The Peaceful Mompreneur
Encouraging and equipping Christian Mompreneurs to have peace in their lives and business while staying grounded in Jesus Christ.
The Peaceful Mompreneur
SEO Made Simple for Busy Moms - It is not as scary as it seems!
Feeling lost when it comes to SEO? You’re not alone!
In this episode, we’re breaking down the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)—without the overwhelm! I’m chatting with Lauren Gaglioli, a seasoned online entrepreneur who’s been in your shoes. She’s sharing how she went from frustrated and stuck to getting consistent traffic to her website—and how you can, too!
Connect with Lauren: laurengaggioli.com
We’ll talk about:
✨ Why Google Search Console is your best friend for getting more eyes on your business
✨ How to speak your audience’s language so they actually find (and love) your content
✨ Why social media should support your SEO strategy—not be the whole focus
The best part? You don’t have to be a tech wizard to make this work for your business. It’s all about simple, sustainable steps that fit into your life as a busy, faith-filled mompreneur.
So grab a cup of coffee, hit play, and let’s take the stress out of SEO together.
Don’t forget to subscribe & leave a 5 star review!
Grab the Healthy Sustainable Weekly Rhythm Guide for Busy Moms ► ► https://aliesehalcomb.com/weeklyrhythms
Welcome to the Peaceful Mompreneur. I'm super excited Today we are going to be talking to Lauren Gaglioli. That, no, not it. Close, close.
Speaker 2:There's an extra L in that one, that's okay. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, she will introduce herself in a second and she will say it correctly and so okay. So, but anywho, I'm excited to introduce you to Lauren, and she is gonna talk about SEO, which can be such a scary thought whenever you're thinking about, like how do you get traffic? What does SEO mean? Like we know what the acronym stands for, but like how do you actually do it? And it feels like a big scary thing. But we're going to talk about how it isn't and what we really can do practically with Lauren. So, lauren, tell us about who you are, who you serve and why we don't have to be scared of SEO.
Speaker 2:So it's Lauren Gaggioli, which is like Ravioli You've got to use your hands to say it. It's weird and hard and so no worries. But I am an online entrepreneur primarily. I say primarily because I've definitely done stuff in the real world as well. You know craft fairs and things like that in the past, but my first foray into online business was building out an ACT and SAT prep company online that ran entirely through asynchronous online courses, and I had this experience. When I built it.
Speaker 2:I was so excited and I'm sure you know about this, right, you have this like business baby that you launch out into the world and you're like everyone's going to love it, it's going to go great. And then crickets and you go wait a minute, what? And so you have to back it up and go oh right, I love it because it's mine. Oh right, I love it because it's mine. But how do I not only convey its value in the marketplace, but how do I then bring people there when I don't have a storefront on Main Street, a craft fair booth that people are milling by and seeing and being intrigued by? And this is where I think the online space is really tricky for a lot of us, that the mindset quickly shifts from super excited to uh-oh. I've made a huge mistake, and that's because the inherent play here is you are front-loading the effort, especially if you're building out asynchronous offerings. If you have courses or anything that's a product right, you have to develop that first, and if you do that and you don't yet have an audience, then there can be a mismatch.
Speaker 2:And then, for me, what I found with ACT and SAT prep is that, you know, I would try to be in the social sphere, I would try to do like lives, like my friends would do, and you know, the problem was I was selling broccoli, like nobody wanted a community around test prep, and so I was like well, now I have to figure out something else entirely. And that's where I really tapped in early to learning SEO. And as a solopreneur, it was me doing pretty much everything. My mom and dad helped me. My dad did my books and my mom did my shipping, but everything else was on my shoulders.
Speaker 2:And as a solopreneur content creator, course creator, podcast producer, all the thing I was able to drive 16,000 new leads per month to my website, using SEO and developing quality content to attract the right leads, and that led me to ultimately the four hour work week. You know, making really good money, while my work basically full-time momming, which I loved, and it was thanks to Google and SEO. So when I say you can do it, I mean it because I've done it and now that's what I do. I sold that company in 2021 and now I'm helping other solopreneurs do just the same.
