Get Found Online: Keywords and easy ways to use them!

In this episode of Quilting on the Side, Andi and Tori McElwain delve into the evolving landscape of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and its implications for quilting businesses. Tori shares her insights gained from extensive research, particularly focusing on the integration of AI search bots into SEO strategies. The conversation highlights the importance of using relevant keywords naturally in content, avoiding outdated practices like keyword stuffing, and ensuring that businesses are visible across various platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Tori emphasizes that while AI search is becoming more prevalent, the foundational principles of SEO remain crucial for improving online visibility and engagement.

The discussion also covers practical tips for optimizing social media presence, including the significance of business accounts on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and the necessity of including keywords in titles, descriptions, and even image alt texts. Tori encourages listeners to conduct self-audits of their online content to identify missed opportunities for keyword integration. The episode wraps up with actionable advice on how to research trending keywords and the importance of maintaining a consistent online presence to enhance search rankings.

Don’t miss an episode! Like, comment, and subscribe for more quilting stories, tips, and industry insights.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to SEO in Quilting
00:48 Understanding AI Search and Its Impact
02:20 Best Practices for Keyword Usage
04:43 Platforms to Focus On for SEO
09:44 The Role of Social Media in SEO
14:49 Engagement vs. Hashtags in Social Media
19:54 Practical Tips for Keyword Optimization
24:38 Real-World Examples of SEO Mistakes
29:23 Tools and Resources for Keyword Research
34:40 Final Thoughts on SEO for Quilters

Mentioned inthe Podcast Episode:

Keywords Blog Post

H+H Americas Fiber Arts Trade Show in May 2026

Pinterest Post: Gifts for Quilters - example

Digital Marketing Magic Program with Tori: 

Want to see how well your SEO is doing? See the Creative's SEO Clarity Report

Want More Quilting Business Content?
🔗 Support us on Patreon for exclusive perks
🔗 Grab Tori’s book, Workshops Unleashed
📌 Follow us on Instagram

Co-Hosts:

Tori McElwain @heytori.tech

Andi Stanfield @truebluequilts

Transcript

Andi (01:04)
Welcome back to another episode of Quilting on the Side. We're so glad you have joined us today. And Tori, I'm going to rely on your expertise for this because I've been wanting to step up my game. And I know things have changed from my blogging days when SEO was like the be all end all, and you had to choose your keyword and put it in all the right places.

And it feels like over the years, people have just started putting out content. And yes, they do a little bit of SEO manipulation, I guess is the right term. But what are the best practices these days?

Tori McElwain (01:52)
So I've been learning a lot about SEO over the last year. I really dived in when my website host Wix, so they have their own SEO checklist and that's where I really got started on understanding how to set up SEO, what it was, all of that stuff. So SEO, if you're wondering what that is, it's search engine optimization. So Andy is talking about being ranked in Google Bing, ⁓ any other search engine that you can think of.

And now we're looking at being ranked in AI search bots.

Andi (02:23)
Yeah, AI is everywhere. That's such an important consideration.

Tori McElwain (02:28)
It is. And one thing I've noticed is that SEO experts are nervous. They're seeing a lot of different changes when it comes to incorporating being found in an AI search bot. With my research, because I think I started when AI search was starting, like really starting to understand SEO, I don't see a huge difference in.

ranking for either or I feel like all the work that you've done in the past when it comes to SEO is going to help you in AI SEO or what they call GEO also called AI search. Nobody's really settled on like an overall name yet. So we've got a couple different names for what this is, but it's basically chat bot searching the internet to help their users find answers, find businesses to recommend and things like that. So you'll hear AI search, you'll hear GEO, you'll hear AIO.

Andi (03:08)
Yeah.

Okay.

Tori McElwain (03:26)
So there's a few different ways you'll hear about AI Search. I like AI Search because it's pretty straightforward. It's a clear name on what this is. I'll stick with AI Search while we're talking about it in our podcast. Okay, so a few things to consider are very similar to SEO. You wanna make sure that you are including keywords wherever you can,

but we want to keep it natural still. So like there was a practice when SEO was huge to do what's called

keyword stuffing. Now, a horrible, a good example of this, how it becomes horrible is I was looking at my own rankings just maybe two weeks ago. I think this was maybe less than that. And it was comparing me to another business in my area. So SEO is still really helpful for local businesses. So you want to make sure you're putting your local.

Andi (03:59)
Yeah. .

