3 SEO Tips with Meg Clarke
Branding with Friends | Episode 3
Featuring Expert Guest: Meg Clarke of Clapping Dog Media
Watch or listen to the video interview below or scroll down to read the transcription.
Meet Meet Meg Clarke, SEO Expert
If you’ve ever wondered what the heck SEO is and how you can use it for your small business website you are going to love today’s episode.
My guest today is the amazing Meg Clarke. Meg is the owner and founder of Clapping Dog Media where she is the master at growing organic web traffic. By using data, proven techniques, and years of experience, Meg and her team help to turn web visitors into raving fans that stick around. Meg is a passionate cheerleader for businesses. She teaches entrepreneurs how they can harness the power of Google so that they can make a larger impact in the world. When she is not learning the ins and outs of the latest algorithm update Meg enjoys playing with her three boys, husband, and of course her golden doodle and company mascot named Vader.
Meg, welcome to Branding with Friends!
Meg: Wonderful, thank you so much for that kind introduction. I am so excited to be here.
Annie: Excellent, I am so glad you are here too. Today we are talking about your wheelhouse. So we are talking about SEO. If you don’t know what that means, that means search engine optimization. I know you’re going to be sharing your top three tips for business owners. How they can grow their business using SEO, taking something very practical away from today’s episode. We’re going to have Meg share those tips as we go today. She is going to hold that very last one for the end of the episode so make sure to stick around to the very end so you get that last of these awesome three tips. So, Meg, as we are gearing up for that first big tip you would tell somebody, could you tell us a little about how you developed a passion for something like SEO and sort of how you got into this world in the first place.
Meg: Sure! So I was a designer. I was a graphic and web designer. I went to school for that. I spent years working at a big agency in Northern Virginia. I worked at a big agency in D.C for a long time. Then as time goes, we adopted boys and then I got pregnant so I had three boys in a really small amount of time. So I stopped driving downtown. I stopped working in a profession aspect, I quit my job. So I was home getting used to my new role. After about a year or so I really missed design. So I started to create branding, logos, and websites for other women who were in kind of a similar story who had a career and stayed home and had children were launching a side hustle or a passion project. I really had a connection with these women. We were going on no sleep, peanut butter and jelly, and we’re just trying to make it work. This was many years ago, 2012-2013. So I started designing websites for these women. I loved it. I loved our connection. What I soon figured out was that they could have a wonderful service or product that was priced well, coupled with a beautiful design but it didn’t really matter because they weren’t getting traffic. So here I was all emotional from having all these children and so sad because people were investing in me and we thought, oh a great design is going to just change the world.
Annie: If you build it they will come, right?
Meg: Right, and it works for a large degree. You really do need a good design and it needs to be user-friendly and it needs to be very accessible. But if you’re not pulling in traffic from people who are searching, it doesn’t work. So after a few websites where this happened I had one client in particular who I really loved and really felt for and she really needed her side hustle to work they needed it for the family. We did everything we were supposed to and she got no traffic and my heart was broken and so it was with her project that I dived into SEO and Google Analytics. I tried to understand what Google cares about and then applied it to her site. So once we got it working, I mean I had lots of penalties it was a rocky road. We got there and now she is thriving. I really wanted to apply everything I had learned to other websites. It really makes a difference. I am an average designer, by no means that great. I was happy to transition into analytics and SEO because it is really valuable.
Annie: Yeah and that is such a funny story because around 2013 was when I was getting started in branding too so we were both in that branding world. It sounds like you came to this place where you saw the value in the right design and the right products and services but if no one sees it what’s the point. SEO is one, not the only way to market your business. It is so powerful if you know what you’re doing. But so many of us don’t know what we’re doing or we put the wrong emphasis on it.
So before we get into this first tip, I’d love for you because it is going to get overly technical could you tell a fifth-grader what SEO really is. I think your story illustrated it but tell us all about it clear before we get into how we use it.
Meg: I love that. So SEO is really just your findability by Google. It’s not paid search, it’s not social media. It’s a layer of your marketing and it really is just a series of tips and techniques that we can do to be more findable by Google. It does have the scary negative connotation that it is like snake oil. But really Google is a business and its primary job is to provide really good search results for all of the searchers. They’re not trying to be sneaky. It’s just that there are over 4 billion Google searches a day. There are 300,000 posts or pages uploaded every second. Google is trying to figure out how to crawl, categorize, and learn where all of this information is quickly so that when somebody googles and they have a good option to give to the searcher. When you understand what their task is and how they really just want to provide good answers. They have competitors too, like Youtube. Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world. They just want to provide good answers. So SEO for a fifth-grader is really just how to make your site findable by Google so they can easily call you and know where to put you in their memory.
