121: Stop Guessing What to Do With Your Website: A Simple SEO Filter That Works

In this episode, Jules White shares a simple four-step filter to help you stop guessing what to do next with your website and start focusing on what actually moves the needle.

If you’ve been tinkering with your website without feeling like you’re making progress, or you’re not even sure what your site is doing for you, this episode walks you through what to prioritise first.

Key Takeaways:

The Stop Guessing Filter: A four-step process covering clarity, free Google tools, choosing your main visibility asset, and optimisation.

Offer and message clarity: Why you must be clear on what you sell, who it’s for, how it makes their life better, and what you want to be known for before touching your website copy.

Free Google tools that matter: Why setting up Google Business Profile (if eligible), Google Search Console, and Google Analytics is essential for understanding what’s working and what isn’t.

Optimising what you already have: How to check what your pages are showing up for, avoid competing pages, and make sure Google understands what each page is about.

Local visibility opportunities: Why even online businesses should consider local optimisation, and how categories in Google Business Profile can shape your website structure.

Strategic content creation: Why core pages come first, and how case studies or a podcast can support long-term visibility in a way that you own.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Episode 119: What happens when social media is no longer part of your marketing strategy
• Episode 116: How to get found on Google by local clients
• Episode 109: Back to basics – how to get your website showing up on Google
• Episode 108: Why your website feels overwhelming and how to make it easier
• Google Analytics & Search Console Setup Course – step-by-step guidance for setting up and using these free tools from Google.

Transcript

Introduction

Jules White: Hi, welcome back to the Website Success Show. It is Jules here, and I am here to help you get more traffic and make more sales through your existing website.

So one of the problems that I solve for my clients is clarity and focus, knowing what to prioritise first, so you stop wasting precious time, and instead start building visibility that lasts for your business.

I've had a few conversations this week with business owners who are feeling confused about what to do with their website.

They maybe have made a few mistakes, made a few poor choices where they just didn't know what they were signing up for, and this is one of the things that's my mission in my business to help prevent women, especially from making bad website decisions and making decisions about their website that they then regret at a later date.

I've had so many conversations with clients over the years where they've come to me because their traffic has dropped off a cliff. 'cause they've either moved their website or changed their business name.

I was talking to somebody at a networking event at the beginning of this week where she'd was doing really well with Google. Her, her business was really ticking, ticking, ticking along.

She was getting lots of new clients coming into her business. She was a la, she's a laser clinic, laser tattoo removal, and she then decided to change her business name and then her traffic dropped off a cliff and she's still sort of recovering from that decision to actually making those changes to her business.

So I love helping people to actually know what to focus on first. there are so many shiny objects out there.

There are so many things that we're told we need to be doing in our business, like social media, which is a big one that I want to help people understand that there is an alternative.

Breaking Up with Social Media

Jules White: Social media is optional. I actually broke up with social media a couple of weeks ago, uh, three weeks ago, I think it is now.

And since then, I've had one of the best months in my business for a long, long time. So I think this is definitely a sign from the universe.

I have, um, spoken to so many people who this really resonates with them, that they don't want to be a constant content creator for social media and being a slave to that really, and doing all this stuff, doing all this work. To get their business showing up on social media and actually it not them bringing them any clients.

Ultimately, this is all about making your website and making your online presence work for your business and actually do a job. I always think of a website like your, it should be your hardest working employee, and if.

It wasn't, and if you treat social media as that as well, and it was performing for the amount of the amount of time, energy, and money that you put into it, if you think about your own time and think about the mon, the cost involved of doing that, then.

You probably would be firing that employee. You certainly would be thinking about some performance enhancements that you could use to, you know, so like, they'd be, they'd be on a PIP plan or something, wouldn't they?

If they were, um, performing the way that social media often performs in your business. If you want to listen to a little bit more about my decision to break up with social media, then you can go back and listen to episode 119.

What happens when social media is no longer part of your marketing strategy? It's just all about why I actually made that decision and what it means for my business really.

And it's been, um interesting. Definitely over the last few weeks I've had a few times where things have popped up and I've thought, well, how do I need to handle that slightly differently?

Things like connecting with people when I'm actually out networking. But what I've started doing now is actually.

Trying to get, like getting people's numbers, like connecting with them on WhatsApp, getting them to send me a message on WhatsApp rather than just almost gathering people that you're connected with.

