Web Design Business with Josh Hall

337 - Quick SEO Win Strategies with Barb Davids

• Josh Hall / Barb Davids

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Ever had a client ask “How long would it take to get to the top of Google?”

Ah, I can see your head nodding along now.

As web designers, we can’t expect clients to understand how long SEO results can take. We know nothing will lead to instant results and due to all the variables, competition and goal of the client, it may take months to see results…but there are some quick wins that you can implement to help clients see progress fairly soon. By fairly soon, I mean less than a couple weeks or even a few days depending.

In this podcast chat, Barb Davids of compassdigitalstrategies.com sheds light on some of the proven strategies she’s seen and implements for quickest SEO wins including:

  • How to tweak existing blog post page titles to see results
  • The different between heading title and page title
  • Why you DON’T want to change an existing URL
  • How to mix in video and blogs to get quicker SEO wins
  • Onsite tips and tricks you can implement on you or your client sites today for better rankings
  • And a whole lot more

While SEO is ever-evolving and challenging in a landscape of algorithm changes and Ai, these best practice principles continue to stand the test of time and are all what I implement in my web presence.

If you get some quick SEO wins using any of these tactics, drop a comment and let us know what worked for you!Get all links and resources mentioned along with a full transcription at:

https://joshhall.co/337

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Barb Davids:

If you change just your page title, you can just sit and wait on that for a couple of weeks and or probably don't even have to wait a couple of weeks, but I like to use two weeks as a general rule, then just wait and see if that makes any difference in how many people click through. Because that page title and that description is kind of like I relate it to like a window display or shopping display. When you're like walking down the street and you see the stores, like you use that page title and description to want to encourage people to step into your website, take a look around, that kind of thing. So that would be one tactic to refreshing. But I'm going to quick put another splat on this one Don't change your URL, because again it's kind of like that new piece. If you change your URL, it's basically a new page, even though you think it's the same thing and you're just changing it on the backend. It's a new page to Google and it makes it work a little bit harder to try and get to rank.

Josh Hall:

Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast, with your host, josh Hall, helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love. Hello, my web designer friends, who are always wanting to get better SEO rankings and, of course, to help your clients get better rankings, especially when they ask you the inevitable question hey web designer, how long would it take to get at the top of Google Now? If you have ever had a client ask you that question or something similar, I can probably see your head nodding along right now. Yes, it is, and look. We can't expect clients to truly understand SEO unless they have any sort of training or understanding of how Google works and SEO rankings work. But the tricky thing about SEO even if you're just doing basic onsite SEO for your websites is that you've got to empower clients to know, or at least to set some reasonable expectations, but you also want to ideally get them wins as quickly as possible. One question you may have is how do I know what to offer that can get them some quick wins, or what are some results that I could get fairly quickly in regards to SEO wins? Well, good thing you're here, because that's what we're diving into In this episode, my guest is Barb Davids of compassdigitalstrategiescom.

Josh Hall:

She has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to SEO and in this conversation here that we had, we really dive into the proven strategies for quickest SEO wins. Now, the title might be slightly misleading because I said quick SEO wins. Many of these will lead to quick SEO wins, but quick is relative. Quick could be a few days, it could be a few weeks, depending on the competition, the variables that are included. But regardless, these are things you could do that'll make a big difference for you and your client websites that aren't going to take several months Because you don't want to tell a client we could do this and maybe in a year it'll make a difference. No, you want to try to get them some quick wins as quickly as possible and then they'll trust you and pay you over and over and over and over again for SEO work, holla.

Josh Hall:

So we're going to dive into a lot of different things in this episode. All about quick SEO wins, most specifically about what you could do with your current blog posts and pages on your site. A big heads up as we dive into here that Barb will explain in more detail but how to be careful when you are messing with existing pages so you don't blow up your SEO presence, including not changing your URL. We're going to talk about video and how important and helpful that can be to get your blogs to rank quicker A ton of things you could do on your website today and your clients' websites today to see some results over the coming days and weeks. Much of this is not rocket science fairly simple, but sometimes you just need to be prompted. You're like chat GPT, you just you gotta be prompted and reminded to go do it. I hope this helps. I would love to hear your thoughts and takeaways as you start to get quick SEO wins, if you would drop us a comment for the show notes at this episode, which are going to be at joshhallco slash three three,7. There is where you'll be able to connect with Barb as well, and she has a free resource for you. If you go to compassdigitalstrategiescom slash PDF that's compassdigitalstrategiescom slash PDF she's got a free guide on how to get a thousand more website visits to your you guessed it website. All that and more at joshhallco slash 337.

Josh Hall:

Here's Barb. Let's talk quick SEO win, all right. Well, barb, it's so good to have you on this side of the podcast. I was just on your podcast recently. I don't know when both of ours are going to go out, but I'm excited to chat with you specifically about SEO because you have, like I told you when I was on your show, you have a unique perspective, I think, on web design because you, from what I can tell you, have a focus on the SEO side of things. I actually want to start with this question, which is I've seen a lot of people put so much stock in social media and other avenues now where I feel like there's less of an emphasis on SEO. To that end, do you think there's more opportunity for people to get better rankings and get more from SEO?

Barb Davids:

I think so it has changed a lot. I don't think there are as many websites out there, but I also think that there's a lot of people pushing up websites and not even considering the SEO at all. And with AI coming out and the AI overviews, I feel like people are freaking out about how to do their websites, like how do you get into the AI overviews? But it still stands at the core of it trying to get your website found still stands. There's a core foundation of creating content that's going to show up for the people who are searching for your solution. So is it easier? Probably, actually not. It's probably only easier in that if you start thinking about it now, as opposed to people who are only using and thinking about social media, you'll be ahead of them. So that would maybe be the difference.

Josh Hall:

So it's just a little more complex, would you say, with just the different ways that Google, in particular, is displaying SEO results now.

Barb Davids:

Yeah, I think the results are definitely different and depending on the query that's happening. So, depending on your industry, well, web design. And depending on the query that's happening. So depending on your industry, well, web design, depending on if it's informational or transactional or whatnot, then it might come up differently or look differently. But the I lost my train of thought.

