#147 How to Cut Through The Noise & Win Google Love Using SEO, with Kate Toon

“With small businesses, their greatest assets are all the other people in their network, and leveraging that can lead to big gains.”

Kate Toon is an award-winning SEO copywriter and SEO consultant with over two decades of experience in all things advertising, digital and writing.

She is the founder of  The Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur (https://www.katetoon.com/confessions-misfit-entrepreneur-podcast/)  – which also has its own podcast.

Google optimisation is something we have to do as part of our business marketing, along with keyword searches and increasing traffic to our websites. But, often, none of these things are at the top of our To Do lists – well, not on the top of mine, anyway, until now.

Because something has changed, and it’s called Voice Optimisation, and I’m all for it. As of now, words like who, what, when, why and how are driving searches. Yep, talking to our devices and asking questions is all the rage.

As writers, we need people like Kate to cut through the constant noise of what we should be doing to maximise our visibility and find readers for our tomes.

In this episode we chat about the following:

on page optimisation

SEO essentials

the importance of links

title tags

optimising images

the changes to SEO in 2019

position zero

algorithm updates

networking

Google Search Console

and more…

 

You can find out more about Kate here. (https://www.katetoon.com/) And don’t forget to download your checklist and check out her SEO Nibbles Course, 10-Day SEO Challenge, and all the freebies she has on offer.

 

(#)

Mel: Welcome, Kate.

Kate: Hello. It's lovely to be here.

Mel: Kate is an award-winning copywriter ACA consultant with over 20 years of experience in this stuff. She's the founder of Clever Copywriting School, A Recipe for Success and there's lots little freebies on her website.

Kate: One of the reasons I started my own podcast - I've got three shows - is that I get to talk to some of the smartest people in the world and learn amazing stuff direct from the horse's mouth and to be able to ask my questions, not read other people's questions and answers but ask my questions direct to the expert.

Mel: You have a book out called called 'Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur'. Now we know everyone entrepreneur is a real crazy word at the moment but you're the first misfit that I'm that I've met. So can you tell us all about it.

Kate: I totally agree with you entrepreneurs become a bit of a cliché really it's kind of you see pictures of people lying on a porch counting their money and talking about how they only work for five minutes a week. And I didn't know really what to call myself anymore because I started off as a copywriter. I built up quite a successful copywriting business and then I moved into selling courses and then resources memberships.

Kate: And now I have a conference every year that I run which is a content marketing and copywriting conference. So what do I call myself? I'm a business owner. I'm an entrepreneur. But I never really felt I fit the mold so hence misfit entrepreneur.

Kate: And the book is really a permission book because the subtitle is How to Succeed in Business Despite Yourself. I've bumbled and stumbled and wandered through having my own business I've made a lot of mistakes and I've worried about a lot of things and having a lot of fears but I've overcome them. And so I wrote it's kind of help other people go look I may not look like your traditional entrepreneur and I may not do the things that a traditional entrepreneur does that doesn't make me any less of an entrepreneur.

Mel: Most of the entrepreneurs that I read about and get emails in my inbox about a thousand times a day they've all done two hours of exercise they've meditated they've climbed Mount cozy Moscow and they're all back again and...

“With small businesses, their greatest assets are all the other people in their network, and leveraging that can lead to big gains.”

Kate Toon is an award-winning SEO copywriter and SEO consultant with over two decades of experience in all things advertising, digital and writing.

She is the founder of The Clever Copywriting School and The Recipe for SEO Success eCourse, the co-host on the Hot Copy Podcast and the host of The Recipe for SEO Success podcast. She recently published her popular business book, The Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur – which also has its own podcast.

Google optimisation is something we have to do as part of our business marketing, along with keyword searches and increasing traffic to our websites. But, often, none of these things are at the top of our To Do lists – well, not on the top of mine, anyway, until now.

Because something has changed, and it’s called Voice Optimisation, and I’m all for it. As of now, words like who, what, when, why and how are driving searches. Yep, talking to our devices and asking questions is all the rage.

As writers, we need people like Kate to cut through the constant noise of what we should be doing to maximise our visibility and find readers for our tomes.

