Katy Ripp 00:00:00  Would you just tell me, what is SEO?

Maggie Schneider  00:00:02  Yeah, I do think every business owner should at least have a general understanding of it. And so many business owners come to me like 3 or 4 years into their business and they’re like, okay, like, I actually have no idea what it is. And I feel like I have this website and it’s done nothing for me, and I’m paying all this money for a website. I paid a designer for a website, and it’s not doing anything for me.

Katy Ripp 00:00:24  Hey there, fellow rebels, welcome to #ActuallyICan. The podcast where we say a hearty hell yes to designing life on our own terms. I’m Katy Ripp, a lifestyle coach, business mentor and serial entrepreneur here to guide you through the wild ride, defying what society expects of us and embracing our authenticity. On this show, we dive deep into taboo topics like death, money, spirituality, entrepreneurship, unapologetic self-care, and personal development, all while swearing and laughing along the way.

Katy Ripp 00:00:55  Expect down and dirty conversations, plenty of humor, and a whole lot of exploration, leaving you feeling empowered to be your truest self. Whether you’re craving a good laugh, seeking unconventional self-care tips, or simply looking for some camaraderie. You’ve come to the right place. We only get this one short life, so buckle up and let’s design yours on our own terms. Ready to dive in? Let’s go.

Katy Ripp 00:01:24  Welcome back, listeners. Thank you for joining us at hashtag. Actually I can today I am talking with Maggie from Hilltop Help. She is well I’m going to probably butcher this. You are an SEO expert.

Maggie Schneider  00:01:36  Yeah. Yes.

Maggie Schneider  00:01:38  SEO expert strategist. There’s a million different words you can use.

Katy Ripp 00:01:43  So I am an SEO junkie, but from the other end, like, I have a certificate in web design, but it was from 25 years ago, and I know nothing about SEO. So I found Maggie through Instagram, which it’s like, I love that. I love the connection of Instagram for sure, especially for small business owners of like, where are the women actually doing it and being real about it? We were just talking about me having conspiracy theories about these people that are out there, you know, $998 million.

Katy Ripp 00:02:15  So I’m gonna let Maggie introduce herself. She’s got really kind of a great story of #ActuallyICan write like you didn’t start out as an SEO gal, and then we’re going to really dive into SEO and all of the things about SEO, because I think it is one of those things that we should absolutely be outsourcing, not trying to necessarily learn ourselves, even though you can do some stuff.

Maggie Schneider  00:02:39  There is actually you can.

Katy Ripp 00:02:40  Yeah, actually, you can do a lot of stuff on your own. And I actually bought Maggie’s course and have been working through it. I have just a little bit left of it and it’s been a great course. So I’m going to let you just kind of take it away. Like tell us your story of how you ended up in this position. I know that there’s a story behind Covid, so the last five years has been sort of crazy for a lot of people.

Maggie Schneider  00:03:04  So it’s been a whirlwind. Yeah. And probably like a lot of people that you interview on this podcast, Covid turned our world upside down.

Maggie Schneider  00:03:11  So I’ve always been kind of like a multi passionate person. Nursing was actually my second degree out of college. I did a degree in public health. Wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with that, so I went right to nursing school after, you know, my undergrad and I worked in health care for ten years. I started kind of like as a receptionist and then worked in a variety of settings as a registered nurse, I did postpartum. That was kind of my most recent job. I did pediatrics, I worked at Hopkins for about two years in their transplant and cardiac pediatric unit, so you can imagine how traumatizing that was. I worked in a several different like outpatient surgery centers as well. So I really loved healthcare because I think I’m a multi passionate person. It always gave me that opportunity to pivot and like try something new. There’s always something new to learn in healthcare. And yeah, overall I enjoyed my time there, but it was when I had my first son on March 6th. So like a week before the world turned upside down.

Maggie Schneider  00:04:11  All right. We had like a very normal delivery, like people were mumbling about Covid, but it wasn’t like full blown chaos yet. And actually where I had him is where I ended up working as a postpartum nurse afterwards, because I had such a great experience there. And a week after, I think it was March 13th. It was Friday the 13th. I have a good story about Friday the 13th, but I always have bad luck on Friday the 13th and on Friday the 13th, after I had my son, I was having like chest pain and all this like weird symptoms. And it was like, that was the last day of school in Maryland where I am. And then they closed it down. So I ended up going to the E.R. on Friday the 13th, March 2020, which everything was fine. I ended up it was just like dehydration, really, and exhaustion and yeah, just being back at the hospital, I was like, okay, this is like really terrifying to be here when this virus is going around.

Maggie Schneider  00:05:05  I have a newborn baby at home. So that’s what kind of started to get my wheels turning about entrepreneurship. But it wasn’t until I had my daughter, actually about 20 months later. So still in the pandemic, but yeah, still winning down.

Maggie Schneider  00:05:18  Oh yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:05:19  I was like, let’s knock them out. And I had boy, girl, I was thinking I was done, but actually I have a third child.

Maggie Schneider  00:05:24  Now because we can.

Katy Ripp 00:05:26  Do that to.

Maggie Schneider  00:05:27  Their prize.

Maggie Schneider  00:05:27  Yeah. So yeah, when I had my daughter I was working night shift, only part time, but it was still just really, it’s really hard to work at a hospital in my opinion, when you have kids, there’s so many people that do it, but it just wasn’t the lifestyle that I wanted, and I wanted to be home with them and be able to be present. I was home with them a lot because I work night shift, but I was so, so tired. Yeah, just that anxiety of like, I’m in a hospital, there’s germs, all the things.

Maggie Schneider  00:05:53  So that’s what kind of got my wheels turning about, like starting my own business, actually, at the same time, my husband was starting his own business as well with his dad. So that’s another thing that kind of got my wheels turning. No one in my family is an entrepreneur. Like it was very when I like, told people I’m going to leave my stable nursing job, everyone looked at me like I had like 12 heads and like are cute. Like, well, you can always go back to nursing. That’s what everyone always said. You can always go back.

Maggie Schneider  00:06:20  I mean.

Katy Ripp 00:06:21  That is a true statement, I suppose. Also, yeah, that’s a common response for lots of people. When you go into entrepreneur.

Maggie Schneider  00:06:28  Yeah, it’s like.

Maggie Schneider  00:06:29  Why would you leave something stable? But I think when you’re an entrepreneur, you just get it. Like there’s just that freedom and that like autonomy that you don’t get when you work for somebody else. And yeah, my husband was starting his job and totally different.

Maggie Schneider  00:06:44  He does like logistics, delivery services and stuff.

Maggie Schneider  00:06:46  Okay. Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:06:48  And now he has a restaurant too, so that’s a nightmare. Don’t own a restaurant.

Katy Ripp 00:06:52  We own too.

Maggie Schneider  00:06:52  So.

Maggie Schneider  00:06:53  Oh you do? Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:06:54  Okay. So. Yeah, well.

Katy Ripp 00:06:55  Not full blown restaurants. We have a coffee shop and an ice cream shop.

Maggie Schneider  00:06:58  That’s right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Yeah, it’s a lot.

Maggie Schneider  00:07:01  Oh, it’s a lot. Yeah. So anyway, that just kind of got my wheels turning. I was on Instagram a lot at that time as most mothers are like breastfeeding in the middle of the night and, you know, holding babies for naps, just scrolling. And I, you know, all these influencers were like posting that they needed help. And I was like, this is interesting. Like, I feel like I can do Canva. Like I’m on social media all the time. I get it literally. I had no idea about the online marketing world and how complex and like, interesting it is really.

Maggie Schneider  00:07:31  I just thought like, yeah, I can help these people. So I, I just ended up like reaching out to a few people who were posting about them needing virtual assistance. It started with just influencers. At first I didn’t realize, like all the online businesses that are out there took a course through pursuing her purpose, which is no longer but Wisconsin based. So that’s how I have all my Wisconsin connections. Everyone always thinks I’m from the Midwest because. Because I have all of these connections. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:07:57  Abby’s coming on the podcast next week.