Josh Hall:

Well, it's interesting because, as much as I feel like SEO is getting complex, I feel like, honestly, I feel like there's almost complex. I feel like, honestly, I just I feel like there's almost less competition now. In a weird way, you would think with AI that there may be more competition, but I almost feel like there's less good organic content on strictly for SEO, because so many people are focused on social media.

Barb Davids:

Well, that, and also it's hard to be unique. I feel like that might be why it feels like that too, because when you go searching for stuff, it feels like there's all the same stuff out there, like there's not a lot of uniqueness in the content, but it's because what's showing is that's all that's showing. There's probably still some unique stuff out there, but the idea of creating content that has a unique perspective or shows your personality, I think, is what will stand out more, because everybody's trying to get in the top 10 and then everybody tries to copy the top 10 to think that they can get in the top 10 that way. But that's not really the right approach. I mean, it's you look at the top 10 to see what's happening, or the first page to see, kind of, maybe what Google likes, but still you want to create something different and something unique and something that fits your brand. So I think that's maybe why it might feel like that a little bit.

Josh Hall:

So, speaking of rip offs, you talked about looking at the top 10 and looking what's working. I recently did a video for Circle, which is the community platform I use, and it is a YouTube video and a blog post and it's 10 awesome features of Circle. I did that in February of this year, 2024. And just recently I just Googled to see where that was coming up and it's ranking really well. Now, if you happen to search Circle SEO or Circle Community Platform, it's starting to pull up, usually in the number one spot. But what's interesting is because of that, now there is a copycatter who has the exact same title as I did on YouTube very similar thumbnail and, coincidentally, out of the 10 tips that I recommend, 8 out of 10 are the exact ones that I did. So they are literally looking.

Josh Hall:

There are these scammer channels and bloggers that are I see you're shaking your head. I'm sure you've seen this game they look at the top 10, like you mentioned, and then they try to. I don't even understand why they would copycat it, because of course, mine's going to show up, mine's the OG, but I don't know All that like. That's. What I've seen is these copycatters try to look at what's working and I don't know if there's any successful. You know slimy SEOers who get success out of that. It doesn't make sense to me why someone would take that approach.

Barb Davids:

Yeah, well, definitely, I think that it's a short term thought process. I think it's a short-term mentality or mindset to that as well. I think that if somebody is looking to do it that way, they're not in it for the long haul. They're just in it to hopefully get likes, they're in it to get page views or whatever clicks to their website, but it's not going to be a long-term solution. So, and yeah, I just think that's one of those things you have to think about with the long term in mind and not worry so much about if they're copying you but it's.

Barb Davids:

Google sees that too. You know, they see that there's somebody copying and they're not going to just allow everybody to copy or bring up the same things over and over and over again. Although I would say there was a lot of hoopla in the SEO industry about like Reddit showing up. Although I would say there was a lot of hoopla in the SEO industry about like Reddit showing up, and that's not really helpful because it I mean it is in certain terms, but it was showing up excessively, and I think that Google sees these things over time and they try to make adjustments when they see them. Now they are getting a lot of bad rap right now, but they do try. I mean, that's their whole purpose, is? They want people to come to their website. They want people to come to Google because the ads, of course, right, but I think the, the copycatters, are something that we just have to ignore.

Josh Hall:

It's funny, it's coincidental, because we're talking about quick SEO wins here, and that is exactly that makes me feel better to hear your perspective on that Cause. I agree, it does seem like, like in the case of that video that ripped mine off, they were just pushing their affiliate link.

Josh Hall:

But, I agree, like maybe they'll get a little bump when it's a new piece of content, but very quickly, thank goodness. I actually have a lot of respect for the team at Google with what they're doing with their algorithms, because they do seem to be cutting down on that stuff and I think they probably knew they had to with AI, because you're getting so much duplicated and similar content. As you just mentioned on the outset of this, the original stuff, the personal stuff, the goofy, quirky, real content that's actually human, is what I think is going to continue to last so much longer than these janky things that pop up. So, with this idea of quick wins, you talked about the top 10 spots. I don't know if you saw recently that I'm sure you did it being in the SEO land.

Josh Hall:

Google did have continuous scroll for a while. What was it like? A year or two? And then they just suddenly, actually more recently, I was like, oh my gosh, pages are back. I love Google search pages. I love SERPs. We had a bit of a poll in Web Designer Pro this week about who likes the scroll and who likes the pages. So let me ask you, barb, as we get into some quick wins for SEO are you team pages or team scroll? For the.

Barb Davids:

Google Team pages 100%, and here's why One as a consumer, I would sit there and scroll and I was like, well, when can I stop? I can't ever stop because it just kept going Like I want to see all the results and then, as an SEO, I get more. And maybe they didn't really change it. I think they still did it in Google search console, where you can see where you rank, but it's a much easier way to track. So if you had continuous scroll, I don't know if they Google search console is really weird because it doesn't tell you either when you're in ranking zero, like above the organic but, I didn't know if the actual numbers were true when it came to continuous scroll.

Josh Hall:

It's so. Yeah, from what I saw, we had a lot of discussions about this in pro is. It was a lot of like. You would look at your rank total so I might say like you're in spot 40. Whereas the thing when that happened, when the scroll feature came out, the big thing was that clients could not say I want to be on the first page of Google anymore, because the pages were gone.

Josh Hall:

But I agree, I'm team pages as well, especially with this idea of quick wins. Team pages as well, especially with this idea of quick wins. Because if you can show your clients, there's something about telling your clients that hey, you've gone from page five to page two versus you've gone from spot 100 to spot 50. Like that's not really a big deal for a client, but that's, I agree. That's kind of why I'm excited that pages are back.

Barb Davids:

Yeah, I'm all for it. I don't. Yeah, I'd rather not have something that continually makes me stay there, although maybe it was good for them with ads, because they threw the ads in every once in a while.