It's more about being intentional, it's about being intentional about the people that I actually do want to properly connect with, follow up with, build relationships with, and. Who knows If there's people that I meet that I don't then immediately follow on social media, but our paths cross again in the future.

Maybe that's when we will it will turn into the point of a conversation where, about how we can help each other or how they might be able to benefit from my services or how, you know, there's so many things that I honestly believe that if my path's meant to cross with somebody again in the future, then that will happen.

So let's start talking about if you're feeling confused about what to do and you don't really know what to start with first. When it comes to your website, if you go in and you have a little tinker, you play around with it, and then you never really feel like you're actually making progress.

Or if you don't even know what your website is doing or isn't doing for your business. If you're not even sure what your website is showing up for on Google or in AI search whether you've got any traffic coming to your website or not, then this episode should hopefully help you with that.

The Stop Guessing Filter

Jules White: So I have something I use with clients, which is called the Stop Guessing Filter, and this is a process I go through when I'm doing, when I'm doing audits, when I'm helping people in a power hour.

When I am, um, consulting with people, even when I'm just having a conversation with people, I'm always running, running it through this filter, really.

Step 1: Clarity

Jules White: So step one is always clarity. So if you are not clear on what you do or exactly what you are selling in very plain language, ideally who it's for as well, how it makes their lives better.

Also what you want to show up for. So what do you want to be known as the expert in, in relation to what you do?

What do you want to be showing up for on Google in relation to this thing that you're selling? And you can do that for your business as a whole, or you can do it for each individual offer.

And just take some time thinking about these things, thinking about the benefits to your client rather than the features of what you sell. And.

This is something that I say, as I So So, a lot of business owners haven't taken that step back, or maybe they've done it years ago.

I was having a conversation with a client yesterday and she was saying, I was asking whether she was clear on these kind of things with a mess message, clarity, whether her offers were clear in relation to her actually being able to extract that information and pop that onto her website, and she said, well, I've been through this a few times in the past.

I've got loads of information about this on chat, GBT, and you know, I, I probably should go through and sort it all out and this is definitely a problem I've had myself as well, where you end up having these little conversations with chat GBT or whichever AI tool you're using and you end up with.

Just reams and reams of information in there and you see things in there and you think, yeah, that's great. I'm gonna use that.

Yeah, that's great. I'm gonna come back to that.

And you just end up with these chats and there's no like, there's, there's no sort of structure and no, no definition with it really. So what I always suggest people do.

And this is something we cover in the membership, in the website growth club, we start with offer clarity and message clarity. And this is something I added in after I'd started the membership when I realised that people were just getting stuck on this point.

So you can't write your copy for your website. You can't know what you want to show up for if you haven't been through these steps, and you're not really clear on how you're helping people.

What it specifically is that you're selling in really plain language and how it makes their life better. So what I suggest doing is creating an info base.

So once you've done done this work, once you've been through this work and actually got some information about your offers and about your business, and about what you want to be known for, taking that information out of an AI tool, if you're using that or just keeping somewhere in your Google Drive or your OneDrive, wherever you would store information about your business.

And keeping one core folder that you keep updated with things like your offer. So what you're selling the benefits for people, the things like your brand voice, even things like your brand guidelines.

Your colours, your fonts, your heading sizes that you use on your website, all of that kind of stuff. Your mission, your vision for your business, the problems that your customers have, all of that.

If you've got that in one place, then that becomes the definitive guide to your business and any time you need to do any kind of writing, whether it's writing an email, writing copy for your website, writing a social media post, if you'd make that decision that you want to use social media, you can go back to that.

You are not constantly guessing, and because you are rereading that information over and over again, it does then stick in your brain so you can then immediately, if somebody asks you what you do, you can tell them without boring them or without losing them because you are waffling and you've just got that information.

You can also then, if you're working with somebody to help you in your business, if you're working with a VA or a copywriter or a web developer, you can then take this and share it with them, and it's not reams of information that you've got to crawl through to look, find what you're actually looking for.

So that's step one of the stop guessing filter is making sure that your clarity is there and that you know those things.

You know what you're selling, who it's for, how it makes their life better, and what you want to show up for, what you want to be known as the expert in.

Step 2: Free Google Tools

Jules White: step two is making sure that you've got your free Google tools set up.

So if you haven't set up a Google business profile, if you are eligible for one. So if you are a. Business where you have face-to-face contact with your clients.

