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Marketing Made Simple
#180: Talkin' Shop—Simple Tricks to Own the Top Spot in Local Search Results
00:32:45
If customers in your town are searching online for what you offer but can’t find you, you’re missing a huge opportunity. It’s like having a storefront without a sign. Local business owners know they need to show up in search results, but SEO can...
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- [00:03]
A
With smaller budgets and sky high expectations, growth is feeling pretty painful right now. But HubSpot just announced more than 200 major product updates to make impossible growth feel impossibly easy. Like Breeze, a suite of new AI powered tools that help you say goodbye to busy work and hello to better work. Breeze Intelligence to give you the richest, most comprehensive picture of your prospects and customers and the reimagined marketing and content hubs to attract and convert more leads and send your revenue soaring. So get the pain relief you deserve for your business by going to HubSpot.comspot to learn more.
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B
You have a product, you have a service. People are struggling with a problem and they are looking for that answer. They are actually out there searching on the web sometimes being incredibly frustrated because they cannot find the answer they're looking for and you may just be the answer they need. When you can actually be found on the Internet, you are going to be able to allow people to find a solution to their problem much easier. How do you stand out when people are searching? How do you become the go to person when people search online? Hello, Hero Maker. Welcome to the Marketing Made simple podcast powered by StoryBrand and brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network where we believe your marketing should be easy and it should work. I AM your host, Dr. J.J. peterson, and I am joined by my co host, April Sunshine Hawkins. Hi April.
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C
Hi JJ and hello Hero Maker.
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B
April, I feel like one of your theme songs that I'm gonna start singing in a second and I guarantee you're gonna start singing it with me.
- [02:00]
C
Oh my goodness.
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B
Just a small town girl living in a lonely world. You didn't join in. What's happening? I don't understand. I like to. My favorite thing is surprising April and seeing how she reacts to my question, which I'm often asking, or the song which I start singing. Just a small town girl living in a lonely world. And we're going with the.
- [02:28]
C
April, we're going with it. We're rolling.
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B
Because you and I both grew up in many small towns. We did see it was worth it. That moment, getting to that moment that was actually worth every second. We both grew up in small towns and in multiple small towns. Mine, some of mine were in Kenya. Even like tiny, tiny towns that you could barely call towns. I grew up in a little town called Monmouth in Oregon, which was tiny. I think when I was growing up, it was maybe 3,000 people. When you're in that small, small, small town, everybody kind of knows everybody and you know all the different services in town and like I, you know, we used to love to go to Kreider's after school every day. Everybody went to Criders because you could get like nickel candy. In Oregon. You could turn in cans, like recycle cans, and you would get a nickel for a can.
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D
Oh, yeah.
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B
And then we take that nickel and we go to Criders and we would get a piece of candy. So everybody knew about Criders. Did you ever have like a hometown? Like, this is the place you had to go. You love to go. When you think of hometown pride, you think of this business.
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C
We did have a Kolache place. You know, every time before church, people were going to this Karachi place. And you're right. Like, everybody knew everybody. It's a special thing, a small town.
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B
It really is. And when they're really little, there's like typically like one realtor, one doctor, one dentist. Like early on, when I was little, little, a lot of towns I was in had those. Just one, like you went to the doctor or the dentist. And as our towns grew, there was two or three doctors. Or you could go. The town just like say 15 minutes also grew closer. So you had even more access from the local towns around you. And you might not have known those people, but there were more Realtors in the space, more doctors in the space, more lawn care in the space. And the town began to grow. And people, I really believe, could no longer just rely on relationship or that word of mouth. Like they had to start figuring out how to actually stand out in that space. And I know that there's a lot of businesses that come from small and medium sized towns that really have to figure out how to reach their audience, even in their small town or in their area. And it used to be, you know, we'd all knew each other, but now you rely so much on the Internet to search for everybody, even in your. Even in Nashville. Nashville. I live in East Nashville, which is kind of a quote unquote small town within Nashville. I still look up online when I need to find a tailor, when I need to find somebody to that's going to replace my car battery. I need to find somebody in my local hood, my local neighborhood that can do this for me. And I'm looking them up online. Even though I do know people around, I'm always like, well, where is anybody new? What's going on? How do I get there? We've gotten to the point where word of mouth is still very important, obviously, and engaging in your neighborhood, super important, that networking stuff still matters. But how do you figure out how to actually reach an audience in your community? Whether you're in a small community in a big city like Nashville, like I am in East Nashville, or you come from a small town, you have to figure out how to stand out in the market, even there, and build a loyal base that then word of mouth can take over. But if you're new or if you've been around 20 years, you need to figure out how to build your customer base now in a different way. And one of the ways to do that really specifically is SEO in your small town or your community, how do you stand out when people are searching online for you? How do you become the person who is the go to discovery when people search online?
