The Basic B: SEO, Storytelling, & Social Proof

Organic Marketing—the Laura Belgray Way

July 03, 2024 Brittany Herzberg, Laura Belgray Season 1 Episode 51
Organic Marketing—the Laura Belgray Way
The Basic B: SEO, Storytelling, & Social Proof
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The Basic B: SEO, Storytelling, & Social Proof
Organic Marketing—the Laura Belgray Way
Jul 03, 2024 Season 1 Episode 51
Brittany Herzberg, Laura Belgray

📲 Text me! (Seriously—just click this)

Laura Belgray is nailing SEO, storytelling, and social proof marketing—and she didn’t even know it! In fact, she called herself “terrible” at it. Funny thing is—many of us think organic marketing isn’t doable, is too challenging, or simply isn’t for us. Tune in to this coaching session of sorts to hear what Laura is doing extremely well & what opportunities for improvement are available to her. Oh, and trust me when I say you’re gonna come back to this conversation multiple times—break out the notebook & save this somewhere!

With this episode, you’ll be able to:

  • Discover (along with Laura) what she’s doing well with SEO, storytelling, & social proof on her Shrimpmukkah page.
  • Uncover hidden opportunities Laura is now taking advantage of with organic marketing.
  • Learn simple tweaks you can make to your blogs to make them perform even better as marketing tools!


Book an SEO Strategy Session w/ Brittany

Links & Resources:
SEO Basics Checklist
Resources Page
Instagram

Related Episodes:
SEO Headlines w/ Justin
Optimize Blog Images


Supercharge your podcast show notes with SEO—and easily turn podcast episodes into blog posts with templates & training videos created by SEO podcaster & copywriter, Brittany Herzberg!


Get SEO to work for you—with the DFY SEO Packet from SEO copywriter, Brittany Herzberg. More details here!

———
Find B on: Instagram, YouTube, Threads, & LinkedIn.

Often mentioned:
Buzzsprout (get $20 off)
Legal templates ($50 off w/ code: BASICB)
Hello Audio (15% off w/ code: BASICB)
Styled Stock Society
Brain.fm (1 mo. free!)
Book of the Mo. Club
HoneyBook (25% off)

(*affiliate links included, which means I might make a lil money when you click. I only recommend people, products, & programs I use & ❤️)

🎉 This podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.

Show Notes Transcript

📲 Text me! (Seriously—just click this)

Laura Belgray is nailing SEO, storytelling, and social proof marketing—and she didn’t even know it! In fact, she called herself “terrible” at it. Funny thing is—many of us think organic marketing isn’t doable, is too challenging, or simply isn’t for us. Tune in to this coaching session of sorts to hear what Laura is doing extremely well & what opportunities for improvement are available to her. Oh, and trust me when I say you’re gonna come back to this conversation multiple times—break out the notebook & save this somewhere!

With this episode, you’ll be able to:

  • Discover (along with Laura) what she’s doing well with SEO, storytelling, & social proof on her Shrimpmukkah page.
  • Uncover hidden opportunities Laura is now taking advantage of with organic marketing.
  • Learn simple tweaks you can make to your blogs to make them perform even better as marketing tools!


Book an SEO Strategy Session w/ Brittany

Links & Resources:
SEO Basics Checklist
Resources Page
Instagram

Related Episodes:
SEO Headlines w/ Justin
Optimize Blog Images


Supercharge your podcast show notes with SEO—and easily turn podcast episodes into blog posts with templates & training videos created by SEO podcaster & copywriter, Brittany Herzberg!


Get SEO to work for you—with the DFY SEO Packet from SEO copywriter, Brittany Herzberg. More details here!

———
Find B on: Instagram, YouTube, Threads, & LinkedIn.

Often mentioned:
Buzzsprout (get $20 off)
Legal templates ($50 off w/ code: BASICB)
Hello Audio (15% off w/ code: BASICB)
Styled Stock Society
Brain.fm (1 mo. free!)
Book of the Mo. Club
HoneyBook (25% off)

(*affiliate links included, which means I might make a lil money when you click. I only recommend people, products, & programs I use & ❤️)

🎉 This podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.

Brittany Herzberg:

Welcome to the basic be podcast, a show for the wannabe SEO savvy service providers among this for the coaches and consultants who dream of becoming known for their storytelling skills. Not to mention the solopreneurs who straight up need to master all things social proof to increase sales. After a little reluctantly, fully committing to this online rather business, I quickly realized I needed to get people to come to me, I needed to tell them I was here and how I could support them. I dove headfirst into social proof, which led me to SEO, which led me to storytelling. And now it gives me great joy to share what I've learned with other business owners so they skip the hard stuff and ease straight into sales. This podcast gives you expert insights, actionable takeaways, and casual combos with some of the online world's best and brightest experts and strategists. I think that's enough of an intro. So here we go. Welcome back to The Basic B podcast. I am so grateful you're here, whether you're tuning in from YouTube, or one of the podcast players—I really appreciate your support. And I'm happy to let you know you're in for a real treat. today, We are talking with Laura Belgray, and we're going to go over her brilliant annual post that she puts out on her website and break down what she's doing well with SEO, storytelling, and social proof—and I'm sure she's going to sprinkle in some questions along the way! Before I bring her on, here's a quick intro in case you've been living under a rock for a while. Laura is an award-winning copywriter, founder of Talking Shrimp and the author of the national bestseller and hilarious book