Tori McElwain (04:21)
area names in there. like Andy's in the Phoenix area. So she would make sure to put Phoenix a few times and then more specifically what suburb she's in. Same thing with me. I'm in the Detroit area. I would put more of my suburb in wherever I could if I wanted to make sure that I am reaching local business, local customers. So this, when I was looking at these, these comparisons, I clicked on a page to see, what is, what is this? And it had

one page, just one web page, just plain web page. had the Detroit ⁓ skyline as a picture in the background. And it was just a list of answering top search questions. And it was horrible. It was like, how do I find digital marketing in Detroit? How do I, what is Detroit digital marketing that are good for businesses? Exactly. Andy made face because it's, that doesn't make sense for a

Andi (05:04)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (05:18)
Human who's going to land on this site like I just did and read through this it sounds repetitive. It sounds robotic It sounds really dumb. I don't want somebody to market this way on my site So why would I want to hire these people to do my marketing on this site? So there's there's different ways that you can do this and we want to avoid that we want to avoid the repetitive redundant Keywords that don't make sense to a human, but we do want to make sure we are including the keywords. So there are a few things

Andi (05:44)
Okay.

Tori McElwain (05:47)
that we can use these keywords on. So with quilting on the side, and most of our listeners are quilting businesses, but one thing quilting businesses forget to do is actually put the word quilting in

what they're sharing. So whether you're writing a blog post, whether you're writing ⁓ on any of the social media platforms that are indexed, which we'll go over here in a minute, whether you're writing on your website, a lot of our businesses forget to put the word quilting, either in a heading or a subheading or the title of their product.

Andi (06:00)
You

Tori McElwain (06:17)
So it does end up not being optimized for search. Same thing with, you'll see other businesses. Once I point this out, I hope that you'll be able to go in

Andi (06:24)
Yeah

Tori McElwain (06:26)
and you'll see where people are missing a key opportunity to drop in the word quilting or quilt.

Andi (06:31)
That makes a lot of sense. As we get started, you did a really good job describing some of the places where we put keywords. So I show up on YouTube most consistently these days. So I want to make sure the title of my video has some kind of topic keyword. I want to somehow relate that to the thumbnail picture, any words on the screen.

Tori McElwain (06:31)
and

Andi (06:59)
are also gonna tie into that same topic. And then I always try in that first 15 to 30 seconds to give that introduction, which is almost like the caption on a social post. So you want to make sure all those things align, because I know in the background, the YouTube algorithm really looks for kind of those click bait kind of things where you say one thing to get eyeballs and then the topic is completely different.

The algorithm hates that. You want to be consistent. So just some little places right off the bat that you can put those keywords.

Tori McElwain (07:37)
And it might sound a little overwhelming at first, like you're thinking, did I mess up? I do any, do something different? And really what most people are doing, they're doing it really well. It's just a few little tweaks that can make it just a little bit better. And that's why it's called optimizing rather than just any other word. It's just optimizing, making it just a little bit better so that you can rank in and the search engines and AI knows what you're talking about. So it can show it to ⁓ their users, their customers. Let's talk about, ⁓

Andi (07:51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tori McElwain (08:07)
which platforms are actually indexed. So where do you actually need to pay attention to keywords and where you're putting them? So you want to pay attention to Facebook. So Facebook has been and is being indexed by search engines. It is why it is so important to set up a business page, not a profile, not a personal profile, but a business page on Facebook. If you want to be represented as a business on Facebook.

the pages are what's being indexed and are being used in search. When somebody goes online and Google and they search, you know, the quilt patch by Tori, my, my business page pops up. My personal profile barely does, or it does like later on, like down the list, but most people are going to click on the first couple that they see. They're not going to search too long in the list that comes up on Google. So you want to make sure that if you are wanting to be represented on Facebook as a business, you do have a business.

And then you're posting to that pretty regularly like at least once a week let people know that you're you're still there You're still in business and let them know you know you're live So they come and purchase from you, so you want to make sure that you're represented on Facebook You want to make sure you have a page the next one is? Instagram so Instagram is being indexed by Google by search engines I use Google as an example because a lot of people know them a lot of people are recognized. It's Google so in my head I'm like

Andi (09:15)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (09:34)
Everybody's Googleable. Googleable. But when I say Google, I'm encompassing search engines in general. yeah, Instagram is same with, ⁓ it's very similar to Facebook. You want to make sure that you have a business ⁓ account on Instagram. You want to make sure that it is designated as a business so that it can be searchable and tied to your website as well as to your Facebook business page. Cause that one is an easy crossover. So that's an easy way to just post once on Instagram, maybe once a week.

