Zhe Scott an MIT graduate and renowned SEO expert shares insights from her path through the tech entrepreneurial world to founding her own business as "The SEO Queen". This episode dives deep into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies and brand development, where Zhe explains the critical role of storytelling in enhancing web presence and adapting to Google's evolving algorithms. Discover her effective techniques for boosting digital visibility and learn how platforms like Pinterest can significantly extend your brand’s reach. We wrap up with Zhe's perspective on the future of SEO, Digital P.R and merging innovation with authenticity to elevate your brand in the competitive digital landscape.
📺 You can watch this episode on Moses The Mentor's YouTube page and don't forget to subscribe: https://youtu.be/IWyUZyVZ9lo
🎯Connect with Zhe Scott @theseoqueen on Instagram and visit her website seoqueen.com
🎯Connect with Moses The Mentor: https://mtr.bio/moses-the-mentor
☕If you value my content consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mosesthementor
📢Support Money Focused Podcast for as low as $3 a month: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261865/support
🔔Subscribe to my channel for Real Estate & Personal Finance tips https://www.youtube.com/@mosesthementor?sub_confirmation=1
Zhe Scott an MIT graduate and renowned SEO expert shares insights from her path through the tech entrepreneurial world to founding her own business as "The SEO Queen". This episode dives deep into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies and brand development, where Zhe explains the critical role of storytelling in enhancing web presence and adapting to Google's evolving algorithms. Discover her effective techniques for boosting digital visibility and learn how platforms like Pinterest can significantly extend your brand’s reach. We wrap up with Zhe's perspective on the future of SEO, Digital P.R and merging innovation with authenticity to elevate your brand in the competitive digital landscape.
📺 You can watch this episode on Moses The Mentor's YouTube page and don't forget to subscribe: https://youtu.be/IWyUZyVZ9lo
🎯Connect with Zhe Scott @theseoqueen on Instagram and visit her website seoqueen.com
🎯Connect with Moses The Mentor: https://mtr.bio/moses-the-mentor
☕If you value my content consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mosesthementor
📢Support Money Focused Podcast for as low as $3 a month: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261865/support
🔔Subscribe to my channel for Real Estate & Personal Finance tips https://www.youtube.com/@mosesthementor?sub_confirmation=1
Welcome back to the Money Focus Podcast. I'm your host, moses the Mentor, and in this episode, I'm excited to bring you Z Scott. She's an MIT alumna and also known as the SEO queen. She's here to talk us through search engine optimization and digital PR, and you need to be all ears because this is an excellent way to grow your business and your online presence. So sit back, learn, grow and pay it forward. Let's go. Thank you for joining the Money Focus podcast. I appreciate you joining the show, zee, and the first thing I always like to ask my guests to do is to walk us through their career journey, their professional journey, ultimately to how they started their business. So the floor is yours.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much, Moses, the mentor, for having me on your podcast. Thank you, You're welcome. I started my professional journey, I would have to say, when I was nine, when I was in fourth grade. That was when I really made the connection with academia grades and college. And so I saw this movie, Soul man, and it was about this guy who basically pretends to be black because his father cut him off and so he has to get the scholarship to finish Harvard Law School. So I saw the movie and I really wanted to be an attorney and then I knew I needed to get straight A's.
Speaker 2:So fast forward, I was going through my college admission letters and everything and I see this card from MIT and I tell my dad because my dad is sitting right there in the living room as I'm going to the mail, we're just talking about things and he and I say MIT. I was like I don't want me. My dad said take that card out of the trash. So I took that card out of the trash and you know, from there I graduated from MIT with two degrees one in management science with the emphasis on information technology, and then a bachelor's of science in music, and then I worked for Raytheon.
Speaker 2:After that, as a business programming technologist or a web application developer, I was building websites and integrating them into databases using SQL and HTML. And then I went to grad school, got my master's degree in public policy, and then I decided in 2005, before I graduated with my master's that I really wanted to take my music more serious, and so I think it's when I realized I had options, I started taking them. And when I was working and building a book of business and my impact and contribution to the organization was undervalued and underappreciated, that's when I was catapulted to entrepreneurship. That's when I was catapulted to entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:Well, kudos to you. I mean, mit is definitely a great school to get into, so congratulations. And your dad definitely believed in you to get that card out of that trash can, so congrats on that, thank you. So you're welcome. You're welcome when, when you made that transition from corporate to entrepreneurship, like talk to us about some of the growing pains with that, like, well, number one, what, what catapulted you to do that? What was that story that got you from? I got to get out of here, but then also kind of walk us through some of the challenges you faced when you started your business Also kind of walk us through some of the challenges you faced when you started your business.