Speaker 1:That's so awesome and I'm so glad that you're here, because what you're describing is exactly what I want to do, what I am doing and what I know that the listeners are trying to do. Right, we want to be moms, first and foremost, and then we want to, you know, be able to help our families and have something for ourselves. Right, yeah, but mostly it's, you know, like you, like you we mentioned, you mentioned earlier before we started, like you, homeschool your kids. I want to do that, and I know a lot of the people that are watching this or listening to this. They are either are doing this or listening to this. They are either are doing it or they want to, and they just don't know how to get traffic. Like I said, you can have the best thing on the internet and if nobody knows you're there, it doesn't matter. So how do we get there? Like, what is someone who doesn't know anything about what SEO is right? Where do you tell them to start?
Speaker 2:So that's a fantastic question, because it is about building a life you love and the ease you love, and unfortunately, I think, a lot of us. Our inclination is I'll go on social, but the problem with social is that you don't own that platform. You don't control when algorithms change. You set up a workflow for all your text and carousel driven stuff and then reels come in and give you a sucker punch and now you have to change everything about how you are playing, not because it's best for you, not because it's best for your client, but because it's best for the algorithm, and I hate that. And so what I encourage people to do first is to back up and remember this phrase all roads lead to my website. Your website is your most important calling card because it is where you can actually deliver your products and services sometimes, but it's where Google can send traffic, and if your website is clean and clear as an inbound kind of portal, then you can think of social and YouTube and anything else you want to do as outbound marketing. Right, but inbound, it is a place where you can stand in one place. You can refine it, you can make it what you want it to be, and it doesn't matter what anybody else says is right or good. You can still stand out so long as you use some SEO best practices. And I say that intentionally, because when you start to dig deep on SEO, you go wow, there's a lot here and I will tell you.
Speaker 2:With my first business, I did so much wrong, but I did some right and that got me on the map. And so it's about taking a few steps understanding the what, the why, the how, and then starting to do the things that actually work. How and then starting to do the things that actually work for you and doing enough of the right things that you start to tip the scales in your favor. I also really love thinking about our websites as central hubs, because it's how we get people on our email lists, which, in the day and age of algorithms, people find you once. That's lovely, even SEO right, especially now with AI coming in and those AI summaries, you know that's great. However, if you don't have their email, you can't get in touch with them again unless you're paying for ads, and then that becomes a whole other like huge spend. And so if you want organic marketing, you want free marketing where people can find you and stay connected and flow through to your email list seamlessly. It all works together and that, inherently, is what SEO gets you.
Speaker 2:But SEO is a long play, right? So that's the other thing. A lot of people are like I'm going to do SEO and they do it for like a day and they don't see any change. No, no, no. You got to look at it Two months later. Are you now elevated Six months later? How's it going? How are those posts posted a long while ago doing? And so it's a slightly different play. But if you're in it just to be a fly by night, then you're in it, in my opinion, for the wrong reasons. So if you're here to build a business, then SEO is your friend, and it's going to ramp up as you build out the systems to support greater traffic and greater inbound leads.
Speaker 1:Okay, awesome, that's wonderful. So I loved what you said All leads lead to your website, right? That's the goal. And then I'll even more so, get them on your email list. Once they get there, yeah, cause you can sell like. I had a business coach that said you don't own, you own nothing but your website and your email list. You don't own your social media. You don't own anything, it doesn't matter. Get them on your list, get them to your website. I love it. And so how do we get them to our site? What does that look like? You said Google, and you're right. Seo can be like this monster thing, but without overwhelming anyone or freaking them out like where do we go?
Speaker 2:So let me give you the number one thing that most people don't do. The last time I checked, there was a report run, I think, in, or a study done in I think it was 2021. And it was something like 98.6% of web pages are not indexed by Google, and so that means the lion's share of websites out there aren't showing up in search. And so the number one tool if I, if you take nothing else away from this you need to get your website domain verified by Google Search Console. There are like super simple steps to do this Right. And then the next step that ties in with this is every time you publish new content on your website, on your website this doesn't work for social. New content on your website, on your website this doesn't work for social you submit that URL into Google Search Console to raise your hand and say Google, I just created some new, epic content. Come on over, take a look. And you're raising your hands and telling Google I have a website that is fresh and findable and I would like you to crawl it. And so Google Search Console is the number one thing. I see that entrepreneurs who have been in the game for a really long time have a ton of content on their site. They've just never done it. They've never set it up in Google Search Console. Once you do that, you can also go in to Bing and just port that verification from Google. Google is right now the leader in search and so it could change Perplexity, I know, is like kind of gunning at it. Chat GPT.