Tough Titties:

on living your best life when you're the effing worst. She's written TV spots for clients like NBC, Fandango, and Bravo. And she helps entrepreneurs find words that make buyers go bananas. Her course with Marie Forleo, The Copy Cure, helps you find your voice and sell your anything. Laura, I am so stoked to have you here today! Thanks for joining us.

Laura Belgray:

Thank you, Brittany. It's great to be here.

Brittany Herzberg:

Of course. All right, before we get into the breakdown of your page and how you're doing so well even though you think you're not. I'm gonna hit you with a heavy hitting question that I asked all of my guests—there is no wrong answer. Your question is, which do you believe is most important for sales, SEO, storytelling, or social proof?

Laura Belgray:

SEO storytelling or social proof? I'm gonna say storytelling as a long game, and SEO when it comes to a something that's on a public site, but I do a lot of selling in emails where SEO doesn't count. However, getting people onto my list, SEO counts for so that too. And then of course, social proof always helps it it over the net, I think.

Brittany Herzberg:

Well done. Brava like I said, there's no wrong answer. And everyone has said something different, which I really like and appreciate. All right, on to the brilliance of Shrimpmukkah. How'd I do?

Laura Belgray:

You said it perfect. Shrimpmukkah. You did it!

Brittany Herzberg:

I definitely want you to shout questions at me along the way. We're going to break down what you're doing so well with this page when it comes to SEO, social proof and storytelling. But before we get into that I would love if you would just share with folks what this page is and like why you created it.

Laura Belgray:

Okay, so I have a mastermind called Shrimp Club. And my brand is Talking Shrimp. And a few years ago, I think we've done it three times now. And everyone in there is looking to build their list as all online business owners are. I thought wouldn't it be fun to do a round up for the holidays of everybody's freebies have their lead magnets and it will go in a blog post but then we'll all mail it out to our lists. And I'll almost be like a summit which probably didn't occur to me, but that's kind of what it ends up being. And I will call it Shrimpmukkah and that's based on I think it comes from the show voc they celebrated part Christmas part Hanukkah. They called it Chrismukkah. And so I was like this will be shouldn't Mecca. Yeah, celebrating shrimpers and Christmas and Hanukkah and all the lead magnets that we're gonna post

Brittany Herzberg:

And you have some amazing ones on there. I mean, these are like mile long pages. So if you haven't checked this out and you're listening to this, you have to go check this out. Of course, it's going to be linked below because I'm a willing copy human. But what's so cool is with this one marketing piece, Laura has been able to bring together like I said, a bajillion times already SEO storytelling and social proof. So I'm gonna get into how and we're going to take it one category at a time. We're gonna do SEO and then storytelling and then social proof. So with SEO So what you've done so well with this standalone web page that you share each year, it gives you just like you said, a whole bunch of people are coming to your website. It's something that you're then inviting other people to share with their audiences. You've got an incredible word count for this page. So if you've ever heard any SEO person talk about like how you have to have 1000s of words, I checked your word count, it has 3600 words. So the more words, of course, the more that search engines like Google are able to pull information and know when to put it in front of someone on a search results page. So that just really, really helps. And just for reference for anyone listening, or even you, Laura, if you're ever looking to crank out just like a quick blog, I recommend to my clients to have it be a minimum of 500 words. So you were like crushing it over the eye to run long. But that works really well for SEO. So that is definitely something that is helpful when it comes to SEO, like I said, the search engines are able to pull that information. Another cool thing is that since you have this compilation of all these freebies that you have beautifully organized in different categories, you've got so many links, so you're actually linking out to other business owners websites, and you're giving them SEO juice. And then I'm sure what's probably likely happening is many of these people are writing blogs in their own websites and linking back to you, which is giving you some SEO juice back. So it's a very nice, like symbiotic relationship when that happens. And SEO loves connections. So you know, this is a piece that is built to be shared and to be linked back to and to drive traffic both ways. So that's just some of the stuff that you're doing. Well, with SEO, I have lots of other notes. Do you have thoughts or questions?

Laura Belgray:

Yeah. Okay. So my conclusion is, I should probably encourage these shrimpers who participate not only to email to their lists, but to post about it on their blogs.