Josh Hall:

So that's true. Uh, if a client were to ask you how long would it take to see SEO results? What would you say? I want to set the foundation here for quick wins. What?

Barb Davids:

would you say?

Josh Hall:

to that. What do you say to that?

Barb Davids:

I tell them that they should be prepared for maybe six months to a year, generally speaking. However, there are things that sometimes can happen where we can see results in maybe two weeks, even a week. It will vary based off of where they're sitting now and what needs to be done with their website. And that's basically the thing I mean. There are no quick wins. There are. I would like to call them quick. What are the quickest wins? Maybe not quick wins, but what are the quickest out of SEO wins to go through?

Josh Hall:

What are some of the common, the commonalities that you've seen? For those who have got fairly quick results, let's say, even if it's in less than three months, what were some of those things that were common between those quickest wins?

Barb Davids:

I think the biggest ones were blog refreshes. Frankly, there are there's a lot of outdated content on a lot of websites and if we can refresh them at the time when you set them up, you put them out there and you think you're never going to touch them again. But in reality, you actually do need to touch them again because they get outdated and they get stale and Google can see that and they like fresh content. And if it's when it's sitting out there, there are other people creating new stuff all the time. So Google's going to favor probably the newer content because it's newer. So if you refresh your content, then you might be able to rank faster. And there's a lot of things that you can.

Barb Davids:

It's not just like changing a page title or putting on one image. It's actually doing it intentionally and going through and seeing if you can add more content to it. Is there a different angle that you might have or a different perspective? It's definitely the copy and the images, of course, but is there a way to even change the layout or maybe mix things around with the idea of how you're talking about it a long time ago, or like it's changing a little bit, even like in podcasting, when we start out, we don't start with the introduction.

Barb Davids:

People are creating blog posts, or have created them in the past, with this whole freaking backstory of like why need something needs to be done, when in actuality the answer was like halfway down or at the end, and so people would have to scroll through. And I think now it's changing a little bit to say, okay, I'm not going to give you the backstory. People are thinking more about who's going to read the blog post and being more intentional with what they're putting in the blog post. So, refreshing it in that perspective, some of the older ones those have done well.

Josh Hall:

I noticed that too. I was a blogger for Elegant Themes for a couple years and one thing in their author handbook I think I can share this publicly they said in the first paragraph you want to share exactly what you're going to talk about and the result that you're going to get with this blog post, without having to find that lower in the page and Google is like if you can answer a question pretty quickly in that first paragraph. Google is both AI overviews and just the featured snippets. Those are what's pulling up often. I found that one of my tutorials is the difference between the Divi builder and the Divi theme and that started getting featured on Google searches just because I had said hey, the difference is this in the first paragraph.

Josh Hall:

A question on these refreshes. I love that you brought this up because I have a lot of Okay, I have a lot of questions on this. Let's just have a little Barb coaching time. If I change the title, would that not have some SEO implications, either good or bad? I would think if I'm going to change the title, would that not have some SEO implications, either good or bad? I would think, like if I'm going to change the title and I'm going to change content and do new images. Should I just post a new blog post and have these be similar? Are they going to conflict with each other? I guess I'm wondering where the line is between revamping or refreshing a blog post and then just doing a new one.

Barb Davids:

Great question. So I'm going to use the. It depends again, because it will vary based off of the content or the topic that you're talking about. I always say refresh versus creating a new one, unless you have a completely different angle, Because when you create a new one you have to start from scratch. Basically, you have to retell Google to come look at this page and figure out if it likes it and figure out if it wants to rank it, Whereas your existing one already has some like credibility with Google. So if you just refresh it, it has a better chance at ranking highly or re-ranking than it does a new one.

Barb Davids:

In the general sense, Not everything I ever say, I just put a splat with it like a um asterisk disclaimer, because there's always exceptions to the rule. But the idea is to refresh it. And if you just change the headline or the title, there's two different ones. So you have the headline when you land on the page, which you can change, but you also have the page title, which is the technical back-end piece of it. Typically it's the same as the headline when you don't do anything or change it, but that page title that you put behind it is what shows up in search results and so if you can just refresh that, that's actually a tactic, so you can just change your page title and see if it will garner more clicks from Google. Because like, for example, if you're sitting on, one tactic is this kind of goes with that, If you're sitting on second page, so position 11 through 20, if you change just your page title, you can just sit and wait on that for a couple of weeks and or probably don't even have to wait a couple of weeks, but I like to use two weeks as a general rule.

Barb Davids:

Then just wait and see if that makes any difference in how many people click through. Because that page title and that description is kind of like I um, I relate it to like a window display or shopping display. When you're like walking down the street and you see the stores, like you use that page title and description to want to encourage people to step into your website, take a look around that kind of thing. So that would be one tactic to refreshing. But I'm going to quick put another splat on this one Don't change your URL, Because again, it's kind of like that new piece. If you change your URL, it's basically a new page, even though you think it's the same thing and you're just changing it on the back end.

Josh Hall:

It's a new page to Google and it makes it work a little bit harder to try and get to rank. Great, great advice. I'm so glad you really went into the difference between a page title and the heading like the H1. For years I kind of thought those were basically the same thing, but when I started using WordPress and then I use Yoast any SEO platform that's where you would adjust the page title. Is that right or can you? Can you adjust the page title natively with WordPress without I have.

Barb Davids:

I have not seen it, you know what, I haven't looked that hard at it. I've always used a plugin. For some reason, I think you have to have a plugin.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, as of now, I think you would need to use RankMath or SEO Yoast or something, or Yoast SEO, to be able to adjust the page title. But, for everyone's reference, that is a gold strategy that is low risk and low pressure Because, as you just mentioned, you're not actually changing the page. Google's just going to see a different version of that. But you're right, the URL, I mean, that's the biggie. So those are the big three. Then, right, there's the heading, the H1, like what this article is. There's the page title that you can adjust with Yoast or an SEO plugin, and then there's the URL. All those things work really nicely together, but the URL is like that's the one you want to retain without blowing things up, absolutely.