That's generally the main sort of decider for Google business profiles. If you are an um. If you're a service area business, so whether you have a pin in the map or you actually go out to your CL clients and either meet them where they are or meet them somewhere else, but you have that face-to-face contact with your clients, then.

Having a Google Business profile can be really helpful. The other two tools, which every business should have is Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

These are two data tools that you can set up simply. If you need some help with that, you can find my course on my website.

I've just got a little short course that teaches you how to set up your Google Analytics and your Google search console and how to use them simply as well.

Google Search Console will tell you what. Google is associating with your website.

You can submit your site map in there so that it, Google can understand what pages exist on your website, how they relate to each other, and then can actually, Google has the ability then to put your pages into its index so that your pages actually show up in in search.

And what you can also do in there is you can see over time, you'll see what search terms Google is associating with the different pages of your website and more importantly what it's not.

So you can then look for opportunities if you know you have a particular thing that one page of your website should be showing up for. It's not, you can go in and add some more copy into that, that webpage.

You can start talking more on that web webpage about the thing you want it to actually show up for. You can also see in there if your pages are competing with each other.

So if you've got two pages of your website that are showing up for roughly the same amount of impressions, which is the number of times you've actually shown up in a Google search, um, somewhere, it could be on page a hundred.

And the number of times you've got people clicking through to your website for that particular search term, if that's roughly the same for more than one page, that's a really good signal that Google is confused about which is the best page to show up for this particular search term.

And that means that your content is competing against itself basically. So you can use it for that.

You can see if there are any errors on your website. If there's anything that's actually blocking Google from showing up some of your pages as well.

And then Google Analytics is a tool that will tell you where people have come through to your website from.

So if they've come to you from social media or from Google, you'll start to see AI tools appearing in Google Analytics. So you might see that chat.

Chat, GBT is sending you some traffic. Things like emails, your Google business profile, if you're cut using paid ads, you might see it coming through from there.

So that will actually tell you what that, what you're doing in your business, whether that's actually driving traffic to your website. This is often . When I dive into this with clients.

This is often a, a bit of a light bulb moment when they see the traffic that's coming to their website from social media versus the amount of time and energy they're spending on there.

Then how long those people are actually averagely spending on their website. So it is one of those things that quite often that is the moment that people say, yeah, I need to focus on other things that are actually making a difference to my, in my business.

So if you haven't got those free tools set up, that's the next step.

So once you're clear on your message and offer clarity, get those tools set up, there are amazing free tools from Google that can really help you to start increasing your traffic and to start showing up more for the things that you want to be showing up for.

Step 3: Main Visibility Asset

Jules White: Step three in the Guess Stop Guessing filter is thinking about what your main visibility asset right now is.

Ideally, it's your website. I always love people focusing on the content they own first.

And if you haven't done the work on your core pages of your website, so your homepage, your about page, your sales pages for your most profitable products and services, if you haven't done the work in optimising those pages and making sure that they're.

Going to show up for the things that you want them to, then that's the first place to start. Really.

I would have a little caveat with this, that if you are a local business. And you have got a Google Business profile and you haven't optimised that even though it's something that you don't own, it can be really, really powerful for local businesses.

And optimising your Google profile and doing the work that you need to do around that can then sometimes help you optimising those core pages on your website. So when you explore things like the categories in Google business profiles, the services that are available in there, and some of the other things you'll see in the backend of your Google profile, then that can sometimes just really be, and again, light bulb moments that I often see with clients when we go through this work that that can then help you.

To write the, add the right words, basically to add the right words to your website that are gonna help you show up in clear plain language for the things that you want to show up for. I actually offer this as a service, so I have my Google Business Booster Service, which is a done with you session where we actually go through and optimise your profile together.

And if you are feeling like you really need that local visibility. And you haven't done this work on your Google profile, then that's a really great place to start.

I'll pop the link to that in the show notes. You can come on over, have a little look through my page on my website and just let me know if you'd like to book one.

You can go actually go through and directly book it yourself if you want to, and we'll spend a few hours together on Zoom just going through and optimising your, your Google profile so you get it done, and that can make a massive difference to your business. if you are thinking about other visibility assets, a podcast can also be a great way to really get your business visible.

So once you've actually optimised those core pages of your website, you're gonna need to create some content and that can be blogs, potentially, I think for local businesses and for service-based businesses that case studies can often be a lot more powerful than blogging to begin with. The great thing about that is then you can talk about the results that you've got for your clients.

