Episode 77: Why PR and SEO Should Be Your #1 Focus this Year with Laura Peters
PR and getting featured play a HUGE role in getting backlinks which helps SEO, so this is why it’s important to understand the role PR plays in increasing your discoverability.
You may feel that SEO is too complicated or that it’s too late, but hear me out.
PR and SEO are the ultimate “$10,000 an hour tasks” that your small business should focus on this year.
In today’s highly competitive digital landscape, small business founders may find it even more challenging to stand out and get the recognition they deserve.
This happens simply because we’re bombarded with advice like—paying more for PR and SEO agencies, posting more on social media, or trying more gimmicks.
But guess what? These tasks don’t always produce the desired results.
If you shift your attention to the proven and organic marketing activities of PR and SEO, you’re bound to stay in the long-term game for your business.
On the other hand, SEO serves as your leveraging tool to help you increase the visibility of your small business’s digital footprint forever.
Pair PR and SEO together, and you might just have the found missing pieces of making your small business be seen, heard, and valued this year!
That is why we invited Laura Peters, a travel blogger and an SEO expert, to join us in this episode. She’ll share optimized nuggets of wisdom on how to maximize your PR and SEO efforts as a small business hero.
“One of the biggest problems that I see is people say, ‘Oh, I have all these great ideas, and I want to tell my story.’ But if no one's eyes are on your story, then are you just talking into nothing? Or are you actually going to get people to read it? So, have a good balance of getting eyes on your website, but also being able to share your voice and your personal experience.”
-Laura Peters
Laura Peters is the creator behind Mike & Laura Travel and the CEO of Scale Your Travel Blog. After watching their blog grow rapidly in 2020, she decided to teach others how to grow their websites using SEO, affiliate marketing, and email marketing. To date, the Scale Your Travel Blog program has helped thousands of bloggers in various niches monetize their websites.
Make PR and SEO your # 1 focus this year! Join us in this episode as we discover the actionable steps to optimize your small business, so it can be finally seen, heard, and valued through using PR and SEO.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
What exactly is SEO?
SEO’s several advantages over social media
How long does it take to see business results through SEO?
PR strategies that boost your SEO and help produce results
Why small business owners should understand SEO first
The changes in SEO algorithms that you should be aware of
Actionable steps and mindset to get started with SEO
If you want to land your first feature for free without any connections, I want to invite you to watch my PR Secrets Masterclass where I reveal the exact methods thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought-after industry expert. Register now at www.gloriachou.com/masterclass.
Resources Mentioned:
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community: Small Biz Pros: By Gloria Chou
Get to know more about Laura Peters: mikeandlauratravel.com
Follow Laura Peters on Instagram: @mikeandlauratravelblog
Subscribe to Mike and Laura’s YouTube Channel: Mike and Laura Travel
Additional Resources:
Join the Small Biz PR Pros FB group
Listen On Your Favorite Podcast Platform
Follow & Review on Apple Podcasts
Are you following my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today so you don’t miss any future episodes!
I would also appreciate it if you would leave me a review! Reviews help me make sure I am providing the content that you need! Plus, you will be entered to WIN a 1:1 pitch writing session with me where I will help you find your press-worthy angle! Click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review”.
Here’s a glance at this episode…
[02:29] The great part about SEO is that you can use it to your advantage to grow an audience specific to the niche or the topic that you are looking to write about. If you have your own business, then you can gather an audience based on the business you're in.
[03:14] We really like SEO, because it's the long-term marketing solution. Whereas social media is a bit more short-term.
[07:14] When you employ actual SEO strategies, the ones that we use, it can take as little as three to three months to show up on Google. Now from there, you will have to build your authority and get some leverage to help move those blog posts up in search results.
[19:59] SEO works every time you do it the right way. But you can't be certain that someone else is going to do it the right way for you unless you know yourself.
[32:28] SEO can grow on its own after you publish, whereas social media, YouTube, you have to continuously be putting out content. So, it's not about consistency. It's about the quality of content.
-
Laura Peters 00:00
You want to use your keyword in the title. Of course, right? You also want to use your keyword in the headers. You want to use it appropriately in your headers, how do you use it in your headers, those kinds of things. Whereas I see a lot of times, SEO agencies or SEO experts, they will use the keyword incorrectly, they will do things that will work for people like TripAdvisor, because they have a ton of leverage. But they're not the same strategies that are going to work for the little guys, because the little guys have a lot more SEO work to do than somebody who has that leverage.
Gloria Chou 00:36
Hey, friends, I'm Gloria Chou, small business PR expert, award winning pitch writer and your unofficial hype woman. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people get the recognition they deserve. And that starts with feeling more confident to go bigger with your message. So on this podcast,f I will share with you the untraditional, yet proven strategies for PR marketing and creating more opportunity in your business. If you are ready to take control of your narrative and be your most unapologetic and confident self, you're in the right place. This is the Small Business PR podcast.
