And welcome back to the simple SEO podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Lindteigen. And I'm so glad to have you here with me again today. Today, we are going to talk about how you can create an SEO friendly. Content marketing funnel for your business that is going to help you get organic traffic to your website or blog. So I want to jump right in. Let's start real quick with. What exactly is a content marketing funnel. So it content marketing funnel. It's very simple. It's content that you have created that is designed. To help your ideal customer. And to provide them information that they need at each step of the sales funnel process. So each time someone finds information that is helpful on your website. They're going to be more likely to ultimately become a customer. People need multiple touch points to go from a lead. To a purchase or a conversion. They're not going to convert the very first time they visit your website. You're going to have to nurture them. And your content is designed or should be designed. To nurture your ideal visitor, your ideal customer. Then when we put that SEO friendly part of it together, we optimize the content so that Google better understands it. It's going to get the visibility that it deserves because SEO is the connection point between your content and the audience that you're creating it for. It's not some big technical thing. It's not crazy. It's not scary. It's just a connection point. Your content deserves to have the visibility and the way you get visibility to your content is by doing SEO on it. So we're going to talk about that in just a couple of minutes. Now what type of content can you use in a funnel? So I've talked a little bit about this recently and my content funnel or my SEO funnel. Mine is very much an SEO funnel. Mostly organic though. I will, I will admit, I do use some Facebook ads to bring additional people in at the very top of the funnel to help them find out about me and help them start to learn a little bit about the potential that SEO and content can have for them. But for the most part. My funnel is organic. So for me, the most important content in my funnel would be this podcast and the accompanying blog and website. So for me, those are the core key content pieces. Now you may be doing social media and you may love social media and it may work great for you. So social media may be part of your content as well. You probably know I've left social media for the most part. I broke up with it. And I'm actually going to teach you a class on how to break up with social media and how to create this organic marketing funnel or this content funnel for yourself. The week of September 23rd. I'll put the registration link here in. The show notes so that you can find that and get signed up, or you can go to the freebies tab on my website and I've got it right there, but it's breakup with social media. It's going to be a webinar. We're going to do it two or three different days, and you'll have a chance. It's about an hour. Come join me. Learn how you too, if you are tired of dancing and pointing and lip sinking and editing and spending hours engaging on the app and you want to do something that works better and takes less time and provides more revenue. Then join me in the breakup with social media class. And I'm going to teach you how we can do that. So now we've talked a little bit about the different types of content. Let's dive in real quick to the stages of content marketing or the stages of a marketing funnel, because I do get this question sometimes. From students. And they're just trying to kind of understand. So a traditional marketing funnel has four stages, awareness, consideration, intent, and decision. Now in some cases, like when I was at the agency and we worked with really big clients, We sometimes saw a fifth stage and that was due diligence. But due diligence is not one you're going to have to worry about. In most cases, that was more for the mortgage companies and the, um, secondary education, like online colleges and things like that, where someone was looking at making a big investment. And so they really wanted to understand what was the old land or what was the return on investment going to be for that? So for the most part, we're going to go through awareness consideration. Uh, intent and decision. So someone who is in the awareness stage. They don't really know what they're looking for yet. They may have an inkling that there's a solution, but they're really far away from the point of purchase. They just are starting to do some research. So when we teach this from a keyword research standpoint, I generally go through the shoes example. So someone who's searching with the keyword of shoes doesn't really know what they're looking for yet. They're just kind of gathering information. They're just starting to see what's out there. So sometimes they may find our blog. They may. Find our website. They may come in to our world, but they're probably not ready to make a purchase yet. When they get into the consideration stage. They have a little more foundational understanding of what they're looking for. If we go back to that shoe example, that's where they're searching for like women's shoes. So they're beginning to understand that there is potentially a solution to their problem. There is something that might be able to help them. But they're still not quite sure where they are. Then we get into. Um, intent. At this point, they know they have a problem. They know there is a solution. They are actively searching for it. So here they might be looking for women's running shoes. Right. They have a really good idea of what they're looking for. This is someone who is actively looking