Domain Authority, Visibility & Internal Links w/ Celi Arias

We talked about domain authority, internal linking for websites, and utilizing various platforms for visibility in part 2 of our conversation with business coach Celi Arias.


1. Celi flipped the format of the Simple and Smart SEO Show Podcast and began asking US SEO-related questions.

• We emphasized the importance of domain authority.
• A high domain authority score improves visibility in search engines.
• Improve your DA through internal linking or high-value external links.
• a high domain authority score improves visibility in search engines.

2. The role of internal linking.

• Improve site navigation for users and search engines.
• Internal links are an integral aspect of establishing a strong online presence.

3. Your unconventional approach is okay for your business!

• Celi Arias shared her unconventional approach of posting reels on LinkedIn.
• Knowing your starting point (i.e. a technical SEO audit) creates a roadmap to your goal.

4. Optimize your website visibility and enhance its profitability with SEO.

•  Keyword research for SEO is foundational.
• Answer three questions: who are you helping, how are you helping them, and what you want to be known for 
• Brainstorm for an open-minded collection of ideas.
• Target people who are unaware of their needs but could benefit from your services.
• Get SurferSEO. (affiliate link)

Connect w/ B: YouTube, Website, LinkedIn, Instagram

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Transcript

This transcript is machine generated and has not been fully edited for errors.

SEO-show-Celi-Arias-2

[00:00:00] Celi Arias:  Because they were told exactly what their business was supposed to look like. Here's a funnel. Here's a product. Here's a webinar. Here's a low low ticket. 

Here's high ticket here. Build this, do that, make content on every single platform. Do this, do that, then do this, then do that. 

Then your next milestone of success is this.

And then it's this, and then it's this, and then it's this. 

And you have people who that formula worked for, because by the way, that formula has not worked for a lot of people. 

But for the people that it has worked for. They've all burnt out. 

Yeah. And they're all exhausted and they're all quitting. 

Or shutting down programs and writing open op ed letters explaining why. 

And, saying that they deserve to have a life. 

And they totally do.

And they're totally right and there's nothing wrong with quitting or shutting something down, by the way. 

I think there just isn't an acknowledgement of the reason that even happened. Is because we've been following other people's models. 

We've been not taught to think about business. And to think about what the right business is for us.

And it's nice, like business has, been around forever, not just since 2017 when we had this like online boom. 

Our societies are built on small businesses. People have been doing this for a long time. It looks all kinds of ways. 

You can have a business and it'd be profitable.

I have a program called Roadmap to Millions because it's a roadmap of When you need to do certain things. 

Only because I notice that people try to do the really big things when they're not ready for them, and then we have to go back and fill in the gaps, so that's why I created this roadmap. 

But I have people come to me and go, I think you're really great, and I really like your content, but I don't even want seven figures, and I'm like, cool.

That's totally awesome. This is still for you. 

It's just a fun, catchy name, right? But at the end of the day, it's literally the step by steps of building blocks to business. 

But people come to me saying that shamefully, can I be in your program if I don't want some figures? 

I just want to run my business and do my thing because I realize I'm no longer made for corporate or I'm a new mom or I want, I no longer want a boss or whatever, whatever it is.

And I'm like, yeah. Let's do it.

I think that's something I've been noticing a lot is that we've been told what it's supposed to look like and what the formula is. And now that's breaking down. 

[00:02:27] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, it is. It's crumbling like it should. 

[00:02:31] Crystal Waddell: If there's someone listening right now that really resonates with you. 

The first step to, doing this right in terms of SEO is really doing the keyword research.

And I don't want to reveal all my secrets right now about keyword research and search volume. And all these different things that there's some things I've discovered about. 

[00:02:52] Celi Arias: I just started to lean in. I was like,

[00:02:53] Crystal Waddell: Oh yes. 

But there are strategies where you can manipulate in a positive way as B's, dad, crazy horse would say. 

There are ways that you can manipulate those search terms and the search volumes and utilize the platforms that are available to you to your benefit. 

Because I think that's another place where people get sucked in, especially when they're building their businesses online versus brick and mortar. 