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C
And we know that whenever your thing is plumbing or your thing is kolaches, you want a really simple solution to this because you have a specialty and you're like, ugh, I have to learn SEO as well. Like, I don't wanna. And that's why we brought on Kelly Rice. She's a brand certified guide who's loved the story brand framework forever. And her specialty is really helping people boost their local SEO. And so she gives really practical tips, things that you can do and accomplish in just four simple steps. And so since we're in this talk and shop series, we had to have Kelly Rice on to help talk shop about local SEO and how you can boost it on your own. Kelly, I am really excited to talk to you today because this is one of the most asked questions I get. What do I do if I am a small business owner and I've gone through the story brand framework? Now I need to figure out my SEO strategy as well. I mean, people are really stressed out about it.
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D
Yeah.
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C
Why do you feel like people are so stressed about this particular topic?
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D
In all reality? I think it's because there's so much advice out there and small businesses don't know what to do. So they end up doing, you know, one marketing tactic after another and nothing really works. And they just feel like they're wasting time and money. And then SEO being something that is kind of like this, oh my gosh, I don't know about this thing. It's all back in stuff or what do I do? And it's like this big spider web of stuff anymore, Right? That I think that's why it's kind of a scary thing. So I'm really glad that we're talking about it today because we can bring kind of some simplicity to this for small business owners.
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C
Yes. Well, I know you've been using the Story brand framework since 2016, right. And I would love for you to talk a little bit about how Story Brand and SEO just really are a match made in heaven. And then I want you to get into how you like, help walk people through a process and give them a plan that isn't the spider web that you mentioned before.
- [08:46]
D
So kind of like you, one of the things that we notice is that people associate Story Brand with just writing clear messaging. You know, that gets people to do the thing you want them to do, like to make a purchase or download a guide or schedule discovery call, those types of things. But in reality, Story Brand, it is so much more. And when a small business takes the time to identify their best customers and create clear messaging by using the Story Brand framework, they have most all the information that they need in order to create an effective SEO strategy, but they don't even know it. And the fact of the matter is, is that if they want to grow in a local market, their websites have to show up in Google searches. So I want to be clear that I know that there are a lot of moving parts to a successful SEO strategy, but it really does have the power to do some really, really for local small businesses. Because when people intentionally look for something on Google, most are ready to make a purchase. So when someone's website is one of the first solutions that customers see, and then they click over to the website and because of storybrand, they get all of the information that they need, they will more than likely buy from or work with that person. But if they can't find you, then it doesn't really matter what's on your website, right?
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C
That's right. That's right. Your customers, they, they're out there, they're sitting at their computers, they've got their credit card in their hand, or they've got their calendar pulled up, ready to schedule a call.
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D
Right. So in an effort, especially for today, and like kind of what we do within the agency all the time is I want to simplify the SEO process. So there are four phases that we actually use, and the first one is understanding your audience and creating clear messaging. Always, hands down, first thing that we always do for any type of marketing, plug for Story Brand and everything else that if you're not doing this, this is the thing that you should do always, no matter what. I don't care what anybody else tells you, all of your marketing efforts are a complete waste of time if you don't clarify your messaging first.
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C
That's right.
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D
Step number two is building a strong SEO foundation with SEO optimized content. Third is creating content that drives engagement. And then fourth is actually promoting that content so it can enhance your SEO.
