SEO Tips for 2023 with Expert Desiree Grimaldi [245]

So excited to have Desiree as our SEO Expert Guest!

Desiree Grimaldi is an SEO genius. She's been mastering the art of search engine optimization since 2011, and she's helped businesses from all over the world increase their traffic, leads, sales, and revenue. Desiree is passionate about making SEO accessible to all business owners, and she does this by sharing free content on her platforms, in her free Facebook group, through small offers, and even through done-for-you services you can find out more in the links below.

1x1impression.com
https://www.1x1impression.online/

OMNI - Become Known, In Demand, and Confidently Visible
With a visibility strategy that works harder than you do.

OMNI is your group coaching experience where you learn how to create visibility that works harder than you do. A strategic blueprint to become discoverable on the feed, search and AI. https://thevisibleceo.com/omni 

Website: thevisibilityimpactshow.com

Brand: thevisibleceo.com 

Instagram: instagram.com/itscrissyconner 

TikTok: tiktok.com/@crissyconner 

Facebook: facebook.com/crissyconner 

YouTube: youtube.com/@CrissyConner 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/crissyconner 

Transcript

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0:03

Welcome back to the visibility Queen show today I have a special guest that I think you're all going to be interested in listening in to what she has to say, she is my favorite SEO expert, she has worked for some really big names, which she probably can't disclose. But just trust me when I say she's worked for some major, major names out there, she has also helped me in my website, and really helped crank up my SEO, give me like so many tips and just helped me become more searchable. And I think searchability is a part of visibility. So let's welcome today to the show, Deseret Grimaldi. Thank you so much for coming today Deseret. Thank you for having me. So, SEO, you, you know I, we met at a mastermind that's full of a lot of digital marketer. So there's an I personally don't know a lot of SEO people. So I would love to know like your background, your story and how you got into this. Yeah. So we started, we were in a sales business, my husband and I, back in 2010. And we were paying like, anywhere from 50 to$75, a lead. And it was ridiculous. So my husband was like, I need to figure this out. We can't be paying that much for leads. And we also we started with Google paid ads, pay per click, we mastered that and then realized, even if you have ads running, if your website sucks, they leave because it's not loading, it doesn't have the information that they want. They don't have places to go. So that kind of started our journey into SEO is trying to make all the pieces fit together. It's the same with visibility and social media, you can start a Facebook page or group but if you're not posting in it, nobody's sticking around. So just finding that connection and realizing. And then even furthermore, when we start to build out the SEO, we can cut the ad cost. So that was a huge aha for us and kind of started our journey back in 2011. That's crazy. So you actually started this to help yourself. So you bootstrapped, which is exactly what I did to learn what I know now I totally bootstrapped it to make to help my current business I was in then. And so that's very interesting. I didn't know that story. So why do you think SEO is so important to business owners? It's evergreen. You know, I touched on social media, and I won't ever knock social media, it's an important part of everything. But as we've seen over the years, through political campaigns through so much, your social media could disappear, you can lose your account, the platform itself can be shut down. You could be investing all this money in ads on those platforms, and you know, not getting the return. When you do SEO, you're doing it on real estate you own. You own the URL you on the website, you control how it pushes what it pushes. And it does not get clouded with other people's stuff like social media. So for me, SEO is super important for evergreen, it is a long game. Now, if you just joined an MLM or something, you know, small, that you're just looking for a quick turnaround, then yeah, social media is probably your better bet. But if you were in a long game in business, then you want SEO, if people are like me, like I see things on tick tock all the time. And I'm guilty of buying them and they're guilty of coercing me into buying them. But I'll never buy them in the app. I always go to Google. And it's interesting. Yeah. You know, if somebody doesn't have a presence on Google, then I'm not buying it. I'm, that's our credit card information. That's our financial information. We always are guilty of going to double check to make sure that these people are credible, looking for reviews, you know, finding out more about the company, how long they've been around where they're based. And if you're there, I mean, we've even seen people, and I know you have to but go viral on Tiktok. All of a sudden, they're being cancelled. They've never bought their name. They never bought their business. They've never bought anything, but every other outlet is now trashing them, right? wrong or indifferent. But they have no real estate. They haven't worked on anything and their careers are done overnight. I think too, and you and I have a really good friend who literally went viral on Tiktok and has so many platforms that have her name right they've basically taken her her name and pretended to be her so I think that's another good point on you know, double checking the SEO because just because somebody has a lot of followers, you can buy followers, let's be honest. Right? So followers is not is not an indication that this is a legit business for sure. No, because I mean, I