Gloria Chou 01:05
What's up small business heroes? I am so excited for this week's episode because one of the big three priorities we have in our business this year is SEO. And today I have someone who is not only an SEO expert, but she has basically built her travel blog only from recently 2020. And now she's amassed. I'm talking probably 80,000 organic views to her website every single month. So what does this mean? It means that she has been able to not only help 1000s of other people implement SEO, but she generates alone just based on ads and affiliate marketing up to $13,000 a month, just from her website. So welcome to the show. Laura Peters.
Laura Peters 01:09
Thanks for having me, Gloria! I'm really happy to be here.
Gloria Chou 01:15
So SEO is like all the all the buzz right? We know that ads tracking is going away next year. Social media is like ooh, we don't know about what's going to happen. First things first, what is SEO? And how is it different from, let's say social media?
Laura Peters 02:03
Yeah, so SEO stands for search engine optimization. And typically, when you talk about SEO or search engines, we're referring to Google and Google in, you know, anybody's view is one of the dominant platforms for traffic, that is where people go to find information that they're looking for. Now, the great part about SEO is that you can use it to your advantage to grow an audience specific to the niche or the topic that you are looking to write about. Or if you have your own business, then you can gather an audience based on the business you're in.
Gloria Chou 02:49
Wow, that's so awesome. So you know, we're all about building long term visibility here. Why is SEO better than let's say just, you know, what people think is quicker, like paying for ads or an influencer?
Laura Peters 03:01
Yeah, totally. And that is a really great question. A lot of people say, why wouldn't you just do social media, why even spend your time with SEO, and the proof is in the pudding. So for us, we really like SEO, because it's the long-term marketing solution. Whereas social media is a bit more short-term. So I'm sure you've, you know, put up reels or put up stories that even if they do gain traction, that only lasts for 24 to 48 hours, and then you're back doing the next thing that this social media platform wants you to do. So the reach with SEO is that when you write a blog post or an article on your website, you can tailor it to exactly to be exactly what Google wants it you to, you know, be writing about or how they want you to structure your posts. And these results can last for years and years. We have blog posts that we wrote back in 2016. I've optimized at one time for SEO, and it's still at the top of Google generating traffic to our website, seven, eight years later.
Gloria Chou 04:13
Oh, my God, that's that's so good, especially now, as we are recording this. I think one of the things about building a business, it's not about how many things you do, it's about strategically selecting the right thing to do. And I think SEO, PR, which also helps with SEO, which will we will get into are all in that realm. Not to say that there's not a place where social media marketing but you are playing by someone else's rules, right? So let's let's get into it. How can a founder, a business owner, a coach, a consultant, someone making candles in their garage? How can they get started with SEO?
Laura Peters 04:42
Yeah, so there is obviously a lot to SEO, it doesn't mean that it's very complicated, but there are a lot of things that Google deems important when it comes to optimizing your website or optimizing your business for ranking on Google. So a couple of those things is we want a website, of course, personally, we recommend having a website that's self-hosted, meaning that you own it yourself. Someone like Wix doesn't own it, or Blogspot blogger. So being able to have full control of your website is definitely a great place to start. You know, second, we would recommend to really diving in and learning more about SEO and what Google is looking for when it comes to writing different blog posts or articles. So we want to do what we call keyword research. So when we go to write a blog post, we're not just writing about, oh, here's my, for me specifically, I'm not going to write about my trip to Mexico, oh, I sat on the beach and had cocktails. It's more so about the information that people are looking for. So we need to determine a keyword. A keyword is just a fancy word for a topic, a blog post topic and article topic. Now, the great thing about SEO is that whatever your business is, you can actually tailor those keywords to match your business. So if somebody is in the business of making candles, okay, so the keywords they would be targeting might be how to make a candle or, you know, strawberry scented candles for sale, right. So when somebody is able to rank for that, and become one of the top search results on Google, you will have consistent traffic coming to your website or your business. So those are the first, you know, two things that we would recommend is first, have a website. And second, do some keyword research and understand which keywords you should be targeting in order to grow your business the way you would like.
Gloria Chou 06:45
I mean, it sounds super simple, right? But then I also hear another thing, which I know you you hear a lot, which is oh, SEO takes so long, it is just not worth me doing I need to hire, you know, an agency. Which brings me to another topic of like, which agency but But what would you say in terms of people are like, it just takes too long?
Laura Peters 07:02
Yeah, and I used to think the same thing, you know, I was pretty nervous about SEO, because I always thought, well, you know, it's gonna take at least a year for me to rank on Google. Luckily, that's not true. When you employ actual SEO strategies, the ones that we use, it can take as little as three to three months to show up on Google. Now from there, you will have to build your authority and get some leverage to help move those blog posts up in search results. But I kind of always turn people to the idea behind social media, how long does it take for you to grow your social media account, if you're starting from zero, it's going to take a heck of a lot of time to get to 500 followers or enough people to you know, be watching your your reels or your stories and paying attention to your business. So either way, you're going to be spending a lot of time trying to grow on either of these two platforms. Why not make it the long term marketing solution so that you don't have to be doing that hamster wheel of social media?