Maggie Schneider  00:07:59  Oh love, Abby. Oh my gosh. well, I want to come to can we again.

Katy Ripp 00:08:04  Well, you can come. We only live, like, eight miles apart.

Maggie Schneider  00:08:07  Oh that’s awesome.

Maggie Schneider  00:08:09  Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:08:12  So anyway, back to the stories. Yeah. So I kind of just started as a virtual assistant rather, and just kind of to get my bearings. Everyone I worked with, I was like, I’m brand new at this, but I’m a registered nurse.

Maggie Schneider  00:08:23  So a lot of the people that I worked with were also like in healthcare to some degree. Like a lot of them were nurses who are pivoting to their own business, like sleep consultants, you know, parenting coaches, that kind of thing. And now I work with a lot of therapists and other types of healthcare providers like physical therapists, occupational therapists, all the therapists.

Maggie Schneider  00:08:43  All the therapists, all the.

Maggie Schneider  00:08:44  Things, Lots of health coaches, fitness coaches. Yeah. So I feel like my background in healthcare has really served me in that way because I know the terminology, like I know what their struggles are as healthcare professionals. Like they don’t have time to be, you know, spending any time really on their marketing because they’re with patients all the time. So that’s kind of how I found my niche, I guess. And then once I started learning more about blogging and SEO and web design, I was like, oh, this is what I really, really love because it was just the perfect mix of like, creativity, which I didn’t have as a nurse.

Maggie Schneider  00:09:16  I felt like, you know, creative with, like how you talk to patients and deal with them and stuff. But there wasn’t that like, you know, artistic creativity that I really craved from, like as a child, I was really artistic. And. Yeah. And then also like very data driven. So it had like that perfect blend of almost like an artsy science is how I look at it. And yeah, that’s what just drew me to SEO. And I started taking all the courses and free trainings and YouTube videos and all the things and really just trial and error with my own content. And then with like my very new clients. And I’ve learned a lot in the last three years for sure.

Maggie Schneider  00:09:51  Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:09:52  I mean, it’s such a steep learning curve, but I feel like there’s so much to learn that it’s kind of never ending to. It’s such a fascinating world. I also have this art brain, but I love numbers so much. I love all analytics. Give me all the spreadsheets, all the playing around with numbers and all of that.

Katy Ripp 00:10:13  So well, first of all, like, how did you leave your job, right? Because you obviously came up against some skepticism, of course, and there probably was some doubt in there at some point, especially being in the healthcare industry, in our skeptics in my life was always, who’s going to pay for health insurance? That was my parents, my uncles, aunts, everybody. The first question was, who’s going to pay for health insurance? Yeah, I find to be such a societal sadness that that’s the first thing you’re thinking of, or that people are working only for insurance? Like what kind of existence do we live in that we’re only working for insurance? Not to blame anybody that does work for insurance, because I know that, you know, it’s cost prohibitive for a lot of people, and I totally understand that. Or they have some medical ailment that they definitely need to work for insurance. I totally get it. But that was the biggest roadblock for all of my family and most of my friends.

Katy Ripp 00:11:13  When both my husband and I left our jobs was, who’s going to pay for health insurance?

Maggie Schneider  00:11:17  Yeah, I got that question a lot too. And luckily, yeah, my husband actually is on salary with his dad’s job, so we had health insurance through that. But, I mean, I had great benefits at working at the hospital. I had my daughter there for free, like literally free. Every appointment. Everything was free. Then when I had my son, I was like, oh, that’s shocking. Like how.

Maggie Schneider  00:11:36  Much that, yeah, we had to pay.

Katy Ripp 00:11:38  Cash for miles.

Maggie Schneider  00:11:39  Because we didn’t have. God.

Katy Ripp 00:11:41  And on his fifth birthday, I was like, well, you are paid for. You have now been paid for.

Maggie Schneider  00:11:47  Just five years. You’ve been.

Katy Ripp 00:11:49  On layaway. Now you’re ours.

Maggie Schneider  00:11:51  Now you’re asking. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:11:54  I did a payment plan through the hospital. Just because I’m, like, interest free.

Maggie Schneider  00:11:57  Why not? You know what?

Maggie Schneider  00:11:58  You don’t need my money that bad, right?

Maggie Schneider  00:12:00  Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:12:01  Great. Yeah, that’s definitely got a lot of that question, for sure. Even with my husband. Like having insurance, just like. Oh, but you’re not going to have any benefits. But the benefit is the freedom and the you know, I did get a lot of support too, of like, oh, like now’s the time to do it. You have young kids like, you’ll never get that time back, you know, questions like that. But it was always kind of like, oh, well, you’ll just go back to nursing. Like, this is just a little phase kind of thing.

Maggie Schneider  00:12:27  How’s your.

Katy Ripp 00:12:27  Little job?

Maggie Schneider  00:12:28  My side.

Maggie Schneider  00:12:29  Yeah, my side gig or, like, whatever. My friends still just don’t get it, which is fine.

Maggie Schneider  00:12:34  But why would you need a tribe? Yeah, I know exactly.

Maggie Schneider  00:12:38  Well, that’s. Yeah, that’s why it’s so important just to surround yourself with other people who are in this world. Because if you’re not, you don’t get it.

Maggie Schneider  00:12:45  But yeah, I just honestly, I had it was a gradual leaving of health care, I would say, like I was part time when I had my daughter. And then I ended up finding a work from home job, which I was like, this is a unicorn job. Like everyone wants to work from home as a nurse doing triage on the phone, how terrible it was. Oh my gosh, it was so terrible. It just not only was it like the liability of it was terrifying, but it was just like, you miss that, like in-person connection with your patients, which is why I loved healthcare so much. It’s just like hearing people’s stories and hear, you know, but when you’re answering the phone call, you’re like trying to get through it as fast as you can. And it just didn’t feel right. So that lasted a couple months. And while I was doing that is when I started my work as a virtual assistant, which was a nice kind of transition period of like, I kind of set a deadline for myself.

Maggie Schneider  00:13:32  I didn’t want to be working another Christmas and holiday season. So yeah, I think it was like November 8th. I’ll remember November 8th. I quit that job and it was so weird to be free for the holidays when like the past eight years, I had been, like rotating working at the hospital or working, you know, the weekend after Thanksgiving or whatever that looked like. So it was nice. I mean, like I said, it was like a transition. I didn’t expect to match my nursing salary anytime soon. And honestly, it wasn’t an expectation. I mean, we’re very lucky that I was kind of just like considering myself a stay at home mom only. And this was just like extra money. But then, of course, now it’s more of a full time gig, which is good.

Maggie Schneider  00:14:13  Yeah, it didn’t happen.

Maggie Schneider  00:14:13  Overnight for sure.

Katy Ripp 00:14:15  Yes, I am always curious when we talk to entrepreneurs like what the allure of entrepreneurship was for you. Like, what did you think it was going to give you?

Maggie Schneider  00:14:26  Just freedom, really just time.

Maggie Schneider  00:14:28  Freedom. Like not having to be on someone else’s schedule, not having to plan my vacations out like six months in advance because I have to, like, find some coverage. Like if I called out of work, I was really hurting my fellow nurses because they had to pick up the slack or take extra patients or someone got called in. So just having that like freedom of making my own schedule, like the kids are sick today. I’m just not going to do work today, or I’ll stay up late tonight and catch up, whatever that looks like. So that was definitely the biggest draw, especially being like a new parent. And then of course, just like I didn’t really realize this until getting into it more, but just the limitlessness of it of like financially and just like all of the pivots you can make, like just I started as a virtual assistant. That’s not what I’m doing now. But like the business has transitioned pretty seamlessly with that. So the limitlessness with what you can do, like the work, the kind of work you can do and of course the like financial Limitlessness if you want to make $1 million a year, there’s a way you can do it.