Their new boss becomes the platform. And the platform's rules, and so instead of thinking about, how I can make this platform work for me? I'm going to employ Pinterest or I'm going to employ LinkedIn or I'm going to employ Instagram.

It's now I got to do all these things that they say, and I'm of the mindset, no. 

[00:03:42] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, she came up with that last year and it's brilliant. She had this whole list of these are the platforms and these are their jobs. 

I would add to what you were saying, Crystal, that like when you said start with keyword research. 

Like internally, I was like, wait. I think, and where I start and Celi knows this because I put her through the ringer too.

You have to answer three questions first. 

 Who are you helping? 

Two is how are you helping them? 

And three is what do you want to be known for? Or what do you want to be known as? 

Yeah, that's the big one.

When you get those three. Then go like frolic in the keyword research fields, please. 

[00:04:16] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. And, from a product seller perspective, this is where I dove in. 

You were talking about those perfect products. 

The ones that align with like my energy and financially, what those goals are, right.

It's like, how can I sell more of those? That's what I'm talking about. 

So that's where I started when I knew that, okay, these are the products that are selling well. 

These are the products that are, they're not as draining on my time or my resources or whatever. 

Okay, what are the words around those products? And really just building out that list.

And, it's not just a brainstorming exercise for the sake of an exercise. 

But it is one where I think we should approach it with an open mind. 

With 30, 45 minutes. To just gather ideas and there's keyword research tools that help with this. 

We've talked about keywords everywhere makes a huge difference.

Just that in and of itself is a mind blowing experience. 

When you first dive into SEO and keyword research. 

Because you're like, there are different words that people are using more often than others to describe what I sell. 

I sell wooden letters. So if I type wooden letters into the search bar, Google predictive text is going to tell me all of the top searches related to wooden letters.

You're going to type it in. 

Google's predictive search is going to give you a dropdown menu. 

We've all seen it, but that's what it's doing. It's telling you what keywords are being searched the most. 

Now when you take a keyword search tool like say, keywords everywhere. 

It's like you can take those words that you found in Google and then put them in and now keywords everywhere is going to give you even more data.

It's going to say This is the number of times it's been searched. These are the months where it's been searched the most. 

This is how much people would pay to get a click from that search. 

So a lot of different information that can then inform your strategy. 

And I remember the first time I saw that.

Do you remember the first time you saw that, B? 

And it was just like... Holy crap. Look at all the ways that people describe this one thing that I sell. 

And just the opportunities that come from that. 

And then that's where that, that confidence comes from, because when you see that, Oh my gosh,

I've got something that people want.

And now I know how to put it in front of them. Oh, that is, that's the volleyball player, making the game winning play right there. 

And it's well done. 

[00:06:42] Celi Arias: You just sparked alive my nerd brain. And I'm over here writing notes going, Ooh, Oh yeah, I'm going to go, I'm going to go try this.

So I have, I'm going to turn the tables and I'm going to ask you guys a question. 

[00:06:55] Brittany Herzberg: I love this. Go. 

[00:06:58] Celi Arias: SEO experts. 

You tell me what to do about this, okay? 

Here's something I get from my clients a lot. 

Especially in roadmaps, because in my mastermind, we work on a few different things. 

But people who do roadmaps, the thing I hear the most, believe it or not, is this is the thing I didn't know I needed. 

And, I didn't know I was looking for.

So what do you do about that? What do you do about that? Like, how do you search for that when people are like, Oh, this is literally people get Oh my gosh, thank you so much. 

This is the thing I have been wanting from all these other programs and they didn't give me and you gave it to me.

They don't even know how to describe it. So I'm like,

how do I research that one? 

[00:07:48] Brittany Herzberg: Okay, can I answer? I have like thoughts. Are you okay with that, Crystal? This is your time to shine. 

[00:07:54] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, I've got an answer too, so you go, girl. 

[00:07:56] Celi Arias: Amazing! You guys get to shine and show the world why you're the experts. 

[00:08:00] Brittany Herzberg: I'm gonna burst over here.

One is... Yes, that is me. I related because I did do other programs. I did have other people in my life. I did look for other resources. 