Gloria Chou 08:09
upgrade. And if that platform decides to ban you, then you're done.
Laura Peters 08:14
I've actually had that happen. And we were on Pinterest for a while too, which is, you know, I started using Pinterest because that was what everyone told me to do. So I did. And for a while there, it was going well, and by well, maybe 3000 people to our site each month comparatively, again, we're at about 80,000 right now. So it was it's interesting. And we were banned from Pinterest several times, you know, we would be in jail, let out of jail, in jail, let out of jail. And our traffic went like this because of it. So we really liked the stable kind of marketing. I'm not so much into predictive like, I want it to be predictable. I don't want to have to guess when my next lead is coming. And that's for me what SEO provides is a very it's a very specific and direct way of marketing.
Gloria Chou 09:10
Yeah, I love that too. And it's building it's like building a long term asset. I always say to my PR Starter Pack students, are you doing a $10 an hour busy work tasks that can be delegated? Are you building long term assets? Right. So let's talk about PR and SEO because as you know, I'm all about getting those organic links getting featured, not paid placements with the editorial placements. Can you talk about how powerful those are, whether it's guests, podcasting, getting on someone's you know, getting featured on Business Insider, all those things, how does that relate and boost your SEO?
Laura Peters 09:40
Yeah, so it's actually a very important component of SEO getting on to podcast getting into certain publications and being seen is huge. And I think that it can be said for both so SEO can benefit to PR PR can benefit SEO they kind of work in town. them. So as bloggers, one of the ranking factors that Google considers when deciding where to place your content in search results, is something we like to call backlinks. Backlinks are a link from another website to your own. Ideally, it's a more high authority website, so that it tells Google, hey, we like this person, and we're linking to them. So you should like them too, and possibly show them to more people in search results. So that's something that's huge for, for SEO, if you can master PR, your SEO is going to be very, very easy. I think the saying is you give me a lever and a place to stand and I can I can lift the world. And that's, that's super true with PR. So that's actually why we hired you to help us because we knew if we can get in front of some of these publications, it's going to be a breeze to increase our authority with Google and make our blog posts go up in search results, resulting in more traffic right. Now on the other hand, SEO can benefit PR because you can use your website as collateral, you can use it as a reason why someone should feature you, you can show Hey, I'm an expert in this, this and this, and feel free to check out my website right here. So it legitimizes you as a business owner, shows them what you're all about. And so being able to connect those two together is it's yeah, it's a great combination.
Gloria Chou 11:39
Yeah, it's really symbiotic, like two peas in a pod. Because I always say like, I'd rather spend the time, whether it's three hours, five hours to learn how to pitch that is a $10,000 an hour skill, if I can get onto one podcast, that is shownotes, all the things SEO, I'd rather do that all day and then figure out what trending audio to use, and then have five people watch my reel.
Laura Peters 11:59
And that's the problem with it. You know, I have had videos where I'm certain, I am certain that Instagram is going to like this, or I know this is going to be a viral post, I pick out the perfect audio for it, I put the most descriptive content in there anything I know that it's going to be good. And almost every time I am shocked by how few people we can reach because ultimately, Instagram decides that and you really aren't sure whether or not they are going to like your stuff. So why guess why not just do SEO? The way that, you know, we know how to and learn SEO so that you don't have to worry is Instagram going to like this real? Because if you do SEO the right way, it works every time every time.
Gloria Chou 12:53
Again, another $10,000 an hour skill that will pay dividends. Why do you think that people so people know logically, social media is not dependable? They've seen the horror stories. But yet people are still thinking, oh, I need to like focus on reels and not doing things like SEO. Why do you think that is?
Laura Peters 13:10
I think that number one, social media apps have become the norm. And a lot of people assume that's where they need to hang out. If they're not on social, they're not doing it right. Unfortunately, it's kind of a big lie. Of course, social media platforms want you to hang out there. Of course, they want you to spend money with them on their ads. But the truth is that, you know, social media platforms in 2023, their pay to play, if you want to gain exposure with them, you must pay them to reach your own audience. And that's what's crazy about it is you have to pay to reach the people who already follow you. It's crazy. So what's the point of even having followers if you can't reach everybody? I mean, anytime we post a reel, which is very few and far between we we have you know, I watched the statistics and you know, that kind of thing, but we have probably nine the 600 people following us on Instagram and my videos, maybe get, you know, 2000 views, it's it's unwatchable. So you know, to kind of continue on with that. I think people assume that's where they want to be. I think a lot of it has to do with ignorance of understanding what SEO is and how you can use it to your advantage, because we also teach travel bloggers how to partner with companies and sponsors be sponsored by companies. And almost every time we've reached out to people saying hey, I would love to create a partnership with you or some type of sponsorship. They say, Well, what's your social media handles, as if it's more important than the number of people who come to your actual The website each month, but people are brainwashed to believe that it really is true.