Josh Hall:

Okay, what about metadata, like the little description inside there? I feel like that's kind of the fourth, that's like the other important piece that can be overlooked. Obviously, google will find something in the content, but from my understanding is you can almost force the issue by having a really good description in Yoast under the page title. Is that how you view that as well? Or, I guess, what's the value and how much stock do you put in the meta description?

Barb Davids:

I tend to put a lot of stock into it, even though Google tends to overwrite it, and I still don't understand why they decide that they want to do that. But if you don't put in a description, it will pull like the first pieces of content and, depending on your platform or various things, it could pull in like the navigation, and that just looks gross on the search results page. So you always want to put something there exclamation and that just looks gross on the search results page, so you always want to put something there. Um, the other thing to keep in mind is the call to action. So, like when you're looking at the first page of search results, I always take a look at like what everybody's doing, because most of the time people don't put something there and when you're reading it, you want to encourage people to want to click through. So you want to give them a reason and like compel them to want to click through.

Barb Davids:

And you can't put emojis, you can't put exclamations, you can't do all tech, all capital letters. It has to be actually good copy and like a call to action. It can't be like click here or read more. Even though that's kind of our default, I think the idea is to be thinking about what they're going to get from the page and then use that. So see the list now, or I'm not even good. This is why I'm not a copywriter. But you put, you, put. You put some good copy there for people to click through.

Josh Hall:

Where would that copy actually go? Would that go in the metadata, like in SEO Yoast, for example? Or would that be in the first paragraph of the page and then you get to the blog post? Where would that go, that call to action?

Barb Davids:

That one um would go into the uh for the meta description for the search results page would go into the plugin piece. I mean, you're still going to probably use that call to action in some form or fashion in the first uh paragraph or like as they're reading and writing, cause you're introducing what they're going to get from the content. But that would go into the meta description.

Josh Hall:

Okay, so quick wins and sound advice for more like low risk revamping of a blog post to keep it fresh, the heading, the page title. I would imagine you'd probably start with the page title right, the page title and metadata and then heading as kind of the plan B, or both potentially.

Barb Davids:

I. I usually do both at the same time because I'm in that mind frame and that frame set like I'm thinking about it, and so they kind of go hand in hand. When you're sitting there looking at the page results, because you want to think about the keyword that you're targeting, right, the, the topic that you're targeting, and the keyword should be in the page title and the headline. It doesn't necessarily need to be in the description. Here's the funny thing Even though Google doesn't necessarily use that as a way to match up the query with the page, like behaviorally, people are reading it and so you're going to want that thing that they searched for in there so that it resonates with them when they're reading it. So when you're talking about a title, the description could just piggyback off the title.

Josh Hall:

Okay, that makes sense. You had mentioned the display of Google and how frustrating it is that we can't exactly control that. I get the question all the time how can I tell Google what pages to display when somebody Googles me? Is there an answer for that? Or is it just based off of hierarchy in the menu, prominence of pages, like for a while my login page was what you would see when you search joshhallcom. I'm like I don't want my login page to show up under those little five pages. So any tips on quick wins for that, on how your website displays and what pages display?

Barb Davids:

You're talking about the site links. So when you have your main page, then you have the little things underneath right?

Josh Hall:

Yeah, you'd see like four or five pages under that, yeah.

Barb Davids:

Yeah, absolutely not. I have no answer for you on that one, you're just stuck with it.

Josh Hall:

There's gotta be a way.

Barb Davids:

Well, so you can de-index them, right, but google still there's no way. They used to be able to say, like, don't use this page in there, but I still haven't found a way unless it's new and I just haven't seen it but I haven't found a way to be able to tell google to use a page or not use a page. They're doing it based off of yeah, what's already in your website and maybe what people are clicking. So if you have the word login at the top, maybe just leave it at the bottom. I mean that you can try different things, but I think it's a popularity contest and google just pulls what they want great point.

Josh Hall:

Good reminder too to just de-index pages. Uh, in that case, I don't think I do have that one de-index, so that's how much.

Barb Davids:

how much I might be widened I don't know why.

Josh Hall:

Yep, so I will do. That's a quick win, just de-index the pages you don't want to show up. Now are you, do you use other platforms than WordPress Barb, or are you WordPress specific?

Barb Davids:

I know, yeah, I'm pretty much just WordPress. If anybody comes to me with another one, I will work with them, but it is with the catch that, hey, we might not be able to do some things like we might not be able to. Um, well, sometimes I guess everybody has a back end, like even squarespace. They have like a whole seo section, but, um, there isn't like yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, that was uh.

Josh Hall:

That was what I was wondering is, like squarespace Webflow, if they had a built-in, basically SEO plugin. That way you could adjust the page title, de-index, versus you know the heading and what we would normally see in WordPress.

Barb Davids:

Yeah, so Shopify actually does not have a way to de-index that is user friendly. That I found the last time I was in there. That's the catch is sometimes. What happens is usually you have an option to put in a page title and a page description for most platforms but then what happens is, like Shopify, it will show it no matter what. So if you don't want it to show in Google search results, you actually have to just decommission the page altogether, unless you want to go into the backend code, which nobody wants to go into that.

Josh Hall:

So yes, absolutely Any other common quick wins that you talked about the blog refresh. Some great insight and tips on that. What are some other common quick wins that somebody might get for, whether it's a blog or we know that podcast and YouTube are very intricate with SEO. Now, yeah, any other quick ones.

Barb Davids:

I think the other one to take a look at is the internal links. Those are often forgotten. So a lot of the time when we write a blog post, at the bottom we'll say contact us and then we'll link to the contact us page. What that essentially does is say to Google the contact us page is very important. Please make sure to do something with this page Like this is the most us page is very important. Please make sure to do something with this page Like this is the most important page, when in actuality, our service pages or our packages pages are the most important, or even the homepage, really frankly.

Barb Davids:

So when you do your linking throughout your website, try to think about how that works with your most important pages where you want people to go. So if you're writing a blog post and you want somebody to contact you at the end, like that's the most logical choice, then just put the form down there. Don't put them, don't send them over to the contact page. Just put the form down there. Make it super easy, no having to click somewhere else. And then, um, that's probably like one of the biggest things I think I've seen lately.

