DIY SEO for Small Business Success: Featuring Dolly DeLong

In this exciting episode of The Visibility Boost, Glenneth welcomes her first-ever guest, Dolly DeLong, a Nashville-based family photographer and systems and workflow educator for creative business owners. Together, they dive into the importance of establishing strong SEO foundations early in your business journey.

Dolly shares her expertise on breaking down complex systems and workflows to streamline business operations. She emphasizes the power of organic marketing and the need for small business owners to adopt simple, effective SEO practices without feeling overwhelmed.

Key topics include:

• The importance of optimizing title tags and meta descriptions.
• How to improve site speed by optimizing images.
• Practical tips for getting started with SEO, even if you can't hire an expert right away.

Join us as we discuss actionable SEO strategies that can help elevate your business's online presence.  Make sure to sign up for the FREE SEO Audio series below. 

Links:

Sign up for the FREE SEO Audio series here. (affiliate link)
Follow Dolly on Instagram at: @dollydelongeducation
Follow Dolly’s podcast Systems & Workflow Magic

Visit my website at:  www.thevisibilitymethod.com
Send me an email at:  hello@thevisibilitymethod.com
Follow me on Instagram at: @glennethdotcom

Join my Visibility Method Insider's Circle.  

Transcript

0:31

Welcome to the visibility boost. My name is Glennis read. I read and I have such an exciting announcement today. I have my first guest. On the podcast. Her name is Dolly. And I'm going to let her take it right now and introduce herself. First of all. So much for having me as your first time guest. I am thrilled. In the, on your podcast. And I also want to give you a shout out and say, I love listening to your podcast every single week. It's like one thing, a little bite size nuggets about SEL. So thank you for having me. So. What about myself? I am Delhi Golan. I am based in middle Tennessee and Ima. Um, I have two sides to my business. I am a Nashville based family photographer. And then I also serve as a systems and workflow educator for other creative minded business centers. So I like breaking down systems, workloads, SNPs. In order to help. Let's streamline the backend of your business and. So, yeah. So today we're going to be talking about some systems and workflows of. SEO, because that's something that you and I worked together on. Um, and. I really believe that. Creating a system for SEO, even at the beginning of your business, learning a good friend. Station Laney. Good SOP for SEL. Say that. Several times really. SOP for SEL is really essential because we shouldn't just as business centers as well. I see it as too complicated. I can't hire out an SEO expert. Yes. So, yeah. So I'm just going to push it off until I'm able to hire them out. My argument is start SEO foundations right away. And then when you're able to hire out that SEO expert, you'll have a great foundation. Absolutely as a small business owner, there are so many things that you can be doing yourself that are not complicated, not complex and not time consuming, because we know that you need to run your business. But we also know just how important showing up in organic search is. Exactly. Exactly. I want, I don't want new business owners or even seasoned business owners to Sam, like, okay, well, the first assumption is, well, I need to be a well-established business owner or at least make a lot of money in order to hire out an SEO expert. Like one that's false. Too. I also don't want business owners to come in. To their business and think, well, okay. I just need to start hiring out. Um, Minute. Expert to Google ad experts right off the bat. Um, without knowing, well, first you need to know who you serve, but then also you can organically attract. Um, even more ideal client without heavily relying on ads. And so that's another thing I want to encourage business owners. Like there's a lot of power in the organic marketing and. Part of that power is having a really good SEL foundation. Absolutely. Um, And there's just so much that you can do. And so many little things. And so many SEO people try to make it this big, huge complex. Task. And a lot of this stuff you do hear about SEO is really meant for large businesses, but they're not telling you that. And I think it scares a lot of business owners and they just put their head in the sand and I don't have time for this right now. But SEO is that never ending marathon until you start it. You're not getting anywhere, but it's okay if you have a slow start because you will never be done, but even just an hour, a month on your website, specifically focused on SEO, can. Bring huge results to your business. I love that so much. And I'm kind of, kind of put you on the spot. Glenn, I think you might be like, oh no, deli. But something, um, you were sharing earlier, you could. Like one hour a month working on SEO. Like if you were talking with, like, let's say you're meeting up with a brand new business center or a business owner. Finally he's like, okay, I need to start working on SEO. What was you recommend? What part of their first steps mean? The first steps I would tell people are optimize your title, tags and meta descriptions. And if you can only find it. In your time to optimize one page, do your home page. Optimize your homepage for title tags and meta descriptions. And then the next thing I tell people, because Google has placed so much importance on site speed and performance. But so many sites are slow. And as business owners, we're not coders. We can't go in and change the JavaScript or CSS. I mean, you could, but I don't recommend it. Images are the number one thing that are slowing sites down. And it's the one thing that we can actually control and images can be optimized for both site speed and SEO. So you get this like double bang for your buck. When you're spending five to 10 minutes, optimizing an image, you're really doing a multitude of good things for your website. And that's just something I preach because I see so many sites. With well, you have 50 large images and I'm like, it's slowing it down. Yeah, and people quickly just probably paying off. After after. And second or less than seven