Gloria Chou 15:05
It really is true. And I think that's why we need to change the conversation with doing things that not everyone can do any, any trust fund kid can go and buy, like, three 300,000 followers, that's not impressive to me. SEO takes time, right? So if that's like doing the work, like understanding your audience, like giving value, that really to me is more of a hallmark of whether or not person that person is legitimate. And that's why I think PR and SEO are kind of in the same realm is it's not this get rich quick scheme where anyone can just pay for it. Like you actually have to do the work. But in doing so, you are cultivating a skill for life.
Laura Peters 15:38
Yeah, absolutely. And connecting those two the way you just did like, I've never even thought of it that way. And you're so right, like PR is the exact same way. It's long term marketing, because you will always be on that website that continuously gets traffic, it gets readers it's not something that's a get rich quick scheme. If if that's what you're going for social media it is, but it's it's very rarely true that you will you will see a lot of success from social.
Gloria Chou 16:08
Yeah, so we all know, definitely, it's time to build long term assets. So you know, pitching to get on a podcast great for SEO, it's almost like collapsing time, right? It's like do Would you say it's like better than writing like five, six blogs, if you can get featured somewhere?
Laura Peters 16:22
Um, you mean to do PR instead of writing like the five, six blogs that way?
Gloria Chou 16:28
Like in terms of like, how much does it boost your SEO?
Unknown Speaker 16:31
Oh, a lot. Yes. In fact, when people are beginning to blog, or at least trying to grow their business with SEO, you don't have to have a blog, we always tell them spend 50% of your time writing and 50% of your time getting backlinks, also known as PR. So that's what we recommend, because we know that leverage is everything. If you can get the backlinks you need, then your we call it domain rating. Some people call it domain authority, it's how much Google probably trust you. And if you can get in front of this other audience first, we call we like to refer to them as like votes for your website, you get more positive votes for your website, you get to do a lot less work. It's actually the reason why there are websites out there like TripAdvisor or, you know, some of these big travel blogs that have a lot of authority with Google, they have to do less, they don't have to write nearly as much because or as as SEO optimized as somebody who's kind of just starting, because they have the leverage. So if you can get leverage with backlinks, PR, then you certainly don't have to write nearly as much or be as you know, savvy with your SEO techniques.
Gloria Chou 17:57
Yeah, and I don't I honestly don't love to write, I do pitch writing. But blog writing just pains me it's better to write a pitch all day. But I'm glad you said that it definitely works well. And it works together. So let's talk about actually getting started with SEO. We have been told for decades, just hire an SEO agency. But there's so many it's almost like a like a little bit like scammy where like every day I get those like LinkedIn like scammy emails like we can make you on the first page like, what is up with that? And if I do want to hire an SEO agency, who do I hire?
Laura Peters 18:26
That's a really great question. And the truth is, I just had a conversation with a student today. The truth is a lot of SEO agencies unfortunately, aren't actually using proper SEO strategies. It's really sad to see, we get those emails all the time it is scammy, just like you said, we'll have people say, Hey, if you're the owner of Mike and Laura travel.com, please respond because your website is not showing up in any Google search results, and yada yada, yada. And it's like, I know that's actually incorrect. I think that that is I know that it is because I am an SEO consultant, I know what I'm talking about. So what we recommend, because a lot of agencies a lot, even the ones that are highly recommended by other people, unfortunately, aren't using proper SEO strategies. And what we recommend is that you learn SEO yourself first. And then you hire it out. That should be the way it is for most things in anybody's business. Learn it yourself first, and then hire it out. That way you always know. Are they doing it correctly? Am I getting scammed here? Are they even implementing things that are going to see you know, it's all about ROI. So if the money you're putting into it, are you going to recoup the costs? And if so, that's a great return on your time invested? If not, then you're wasting your money on marketing that you don't even know actually is going to work. As I said SEO works every time you do it the right way. But you can't be certain that someone else is going to do it the right way for you unless you know yourself. It's very similar to like Facebook or Instagram ads, if you ever were going to run those, you should know how to do it yourself first, and then hire it out. And that's something that, you know, as a business woman, I've learned that through and through, because I have been put in those situations where I've hired an agency to do say, Facebook ads, and they run up the bill, but we don't see the right ROI. So we recommend learning it yourself. Obviously, we do have a course on it. It's mainly for travel bloggers, but it's the same techniques that you would use for anything else. But just be just be very wary about a lot of SEO agencies out there. Because it's it's not what you think it is, you know, it's a lot of, I'm going to implement what I think is right. And hopefully this works is kind of the thing. I had mentioned a student that I just met with earlier today. And she was an affiliate, so meaning she was recommending other people's products. And she reached out to that company and said, Hey, can I write a guest post for you? I just want to you know, she was looking for a backlink. But she said, Can I write a guest post for you? She wrote the post, and the owner of the company said, I am blown away, can you meet with our SEO girl and teach her this? And she said, I can't believe that they wanted me to meet with their SEO specialists, so I could teach them. And so that's really where, you know, just just be very weary of that. Always, always know how to do something first before you hire it out.