think I have like 2000 followers on ticked. It doesn't mean my messages aren't completely filled up with people asking for tips. but it's just not where I focus wholeheartedly. But if they Google me, I own the first three pages of Google with all my information. So, like that, I mean, it's, it's moving more towards, especially with tick tock and stuff growing the way it is, we're getting a lot more of reputation management clients, people didn't even realize, like people think PR, but PR is just getting you out there. But SEO comes in and does all the reputation management, to make sure that all the good things about you are present that you own off page one, page two, page three, some of our bigger clients, they own the first 10 pages of Google, not that anybody ever goes past page one or two. But they at least have it so even if something drops, one of those other things is going to pop up for them. I think the other thing, just to my listeners, this might be an outside conversation that Deseret has with me after we get off this that she might be like, I told you not to do that. But I'm just gonna say this. So I have all of my social media traffic going to one website, my main website that Deseret did would you do two years ago? My SEO? Yeah. So my track, I run no traffic to that website. Personally, I don't push traffic there, right, I don't tell people to go there. I get the same amount of traffic on that website from searchability that I do to the traffic. And I'm on every single platform friends, every platform. So I'm getting the same amount of traffic that from searchability, to that website up to the same as all the others combined to another website, which I think is really interesting, because I will be honest, I'm not consistent with my blog posts, I'm trying to be I'm working on it really hard. But I think that's the other thing. Like it's not a set it and forget thing, but it's very forgiving. I feel like I feel like SEO is more forgiving than if if I didn't like show up on social media for six months, like I've lost, right? Like, it's going to take me so much time to get back in that game. Whereas I feel like SEO and maybe I'm a different case, but I just feel like it's more forgiving than social medias as far as consistency. It is in the sense that as long as you don't do anything Blackhat you know, if you're doing Blackhat, you're buying backlinks, things like that Google is not forgiving. But as long as you know, you just your consistency dropped, it is forgiving, we can go back in there and boost it back up. What I loved was the message that you had sent me when you had somebody request to be in your group and you ask them how they found you and based on your Google business profile. Yeah. And people I mean, even that people, I have a client that we just took on. And she's like, what, what do you do for the Google business profile? She's like, I thought you just enter your information, like a directory. And I was like, No, you post all your offer everything. You know, it has nine different call to actions on it that are free that you can't get on social media. Yeah, or whatever links you want. Yeah, and I think that's true. It's, you know, it's another form of visibility. I have an inner circle member who her business, she is a reseller. And so her business actually like was boosted once she set up her Google My Business. And that's where she got most of her business, Trump's. So again, it's just one of those things that we don't always think about. And I think the other thing, and you educated us on this, too, is that we think Google, my business is just for brick and mortar. And that's totally not true. No, and Google experts will tell you it is, I think at traffic and conversions. A year ago, one of the ladies who was representing Google was like, if you're not brick and mortar, don't use it. But you just tell them that you deliver services to your clients. But it's a great way people trust Google reviews, and things like that. And then again, it's a way to rank above everything else. And it may be more your local traffic. But nationally, if they're searching your keyword, you will come up. And I will say this to it. I felt like sometimes people think it's a pain in the butt to set it up because you get this postcard in the mail. But can we submit that if Facebook and Instagram and Tiktok did this, it will be a lot less fake accounts in the world. And we just like, acknowledge that, that it's just a little extra security. But it's also saying, Okay, this is a physical address, like even if it goes to your home, like you can remove your home address from your Google My Business, but they know it's a liberal place. Yeah, if you don't put that your brick and mortar your address will not be visible to the public. But it is a way for them to do their security, which is amazing, because that's just another step to prove the trusting the trusting aspect of Google. And even like Google reviews, like I've seen companies completely destroy their accounts, because they'll have every employee in their corporate office go and leave a review. While Google is tracking IP address. They know that You're all in that same location. And they will not allow. So they're really good when it comes to that. It can be tedious. We had somebody reach out to us that was having a PR crisis. They had like bots, leaving bad reviews. And it was disastrous. But you know, I guess you got the good with the bad. But Google well, you can combat them and, and things like that. But it's just a trusted place for reviews. Everybody puts reviews on their website or their social that they've read typed, which, you know, not everybody's trustworthy. But on Google, at least, you know, it's a verified user, and chances are, it's a legitimate review. Well, and I think to a lot of times, you see it right there. You don't even have to