And still, I met you in a group in a zoom room. And I was like, I like this check. I don't know, like when our paths are going to cross again. 

But I'm hanging on to her, went and became Instagram friends with you ended up talking with you.

I can't even remember why, but then you were like, Hey, I've got this program. And I was like, yes. 

Because when she started telling me about it, I was in. 

But when my, or and when I am such a little research nerd, so I have the spark of a thought in my brain and then I will spend hours on Google.

I'll go talk to friends. I'll go look at things. Set it up. 

The first thing that I'm thinking when you said that, is you want to pick there's breadcrumbs, right?

So we might not be finding like the chocolate cake, but we're going to find the breadcrumbs that get us to the chocolate cake, which is like roadmaps.

So what are some of the things that are coming up for them? 

Things like, I'm just like, I'm spinning. That's something that you've said that we say a lot. I'm spinning. 

Okay, so then maybe you have something about... Like just feeling lost in your business or needing a new direction. 

Or like figuring out your offer suite or figuring out pricing or whatever it may be.

You have so many things that you could talk about in there. 

So we could highlight some of those keywords. 

But also, and people love or hate this next thing that I'm going to say, but it helps you tremendously. And it lets you tackle so many different things, different topics, and give you different doors and windows to the house.

That is your business for people to come in and be welcomed and get the help that they are actually looking for in need. 

Blog, put a blog out. And I had a friend yesterday, I'm collaborating with this other website copywriter for a therapist's website. 

And the therapist was very resistant to blogging. 

Which I didn't know, but I was talking with this other copywriter before I send the client her keywords and get a thumbs up or thumbs down and then go make the strategy.

So one thing I had shared with this copywriter a few months ago is. 

She was like, what does the ideal word count need to be for a blog? And I was like, Will writing 500 words get you to write the blog? 

And she's yeah, I was like, aim for 500 words. You could always go back and optimize it and add more words.

You could always get a spark of inspiration and write something that's 2000 words. It doesn't matter. 

So I talked to her yesterday and she's oh my gosh, that changed my life. 

I'm writing blogs for clients. I'm writing blogs for myself. 

And I was like, you're going to have to let me know how they rank.

I'm very curious, but I'm happy you're getting stuff out there. 

Because then when that person goes to your website through whatever door or window is open that they find you through. 

They're going to find all of these other things. It builds your authority. 

It builds their trust with you. And you're just opening so many different windows and doors for them to come in. 

And get to know you and get the help again, that they didn't know that they needed.

So those are my two thoughts. I'm done now.

[00:10:51] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so I'm going to go at this for two different angles.

I'll pick up where B left off. Definitely with content. I always say that content and SEO, they go together. 

In order to be an SEO superhero, you need content. 

And you need SEO and by content I do mean blogs. 

But there's a very simple shortcut to writing the best blogs that are aligned with profit generating activities.

And that is a product called Surfer SEO. 

There's other alternatives out there but I use Surfer. Yep. 

And I would love to give you my affiliate link and you could give it to all your people or whatever. I'd be happy to talk to them about this.

Yeah, we have an episode about Surfer, but essentially what Surfer does is it wraps up all of the research elements of SEO into one product.

So let's say you had a keyword, you put your keyword in there. Google is now favoring websites that have topical content clusters. 

So let's say you're talking about Senior Night. 

Which is what I sell, and Senior Night gifts, wooden letters, or whatever. Surfer's going to tell me all of the articles that I need to write in order to rank for my primary keyword, which is Senior Night.

Yes, mind blowing. 

Because when I thought about Senior Night, Originally, I used to have one listing for senior night gifts, right? 

This is how I laugh at myself. I love myself. I want to go hug baby crystal, baby business crystal or whatever, right? 

Because I had my one product for senior night and I was struggling to figure out like, how do I get more people to see this one product?

The problem was I actually had multiple products. I had posters for senior night. I had football senior night gifts. I had volleyball. 

I had soccer. I had lacrosse. I had field hockey, blah, blah, blah. So you can see like my customer. 

When she's coming to me, she's not looking for senior night gifts necessarily.