Gloria Chou 21:46
Yeah. Or at least understand like, what the essence of it is, right? Yep. Yeah. So do you have so in your course? Do you have like your own strategy and framework like how different is SEO from like, your course. So like, if it gives you like different frameworks are pretty much the same way to do it.
Laura Peters 22:01
What we see a lot of people doing incorrectly. Basically, SEO is a checklist. If you check off all of the things and set it up the right way. It's a lot about structure, it's a lot about are you using your keyword appropriately, not only throughout your headers and your text, and your and your slug, and you know, all of these places in the meta description. But it's also about, you know, the overall over income or all encompassing aspect of your, your website. Is it loading quickly? Does it have positive user experience, that kind of stuff? So what you would want to look for, or, or at least for from my perspective, is knowing the checklist knowing exactly what Google is looking for. So as an example, you want to use your keyword in the title, of course, right? You also want to use your keyword in the headers, you want to use it appropriately in your header is how do you use it in your headers, those kinds of things. Whereas I see a lot of times SEO agencies or SEO experts, they will use the keyword incorrectly, they will do things that will work for people like TripAdvisor, because they have a ton of leverage. But they're not the same strategies that are going to work for the little guys. Because the little guys have a lot more SEO work to do than somebody who has that leverage. So that's really the difference. It's not so much of a difference in strategy. It's really about missing things. You know, I see a lot of people miss certain things. Or they'll say I learned SEO over here. And so I know SEO through and through, but they're not implementing all of the things that Google is looking for when it comes to using your keyword correctly. You know, having your site load quickly, getting backlinks and things like that. So
Gloria Chou 23:57
yeah, I love the checklist, idea. And then what about delegation? How easy is it to delegate that? You know, I teach that in my course. But like, a lot of people are like, well, I don't really have time to do this. So how easy is that process?
Laura Peters 24:09
So yeah, that's a great question. Very accurate. Like what you're saying is I don't have a lot of time to implement this. Luckily, learning SEO is going to be one of those $10,000 An hour jobs. So if you can learn SEO and utilize it, it is going to be what pushes your business forward to making sales. So prioritizing it is advised. Now of course, we want to hire out the $10 an hour work right just as reco is tells us so what we want to do is hire out maybe the writing portion of it. However, the SEO editing should be in your hands or somebody that you've trained to do SEO properly. And so what that means is you would create maybe an outline for this article or this blog post that you're writing. And then you would have hire somebody to write that post for you, I would look for specifically people who are experts in that, whatever it is you're talking about, not necessarily SEO experts, but somebody who has a lot of information and a lot of knowledge when it comes to whatever you are writing about, then you will come in or have somebody come in to do all of the SEO editing. And what I do, because now we hire out a lot of our stuff is I train an SEO editor. And I give them a checklist of exactly what I want them to change and what I want them to make note of. So if it is double check that the title is correct, double check that I have an affiliate disclosure. So I give them a checklist and doing it that way. Delegation is pretty simple. Pretty easy. Yeah.
Gloria Chou 25:52
You got to delegate to elevate. Now, you know, this question is coming. Because when we're talking about cutting time, and delegating is chat GPT AI tools copied at AI. Jasper, can we just use that to just turn out a ton of blogs or yay or nay? Or is there some risk in that?
Laura Peters 26:07
Yeah, that's a fantastic question, especially now that chat GPT has come full force, and they're here to stay. So AI will change the game, obviously, however, we look at it as a positive. So we don't know what's really going to happen in the future with AI. However, we can say that right now, using AI to write posts or articles, is very, very easy and helpful. Now, so what we do we use jasper.ai. And we've been using that for a while now. And what we like about it is it helps with any time where I'm writing a blog post, and I get stuck. And I think Man, I can't think of the word or I don't know how to phrase this. And it's just like a blob mess in my mind, right. So what we like to do instead is use Jasper will type in a very generic or vague sentence, and then it will regurgitate something that it created. It's not copyright infringement, it is completely just made up by AI, right. And we will take what they have. And we will take bits and pieces of it and put it into our blog post to help us continue to write. Now, we also it's very, very important to know that a lot of these these platforms, Jasper, Chad, GPT, all of these are not factual based, these are creative writing tools. And so what that means is that a lot of times, you will go into find some information or to grab some content that you can then add to a blog post. And it might not be factual. So I was writing a blog post about best hikes in Colorado. And it was telling me about hiking this one mountain in Colorado Springs, yet that mountain is nowhere near Colorado Springs. So there are some limitations to AI. There's a lot of things to iron out. So although AI is here to stay, and we can use it to our advantage, it's not something that we should be terrified of right now. Because we can just use it positively right now.