Maggie Schneider  00:15:31  I’m not there, but right?

Katy Ripp 00:15:33  The freedom. Do you feel like you’ve gotten it.

Maggie Schneider  00:15:37  To.

Maggie Schneider  00:15:38  A point? I will say that that’s why I got out of just being a virtual assistant, is because I still felt like I was trading my time for money, like people were paying me an hourly rate. And even though I wanted to like, create these package retainer kind of things, that still felt like I’m like the backbone of this business. If I don’t do the work on their deadline, then, you know, their business suffers. So that’s kind of what also helped me get into like web design and SEO, as I could charge a little bit more for these packages that also got my clients way better results, more tangible results of like that website traffic is going to convert into paying clients for their business. So it’s a win win for them. And for me, I felt like I was giving them more value for what they were paying me for and not trading as much of my time for money.

Maggie Schneider  00:16:24  Like my package is my package. It doesn’t matter if it takes me 100 hours to do it, or five hours to do it right.

Katy Ripp 00:16:30  I had a boss once. I was working full time for one of my favorite bosses of all time, and I had been there a really long time, and they had kept giving me raises and it was really great. But it got to a point where I was salaried and I felt in my heart like I was not giving them enough, right? Like I felt like I wasn’t doing enough for what I was making. And he said to me, he said, well, you’re getting all your work done, right? And I said, well, yeah. And he said, well, I’m not going to punish you for being efficient. And I thought, yeah, I mean, also amazing boss. Right.

Maggie Schneider  00:17:08  Like I was going to.

Maggie Schneider  00:17:09  Say what boss ever says up.

Maggie Schneider  00:17:11  There like, oh, you have more time here. You can take this, take this here.

Katy Ripp 00:17:15  Yeah. And my husband said to me when I told them I was going to go talk to him about this, he was like, you know, you’re asking for a demotion, right?

Maggie Schneider  00:17:22  Yeah. I mean, I.

Katy Ripp 00:17:23  Think that was story. But when I coach entrepreneurial clients right now, it’s sort of one of the biggest issues we get into about charging by the hour because as you do service for anybody and you’re charging by the hour, inevitably you’re going to get more efficient and you’re going to get better at that job, and it’s going to take you less time as you get better at it. So, you know, getting into a place where you’re charging for packages, no matter how much time it takes you, this is the package. It might have taken you ten hours at the beginning of your career, but now you can get ten hours worth of work done in two hours, right? So your dollar per hour goes up while the package kind of stays the same. So I’m thank you for saying that.

Katy Ripp 00:18:11  Like the you’re trading time for money, you can get better and more efficient and not have to lower your dollar per hour. Basically.

Maggie Schneider  00:18:19  Definitely. Yeah yeah, yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:18:21  And that’s like the overachiever ness that it seems like you have as well that like you’re like, I should be like giving my all for this job.

Katy Ripp 00:18:28  But yeah, it’s a it was a real problem. It’s better now. But it was a real problem.

Maggie Schneider  00:18:33  Yeah. But that transition.

Maggie Schneider  00:18:35  Was definitely hard for me too because I was like, oh wait, they’re paying me like, I need to do everything that they say, even if it’s not in the scope of the contract. Like, yeah, they’re paying me. I don’t want to make them mad or whatever.

Maggie Schneider  00:18:46  Yeah, but really, I think that comes from ownership.

Maggie Schneider  00:18:48  Of your business. Like this is your business. You are the expert that they’re paying you for. My husband’s my coach for that.

Maggie Schneider  00:18:54  Yeah, right.

Katy Ripp 00:18:55  Like back in here? Yeah. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:18:57  I have changed my view on money a lot since I’ve gotten into this and gotten into entrepreneurship in general, but I just don’t feel bad in charging people. I do good things with money. So therefore I should make more money so I can do more good things. And I think that is of 100% of my clients and 100% of the people I surround myself with, they should also be doing that. They should make it as much money as they possibly can, so they can share it with the world. That’s the whole point of this. So anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox.

Maggie Schneider  00:19:28  There is so much like money mindset.

Maggie Schneider  00:19:31  That I.

Maggie Schneider  00:19:31  Did not realize, like all of these money issues that I had from, you know, stem from like childhood even.

Maggie Schneider  00:19:36  Like that.

Katy Ripp 00:19:38  And women are especially especially women also, we weren’t necessarily taught everything and now we feel bad about not knowing it. So you can get into entrepreneurship and not realize like, oh, well, I don’t know what, profit and loss statement is or a cash flow report, but I feel like I should know it because I own a business.

Katy Ripp 00:20:00  So therefore it’s a stupid question. I’m not going to ask it. I’m just going to, like, kind of just.

Maggie Schneider  00:20:04  Struggle with my little.

Maggie Schneider  00:20:06  Like, I’ll.

Katy Ripp 00:20:06  Just do well or I’ll just ignore it, or somebody else can do it, or the accountant can do it or whatever. I don’t need to worry about it as long as I’m bringing in enough money. You know, for me and my family, that can get really dangerous. So yeah. Yeah, money mindset is my jam for 2025 if anybody wants to come along.

Maggie Schneider  00:20:26  Yeah. Good. I’m there. I’m with you. Okay.

Katy Ripp 00:20:28  I do want to dive into all things SEO, though. I was fascinated by this. I also feel like it is one of those questions, like, I should know what it is, but I have no fucking idea. And I feel like I’m too far gone to ask about it. Plus, I don’t know anybody that does it except for like, the slimy people that.

Maggie Schneider  00:20:50  Say money.

Katy Ripp 00:20:51  Money and tell you they’re doing something and then they don’t. So please tell me, what is SEO?

Maggie Schneider  00:20:57  Yeah. I mean, well.

Maggie Schneider  00:20:58  To your point to I do think every business owner should at least have a general understanding of it. And so many business owners come to me like three, four years into their business and they’re like, okay, like, I actually have no idea what it is. And I feel like I have this website and it’s done nothing for me, and I’m paying all this money for a website. I paid a designer for a website, and it’s not doing anything for me. So yeah, let’s get into it.

Katy Ripp 00:21:19  And I give you a TV timeout just for one second. I just want to ask websites. So before we get into SEO, the importance of a website. So everybody in their mother right now is on Instagram and I get it. And everybody’s like, oh my God, give me more followers. I need 10,000 followers, 100,000 followers, a million, whatever that number is, that there’s a magic number out there for the algorithm, but also the magic number for you as a person.

Katy Ripp 00:21:46  Right? Like you all have a magic number. So I am a firm believer in websites. I’m also a firm believer in email marketing. Yeah, because I think that is still kind of king. But websites, are they still important. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna get the right answer from you, but are they still important and how important compared to social media?

Maggie Schneider  00:22:08  Yeah, I don’t think that they’re mutually exclusive. I think you do need both. And your social media can help your website presence. So you absolutely need a website because what do you do when you’re looking for something, especially a local business. You type into Google like Mexican restaurant near me, and you look at the website, you look through the menu, you look at the aesthetic like, does it look pretty inside or are there rats crawling around on the floor? That person probably wouldn’t have a website, but.

Maggie Schneider  00:22:39  Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:22:39  But yeah, it’s just that extra piece of your online presence that I think every business needs. You don’t necessarily need it eventually.

Maggie Schneider  00:22:46  Like, I’ve met a lot of coaches that have been successful just marketing themselves on Instagram. But a year or two down the line, once you have your packages established and you know who your target audience is, you know what your goals are for your business. You need to really start focusing on your online presence, because that’s going to get you in front of more eyes, and it’s just less time consuming, in my opinion, than being on Instagram. If you’re on Instagram, you know that you need to be consistent, which for Instagram is every single day you’re showing up in some way, whether it’s on stories or in your feed posts and sometimes a feed post. I mean, for me, if I’m making a carousel, I could spend one hour making one carousel.

Maggie Schneider  00:23:27  Like it’s one like one.