Speaker 2:Well, because I was making, I was working at this one company and I had built my book of business. Because I didn't I work, I was working in sales, seo sales, and I was also doing customer service on the back end. They didn't know because they weren't like I would talk to the developers out and I would just go into. I would tell them if they weren't getting it to a fast enough, I would say, give me the login to the website, I'll fix it. So because I do HTML, so I would. I would do this and, as you know, my confidence and my awareness of my worth continue to grow. You know, I went to the owner of the company on three occasions asking for a raise and I was told no and I was given a lot of excuses and then at that point I either had to say, okay, I went to MIT and I'm making a base salary of $1,667 a month, plus commission, which resets every month. So I only get what people, the new business that comes on. I'm not getting any piece of the $500,000 book of business, of recurring revenue that I booked, that I built and sold, and so I had to make a decision. I had to make a decision Do I want to stay there or move on?
Speaker 2:And I decided to move on and I replaced my income quite quickly, and the biggest challenges that I faced, you know, when I first launched my agency in 2012, was really just going up the learning curve, because I hadn't been in web development for some years, and so from about 2001 to 2012, that's like a decade of just having to go up the learning curve, technologically Right, and what's so crazy is even now, when I'm working on websites for clients, sometimes I'll think of a HTML markup that, upon further research, is depreciated.
Speaker 2:So you can see, I still have some knowledge. That's like ancient. So I've had to like go with the learning curve. That's one challenge that I have. The other challenge is just understanding contracts and you know billing and being able to manage cash flow. So, as a business owner, this is something that I never really studied in depth when I was at college. I took like maybe one financial accounting class, but that was from a corporate perspective. You know, when you are starting a company that you're bootstrapping with your own money with no savings, you literally have to be a miracle worker, and so you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Right, you have to always be thinking like 10 steps ahead of where you're at and being like, ok, how am I going to do this? Yeah, so that's one thing I had to go off. The learning curve is understanding that when you get a good contract and I got some good contracts early in the in the game a pretty well-known nursery and marketing agency, branding agency I was supporting with SEO right after, because I networked and I met folks and I understand the business I mean, at that point in 2012, I literally had spoken to thousands of business owners, literally in 2012. Now it's even more. But the challenge I had was, you know, not just not being able to get people on Google page one, but just the business infrastructure around my offer and you know, just being able to you know, talk to people. I'm an MIT alumni, you know soft skills. That's not our forte. You know what I'm saying. Our forte, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:So I've had to get the soft skills and deal with a 10-year thing, and so those have been some of my challenges over the years building my company.
Speaker 1:When you started your company, was it because you're the SEO queen, right? So were you the SEO queen in 2012, or did it evolve to that?
Speaker 2:Well, you know what is so funny? I have still not publicly said what the name of my company is when I first started, because I mean I was so green. One of these days I'm going to make a video of just like the evolution of my business journey because I think it's hilarious now. I mean I thought I was really doing something and when I look back, I was like I had so much to learn, but I was hungry. I was hungry, I was hungry.
Speaker 1:I mean that helped, though you know it got you to the point where you were getting contracts and you were, you had a network and you were obviously getting clients, so that's a good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what is for so in 2012,? I mean, cause, you noted a moment ago about the technology and the advances of technology, how fast it moves. You know, I'm going to be honest, I didn't really know what SEO was until about a few years ago. You know, I conceptually I knew Google, search or whatever something like that. I knew it was something going on.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But until I started starting my YouTube channel, starting my business and stuff like that, it really didn't resonate with me in that manner. So what exactly is SEO search engine optimization for? If you had to explain it to a kid like, explain it to us in simple terms what it is and why it's important for business.
Speaker 2:Well, in a knowledge economy, in the algorithm age, if you look at a micro economic principle of supply and demand, that's what SEO is. It's about you having a supply of products and services and you connecting with the demand online. That's SEO. I call it your keyword economy the keyword economy.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, gotcha, and that's a SEO queen original. You heard that first from me.
