I sat down with a talented brand designer whose business had evolved, but her search rankings were still stuck years in the past. We dug into her data and realized she was accidentally attracting beginners instead of her new ideal, established clients simply because Google loved an old post she wrote back in 2017. It was such a powerful “under the hood” moment to see that even with a new URL resetting her progress, we could identify exactly which premium phrases Google was already considering her for. We focused on the long game of refreshing content to turn her website into a 24/7 salesperson that generates sustainable leads rather than just random clicks. It was a fantastic session that proved how taking a few hours to review the reasoning behind your data can replace guessing with a real strategy.
Enjoy the episode!
🧰 I love me a good digital marketing tool. This week’s recommended tool is Beaver Builder.
A trends analyzer in the form of a Chrome extension. I use it for specific keywords to see the trend YOY. There is a paid version that gives you more data early on as it claims to see trends before they hit. It’s designed to watch rising search volume specifically.
Peek inside my toolbox.
🎧 This week’s recommended podcast episode is What’s Working in Marketing (And What’s Not) by The Marketing Millenials.
One of the things is using all caps as a subject line. Someone is testing it. And while I’m cringing at that idea, testing is always good.
🗞️ Like newsletters? Digital Marketing Takeaway
💡 Related Resources
- How to update content so Google pays attention
- What does Google Search Console do? A beginner’s guide
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Today, I want to give you a peek inside of a “health check” session I did with a brilliant brand designer. They had been blogging consistently for about seven years. But they ran into a problem that you might have right now:
Their past was haunting her Google rankings. What does that even mean? They were getting great traffic, but it was for a version of their business that doesn’t exist anymore.
Their business had evolved, but their SEO was stuck in 2017.
So we’re going to look at how we used Google Search Console to identify why they were attracting the “wrong” people and the exact steps we took to start adjusting their website toward their dream client.
We started by looking at their Google Search Console data. It’s a free google tool that helps you see how Google sees your website.
When we opened it up, one of their top-performing pages was a blog post called “Branding for Beginners”.
Now, on paper, the numbers looked good:
- The Click-Through Rate (CTR): They had a 4.4% CTR, which is quite good for a page ranking toward the bottom of page one. Meaning of the people that saw the page in the search results, 4.4% of them clicked to the website!
- The Content: It was an evergreen post they wrote about five or six years prior.
The client shared with me that they were now targeting established women entrepreneurs, and not really going for beginners anymore. Because this post was so successful, they were being flooded with leads who weren’t ready for their premium services.
We dug into the Queries tab. This is where Google tells you what people are actually typing in to find you. We found that Google wanted to rank her for “web design and branding for female coaches” and “premium branding”. The reason we know this is because it is ranking, just not high enough.
Google was essentially saying, “Hey, we see you’re your website is good here, but we like your beginner content better”. Probably due to longevity along with many other factors.
Now here’s the kicker. It could be that established businesses, their ideal client, were actually typing in ‘branding for beginners’ because they don’t know where to start. It’s not that it means beginner business people.
The were another phrase that their site ranked highly for and got most of the traffic, around idea inspiration. I think it was meant as more of a business positive article, but the phrase intent doesn’t steer into their services of branding. Their best ranking keyword doesn’t provide any quality leads. Or leads at all.
The SEO world isn’t always about instant gratification. One of the reasons this person described our session as “incredibly valuable and helpful” and “fantastic” wasn’t because I waved a magic wand and got them to #1 on Google by the end of the hour. It was because we finally looked under the hood and saw the mechanics of how it all works.
The solutions we discussed, like refreshing old content or submitting new pages for indexing, don’t result in overnight success. SEO is a journey of optimizing, waiting, and refreshing.
And this person’s situation is even more unique because they recently rebranded with a completely new URL.
When you do this, it’s like starting from the ground level because you’ve essentially reset the “juice” your old site had built up over the years.
As we wrapped up the call, they mentioned that they hadn’t done a health check on their own site in a “hot minute” because they were so busy with their own clients.
That is the real value of these sessions: taking a few hours to review the reasoning behind your data so you can start optimizing your website for sustainable leads, building that 24/7 salesperson that is your website.
The Takeaway
Look at your google Search Console. See what keywords your site is ranking for. Use the “Queries” tab in Google Search Console to discover which keywords Google already wants to rank you for. Those ones that are position 11 -20 and optimize a page or two.
If you fancy a session like this one, shoot me a message below.
About This Show
Created by Compass Digital Strategies, the Small Business Marketing Sweet Spot offers an eclectic mix of episodes, all meant to help you find the sweet spot in your business. Each week, you’ll hear the what, why, and how’s of getting more visibility on your website for the goal of more traffic and leads, along with bonus episodes, some experiential from other business owners sharing their own sweet spot.
We talk about everything that influences creating an atmosphere around and inside you that you actually love because how you grow your business and how you move through your life are connected, and neither of them are linear.