Speaker 2:You know I have some concerns about like AI. I don't actually use AI in my business because I have concerns about ownership and that sort of thing. However, it doesn't mean that they're not indexing my stuff and so I assume, if it's in Google, that the other search engines and AI are going to be picking it up. So you want to make sure that you go into Bing as well and port over your verification in Google, that you go into Bing as well and port over your verification in Google and I know that sounds scary, right? You're like, oh dear, like I have to get into the backend of my website, I have to go to my host and I have to like update my, my uh C name and all these things. I know it sounds really scary, but don't worry about it. Like you can't mess it up too bad. Um, there's step-by-step instructions and I think the instructions are literally like five steps. It's not that hard, so you can do it. Um, and you should do it to get your website in Google.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, that is great advice. I have never heard this. I'm going to do it myself. Yes, I don't know about this. Thank you, and so, yeah, that's a very practical. So let me ask you right, we're all like everyone. It feels like everyone on the Internet is trying to tell you to do all this social media. How would I would someone me, someone else, doesn't matter switch from all of that effort over there to what would we? What would the parallel be for your website instead?
Speaker 2:So what I like to say is just stop doing social for a minute, like, take, take a step back and look at the content you're creating for social and then see how things hang together. Right, because social to me is micro content. Right, you're doing all these little bitty baby pieces of content. How can you group stuff you've already done into a single robust blog post and then create a blog post out of that? You can even embed your social stuff into your blog post if you want.
Speaker 2:I personally don't, because I don't want people if I get them to my website. Please don't leave my website. Please stay there, because that's another thing. Google's watching behavior metrics. Right, they want people. They correlate. If somebody finds your website stays on your website, goes to multiple pages. Your website must be good and so you want to keep people on your site once they come to you. So you'll see. If you sign up on my website for any email, you go to a thank you page. In that first email there are links back to my site and I'm creating this loop that Google's watching behavior of people on the internet. And if somebody visits my site and it's multiple pages in the first five minutes of knowing me, that's a good indication that my content is quality. Somebody's genuinely interested in staying connected, and so what we have to do is think about what we're doing on social.
Speaker 2:I actually I'm not great on social. I completely own that. I'm hiring somebody to do it for me because I hate you have to show up every single day and do the thing to make the algorithm work. I don't have time for that. So instead what I do is I create a robust blog post or I create a podcast episode, and then I parse up pieces of that and hand it to my social person, and then she takes that and puts it out in bitty baby chunks and then we say, hey, do you like this? This is part of a more robust thing over on the website, comment here and we'll send you the link, and it gets people from social over to your website. Right, you can send them that link in DMs. You can get them over to your site. So all roads lead to your website at the end of the day, because if they're not on your email list, you are paying. To get in touch with them.
Speaker 2:Again is sort of my assumption. And so I invert the way I create the content. I do the big chunk first and then burst that up and go to social. But you can back solve that, you can go the other direction. So, whatever you like to talk about, tell a story, teach something valuable. I will say in the AI day and age information is cheap, but easy buttons are expensive. So when you're creating products, when you're creating courses you have to think about or services, you have to think about how you are making it easier for people, right? Is it a shortcut? Is it that you're doing it for them? Right? I have consulting clients, I do stuff for them. Or is it a robust program that is a little bit of training but also some implementation time so that people can ask questions on the fly. So you have to remember that now this is sort of a new paradigm. Before, information was what we were selling. That's not necessarily as valuable as it once was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. We are definitely switching. Really, I love what you're saying about like creating the big content and then parsing it out on the into the social world. That is what I do, because I also really hate media. I have never sent someone back to my website, which I will start doing. Actually, it's not on my website, it's on my YouTube. I'm going to change all kinds of stuff after this talk.