Maggie Schneider  00:23:30  Get one like. And yeah, and.

Katy Ripp 00:23:31  Some, like my mom or somebody. Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:23:34  It’s useless and it doesn’t convert and. Yes.

Maggie Schneider  00:23:37  Yeah. And you have no control over it. You could lose those.

Maggie Schneider  00:23:39  I’ve had friends who have 100,000 followers and their Instagram account gets hacked, completely gone. Like all of their content, all of their followers and Instagram. Even though your meta verified that really means nothing, they don’t help you get that account back. So luckily my friend got hers back, but she had to pay money for it.

Maggie Schneider  00:23:59  And oh my.

Katy Ripp 00:24:00  God, scary.

Maggie Schneider  00:24:01  Yeah, and just like that, control is gone. And like to your point, I think it all goes together where people can find you organically on Instagram, send them to your website and then also have that opt in for your email list and have a variety of different opt ins so that you have their contact information. And that is like your private way to communicate with them, where you can share more value, share more personal things, whatever that looks like for you. But yeah, definitely, I’m very pro website of course.

Maggie Schneider  00:24:28  Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:24:28  Pro website we are. Okay. So now what is this. So back.

Maggie Schneider  00:24:32  Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:24:32  So back.

Maggie Schneider  00:24:33  To SEO. So SEO is really just all of the processes and methods that you use to build your online presence. And the key is that it’s organic. So with that you’re not paying for ads. People are finding you naturally through I say Google but it could be Bing, it could be Yahoo. Any of those like.

Maggie Schneider  00:24:49  Search engine type thing. I know.

Maggie Schneider  00:24:52  I don’t know, not apparently it’s coming up, but it’s like.

Katy Ripp 00:24:55  Told to me. And tell me if you use Bing and why. I guess I.

Maggie Schneider  00:24:59  Would also like the the results of that poll.

Katy Ripp 00:25:02  Let me know because I want to know who uses Bing. But anyway.

Maggie Schneider  00:25:05  Go ahead, I don’t know.

Maggie Schneider  00:25:07  Apparently it’s up and coming. I don’t know, but YouTube, Pinterest, those are also considered search engines. So because you’re typing into a search bar. Yeah. And even TikTok has like a search platform too, but that’s a whole different story. So yeah, SEO is just really getting your content, whether it’s your website, your blog, your podcast, even in front of more eyes, by being strategic, using the right keywords, targeting the right audience so that you’re really providing value to the people that you want to find you, essentially.

Katy Ripp 00:25:38  And it’s search engine optimization, correct?

Maggie Schneider  00:25:41  Yes, yes.

Katy Ripp 00:25:41  And that word and that acronym have been around since Google started.

Maggie Schneider  00:25:46  Yeah, probably the dawn of the internet.

Katy Ripp 00:25:48  Things change, I feel like. But SEO is SEO.

Maggie Schneider  00:25:51  Yes.

Maggie Schneider  00:25:52  Yeah. And it it, you know, it comes in waves. I feel like there was a really big trend for it last year and this year with like AI and like the new AI overview coming up in Google, people are like, oh, I don’t need to focus on search because people did lose some traffic from that. But when you think about it, it’s not the traffic that is going to convert into paying customers for you anyway. The search results that are coming up with that I overview are like pretty simple standard questions of like, give me a list of, you know, restaurants near me or whatever. I keep using restaurants as an example, but that is, you know, a list. You’re not really getting it much value from that. But if I’m searching for a more in-depth like a tutorial or something like that, I’m going to click on a website link and get more value and find more information from one specific person.

Maggie Schneider  00:26:39  And if you’re on that first page of Google, that obviously increases your chances of getting clicked on, and it just helps to build that brand awareness. Like somebody can click on your website for the first time. I’ve done this many times, and then I’m like, oh, I’ve never heard of this person, but they’re now my go to resource for all things YouTube or all things Pinterest, whatever it is. And then you can kind of start searching their names directly. And anyway, that’s kind of the funnel there.

Katy Ripp 00:27:05  I’m a Pinterest junkie.

Maggie Schneider  00:27:07  Oh yeah, I.

Maggie Schneider  00:27:07  Love Pinterest.

Maggie Schneider  00:27:08  I.

Katy Ripp 00:27:09  Love Pinterest. My friend Bridget, I was like you still use Pinterest. And I was like, yeah, doesn’t everybody? And she’s like, no, I haven’t been on Pinterest since like 2010. I was like, that’s a lie. It just is. Still, I love Pinterest. Pinterest is going to build my house. I mean, that literally, that is. And now Pinterest has all the like, oh, I want that.

Katy Ripp 00:27:33  Where do I find that highlight?

Maggie Schneider  00:27:35  Yeah, you’re a ten examples.

Maggie Schneider  00:27:36  This one’s from Walmart. This one’s from.

Maggie Schneider  00:27:38  Anthropologie.

Katy Ripp 00:27:39  Which one. Yeah. And I think Pinterest has like kept the integrity of Pinterest and just added little things here and there because like I went off of it for a while and came back because I got really overwhelmed with my boards. Right. They were. So I came back and it was still it’s still really navigator friendly. Like, yeah, it’s still my search engine for sure. If I’m looking for anything. I mean, if I’m looking for anything, yeah, anything visual. But also if I’m like, oh well, of course everybody’s looking for recipes, but like if I like I want a budget spreadsheet. That’s where I’m going. I mean, sometimes I’ll go to Etsy, but that’s where I’m going to get the Etsy link basically. Yeah. So tell me about SEO for Pinterest because is that a thing?

Maggie Schneider  00:28:22  It’s definitely a thing. Yeah. If you’re using it like as a business owner to promote your own content, website, whatever, you definitely need to be strategic about it as well, because the search terms that people put into Google are going to be different than the search terms that you put into Pinterest.

Maggie Schneider  00:28:37  Okay. So, you know, question based things perform a little bit better on Google. But if you’re on Pinterest, you might be like gluten free cookie recipe or something like that. And it’s important that you don’t like incorrectly label your content. Because once people click on that link, if your blog post or whatever is not a gluten free cookie recipe, people are going to click right off of it and that hurts your website domain authority. So SEO is important for Pinterest. You want the keywords on the actual pin itself in the title and the description Pretty much. This is kind of a universal rule for all social media and website and stuff. If there’s a spot, they want you to fill it like Pinterest wants you to fill all of the, you know, the tags.

Maggie Schneider  00:29:20  So many spots.

Maggie Schneider  00:29:21  There’s so many now. Yeah, the link like fill it all in. And that’s such.

Katy Ripp 00:29:25  A good little tip. I mean, like if you’re taking a little tip from here, if there is a field to fill in, fill it in.

Maggie Schneider  00:29:33  Yeah. And for your website too.

Maggie Schneider  00:29:34  Oh my gosh. The back end of things are I go on to people’s websites and they’re just empty. And I’m like, this is not telling Google what you’re trying to tell it. Yeah. Google. At the end of the day these are still computers and they’re still, you know, little robots, whatever that need to read the data. And if you’re not putting that data in the right places, it can’t read it. So it doesn’t know where to put your content in the mix. It’s kind of like a library, I say like it’s they’re trying to catalog like you are a nonfiction writer and you write about recipes, so they want to put you in a little bubble and understand what your content is about.

Katy Ripp 00:30:06  So that’s Google’s job really is to put the right people in front of the right information.

Maggie Schneider  00:30:12  Yes. Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:30:14  And how you were saying like those, you know, marketing gurus that kind of scare you into like, you’re.

Maggie Schneider  00:30:19  Not doing this.

Maggie Schneider  00:30:19  Right. That’s how they get you because they’re like, you need to be afraid of Google. Like if you make Google mad, you’re done. Like, you know, that’s how they get you with their marketing. But the thing is, like you said, like Google is actually your friend. Like they want to help you find the right people that are going to spend time on your website. That’s their whole thing.

