So I, I started doing that with my product listings where I, you know, have the keyword But instead of stuffing every, you know, all these keywords in there, you wanna also add some emotion, you know, because it's a human being that's gonna read that. And if they know that someone else used it and loved it, loved the thing or whatever, yeah, they're gonna make an emotional connection to what you are selling. So, you know, that was something I also wanted to throw out there.

Yeah. And I encourage you to do that not only on your sales pages, you can do it in your product descriptions. You can also use that on social media. You can you can use it in text for your Pinterest pins as well. So that's a great, that's a great strategy there. So we're gonna leave you with that little tidbit. Lots of good nuggets in this episode. So check out the show notes for all of Crystal's links there, and we'll catch up with her on the Simple and Smart SEO Show. Thanks, Crystal.

Thanks so much for having me.

When thinking about different ways that you can create SEO-friendly content for your product-based business, Crystal and I talked mostly about the blogs, but I want you to remember that SEO comes in different types of content. Think about those YouTube videos. They're highly searchable. How-to guides or tutorials, maybe checklists. We talked a little bit about customer testimonials and reviews. All of that stuff is great SEO. Your product descriptions are very important along with those product titles, and those image file names that we talked about here on the podcast. Think about everything you're doing for your product-based business on your website is potential SEO. Remember, every word counts. Make sure you subscribe to the Launch Your Box podcast. I'd love for you to take a minute to rate and review it. Let me know which episode is your favorite so far. Don't forget to join me next week right here.