Andi (09:36)
Nyeh heh heh heh heh

Tori McElwain (10:04)
Just let, again, let people know you're alive, that you're still doing business. And then that can be a great way to keep your business top of the search engines. So we got Facebook, Instagram, YouTube is huge. And YouTube, think, is growing in popularity even now because YouTube has been big for the last couple of, I mean, maybe longer than a couple of years, but definitely a big search engine. has been indexed for a while and it has its own.

an algorithm inside of it. There's a lot going on with YouTube, but it's also one of the top and it depends on which research you look at, but it's in the top six sites being searched by AI to help them answer questions of their users. And I think that's really key to keep in mind for quilters because quilters.

⁓ We do a lot on YouTube. We do a lot of teaching on YouTube and when people have a question they tend to go to YouTube University and they ask them, you how do I bind my quilt? What are different kinds of writing? How do I quilt this? How do I piece this? What blocks are out there? Easy quilting blocks, you know, they go to YouTube before they'll go to the general Google search. So YouTube is really important that you make sure you get those keywords in there so that they can find you.

All right, and then the last one for social media is going to be LinkedIn. And then Pinterest is indexed, but in a very general way, not in the same way that Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are. So Pinterest has its own thing going on. So we have to appease the Pinterest algorithm and not worry so much about like search engines. TikTok is not being indexed yet.

Andi (11:35)
Yeah

Tori McElwain (11:41)
As far as I know, I haven't seen any reference on TikTok being indexed. ⁓ Same thing with like, ⁓ what is this one called? I just see the acronym, not the acronym, but the logo, ⁓ Snapchat. Snapchat is growing in popularity. If you have not heard of Snapchat, it's mostly popular among the younger generations like Gen Z. It's where things only live for like 24 hours. It's kind of hard to figure out how to show up as a business on there. At least I haven't figured it out yet. ⁓ I've only used it.

I used to know when my husband was deployed, like in 2013, no, not 2013, but like in the teens, 2018s.

Andi (12:17)
Yeah, 2016 ish, you know, my daughter was in high school and that was they had their their chat groups on Snapchat and they'd all check in several times a day. So yeah, I never it's surprising that it's kind of coming back. I guess that we're seeing these cycles of platforms. One question I had as you were running down the different platforms Instagram

There has been so many changes with hashtags and I always associate hashtags with Instagram and hashtags were a place to put some of those keywords. So I don't know if you have any comments on that.

Tori McElwain (12:59)
I

do. So I've been taking college classes and that was a question I brought up. like, so can we use hashtags for keywords? Like, is that something that's going to help us? And no, no, it's not. So we looked it up. We did some research on it and hashtags are not indexed for SEO. So they're not going to help you at all. So before they would, you could follow them. could ⁓ it would bring up your interest based on hashtags.

Instagram has since then faded them out. Now you can only post, I think, up to three hashtags. Some people said five. I think three is the limit now. They're slowly fading them out over the last couple of years. So I wouldn't worry so much about hashtags anymore. I would just focus on getting some of those keywords in your post and then making sure you're engaging when it comes to Instagram, because Instagram...

really values that engagement. And that doesn't mean just when people comment under your post, but also comment on other people's posts. Like go talk to them, go interact with them. And that's going to help you spend more energy on that than worrying about hashtags.

Andi (14:07)
Yeah, that whole engagement is a conversation. We need to have a whole episode dedicated to that because it just, and that's when social media starts to feel like a hamster wheel is chasing that engagement.

Tori McElwain (14:12)
you

Well, I hope it doesn't. I hope that once you start engaging, it feels more like a social platform like it's supposed to. Like it feels like you're being social, visiting with friends. That's when ⁓ I hope that it would feel more fun. Yeah. Okay. And then last one on my list, just to mention it is X or Twitter is not indexed. So I've never seen quilters on Twitter and I, well, I stopped being on them when it was Twitter. I couldn't stand it. ⁓

Andi (14:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I agree. You know, people use TwitterX more as commentary, it seems like. You you have to have those kind of soundbite things that you can just put a few quick lines of text. And quilting is not that type of platform. I mean, yes, we occasionally have news.

in the quilting world and controversy that people talk back and forth on. But since it is so visual, I think that other platforms are better suited to our industry.