for. Um, information, insight help. This is where you're going to start to grow your email list in that consideration and intent phase, probably more than in. Awareness, because now when they're in consideration and intent, they've acknowledged they have a problem and they need a solution. So if you have an opt-in on your website that provides a solution to their problem, you have a really good chance of having them. Opt in meaning give you their email address in exchange for your guide, your PDF, your free class, et cetera. When they get to the decision stage. This is the final stage of most marketing funnels. And this is where they truly know what they're looking for. So in the running shoe example, This is where we now are getting brand specific size specific, even style specific. So. Women's Asex gel Kayana, women's ghost women's Brooks, adrenaline. Like we know exactly what we're looking for because that consumer knows exactly what they're looking for. The person in the decision stage is more likely to convert. They're ready to buy. They have made the decision that this is what they need. And they want to convert. So for you. As a marketer you want to create. Content at each stage of the marketing funnel. So you want some that's at the awareness stage, maybe they don't know there's a possible solution. Maybe they don't know there's a way to resolve this issue. Then. You want to have content for the consideration and the intent phases, where they're trying to rule out the options and they're trying to narrow them down and they're trying to figure out what it is they're looking for and the benefits of this one versus that one, et cetera. And then you really want to make sure you've got. Your decision content, and that's where it's going to be important that you're linking in that consideration intent and most importantly decision content you want to make sure. That you're linking to your booking page. If you are a coach or your inquiry page or your products, your services, because these are people who have a better idea of what they're looking for. They're ready to make a commitment. They're ready to purchase. They're ready to book. You want to make it really easy for them. So. You're going to create content on whatever channels your aunt. So if you have a blog and a podcast, you have a website you're active on social media. Pick the channels that you're on and you're going to create content for those channels. Specific to your niche and you're going to be looking to make sure. Do I have content that helps people at different stages of the sales funnel, because that's going to be really important and you want to kind of interlink and you may have heard internal linking what you want to think about is. If someone lands on this blog post. Do I have information that would be helpful? What did they need to know before this? And what do they need to know after this to make their decision? And that's kind of how you want to create your content and how you want to link it together. So if you have. A blog post and you have another one that you've written. That ties nicely to this particular one, go ahead and link to it as an additional resource. That's going to help your reader and it helps you. Build credibility and show Google that you are truly an expert and an authority in this particular niche, because remember. Google's grading you based on T your experience, your expertise, your authority, and your. Trustworthiness. So when Google sees that you have one, but you actually have three or four posts that all go together in this section, that's how you start to show that you really are an authority in that niche. Now, you're going to want to make sure that you are optimizing your content in your funnel. And I want you to remember that doing SEO is simple. It's much easier than you think it is. And you need to do it for each piece of content. And you need to follow the best practices of the specific content channel. So when we talk about SEO, we're no longer only talking about Google. Because, yes, Google is a search engine and it is the largest search engine. But YouTube is a search engine. Instagram as a search engine, people are searching on Tik TOK. Pinterest is a search engine. Your podcast apps are search engines, pin. I think I already said Pinterest. YouTube. You understand what I'm saying? Right. Everything is now powered by search, which means you can optimize your content for visibility and discoverability. On each of those platforms by following the best practices. Now on the blog post show notes page for this particular one. And I'll put the link in the bottom. You will find links to some of my best practices, guides for you for optimizing your blog, optimizing your website and optimizing your podcast. I don't teach social media optimization. Because I'm not active on social media. But your blog, your website and your podcast, all three can be optimized and that will help your content get more visibility, which will bring more people into your world and allow you to start to put them into your funnel. Now, if you're wondering, how do you make money from a content funnel? It's very simple. You want to make sure that the content that you're creating ties to your niche? Provide value for your ideal customer answers. Their questions is helpful. Is optimized so that people can find it via Google or the podcast app or whoever. And. Links to your products, your services, your booking page, et cetera. Make this process as easy and simple and seamless as possible for your website, visitor or podcast listener or YouTube viewer, et cetera, you really want to make this easy for your potential. Customer because people are only, they're not going to go searching for you. You