Brittany Herzberg:

That would be really, really helpful. Even posting an Instagram stories or having a post on Instagram, or including it in that link in bio. That would also be a link back to your website. And without getting too technical. What happens is that some websites like Google is very well respected. And Google knows Google is great. So it's going to give itself a very high like report card score. Instagram is the same deal. So when Instagram has a link from Instagrams site or app to your website, that SEO juice has like sparkle powers on it, and it's just like, 10 times more excellent. So that could even be another thing that people could do. But blogs are amazing. And if you have a blog going to them, and they have one coming to you. It's just like happy vibes all over the place.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah. And does Google respect all social platforms as much as it does Instagram? Is it the same juice if you post the link on Facebook, or threads, or even formerly known as Twitter.

Brittany Herzberg:

All of them have like their third iteration of names. That's a great point. So if you ever Google even like Google your own name, you'll notice that LinkedIn typically comes up pretty high, your website comes up pretty high, and Facebook generally comes up pretty high up on page one. Yeah. So I know LinkedIn, it really loves Pinterest is another one. But LinkedIn, I would say is probably like, the best bet for people to post into have like the most SEO juice to know. So gonna overuse that.

Laura Belgray:

Okay, I'm gonna go more on LinkedIn. I try to post there, but I'm terrible about it. It's just not my platform and not my scene so much. But that's true. It does bring up LinkedIn, if you Google somebody's name, brings up Facebook and LinkedIn and not so much Instagram or the others,

Brittany Herzberg:

not as much. Yeah, but the reason it has this, like high view of Instagram and other social profiles like LinkedIn, and Facebook is because that is a website where people are often sending links away from that website. So Google was like, Okay, you already have a ton of backlinks, we know that there's going to be at least some good backlinks over here. That's all that I was trying to imply with that. But I know for sure, if you just Google and name like you said, LinkedIn, Facebook, Facebook pages and Facebook groups show up generally pretty high, but we don't often see Instagram as no high up but it was fun. Yeah, it's a fun spot to be I want Threads to start showing up.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah, that would be nice! Instagram, I get alerts. Whenever I post on there. It's very annoying, like Google will send me my Google Alerts like Laura Belgray on Instagram. Like, I know, I wrote this. I want to know what people are saying about me, not what I just posted yesterday. But anyway, I digress.

Brittany Herzberg:

For anyone listening, if you're not familiar with what Laura's talking about, you can set up Google Alerts and you can set it up for different phrases like I have one that set up for proposals, something like that, where people are actually looking for Speaker speaker proposals. So you can set it for a variety Do I have my name as well? So that's more than likely what you have. Yes. Laura Belgray. And you want to know what people are talking about? Yes. So Google's like emailing you, even though you're like, Yeah, I just did that post about an hour ago.

Laura Belgray:

Right? That's me talking about me. Thanks anyway.

Brittany Herzberg:

So another couple of things that you're doing great with this Shrimpmukkah page is that you are making such smart use of your headlines. For anyone listening, please stop sleeping on these headlines! That is a key place to put keywords. And even if you're like, I don't know what keywords to use. Honestly, if you're just being intentional with the words and the phrases that you're using, you're going to be nailing it at least close to like 85% of the way. So don't sleep on headlines. But also a quick note, there can only be one h1 on every single web page, there really should be. And I would even go so far as to say there must be one h1, but only one. There are real territorial. They don't like to share space. But you can use as many H2's and 3's as you want to. Alright, I will hop off my soapbox. So yeah, I mean, you've got tons of people sharing. Do you remember how many people you featured? You know, just on like the 2023 one?

Laura Belgray:

I don't, I have no idea. It is now there are like now I would say 100 People in the Shrimp Club community between alums and current members, I have not counted.

Brittany Herzberg:

that's good to know. So you've got people who have been through Shrimp Club, and then you've got like current Shrimpers in there as well. Yes, I love that. So this is just brilliant to kind of like wrap up the SEO section. It's brilliant. Because you've got this page, where you're linking out to other people, more than likely, at least some of them are linking back to this page. So what Google sees when you've got this piece that's being shared both ways and all over the place, is that oh, people really like this, there's a party happening over here. And Google starts to go, Okay, this is like a piece we can trust. Obviously, people are interacting with it, they're hanging out on the page for a long time, which is something that search engines want to see, they want to see the people are not just going there, but they're hanging out and they're consuming the information. And more than likely what happens with this page is that people go to Laura's website, and then they're like, clicking through this Shrimpmukkah list. And then they're probably going over to other parts of her website, you've got really smart links at the bottom where you link to other articles that you've done, you've got your own freebies and your own like offers in there as well. So anytime you can make smart use of links and buttons, that's just kind of really help your SEO. So you've got that like all up and down this page, which is wonderful. I will say if you wanted to take it like next level, and this would be quite a bit of work. But there's a couple of ideas for you unsolicited advice.

Laura Belgray:

I'ts solicited! I want them. Tell me how.