She may be looking for senior night gift ideas. And so she's going to go to my blog for all the ideas. 

But when she's looking to buy a gift for her kid, she's looking for a gift for a volleyball player. 

Or a senior night volleyball gift or whatever, whatever that combination is. So that was a huge, like. 

And I use surfer to create a content cluster that is killing it right now for senior night. 

Because I wrote about all of those things and then link.

To my product. All right. So it's pretty straightforward for e commerce sellers. I know. It's like mind blowing stuff. It's 

Oh, that's so smart yet. So simple, right? Yeah. When you think about it, you're like, 

[00:13:21] Celi Arias: huh? Yeah, that makes sense. 

[00:13:24] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah.

[00:13:24] Crystal Waddell: So my favorite all time tool and it goes like deeper in that, but I think you as a business strategist would definitely appreciate it because it is. Simplified and it's a very easy to follow structure. 

And it works for any business. So that's my first thing I use surfer for all of my clients and that type of thing. 

But second, to go back to the keyword foundation because that's where I have really seen the clients that I do SEO for at the end of the day.

They can't really tell me what keywords they want to be found for what keywords they want to win in order to be known for that thing. 

And so once you have established just something. A starting point of what you love to do, what's profitable, what makes sense for you in your business. 

That's where you want to start.

And I thought about for you, this kind of relates to something I was just researching for another client recently, but it was like, why would somebody search for this product? And just off the top of my head, I was like, Oh, this reminds me of that. Why is my business failing question? Because what is that ultimate thing that people are worried about?

Like my business is not going to be successful. And I don't know why. I remember when I had that thought myself. 

I found someone who taught me about pricing. And about profit because I hadn't built those things into my product stuff. 

Like paying myself is like actually an expense that should come out before, I talk about what's left over as profit, right?

So those are just things that business owners who are not business professionals don't think of. Yeah. 

[00:15:01] Celi Arias: So you're saying that person would say, why is my business failing?

[00:15:04] Crystal Waddell: Exactly. And I want to show you this little thread that I pulled on because when I looked up my business is failing, the keyword search volume for that was 50.

There's 50 people searching for that specific thing. And I do want to make a caveat. 

Google says like something like 15 percent of their daily searches are new searches that have no search volume. 

So, don't be afraid of words that don't have search volume or are low in search volume if they're very close to the bottom of the funnel, okay.

Because some of them haven't even been searched yet, but as I pulled on that thread I looked down there, a related keyword was, why do small businesses fail? 

And that was 480. searches a month. So then another one was reasons for small business failure. It went back down to 170, but then I looked up the reverse, like how is a business successful or profitable businesses?

And now we're up to 3000 searches a month. 

1000 to three 3, 600 searches a month. But those are the types of things that you have to just sit with for a minute. 

And say what is the problem that my person is trying to solve? And then once you start pulling those threads. 

And if you have a keyword search tool, like keywords everywhere, it helps you visualize it and actually like manifest that those correct words because you're like, Oh, this is how they feel.

And then this is how they feel. But that's how I would answer your question. 

If I was searching for your help, why would I be searching for your help? 

And I would just try to think about all the reasons why I would be searching for help. 

What I'm scared of what I think might happen to my business if I didn't get that help.

And I think that could be a good starting place and for content. 

You can build content all around any one of those keyword terms. Yeah. 

[00:16:54] Celi Arias: Oh my gosh, I love this. I like that. I got to turn it around on you guys and you guys show your expertise. 

Please hire them people. Thanks.

[00:17:03] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. I appreciate that very much. 

B taught me this, having your own catchphrase. 

But mine is you can be your own SEO superhero. 

So it's I know a lot of people are trying to put this thing together themselves. 

So you can go back and re listen to that and let it sink in, let it click or whatever, and go out and be your own SEO superhero.

And if you are like, okay, I get it, but. I don't have time to do it and I would like to pay you to do it, then definitely come see us, we'd love to, to help you with that. 

The biggest thing is being empowered with the information. So you understand what people are doing with your website. 

So that you understand what your website is doing for you.