Gloria Chou 28:19
That's, that's cool. I mean, that's, that's good to know. I mean, we're on the precipice of so much change. My next question is algorithms change. Everything changes. What about SEO? I'm worried of someone saying, Well, this sounds great, Laura. But then the SEO algorithm is gonna change next year. Is that true or not?
Laura Peters 28:37
Yes, 100%. So, algorithms with Google change just the same as they do with say, Instagram, or Facebook, Pinterest, all of those things. However, it's a different kind of change. Dating back to when Google first began as a platform, they have had one thing in common forever, and it has never changed. They want to give their users the best experience possible. So any changes that they make to the algorithm is only to improve the users experience. So if you can go into SEO, into your SEO journey are your you know your usage of SEO? Understanding that you are going to bring the best information to your readers and give them a really positive experience? You should never have to worry about algorithm changes. So here are a couple of algorithm changes that are more typical in Google's world. And I personally think that they're very much different than the algorithm changes you see with social media. Back in 2017, I think it was, Google realized that there were a lot of people talking about things that they didn't have expertise in, for example, medical, anything medical related, anything related to taxes, and then finances as well. You If you were talking about those things, and you weren't a doctor, and you weren't a CPA or a tax specialist, and you weren't, you know, a financial planner, then you saw a major decline in the website traffic that you are getting, because Google no longer thought that that was okay. You can't be giving people advice, medical advice if you're not a doctor. So those are the kinds of changes we see another one just happened recently, they just want your page to be fast, and they want it to load quickly. Well, that's already an SEO best practice anyway. So anybody who didn't see the writing on the wall with that one, again, it's been a ranking factor for a long time ignoring it, is where it got people in trouble. So as long as you are doing SEO strategies with user experience in mind, and you're giving them the best information, again, you have nothing to worry about.
Gloria Chou 30:56
Oh, I love that. My next question is, at the time of recording, it seems like it's, you know, I'm too late to the game to do SEO. There's YouTube, there's TikTok. Everyone's already been... everyone's optimizing for SEO, how would you answer that question of it's too late for me to service you?
Laura Peters 31:11
Yeah. And I think that that's kind of an interesting. I hear it all the time. So it's, it's a legitimate question. But I think it's interesting, because any form of marketing is going to take some time. Luckily, the way we do SEO, it can, it can happen as little as two, three months where you start to see the traction. Usually, our blogs will start to make money not just appear on Google, but make money within the first four or five months. So it's not something that you have to wait too long for. It is something that will take your time and effort. But again, it's the long-term marketing solution. There are other platforms where, you know, you see a lot more businesses hanging out to YouTube and Tik Tok. But even with YouTube, you have to be pretty consistent for two years, in order to see significant gains with it. We would know we run both, and a lot of times we'll do case studies to see how long does it take to kind of grow a following on YouTube. Or how long does it take to grow a following on TikTok, and the amount of work you're putting into these other platforms is catastrophically different and much larger than you would be putting into SEO. Because, again, SEO can grow on its own after you publish, whereas social media, YouTube, you have to continuously be putting out content. That's one of my favorite parts about SEO is I'll leave a blog for a year, and we're still growing our traffic and still making money from it. So it's not about consistency. It's about the quality of content.
Gloria Chou 32:52
I love that. And if you do get on a podcast, you can also put that on your own blog as content to write.
Laura Peters 32:56
Absolutely. And a lot of people do. And it's not only helpful for keeping people on the page longer, resulting in Google saying, Oh, hey, people like this page, they're staying there a long time. But it's also better for you as a user experience, you are providing something that is it's the information people want. So yeah, it's it's definitely beneficial. And I see a lot of overlap there.
Gloria Chou 33:23
Now, I know obviously, your your course is incredible. You've had hundreds of students go through it. If someone is just starting off, right? What are some of the free tools, or action steps that they can take just in a very kind of small little taste they can dabble in like let's say if I started today?
Laura Peters 33:38
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So what I would do is I would play around with like a keyword research tool and just see if it's something that sparks your interest. I always think it's really fun to just do keyword research. So let me start from the beginning, you will download, and it's a Chrome extension, it's called Uber Suggest. It is a free tool. This is I think, the best free tool, not the best free paid tool, but it's the best free tool, download the Uber Suggest Chrome extension. You can find that by just googling that, and put it onto your browser. And when you type in a term into the search bar of Google, it's going to show you the number of people who are searching for that each month on average. And then it's also going to give you some other numbers. So as you scroll down the page, you have these search results, just as you would with any anything you look up on Google. As you're going through these search results, let's say the first one is Forbes, check out their domain rating or their domain authority. It will show you a number it's going to be between zero and 100. The higher the number, the more difficult it will be for you to compete against that person. So if I wanted to write about best credit cards, I would search that on Google using the Uber suggests extension, it will tell me that tons and tons of people are searching for it. But I want to verify that it's something that I could rank for. So I'm going to go to the search results, I'll notice what their domain authority is. And if you see a bunch of high numbers in the top 10, maybe you see Forbes, domain authority 95, is quite high. Maybe you see Business Insider domain authority. 93, right. So all of these are giving us clues that best credit cards might be a topic that's a little too difficult for me to rank for. So I might want to change and try something else. That is one of the best ways to start to dive into keyword research. And to see, are there topics I could write about I could rank for that would then bring traffic to my business or you know, traffic to any offer I have.