go into Google My Business to see it like you see that on, I think it's on the right hand side of the screen when you do the search inside of Google. Yeah. I love that. So what are some of the things that you have seen SEO do for businesses? Everything. So everything from increasing visibility, with search results, we've doubled, tripled, leads, revenue, traffic. And it is it has shifted, it is more content based now. People tend to get caught up and that they know their business. And they want to write things the way that they think that they're written, or they want to keyword things with the way that they think people should be searching for it. And it's been my process has really been drawing down the education on take yourself out of it. This it's not about you, your business is not about you, it is about your consumers and how they're searching. And they may not know, like, people don't necessarily know what SEO is, maybe they've never even heard of it. But if I'm talking about visibility on Google, I'm talking about ranking on Google I'm talking about, you know, content marketing, then that may pull in a completely different audience than if I was like this is how to use SEO, this is how SEO benefit you SEO is intimidating to people, I have to understand that. And I have to, to play my content down in a sense to get people drawn in. Because they may not know what SEO is, they may not understand it. So that's been a big push this year is just getting people to step out of their own feelings around their business. And even further with products, I mean, products is 100 times worse, because they may not know that that even exists. So you really have to bring it down an interesting fact that I had found, I might have shared it with you before, but you shouldn't be writing content above a sixth grade level in the United States. which blew my mind. Yeah, but they were saying, you know, the United States has people from all different cultures, all different parts of the world. English may not be their first language. So you have to write for them to people who don't have that education, maybe an older generation who left school and started working early in their life, you know, so you want to encompass everybody unless you're like a super than a doctor in and that's your specific audience, you know that they are at that level, you want to, to write your content so that everybody could absorb it, so that they're not falling asleep reading it. So that's been a huge shift this year, too. I love it. I love it. And that's such a good like takeaway, too, for everyone. So my next question, because you just said that, and I know there is a platform that can help you cheat or do this, like what are your thoughts on AI writing? Because they're, I think every AI writing tool has like an SEO option on there. Do you think they're better than nothing? Do you recommend using them? What are your recommendations on that? Yeah, so they do have SEO options on them. They are additional fees, so you're not just gonna buy Jasper? Or, like, go buy Jarvis now. Right? Yeah, they're not for now. It was Jarvis. Yeah, so Jasper is my favorite. If I had to choose an AI that I'm going to use, they are my favorite. If you want the SEO option, it is a completely different service VI. Ai, a lot of people are using it wholeheartedly to write their content. Consistency, I guess is better than nothing. AIS have to be heavily human edited. Nobody can replace a human. It's not going to become user friendly. And Google has already started putting out articles that they will completely not index those kinds of those pieces of content. So they're great. If you're having writer's block, you don't know what to write. You need something to kind of just get you going. They're fantastic. But it is like any other tool on the SEO side. If you don't know what you're doing, you could get green lights across the board. Easy. You could Say your keyword is and and yeah, those tools are going to tell you you did a fantastic job, you used to 1500 times and you don't know how to use these tools, then they're useless to you. If you're just looking for that feel good greenlights, anybody can do that. But you have to take the time to understand what your goal is, for those tools to really work. Love it. So that's actually, I use Frank Glasper. Like to start out like, it'll do like an outline for you. And then I go put it in my, in my blog posts, and then I use the tool you recommended rankmath. And so then that helps me to be on task. But yeah, it's, it doesn't make sense. If I just let it write the whole thing. It's just like, I think one time it said, when Crissy was younger, she played basketball. And I was like, what? Can you play any sports? I ran track one year, and that was awful. And so I just didn't non athletic. So I'm just like, that's hilarious. Like, what? Not only that, and I think that they've said it, and it may have updated sense. But the last time I heard, I think Jasper has said, like, the content and information they're pulling, the last time that they ran, it was in 2018. So even some of that information, depending on which API you're using, they could have not ran it for five years, the web. So a lot of that information is outdated. And if you're trying to present yourself as an expert in a space, and you're giving information, that's fine. Five years ago, it's not going to do very well for you. So I say use it to help you outline but the IP is it should be in your head. I mean, at the end of the day, and then tools to help make sure it's SEO. SEO optimized, is that the right word? Yeah. Okay. So what tips because we're close to 2023. So if somebody is like, I want to focus on SEO for 2023, like, what are your best tips for them, get your foundation set up properly. A lot of people over the years, they've created one page websites or quick Wix