And then of course, go back and employ all of those social media outlets to promote your business for you. But yeah. 

[00:17:46] Celi Arias: Okay. And I have another. 

Can I ask another high level SEO question? Go for it. This one's really good. Now you're really on the hot seat. I heard this whole episode actually just turned and it's going to be all about you guys showing your expertise.

I heard that if you are on your website, if you sell product. 

So you made that reference. 

And so it reminds me about this. If you're actually selling product on your website, which I do as well, right? 

Cause I sell product programs in the checkout. Is on my website all connected. 

I was told that you shouldn't have the blog on your website because that competes. SEO competes, this is from an SEO expert.

If you actually have product and checkout on your website. 

You want the blog to live off of your website and you want to do back links to your products. 

Like you said, crystal. 

But you don't want to have the blog actually on the website because it competes. With the way Google was, is it crawls your website?

Because you're an e commerce site. If you're, like, basically an e commerce site, which you are and I am, it turns out, right? 

And you have a blog. That they compete. 

That's all I understood, because, this isn't my language. You're doing great, though. You're hanging in there. Thank you. This is an opportunity for you guys to really speak to a very high...

High level theory. What are your thoughts on that? 

[00:19:11] Crystal Waddell: Do you want me to go first? Okay. In the past, that may have been true. I don't know. I haven't been doing SEO for 30 years. 

Things change over time. So that may have been a practice in the past. 

Here's why I would disagree with it now.

Number one, like I just talked about, Google is rewarding sites for topical authority. 

What this person was warning against is something called cannibalization. 

 Let's use like a WordPress website, for example. 

 If you have a plugin like Yoast SEO.

I'm not a huge fan of plugins. But one thing I did like about one of my clients that had Yoast. 

When we were setting up a new blog within her blog, Yoast gave a warning that said, Hey, you already have a blog that's named XYZ.

And again, because I'm coming in, I don't know everything about their websites, sometimes something like that might happen, Yoast said, Hey, this is a potential for cannibalization. 

Change the name, change the keyword, whatever, so I was like, Okay, that's great. So that's what you want to avoid, having multiple pages on your website going after a particular keyword.

So that's the issue there. 

But that's different when you think about it under the umbrella of topical authority. 

Because like I said, with senior night, someone may say that's not good to have, all this senior night stuff on your website, but we just demonstrated, there are a thousand ways to do senior night, right?

So those are not cannibalizing each other because they're actually things that people would search individually, not holistically. 

Some people might search it holistically. But some people might search it by individual topic areas. We want to build that umbrella of topical authority. 

The other thing is internal linking is one of the most powerful strategies for SEO, and you cannot internal link from an external blog. 

So what we have talked about on this podcast is like offsite SEO strategies are from websites like an offsite blog that point back to your website. Okay, if you have the capability to do something like that's probably going to help. 

But You also have to consider the domain authority of your external blog.

If your domain authority of your external blog is like five on a scale of one to one hundred. 

Do you want to worry about building domain authority for two different websites, a blog and your main website? 

And because a link from a domain authority five blog is not going to do your main website a whole bunch of good.

Topical authority, internal linking, those are the things that are really going to benefit your website. And with internal linking and a good blog that has, a topical authority approach, a strategy, you can then link from your blog to your products. And, you're winning. 

[00:21:54] Celi Arias: You heard it here first.

[00:21:56] Brittany Herzberg: And then to piggyback on that, the thing that I like to do is okay, if someone's telling me that internally. It just feels wrong. So I'm like, let me go search for the opposite to be true. And I started wondering, okay, are they thinking of this? Specifically for an e commerce store where there are. 

Like crystal has a wooden letters where someone might be selling candles like is that the kind of thought. 

So I was like, can you have a blog in a store and instantly, of course, Shopify pops up and it's like your Shopify online store comes with a built in blogging engine. 

Huh, then it doesn't really make sense that we would want to keep them separate, even if we didn't know the information that crystal just shared.

And moreover. 

Internal linking, I was definitely going to talk about because that if you have nothing else, like I have, I talk about Haro a lot, helpareporter. com, get yourself out there, get yourself seen in blogs and features and pitch yourself to podcasts and things like that. 