seconds. Google once sites less than three and ideally less than 2.5. And now Google prioritizes mobile first. So they're prioritizing your mobile site speed when they're deciding on rankings. And think about how long it takes for images to come up on a mobile phone. It's, you've got to think about that. When you are doing your website, optimizing your images. Yes, you've got to test it on desktop and yes, you're working on a desktop when you are making your website. But go to your phone and I'll tell you what to do. Call your best friend and have them go to your website and see how annoyed they get. See if they can easily wander around your site and how fast it loads. That's good advice right there. Yeah. They're going to be the ones to give you that honest feedback. Hey, well, I love that. Well, this kind of like perfectly segues into you, like as talking about then a solution for getting started with SEO, especially if. Any listeners are like, okay, well, I know. I think it started with SEO, but I can't necessarily do. One-to-one like hire out. SEO expert. What would be a good middle ground. And so this is where we are coming in. So we are both like I I've created this window called the systems and workflow magic bundle. The SCO edition and relented is one of the SEO expert contributors. Part of this bundle. And I'm so excited. Over 22 different SEO experts. And we are going to be talking about and educating on different aspects of SEO. Because again, SEO is multifaceted. Um, there's going to, I can't, I'm not going to name all 22, but rec right off the top of my head. There's like, how did you affect him? Keyword research. And I'm going to set up your Google business profile and how to optimize your Google business profile. If you are a physical business versus if you are an online service provider and then, and so much more, and then galenic is going to be sharing more about. How to optimize your images. And so I'll let you explain more about what you're contributing. So my image optimization workshop shares with you, the importance of why you should optimize your images, but then also. An easy and free way to do it. I'm going to show you where to find the large images on your site, how to prioritize which images you should start with. And then Google, because Google will always give us tools if they want us to do something. And so they've given us this tool that I share with you. That is so it's, it's one of my favorite things to do actually to go in and do it. But you can take your one megabyte image and reduce it down to under 150 kilobytes. Rename it for SEO. Put it on your site and boom, you're starting to make your site faster. And that's just, you know, if I had to say. What you need to do. Okay. If you've got a ton. Cause I, I will say there are going to be those people who are like Glenys. I have 700 large images on my site. Okay. Can you do five this month? Can, can you optimize the largest five? Start from the top and work your way down. Like, that's just the best thing to do. Because we know that images sell, especially depending on your niche, like if you are a photographer or not even photographers, but somebody in a business like a wedding planner who really relies on those photos to get across what they can do. Yeah, the photos are important. But we need to be strategic about putting them on the website and that's what I'm going to help you do, whether you're just building your website or it's been built for 10 years. I don't mind, but I'm so excited about this. You all. And Glenn, if I want to say thank you again for. I'm being a part of this bundle and I just knew you had to be an SEO expert. I'm full transparency. Everyone listening, like Glenys has helped me out with some SEO stuff for my business with like, especially with Google. And so I am thrilled. He said yes. Thank you so much for inviting me. I was like, oh, yes. And I mean, I'm excited to learn from the other S SEO experts. One thing I told a client one time is you could hire 10 different SEO experts, and they're going to do things a bit differently. You know, everybody sees things a bit differently. They know what works for them, or they've worked with your niche before. So there's always things to learn, which is one of the reasons it seems so overwhelming. But ultimately just doing something is going to be better than doing nothing. That's married. I love that as good advice, tan. I do want to share with everyone. Like you're like, okay, this bundle sounds great. Um, but can I have like Dolly. Can I have like a little appetizer to meet all the contributors. I do want to share that. Um, we thought this through and we thought, okay, I'm really good way to introduce all the educators. Without having a person having to purchase the bundle first. We are leading a free audio summit and it's a four day it's like a private podcast, but it's an audio summit form. And so Glenys will have a link in her show notes for that. And that way you can meet. All like 22 plus educators. Learn GC SEO tips, because you're still gonna learn from that summit. And then at the end of it, I know, like I am like 100% confident. You're going to be like, okay, I want to purchase this. I had to learn from all of these FPO experts. Um, so anyways, get on that. Like listen to it right now. You can, and it's available. Until August 31st. So I know like if you're listening into this episode afterwards, You can still like. So listen to this episode and learn a little something from us. And you can still subscribe to, like, I have a podcast called the systems and workflow magic podcast, and we did these summer of SEO series. So you can listen to those episodes, but either way. We want to serve you regardless of your finding this after the fact or you're listening to this live. And just, I would say like take advantage of this systems and workflow magic bundle. The SEO edition. I'm so excited. I can't wait to listen to it. I will put all the links in the show notes. Along with my email. So if you have any questions and Dolly, thank you again for being my first guest. I'm so excited. I am honored. I cannot wait for like, I can't, I can't believe I'm just honored. And do your first gas. Thank you. You are welcome. Okay. We're going to end here. Thanks for listening.