Speaker 1:I've never heard anybody say that. Yes, absolutely. But listen, I agree with you, because anytime I'm posting content, one of the things before I hit the post that I'm thinking about is keywords. You know, because if you don't have the right keyword or the right descriptions, combinations of words, it's not really going to be presented to the people that have the demand for that type of content. So are there some best practices, like how do people find the right keywords? Like help us out?
Speaker 2:OK. So it's hard Keyword research is it can really be mind blowing. It really can be mind blowing because you have all types of keywords. You have top of the funnel, middle of the funnel and then you have the bottom of the funnel. However, attribution as much as people try to say that they have it down to a science, there's always outliers. There's always shifts in the world and, as we know, with the geopolitical and economic environment we live in, things change so quickly. Keep your understanding of your keyword economy, and your keyword economy is multidimensional. You have the keywords that describe your products and services Exactly. You have the questions that people are asking about your products and services, and then you have general conversations that people are having that are related to what you're talking about. And when you put all of those keywords together, this is how you have your keyword economy, and my Quantum SEO method is how you dominate your niche and own it.
Speaker 1:I mean, it definitely is. I mean, and you know, in this age where more and more you know e-commerce businesses and content creators and things like that, I mean you have to be able to reach an audience to survive. So are there any tools, any resources or something like that that you suggest for someone that's just getting started with with SEO? Suggest for someone that's just getting started with?
Speaker 2:SEO, yeah. So if you're just getting started, depending on where you are in the business cycle, if you're pre-launch or just launching, I highly recommend the keyword suggestion tool at seoqueencom, and the keyword suggestion tool can be found under SEO tools. Now, if you've been around and your website is performing and you're starting to get some organic traffic you have Google Analytics, you have Search Console then you can start using tools like SpyFu and SEMrush. Now, if you are a large enterprise uh, making you know multi-millions, you can use SEMrush or you can use um, some other tools. I believe it's um. I want to say either.
Speaker 2:I think it's BrightEdge, but uh, most of the, the business owners that I talk to are, you know, around. You know 100,000 to 100,000 to you know five to 10 million dollars. So, yeah, it's Bright Edge, that's the name of it. So you really want to be clear on how you want to position yourself in the market. You know people have an idea about you, know their products, right, they know what they want to bring to the market. You know people have an idea about you, know their products, right, they know what they want to bring to the market. But what is the story around your brand? Because that story that you tell is going to impact your strategy from a technical and also a content perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what are some of the pitfalls of you know SEO and not using it effectively? In a sense, because everyone out here, I think, is aware of SEO, but if it's not done the right way, what are some issues that a business or a professional can run into?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you know I've been on Reddit lately, the last few weeks, and people are crying. There are a lot of people crying about how their websites are losing traffic, traffic going down, and the issue is, if you're not, the velocity of the content that you add to your site matters, right, and also the quality of that content. You have to, just like a tree grows, your website is a tree. You have to prune some of the branches, you have to get rid of some of the old, irrelevant content, you have to repurpose it, you need to refresh it, you need to continue to add new content to it, to your website.
Speaker 2:And if your mindset is that your website only needs to be five, 10, 20 pages and you're frustrated about your revenue, the size of your website literally is limiting how many people you can reach because you can't have multiple. You can't like, if you're selling, like, for instance, clothes, you can't have one page on your website for dresses, shirts and socks't have one page on your website for dresses, shirts and socks. That's just not going to work. You have to have a separate page for each type of product and for the different variations and so just being very strategic and how you feed into the algorithm. Because when you realize that SEO is just like a query, like when you go to the library and you're looking for a specific book when you're searching for a specific book title, it's not going to give you anything but that book title, right. It's the same thing with SEO. You really have to be specific about who you want to access your site and put the content out there so that they can find you and connect with you.
Speaker 1:I have one other thing I wanted to say. I'm all for it. What?
Speaker 2:are you talking about SEO? And another mistake the business owners make. I think a lot of people just don't even understand how massive Google is Like. They have server farms and power farms Like. This is a huge operation. Googlecom is the most popular website on the planet. On the planet, it's 900 times the traffic that Facebook gets Facebook. Now I mean you really have to wrap your mind around that, because Google is a huge website. And when you really understand that Google is constantly tweaking their algorithm there's over 200 factors that Google is looking at to organize the content and keep the quality of the content to the user top tier Then you have to realize, as a business owner, you have to rise to that level and give the algorithm what it needs in order to recognize you as a brand.