Because Again, with the domain authority, that is just like the report card score for your website for how much search engines are like you should trust what they're saying they know what they're talking about.

So that's a good thing the higher the score, the better you're doing. 

Google doesn't even have 100 though so like straight A students like me, let it go. 

We want the domain authority to be higher. We want the links to come to our website from high domain authority having sites, but if you don't have features yet.

The best thing you can do is tell search engines how to go through and navigate your website. 

Is to tell your people, your readers, how to go through and navigate your website. How do you do that? By internal linking. 

All that is literally just like writing a blog and saying, hey. 

If you want this service or if you want this product, it's over here in the store, go get it.

So that's a duh thing to do when you know that information. So definitely the internal linking and. If you ever hear something and just internally, if you're like me, and it's that doesn't sound right. Just go and look for the opposite to be true. Amazing. 

[00:23:52] Celi Arias: I don't know if you guys have got what you needed from this episode, but I learned that my nerd brain is really happy right now.

And Crystal is dog is really happy with her. I feel like everyone is really happy. Yeah. 

[00:24:06] Crystal Waddell: Awesome. Could you tell us a little bit about, where people can find you? I love the questions. I see this as a potential direction for our podcast to go.

I love speaking with someone like you, Celi, that appreciates just the thought process behind things. So thank you so much for being here. 

[00:24:26] Celi Arias: Yeah. Thank you for answering my questions. 

I'm like, hi, meet Selly, the rule breaker. I'm coming on your show and I'm asking you questions.

I love it. This is going to be good to your point about LinkedIn, I go on there and I post my reels. 

I'm all about breaking the rules. I'm like, sorry, LinkedIn. This is me. I'm sorry. Now I show up. 

I make funny business reels. I hope you guys can appreciate it. 

Yeah, where to find me? 

One of the things that I give people for free is my quiz. 

Because I always say in order to get to the party that where everybody wants to be. Number one, you need the address. 

But number two, you need to know your starting point. You need the address, which is your vision, and you need the starting point.

That's how you put it into the GPS for it to tell you how to get there and estimate your time. 

So you need to know where you are in business. 

And how much you have done in the pillars of business and how much you need to work on to get there. 

And I've created a quiz that kind of tells you where you are.

In your business. So you can get it at quiz.celiarias. Com. and it's really easy. 

It gives you a sense of, Oh, I'm, I have some things I really need to look at. And I'm really strong here. And I really need to look at that because I think that most people don't realize. You're not going to keep growing by.

Continuing to do the thing that got you here. You're going to keep growing by strengthening and being able to look at other areas of your business that you've been neglecting. 

So that's the easy way to find me.

[00:25:59] Brittany Herzberg: Yay, I love it. And I'll just add like my 15th plug for Roadmap to Millions.

Everyone should go, check it out. 

Run. Go get it. It doesn't matter how long you've been in business. I went through the first cohort.

There were so many different types of businesses. People are at so many different levels. And being in the room with you and just with these other people. People like. You're on the same playing field. Nobody feels dumb, nobody feels left behind, nobody feels like they're being preached to or talked down to or any, it's amazing.

It's just, it's because of Selly. You attract the best people, and then the conversations and the learning. 

And it's... It's one of my happiest places to be. Also, it's not on Facebook. It's just this magical not Facebook thing. I'm a big fan. So thanks for being here. 

[00:26:44] Celi Arias: You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.

This was really fun. It's so fun talking to you guys. I'm like, I think I have other meetings I'm supposed to go to, but I could do this all day. 

[00:26:54] Brittany Herzberg: We'll have to have you back if you want to come back. 

[00:26:56] Celi Arias: I'll come and ask more questions. You can do like a special episode where surprise, we're flipping the chairs around.

[00:27:03] Brittany Herzberg: We love those. 

[00:27:04] Crystal Waddell: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Get all the questions from your community, bring them back. 

And if you are listening right now and you're like, Hey, I need to get started on this. 

Don't forget. There's a link in the show notes to grab your $99 technical audit for your website. 

And we will catch y'all next time.