Tori McElwain (15:28)
Definitely, definitely. to that point, threads is another one that not a lot of people are on. ⁓ It's not indexed as far as I can tell yet. With our research that we've done, I haven't seen that threads is indexed yet, but I think Instagram is pushing that way because you'll notice that as you're scrolling Instagram, threads will come up. It'll say like, here's a story from that. This is something you might like, and it's trying to entice you over to this new platform they've built.

But I've seen some quilters on there, I've seen some people having some success, especially if they're sharing like thoughts throughout their day. That's something that I'm seeing like it's a good place to like, it's almost like a diary of sorts for some. And those that are seeing success are using it like that. a, I want to say like a vlog, but written, like a diary, like a little diary entry as you go. But anyway, so those are the, I think the top social media platforms. don't see any that I recognize on here that.

Andi (16:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tori McElwain (16:23)
Maybe blue sky, that one's kind of new. As far as I know, that one's not indexed yet, but there are a lot of people who are getting away from meta who are enjoying blue sky. So that might be something you can look at if you're interested in something that's outside of meta. Okay, so now we've got that out of the way. Where are we putting these keywords, right? So Andy, what do you know based off of your experience, where have you been putting keywords? You mentioned a few of them.

Andi (16:39)
Thank

I,

yeah, I mentioned my title and my descriptions for my videos. ⁓ When I put anything on my website, I have the Yoast SEO plugin, which is, it kind of just works in the background and it gives you a score. So you can see if you're red light, yellow light, or green light in terms of how you're.

how many times you're using your keywords and are they in the appropriate place to get indexed or found. So I really like that tool on my website to, you know, be a check for making sure that I have the title. Like I said, I put keywords in that first paragraph. I write the little meta blurb

for ⁓ a post or if I upload a new pattern or something to my shop, there's places that you can optimize your keywords in those listings as well. So it's something I keep an eye on. I am not very good at doing research ahead of time to find keywords that I could be utilizing. So definitely an area for growth.

Tori McElwain (18:11)
Yeah, I think it's hard when we're so up close to what we're doing that we kind of forget those things. Especially like little things like keywords that can make a big difference. But what you're describing is great. So you want to make sure you're hitting that meta description. You want to make sure that all your pictures have alternative text and that there's a keyword in there. And if you can use the same keyword in a title, in the meta description, and in your alternate picture of text.

that is a great way to tie it all together and to tell the search engine that is combing your site and is crawling your site that this is all this topic and this is what this person's going to like. So it helps them identify that you've got all these different pieces to help them put the puzzle together.

so another place to put it is in, so if you think about your, your web pages, your blogs as chapters in a book with the different sections, you want to make sure that your title goes with your head, like your heading one matches your heading two matches your heading three. Like it's all, all has the same keywords. It all is combined in a way that shows a bigger picture.

Like it's all very aligned. Does that make sense?

Andi (19:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, because it kind of goes back to that idea of clickbait. You don't want to have, you know, your title be, you know, the amazing technicolor quilt, and then all of a sudden you're heading to is, you know, tools I use in my sewing room. You know, they're kind of under the same umbrella, but they don't flow very well. So you need

a better transition and ways to tie things all into one central idea.

Tori McElwain (19:59)
a good example. like if you have a Technicolor quilt then you want to talk about the tools you use. You could say tools I used for the Technicolor quilt and yeah you're moving it together. It's more aligned for not only your readers but also search engines.

Andi (20:13)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (20:15)
Okay, and then, what else do I want to talk about? Let's see. ⁓ I have examples. Should we go into examples?

Andi (20:23)
Yeah, I'd love to see some examples or hear about them as our listening audience.

Tori McElwain (20:29)
Now I do have a blog post about keywords. So I'll go ahead and link that below our podcast. You can go in and actually read more examples, more information about where to put keywords, where to find keywords. And then I have a list of suggested keywords for businesses in the quilting industry. So you can, you can see all of that. But I think putting this into practice, you'll see how, how easy it is to go through and put in a few keywords. So what my suggested workflow for you, for all of you listening is to write what you want to write, right? Write it out there.

Get it out there, write it fully, read back, get your grammar right, make sure it's, I always have to do that. Some people have grammar like naturally, I don't get that, don't I don't like a blurb of ideas and then I have to go make it make sense. So do your natural or they already do. Then I want you to take a moment to pause and remember your.

