This is probably not going to come as any surprise, but I think “SEO like a girl” is a compliment, not an insult. And in this episode I’m going to share why I think women can be better at SEO than they ever imagined. I’ll explain how you can use your natural skills and intuition as females to tap into better SEO, marketing and conversion.
I am on a mission to empower female entrepreneurs to be absolutely extraordinary at SEO. And I know one thing to be true. Whoever controls the first page of Google, no matter what the topic is, controls the message. If we aren’t taking up space on Google, our voice isn’t being heard. Now more than ever, we need talented, driven, ethical female entrepreneurs to dedicate themselves to ranking content in every industry. I really, truly want 2020 to be the year that female entrepreneurs take Google by storm. It’s going to require work and effort and lifting one another up, but I think we are more than capable of doing this and I’m so excited about it.
Here’s the good news. We are moving past the era where you could just throw a bunch of hacker nonsense around and automatically rank well even if your stuff sucked. It was like that way for a long time. You would just check some boxes, in terms of code, it was easy. It didn’t even matter if people liked the content. You could rank. But we are beyond that now.
I think finally we’re in the era where in order to rank, you need to produce quality content that solves problems. I know that you, as a passionate female entrepreneur, are dedicated and ready to really help solve people’s problems. Technical SEO skill is less and less important. I really believe that and right now I think authentic connection and empathy are going to rule over blind technology. That’s actually one of the reasons why I don’t recommend people sign up for a bunch of SEO services and software because I think that when we use that to replace true connection, we lose out. We miss out. Our SEO is not as good. Real SEO is about creating connection with people, with humans, with human desires.
The cool thing is that women and females in general really excel at connection. That is why I think we are poised to take over the top 10 on Google if we put an effort. So let me talk about the three strategies that I see that are working right now that women in particular are really fantastic at.
Build a Vibrant Community
First of all, when you have such a good relationship with your audience that they share and link to everything you create, that is fantastic for SEO. If you are a community builder and you build a group of ideal clients who are raving fans and who will spread the word about whatever you say, in whatever you do, that is going to create really fantastic search engine optimization. Google pays attention to everything that gets said about your brand, every time something gets shared from your website, from your blog. Every time you get mentioned on another website. All of those things matter. So if you can create a raving community of fans and people who are just dedicated and love what you do, then that’s going to be an amazing benefit for your SEO.
Create Content That Meets a Need
Another strategy that is working so well right now is anticipating the needs of your ideal clients with such pinpoint accuracy that you can create in-depth content that solves their problems in exactly the same language that they use. Search is becoming so much more, what we would call, semantic. That means that people use very specific and long phrases when they search. It used to be, when we search, we search very robotically. We would search for just one word like “massage” and now what we do is we almost ask Google to solve a problem for us. We’ll ask Google “what is the best type of massage to help with neck pain”, right? It’s a totally different type of search and when we tap into our knowledge of our ideal clients in a very intentional way and we create content that addresses their needs and problems and desires, and I know I’ve said this before, it is such a strong strategy because using those same words that they use is what is going to help get you ranked in search.
Leverage Your Network
Another strategy right now that’s working really well is leveraging your network of other business owners that you know and love to cross link your content to increase your website’s authority. Now I know I just threw a word out there that you might not know, so let me unpack that for you. Website authority basically just means how Google perceives the trustworthiness of your website. You may also hear this refererred to as domain authority and basically, the more people that you can get to link to you from their websites, every single time that happens, it’s almost like a vote. It’s like Google sees that as someone raising their hand and saying, “I vote for her”. So if you can leverage your network of people that you know and people that you love and that love you, to get to link to your content and you link back to their content, all of that link building helps increase your website authority. That “know, like and trust” factor with Google. And the nice thing is that that just reflects what we do in real life. As women, we create connections with people, we create friendships, we create relationships with other business owners and with our clients and if we bring that into the technological aspect of SEO where we actually go pursue links from people and we give links to people, that sort of thing is what’s going to help us rank and the people we know and like, rank better. That’s something that I think we are perfectly positioned to do phenomenally well at.
All right. Let’s move on to a little bit of tactical teaching and strategy here. I want to teach you how you can SEO like a girl starting right now.
Creating Connection
The first section of that is talking about connection. Right now, are you taking the time to actively engage with your audience? Are you following the people who you want to follow you? Are you asking them questions? Are you reaching out privately to see how best to support them? Do your ideal clients know you love them and that you want to serve them? Because we have really good intuition when someone is just trying to game the system or inauthentically trying to get the sale. But if you prove to people that you really genuinely care about them, whatever business that you’re in, if you care about them, it’s going to make such a difference in building that community. If you have that squad of core supporters who love everything that you do and they’ll share anything you put out, that’s going to go a long way to building your SEO right now. If you don’t have that, what strategy can you use to reengage them? What sort of offering can you create that would make them feel seen and supported and loved by you because that connection, those relationships with your audience and with your ideal clients are so important. Just take a minute right now and envision your ideal client standing right in front of you and just say, “what does she need”? See her, really see her. What is it that she wants? How can you reach out to her and pull her towards you and say, I want to help. I want to be your biggest fan. That’s why my business exists is to be your biggest fan and to serve you. Connection, I want you to really pursue that connection with your audience.