It helps to build your authority and what you do as well. So. Just even simple case studies can be really helpful, especially if you're trying to build up that local traffic, because if you've worked with a client in in a particular area, or if you are in a particular area and a client has come to you, you can add in those local keywords within that case study and that can really be powerful for what you do.

But what you can also do is if you are not thinking about writing additional content for your website, then a podcast can be really helpful in terms of creating content that is long term. It's long form.

So it's a lot. It's not, um, short form content like reels and social posts.

It's something that you can help then to get your authority across and just really build your audience in a way that's sustainable for your business. So you own your podcast, if you like, with, with my podcast, it's built on a platform called, called Buzz Sprout, which is a fantastic platform if you're considering.

Podcasting. I would highly recommend giving it a try. Um, I will put a link to that in the show notes as well. 'cause I, I've got a little affiliate link there where you can get 20 pounds and I can get 20 pounds or dollars I think it is actually, if you want to give Buzz Sprite a try, then you'll find a link in the show notes.

But if my, if Buzz Sprout went away tomorrow, I could take all of my episodes and move them somewhere else.

So it's content that I own in a way that something like YouTube isn't. Now, YouTube can be great for building visibility as well, but you don't own it.

So there's always that risk of your account going away in the same way that there is with your big Google business profile as well, unfortunately. And that's why I would always say to think about your website as the.

Hub of your business. So that's the bit that put, you put your real focus on.

That's the bit that if everything else went away, you've done the work on your visibility, you, you've done the work on your SEO and your website is always there bringing clients and bringing customers into your business all of the time.

And that's the goal with working on your SEO, is that your website is out there working for you when you need it to be.

So. Thinking about your visibility assets and then actually going through and as I say, optimising them.

So that's the next step.

Step 4: Optimize Your Assets

Jules White: Step four of your, the stop guessing filter is actually optimising those that visibility asset that you, that you are thinking of.

So as I say, with local businesses sometimes that can be working on your Google business profile first.

So claiming and optimising your profile. If you don't have a Google Business profile, you can still use your competitor's Google Business profile to actually think about those things that you need to be adding into your website so you can go and spy on your competitors.

And I talked about this. back in episode 1 1 6, how to get found on Google by local clients.

Now, even if you can work with anyone anywhere, I would still suggest to do some local optimisation because unless you are in Jamaica and you're selling ski wear, then there are going to be people in your area who could benefit from what you sell. And I think we often forget about that or ignore it.

And actually that can be a really great way to stand out. It's hard to stand out against the whole of the internet, but actually if you just add in those extra local search terms that can really help you to stand out locally, it makes it a lot easier for you.

So. When you are looking at your Google business profile, making sure that you select the best primary category, select the best addit you have, any additional categories that also apply to your business, and then actually use those as headings or pages on your website.

So this is one of the things that I do with my clients is helping them to work out how they can make that link between their Google profile and their website.

And you can do that as well with your. If you are spot spying on competitors, so even if you don't have a Google profile yourself, then you can go through, look at the, the categories that could potentially apply to businesses like yours.

Look at your, some of your competitors guarantee. There will be at least one of your competitors who's got a Google business profile.

Go in and look at what they're doing with theirs, and it doesn't need to be direct competitors.

Think about also related services and related industries. What they're doing with their Google profiles as well.

So that can be really powerful and really helpful. And then thinking about your website, so checking on your core pages for the keywords that you're showing up for.

Is your business showing up for the things that you need to be? Is Google even relating your business to the things that you need it to be relating it to?

Quite a few times. I've, you know, mentioned about a therapist that I once worked with who.

Had been told that PTSD was too competitive to show up for, so she didn't mention it anywhere on her website.

And yes, she's not gonna be showing up for P for if somebody's just typing PTSD into Google because there's however many million search results around that.

But she definitely could be showing up for PTSD specialist in her area, or PTSD related blogs and things like that. You know, she could definitely create some content around that.

But if she never mentions the word PTSD anywhere on her website, then how is Google gonna know?

How's anybody gonna know?

How are people going to know when they come through to her website that that is the thing that she's amazing at helping her business, her clients with, and that she is a specialist in?

So there's a few ways that you can check your core pages and see what they are actually showing up for.

And as I say, more importantly, what they're not. There is the Uber suggest Google Chrome plugin.

So this is something you can go into Google Chrome and you can go to the the Chrome Store and install this plugin.