websites, you know, something that they can do themselves. And that's fine if you started there. But right now is really the time to make sure that your website is easy to use. Nobody, when people go on your website, you have to create a trail for them to follow, you have to tell them what to do what you want them to do. Otherwise, they're just bouncing around your website, they're getting bored, and they leave. So having a website that's super easy, super functional. For anybody to go on and know exactly what you do, what you offer, and the pain points that you solve is imperative, I should be able to look at your website and in that first fold, before you have to scroll, I should know what you offer. That's huge. And then very clear menus, and then interlinking, even interlinking. So if somebody's searching for you as the visibility queen, they see that in the first fold, how do they work with you there should be a way for them to contact you work with you apply to work with you join your groups value, whatever that is, should be within that paragraph, you have about three seconds to get somebody's attention on your website before they weak. That's number one. Number two, get it do an audit, find out how long it's taking your website to load. Because if you're spending 1000s of dollars on ads, and people are bouncing, because your website's not loading, go throw your money in the fireplace, give it to your teenager to go shop. I mean, there's so many other better ways to spend your money at that point. And unfortunately, some of the programs that people are creating, to run their ads to some different platforms. They just don't load. So it is better to try and keep as much on your website is possible. I think I've told you like I have clients who use funnels, whatever platform they choose. And they host most of their stuff on there. Now we've converted them where they have an actual web page and the button will lead them to the funnel. But create make that content evergreen, so that it's always there. Because Nope. funnels are very hard to rank on a search engine. So usability, information, speed, and then make sure your website's indexed. Go. Google has hundreds of free business tools. Go take advantage of them. You should have Google Search Console Google Analytics, you should be working on your GA four and having that set up for when that launches. That is all conversion based that it's going to be fantastic. We already have clients on it and the information is so good. Those would be foundation foundation would be the best with a goal of creating content that your users are looking for. Absolutely. I love So I had another question. So one of the things I've been doing, and you can literally tell me and be honest, no, that's not gonna do you any good. And one of the things I thought of was like, if we're working on SEO, and if we're working on searchability, like, why would I not create a blog post? That has to do with every single one of my offers, like giving tips and giving value with like a button at the bottom, that would lead to that funnel page? Like, so when you mean something? Like do? Is that what you mean doing something? Okay, either that or like your group, your group is evergreen? Or do you close it and reopen it? No, it's evergreen. So if your group is evergreen, you should have a pillar content page on your website, constantly leading people there. Because especially if it's like a Facebook group, Facebook doesn't let you add run ads to a group, you have to have a bridge page, why not have that page ranking on Google? Why send it to funnel gorgeous or Click Funnels or high level or whatever platform? You should? Why are you sending it there, you're losing all that traffic into your website, your authority, your ranking? Love it. So good. So good. Okay, so my next question is, what is visibility done for your business? And you know, visibility can mean many things. So in your interpretation, yeah. So visibility for me, is search engine on Google, but also, even in Facebook groups. It has really built my authority in the industry, I have people that recommend me to people that I don't know any of them involved. I know, you, you recommend me, you know, people that I have had conversations with or worked with. But there's people out there that they've just seen my name, time and time again, or seeing the information I put out there or seen my website that are recommending me in places. And I'm looking at and I'm going, I have no idea who that person is, I have no idea. But that's all visibility. That's the authority that I've set up. That is an part of an SEO strategy that we call nap. That that helps it all come together. So nap is name, address, phone number. It goes further into like email, website and stuff. But having all of my information match across all platforms. Google through all social media, people can search me and they're finding everything that I offer, and my reviews, so being visible that way. And you know, we'll see people again, who just started out because when you start a business you're in, you're in hustle mode you need you're starting because you need to make money. And so they started and maybe it was, you know, just Crissy Conner, when you started. And now you've positioned yourself as the visibility queen. Well, you need to go back to all those other platforms and have yourself as the visibility queen, you can't have Crissy Conner here and maybe your maiden name over there. And then the visibility Queen over here. You're confusing Google, you've lost all trust, you lost authority, you lost ranking. And that's even on your socials. So Google won't rank your social if things aren't adding up, because Instagram ranks LinkedIn ranks Twitter, like they all rank Yeah, but it's up to Google how they're ranking based on your authority. I love that. I love that. So if anybody's