Josh Hall:

So it's almost like I always view SEO and websites as like a tree, where you want to continue to have your prominent branches be the ones that Google knows about. So in the case of a contact form or a contact page, that's interesting because I would think that you'd actually want to continue to go to the contact page if it is in fact the one. But that's a good solid point that if there is a resource, or go to the contact page if it is in fact the one, but that's a good solid point that if there is a resource or something where the contact page isn't as important, that should probably have the focus especially on blog posts and services pages and something where you can kind of keep people redirecting and looping into your website. Is that kind of the the?

Barb Davids:

idea, because most of the time when people are coming to your website, most of the time it's really top of funnel. People are just getting to know about you. You're bringing them in to learn about your services, your packages, that kind of thing, so they may not want to contact you right away. It might be that you want to send them to another blog post that gives some more information, or maybe it goes to your packages page or your services page or whatever the download might be. So that, I think, is something that people tend to do a little bit blindly.

Josh Hall:

They're just like contact me, contact me, contact me. Good point. It's always I think it's always a good reminder to when you're creating a blog post or any piece of content or a sales page to think about, to actually think about like well, this is a great piece of content, but now what? That question right there, now, what is always a good place to go back to when you think about the customer journey and what they should do after this blog post. It's so easy to overlook, though. I mean, I get that fully. I think, as creators and designers, we're often focused on a piece of content or a sales page that we often forget about a nice footer call to action section or a bottom blog post call to action or the. Now what Tactically? Do you know how AI Overviews is pulling some of this stuff? Is it just kind of regurgitating the top featured snippets and stuff like that? Do you? Because I don't know too much about how AI Overviews is working. I really just haven't looked into it too deeply currently.

Barb Davids:

Yes, that's all it is. I think people want to make it a lot more than it really is right now, but AI has to pull from somewhere. It doesn't just come up with stuff, and so it's looking at existing websites and what better existing websites than the ones that rank on first and second page, right? So they're just picking those, and I think that it still goes back to that core foundation. If you're building your website with the idea of what is somebody typing in and searching for, and are you creating content to match that search, that's what is being looked at. So is it using algorithms? Yes, in a different way, but still with the core foundation of it's looking for what's currently ranking, because it has to pull from somewhere. So that is just really all it is. I'm trying to make this a longer solution than it is, but it really isn't that different than what's happening right now.

Josh Hall:

That's good to know. I was curious where that was pulling from. Yeah, with this idea of quickest wins I'm trying to not say quick wins, because I agree Quick and relative it's the quicker wins Right.

Josh Hall:

Right. I have always and I teach this in my SEO course. I have a foundational SEO course for web designers and what I teach is that there's basically two ways to get quicker results, which is focus on more like long tail keywords, long phrases that have less competition, or, if you're a service provider, local SEO, and I have a member in my community, sam, who is like the local SEO king because in less than a year he has completely taken over his region and he got a lot of quicker SEO wins because he focused on location pages and location-specific web design services. Any tips, advice on that, if somebody wants to, either, or do you agree? Do you agree that there's the long tail route, if it's national or just online focused, or local SEO of its service space? What are your, what's your take on that and your thoughts on that?

Barb Davids:

I have two things for you. So one, I would say, with the local one, can even work with national, because the local one you can still build out some things like where you're based, and so that would help. But also from the local side, like you have Google business profile, which is a free marketing tool and you don't have to put your address on there. But even if you use that, some of my clients do get a lot of I don't remember the exact number, but there was a significant amount of traffic coming from that particular listing and they are. They aren't showing their address, they don't have a brick and mortar or anything like that. So I think that's one of the quick wins too, that people forget about that's out there. Um, the Google listing and the location pages is definitely a good one. I think that is probably a good quickest win because if you haven't been using it, all of a sudden you do. Google loves Google. You might see some some really great stuff from that, and that was super easy to set up. You just put in. The biggest thing is putting your description, your name, and then publishing like once a week to it. That's the only thing you have to do really for that one, because there's not much else that you have control over when it comes to if you're going to show up from the Google business profile. So that's an easy, quickest win.

Barb Davids:

And then the other one, the long tail just to kind of talk about that a little bit too, I think a lot of times people think long tail is like so many words or a bunch of words in a phrase, but really just it means that there is lower search volume, but it's more specific phrases. So I'll use just shoes. Like shoes is just a regular one. If you use women's red tennis shoes, that's considered a long tail phrase. There's going to be a lot less searches than shoes and it's going to be more specific. And I had a client once where we just started up a website and we were concerned about how long it takes to get SEO to go and it was a very competitive industry. So we focused on things that had lower search volume and that were less competitive and wrote to those topics, and there were a couple that really took off really fast. So I think you're not going to know which ones necessarily, but I think those could be an option for a quickest win as well.

Josh Hall:

That's a really good distinction, or at least a better way to phrase it, especially for clients. Instead of saying long tail because they're going to be like what does that mean? Like the average business owner is going to be like what, but if you say specific, that's goal, great, great, great tip, especially in any product service Like if I do web design Columbus, ohio, where I'm from very competitive, but if I do web design columbus, ohio, where I'm from very competitive, but if I do wordpress web designer columbus, or wordpress web designer the, the surrounding areas, that's where I'm going to get the quickest wins. As a web designer is what I teach. It's a great, great reminder. Specific I like the term specific because that's what it is and, as you probably know, like google is looking for specificity and originality. I feel like more than anything now especially.

Barb Davids:

Yeah, and you can even do go so far. As for the other, for the web designers in the group is like WordPress web designer for cake businesses in Columbus Ohio, because you're still going to be able to find enough difference from WordPress designer to WordPress designer for cake businesses in Columbus Ohio. You're going to be able to speak directly to that business and it will still be different, so it won't be like duplicated content or like regurgitated from another blog post.