Andi (21:05)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Tori McElwain (21:21)
you know, top three to five key words and which ones you can use in this blog post and then are in this post, whether it's a caption on Instagram, whether it's a blog post, whether it's a page on your website, that is when you're done writing it. Then go back in and take a few more seconds to just read. Do I have quilting somewhere in here? Do I have quilts somewhere in here? I'm teaching applique is applique the word in a couple of different places in here. Or am I kind of skipping over that after I've explained it's an applique quilt. You do want to keep talking about applique.

throughout that description. Like we just said, Technicolor quilt is that being used in a couple of different places where it fits naturally. We do wanna make sure it fits naturally. So one example, so right before we started recording, I jumped on Instagram and I just started scrolling. And honestly, I went like three posts down and I found one that is missing the word quilting. I'm not gonna tell you who the posts are, keep them anonymous, but it's a gorgeous block. I mean, it is, wow. It's a lot of pieces, it's a star.

I'm always like partial to star. So I'm like, well, it's so pretty. It's turquoise and orange. You know, some of my favorite colors too. So I like to put together, but she said, I shared a little sneak peek of my next pattern in my stories, but I thought I'd post the full block here. Not once did she say quilt, right?

Andi (22:36)
Yeah, it's one of those things that's so easy to overlook because we're, we instantly know, you know, we're following quilting accounts. We know what people are doing, but you're right. It's such an easy fix to say, I'm working on a new quilt pattern and I love how this quilt block turned out.

Tori McElwain (23:00)
Exactly. And then she goes on to tell a wonderful little story, but not once does she say the word quilt. And then she even says the pattern, she goes pattern, and she says the name of the pattern. And she says, by me coming soon. It would have been so easy to say pattern or quilt pattern, the name of the pattern by her name coming soon. And that could have just helped search engine optimization, just those little.

bitty tweaks to make sure you're hitting those keywords. Put your name in there. That's going to help. Whether it's your business name or your name, it's going to help AI know and search engines know that this belongs to you. And one thing we didn't touch on, but I feel like I need to step back and say that SEO doesn't just encompass your website. SEO encompasses everywhere you show up online, whether it's social media, whether it's other people's ⁓ media, whether it's print or social or

blogs or what have you everywhere online, including your website. And that's how it ranks your website. So it sees your website as like the key part of your business. And then it uses everything else to judge. you trustworthy? Do you have authority? Are you an expert? Do you have experience? And it ranks you based on all of that. And it does it in a split second, which is insane. But the more that you show you are a real person, you have authority, you have experience, you are on all these other places and people actually like you.

then it's going to rank you higher. It's going to put your name up higher on a list of search things, whatever they search, whatever your customer is searching and you are under that umbrella, it's going to list you based off of these key indicators. And you want to just make sure you drop it in the word quilt, just drop it in there. So that's one example. Another one on Instagram was this, the last day of my guild's retreat while sporting my new, and this person tags who made the sweatshirt.

and has gotten me wondering would anyone want to do a retreat at this place? I just want to keep it anonymous so that I don't want to embarrass anybody or make them feel like called out or anything. then maybe, and then he says, they say, they say maybe a costume workshop? What would you want to do? And nowhere in there does it say quilt.

Andi (25:01)
Mm-hmm.

Tori McElwain (25:16)
Nowhere does it say quilt. And it's just like that keyword. That's what I mean at the start of this podcast that I noticed so many professionals were not using that keyword quilt. So just drop it. The crashing the last day of my quilt guilds retreat. Like easy, easy change. then, so one I did want to bring in was a great example. And, and this one I just pulled from my own Pinterest. So this one's on Pinterest.

Andi (25:30)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (25:42)
And one of my top performing pins is what I bought up and it's been top performing for about two years now. And it says, it's a, it's an image and I can, I can link this one as well so that you guys can see the, the pin that I'm talking about. But the graphic is, it says GIFs for quilters. Now I put the same graphic, like I think three times on Pinterest with different captions to see which caption would work the best. So what I did here in this caption was to try to figure out

how many different ways would somebody search for gifts for quilters and try to put it naturally in the caption? So it reads, the caption reads, so first the title. So we got the, I'm having a hard time explaining this without like showing it, but okay, we got the picture on Pinterest. says gifts for quilters. Underneath it is a stock image of fabric. There are fabric squares stacked on top of each other with some thread on top. And then you can see a handle of a coffee cup in there. So it feels very like in motion, like,

Andi (26:22)
Yeah.