Brittany Herzberg:

Two things. One would be photos. I'll get into details in a second. And the other one would be hyperlink to Shrimp Club. You've got that section at the top where you talk about trim club. And I love it. I can see you you're gonna go do it right now or Yeah, right.

Laura Belgray:

Practically.

Brittany Herzberg:

I love this immediate action.

Laura Belgray:

Now I'm taking notes right now. Oh, good. Okay, so photos. We'll talk about those because I wanted to like what photos and the hyperlink to Shrimp Club. I think sometimes I'm reluctant to link away, like at the top of a post, but why not? I can link to Shrimp Club.

Brittany Herzberg:

Yeah, I know. That's a big thing. In the copywriting world, it's, you know, especially if you think of like sales page best practices or what's thought of as best practices. It's like people come on the page, there's no header, there's no footer, you're in or you're out, you're buying or get the heck out of here, right. But with a blog, and even with other stuff that I write like case studies, I get link happy. They're very intentional. They're very strategic, just like this would be, you know, linking out to Shrimp Club. It's helping not only the humans navigate your website and likely find something that I mean, if they're here, and they're reading about this, and they're seeing of all these other Shrimpers. And they're seeing these really cool resources, and maybe they want to end up on this page as well. Then they're going to be curious about Shrim Club, so why not link it, right? And then going back to photos, this is such a missed opportunity. And I'm just as guilty of it like I am not on a high horse over here. This is a missed opportunity of having keyword rich titles for images, and then also even including alt text, which would be if you've never heard of that, and you're listening to this, just being descriptive about what the image is. And having that in, in the back end where it actually asks you for alternative text. So you can make smart use of the pictures by titling them. with keywords on your computer before you pull them into your website, and that's the key piece is you want to do it before.

Laura Belgray:

Oh, wait. Okay, so say that again before you pull them into your website. You mean just in the name, the file name?

Brittany Herzberg:

So where it says IMG 5324, you'd want to take that out. And for example, I have a boatload of my images that are like Brittany-Herzberg-SEO-copywriter. So I've got my name, and then I've got, you know, other keywords. My name is a keyword, but so is SEO copywriter for you having Shrimp Club or having Shrimpmukkah in there or having even you know, depending on what type of photos you've got. If you had a picture of someone's freebie, or if you had a picture of someone's face next to a testimonial or something like that would be, you know, the person's name what they are, or even just having like Shrimp Club in there. Yeah, the possibilities are endless, which is sometimes overwhelming for folks.

Laura Belgray:

Right? Yeah. But for sure, I've got like Shrimp Club pictures from our retreats and things like that, that I can put in there. Maybe I put in pictures of my own freebies. Yeah, exactly. Because to pick someone at random would be unfair thing. Yeah.

Brittany Herzberg:

And that's the thing where it's like, it would be very overwhelming. And I'm sure a lot of work for you to have a picture for everyone. With all of the freebies. Yes. So yeah, I think that's a really wise use of the images to have something from the retreats or something of your own freebies. I think that's really smart.

Laura Belgray:

although, next year, I could ask everybody to submit a picture of themselves with their freebie.

Brittany Herzberg:

You could. Yeah, as long as it doesn't feel like too much work because it is a lot of work on your end. If you do that. Here's a hot tip for you. Have them title their images before sending it to you. Yes. And we can talk through that too. If you want help like as it gets closer to that if you're like you said this thing about images just come find me.

Laura Belgray:

But it would be you know, Laura-Belgray.

Brittany Herzberg:

Yep, and then you could have them put their title if it's like a content marketer, if it's a social media strategist, just have them put their name with their title.

Laura Belgray:

so First Name-Last Name-Title

Brittany Herzberg:

with all the dashes, like if it's SEO copywriter, it's SEO-copywriter.

Laura Belgray:

Got it. Okay.

Brittany Herzberg:

I love it. All right, before we move on, the other two sections are a little thinner. So this was definitely like the bulk of it where I was like, You're doing amazing here. Do you have other SEO thoughts or questions for this? Before we jump off?

Laura Belgray:

You know, I do have a question. Something I've always wondered and never looked into about the slug? Because sometimes I'm like, why are we putting the whole title into the slug? When nobody ever wants to type that out? I'm certainly not going to want to I can create a pretty link for it. But does it just make more sense to be like/Shrimp ? MCCA 2023.

Brittany Herzberg:

That's exactly what I was gonna say I would say because that is a very lengthy slug there. So okay, first of all, let me bring us all up to speed. The URL slug that Laura is talking about is like if you were to go to for my website, Brittanyherzberg.com/anything that comes after that slash is what's known as the URL slug. At one point, I remembered what you are all stood for, but it doesn't matter. So the slug over here for shrimp Maga is very long. So yes, I would say you could do shrimp maga 2024. For this year. You could even say Shrimpmukkah-shrimp-club-2024 If you wanted to do that. So the reason it helps to have keywords, I usually keep it three to five keywords long before I go off on my little tangent just to give you like a guidepost. And sometimes I go beyond that. But this is very low. Yeah, no, it's crazy. These keywords help. Again, it's another spot where we can plug things in. So Google and search engines are able to use these words to help pull your article and put it in front of the right people. So it's definitely great to have keywords, but you don't need 10.