Josh Hall:

How long is too long for long tail Cause? I feel like what you just said is is awesome, but I think anything after that Google would probably be like all right, that's like a paragraph. So, how, how far is? Uh, yeah, how? How much is too much for like a long phrase or a long tail?

Barb Davids:

I would say if you can't speak to it to somebody or you can't have it in a conversation, probably stay away from it. I don't think that there's any hard fast rule. It just is if it makes sense and just go from that. I don't think that there's a hard rule at all for that.

Josh Hall:

Isn't it funny how SEO strategies in particular, as much as we overthink them, it's like what would you say in real life. That's what's going to translate online.

Barb Davids:

Exactly yeah.

Josh Hall:

I love that rule that way. It's not like web designer Josh Hall, wordpress web designer in Columbus Ohio, focusing on calling the business's speed and optimization focused on conversion based design Like too much.

Barb Davids:

I say try it, Josh, just try it, let's see what happens yeah.

Josh Hall:

Hey, maybe I'm wrong, Maybe that's like, maybe that's the real goal.

Josh Hall:

Great tips, though, all right, like these, yeah, these are the cool thing about I think what we're covering so far, and I hope what everyone's seeing is that these, these quicker tips, are actually it's not rocket science, it's not actually hard stuff to do.

Josh Hall:

It's just a little intentionality, little strategy and a little research and competition research on on what you're looking at doing. Like I mentioned Sam um, who's going to be on the podcast soon after this. One thing that he'll talk about is how he did look at competition and did the exact strategy that you just talked about, barb, which is he looked at the areas in his region that were not really that competitive, not big towns, but if you can get on the top of a bunch of smaller towns just with a location page or a Google map pack, excuse me and optimize your Google listing, you can really show some authority and prominence on Google. And I just want to harp back to the opportunity there is now, because, while other people are focused on social media and other places which is fine I do feel like there is this gap and this resurgence of opportunity for SEOers.

Barb Davids:

I feel like, too, that people are seeing it, that years ago it was kind of like oh my gosh, I don't know how it works. It's a black hole. I'm so confused, why would I do it? But it really is a long-term solution to a business marketing plan. When you do SEO and you do content marketing, it sits out there for a long time. You might have to refresh it and like distribute it and redistribute it, and but it's so much easier, I feel like if you're creating blog posts, for example, or even long service pages, sales pages, to create your social posts from that. So the repurposing value of it is so high.

Josh Hall:

Great point. It's like the 101 of blogging too and keeping everything on your website. That's the hub, that's your home, and then you repurpose and take the little bits from there. Good reminder too, with the location pages, that for anyone who has location pages right now to consider adjusting that, revamping it not the URL, like we talked about, but the page title and the heading, to see if that can help freshen those up a little bit too. What are your thoughts? Real quick, on bullet lists and numbers, because I've seen Google, at least in the past, has appreciated steps. If you can give somebody five steps to do this in the first paragraph and then expand on that, google seemed to like steps. If you can give somebody five steps to do this in the first paragraph and then expand on that, google seemed to like that. Is that still the case? Do you know? Do you have any pulse on that?

Barb Davids:

I think so. Again, it's going to go back to the query. If it answers a question, it's definitely much easier, and especially if you format it in a certain way. So if you're just using like a dash and some words, then that doesn't necessarily signal to signal to Google as as formal as a bullet list or a numbered list. As you use it, Like when you're inside of WordPress, for example, they have that toolbar at the top and you can actually format it like in a Word doc doc. You hit the bullet point or you hit the numbered list and that will format it with tags around the content in a more Google friendly way.

Josh Hall:

Basically, and going back to this, the opportunity for Google searches I've really really started to think more recently about how, in particular, like chat GPT, is going to play a role in this moving forward, because I've seen a lot of people starting to use chat gpt myself included as almost like the first step.

Josh Hall:

Now, instead of a google search like, I'd rather just search on chat gpt with like 10, whether it's tips or or advice, or whether it's resources like what are the 10 top wordpress blogs or wordpress youtube channels or whatever it is. The important thing about that from an SEO perspective is these AI tools are, to my knowledge, are not scraping social media as much they're scraping Google. So if you can get better rankings on Google over the next five to 10 years as AI tools start filtering down through service providers because right now it's mostly us who know how to use chat GPT the average salon owner isn't probably going to use chat GPT, but in five years that might change dramatically. So if you can capitalize on it now, I feel like, and then in five years, if somebody uses chat GPT to say what are the top five hair salons in Columbus, that's going to make a pretty big impact, and I've already seen this play out with people finding me who have mentioned they looked at ChatGPT for WordPress resources or business resources for web design.

Josh Hall:

Any thoughts on that. Do you agree with that?

Barb Davids:

Yeah, I think so Because, Well, and essentially, the Google search results is ChatGPT almost. It's just formatted in a different way, like it's still picking up from the top ranking usually, or just things that are already indexed and ranked in Google. But the thing that you could probably use it for just this, just um, threw into my head what I did for a client one time because I wanted to see the top providers of that industry in the city. So I typed it into ChatGPT and I also did it over on Bing, which is now Gemini, just to see what the difference was, and I wanted to know who came up for this particular phrase.

Barb Davids:

And my client did not come up and I thought, well, what the crap Like, why is my client not coming up? So then I use that to my advantage and I said, well, why do you think this particular website is not coming up? And it brought to light some very interesting things based off of the actual phrase that I typed in and what was showing on the website, that it was very copy related, and it was interesting to see what I thought was relevant on the page. The AI tool interpreted it differently. So I think that's where we can use it to our advantage is to find out like why would my website not be showing up?

Josh Hall:

So did you actually prompt and ask it? Why Is that what you did? Did you actually ask it? Why is it not showing up, which that's like a free seo coach, in a way?

Barb Davids:

yeah, and I've, I've tried different things like that because, like, when I type in certain things and I'm looking to just for different like I go all over, I do rabbit holes just so I can get more information. And if I type in like a list of something or give me 10 reasons, I don't like how chat gpt provides it for me and I don't have the time to sit and like placate it and tell me longer and it gives me like two short answers and I would like to know these, these reasons. Why did somebody pick these reasons? Like so, I always like to still go over to Google to figure it out, cause I get the perspective and the mindset of the person writing it.