Tori McElwain (26:39)
This looks like somebody who's trying to test out thread colors is what it kind of looks like. So that's the image. Under that, I have a title that says gifts for quilter, gifts for a quilter, sorry, gifts for a quilter. The caption reads gifts for a quilter can be tricky. Here's a list of gift ideas for your quilting friend or spouse that quilts. And this is, I'll compare it to the other one that's right next to it, but this one has 600.

and 58 impressions, 15 pin clicks and one save in the last 30 days. And the one next to it that has the same image that has slightly different caption has one view. One. So just figuring out where to put those keywords, how to figure out how people are searching. One of the best ways is to ask yourself, how would somebody ask this question to Pinterest or ask this question to YouTube and work

Andi (27:21)
Hahaha

Tori McElwain (27:37)
the opposite into your caption, kind of like when you play Jeopardy. Right, you're kind of working it backwards when you, ⁓ we answer with a question on Jeopardy, but you get the idea.

Andi (27:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, that's very helpful. So ⁓ I do want to throw in a little pitch for Tori's digital marketing magic community because it is so helpful and there are so many tools that if you really need a glow up on your marketing efforts, that is a wonderful place to hang out and learn. ⁓

But what are some quick action tips that we can take to do a self audit of our social media presence and start working those keywords in?

Tori McElwain (28:32)
Your social media. So I would definitely start with that workflow that I just talked about, right? What you want to write, make sure it sounds human and then just read it one more time to see if you've got those keywords dropped in there. Like where's quilt? So I see the word quilt in here somewhere and make sure it's in there. that would be probably top number one, easy, fast thing that you can do. Another thing is to make sure you have a keyword in your bio for Instagram in particular, and for Facebook on the page and make sure your page on Facebook is index and not index, but

you're selecting the right things on Facebook because it can be kind of hard to figure out where do you fall when we're like a long arm service provider or weird. They have education for teacher, but some of those like, do I pick which business umbrella I'm under can be a little bit difficult. So take a moment to see what else people are, are selecting for those different things. Make sure you've got as much information in your business profile as you can provide safely. know I don't include my phone number like anywhere, so that's something I always keep out. But if you can,

put in your general address. So they allow you to just put city and state. Like you don't have to put your home address in, but city and state can be helpful if you feel comfortable doing that and like all that information. Same thing with your website is making sure that the next blog post you write. I'm not talking about go back in your history and do all this, but maybe go back in some of your, should have been really awesome blog posts that nobody is seeing. Go in there and like three or four of those and just see

Where are the keywords in the title? Do I have the meta description written with the keyword? Do I have like, what am I missing here that's making this not do well, even though I know this is a question that so many people are asking. I would do that. Same thing with your YouTube videos. I would go in and see, am I missing keyword opportunities here? Do I need to fix the, ⁓ like Andy talked about having the thumbnail, right? The thumbnail can be a big push for your video.

Maybe there's a keyword missing in your thumbnail. Maybe you need to go in and re redo that because you know this video could be great because it's answering a question so many people have asked you. So go back in there, tweak those those places where those keywords land and your pictures. Keep in mind the images are also indexed. So any words on the images can also help you with the keywords. And then. It was one more that I was thinking of, and that's just going through your titles, making sure that

you're not if you're editing your own website because I know we have several that edit their own website make sure you are telling your website host not just a website host but how do I explain this it's like when you go in you edit you can either grab a paragraph text and make it big to make a heading or you can go and grab heading one and make it a heading you want to grab heading one so you can tell the bots that this is the main thought the main subject the main topic for this page this is heading

One, you want to make sure you're using those so that the bots understand that that is the main topic. Same thing with like heading two, heading three, don't just grab a paragraph and make it bigger. Like actually use H1, H2, H3, the headings and what they're supposed to be used for. That's going to help. And, ⁓ and hopefully those little tweaks are going to help you get more views, more searches, more conversions. So we get more money to help our business flourish.

and help more people, because that's what we're really here to do, right? Help more people.

Andi (31:56)
Yeah, one thing we didn't talk about very much, we have a few minutes left, but as I said, one of the things I struggle to make the time for is research. so what are some tips if, you you've mentioned using quilt, quilting, quilt teacher, quilt pattern as potential keywords, but what if we want to find a little more...

a few more ideas about what are some keywords that are trending. Where would we go?

Ha ha ha!

