← Simple SEO and Marketing, Business Growth, Organic Marketing, Copywriting, Online Business, Blogging, Content Creation
Simple SEO and Marketing, Business Growth, Organic Marketing, Copywriting, Online Business, Blogging, Content Creation
237 // If I Were Starting SEO From Scratch in 2025 This Is What I'd Do
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Faith Hannon
So I have a fun episode for y' all today. I was just thinking about what would I do if I were to start over in SEO, start over from scratch in 2025. Like, what would be my strategy? And so whether you really are starting your SEO journey or SEO goals right now with trying to get found in search or you tried to start and you kind of screwed it up and you need to fix it, this is a great episode for you to just kind of lay the foundation work of okay, here's what you need to do. Here's what I would do if I had do overs to start getting found in search, getting clicks and conversions from search engine in 2025. All right, let's get into it. Hey there fellow entrepreneur. Welcome to simple SEO and marketing. Do you want to grow your business with sustainable traffic sources? Have you heard about the power of search engine optimization? And you want to take advantage of it to get more traffic, more eyeballs on your business. But when it comes down to it, does SEO feel complicated and hard to implement? Are you tired of wondering what in the heck to do with your website to get more traffic and more leads knocking on your door? What if I could tell you that there was a simple, proven system for using SEO, blogging and copywriting to get leads from your website and not just any leads. Hi. Converting lead. Hey. I'm Faith Hannon, wife, mama, copywriter, SEO strategist and barrel racer. And for the last eight years I've been figuring out what works and what doesn't work in the world of online marketing to get organic traffic. And now I'm here to share all the things I'm learning in the trenches of SEO, copywriting and content marketing. How does 300%, 500% or even 12,000% more, more traffic in a year sound? What could your business do with that kind of traffic increase? How many more people could you help? So listen in and prepare to take note. I'm about to drop simple, actionable SEO marketing and copywriting tips, all with a heavy dose of Jesus loving encouragement. Let's get you more traffic and more leads so you can help more people with your God given gifts. So I don't know what it is about me exactly, but I'm fairly frequently thinking through, okay, would I do it again like this? And I do really try to journal and be very, you know, conscious of, you know, my, my personal growth journey and, and all of that. So maybe that's part of it. But one of the questions that I've asked myself lately is if I were Starting SEO from scratch right now, what would I do differently? Because if you don't know my story, I started writing a blog 8ish years ago because I felt like the Lord said, hey, you need to blog. And so I was like, yes, sir. So I started a blog. I've always been a writer, a communicator, so the writing part of things was super easy for me. But getting found was another story. And so throughout, you know, the years of writing content for myself and the clients, I figured out how to get found on Google with really simple SEO practices. Mostly because I fell on my face 800,000 times and screwed up a whole bunch and figured out how it doesn't work and how to make it work much, much easier and much more simply than how I struggled through it. So what would I do if I was starting from scratch today? Well, first off, I would get super, super clear on my offer and my messaging. Now, some people want to tell you that your, your copy and your SEO are separate. I disagree. I think that they need to work together really well. And the awesome slash, not awesome part about the day and age that we live in right now is that anybody with a phone can start a business right. You don't have to go, you know, rent a store or build a store. The barrier to entry to starting a business today is so much lower than it's ever been. It's amazing. But it also makes the competition so tough, right? You have a bugajillion people that can do this thing, and so a bunch of them try to do this thing. And so to stand out in the market takes a lot of intentionality, a lot of clarity, and a lot of really savvy business strategy. And so what I would do first off is I would get super, super clear on my offer and my messaging. I would ask just a lot of very you know, simplistic, validating type questions, like, is there a need for this product or service in the market? Like, is there a genuine need for it? Okay, two, can you fill that need? Is that something that you are good at? Is that something that you can do? Is that something that you want to do? Okay, number three, are people willing to pay for it? Now, I say this with kind of like tongue in cheek because a lot of people want to be like, oh, well, people just won't buy from me. They won't pay for that. When really there's a lot of other issues going on, like their marketing, their messaging, their self confidence, you know, all of that. But like, are people genuinely willing to pay for the solution that you have. And just because you're not willing to pay for it doesn't mean that somebody else isn't willing to pay for it. Because we all have different pain points in our lives. Like, some people's pain point that you have to overcome is money. Other people's pain point that you have to overcome is time. That's a whole separate conversation regarding sales and marketing. But are people genuinely willing to pay for this product? Great. Move on to the next step. The next question is, is it scalable? Now, I do not think that every single product, every single business idea needs to be scalable to a billion dollars to be successful. I'm not saying that you can run a local business and love it and always be the one in the trenches and love it, and that is totally okay. But you need to kind of have an idea going into it. Like, what, what. At what point is this going to plateau? Like, what is the growth potential here? And whatever it is is fine. But if you kind of have an idea going into it, then you're not going to be so disappointed and so frustrated when, okay, that lemonade stand in my front yard isn't really that scalable because I only have, you know, so many kids to work it, right? Like, things like that. Just knowing that is part of step one, clarifying your offer and messaging. Okay, step two, I would get straight into keyword research. I would set up a keyword strategy based on people. What. What people are actually searching for. Now, I work with a ton of students and clients who, they come to me and they're like, oh, this is what people say. This is what my girlfriend said when we were having conversations. This is, you know, what we. We talk about back and forth in my