Barb Davids:

But when you do like SEO stuff and thinking like, okay, well, what's mine different? It gives it to you. I feel like more logically and a little bit more subjectively, like my feelings aren't there when I'm asking it to to evaluate the website and it's not always going to be correct, cause there are hard times when I've gotten answers that I know it's not correct and there are times when it, like it did phantom produce words. It's like, oh, this website contains these words and I went searching for it forever and I could not find it for the life of me. So you have to kind of check it still.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, I do love your approach, though, of like, if you see something that's not ranking and you think it should, just simply prompting it and asking, well, yeah, what could we do better? Or why wouldn't this, why didn't this do that? I didn't really think about using it as a an SEO coach. That's pretty cool. Any other glaring commonalities between quickest wins that we haven't covered yet? Oh, we haven't even talked about video. I don't know what you know with you I mean gosh, youtube and Google If you're not utilizing it together. Think about it, cause I know that's a biggie.

Barb Davids:

Any others, yeah, and I would. I would say, test that one too. Still, I had someone put on a website excuse me, a YouTube and embedded it on their website and that it tanked. It just tanked, yes, and it was the strangest thing Cause it was like a very high ranking, very. And it was the strangest thing because it was like a very high ranking, very high volume term. It was in the flower industry and then they took off the YouTube and it was fine. So why that happened, I still have not been able to pinpoint, but I definitely would say test it out.

Josh Hall:

Fascinating. I wonder if there's a difference between linking to a video that's on YouTube versus embedding that's a great experiment. Here let's do it live. Hold on a sec. Here We'll get chat, gpt coaching here. Hold on a sec. I'm going to say for best, for best SEO results.

Josh Hall:

Uh, should I uh link I bet it's going to come back with it depends oh, here we go, let's see, link or embed a youtube video on a blog, let's see. So basically, I want to get at, is it? We're getting really specific here? Do we want to link to a video that is a video piece of a blog, or do and gosh, this is huge for somebody like me who is doing often a blog post along with a video. Or should we embed the video?

Barb Davids:

um, yeah, it's kind of crap although I would say for usability it's better to embed, because it's right there, they don't have to click off the page.

Josh Hall:

That's the whole kicker ah, I'm shocked that that would not work well for just that one case yeah, yeah.

Josh Hall:

So for best chat, gpt says for best SEO results, embedding a YouTube video on your blog is generally more beneficial than linking to it because of engagement. The videos embedded can increase user engagement on your site user experience. That way, they don't need to go off rich snippets, so embedded videos can sometimes be recognized by search engines for rich snippets. That's interesting if it's associated with a post. I guess that would also potentially help the scammers and the copycatters, like we talked earlier, because if you have your original blog post with your original video and it's on your site, the author, google would know like okay, this is legit, this isn't somebody who stole Barb's video and put it on their site.

Barb Davids:

Well, like with your testimonials, that you do with the video testimonials, that's huge because that's so original and so unique and you can't copycat that in terms of like AI or reproduce it. I mean, technically you can, right, but it looks real and it's something that most businesses don't do.

Josh Hall:

Backlinks and shares and keyword relevance are the other benefits of embedding it. So there we go. Overall, I'd venture to say, embed the video unless, like you said, you just have an odd situation where it tanks. One detailed question on that how do you feel about a YouTube video being titled the exact same thing as the blog, or should a blog post be a little bit different than the YouTube?

Josh Hall:

video inside of the blog post you're asking yeah, so like, for example, I mentioned my my circle video that I did. That's ranking pretty well. It's currently ten awesome features of circle, the best online community platform. I have a blog post that is the exact same title as the video. Good or bad?

Barb Davids:

Yeah, if you're going to use the title inside of the blog post above your video, I would. I would take the opportunity to use the copy in a different way. Um, because you have that extra space, you don't necessarily need to duplicate it again. I think you could say um, again, I'm not a copywriter so I'm not going to be able to come up with something off cuff, but you could utilize that space to introduce the video, but maybe use a variation of a keyword that you're trying to target with that particular content.

Josh Hall:

Gotcha. And again going back to your great recommendation earlier, which is just to play around with the page title and the heading, like that is something that can always be tweaked and changed. Same thing with YouTube Like this is why a lot of YouTubers will switch out thumbnails and switch out titles. The URL of the video doesn't change, because you can't replace a video in YouTube, but those are things that can be tweaked and manipulated, but I am always a little hesitant, when something's ranking well, to make any changes. So this is almost something I probably should have asked earlier on. But I wonder when is it time to change a title? Or is your motto if it's working, don't mess with it, don't fix it if it's not broken?

Barb Davids:

Absolutely. I think that is it, and it's hard because you always want to make sure that you're trying to stay on top. So what do you do to make sure to stay on top? And I think this is another one of those comfortability factors. So if you see something that goes from position one to position two, that's not necessarily cause for alarm, unless it sticks around there for three months or something. That's a relative number. It depends on what you're going to be comfortable with. And then even then, number two is not bad, because there are some theories out there Like why would I want to be number one? Cause everybody's going to skip over number one and click number two. So it's going to be a little bit about, like, what you can stomach as a business owner and for your business, of what feels good to be like. Okay, this is just too long. Now I need to do something.

Josh Hall:

We've talked a lot about organic. How do you feel about ads? I mean, technically, the quickest SEO win would be an ad, because you're going to get up in the sponsored spot, depending on how competitive it is. But, as I've seen a lot, when you stop an ad it doesn't mean it's going to do anything organically for you. Your organic rankings could tank after that. Yeah, how far are you into the ad side of SEO?

Barb Davids:

I like ads. I don't think that there's a correlation. I think there's a ghostly correlation out there that people have that they say if you do ads and your organic does better. I have not been able to find that happening. What I do like about doing paid ads whether it be Google ads, social ads, anything, or even direct to you know, these direct magazines in your industry type of ads I think the diversification is what's key.