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C
Yes, absolutely. I would love for you to reiterate what the four steps are and then I would love for you to tell us a couple of client stories. I would love to hear those like kind of surprising moments that happened to you for a couple of your customers.
- [11:12]
D
Really the first step is to deeply understand your audience. So now with StoryBrand, we make sure that we're speaking directly to our audience needs and the desires of the customers, which in terms, it helps us identify keywords that they're using in the and then identifying the information that they're searching for. And this is critical because when your content reflects what your customers are searching for, not only do they get what they want, Google recognizes that and it rewards people with higher rankings. And that's important, right? Because you can't be on page three. You need to be on page one for people to be able to find your amazingly developed story branded website. And then in creating SEO based content, because of the story brand framework, we also already know that we need to shift our metrics messaging away from us, the company, into them, the customers. Making our customers the hero and us as the guide. Right. Like that's one of the biggest mind shifts that our customers have to go through because they want to tell people all the time that hey, we do all these great things, you know, we're a plumber and we can fix this and we can do all of that. But if we write content that way, people aren't going to read about how you replace a faucet if it's like reading the back of a, gosh, I don't know, like a 19 page manual, right? So when we make this shift, the content will only resonate with the audience emotionally, but it also aligns with SEO best practices because Google wants to give people relevant and helpful information. So step number one, clarify your messaging, utilize the story brand framework and I promise that it will help you figure all the other things that you need to do here. Moving on. So number two, so once we've clarified our messaging, we move on to creating content that is both clear and optimized for SEO. And this means integrating targeted keywords naturally into our story driven content. And when I say naturally, I don't mean you're trying to force all these keywords so that your content feels really heavy. It's not readable and it's not helpful because that's nobody wants to read that. So the goal is really to create content that both engages the reader and then tells Google that your website is relevant in an authoritative source on a specific subject. So it's kind of twofold. So I really want to drive home the fact that your website is the cornerstone of your SEO efforts and it can be your most powerful marketing tool. So a clear story, brand driven, SEO optimized website ensures that both visitors and search engines can quickly understand what you offer and how you solve your customer's problem. And then this clarity improves your user experience, it reduces bounce rates, and it increases the time users spend on your site, all of which are positive signals to Google. So now if you have no idea what I'm talking about when I'm talking about keywords, like don't freak out, especially on, oh my gosh, you know, how do I pick them and how do I use them? We've actually created a free guide called how to use keywords to improve your small businesses SEO. And you can easily download that for free at treefrogmarketing.com forward/keywords. Because at StoryBrand, I think we all love our helpful guides.
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C
Absolutely. And I would love for you to just give us a little taste of what's in that guide. Because let's say that I am a plumber. You know, because you were mentioning somebody's not going to read a manual about how to do the thing. You know, if they're going to try to fix their toilet themselves, they're more likely to go to like YouTube and watch a video, see if they could do it themselves. Right. And so having that kind of content is great. I'm curious about what you're listening for. Whenever somebody has created a brand script or you're helping them create a brand script, what are you listening for with those keywords? And then once you find those keywords, how do you help them create this content that you're talking about?
- [15:04]
D
Absolutely. So it's keep your ears open because people will always tell you what they want. Right. So they do it through. These are the questions that I always have to answer. You know, as a plumber, when people call, these are the things that they want to know, or this is the problem that they're always having. And maybe if we can just walk them through this process of maybe clearing their drain themselves, we are going to become more valuable to them because they were able to do it themselves and it took five seconds, but they didn't know how to do it. Right. So we kind of listen for those types of the those topics. And then in the guide we go through how you can actually find those keywords. So utilizing like the Google AdWords keyword tool so you can pop in a long tail keyword and then it'll give you how many times, you know, people are searching for that or maybe give you some other recommendations. And that helps you kind of build your keyword list because you may have five or six blogs or videos surrounding how to clear a drain and you can use different keywords for that. So that guide goes through one how do you identify keywords and then how do you use them? And then it goes through some of the technical things like what's the difference between a short tail keyword and a long tail keyword? Because short tail keywords would be like plumber. And if you're a, you know, a plumber in Indianapolis, Indiana, it's going to be harder to rank for just the word plumber than you know, residential plumber in Indianapolis, Indiana. So that guide kind of helps you one learn how to identify keywords but then also how to use those in terms of how to use them in your website, how do you use them in your content, how can you use them in sales funnels, those types of things. So it's a pretty comprehensive guide for people that are wanting to be able to create their story based content, but then also have it be very, very effective from an SEO perspective as well.