Generate Quality Content
The next thing is quality content. Quality content means that you’re creating things that your ideal client is craving. Answering those burning questions, solving those persistent problems, anticipating their needs. Content, that word, all it means is just publishing, whether it’s blog posts or pages on your website, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, whatever it is. On a technical level, you are going to get the best SEO results if your content is at least a thousand words. So anytime you go to sit down and produce content that your ideal client wants, try and focus on creating something that is in depth, that has the meat to it, that there would be a reason for someone to share it or pass it on or link to it. When you create that content, you need to be including keywords and keyword phrases throughout that your ideal client actually uses. Sometimes we get caught up in using the technical, industry lingo because we’ve been doing what we do for so long and you need to stop that and really use normal language that most people use to talk about those types of problems. Use the layman terms, speak like your client speaks.
Be Authentic
Another thing that will go a long way in helping build that community is authenticity. Sometimes it’s hard to think about how can you be more authentic because even trying to think about doing that feels inauthentic. Oh, that’s frustrating. But you need to let people into your real life if you want to become a trusted leader. And for some people that’s really easy, especially if they’re a little more extroverted. I’m introverted. Opening up and being seen is a toughie. It’s hard. So I get it. If you can kind of peel back that curtain and let people see the realness in your life, they’re going to reciprocate and they’re going to want you to see their real life. And there’s nothing more powerful than that. So if you can be raw with your audience, if you can ditch that completely polished feed and let some realness just hang out. If you can tell them stories about something that you’ve overcome and then immediately give them actionable steps they need to take to do the same thing, that’s powerful. And people want to work with people who are flawed, but still persistent, that’s the key. Flawed people who are still succeeding are people who are worth following. People naturally will gravitate towards that. I really want you to think about creating that environment of “we’re in this together”. So whatever you can do to open yourself up to your community and your ideal clients is going to be so worth it in the long term for creating good search engine optimization because like I said, people who rank well usually have some component of community around them that share everything that they do and you only get that if people have that buy-in and that feeling that they really know you.
Generosity Wins
The last strategy I want you to think about is to be extremely generous in your business. Ask people to share your stuff, but also consistently share other people’s stuff. The reciprocity that comes out of that is so powerful. It’s true. It’s real. If you go to write a blog post and you’re talking about a topic and you know someone else who’s also talked about that topic, you should be linking to them. Don’t hold back from that. Don’t make it something where it’s “me against them and if I link to them, then it’s going to hurt me”. No, it will not! Link to people. Share other people’s stuff. If you go out of your way to share someone’s launch without being asked or incentivized, that’s so cool. It’s so needed. Sometimes we get caught up as women in the comparison game and if you could just stop and wholeheartedly promote someone else, there’s power in that. That’s so powerful. You know, promotion only feels icky when it’s one sided. If all you do is promote your stuff and you’re constantly pushing other people away, eventually that’s not going to feel great. You need to be other people’s biggest champions for sure. Reach out and ask to feature the little businesses, not just the big businesses. Sometimes we get so caught up in “well, if I could just get Rachel Hollis to link to me, then I’ll be set for life”. You know you can get more out of a relationship with just another tiny small business owner in the longterm than you could ever get from getting a mention from a big business owner. The reciprocity, that give and take between two small business owners, that relationship you build where you really lift each other up is unlike anything else. It’s so much more valuable. So if you can come from a place of generosity and step forward and ask how you can serve another business owner that is going to bleed into your search engine optimization and help you in the longterm.
Okay, homework today, right now I need you to write down five things your clients desperately need from you and make a plan for how you’re going to start creating content that solves those things. People right now desperately need solutions and I know you have answers for your ideal clients. Stop holding back, stop saying “well I’m worried if I give too much value, they won’t buy anything from me”. That is so not true. Figure out what they desperately need and create something to give it to them. It could even be a product that you sell. That’s fine. Whether it’s something you sell or it’s something you give away. Look for that desperate need. Align yourself right to it. Dig into your ideal client’s pain and figure out how you can help them.
And then the next thing that I want you to do is I want you to pick another female, small business owner and come up with a way to serve her completely and authentically without any expectation of being repaid. Maybe you could create a whole social media post just highlighting them without being asked. Maybe you can find a piece of content that they created that you really liked and just broadcast it to the world. Maybe you can approach them and be like, “I love you. I love everything you do and I want to feature you on an interview, on a blog.”, Whatever it is, I want you to serve and give and connect and love other female small business owners. Because that is the essence of what it means to SEO like a girl. And it’s going to come back to you 20 times what you give.
So I’m excited to hear how this works. Let me know how it goes because I believe in you and I think this is going to be fantastic for your business.