Speaker 2:That means having your social media claimed. You don't necessarily have to post every day, you don't have to post all the time, but having it verified and connected to your domain, making sure you have your Google my Business profile. Make sure you have a business Pinterest page. Now, a lot of businesses. They're like Pinterest. Pinterest is for people who want to get prom dresses and wedding gowns. No, pinterest is for everybody. You really need to have a Pinterest, you need to have a Pinterest page, because Pinterest is a two for one you get a social signal and a backlink. So when you really take advantage of the 200 factors that Google is looking at and optimize meticulously on all of those, that is how you will win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you definitely. I think I have a Pinterest page. I'm just not active on Pinterest trying to figure out how to, how to actually promote on there. But when I was going to ask you I think you were kind of alluding to it because I definitely didn't know it was 900 times the traffic of a Facebook. That just sounds incredible. Um, so I've done like a test searches for my content. Now, if I put Moses the mentor, yes, it's going to present my website, it's going to bring up my YouTube, is going to bring up maybe some videos that I have. But how do? And again, I'm sure it's a bunch of people. But if I were to put something like um, rental property investor, moses the mentor, then the results are a little fuzzier. You know, like, how, how do you actually what? What are some best practices to kind of penetrate and allow your stuff to be shown in the search criteria a little bit better? You know, it seems like the only way I'm finding me is, if I'm exact.
Speaker 2:OK, so you're talking about branded, branded keywords versus more general, more generic keywords, all those non branded keywords like rent, real estate investor. So what you want to do is you want to create content clusters. When I talk about your keyword economy, what I'm talking about is being able to see all the keywords you have like, say, real estate investor. That's like one of the the probably the highest search keyword, probably and so you want to look at, you want to pull all the keywords that have real estate investor in it. There may be words that have real estate investor in it. There may be questions that people are asking about real estate investor. So, for real estate investor, there is over 14,843 keywords, with the total search volume in the United States of 481,000 per month. And so when you look at just all the questions that people are asking about real estate investor, people are asking how to become a real estate investor, how to be a real estate investor. So there's different ways that people are asking questions how to get investors for real estate. That's another aspect of it. What is a real estate investor? So you have people who are at the very tippy top of the funnel. They don't know what a real estate investment is, and then you have other people who are more in the middle you know how to become a real estate investor. And then you have other keywords, like how to find a real estate investor coach. That's more towards the bottom of the funnel, because they know what a real estate investor is right and they're interested in coaching. So that'd be more closer to the bottom of the funnel. So this is how you can really, you know, catapult your brand.
Speaker 2:Like, once you identify your keyword economy, then you could develop a keyword plan for each of those keywords. A great rule of thumb is you want one keyword per page. Keyword per page Per page, yes, sir Gotcha, and you can do multiple keywords, but the keyword needs to, the multiple keywords need to have the main one in it. Like if I wanted to, like in your example, like how to become a real estate investor or how to be a real estate investor, you could possibly do one page for those two, but I personally would do two separate pages because you know that keyword is long, that's really long. You're looking at six. You're looking at six words. Two, three, four, five, six, you're looking at six, six words in a long tail phrase. So I mean, that's that's how you win, is just, you know, being very intentional and creating the content. You know having your H1 tag, having your, your showing your expertise being helpful. Don't just copy and spin what's out there. You have to add your brand and your perspective, your knowledge, to it.
Speaker 1:Each one. What is the H1 tag? That's?
Speaker 2:a header tag. That's a header tag Header tag.
Speaker 1:Okay, gotcha, what about AI? So AI is? You know I implement some AI within my operation now just getting my feet wet. But how can someone like myself and in the audience incorporate AI and SEO? Like how does that actually mesh together? Do you recommend using AI to find some of the keywords or is there other methods to do that?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, ai is is. A lot of people are using it to create content. But the other thing you need to think about is optimizing your brand for AI, because people are going to be asking AI within Google questions soon, and so you really want to understand the constellation or the keyword economy of keywords that people are asking about your products and services. Create that content, push it out, make sure it's indexing on Google so that you are fully present when people go to Gemini, when it's rolled out to googlecom and they can find you. So that's really the thing that a lot of people aren't talking about. Now, as far as workflow, I think it's pretty clear that Google AI is helpful to rank on Google when you're creating content. The thing about that you have to be very careful to just make sure that your content is accurate. Don't just have ChatGPT or Jasper or whatever you're using spit out content that you don't vet. You have to vet all your content.