In this episode we chat about the following:

on page optimisation
SEO essentials
the importance of links
title tags
optimising images
the changes to SEO in 2019
position zero
algorithm updates
networking
Google Search Console
and more…

 

You can find out more about Kate here. And don’t forget to download your checklist and check out her SEO Nibbles Course, 10-Day SEO Challenge, and all the freebies she has on offer.

 

Read Full Transcript

Mel: Welcome, Kate.

Kate: Hello. It's lovely to be here.

Mel: Kate is an award-winning copywriter ACA consultant with over 20 years of experience in this stuff. She's the founder of Clever Copywriting School, A Recipe for Success and there's lots little freebies on her website.

Kate: One of the reasons I started my own podcast - I've got three shows - is that I get to talk to some of the smartest people in the world and learn amazing stuff direct from the horse's mouth and to be able to ask my questions, not read other people's questions and answers but ask my questions direct to the expert.

Mel: You have a book out called called 'Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur'. Now we know everyone entrepreneur is a real crazy word at the moment but you're the first misfit that I'm that I've met. So can you tell us all about it.

Kate: I totally agree with you entrepreneurs become a bit of a cliché really it's kind of you see pictures of people lying on a porch counting their money and talking about how they only work for five minutes a week. And I didn't know really what to call myself anymore because I started off as a copywriter. I built up quite a successful copywriting business and then I moved into selling courses and then resources memberships.

Kate: And now I have a conference every year that I run which is a content marketing and copywriting conference. So what do I call myself? I'm a business owner. I'm an entrepreneur. But I never really felt I fit the mold so hence misfit entrepreneur.

Kate: And the book is really a permission book because the subtitle is How to Succeed in Business Despite Yourself. I've bumbled and stumbled and wandered through having my own business I've made a lot of mistakes and I've worried about a lot of things and having a lot of fears but I've overcome them. And so I wrote it's kind of help other people go look I may not look like your traditional entrepreneur and I may not do the things that a traditional entrepreneur does that doesn't make me any less of an entrepreneur.

Mel: Most of the entrepreneurs that I read about and get emails in my inbox about a thousand times a day they've all done two hours of exercise they've meditated they've climbed Mount cozy Moscow and they're all back again and it's all before breakfast.

Kate: Oh yeah and they've had a green smoothie. Don't forget the green smoothie. So you know I work in a little heart in my back garden My mornings are not spent doing yoga and having Greens fuses just running around like an idiot trying to get my son to school picking up dog poo going to calls and getting to my desk not in some kind of Zen on Libyan state but more in a kind of frazzled say and then knowing that I really only have five or so hours to get everything I need to get done before I have to go and pick my son up school again and do all those other things you know most people have responsibilities whether it's kids partners pet parents whatever. And we don't get clear a our days to kind of indulge in a Zen and make money. We just don't get it. So I wanted to really be transparent and show that he can make a decent amount of money have a nice lifestyle. Even if you don't have that beautiful set up that these yoga smoothie beasts have so yeah.

Mel: You work extremely hard but there's plenty of time in between times to to have a life.

Kate: Yeah, there is. I think it is sometimes difficult to set those boundaries because having your own business. It will eat anytime you give it. There is no amount of time that will ever satiate your business is always more you could be doing. You know this other social media channels there's opportunities as you know you should be writing a book. You should be doing this. So it's the should can can really get to you. And I'll be honest. You know I had a couple of years in the wilderness where I was working very hard. I wasn't looking after myself. I was very stressed. I really had to kind of grab myself by the shoulders and say this is not the point you didn't start your own business to become its slave. And I'm now dragging myself out of that kind of mire and really trying to work to live not live to work. That's it's a cliché but it's very easy to fall into that trap.

Mel: What's going to happen in 2019 in SEO-land because things change constantly don't they?

Kate: They do but I guess to a degree the more they change the more they stay the same and I think unfortunately SEO does have a bit of a bad name. The things that frightened people about SEO is that changes all the time be it super technical and say I just don't want to do it. I think that's pretty much it. And so really all the Google and the search engines and try to do with the changes are replicate the human experience. So pretty much anything as a human that you find confusing or you don't like when you go to a website. Google's trying to eradicate that like Google doesn't like pop ups and Google doesn't like sites on secure and Google doesn't like sites that take 25 minutes to load on your mobile phone. Common sense, yeah. So the changes that are happening are pretty much common sense and they'll be known that you go. That's weird. Why is Google doing that. Because they're doing it to make us happier as customers and in terms of the technical stuff. Yes of course you have to have a well built website. But most of the platforms out there like WordPress Shopify square space Wicks we believe Neto big commerce. They are eradicating those technical problems for us. It's in their best interest to fix the bugs that Google wants them to fix. So really that's less and less tech stuff that your average small business owner needs to know about or do because the platform does it already. So then you kind of move into what Cyrus is talking about which is the big things next year. Do what I tell you what they are.