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A
Created hosted by John Yu Shai is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Created gives an inside look at how to build a business as a creator, improve your creative process and stay ahead of the latest content trends. John's an ex YouTube and Instagram employee and every episode he breaks down the creator economy with guests like Logan Paul, Paris Hilton, George Lopez and more. In fact, in a recent episode titled Meet YouTube's Richest 12 Year Old Ryan's World, he sits down and talks with Ryan, Kaji and his parents exploring how they built a billion dollar empire that started started with simple toy reviews on YouTube. I mean this episode was great because it was almost like a grown up toy review because Ryan's parents go into how they quit their jobs, scaled the brand and even launched a movie. So if you are looking for insights on entrepreneurship and creating a powerhouse business, go check out that episode and go check out created. You can listen to it and follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.
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B
And now back to the show.
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C
Let's get through the plan. Okay, so you've walked us through the first two steps. So talk to us about what do you do after you've created some collateral.
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D
Yeah, so phase three is where you're actually creating content that drives engagement. So story brand principles guide us in creating the clear content that kind of takes customers through this buying journey from awareness to decision. Because again, if we don't tell them what to do, if we don't move them along the path, they more than likely won't buy or take that next step. Right. So this type of content is not only useful for the customer, but it also signals Google that your site provides valuable, relevant information and that can help boost your SEO as well. So we also want to be able to utilize the audience identity part of the story brand elements when creating our sales funnel because we want to be able to guide the customer from their first interaction with the content through making a purchase. And this journey is critical for keeping the users engaged, which also improves your site's SEO metrics like dwell time and click through rates. Like, we don't want content on our site that we have some really good ads that you know that are linking to our website. And then people are like, oh, I don't want that information. And then they bounce off of your site because Google will be like, oh, you have a really high bounce rate. You must be spamming people in there. So that's why creating this quality content associated with the great key keywords is highly important for that. And then our last step, which we've kind of talked a little bit about, is once we have the content and the SEO strategy in place, it's really time to promote it. So whether that's through social media or email marketing or paid ads, we ensure that clear, compelling story brand messaging is consistent across all platforms. Because this not only helps with brand recognition, but it also strengthens your site SEO by driving consistent, high quality traffic. And that is key. So you need to be found, and then you need to make sure that the traffic that you're driving to your website actually stays and does the thing that you want them to do. So hopefully, kind of those four steps kind of took this giant beast of, oh my gosh, what do I do with all this SEO stuff? And just kind of condensed it into a little bit more of a manageable perspective.
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C
Oh, yes, absolutely.
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D
So those are the key things that I really want people to remember, because for local businesses, optimizing your Google business profile and gathering like online reviews and all of those types of things is part of a winning SEO strategy. And it can do so many big things for your organization. Because in reality, a lot of local small businesses don't do this. So even if you start with something like clarifying your messaging and utilizing the correct keywords on your website, Google's going to start seeing that and you're going to. Your rankings are going to start growing just because the competition isn't doing it. Which we work a lot with the trades industries because we work with a lot of the service industries. And we had a client that was, gosh, they did like handyman services. So they've been in business for about a year. They worked with another agency that, you know, created a website for them that was doing marketing, but they did zero SEO strategy. So then when we connected with them, we're like, we really need to think about going through the story brand aspect of it. Because your messaging isn't clear because you're basically saying you do every everything that any other handyman does, right? So there's no way to distinguish you from somebody else. Which is why, you know, one of the reasons that, you know, we're the OG story brand people, because it just makes so much sense. So in reality, we were able to work with them. We clarified their messaging, we redeveloped their website, we did a lot of the keyword research for their SEO stuff and we implemented all of the SEO things like Google my business making sure that that was optimized. There are things like from a technical side of putting putting name, address and phone number into all of their online directories because Google looks at that as citations. And they say, okay, if you are in a hundred different places and your website's the same and your name and your address is the same, and you say that you do these things, then I go to your website and your website says that you do these things. And then the content on your website says that you do these things, I'm going to trust that you actually do these things. So when somebody searches locally for that thing, Google then starts to have some of that brand trust and say, hey, I trust that you're doing what you say you're going to do. So I'm going to go ahead and serve somebody this result. So in doing a lot of that stuff, they went from not being found at all in Lafayette, Indiana, which is kind of a smaller market, but it's still a decent sized town, to within six months, they were number one in maps and they were number one in a lot of the different search results like Handyman, you know, Handyman near me, those types of things. And you, you know, you got, you Got to start there. So we were pretty excited to be able to see that.