Katy Ripp 00:30:36  Well, it’s the whole thing everywhere, really. And I say this to a lot of clients, and I’ve said it to a lot of people, and this was really hard for me to learn for a long time. It is. You do not want the wrong people. If they don’t want your service, you do not want them. If they say no let them go, you do not need them. There are 8 billion people in this world where there is a one. No, there are five yeses probably. It’s really finding the right people. Because if you don’t have the right people, you can’t give them the right service and then they’ll be disappointed or resentful or whatever.

Katy Ripp 00:31:13  They’ll give you a one star review.

Maggie Schneider  00:31:14  A bad review, yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:31:16  Yeah. You didn’t get what you promised or what they expected from you because you have the wrong person. And that was really hard for me actually going through your course. You know, we went through some avatar like, who is your person? And I feel like every small business, especially online course right now is like you need, well, every business everywhere, like you need to know who your customer is because you don’t know what then words to put in Pinterest. If you don’t know who your customer is. Yeah, talk to me a little bit about that and what that looks like for SEO.

Maggie Schneider  00:31:47  Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:31:47  And we and we can talk about that related to blogging especially because people are always asking me like, okay, I understand blogging helps my SEO and I can explain that to is the way blogging helps your SEO is that you’re giving Google more content so that it can better understand your website. And what people don’t know about SEO is that every page on your website actually ranks individually of each other.

Maggie Schneider  00:32:08  So if you only have like a three page website, that only gives you like three chances really to get in front of the right people. But if you have a blog that has 100 posts, you know all of the different keywords that you’re using in those posts gives you more opportunity to show up on Google. So when it comes to like niching down with your blog content, people are always asking, you know, I have no idea what to blog about. The easiest thing to do is go to your clients or people who would be your ideal clients and like, what are they struggling with? Or what questions are they constantly coming to you for? Like, I’m sure if you actually took the time and I say this in my course to is like, anytime somebody is in your DMs asking you a question and then you get like three of those same questions, that’s probably something that could be a really great blog post because somebody is asking, you know, you’re getting the same question. So people are wanting the answer to that.

Maggie Schneider  00:32:56  Creating content around that question in the form of a blog post could be anywhere on your website too, or even, you know, on social media. That is going to position you as an expert that people are going to come to you for, and that also will help you show up on Google. I just had someone ask me this morning, like I saw that they had posted something. I was like, oh, I love that you’re blogging. That’s awesome. Like, what made you want to do that? She was like, I don’t know, like the website platform just told me I needed to add a blog. So I just wrote like a simple blog post about like answering, you know, it was like, what type of permanent makeup is right for me and people are. That’s probably the number one question that an ideal customer would be asking her is like, do I want microblading or do I want? I don’t even know the.

Maggie Schneider  00:33:37  Types of things like lip.

Maggie Schneider  00:33:40  Stains or whatever.

Maggie Schneider  00:33:42  It’s called.

Maggie Schneider  00:33:42  So yeah, it’s just giving Google that content and giving your customers that content too. Because if you’re a permanent makeup artist and you’re writing about, you know, what you had for dinner that night, that’s so irrelevant. I see that a lot that people kind of write their blog content, just like their stream of conscious and like what they are interested in. But you need to be thinking like your customer. And how can I answer a question for them so that they will come and click on my website.

Katy Ripp 00:34:07  For the multi passionate.

Maggie Schneider  00:34:09  Mum.

Katy Ripp 00:34:10  And the scanner.

Maggie Schneider  00:34:11  Personalities like.

Katy Ripp 00:34:12  Myself out here, I have lots of interests. I have a blog, I have 500 blog posts that are about everything under the sun. How important is it for you to niche down like down, down, down from an SEO standpoint?

Maggie Schneider  00:34:33  Yeah, I mean.

Maggie Schneider  00:34:33  I would have to see.

Maggie Schneider  00:34:34  Your blog and.

Maggie Schneider  00:34:35  What kind of stuff you got going on there. But I mean, if you’re a personal brand, which I would say you are a personal brand, then that might make sense for you.

Maggie Schneider  00:34:42  For you. I would say that.

Katy Ripp 00:34:44  Mom, I’ve made it.

Maggie Schneider  00:34:46  Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:34:47  But, like, it might make sense for you to be like, I would come if I would click on your website and you had a recipe. Like, I would be like, yeah, Katy’s an entrepreneur like me. She only has a limited amount of time to cook this dinner. Like I trust that her recipe is going to be good.

Maggie Schneider  00:35:02  By the way, your recipes zero recipes.

Katy Ripp 00:35:06  Zero recipes.

Maggie Schneider  00:35:07  But it’s always my go to because that’s what I.

Maggie Schneider  00:35:09  Searched for.

Katy Ripp 00:35:10  To write. I love like, what are people eating? I want to know what people are, right? But it’s an interesting place to be when you like, have lots of, I guess, passions, right? Like I built my, I guess, personal brand or my businesses around having multiple things that I do, which has somewhat niched it down to multiple units. I didn’t really know that until I started going back and looking at my blog posts and seeing what did well and what didn’t do well, and I was like, oh, there’s like quite.

Katy Ripp 00:35:43  And my number one Pinterest pin is, oh my God, I’m a scanner. I’m not crazy. And all of a sudden I was I kind of forgot I was a scanner. And then I went back and read that and I was like, oh, there’s like a lot of traffic here. A lot more traffic than any other.

Maggie Schneider  00:36:02  Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:36:02  And it’s sort of like gave me my niche, even though I am that person. And usually if you’re trying to attract somebody, there’s some portion of yourself and who the person is, you’re trying to attract that. Yeah. So, you know, for me it’s pretty easy because I am a multi passionate. So all the tools I use for myself that work usually work for other people too. Right. But I also am sober. So like I have a whole nother niche of like people that are sober or like a sober entrepreneur or that kind of thing. And I really don’t like to separate them.

Maggie Schneider  00:36:34  Yeah, I.

Maggie Schneider  00:36:34  Don’t think you need to though.

Maggie Schneider  00:36:36  I bet there’s some overlap.

Maggie Schneider  00:36:37  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:36:39  So anyway, that’s probably a story for me to hire you with.

Maggie Schneider  00:36:41  Yeah. But that’s a good thing that.

Maggie Schneider  00:36:44  You’re looking at your highest.

Maggie Schneider  00:36:45  Performance. Of course.

Katy Ripp 00:36:46  I got stuck on the first module forever because I was like, shit, I.

Maggie Schneider  00:36:50  That’s the biggest one. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, and like.

Maggie Schneider  00:36:53  You said, every business course ever like, has that module. But I try to really give it those actionable tips of like not even tips, but like that strategy of like, this is how you use what your clients are saying and make content out of it. And then go back and look at how that content performed and the best performing ones make more of that.

Maggie Schneider  00:37:13  Yeah, and that’s the thing about that.

Katy Ripp 00:37:15  Tell me about the numbers part of it. Like what can people see? When can they see like improvement how what they should be looking for. So much of this is in your course and I’ve taken the course so I know it’s in there.

Katy Ripp 00:37:27  And you didn’t really walk people through of like I didn’t know what is it, Google trends.

Maggie Schneider  00:37:32  Yeah, Google Trends and Pinterest.

Maggie Schneider  00:37:34  Has a trends.

Katy Ripp 00:37:34  Trend, but what’s the other one that I had never heard of it before? It’s not analytics. It’s the other ones.

Maggie Schneider  00:37:40  The search console.

Katy Ripp 00:37:41  Yes, the search console. I had no idea that thing even existed. And then.

Maggie Schneider  00:37:45  What better than.

Maggie Schneider  00:37:46  Google Analytics? I like looking at that.

Katy Ripp 00:37:48  And I went down the rabbit hole of that thing and I was like, oh, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I did like, sort of get stopped there. I got enough to like, get some information and get moving. But, you know, that’s a whole nother you can get really in the weeds on that.