Laura Belgray:

Great, so I like your thoughts. Okay. Good to know.

Brittany Herzberg:

Yeah, good question.

Laura Belgray:

Thank you.

Brittany Herzberg:

We didn't even prep that one. Alright, so as you know, you're doing great, there's a couple other things you could do. But you're 9.5 out of 10 already, with storytelling, you have the gift of writing how you speak. And that's something that people really, really resonate with, they eat it up, it draws them in, and it keeps them reading down the page, or it keeps him reading down the email, whatever the case may be. It really pulls people in and hooks them and it keeps them going. That's why I love it so much for case studies. So it captivates readers, which lends itself to someone staying on your page longer, which again, that's one of the things I mentioned is good for SEO. So storytelling actually helps your SEO. You see this as soon as you click on the page, too. So if you go and look at this schema page at the beginning, you really welcome people in and explain what they're about to dive into. And I'm sure some people like skip through it. That's fine. But all of those words on that page, again, are going to help those search engines to put this page in front of the right people who maybe aren't on so and so's email list or aren't following this other person on Instagram. So the big takeaway here that I want you to take to heart is that story doesn't have to be relegated to an email, it doesn't have to be relegated to social media or to a case study, you can bring it into your regular web, copy, your blogs, all these types of things. And I really want you to because that is what again, it draws people in and it keeps them going down the page, I keep repeating myself, but it's because that is the magic, that is the gold. So thoughts here with storytelling?

Laura Belgray:

I do wonder sometimes like, Oh, am I putting too much stuff before the information someone's looking for, but I don't tend to do a lot of the kinds of posts that would come off if someone is looking for instructions. So mine are not going to show up there anyway. So I think people will be a little more patient reading my stuff. I think it absolutely helps. You know, I didn't know that it helped for SEO. But I do know that it helps create connection between you and your readers. When if I land on someone's page, because I found them through Google, I usually get no sense of them. And rarely am I going to sign up for their list or poke around. I'm just like, thanks. Got the info. If there's some kind of story there. Yeah, by so you know, so much for like, quote, delivering value. If it doesn't connect somebody with you in a meaningful way, then, what's the point? So I have always put story in everywhere. Like, I will never do a straight info post about anything.

Brittany Herzberg:

Yeah, like a how to step one, step two, step three, it's it gets really boring. If you do that, and you don't have some kind of story or, or the sides or the jokes, it brings in your personality. And to your point, I want to see the person's personality to know like, am I gonna like you enough even to sign up for your email list, or even to sign up and get this freebie from you? I don't know, if you're giving me nothing to go on. I'm at home. Right? So if you wanted to take the storytelling up a notch for this trip, mocha pages, you could add one line in and again, you've got like hundreds of people on there, I'm sure you could add one line in from your perspective about the transformation each person went through, or one thing that stands out about the work that they're doing, that would be labor intensive on you. But if you felt like doing that, you totally could. Option two would be to get the contributors get the shrimpers to share about their transformation of being in Shrimp Club, which would pull double duty as a testimonial for the next thing we're about to go into with social proof. So you got two options. One of them is more labor intensive on you. One of them is more putting the ball in their court and also having it pull double duty as social proof.

Laura Belgray:

okay, that would help social proof but not SEO. It does have does help SEO, okay.

Brittany Herzberg:

Because what the brilliance is of that is that when they're explaining things, when they're sharing about their own journey of working with you experience of working with you, it's naturally going to pull in keywords.

Laura Belgray:

Got it. So it's good for everyone.

Brittany Herzberg:

It's a win win, win, win win, win win this year.

Laura Belgray:

I want one sentence about your transformation in Shrimp Club. Yeah.

Brittany Herzberg:

And you might get lucky. And I mean, some of us here in this room, like writing a lot. We like sharing lots of thoughts. So you might get some people who are like, I just want to write a whole paragraph. So here you go. And you could either throw the whole thing in there or just pull out the line that stands out the most and use that I'm sure you're gonna have someone that's going to do that. Yes,

Laura Belgray:

probably. So now what do you think about it in terms of the layout of the page? Because it's very easy to read through the page like to go down the list and pick and choose and see what's what. And if you had a sentence after each one, do you think that would start to junk it up and feel to bulked out?