Mel: Yes, please. It's really good to know what we should be aiming for, isn't it?

Kate: It really is. And I think one of the biggest things that probably come as no surprise is the rise of a voice search and conversational search for these there's fewer and fewer people are typing into a desktop computer to find results instead they're talking to their Google Home the Google assistant Siri whatever device I have you can search your fridge they're not sure it's going to answer you back but it's you know someone to talk to on those dark lonely nights and instead of sort of saying you know pizza restaurant where Sydney money What. Hey Google where's the best restaurant in Sydney we asked questions we talk to it so Google can understand those questions now and it can look at the content on your site go. Does this content solve that customer's problem? Does it answer that question? Have they used the same kind of words that the person ask you no formal copy with long sentences and big words.?

Kate: Most people don't talk like that, you know. So that kind of informality of language on your website and the real helpfulness of really giving away your knowledge and share in concert with people. That's what Google wants that's what humans want that what Google wants. So I think voice search is going to compel us as writers to write like humans and really really write for our audience not try to write for audience and not try to sell our stuff in a way our audience might like it but to just help our audience build trust build authority and then they buy. So it's not a hard sell. It's having a conversation like we are now.

Mel: Yeah. And this is and this is what the cool thing is everyone and I've got to admit that I went shopping in summer and we bought a fridge we bought a fridge that was six hundred dollars and doesn't do anything but open and shut.

Mel: But my girls had a lovely time playing with the fridges that had computers in them and they do they just have like four and five thousand dollars everyone so I'm assuming they'll come down but just crazy stuff. But my daughters are also the ones that have laughed at me because when I look for something on a bigger search I actually type what I'm thinking you know where do I find such and such and they say Oh Mummy you're such an old lady.

Kate: You can tell them that they are wrong and mom is right that they are wrong because these days the who what when why how questions are driving Google search and you will notice there's the search engine results have changed. So if you type in you know how old is Obama or where is the iPhone tower you'll get something new now which is called featured answers or featured snippets that didn't used to be there and what it is is Google's best guess. They've searched the whole internet and they put that what they think is the best answer and what we call Position ZERO. It's above the ads even so if you can get your content in position zero you're going to get all the eyeballs and all the traffic to your site which obviously then you can convert.

Kate: And you know you may type that into google. I talked to Google and I know that's what I just said when why what how things. That is what it's all about. So you can turn round your daughters and tell them that they're old school and you are hip.

Mel: I love it.

Kate: I did I 37 speaking events last year and as I said I also have three podcasts one of which is kind of in a fallow period at the moment. I just think people connect so well with voice. I think people connect with video and voice in different ways. So I do a lot of video as well. I think that's very powerful for building a face to face connection with recordings this video on Zoom I can see Linda and we can you can you get those body cues that you just don't get but that our whole experience of listening to a podcast I think it's not like anything else. And I think that often people listen to podcast when they're doing their happy thing they're in a happy place they're walking their dog they're cooking you know. And so you start to associate that podcast with something that you love and it becomes very precious to you. I have a couple of favorite podcasts and I love the presenters in a way that's probably not quite right you know because I've listened to hundreds of hours of them and I'd do anything for them. And in my world which my podcast a little bit businesses which is a shame I'd love to have a non-business one and I hope to one day people by the time they come to buy my first thing they've listened to 50 hours of me and either they're going to like me or not like me but after 50 hours they're probably gonna like me and therefore I don't need to hard sell I've never done a paid ad on Google or Facebook in my life because I don't need to. Podcasts bring me people and video and interaction. So, yes, so so so powerful.

Mel: Something on my list of notes to talk to you about was that difference between video.