Tori McElwain (32:29)
don't know how many people are gonna like this answer, I would, well, it depends on what, generally, I would say AI at this point. I'm jumping into chat, asking them what keywords are trending for the quilting industry, and then ask them for, ask it for sources so that you can follow them and see, this from reputable sources? Let it do the research for you to cut down on time. You can also keep an eye out for, I have a monthly.

Andi (32:45)
Mm-hmm.

Tori McElwain (32:55)
blog post that comes out that I talk about actionable steps on what's going well in social media. And sometimes that includes ⁓ some information in there. I also make sure my sources are reputable so you can follow those sources to figure out those questions as well. ⁓ And then what I would do is if you're looking for a specific platform. So many of us are moving towards YouTube to make that one our major platform. I think you would agree Andy. Andy's really big and really great YouTube.

Andi (32:55)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Tori McElwain (33:19)
So I'm thinking that we jump into YouTube

and we ask YouTube in the search, like, what are people searching? So you start asking a question that you want to talk about, that you want to teach about, and then those topics will come up in the search, right, Andy? They'll come up, and then you can kind of use those as inspiration.

Andi (33:33)
Yeah,

any of those auto populate things are great for, you know, finding new topics, keywords, ideas, all that kind of stuff. And in the YouTube analytics, the studio app, they have a trends tab. And it's, you know, we're seeing the impact of AI in everything. And so just like you were saying, go to

something like chat GPT to ask, well, a lot of these platforms have that built in for you already. so YouTube has its own kind of AI help in the studio analytics. So you can find, it'll tell you right off the bat, here are some suggestions for popular topics, things that are being

searched but don't have it's like high interest low competition so you kind of have to learn some of these categories that the the results will come up in but yeah there's the information's out there.

Tori McElwain (34:45)
I will also say to that point, reminds me of edits as well. So edits is a new app by Instagram that allows you to edit posts, ⁓ reels. I think it's like their main thing right now. I haven't played too much in it. I've probably done like four or five videos in reels right now. But what I did like was there, and I can see exactly what it's called, but it's a tab where you can scroll what's popular right now. Let me just pull it up really quick so I can see the actual name. But edits is a really handy,

Andi (35:03)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tori McElwain (35:14)
app that you can use in conjunction with Instagram. Plus Instagram is kind of pushing those videos just a little bit more if you make them in edits than other platforms. I'm sorry, started it. started it. Let turn that down. So ⁓ it's called Inspiration. So if you open the edits app, you can hook it up with your Instagram. And then the tab you want to look at is called Inspiration. And that can help a lot. It also has insights right there that hook up with your Instagram account so you can have insights.

Andi (35:27)
No

Tori McElwain (35:44)
on edits as well as they have in both places right now, but I have a feeling they're going to move the insights eventually to just edit. So I think edits is a good thing to download and it's just called edits.

And yeah, it gives you some, now that I'm like looking at it little more, think it gives you better analytics.

then Instagram. Anyway, the inspiration tab there is a really fun way to kind of scroll without doom scrolling. So it kind of gives you some ideas. How can I take what's popular right now, what's trending, and then twist it, use it for my own point of view, my own business.

Andi (36:16)
Yeah, yeah, that's a great resource. So any, yes.

Tori McElwain (36:19)
I also want to give a shout out to

H &H Americas. I will be teaching more in depth on SEO and AI search at H &H Americas in person. If you can make it, it's going to be in Chicago in May 2026. And I'll also be teaching in H &H University, which is the first day or actually I said like the day before H &H is called H &H University. It's a full day of classes and I'll be teaching.

how to optimize your learning pages and websites.

Andi (36:50)
That's awesome. Yeah, I'm very excited for H &H America's ⁓ May 5th through 8th. The 5th is the university day and then the 6th through 8th is the show. And ⁓ I'm doing my best to get there in person so you'll be able to see Tori and I together live for that ⁓ fun week of learning and networking. So any last thoughts on SEO?

Tori McElwain (37:19)
It's worth the time. think that is the way that the internet is moving on how to find our online businesses. So if you want to be in business online, this is a very important step to take ⁓ in your captions and especially your website.

Andi (37:37)
Yeah, we always get better results when we act with intention and I think this is one of those areas that we can put that in practice. So we'd love to hear thoughts from our listeners and our audience. So any questions you have, what you find helpful ⁓ for SEO, leave us a comment. Come join us in our Patreon community and we do.

deeper dives into all these sorts of things at our monthly Q &A session for the paid Patreon levels. So see you soon and happy quilting!