Brittany Herzberg:

I mean, your pages run long. So I don't think that it would feel too lengthy for anyone, especially who's used to reading your writing. But also it would help because one bonus and I'm sure this was part of your thought, but it might not be like the biggest reason why you did this. You're talking about strip club, you've got the strippers in here. If they talk about their experience, then that's just kind of like an added bonus. I don't think it would be too hefty. You have two options. I'm looking at the page right now you've got the headline, where it's the person's name, what they do, and then you've got the resource is in red, and it's hyperlinked and then you have the brief description of what the freebie is. You could put their quote under their name before we get to the freebie link. You could put the quote underneath the explanation So you've got options there. And I know you have a website person, so they may probably have their thoughts and I always leave the design to them. But I don't think it would be too much. I think it would be kind of quote me as a reader and a consumer of this. I think it would be kind of cool to see that.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, no, that never have thought of that. Tada.

Brittany Herzberg:

Leave it to me social proof and testimonials was my gateway into copywriting. So for me, that's always very top of mind. Yes. All right, before we jump to social proof, any thoughts on storytelling before we leave any questions, any clarifications or anything?

Laura Belgray:

No, I don't think so. Those are great ideas. So I'm excited. Yeah,

Brittany Herzberg:

I mean, you're already crushing it. These are just like, if you want to get like a 12 out of 10. Yeah, sure. Who doesn't? Alright, so when it comes to social proof, your entire page is filled with people who've been inside the Shrimp club. So you're already showcasing your students, clients members, I don't even know really what to call them other than Shrimp.

Laura Belgray:

But yeah, I call them shrimpers. So

Brittany Herzberg:

the fact that someone is even on the list builds instant trust from me, or reader, to someone who's on lists, because they've already been in Laura's world. And I like Laura, and I resonate with Laura. And so Laura is going to attract other people who are, you know, vibing, kind of the same way. So that already builds instant trust between a reader and this person who's on the list. So if I then grab this freebie that's listed, and I ended up in so and so's world, I already have a little bit of like a rapport with them. So that definitely is social proof, not only for you, Laura, but also for the person who was in this article. So I think it's doing amazingly well I find myself so often each year, just like scrolling to see who's included on the list. I know some of the names by now. And now that I understand you've got some alums on the page. Yes, it makes total sense. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's why she's still over there. And again, the idea here was testimonial quote, If you want to include that, I know that would be easier on you. And I think it would pull some amazing double duty for having that storytelling component and the social proof component. So I love that. Another idea for you. And this would be a bigger deliverable I have to your type of thing is if you ever did do case studies on any of your shrimpers, and you had, you know, it living on a blog, or it living on a web page of its own on your website, you could include buttons to these various case studies around that person. So like, for example, I think I actually heard about you from Brenna McGowan. So I know she's on your list. Like hypothetically, if you were to do a case study about Brenna being a shrimper, and you have that page, then you could just include a button, you know, you've got Brenna, her name, you've got maybe a testimonial quote, you've got her freebie, the explanation of it, and then a button, like, hey, when I want to hear about Brenna's time inside the Shrimp club, here you go click over, and then you could read it. So that's just an idea where if you wanted to go like ham, on the social proof, you could do that.

Laura Belgray:

Right? Or I could just link to a anchor link right on the page, where their testimonial already exists.

Brittany Herzberg:

You could do that for sure to Yeah, if you already have that, go for it. And then if in the future, you were to do a case study or anything like that, then you could like, swap out the destination of the button. Cool. Yeah, like I said, you're already doing so incredibly well, with this piece. I love seeing SEO and social proof and storytelling come together. And I think you're just doing such a phenomenal job of it. Any other thoughts before we jump away from social proof?

Laura Belgray:

Well, final thoughts about this page? Or we might not be there yet. But like when you talk about is crushing it with SEO? What does that really mean? Like how is someone going to come across it if they're Googling what, that's

Brittany Herzberg:

part of the keywords, so having a target keyword, a focus keyword, which for this page, people know Shep Maga, like I know it, anyone who's in your world kinda sorta knows it, but

Laura Belgray:

they probably don't know how to spell it. That is true. For the public, people, I want to discover my site, does it do anything for that?

Brittany Herzberg:

Using Shrimpmukkah would not probably even using trip club would not. And I actually went through this recently with a client where I'm writing a case study for her. And she's like, Well, why are we not making the target keyword be the program name or the membership name? And I'm like, well, people aren't necessarily searching for that. Because if they're not in your world, they're just not going to know these wonderful terms that we've all coined and that people start to know once they've been on our email list or seen us on Instagram. So what I would recommend and trying to be thoughtful about this, what I would aim for is like, coming up with a term and not coming up with it, but like focusing on a term where people come into the strip club for what what is the result that they come in wanting or what is the stuck point for them, where they end up being Like, Oh, this the trunk club? That's the thing for me, do you have any ideas off the top of your head? Before I go?