Speaker 2:Please report back. I love data on how it's working. Ok, I will let you know.
Speaker 1:I will let you know for sure, and so do you. Would you say that, um, doing some sort of podcast or doing blogging, which one would drive better traffic? Or does it matter?
Speaker 2:Okay. So I will tell you I love podcasts. I love podcasts. Podcasts are not a good lead gen path because on now, this again, this can change. Now with AI I can index so much and all these things. It has ears. It's a great nurture channel. So you need words to make a podcast rank and so it's great from distribution, because you've got Apple and Spotify and Amazon and all these things. So I think of it akin to a push out rather than a pull in. So I love once people are on my list to send them my podcast because that keeps them in connection with me in a very scalable way. I'm creating content for them and that's wonderful. So it's great from a nurture standpoint.
Speaker 2:However, robust blog posts and then having it a really compelling opt-in that is completely in alignment with what it is you are addressing opt-in that is completely in alignment with what it is you are addressing.
Speaker 2:So, for example, if you come to my website and you look at any of my SEO posts, the next step is a DIY website audit.
Speaker 2:It is my most highly converting opt-in on my site and I have a few, but every single SEO post points to that opt-in and I control that through categories in WordPress, if you go to a post about purpose, you're going to get my list for 111 core values to choose from.
Speaker 2:So the opt-in offer is dependent on what kind of content you came to my site to look at, and so thinking about the buckets of content that you address and creating a singular endpoint within that bucket that every post then sort of pivots to, that is going to be your number one way to up your conversion to your email list. And the thing that informs all of this and it's kind of interesting we're talking about SEO. We haven't even mentioned it yet, but keyword research is the number one thing that is going to help you make sure you are laser focused and hitting the mark every single time. You need to know exactly what people are searching, and there are ways to see not only what words they're searching for, but how many people a month are searching for it and how hard it's going to be for you to rank for that term.
Speaker 1:Okay. Do you have any tools that you would suggest for someone to look at?
Speaker 2:Yes, so my favorite is Ahrefs, but it is very expensive, um, and they used to have a really good free tool that I would just send everybody to, and now they've kind of gutted it. It's not you. It's still there but it's not as granular. You can sign up. I forget if you have to give payment to sign up, but mark it in your calendar, cancel it out, get in and do a huge hit of keyword research in one go and see if the language you're using is lining up with what people are asking.
Speaker 2:I had a client once who is talking on and on and on about recurring income, recurring income, recurring income. He's a membership guy. His name is Vincent Puglisi. You guys should totally check him out. He's awesome, but he talks about building out your membership, that sort of thing, but he talks about recurring income as being the play for membership. And then he did a keyword research, kind of you know, glow up and went oh, nobody's searching for recurring income, they're searching for recurring revenue. That's the term they're looking for and that he's probably never going to rank for either of those terms. They are far too competitive. Too many people are going for it. But that's quality information to know what your lead is using, because when you use language that mirrors theirs, it's kind of like the psychological thing of like body language mirroring, where you inherently lean into the know, like and trust factor, because you're building a bridge to them, you're using the language they use and then you can show them how you help them do that thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. Ok, that's super useful. For sure we will take a look at that. Ok, so we've talked a lot about AI, right, but what do you think is the appropriate way to use AI in your marketing?
Speaker 2:content. Um, I am very, uh, gun shy when it comes to adopting technology, um, which is just hilarious for a gal who loves data and teaches seo on the internet. Um, but I love what the internet can get us, but I think we have to be careful about how we're leveraging it. Um, so I love writing writing my thing, like I'm writing fiction. I love writing blog posts. That's my primary medium. Um, I understand that that's not everybody's, so for me, part of the creative process it's that, like, uh, joan Didion quote, I don't know what I think until I write it. Um, that's, that's my process, and so I'm not going to give that up because I can do it faster. Faster isn't always better. However, for someone who has, say, writing is not their thing. They're more of like a YouTuber. They love to do the kind of spoken word or video. Great, you can have AI, look at videos you've created and generate a blog post out of the content you've already shared, and then you can embed that video within it and plus it up that way.