Maggie Schneider  00:38:03  I spend way too much time on that because I do. I look at all my clients too. I’m like, yeah. So I mean, to answer your question with blogging, like if you’re doing it somewhat consistently, which like could be different for everyone, but it could be like 3 to 6 months before you really start seeing a good increase in traffic.

Maggie Schneider  00:38:21  There are so many things you can do to help increase that and shorten that time frame. You know, by posting your blogs on Pinterest so that you get traffic from there, by sharing it on social media, sharing it to your email list so that you get that instant traffic that signals to Google that, hey, this is a valuable article that was just posted, and let’s get it out to more people. So there’s all those things that you can do to speed up the process. You’ll hear most SEO people say like oh, 3 to 6 months before you start seeing like some increase in your website traffic. But I’ve had clients where I revamp their website with SEO. Not to toot my own horn, but like.

Maggie Schneider  00:38:54  That’s true. You’re welcome. If you’re not going.

Katy Ripp 00:38:56  To, I will.

Maggie Schneider  00:38:57  Okay, good. Yeah. So I’ve had clients where they, you know, had just no SEO strategy in place, and then we go in and put those keywords in the right places, make sure we have enough content on the page that we’re signaling to Google, like, this is who we’re talking to.

Maggie Schneider  00:39:10  And then they get clients a week or two later from Google. So it’s possible to do it. It just depends on your, you know, your industry, your competition. There’s so many different factors.

Maggie Schneider  00:39:20  So like Google.

Katy Ripp 00:39:21  Can be daunting to me. And I kind of always felt like SEO was for the big dogs. Right? Like spending a lot of money on SEO was like a luxury kind of because like, who’s googling a lifestyle coach and then going to find my little corner of the world, argue with me.

Maggie Schneider  00:39:41  You’d be surprised.

Maggie Schneider  00:39:42  Yeah. You’d be, and that’s why.

Maggie Schneider  00:39:44  Wrong. Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:39:46  I mean, and that’s why that first module in the course is so huge is because it’s like all of that market research, that competitive research, like where is the gap in the market that you can fill? And like that doesn’t mean you’re changing your business or changing who you are. It’s just like highlighting what makes you different. Really.

Maggie Schneider  00:40:04  Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:40:04  So tell me about the investment itself. Of course, there’s courses out there that you can do it yourself.

Katy Ripp 00:40:12  Of course, we also have 500,000 other things to do.

Maggie Schneider  00:40:16  Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:40:17  Why is investing in SEO like how is it going to make me money? I want to know how is it going to get me new clients, and how is it going to make me money? Just go into Instagram and do this all for free. I actually use Instagram personally for personally and professionally. My own is just like exposure. I really don’t look at it as any kind of business vehicle, only because I just don’t want to depend on the algorithm. I just that part really just makes me feel like I have no control. Yeah, so investing in SEO has always been a little bit daunting because I feel like it’s for the big dogs. But if I’m getting people to my website like what’s the ROI, how do I know I’m getting clients from it.

Maggie Schneider  00:41:05  It’s hard to do it yourself. That’s where like it does help to like hire an expert because they track all of that for you. Like they can put into a nice spreadsheet or whatever.

Maggie Schneider  00:41:13  Look, you know, break it down from your Google Analytics of like, okay, you are spending 90% of your marketing time on Instagram and no clients are coming from it, right? But if you spend that same amount of time blogging, that could get you in front of hundreds of new people. And yeah, it gets a little hard to track that exact, you know, flow of like, okay, did they find me on Instagram or did they find me on Google, or did they find me on Pinterest? Or, you know, where did that come from? But that’s where Google Analytics can help a little bit. But the return on investment to answer your question is probably I think I have to look at the numbers now, but it’s like 40 to 1 to social media. Like I think Neil Patel just did a study of like 12,000 business owners or something like that. And that’s what he found is that people were spending 90% of their time on social media getting no results from it. But the ones who invested in SEO and blogging saw like a 400% maybe increase in their revenue.

Maggie Schneider  00:42:09  So yeah, to say that it is for the big dogs like it is expensive for some people to start up. But if you plan on being in business for three five years, you know how you didn’t start this business to close it in a year. That long term initial setup is going to pay off for years to come. Like I have blog posts from two years ago that are still getting people onto my email list, and it’s all just part of that, you know, funnel. So people are finding you through a blog post, then they’re joining your email list, then you can nurture them and it might take two years. I have I’ve had people who have joined my course who have been following me for 2 or 3 years on my email list, but it took them that long to decide, hey, I think I’m ready for this, you know? So it’s hard because it’s like a little bit more abstract than that instant gratification that you get from social media. But SEO, is that like it is for the big dogs? Like if you want to take your business seriously, I think you need to be investing in SEO.

Katy Ripp 00:43:01  Maybe we just want to be the big dogs.

Maggie Schneider  00:43:03  You want to be.

Maggie Schneider  00:43:04  The big dog, don’t you?

Maggie Schneider  00:43:05  Yes. That’s a better.

Katy Ripp 00:43:06  Way to look at it. Yeah, because the Instagram I mean, I love Instagram. I’m not knocking Instagram by any means. I love watching all the Instagram people. I am very, very intentional about my Instagram. I love it, I love everything about it. I love to share things. I love it.

Maggie Schneider  00:43:24  For building community.

Maggie Schneider  00:43:25  I love it for that.

Katy Ripp 00:43:26  I do, I love it, I just don’t, I don’t sell anything from there. I don’t like, I sell on my website, like my website is the only way to really get in touch with me and schedule an appointment. I don’t do it on Instagram like I always just send people to my website. So that is one of the things that I have heard pretty much all my entrepreneurial life, as I’ve been involved with websites at all, is 1,000% of the time you are sending people to your website.

Maggie Schneider  00:43:58  Now should be you should be embarrassed.

Maggie Schneider  00:44:00  Of their website and then they don’t.

Maggie Schneider  00:44:02  And it’s interesting.

Katy Ripp 00:44:04  Tell me about.

Maggie Schneider  00:44:04  That. Oh all the time people have websites and they are not even linked on their Instagram account because they’re embarrassed. Yeah because they did it themselves or they just or they’ve changed what their business is even about or who they’re about or whatever. And it’s just doesn’t, you know, speak to them anymore. I hear that a lot from people. So they don’t even share it. And then you’re just like spending money on nothing. You might as well not have a website.

Katy Ripp 00:44:27  I didn’t realize that that was like a pain point.

Maggie Schneider  00:44:29  Oh, yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:44:30  You are embarrassed about their websites.

Maggie Schneider  00:44:33  All the time.

Maggie Schneider  00:44:33  Yeah. And some people, like, might not like reaching out directly to you on Instagram. They might want to learn a little bit about you first. So where else are they going to do that but your website. Like have that about page, you know, sharing your story.

Maggie Schneider  00:44:44  Have those service pages that are showing them exactly what it looks like to work with you. That is going to be super helpful because people might not want people might be a little shy. They don’t want to ask you directly, or they don’t have time to listen to your podcast to learn more about you. So having that written content on your website is going to be very helpful.

Katy Ripp 00:45:02  They followed you for three years and they haven’t seen your posts in two.

Maggie Schneider  00:45:06  Years, right?

Maggie Schneider  00:45:06  Oh, all the time.

Maggie Schneider  00:45:07  Yeah. I mean, I see that.

Katy Ripp 00:45:08  All the time. I’ll look at somebody like, I’ll see somebody. I’ll be like, God, I even seen shit from them on Instagram. So long. And then I’ll go.

Maggie Schneider  00:45:16  Got shadow banned from me for a long time. I was like.

Maggie Schneider  00:45:18  Where is she. I like.

Maggie Schneider  00:45:21  Intentionally go in and I’m like where is.

Maggie Schneider  00:45:23  She gonna go. Like ten post I.

Katy Ripp 00:45:25  Was I don’t even remember who it was. But I was like, why am I not seeing this person anymore? I still follow them.