Speaker 1:You definitely do, and you know it might be just because I'm aware of some of the platforms, but you can tell when someone is using AI, you know. I mean they're using the same words over and over again. You see things like unlock, I see. Any time I see unlock, I'm like, oh yeah, they use chat, gpt or something like that. So I think for that, if everyone start using it, how would that impact the SEO though? Like if, if a massive flux of all these you know content creators who are not vetting the content or just want to throw content out there, is that going to jack up SEO and you have to constantly vet it?
Speaker 2:I mean, this is the thing. Your brand online is your responsibility, and AI is great to push to create content faster. However, you really have to be aware of how you want to show up in the marketplace. I know one thing when I'm blogging for the SEO Queen, it's usually me or some of my writers, the three of us we write the blogs and what my approach, I do, and I do this for my clients. I do this for seocweencom, the blog there is.
Speaker 2:Basically I take my ideas and I write them out as much as I have time, and once I spent as much time as I can afford on a particular task, then I'll I'll throw it into chat GPT. Sometimes that looks like just a prompt, uh, a couple of sentence, a sentence. Sometimes that looks like the whole thing written and I just want it cleaned up a little bit. But you know it really to create content at scale in a massive way using AI. I know that CNET is doing it and they have found some tremendous success. But you know, as a small business owner, where you're really concerned about your reputation and every step that you make is so critical into the growth of your company, and you know, especially as a black owned business. I definitely feel the scrutiny as well. Me personally. I I have to put eyes on everything before I put it out there.
Speaker 1:I agree with that. I mean, there's been horror stories where people have, you know, sent out wrong information and then also, like your, you know your brand voice. You want it to be consistent, right, and I know that. I know that they say you can train AI to get to your brand voice, but I I'm tweaked with it. Maybe I can't figure it out. There's always going to be something that never really sounds like it came from my mouth, so that's why I always go in there and play with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you. Really, in order to train the AI, you have to use 30 samples or more. That's what I've been seeing. But you know it works for people. The brand voice it works for are like the people who are creating the AI. Does that make sense? You understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why you know I really you know like I deal with all types of clients, you know, from into Jaka Shange's estate to, you know, electric bolt instrument makers, mortuaries, leadership coaches, so you have a plethora of styles, lingerie, online, lingerie brands, and so with that, with the type of business, with the brand, comes a different approach. And you know, one thing I think that's important for me at the SEO Queen is for my team to capture the essence of the brand as closely as we can, of the brand as closely as we can.
Speaker 1:So from the time when you started your business, you know, over a decade ago. Are people you know more understanding of what the impacts of SEO are today than they were when you first started, or do people still have some misconceptions around what the value of SEO is?
Speaker 2:I think people see the value, even though people see you know social media as more important. You know SEO is a close second.
Speaker 1:Talk about that. I mean because the way I look at it, I don't look at them as competing, so maybe I'm wrong. So I felt like SEO helps your social media, but you mentioned it, they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know a lot of a lot of brands, a lot of people. I mean I don't know if you know this, but only 50 percent of businesses had a website in 2014. Only half of US businesses, only half and so it's gotten the percentage has shrunk of those who don't have a website. But I see SEO as a relatively new field. I think it's still maturing. But I don't know, even with the introduction of AI, I don't know if it will ever mature because the technology is constantly changing. But you know, people's awareness is increasing, but it's not on a level of a business card. Everybody has to have a business card, whether it's one of those electronic ones or a paper card. Everybody is. It's like everybody has to have a business card, whether it's one of those electronic ones or a paper one. You know that just goes without saying. Seo people see as optional. I disagree. I mean, for me SEO is a vital, vital marketing strategy period.
Speaker 2:One of the reasons why I was just so inspired to just go all in SEO is when I was a freshman at MIT and I built my first website. I thought about this little program, this code can reach anybody on the planet with a browser For free. To me that was mind blowing. That was the epiphany I had in 1996. So I've been all in.