Laura Belgray:

I've thought about that. But I think getting to shrimp Club is a longer road, like someone who's already been in my world, for a while, I actually don't want people who haven't experienced me in some form, they tend not to be the best members, or applicants. And so like the point of this particular post is to get people on my list and everyone else's list. But really to get them over to my site, and explore like email marketing. And like if somebody were looking for and I make a point of this examples of lead magnets, or list building, yeah, I think they might be interested in this. So I

Brittany Herzberg:

would aim more for lead magnets obviously make sense. List Building also make sense? So what I'm doing is I'm typing this into Google. For anyone listening, I will link below the tool I use, I love using a free chrome extension called Uber Suggest. So I just typed in lead magnet examples. And I'm looking for Okay, would it make sense? It's called search intent, which essentially just means like, if I'm looking through the variety of blogs and links that are on this page, the search engine results, would it make sense for me to end up alongside them? Am I in the right room? Is my blog going to be in the right room? That answer is yes. I mean, I'm seeing things like what is a lead magnet 20, eye catching lead magnet examples. So obviously, like it would make sense to land here. The second piece of information I'm looking at, is what Uber suggests. And I'm looking where it says volume, which is search volume. And what that means is, on average, each month, how many people are looking for this keyword, and the keyword is lead magnet examples. And the search volume indicates that 480 people each month are looking for this, which is good. Not a lot. No, but that's good. Oh, it is good. I like it to stay between zero and 1000. And

Laura Belgray:

what about that versus say, list building or build your email list or subscriber list? I don't know, which is the best one. Let's try it. Email List Building.

Brittany Herzberg:

event list building has again 480. So that's also good. And then I saw list building strategies pop up, that has 70. But that's also still good. The good range is zero to 1000. For search volume, it's even better if it's zero to 100. Because then you're going to end up with more of those like warm to hot leads, who will be primed for the type of thing that you're going to offer? Honestly, I think either one would be great. Maybe do some, some thinking on that. And I can do some thinking on that outside of the call. But also another one is email list building strategies. And that has a search volume of 40, which is also great. It sounds tiny to us. Yeah, our brains are like go for the bigger number. But then you end up being a small fish in a big pond and ending up on page eight, which I don't want to happen. But that's a great question. So then, to follow up on the answer, you want to take that keyword and then put it in all the right places. So I'll actually send this to you or and then up for anyone listening I'll link this below but I haven't SEO basics checklist, which was built to help people have all the SEO pieces for any web page, any blog post. So you walk through like you get the target keyword, the supportive keywords, you learn how to make the URL slug, you figure out how to do image titles that are all that stuff. And then you have everything in one place. And you can just copy paste it over into the backend of your website. Typically, most of the stuff is on the back end. But some of it is like the headings, you want your keywords to be in the headings and have some kind of strategy around that too. Right. Okay. Is your brain spinning with all this stuff?

Laura Belgray:

Somewhat, but not really. I just like okay, but there's a lot I want to do. Yes. Yeah.

Brittany Herzberg:

It's not going to be wasted effort to do it even. I mean, we're in February right now. So it's not wasted effort to go and do this with your 2023 shirt mica page. But it's also going to help you as you're crafting your 2024 page, right?

Laura Belgray:

Okay, so say I chose lead magnets. Would that have to be in the h1? Ideally,

Brittany Herzberg:

we would want it in the h1. So let me take a look at your page.

Laura Belgray:

Mm hmm. That's right now I have opt in freebies.

Brittany Herzberg:

So yeah, if you did, what was the one you mentioned? Lead Magnets. Lead Magnets. Yeah, right now it says Shrimpmukkah 2023. roundup of must have opt in freebies from shrimp club superstars. So you could keep that and just have it say a 2023. roundup of must have lead magnets from Shrimp clubs, superstars. So this is the thing with keywords that I never want it to strip your personality from these headlines. I want your personality there. That's really critical. But I just want us to have With the right keyword in there, so I love the idea you could even like, change that if you wanted to. On the fly. I like that. And

Laura Belgray:

even though it doesn't say examples of lead magnets, you think that's still good? That's okay. Yeah. Okay, let me do done. I love it just updated it.

Brittany Herzberg:

That is always so fun to see people take immediate action.

Laura Belgray:

It's either immediate or never for me. So, as

Brittany Herzberg:

we wrap this up, I would love to know, I know, like I said, your brain is probably just like, so stuffed and the ideas are popping. But what is just one big aha, that you had from the conversation? Oh,

Laura Belgray:

there are too many. But like, Yeah, I mean, just putting in pictures. I would not have thought about that. And that you had to do it before uploading it. You don't change it for the titles? Yes, the titles. So you don't change the file name? Like once you've uploaded it? retroactively. You want to change it before you upload it? I had no idea.

Brittany Herzberg:

Yeah. And the other thing too, that I should mention, just so no one goes and does this is you don't want to change your URL slug on the fly either. Right? I won't get into it. But that causes a whole bunch of problems. It's not the end of the world, you have to redirect. Right. Yeah. And just causes a little bit of a traffic jam and some cleanup work on aisle three for you that you might not be anticipating if you don't know about it. Right.