Speaker 2:What I would say is, if you are doing that, I would feed it original content and have it summarize original content, rather than regurgitating everything else out on the internet. I call it the beige-ification of information. That is what is happening. Everything's running. It summarize original content rather than regurgitating everything else out on the internet. I call it the beige-ification of information. That is what is happening Everything's running to the middle, and that's going to be really boring, right? So let your colors show and then take what it gives you and plus it up. Give it the once over with your own special magic, right? Give it the pixie dust sprinkle, because if you don't, google's going to go.
Speaker 2:This was written by a bot and also, I think, all of us are going to go. This was written by a bot. It's pretty obvious, I think, right now. So you do need to put your own stamp on it. I also think it's really great for people with maybe learning differences or executive function challenges, folks who maybe can't articulate their point really, really clearly and succinctly. Fabulous. Use ChatGPT. Write out your first pass, feed it into ChatGPT and have it plus it up for you and then do another once over. So I think how we use it has to be a tool. You, and then do another once over. So I think how we use it has to be a tool, and how you use the tool is. You know how effective the tool is, so wield it with caution and care.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. I agree 100% with you. You can definitely tell if something has been written by chat GPT if you haven't edited it. I use chat GP all the time and I use it for clients and I use it for all kinds of stuff. But I put a lot of information in there about what their voice is, what my voice, where we're going like, and then you rewrite it after it writes it.
Speaker 2:So the prompting is the first step. Right, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm a big fan of it. It makes things much faster. But you're absolutely right, it is beige. It's so boring and I have heard coaches like prominent people that I will not name. They like just throw it in there and then put it on the internet. I'm like what is? What is this?
Speaker 2:I can't listen to you anymore and I think it comes from like I have a real aversion to like hoodie bro marketers. Like more is not more, like sometimes it's less. And just because those and you see it in the SEO space a lot like publish a brand new website, put 20,000 pages on it, have it all generated by AI, submit it in this order and then you'll rank for four seconds and look at you, you got the numbers and it's like how long before that doesn't work again. Like I would rather build on a solid foundation.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. That's what we're going for. That's definitely. We're going for the long haul here, right? Yeah, someone said my business coach the other day he's like you know, we need the fruit right now, right? What did he say? Watermelon and the oak tree, which I'd never heard before. You want to do it now, but you really also need to be growing an oak tree and it takes time. Yeah, so you have to put that effort into it, which is what we're doing, because we want to raise our families and run a business, and not die all three of those things are very true.
Speaker 1:Yes, they are.
Speaker 2:We might be disappointed on one of them, but that's okay. Well, yeah, okay, not that right now, not right now?
Speaker 1:Yes, not because of either one, at least.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Well, Lauren, this was so great. If you had any other piece of advice to tell a mom with young kids trying to run a business, what would you tell them?
Speaker 2:You've had nine healthy days in 2025. Oh my gosh, I'm right there in the trenches with you. I totally get it that some days, business doesn't come first and hustle culture is a liar, it tells you. Then you'll never make it. And I'm here to tell you, like, give yourself grace, you know, live up to the responsibilities you have for your clients, of course, but also extend yourself grace in the in the challenging seasons, because we're growing oak trees, not watermelons.
Speaker 1:That's perfect, okay, well, thank you so much, lauren. Where can we find you? Where can everybody find?
Speaker 2:you. Laurengaggiolicom is the best place to find me. Everything I do lives there. But if you're curious about maybe like coming in and doing a mastermind session, laurengaggiolicom, forward slash mastermind I have these like one-off. It's $25 for your first session. If you want to just come and chat and like it's called the phone a friend mastermind for a reason, like if you just need a lifeline, I got you, so that's a great place to go. If you have any any questions about SEO, marketing, mindset, the whole nine, we cover it all.
Speaker 1:That's so great, okay, awesome, well, thank you so much and sorry about not knowing how to pronounce your last name.
Speaker 2:Totally fine, nobody does Some days I get it wrong.
Speaker 1:Wonderful Well, thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2:This was great. Thank you so much. It was lovely to spend time with you today, absolutely.