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C
Yeah, I can imagine that this handyman who had no SEO services on his website before was like, thank you so much. Because the handyman most of the time does not want to put their head down and learn how to do SEO. They actually just want somebody to do it for them.
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D
Right?
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C
And they want it to work right.
- [23:13]
D
Because they're so busy doing all of the other things that they don't have time to become marketing experts themselves. But you know, storybrand positions people that if they are doing it themselves that they can probably create an SEO strategy that is better than most of their competitors. I mean, unless it's something like, you know, auto insurance, that's going to be a little bit harder to rank number one on Google when you're having to fight all of the big dogs. But you may be able to, you know, find those specific long tail keywords that you can rank for that kind of niche down who you're talking to and then that strategy can help you, you know, be really successful. So in, you know, the story that I told about the handyman, you know, we have all kinds of those stories with plumbing and dog grooming companies and you know, auto detailing shops and all of that. So I think one of favorite stories is that utilizing what we call the flywheel marketing method, which is basically taking all of this information and then you create these systems that you build your foundational elements through clarifying your messaging and building a lead generating website and then the content, your sales funnels, you know, you build those from an optimized perspective and then you utilize your social media and your Google Ads or whatever to help promote it. You know, they were able to grow by 800% in over two years. So and a lot of it has to do with their, their local SEO strateg because they were outperforming everyone because one, they were getting found on Google and then two, once people landed on their website, they had the information that they needed, they were able to easily book an appointment and those types of things. So I guess I just want to reiterate that Story brand is so much more than just clarifying your message.
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C
It absolutely is. Hero maker. You now have permission to make your SEO strategy really easy and really simple and not really complicated. Hate it right? At all. Like this is something that people can do on their own and it pairs so well with the story brand framework. What do you say to people who are like, oh, it. I think that because we, we pared down our Messaging so much. We clarified our message and made it so simple. Now don't have enough content on our website. What do you say to people who are kind of afraid of, kind of tossing some things overboard that they used to have on their website because they went through the process of clarifying their message?
- [25:42]
D
That is a great excuse for blogging. So the more information that you want to tell people, identify those keywords of the topics that you want to be able to present or maybe to expound upon and then blog. You know, create a content marketing strategy where you're like, you know what, my competitors blog once a month, so I'm going to blog every other week. Or maybe my competitors don't blog at all. So I can just dedicate, dedicate the time to be able to blog once a month or you know, maybe write a white paper about it or create a YouTube channel where you're again, utilizing keywords but you're giving people more of that information that you feel like they need. But I highly, highly, highly encourage people to go back and follow that story brand framework. Because if you just start creating videos that, you know, sound like a technical manual, nobody's going to listen to them anyway and you're just wasting your time. So follow that strategy. You know, like, here's the main problem that I want to address. Show some empathy, give your authority and then give them that positive outcome and then, you know, position yourself as the guide that can help them get there. So even when you're creating videos and you're creating blogs and all of that, make sure that you're following that framework because it will be so much more effective. So when people say, oh, I don't want a blog, and I'm like, well, I mean, it's to your point. Point exactly. Of, well, you wanted to put 92 other pages on your website. Here's the, here's a way that you can do that.