Katy Ripp 00:45:30  She might have even been one of my favorites. And I was like, I had to go search her out. And I was like, where has she been? Except she’s been there the whole time.

Maggie Schneider  00:45:39  Isn’t that weird how that happened?

Katy Ripp 00:45:40  Yeah. And I’m like her ICA, so like.

Maggie Schneider  00:45:43  And I’m sure you’re liking.

Katy Ripp 00:45:44  And yes, to no fault of her own, it just algorithm told me I should be looking at cat videos instead because I sent it to my sister and now I’m a cat video person.

Maggie Schneider  00:45:56  Yeah, I mean, I like to train.

Katy Ripp 00:46:00  Instagram, but you also train it the wrong way sometimes.

Maggie Schneider  00:46:03  So yeah, no.

Maggie Schneider  00:46:03  I’m getting sourdough out the wazoo and I’m like, I.

Maggie Schneider  00:46:06  Only make one.

Maggie Schneider  00:46:07  Sourdough recipe. I don’t have time for anything else.

Maggie Schneider  00:46:10  Right? Oh, I.

Katy Ripp 00:46:11  Cannot feed it. I cannot nurture it.

Maggie Schneider  00:46:13  No. All I can do, it’s just all the homemakers, which I.

Maggie Schneider  00:46:17  So I aspire to be one day. But I’m not there yet.

Maggie Schneider  00:46:20  Yeah. We’re fine.

Katy Ripp 00:46:21  We can move that. Or just, like, save that Instagram feed or when my Instagram feed is really great and I’m like loving everything on it. It’s like I press refresh and they’re like, no, no, no, that was too good. We’re going.

Maggie Schneider  00:46:33  To different. Sorry.

Katy Ripp 00:46:35  Sorry. That one was really good okay. So websites I mean I know we dug really far into sort of or not really. We sort of skim the surface on SEO, but I’m now fascinated by people’s websites. So I have a web design certificate from 25 years ago, like HTML, right? So I’ve built all my own websites because I know just enough to be dangerous. So Squarespace has always been my kind of go to place to start websites for people, start all my own websites. I find Squarespace to be actually really user friendly from a you can do this on your own standpoint. There’s some training, there’s a learning curve for sure, but you can do it. Of course I got like bored with my website.

Katy Ripp 00:47:20  So I was like.

Maggie Schneider  00:47:22  Oh let’s move.

Katy Ripp 00:47:22  On over to show it which is better. Yeah. So it’s great. Although that’s a whole nother learning curve. And it took me a really long to rebuild my entire website. I do love it now. Like piece of advice for somebody that is realizing, oh shit, I should probably have a website. A. B where do I even start? I don’t have time for this. I don’t have any of the energy to learn this. If I don’t have the money for it. Well first of all, what kind of money are we talking about to build a website from somebody else.

Maggie Schneider  00:47:59  Yeah. I mean people will do it for a couple hundred bucks on Fiverr, but if you want it done right or you’re looking minimum like $3,000, okay. For, you know, a standard like 4 to 5 page website done right.

Maggie Schneider  00:48:11  Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:48:12  Done right. Hopefully. I also recommend find a designer that knows SEO because not all designers do. And then if you build your website and then you decide a year later, oh, I actually want to start focusing on SEO.

Maggie Schneider  00:48:25  I don’t feel like my keywords are in the right places here. And then you go back. I do this all the time too. I go back and look at a website that was professionally designed. Looks beautiful, but it’s not ranking because there’s so many pieces missing. So I will say I recommend if you’re gonna invest in paying a web designer, definitely find one that is at least has a basic understanding of SEO. To do it more affordably is you could buy a template. And the reason I say buy a template is because the ones that Squarespace gives you, or even show it gives you, they’re very generic. They’re everyone, at least. Maybe I’m like two in the weeds too. No, to like to say this, but like, I can instantly tell like this is a Squarespace website or this is a show, a website. Like, because they’re just using those standard templates that they give you. But if you pay, you know, 2 or 300 bucks for a professionally designed template, you can just plug and play, put in your pictures, put in your content, and then really you can launch it within a day or two.

Maggie Schneider  00:49:17  The other piece of that is that content piece, which is what people struggle with the most, and also what is probably the most important for SEO. There are lots of like copywriters that have guides like write your website guides and whatever. I have one that I give my clients when I work with them. But that just helps you lay out your website in a way that makes sense, that flows, that has all those pieces that people are looking for when they come to a website like those service pages, like, do they have enough detail? Do they explain the process, the testimonials, all these things? So many websites I see are missing those like key social proof pieces or they’re not going into enough. It’s like one sentence about their service, and that’s just not enough information to get people to actually book you. So that would be my advice. To go the cheaper route is to buy a template and find even. There’s probably free resources out there for the actual content writing guide. And then of course, if you focus on SEO, I do have an SEO challenge, which is very affordable.

Maggie Schneider  00:50:13  It’s $17 and that teaches you the very, very basics of SEO, where you can learn how to find the keywords that are related to your business and your niche for free. No tools, just using Google, and then it shows you exactly where to put them on your website to help optimize it. So oh.

Katy Ripp 00:50:30  Cool. Well, we’ll definitely link that. We can link that in the show notes.

Maggie Schneider  00:50:34  I’ll send it.

Katy Ripp 00:50:34  I will definitely also link your course because I’m a huge fan. One of the other things is you do audits, right? Yeah, yeah. Tell me about the auditing.

Maggie Schneider  00:50:43  Yeah. That’s a great place to start is if you already have a website, whether you did it yourself or professional did it having someone audit it. So like me, I’m very thorough with my audit. So I go through every page of your website, look at the Google Analytics look and see where your traffic is coming from, what keywords you’re currently ranking for. And then I go really deep into the keyword research and find where that gap is, is like, you can easily add this like you’re a location based business, but I don’t see the term Wisconsin anywhere on your website like that is a huge missed opportunity.

Maggie Schneider  00:51:14  I’ll walk you through it and show you exactly where to put that so you can do it yourself. Or of course, then a lot of people are like, oh, this is too overwhelming. I’m going to hand this off.

Maggie Schneider  00:51:23  That happens a.

Maggie Schneider  00:51:23  Lot, but I really take the time and I do an hour long strategy call with my clients to go through the results of the audit, but it shows you, I mean, so many things. There’s the technical side of SEO, the user experience, like what people actually are looking at when they come to your website, and how we can make that better. And then of course, the content with those keywords in the right places.

Maggie Schneider  00:51:43  To always.

Katy Ripp 00:51:44  Comes back to good content.

Maggie Schneider  00:51:46  Yeah. Yeah. Content is king. That’s what I say.

Katy Ripp 00:51:49  The other thing I was going to ask you about website was the 3000 dot. Let’s say it’s $5,000 for fun. Like let’s say you’ve got a brand new business that you’re going to get off the ground.

Katy Ripp 00:52:01  You have got to have a website. I don’t care what kind of business it is really. I mean eventually if you’re just side hustling I get it. You might not want to do that. And one of the biggest downfalls for most female entrepreneurs that started as a side hustle is that they don’t have a budget for starting the business, and then they end up starting with $0 or less than zero. And I mean, they’re putting domain names and.

Maggie Schneider  00:52:27  It adds up. Email marketing and email.

Katy Ripp 00:52:29  Marketing and all of that on a credit card that they’re like, they’re not making any sales to pay it. So that’s sort of my soapbox and ask me how I know that because I.

Maggie Schneider  00:52:37  I mean same. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:52:39  But the investment for a website is so significant that Instagram is great. You are probably not. And somebody might argue with me and that’s fine if that’s the only place you get your really quality clients. I would like to know that, but mostly they’re coming from online and think about how you shop.

Katy Ripp 00:53:05  I mean, I shop, you know, like I certainly buy shit from Instagram and Facebook and stuff all the time. But I’m usually going to their website, right. And I’m putting my email address in and I’m buying it from their website.