listening, and they're like, I need Deseret, like, what are some ways that people can work with you? Yeah, I have a free group on Facebook. So SEO for business. I have a 30 days to SEO to learn the foundational, it's $97, you could literally start and be on the fast track by the end of the first month of the year. We have an application on our website to work with us. We have standalone offers, maybe everything's pretty good on your website, maybe you just need keywords, maybe you just need meta description, we do all the heavy lifting, and then you take that deliverable and you just implement it. You give it to your developer or you can put it in your website yourself. But we do all the research and everything so you don't end up going down a rabbit hole with 30 different experts telling you how to do it. We just get it done for you. So those are a few different ways. Our group is growing like crazy. So that's definitely a good place to start. I love that. I love that. And I'm going to just say one thing. So I've had a client. How many people like raise your virtual hand right now have you like bought a domain and you start getting all these emails to help you with your SEO? So I had a client do this. And I don't know why she didn't ask me if I knew somebody but completely took down her website. I had to get our other friend Brandon involved like get her website back up because it was like her pride and joy but it was like such a mess. Slike. So my advice and I don't know if Deseret agrees with this or not. But as she said, Google, who you're going to work with and pay to do your SEO, but also find a friend of a friend, everybody knows somebody in the online world, I think now we're only two degrees separation from somebody, find somebody that physically can vouch for that person. And obviously, you know, who I'm gonna vouch for, but don't just like, take emails that come into your inbox from somebody that you don't know, because they got your information, because you bought the domain and you didn't buy the privacy, let's be honest. And so they're, they're able to contact you left and right. And just because they're persistent, does not mean they are good. And that was her her reasoning. She goes, Well, they were so persistent. They kept emailing me, I thought they were really good. And I was like, Oh, honey, no, that's not that's not a good indicator that they know what they're doing. I now this morning, there was an article put out by Google that they actually are going in lawsuit, I think the company was like G verifier. But they were calling businesses through the Google My because there's programs that can scrape Google My Business. So they were calling these businesses telling them, they had to pay to get their profile set up and then get like hundreds of fake reviews sent to it. And so Google's actually in lawsuit that they just, they just published today with this company, because they were saying that they were part of Google. And I would get those calls. I'm like, I do this for a living, I know that you have nothing to do with Google. But there's companies out there that will, most of them are not located in the US. But they'll go out and they'll claim your Google My Business and then hold it hostage and charge you to get it back. There's SEO companies that do that with your website, I cannot tell you how many this year, people have contacted us. And they're like, We want to work with you. And the people we're working with, they took over our domain or website, and now they won't give it back. And we've had to rebuild all their websites. We've had lawyers and I'm like, You're a lawyer? Why wouldn't you look at the contract. But it's like the painter whose house is never painted, you know. So that's a big thing to don't ever, ever let anybody have ownership over your website over your server over your hosting over your URL over your Google Ad Account. give access to people but do not ever turn that information over to somebody else because everything you built some of these companies. That's what they do. I love it. So good. So good. Okay, so when you are watching this, obviously, the show notes will have all of deserts links in there so you can connect with her. Get the she has a free audit, she has freebies and then if you want to work with her, there should be an application there too. Is that correct? Okay, awesome. Any last tips or things that you want to say before we go to my audience today? contest, okay. I'd really again, I would really focus on foundational building your foundation, think about when you buy a new house, you the first thing you want is an inspection. Go get the free audit on my website, see what's wrong, do not try and tackle it all at once start to take piece by piece and if you need help with that, again, we have the 30 Day Challenge. It's SOP, it's there for you forever to rinse and repeat. And campus. My favorite word, okay, and how can people connect with you if they want to connect with you on social media? Where are you at? So it's SEO expert regardless of what you say underscore Deseret. So funny I can I can I can I tell them what I see. I don't know why. But when I see SEO expert for some reason, my brain removes the O and the E and I see sexpert, that's exactly what I see. So it's just a little funny thing. So I don't know why but now that I've said it, I always know everybody's not gonna answer yet. But it is SEO don't type sec, because it's something else. So all right Deseret. Thank you so much for coming on and pouring into my audience. Make sure you listen and re listen to this episode so that you can get your SEO, you take these tips away. And then make sure you check out the links in the show notes so that you can connect with Deseret and grab that 30 day challenge or something that will serve you and your business. Thank you so much Deseret. Thank you