- [27:04]
C
That's right.
- [27:05]
D
There's a spot for it.
- [27:06]
C
There is a spot for it. It's going to be great.
- [27:09]
D
We don't like saying no, we like saying, how about if we do it this way?
- [27:14]
C
Yes, absolutely. All right, so will you go through your, your four step plan that you outlined earlier in the episode, just to help people reiterate it in their mind. Okay, 1, 2, 3, 4.
- [27:29]
D
Yep.
- [27:29]
C
Super simple. And if they do this, their business is going to grow.
- [27:33]
D
Absolutely. So first thing you want to do is you want to understand your audience and you want to create clear messaging. Then you want to build a strong SEO foundation through SEO optimized content and your website. And then you want to create content that drives engagement. Like you need to write about things that people are interested in and the information that they want to know, not necessarily the information that you want to tell them. Right. And then the fourth is actually promoting that content because if you can get people to engage with that content via social media or on your website, that's going to also help enhance your SEO perfection.
- [28:10]
C
Well, Kelly, I so appreciate you coming on talking to people about what small businesses can do to boost their SEO in a non technical jargon way so that they feel confident about moving forward. So appreciate you coming on and being a Story Brand certified guide and helping others win the day with this kind of strategy.
- [28:34]
D
Absolutely. It's my pleasure.
- [28:44]
B
Such a good conversation. You know what my favorite thing about that is? It doesn't matter if you are in a small town town or a big town, people are searching for you online. And now you have the tips that you need to actually help people find you faster and easier. And if you're still stuck trying to figure out how to optimize your SEO and reach your target audience by using the Story Brand framework, you can hire a story brand certified guide like Kelly Rice. Just go to marketingmadesimple.com to hire a guide that will show you how to clarify your message and create marketing that works. All right, hero maker, it is time to apply everything you learned with this week's actionable step. A practical step from today's conversation you can immediately use to shape your marketing and clarify your message. One of the things that Kelly talked about was identifying the most frequently asked questions your customers are searching for online or talking to you about. So for this week's actionable step, what I want you to do is actually identify those. Write them down. What are three questions that get asked frequently about your product or service? Identify those. Write them down. Then what I want you to do is actually write a response to those questions. How would you answer those questions? That points people back to you. So step one, identify the three top questions people are asking about your product or service. Step two, write down your response. And then here's step three. You want to put those frequently asked questions and those responses on your website. That's going to help when people are searching for that in your community. Google will point them to your website. I also want you to write a little blog article. You can put that in your space. You can send that out in an email, you can put it on LinkedIn. But write a short blog article as a response to each of those questions. And then lastly, like Kelly was talking about, turn it into a YouTube video, use that same script and put it on YouTube so when people are searching in that space, they can find you right there. By just doing that, you are going to get yourself out there on the Internet in a whole bunch of new different ways and make it way easier for people to find you. When they're searching, when they're asking those questions, when they're looking up information about your product. This is going to optimize all those search engine results. So once again, what you want to do is first write down the three most frequently asked questions about your product or service. Two, write a response to those questions. Three, put that on your website, put it out there in social media blogs, and ultimately create a video script that you can use to create YouTube videos. That is going to make it so much easier for people to find you, the people who need your help. You have a product, you have a service. People are struggling with a problem and they are looking for that answer. They are actually out there searching, searching on the web, sometimes being incredibly frustrated because they cannot find the answer they're looking for. And you may just be the answer they need. When you can actually be found on the Internet in new ways, you are going to be able to allow people to find a solution to their problem much easier, which helps them overcome their problem, to become the hero of their own story, which makes you a great guy, which ultimately makes you a great hero maker. Well, that's all for this week's episode of Marketing Made Simple. Thank you so much for listening and believing, like us, that your marketing should be easy and it should work. Follow Marketing Made simple wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you found this episode valuable, please rate and review the show letting us know how these tips are clarifying your message and growing your business. We'll see you next week. Hey. You cannot stop me. You cannot stop me.
- [32:41]
C
Go.