Annie: Thank you so much. I know we’ve known each other for a few years now. I think one of your great talents, and there are a lot of people who work in SEO, but Meg Clarke knows how to explain it in a way that most of us get it. Many small business owners that I work with at Greatest Story Creative often are not tech savvy. They’re struggling with technology and they know SEO is important but they don’t even understand what it is, let alone how they apply it. So with this being your key expertise and you being so gifted at distilling it to what matters to the small business owner. What would be that first, most important tip that you would tell a small business owner about optimizing SEO.
#1 Action TIP
Know what you want to be found for.
Meg: Sure, and really you’re going to be like this isn’t really a tip but it’s knowing what you want to be found for. I often say that SEO is a little bit like going to therapy. I really encourage my clients and you to understand who you are and what you want to be found for and then be true to that. Google can’t read your mind. It can’t assume things. So if you say, like for me I am an SEO consultant that helps creative entrepreneurs be found by Google, then I need to exude that in all of my communication. As I said earlier, SEO is a layer of your marketing. You can’t put all of your eggs in that basket. But it is related to and tied into the content and how you tell your story on your website. It is very tied into social media and how you tell your story online. It is that foundation. Once you know who you are, how you want to be found, and who those clients are that you are trying to reach it works with your website. It goes into your content marketing and it is really just the foundation and a tool for you to get those users from Google. So my first tip is to know who you are and know what you want to be found for and then take up that space, be that person and be that business.
Annie: I think that is such a beautiful, not only is that a great tip but it really reinforces the power of branding. That is part of why I started Branding with Friends. You have just illustrated how branding connects to SEO very clearly. Which is, it is not about fancy algorithms or how many blog posts you’re going to write. Which everybody thinks it is all about the keywords. But if you don’t know as a business owner and as a business, what is your story. What do you want to be found for? This is the primary struggle I help people with at Greatest Story from writing a message, creating your logo, creating your fonts and colors, and putting your website together in the first place. So often I have people go I need a website, I need the keywords, I need this to make some decisions about what it is they want to be known for and found for. The answer can’t be everything. The people can’t be everyone. My dad is always fond of telling me if you try to be everything to everyone you end up being nothing to nobody. I worked with Meg a few years ago to optimize the SEO on my Squarespace website. We had a phenomenal experience. This is something you are very true to Meg in your strategy which is, what did I want to be known for? I realized that in many ways, even though I am very clear on what my story was, with my website I wasn’t thinking I could be confusing Google. Google in some ways is sort of this weird personified thing of what are we telling Google we want to be known for. So I think that is a fantastic tip and it comes back to you probably aren’t ready to do SEO if you don’t know who your ideal clients are and you don’t know what you want to be found for. You can be reading and spending all this time working on your SEO and it cannot be useful to you if you don’t know what your goals are.
Meg: That’s exactly right. I do get a lot of people who come to me and say oh I’m a success coach and I’m like super I like success coaches, I love success. But what does that even mean? Are you a success coach for writers, for health and wellness, for yogis, or for branders. What does that even mean? They often say well I could work with anybody. I’m like that’s neat! But you don’t need a thousand clients a day. You need a couple really solid ones. So, who are those people? It really is a lot of internal work and a lot of knowing where your niche is and who you want to be. Once you get there we can tell Google all about you. But until you’re there SEO is not really helpful.
Annie: Yeah and I think that, that really identifies where people get stuck. People get real stuck in this stuff what I often call a “tactic tornado.” They get overwhelmed by these tactic tornadoes and soon enough they get wrapped up in that black hole of marketing. There is no escaping from that. Then you make the wrong decisions in your business that your business just doesn’t work or that you can’t gain clients. You’ve touched on something which I always try to teach my clients too which is this idea that you forget you think you need hundreds of leads. You don’t need hundreds of leads. You don’t even need hundreds of clients in a service-based business. You probably couldn’t even serve hundreds of clients. Of course, it’s different for a product-based business, it is a totally different mentality. Your coaches, your consultants, you’re not trying to convince the whole world to love you and nor will they. We are all distinct. So it is really about making those connections. I think the great example of a success coach is perfect. We are going to share three tips today. I would love to know, besides telling Google what you want to be known for and being really intentional about that, what else do you think is something a lot of small business owners need to know about SEO.