have to be there when they look. So it's a very important that you're optimized and your linking to your money, making pages, your products, your services, et cetera. And then you may be wondering, do I need to run ads to my funnel? Can I do it all on organic? It's really up to you. I highly, highly, highly recommend. That you focus on building an organic marketing funnel and making sure that it is working. And that it is converting and you are ranking and you're getting traffic and you are getting the right message to the right person at the right time. And all of that before you begin investing in ads. Ads are complicated and difficult to learn. I'm going to be really honest. Um, I have spent many years trying to figure out Facebook ads and one of my biggest frustrations with them. And I remember I've been in marketing, digital marketing for 20 years. I have an MBA, like I understand all the marketing principles, the Facebook ads, rules, and algorithm. And you ads manager, every eight changes constantly. And it feels like you figured it out, you understand it. And then all of a sudden it's kind of like the social media algorithms. As soon as you feel like you've mastered it, it changes again. And it's so frustrating, especially having been so many years in SEO where our algorithms don't change that much from a Google and now podcast perspective, like. The focus from Google has been create great content. I build links to it. Provide value. For more than a decade. So it's much easier. The start organic, build everything, get it working, and then start looking at ads. Don't start ads before you know that things are working from an organic standpoint. Because you will waste money and ads are expensive. It will be thousands of dollars, basically. Just. Handed away because you weren't ready to do it. So I highly recommend that you get everything working from an organic perspective first. And then if you want to look at ads, go ahead and look at ads. Like I said, I do run some ads to my lead magnets that are at the top of the funnel to help people start to see that, oh, there are potential things here. There is information here. So if you want to build. An SEO friendly content marketing funnel for your business. Join me. That's what I teach simple. SEO content is going to teach you how to do it on your blog. And your website. A simple podcast. SEO is going to teach you how to turn your podcast into a traffic generator for your business and increase your downloads and your visibility for your podcast. If you don't have a podcast yet. Don't worry about it. You can still take that class. It's going to teach you the best practices of how to actually structure your podcast, what type episodes you should have, how long they should be. What you should name your show, what your graphic should look like? How many episodes you should do a week, et cetera. Um, And I've got a little bit of extra information in there for you about the tools that I use for recording and hosting and all of that. So if you want to create a podcast and you want to launch it out the door and know that it's going to work well, And be visible and get discovered in the apps, then make sure you take simple podcast, SEO I'll link. Both of those. In the show notes for you so that you can find them. If you have any questions, you know how to find me. I do want to update you for a while. I've said DME on Instagram, but I have moved away from Instagram. So don't DM me over there, but I did enable something here on Buzzsprout, which is my podcast host, where you can text me questions. So if you have a question or you have something you want to ask, go ahead and text the show. The other thing you have is that Google form. If you have a question you'd like me to potentially address it on the podcast and answer your question. Go ahead and complete that form. It's in the show description, the episode notes as well. I love getting those from you and using that to help me craft my content strategy for the month. And then, like I said, mark your calendar, go ahead and go over to the registration page. The week of September 23rd, we are going to break up with social media, joined me. We'll talk about it for about an hour. I'll walk you through how to make the determination as to which channels you're going to use, which ones you may be not getting a return from a minute, even show you how to figure out are you getting a return on the time and effort that you're putting into your social media channels? And then we're going to talk about how you could maybe. Switch the time. I spend less time and get better results by doing something different. I'm going to walk you through what I've been doing because in the end, I know I said, when we, I did the summer update, I said I was up 80%. My revenue was actually triple. For the summer months, I just looking at the 10 week, summer break. My revenue was triple what it was last year. This past summer. And it was thanks to that SEO content funnel. It was thanks to everything that I'm talking about here and teaching. My students to do in simple SEO content. And then we're going to add the simple podcast. SEO. If you are a podcast or want to add a podcast, And we're going to get this going for you. I need to come up with an email marketing class for you. I'm not quite there yet, but that is. The plan. For this fall so that we will have this beautiful, beautiful, organic funnel for you to work. We are going to drive traffic with your podcast and your website or blog. And then we're going to capture those leads with your email and we're going to nurture them and we're going to turn them into. Paying customers. All right. That is it. For today. I will see you back here next week. Bye. For now.