It's not something that you need to pay for, it's not something you need to sign up for so that there's Uber suggest has got its own website that you, you can sign up for.

You don't need to do that. Literally just go and get this plugin.

Visit your website and click on the, the icon to fire up the plugin, and then it will tell you important things about that page. So it will tell you that the, some of the keywords that that page is being.

Shown up for, um, the amount of traffic that that page is getting.

And the data on this isn't always a hundred per cent accurate, but it will just give you a bit of an idea if you've got your Google search console set up, which you definitely should go into that and have a look at that particular page.

So if you're thinking about your homepage or thinking about one of your sales pages, have a look at what queries, which is the search terms google is actually associating with that page.

Then also another little Google Chrome plugin called A-I-O-S-E-O.

This is a great plugin for helping you to understand whether you've set your pages up properly. I've talked about this lots of times.

Oh, in the podcast. You can go back and listen to episode 1 0 9, which is back to basics, how to get your website showing up on Google.

And I talk about some of these things that you just need to make sure you've got in place.

Things like your page titles and your page descriptions. Having your sru your page structured in a way that it makes sense, the hierarchy of your headings in your page, making sure you're using appropriate headings in your page, making sure there's only one H one heading.

And you actually mention the thing that you want that page to show up for all of those kind of things, you can just go through and do those checks and make sure that you've actually got these things in place.

And once you've done that for your homepage, then you'd think about doing it for your like your most important, most profitable product or service.

Then you think about doing that for your about page and maybe even your contact page. You do it to a certain extent.

Realistically, your contact page is probably not gonna be one of your strongest pages to show up in the Google search results. But that doesn't mean to say that you shouldn't do these things.

Like. These are the basics that you need to do with all of your pages on your website.

Make sure that they're set up well.

The structure is right, that you are actually telling Google what this page is all about. And also then linking those pages together as well.

So making sure that your homepage links through to your services pages, links through to your most important blogs.

If you are blogging links through to things like your Google Business profile. So if you've got reviews on your website, make sure you link to your Google Business profile and vice versa as well.

So you're building up those links between your content before you start creating a load of content for your website.

You are thinking about it strategically and thinking about what do I need to add into my website that helps to show me as the expert in what I do.

So I hope that's helpful. That's the filter I run through with all clients.

We basically just come back through this regularly, so if people are feeling stuck, if you're ever feeling stuck, you can go through and just check these things and make sure that you've actually optimised the things that you need to, to help you to show up on Google and in AI search.

And it doesn't have to be difficult. It can often feel like it's really overwhelming, and I talked about this back in episode 1 0 8 about why your website often feels so overwhelming and how to make it easier.

I talked about the three brain modes that we need to separate really to make sure that we are not just over overwhelming ourselves where we are trying to create the strategy, write the copy, and implement it all in one, one sitting, and then wondering why we feel so overwhelmed.

Wrap Up & Resources

Jules White: So I really hope this has been helpful for you.

I hope that you, it helps to give you a bit more clarity around what to do next. And if you are feeling stuck, then there's a few ways that I can help you.

You can come and join the website Growth Club, which is my membership, which helps you to get your website working for you. So we have things in here like the.

Offer Clarity Wizard, the Message Clarity Wi Wizard. We have blueprints that can help you to know what you need to add to your web pages to actually help you show up, and there's support in there.

We do co-working calls. We have monthly q and As and it's.

Designed to be something that supports you as you, DIY, your own SEO. And then I also offer one-to-one services as well.

So you can book a Power Hour, you can book one of my audits.

You can book the Google Business Booster session where we do your website where we optimise your Google business profile together.

For all of my, all of the things that you need help with, there's Al. I always have options.

I've always got a free option. If you listen to the podcast episodes, if you read my blogs on my website, then that can help you with that.

I've got the DIY option, I've got the done with you option, and I can even. So you can visit the website success hub.com to find out more about how I can help you in your business, and if you're not sure, if you're not sure what to do first.

If you're not sure in the best way to get help from me, then just send me a message. You can either text the show or or you can send me a message if we are connected on Instagram.

I get those messages directly in my CRM so I don't have to log into Instagram to get my messages, which is really great. Um, or wherever we are connected, then just shoot me a message and, and let me know that you're struggling.

You dunno what's, you need some help, but you dunno where to start. So thanks for listening and remember, keep building your business your way and remember that social media is optional.