Gloria Chou 36:00
Okay, so Uber suggests what's the next thing they should do?
Laura Peters 36:03
So the next thing they should do is obviously writing articles or blog posts, but outlining the post. So the way you would do that is you would create a title, take notes from the other people in the top 10. What words are they using within their titles? What phrases do you see pop up multiple times? So as an example, let's say you were doing, you know, strawberry scented candles, or like best strawberry scented candles, something like that. You would go to the search results and pay attention to which words they're using more of in their title. So maybe the first result says 27 best strawberry scented candles 2023. Maybe it has a couple other words in there we want to determine what patterns are we seeing. Are they using a specific word? Do I see that that word pop-up a couple of times in other search results? Are they using the year in their title? If they're using the year or you see it a couple of times in search results? Use the year. So it's really about assessing the top 10 of Google. What what did the search results show? It's really cool because SEO is about deciphering other people's content that are already ranking on Google. It's like they're giving us a cheat sheet. So Google is saying, Oh, you want to write about that. Awesome. Here are all the posts that we deemed the best model these. Now of course, we don't want to copy it. That's unethical. But we do want to model what they're doing. So take some notes, see what words they're using. How did the how does the outline look? And use that to your advantage to create a an article that's similar but much better?
Gloria Chou 38:00
And can we use AI tools to do that to be like, give me an outline of this.
Laura Peters 38:03
Yeah. Yep, Jasper does do that. However, again, it is important to understand, you know, SEO for yourself first. So you can determine is this a good, is this an SEO-optimized outline?
Gloria Chou 38:18
Yeah. Okay, cool. Are there any other strategies they should take other than download that will suggest, you know, make an outline?
Laura Peters 38:25
There's over 200 ranking factors. So there are quite a few things to consider when you're writing your blog posts, or your articles, whatever, you want to call them the same thing. But ultimately, it really is about getting backlinks. It is also about getting the PR so you know, if on the other end of things, they're thinking, what else can I do? Get backlinks. Use PR. Listen to more of your podcast, because it really will help move the needle a lot faster.
Gloria Chou 38:59
Yeah, I actually did, I actually did a free tool for like looking at my backlinks, right. And my domain authority and I've been able to see because I haven't really done any SEO work that's obviously a priority of mine. But just from the features that I've gotten, I've been able to get like 1000s of backlinks like just from being on podcasts with no SEO and now it's like wow, I already have kind of a launchpad in a way right because I've been able to get to get somewhere and not just write blogs all day. So I love how you said that. It's not just about writing blogs all day. It's 50% getting backlinks which you can with PR. For some people who haven't been listening to us right for let's say 30 minutes and they're still not convinced or they still have some kind of objection in their head about it. What is the last thing that you will tell them? Why is it so urgent that they start SEO now? I know it's convinced me because that's I'm literally dedicating time, money and team members to focus on SEO this year.
Laura Peters 39:58
Definitely. Um It's important to remember that I have two things. So number one, you do not own any of your content. You do not own your account on these social media platforms ever. And one algorithm change could be the complete, it can demolish your business within an hour. I've actually seen so many bloggers who used to put all of their eggs into Pinterest basket, and they were getting killer traffic, you know, 250-300,000 people to their site each month, just from Pinterest. And then the algorithms switched. And they went down to 2000. I continuously see people post about it in these Facebook groups I'm in, and I can only feel for them because it really does deflate everything you've put hard work into. So making sure that you are being proactive is always the most important way to market. Always being proactive. Second is, of course, algorithms can change with Google as well. They're far less drastic than they are with say, you know, Instagram who one day loved pictures. And then the next day, if you posted a picture, and two people saw it, right. With SEO and Google, your goal should also be to grow your email list. That's going to be your bread and butter of your entire business. If you don't have an email list, you need an email list. Otherwise, again, one day, you could have a thriving business and the next day you have nothing. The great thing about SEO is that you can target specific topics that people are looking up, that will then lead them to possibly giving you their email address. So I want to be, I want to give you guys an example, so that you can utilize this when you go to implement some SEO strategies or, you know, write some new articles. Think about what could I deliver to people? Or what could they search for that I could then deliver something to them in exchange for their email address. For us, we have a blog post about which what kind of travel blog should I start? Or maybe it's what kind of blog should I start. It's a quiz. If people click on our result on Google, come to our blog for that and take our quiz, they have to give us their email address, a great way to grow your email list. Additionally, you could, for us, say we want to gather a bunch of travelers on our email list. Perfect. Maybe there's some travel businesses out there. What you can do is say, Iceland packing list or Iceland packing list downloadable, right? People search for this stuff. And when they search for something like that, you can then deliver a freebie in exchange for their email address, Hey, you want that packing list? Perfect. Here it is. And if you want a printable one, just give us your email address, and then we'll give you the printable one. So that's a really, really great way to grow your email list, it's a heck of a lot easier than constantly trying to come up with freebies and posting them to your story and doing all of the things that social media requires of you in order to grow your email list. Additionally, growing your email list on a social media platform is incredibly difficult, because you need to get people to leave the platform. These social media platforms don't want you to have people leave the platform. So they will suppress those posts so that fewer people will join your email list. It's quite a it's quite a conundrum. And that's why we recommend if you want to grow your email list, you want to grow your business. You can use SEO and be very specific about what you're targeting.
