Ever wondered how businesses get on the front page of Google? This episode is going to walk you through LITERALLY how to go about doing that for your business. This episode is ESPECIALLY for you if you’re straight up tired of hustling your bootie patootie off on Instagram daily getting zero traction in your business and wondering if there is another way to market online.

The short answer is yes. Yes, there is. It’s called SEO. And today Catalina Jean will BLOW your mind on all things Search Engine Optimization.

We have never in our lives heard anyone break down such a techy and somewhat complicated topic in such a clear, concise, exciting, and fun way. 

 

Catalina’s Story 

Catalina is a wedding photographer based in Portland, Oregon who’s been shooting full-time for nearly 10 years. As she got started in her photography journey she dove headfirst into trying to understand how Google’s Search Engine worked. What followed was years and years of diving in and becoming a self-taught expert in SEO. She now in addition to her wedding photography business, also specializes in teaching other creatives how to easily book themselves solid using SEO tactics with her company SEO is Fun.

 

What & Why SEO 

SEO is a longer investment. A long-term investment strategy is a safer way to build. 

When the internet first started you had to have a specific web address to visit a specific website. So then those same smart people started creating directories. That was the birth of the original search engine optimization. Now the internet grew enormously and you couldn’t just have a person looking through all the websites and adding these directories. They created the crawlers aka robot spider librarians, they are coded to go out and read websites. Looking at websites and blog posts, pick them up and put them where they belong. And that creates the huge library of Google. When you Google something you’re basically walking into a library and asking for something specific. 

The biggest thing to understand is not just how to get on page one, but what is happening in that little robot spider librarian handbook. What questions are they asking? What are they looking for? And what makes them decide what is on page one? 

 

First Step

The robots are blind, they don’t look at websites the way we see them. They are looking at the back end, so code. Images they can’t see, what they are looking at is anything that is in text. URLs, headers, and body text are the things they will be looking at. 

If you want to start somewhere, type in the keywords in Google that you want to rank for and study the page one search results. Ask what kinds of articles are on this page. Look at their headers, body text, and the links they proved. Then emulate that and try to create content that is better than what is on page one. 

82% of all searches start on Google. 

 

Misconceptions about blogging 

Categories and tags should not be used for SEO. That is not a place to put keywords in. When you’re utilizing categories and tags, use them sparingly and only use them if they have a very specific use on your website. Clean up those categories and tags, with that you will clean up those low-quality pages.

Keywords stuffing is a big no-no. That is trying to rank a blog post for a bunch of unrelated keywords. Pick one topic of your blog post and stick to that for the title. Don’t try to stuff all the keywords in the title. 

 

Checking How Your SEO is Doing

Set up Google search consult. When you set it up you are giving it permission to access your website and blog posts and start tracking the rankings. The earlier you set that up the more data you’ll have in there. You can see how many clicks and general rankings. 

An iPhone app called SEO Edge where you manually put in keywords that you would like to monitor. It’s an easy way to check to see if you are ranking for a specific keyword.

 

Naming Photos 

The actual file name that you upload to your website is really important. That is written in the code. The text that is also near a photo can actually help it rank. Make sure the image file name is filled out before export, and use dashes instead of spaces or underscores. 

Does each photo have to be named differently? 

The best practice is that each image file should have a unique image file to it. However that can be a nightmare, it is totally fine to name all those images the same thing. If your blog post doesn’t have a lot of images go ahead and name each image differently, but overall don’t stress too much if they are not. 

 

Where to Start 

Backlinks, having other websites linked to your website. Can be from photo contests, interviews, features, etc. Backlinks are their own category, they will help Google know you are trustworthy. Google does a lot to make sure websites are trustworthy and backlinks really help with that. 

 

What is the biggest lesson you have learned in business?

Be cautious when you are quickly labeling things as easy or hard. Reels are hard, and SEO is hard. 

Our brains are incredible and the speed at which they process information, and tell your brain something is hard or easy will be ingrained a lot quicker than you think. Give your brain a chance to build those neuron connections and come at it neutrally. Your physical brain reacts to how you train it. 

 

What’s your favorite book you recently read? 

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah Maas

 

 

Show notes

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www.instagram.com/seoisfun

 

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