Speaker 1:To me, seo is is huge, especially now starting my business, because unless you have a huge advertising budget, every post count. You know, every interaction is count. So if you put yeah, you put out all this content but no one can see it, you know, is it really you? That's why people give up. You know they're like man. I put this out, only got five views, five visits to the website, and it's probably because your SEO is not optimized Right.
Speaker 1:You know, and I've purchased, you know, seo optimizers and all that type of stuff and I haven't seen the results that I personally would want. So I just focus on the content and learn piece by piece from people like you and stuff like that. But you know it can be frustrating and that's why I think people need to understand that it's not a static and I'm guilty of this. I made my website. I don't make many updates to it, but it sounds like it's evolving in the background. You know that's something people need to understand. You need to really constantly update your site, update your content, update your descriptions, because it all feeds into this big algorithm and it's a lot of work.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work and I've written a book called SEO Training 2017 Search Engine Optimization and Marketing for Small Business, and if you don't want to read a real long book, I have a checklist that I've written 40 Steps to Google Page One, both available on seocoincom and I mentioned that because you know it's a lot easier where you don't have to think about all the steps. There's over 200 factors that the algorithm is looking at, so how I wanted to write a checklist to distill that down to cover as much ground as possible, and so those 40 steps will help you Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Definitely, I'm going to check it out. Audience, please check it out. We'll make sure they include it in the show notes for sure. I wanted to ask you about digital PR, so talk to us about what that is, I see you, and how you can actually catapult your business. So, yeah, you know, walk us through. It seems like you're very excited to talk about.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So digital PR is about how you as the brand, you as a business, get famous. You know we, you know like when you talk about Google. Google is nice, you know, google page one is nice, but what's even better is going on to platforms that have already have a daily audience that's going to their website. They have high domain authority. Because this is the thing when you come up in Google search results, that's not a backlink, that's just pulling search results. That doesn't do nothing. But I mean you get the click, but you don't get a domain authority and trust and visibility flowing to your website to boost your visibility, like you do with a news, a news blog or digital PR.
Speaker 2:So digital PR is important to me because one, it's positioning you in the marketplace, in the national or the regional conversation. The national or the regional conversation number one, number two. People are going to these websites every day and so you're getting fresh eyes onto your website. Now, when they click through, that eyeball is there, right. But it also helps to boost the visibility of your brand online. So the higher the authority of the link, the higher the authority of your website and the higher your rank up on search results. So digital PR is a backlinking strategy.
Speaker 1:How do you get started with something like that, like what you know? I'm sure they can reach out to you, but you know what is the process of getting a digital PR strategy implemented?
Speaker 2:Well, you can go to a website called Easy Media List and on Easy Media List, that'll give you a list of all the national and local news outlets that you could pitch to to possibly get a link to.
Speaker 1:I definitely didn't know that, so that's huge Appreciate you talking about that. So what? What would you say, as far as just you know, someone starting out Cause I know I've been out for a little bit and I've learned some new things but if it's someone who hadn't started their online presence at all and they want to get noticed, they want to get their visibility where it needs to be out the gate, what would you recommend they do from start and then, ultimately, as they transition, what are some best practices you want to call out?
Speaker 2:The first thing you want to do is be really clear about who your target audience is like, who are your best customers, and what you want to do is you want to get as much information as you can about your best customers. And then, after you get information about your best customers, you want to start understanding the ways that they're searching for you online. Once you understand how they're searching for you online, which keywords they're using, then you want to create content that speaks to them personally and adapt it to those keywords. You want to build out your website content. You want to make sure that you're verifying your domains on your social media platforms. You want to be on Instagram, twitter, linkedin, pinterest, tiktok. You want to be on all of those social media channels so that you are sending the social signals back to your website. Then you also want to make sure you have your Google Analytics and search console. So once you do those those basic things, that'll help a lot. And if what I said was a little overwhelming, just call me. 15 minutes are free.
Speaker 1:You mentioned, like all those social media platforms, and definitely Pinterest is one. I want to jump in a little bit more, but is there any one of them that you particularly more helpful with visibility overall? You know, is Instagram at the top of the list or is it more TikTok, like? Which one do you say you recommend, or is it even a crucible?