Gloria Chou 43:53
Yeah, I love that. And I love that you have like, six figure months, and you don't even really devote any attention to social media anymore. You're just not playing that game anymore.
Laura Peters 44:02
I know. It's so interesting. Yeah. Last month, we did over 100,000. And it was like, you know, people think, oh, you're a travel blogger. You must be all over Instagram. And I'm like, Yeah, I think I've posted one in the past like four months, I don't know. But we just don't need it. We don't need it. Because I work based off of ROI. I work based on where I'm going to see the biggest return on my time invested. And I think all businesses should do that. So for any businesses out there, or any business owners who are listening to this, one of the most important things to do is track your spending and track the money coming in. Every single day. You should be writing down everything you spend and everything you're making and determine are my efforts actually making me money. If they're not, you need to be putting your time and effort and money into something that's actually going to bring you profit.
Gloria Chou 45:01
Yeah, well, 100% I love how it's so much about mindset. And that's what we try to do here, you know, with PR is because at any point, you can choose a different choice, right, which we talk about in our coaching, we can choose that social media is not going to be what we do. And we're not going to be judged if we're not on it.
Laura Peters 45:17
Exactly, 100%. And that's what I've really learned. And it took me a while to realize that SEO is just a form of marketing. I just thought it was this fun game that I was playing. And the more people I got to my website, the more money I made, and then I realized that I'm marketing. That's marketing. So yeah.
Gloria Chou 45:36
Yeah, it's playing the long game and planting the seeds, just like you said, you know, like getting onto one podcast, getting onto one feature is going to help you rise on the rankings so much. So I love that. How can people find you? What's the next step they can take to join your world?
Laura Peters 45:52
Yeah, so they can check us out on our website. So it's mikeandlauratravel.com. If they're interested in our core skill, your travel blog, they can go to mikeandlauratravel.com/blogger. And additionally, we are on social. We're on YouTube. It would just be @mikeandlauratravelblog on Instagram, or Mike and Laura travel blog. But again, not a huge Instagram fan. So I don't spend a ton of time there. But you can certainly follow us there.
Gloria Chou 46:21
Thank you so much, Laura, this was so awesome. And I honestly I cannot wait to work with you and get your eyes on on all the content that I have are really making it in a way that's actually searchable. Because why make all this content if I'm not leveraging it, right?
Laura Peters 46:34
Exactly. And that's one of the biggest problems that I see is people say, Oh, I have all these great ideas, and I want to tell my story. But if no one's eyes are on your story, then are you just talking into nothing? Or are you actually going to get people to read it? So we have a good balance of of getting eyes on your website, but also being able to share your voice and your personal experience.
Gloria Chou 47:01
Oh, that was so good. I'm actually going to take that clip. And and we're going to make just, like just a piece of content just with that if everyone wants to share their story, but if no one's hearing it, then are you really sharing it? Right? That's, that's so good. That's so good. Exactly how I feel about the work that I'm doing, too. It's all about leveraging the content you already have. And working smarter, not harder.
Laura Peters 47:23
Yep, it's like a tree in the woods if it falls, but there's no one around to hear it does. Does it make a noise? Yeah, sure.
Gloria Chou 47:31
So much, Laura. I love seeing the growth that you've had even just recently, it goes to show that like it's never too late to implement SEO and you can start at any time and still, like just grow exponentially.
Laura Peters 47:42
Yeah, absolutely. It's never ever too late. So it was it was so much fun sharing this with your audience, and I hope they they got some good nuggets out of this. And yeah, it's been wonderful.
Gloria Chou 47:53
Hey, small business hero. Did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, The New York Times, Marie Claire, Pop Sugar and so many more, even if you're not yet launched, or if you don't have any connection? That's right. That's why I invite you to watch my PR Secrets masterclass, where I reveal the exact methods 1000s of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought after industry expert. Now if you want to land your first press feature, get them a podcast, secure a VIP speaking gig or just reach out to that very intimidating editor. This class will show you exactly how to do it. Register now at gloriachoupr.com/masterclass. That's Gloria Chou c-h-o-u pr.com/masterclass. So you can get featured in 30 days without spending a penny on ads or agencies. Best of all, this is completely free. So get in there and let's get you featured.