Kate: I do think there's a peculiar type of thing that works well on podcasts. I think it's a great medium for storytelling for interviews. But clearly like if I want to instruct someone on how to fix something on their Web site I need those visual cues I need to give to them to be able to see me clicking here and clicking there even just now. I just watched a quick six minute video on how to color correct something in the video. There's no amount of audio that could help me that I needed to see what button she was clicking. So I think it's about what do you what problem you're trying to solve what is the best medium for that sometimes it's podcast sometimes it's video sometimes it's the written word like you know I've written a couple of blog posts I've done really really well because I'm not sure that I've done well as podcasts because sometimes reading something funny just gets you sometimes a simple meme can really communicate more so I think it's I don't think one will take over they say that most people watch something like 40 videos a day even if they don't mean to. Most people watch videos with the sound down as well interestingly. So it's all about having the subtitles. And I just think it's different mediums. I don't think I would ever sit and watch a 40 minute video but I will listen to a 40 minute podcast so short and sweet instructional how to video storytelling longer form content than I think podcast is the go.

Mel: You talk about tags or captions on on your videos. We have to get the basics right. You called it On Site.

Kate: On-site or on-page basically means that you know when someone comes to your website there are certain things you have to do. The most important one is that it loads quickly. So your website - you want to make sure it loads in five seconds or less. Ideally three seconds or less.

Kate: And Google has a tool called google site speed where you can pop your website and you can find out if it does or not. Fixing the problem not quite so easy. Usually most sites it's because they've got giant image files on them and you reduce the size physically in the case size of an image and you're going to sort a lot of problems out. And so speed is a big factor. Being able to crawl your site being able to go to all the pages no blocks and weird things going on. And again Google has tools that will help you with that if you haven't already signed up something called Google Search console. It's fit to get your head around but it's Google's free tool that tells you everything that's wrong with your Web site. And then you may need to get someone to help you fix it but at least you are empowered and your understanding a bit of knowledge goes a long way and then it's other things like we all know some sites are ugly and they take they they've got big flashing images and things popping up left right and center or they've got gray coffee or white background that I can't quite see because my eyes on what they were or or no images or too many images or the copy just bleeds all the way across the page. This is one for us writers why are books this wide. It's because I can't connect to the next line if they're that wide but on Web sites people have copy that runs right the way my screen is this big I'm doing big hands. People like when people how to catch a big fish your copy goes all the way across. I can't bring my eyes to the next lines of readability is a really big factor as well. And not just in terms of visual readability but the language you are using. They say that the literacy rate online is about yes 7. So if you're writing concept that can only be read by an 18 year old or a postgrad you're losing your audience and there's a great little tool called Hemingway dot app which is a free tool that you can pass all your copy through. It will give you a flash Kincaid readability score and it will highlight everything you need to fix all those long sentences and adverbs and fantastic. I use it pretty much every day is free. So.

Kate: As an English teacher my heart just got broken. But unfortunately what you're saying is absolutely true. The average reading age is different because people don't read anymore.

Kate: Our kids don't read much as they preps should as far as I'm concerned. But the reality is they'll run rings around us when it comes to finding something online which. Yeah. And they. I guess they're streets ahead of us so we can't bag them too much for not wanting to to read along. But the going to grow up and be our consumers or their content. So we have to really think about it. And as as writers we're interested in getting our books out there. We're interested in bringing people to us and creating our communities. And I think it was Sara Shepard that said you know what it is our biggest asset is the community that we network with. And that's also true with with writers and we share the words and our readers. And it grows and grows.

Mel: I think there's a checklist on your website and if you subscribe to her newsletter you get this checklist for free and all the tools that we're talking about. There are links to it so we can just link off and come back and check all this stuff out which is really exciting. But one of the things that you mention is having 150 words - at least a paragraph of writing - on every page. Now we're told that people are visual now and all the rest of it and not to have too much words and not enough words and all the rest of it. And then you came up with this lovely amount of goods 150 words and I went oh OK I can do that.

Kate: Yeah well I think look it's it's very subjective. And Google because I'm very lucky that I get to speak to the reps from Google a lot. They come on the podcast I get it from Google and their approaches like the content needs to be as long as the content needs to be. If you're doing a recipe for how to boil an egg can pretty much explain it in three bullet points. If you're reviewing war and peace you might need a few more words. And I think that's the best attitude to take. My attitude is always you don't want it to be like two little brothers scraped over too much bread. You know if you're writing and you feel like you've run out of...