friend group. And all of that is good to know from a market research perspective, but that does not always align with your keyword strategy. Time and time again, I see that the words that people are saying with their mouths do not always line up with the words that they type with their fingertips. So you need to know both. But when it comes to your SEO strategy, you have to lean into what people are actually typing into search engines. Otherwise your content's going to be falling flat on its face. So step number two, if I were starting over, would be to really dig into keyword research and build my keyword strategy based on what people are actually searching for. Because once you get those people's words in your head, like what your friends say about a need or what your customers have said or whatever, it's sometimes Kind of hard to separate their words that come out of their mouth from your actual keyword research. There's a time and a place for both, don't get me wrong. But I would want to know, is this an actual problem that people are typing into search engines? For example, little, little baby business owner Faith. I thought I was going to be a starter strategist because I'm really great at helping people get started at whatever the thing is. And that's a completely made up thing. Completely made up starter strategist, not a thing. Nobody was searching for that, right? So the hurdle to having a profitable business was going to be much higher because I was not only going to have to educate people on what I did, how I could help them, I had to educate them on that was even a thing, right? It was a made up word, it was a made up title. And so it just. The barrier to profitability was going to be so much higher with something that is not actually searched. All right? And within that keyword strategy, I would really, really, really want to focus on my mid to bottom of funnel keywords for the vast majority of my time. I'm going to get my goal keyword set up for my business, who I am, who I help, the problem, promise, solution, all of that stuff that I teach inside of simple SEO framework and my keyword research kickstart. I would, yes, absolutely get my goal keywords set up for my homepage, my about page, my services page, all of that. But I would really, really want to hone in on my mid to bottom of funnel keywords for blog content. Which leads me to step number three, because then I would write some cornerstone slash pillar content that was just kick butt content like big Kahuna blogs using Rank iq, using all my smarts, I would put a ton of time and effort into those blogs because then those really pillar pieces of content are going to be out there on the interwebs, getting found in search and generating leads on autopilot for my business. And those would just be out there, set up and working for me as I grow the other aspects of my business business. And I would just want to make sure that that content was super, super thorough answering the questions that people are asking in such a way that they're not going to have to click back to Google to get the answer that they're looking for. Um, and Rank IQ is a great tool that I've been testing out for a while for this and I actually have an affiliate link in the show notes and I'm going to be Talking a little bit more about that product in next week's episode. But for now, we're just going to talk about the five things I do if I was starting from scratch. Thing number four is I would optimize the poop scoop out of my blogs and I would make sure to interlink. Okay, interlink really strategically. Now there are some plugins that you can get and be like that will, you know, automatically link to other blogs or recommend other blogs. At the bottom, yes, that's fine. But you as the content creator, you as the human behind the business, you're going to know your content and you're going to know, oh, this other piece would help them here and this other piece would help them here, and this other piece would help them here. And I would interlink really strategically to help keep people on my page and ultimately build that know like trust factor as they get genuine help with more than one blog. And step number five is I would work on some collabs and backlinks because the fact of the matter is, if you don't have an audience online, you are either building it from scratch, you're buying it with ads, or you're borrowing it by doing collaborations with other businesses. And collabs are one of those things that bless it. Most of the collab pitches that you're going to get feel like complete slime. But when you work hard and you get to know people and you genuinely get to know people and network and care about them and their business, it really is possible to have some really great collaborations with other business owners because you've actually gotten to know them. You know their business, you know their heart, you know them as a person. And so those kind of collaborations tend to be much more effective than just random email list tradies or random pitches that fall on deaf ears. And then you never speak to that person. Right? Like, I would put some serious time and effort into some collaborations and with those collaborations, getting high quality backlinks. And of course, with any business, the name of the game is leads. Lead generation, right? You have to get leads continually to keep having sales and keep having customers. And if you have not hopped into my free training, more leads in less time, go to faith hannah.com/more-leads and get in that in one hour, I'm going to lay out the framework for you of how I generate leads in two hours a week or less. And I'm going to help you cut your content creation down by 75% and increase your leads by 300%. So the math, maths we've done it time after time with student and client after student and client. So jump into that. More Leads, less time training. Faith hannon.com more-leads and we'll be back with you next week with more tips on how to grow your business and honor God with your gifts using simple SEO and marketing strategies. Thank you so much for listening in today. Hopefully this episode gave you some really tangible tips for better SEO and marketing to get more leads and more sales from your website. If it did, can I ask you a quick favor? Would you please share this episode with a friend and then just take 10 seconds and go leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. That is the very best way to help more Jesus loving entrepreneurs scale their businesses so that they can help more people with their gifts and make an even bigger impact for the Kingdom of God. And guess what? We now have a Facebook community where we can learn, hang out and laugh. Go join the Facebook group now. It's linked in the show notes and all the other things courses, coaching and copywriting can be found at my website faithhannon.com until next time. God Bless and I'll talk to you soon.