Barb Davids:

So if you're just starting out and you just can't wait, I think ads are a good way to go, and sometimes I even have a client that that is their only method, because it happens to be that their side business is not something that they can spend a lot of time on, so this is their only method of marketing that they choose to do. But I like to think about it as diversifying your marketing portfolio, basically, and taking that and if you decide to try it out, great, but always be able to track everything so that you can make informed decisions. Because if you're getting and you're spending 50% of your marketing budget on Google ads and they come back and you're not converting as high, then you're spending too much on it. So it's just about trying different things and then seeing what works and then making adjustments.

Josh Hall:

So what we've covered so far, just to kind of look at this as like a bullet list, like I can like recap quickest wins refreshing blog posts in the way of the page title, the heading, maybe even the metadata, not affecting the URL, especially if it's ranking, we talked, and content in there is obviously a biggie as well. Layout call to action, that specific call to action, or what now after the blog post? Huge, easily overlooked piece, Video. Obviously, with YouTube and Google being married together, that can be a huge component. I've always found YouTube ranks a lot faster than blog posts.

Josh Hall:

Typically Specific, long tail type key phrases and keywords. Location-based SEO, both pages and Google listings and the map pack and was there one that we missed? Oh well, just ads as well. Ads could be a quick piece, that could be a quick win. Obviously it's not going to last, but it could be a nice addition to the, like you said, the marketing suite that you're doing. Is there anything else that, after this call, you're going to be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe we didn't talk about that. Is there anything else?

Barb Davids:

Well, of course there is going to be.

Josh Hall:

What would be the top one that we got to make sure before we head off here, that we don't ever look.

Barb Davids:

I'll tell you as soon as you hit stop record.

Josh Hall:

Send me a loom. We'll add it in the editor.

Barb Davids:

Right, right. No, I think that pretty much covers it.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, cool. Well, this has been great, barb. This is awesome too, because I do get this question a lot, because a lot of people I think what keeps people back from SEO or what holds them back is they're like I just don't want to do something for six months to a year. That's going to pay off. Then I want to do something now. I need clients now.

Josh Hall:

But, as we've talked about, all of these strategies are something that could be. They can actually work out pretty dang fast, depending on what it is. Yeah, I would recommend personally having in-person networking and marketing strategies that are a little quicker ROI. But if you can back that up with these strategies, it can compound pretty quickly. I've coached a lot of people who have done a blog and done things like this. That may not pay off immediately or within a few weeks or a couple months, but by golly, all of a sudden, three to six months down the road, they're like I am swamped. I literally went from hurting for work to now I can't keep up with it because all of these marketing efforts compounded. So yeah, I don't know if you have anything to add to that, but that's certainly my push to be like don't overlook SEO, especially nowadays.

Barb Davids:

Yes, I would agree very much.

Josh Hall:

You have a resource for us, barb. Tell us about that and tell us about where everyone should go after this to connect with you and to get some SEO help, if they're interested.

Barb Davids:

All right, Yay, I do have some help. I feel like a lot of web designers and other small business owners. They're just not sure where to start. So I did create a PDF that people can download. It's totally free and it helps you get 1000 more website visits. So I even have a little principle book that I'm hoping to get to send out to people at some point some time, but you can download for free. Just go to compass digital strategiescom. There's a bunch of resources on there and happy to help if anybody has any questions.

Josh Hall:

And that PDF. We'll link this in the show notes, but as of now that's compass digital strategiescom slash PDF. Is that?

Barb Davids:

right, yep, that's right.

Josh Hall:

Got it. Cool, cool, cool. I'm actually signing up for it now, so excited to take a look at this and you've got a podcast I just recorded. Before this, we recorded my chat with you on your podcast, which is called the Sweet Spot. Is that right, the Sweet Spot?

Barb Davids:

Small Business Sweet Spot.

Josh Hall:

Small Business Sweet Spot, sweet. A ton of other resources, so awesome. And I have to say, barb, I love your brand name. I've always thought that was cool, especially as an SEOer and somebody who's kind of a strategist in a way like Compass Digital Strategies. Very cool Because it's in the name Like you're kind of helping people get found literally get found.

Barb Davids:

Yeah, absolutely, thank you, I appreciate that.

Josh Hall:

You don't even need any creative copy, you can just say like it's in the name. We help you get found.

Barb Davids:

That's right, we are your compass.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, we are your compass. I want to see that on your website. Yeah, Good title. All right, Barb, thank you so much for your time. Gold strategies actionable stuff Every one of us can implement. This has given me some things to think about tweaking and especially revamping some high performing blog posts. I think could be better. So I really appreciate it and everyone go check out compassdigitalstrategiescom slash PDF.

Barb Davids:

Free guide Barb's brain in a book. There it is. Thanks, Josh, for having me Appreciate it.

Josh Hall:

Thanks, barb. It's that simple. My friends, the quickest SEO wins are often the most common sense and just real and practical. So I hope everything we covered gives you some confidence and gets you excited to implement some strategies on your site and definitely your client sites, because, as I mentioned, if you get fairly quick SEO wins for your clients, that will build trust, excitement and they will pay you and trust in you for more wins that are three to six months down the road, maybe a year down the road, et cetera. So do me a favor when you implement one or more of these strategies, I would love to hear how it helps you out. As some proof on all of this, leave a comment at joshhallco, slash 337, which is the show notes for this particular episode, and you can drop me and Barb a comment to let us know what worked for you. And either way, I hope these really help elevate your web design presence through the SEO, and it's just awesome stuff because it's fairly easy to implement. You just got to do it, you just got to be strategic about it. So can't wait to hear your takeaways.

Josh Hall:

Josh hallco, slash three, three, seven. Don't forget about the free guide that Barb has for you about how to get a thousand more visits to your website If you go to her website at compassdigitalstrategiescom, slash P, d, f to grab that workbook. All right, friends. Cheers to quicker SEO results. Maybe you'll find me on a quicker SEO result with this podcast, who knows?