Maggie Schneider  00:53:17  Give me that 10% coupon. Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:53:19  Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:53:19  Give it to me. I and I ended up with 144 texts and emails this week.

Maggie Schneider  00:53:24  Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:53:25  But I mean, this is just really like more of a statement that I think you’ll agree with is make the investment in your website whether you invest time in it, and you do it with a tutorial or a course, and you walk through it and you really take the time to do it and be proud of it so you can share it. Or if you don’t have the time or the expertise, outsource that shit so you can then spend the time that you would have spent on it, making the sales to pay for it.

Maggie Schneider  00:53:54  Absolutely. Yeah. Because like we talked about earlier, we were spending all of this time on Instagram and it’s not getting you clients when you could have a website that does it for you and you don’t have to, you know, it is an investment for sure.

Katy Ripp 00:54:06  But Graham is like gonna come out of my phone.

Maggie Schneider  00:54:08  I know I’m always I always put like a disclaimer when I’m like talking. Even in my reels. I’m like, Instagram’s bad for this. And like, disclaimer, I still love it.

Maggie Schneider  00:54:19  I still.

Katy Ripp 00:54:19  Love you.

Maggie Schneider  00:54:20  I love it, I’m on there all the time. But yeah, it’s true.

Maggie Schneider  00:54:23  The investment is, it’s worth it to do it sooner rather than later, too, because you’re going to go back to three years later. Like I said, I see this all the time, and then they’re like, I spent so much time on this, and I actually had no idea what I was doing. I should have just paid someone from the beginning.

Katy Ripp 00:54:38  I mean, how many things could we say that about?

Maggie Schneider  00:54:41  I could say.

Katy Ripp 00:54:42  About hundreds of things and.

Maggie Schneider  00:54:43  Everything. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:54:45  1 or 2 tips for people. If they do have a website right now and maybe they’re embarrassed about it, what would you say to them?

Maggie Schneider  00:54:53  Oh, okay.

Maggie Schneider  00:54:54  Go on Pinterest. There are so many web designers that are posting their, like, portfolio pieces. Follow me and you’ll see mine, but see what you like about them. Start just gathering like, you know, make a little board of like, website inspiration so that you can visually see what you like about them and then start, you can start implementing them. There’s tons of free resources like YouTube and everything, to learn how to actually build out websites on Squarespace or show it or wherever you are. So that’s like from a visual standpoint to help you be more proud of it.

Maggie Schneider  00:55:27  And then how about from SEO?

Maggie Schneider  00:55:29  From an SEO standpoint? I mean, start with that audit. I think that’s the you’re going to get the most bang for your buck. Like if you are on a budget and can’t hire somebody to do it for you, but that’s going to give you not only visual tips and how to make it better, but all of that SEO work the keywords, the strategy, the sales strategy, all in an hour of your time, it’s very much worth it.

Maggie Schneider  00:55:51  Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:55:52  Tell me, what does an audit cost for you?

Maggie Schneider  00:55:54  500. Okay.

Maggie Schneider  00:55:56  A pretty quick turnaround. And like I said, you get that one hour strategy call with me, which is what people love the most about it is they’re like, oh, I actually you’re explaining it in a way that makes sense.

Maggie Schneider  00:56:06  Like now I can go back and.

Katy Ripp 00:56:08  Do it myself, right?

Maggie Schneider  00:56:09  Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Amazing.

Maggie Schneider  00:56:12  Thank you. I said, I want people to at least all business owners should have at least a general understanding of how SEO works so that you don’t have to hire a web designer every time you want to add a new page to your website, that shouldn’t be the case.

Katy Ripp 00:56:24  Yeah, I love it.

Katy Ripp 00:56:25  Thank you so much for coming on.

Maggie Schneider  00:56:27  This was so fun. Thank you. Yes, we’ll do it.

Katy Ripp 00:56:29  Again because I feel like we only scratched the surface of SEO.

Maggie Schneider  00:56:32  I know, like.

Katy Ripp 00:56:33  We could go real far.

Maggie Schneider  00:56:35  Yeah.

Maggie Schneider  00:56:35  Follow my tips series going on right now.

Maggie Schneider  00:56:38  Like, like, 100 videos.

Katy Ripp 00:56:39  And hilltop help. She really does. Honestly, I have used a lot of your tips from Instagram and I’m like, oh, this did work. I actually have seen since I took your course, I’ve seen. It’s sort of surprising, not because I didn’t think you’re sculpting. I am a total skeptic, but I was like, oh, and then I’m fascinated. I’m like, where are these people coming from? Like, I don’t know exactly where they’re coming from, what they want a little addicting. It is kind of addicting. All those numbers here and there. And the real time really gets me.

Maggie Schneider  00:57:09  Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:57:10  Who’s on there right now and why?

Maggie Schneider  00:57:14  What are they looking at and what am I doing right? Why are you.

Katy Ripp 00:57:16  Looking at it? What are you doing?

Maggie Schneider  00:57:19  It’s fun.

Katy Ripp 00:57:20  It is fun.

Maggie Schneider  00:57:21  I’m glad your traffic has gone up.

Maggie Schneider  00:57:23  It has.

Katy Ripp 00:57:24  Gone up. Yes, I have seen, like, a shift. And I again, I don’t really know why, but I’m like, oh well, maybe the work I did on my blog has worked.

Maggie Schneider  00:57:33  So pays.

Maggie Schneider  00:57:34  Off. It takes a little time, but once you get it, it’s going to.

Maggie Schneider  00:57:37  And I have used.

Katy Ripp 00:57:38  My ten minute timer to do this right. So like I just set my timer for ten minutes and I grab one page of my website because I’ve got 800 pages, because I’ve got all these blog posts that are half done and I just have gone through and I’ve just optimized every single one I’ve gone through and filled in all the blanks. And I haven’t done that many. I probably went through like the most active ones I bet I’ve done, I don’t know, 20 or 30 over the last 3 or 4 months, and I didn’t see anything right away. But now I’m starting to see like traffic where yeah, keep going up.

Maggie Schneider  00:58:13  So baby steps.

Katy Ripp 00:58:14  Very exciting.

Maggie Schneider  00:58:15  That is great. I love to hear that.

Maggie Schneider  00:58:17  You have to write me a testimonial for that.

Katy Ripp 00:58:19  I will, I will. Awesome. Well, we are going to leave all of your tips, tricks and resources in the show notes as well as your Instagram handle.

Katy Ripp 00:58:28  Can you tell us that.

Maggie Schneider  00:58:29  It’s at hilltop? Help hilltop h e l p and I’m doing a series right now, so twice or maybe three times a week. If I get around to editing them, I give you a quick tip you can implement in five minutes or less, like you said. So really easy things to learn.

Katy Ripp 00:58:46  So yeah, especially around this time of year. Yeah. If you are selling in any kind of service or product industry, this is a thing to do in December.

Maggie Schneider  00:58:55  Awesome.

Katy Ripp 00:58:56  Amazing. Well we will definitely be sharing you far and wide. So thank you so much for coming on I appreciate it.

Maggie Schneider  00:59:02  Thank you. Awesome.

Katy Ripp 00:59:06  And that’s a wrap on today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed diving deep into the world of living authentically with me. Before you go, don’t forget to connect with me on Instagram. Shoot me a message at Katy Ripp. I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode and connect with you further. And remember, if you want more details on today’s episode, or just want to explore more about designing your life unapologetically, head on over to my website at Katy Ripp dot com.

Katy Ripp 00:59:30  There you’ll find all the juicy details and resources you need to keep the inspiration flowing. Lastly, if you’d like to join me on the show, whether it’s to tell about your experience of designing your own life, to share your expertise, or if you’d like to participate in lifestyle coaching live on air, don’t hesitate to reach out. Your story could inspire countless others on their own path to living authentically. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep living boldly designing your life. And remember, #ActuallyICan.