Speaker 2:Well, I have to say that I really relied on Facebook personally, for, yeah, I really relied a lot on Facebook over the years, and it's it's one of the reasons why my business has grown as well as it has. It's Facebook when you look at social media channels, and then I would say LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Speaker 1:Next, Like my Facebook. You know I don't get much traction on Facebook. I get more traction on Instagram, but which is ironic because you know I mean they're both meta, but it's crazy I get way more engagement on Instagram. So just curious is it could it be by certain your niche that you perform better in one group on one platform versus another, or I'm just not promoting it the right way?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's so when you're looking at demographics and you're looking at interest, like there's a lot of financial content on Instagram, a lot, a lot, a lot of financial OK, yeah, so I can see why you're having more successful Instagram.
Speaker 2:The reason why I like Facebook a lot more is because I've spent a lot of time building out my network on Facebook, because I'm a moderator, for I'm an admin on multiple groups, one of which has over a million members in it, and then I'm also admin on some other groups that have about 20,000 members, 14,000, 15,000 members, and so I also have my SEO Queen Mastermind Facebook group and that has a little bit over, I think, 500 members. And so when you are able to have your Facebook business page and then you use your personal profile page to promote your business, plus you're using Facebook ads, plus you're using Facebook groups, you start to build up more awareness, because I push a lot of people to my website off of Facebook and also raise awareness. You'd be interested. I mean, it's interesting for me to see how many people I've met in real life that I'll see a post on Facebook and just start to re-engage with the brand Gotcha.
Speaker 1:It's a lot to unpack and that's why you know we can talk for hours about it. So what final advice would you want to give people and, most importantly, how can we stay connected with you? So talk us through the best way to contact you. You mentioned something about a 15 minute console. Call your checklist. So your website, social media, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, there's a magazine, the Algorithm Magazine, and in this magazine that my company has published, we have a breakdown of Google Analytics, ga4. We have in this magazine, some great interviews so you can be inspired by other business owners. You could connect with me at the algorithmmagazinecom seoqueencom. You want to make sure you get the 40 steps of Google page one. That is just $10. I have 101 ways to improve your marketing and sales, which is free, and then I also have my book, seo Training 2017, search Engine Optimization and Marketing for Small Businesses. That one costs a little bit, too. You can always go to speak to the SEO queen on the top navigation all the way to the right on seoqueencom and book your Reach More Clients Power Session, which is a 15-minute complimentary strategy call, and I would just urge you you know, as a business owner, when it comes to your business, take your business seriously like you would any class that you needed to make sure that you maintain your NCAA status so you can play in that game. You want to make sure that you keep your grades up. So when you're, when you're approaching your company, really make it your business to, to learn all you can about it and whether you're doing it yourself or not. It's really beneficial so that you can understand who is knowledgeable and who is not. Understand who is knowledgeable and who is not when you're looking to hire someone. You know, now we live in an age where there's so many scammers people out there, you know. You know my industry is rife with people who can talk the talk but they can't walk the walk, and so you really want to be wary of anybody who says, oh, I can get you on Google page one tomorrow. It's like no, it doesn't work. That like that.
Speaker 2:You have to really have a strategy. There's a lot of preparation that goes in and goes forward, whether it's Google ads. Like a lot of people, they throw us some ads but they don't understand. You have to have the content to back it up. You need the site, the site links. You need to have the YouTube videos. You need to have all these digital assets so you can put them together in a synergistic manner to get in front of your ideal client, because when you're dealing, you're competing as a small business. You're competing with House of the Dragons content on YouTube and Instagram. On YouTube and Instagram, you're competing with everybody who's putting content out there, and so you need to have your content to be as top tier as possible and as ubiquitous, as you have resources to make it.
Speaker 1:You said it well and you know all those resources. I'll make sure to list that in the show notes. I'll be the first one there to grab those things. I'll make sure to list that in the show notes. I'll be the first one there to grab those things. I'll grab your book. I think you're a wealth of knowledge and you know, like I said, I could talk to you for 24 hours straight because you know I've been doing this myself and I know I'm not an expert in this field. So I know, for any small business owners or content creators, this is one of those things that you need to invest in. This is an investment, it's not a cost. It's an investment to put your content or put your products and services in the right hands for people to help grow your business. So make sure you tap into the SEO Queen. Uh, missy Scott, thank you so much for joining the show.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for having me on the show Moses, and I like that. Moses the mentor I like that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, appreciate it, appreciate it. Thank you you.