Laura Belgray:

So making a pretty link is smarter, right?

Brittany Herzberg:

I like using the links on your website and having it be like talking shrimp.com/whatever keywords you want to put after that. When you say Pretty Link, you're talking about like Bitly or link tree, right? Or

Laura Belgray:

it's built in, at least in WordPress engine. Oh, there's a thing called pretty links. And you can create links to anything that are you know, for me, it would be talking shrimp slash, whatever. And it can be a link to something I want to redirect to that's outside of my website, or it can be to this page. But that would mean you wouldn't have a problem with someone posting an old link that they had. And everyone getting a 404 Gotcha.

Brittany Herzberg:

I don't think I know enough about that. I didn't know that word press had that. But yes, that sounds like a wise option.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah, I don't know. Otherwise, how to do it without people getting a 404 from wherever else it's posted.

Brittany Herzberg:

Yeah. So there you go. Stick with your current best practices, and I won't mess them up.

Laura Belgray:

But next year, it's going to be Shrimpmukkah. Shrimp club. 2024. I like that. Yeah. Or Shrimpmukkah lead magnets. 2024 do that. You think it's better to have the keywords you want in the slug? Yes.

Brittany Herzberg:

Especially because I would go with Shrimpmukkah lead magnets. 2024 Because you made it a point of saying you want people to come in and different door into your world of working with you. So I would not highlight shrimp club for that. Yeah, so Shrimpmukkah, right. Lead Magnets. 2024. Okay, great. I love that for you know that me too. Awesome. Okay. Is there any other like, final thoughts here? And then I'll get into like how people can find you and all that good stuff?

Laura Belgray:

No, I don't think any I mean, I'm sure I'll think of plenty FINAL THOUGHTS later. But it was just great and eye opening and fun to see. And it's nice to hear that I'm already doing it well with that page. Because I've always considered myself an SEO dummy. Like, I just couldn't bear to deal with it. And I don't like research. It's just not fun for me. So like looking up keywords and all that kind of stuff. Maybe the Chrome extension will make it fun. But no, you gave me tons of ideas. And I'm going to actually send this to my team so that we don't forget, they'll keep a note for 2024 for December. Yeah,

Brittany Herzberg:

I love that. I'm glad to see you make changes. Like I said even like on the call. That's pretty cool. Okay, so tell us about this epic email list that you have, which I've actually been mentioned on because nobody else thought to tell Maura that she was a finalist in the good reads.

Laura Belgray:

That's right. That's right. I might not have known like if you hadn't sent me that story DM or something I wouldn't have known and I wouldn't have created an entire campaign to get people to vote for me into the finals and vote me almost to number one. I got to number four. I know you're so and that was below the Fonz. So the other three have all been series regulars on a major mainstream TV series.

Brittany Herzberg:

Yeah. So, so cool. How do they get to this email with come over to talkingshrimp.com

Laura Belgray:

And you will see many portals there are a lot of freebies I have freebies of my own all over the site. So you will see my guide to non sucky subject lines, which has been called the gold standard of lead magnets by the way speaking of also see my guide to non sucky copy which is a talking from classic and I have story Goldmine, so many different freebies on there. In fact, if you go to my resources page, I have all the freebies collected. in one section, so you can just sign up for all of them.

Brittany Herzberg:

In case you're not watching the video I'm copying along, because of course, I'm like she's got a page with more links. This is magical.

Laura Belgray:

Got linked pages? You bet. Yeah. I've tried to make my website a link and opt in honey trap. Oh,

Brittany Herzberg:

you've done a great job of it. Thank you. I love it. You really do have amazing freebies, I've got at least three of the ones you just mentioned. Excellent. They're amazing. Thank you so much for being open to this and being vulnerable. And you know, just sharing this with us. I really appreciate it and asking such great questions. It makes my heart so happy.

Laura Belgray:

Oh, I've loved doing this. I mean, I learned a ton. And really the only way I'm ever going to learn stuff like this is to sit down with somebody, preferably on an interview. Otherwise, I just like can't be bothered. So this was great. Yeah, I'm all about efficiency. So it works for both of you are great and have so much knowledge and wisdom about this. So I really appreciate it.

Brittany Herzberg:

Thank you. All right, this has been incredible. Make sure you check out the links below go get in Laura's world never leave, just stay in her vortex. And I will see you on the next episode. That was really something wasn't it? What that really is again, and guide you toward being the answer to even more Google questions. Thanks so much for joining me this episode. You are the reason this show exists and that it keeps growing. You know, thanks to all those follows and reviews. If you know someone who could benefit from what we've shared, send it to them. We don't do shy around here. If you thought of clarifying or follow up questions about listening, you know what to do. Say hi on Instagram, check the show notes for all the things that were mentioned and I'll talk to you soon Brent

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