Meg: That’s great and I’m going to push some things together here. When people come to me and they know what they’re doing, they know who they are, they know who their ideal client is, and they’re ready to be found by all these billions of people who are searching on Google. One of the most practical things that I tell people to do is Google what they want to be found for. We’re trying to get ahead on Google so we really need to understand how Google sees you and sees your space in the world. I encourage people to Google what it is they want to be found for. Google their name. My name Meg Clarke is not my business name. So I Google my name. I Google my business name. It really gives me an idea of how Google sees me within the world. I take that, I take this information and I say man Meg Clarke is kind of a common name so nobody finds Meg Clarke. There are a lot of Megs how do you know which one is right. Then I work on my brand. I say okay look there is not another Clapping Dog Media. Honestly, that is why I have my business is not my name is because there are too many Megs to compete with. There is actually a really famous Lawyer in California named Meg Clarke and she has written a lot and she’s gotten a lot of awards. That is one of the things that I figured out when I wanted to do for my business, I made a name. Because my personal name is not unique. That is the first that I tell people to do is just get an understanding of the marketplace.
#2 ACTION TIP
Understand how Google reads your website.
My second big tip is to understand how Google reads your site. So we see the results over here and I want them to understand how Google reads you. Honestly, there is a misconception that Google updates their algorithm all the time and it’s difficult to keep up with and SEO is really hard. It is true Google says they update their algorithm 5-6 times a day. But the things that they really care about never have changed and they haven’t changed in the 7 or 8 years that I’ve been doing this. One of the biggest things that I want people to focus on is having a good site title and page title. If you have a really good name of your business and within your post you have clear, easy to understand and easy to categorize titles then how Google sees you and how you fit the marketplace is really going to marry up. I’m not talking crazy things I am just saying you need to have a headline on your homepage that says who you are and what you do and how you value your clients. Google will read these titles and headlines because they are big and prioritized. They’ll say oh this Meg Clarke is an SEO consultant for creative entrepreneurs. Then they’ll put Clapping Dog Media here, this is my memory back here and lawyer Meg Clarke somewhere else because I don’t talk about being a lawyer.
Annie: You’re staking out your ground.
Meg: I am claiming my space as to who I am. Then I’m telling users and the world. Google has this value that they call an EAT factor. It stands for expertise, authority, and trust. So Google is trying to understand your EAT value when it crawls your website. So if you have authority, if you say who you are and you write about it or you illustrate that you know you are an expert in it. Google is going to award you ranking points because you are who you say who you are, you are authentic. You have to remember over half the web, there is this whole dark web thing, that says they’re one thing but actually they’re another. So Google has to determine are you who you say you are, are you legit? If you are who you say you are and you write about it then Google is going to reward you with those EAT rankings.
Annie: So would you say maybe that Google is like an internet bouncer?
Meg: That is the best term. It is totally!
Annie: Whether or not it’s going to let you into the club. It really is assessing are you legit are you credible? I think so much of what you shared I share with my clients too. What I often tell them about SEO, because they put a lot of importance on it but don’t understand it, I say you have to understand that SEO is a strategy not a setting. It is not a clicking thing it really is an overall commitment. It’s a commitment to knowing what you want to be found for. As Meg just shared with you guys, you want to do things like when she says titles that is literally the page title that you put into your website. A lot of people forget to customize those. I think mine right now says NC small business branding. So when people are looking for those things they can find me. This is really where I think branding is so tied into SEO. So many of the clients I work with they want such a creative message that they aren’t being clear. This is why being clear is so important so that you can tell the internet bouncer Google, hey I’m legit this is exactly what I do. I’m not the high powered lawyer, I’m the amazing SEO consultant for small business owners. So small business owners looking for SEO come my way. You know, the other thing that I learned from you Meg that I teach to my clients as well is that this extends way beyond your website right?
Meg: Yeah absolutely.
Annie: So you know for example, it is not enough to just have your website and just live there. Showing up on a Podcast, hosting an event, being featured in the newspaper, these things all have an online trail. They’re also influencing that right? They are telling Google hey this person is legit. They’re not just showing up on their website saying how great they are. Do you want to talk a little about that?
Meg: I would love to. That is absolutely right. That leads into this EAT factor because if you say you’re an authority in SEO and then have other websites who are in the same vertical and the same market who says yep she is and then they link to me. By just being in this interview you’re going to link to me. Google is going to look at both of those and the weight of that SEO and say she is an authority she does have expertise. So the more that you show up to your authentic self around the web Google is going to reward that and traffic begets traffic. It is very similar to a new restaurant that opens up in your town. If every time you drive by it has a crowd and a line you’re going to assume that it has really good food. Google does the same thing. If you are getting a lot of traffic from various places Google is going to assume that you have value and that you are helpful to users because people are always there. So if you are getting traffic from other sources that are not just Google that is going to build on it and Google is going to say wow she rocks and I’m going to put her higher because it is reading the internet.
Annie: That can affect your local marketing too. That is the thing that people forget. I am a huge advocate for not just waiting online waiting for leads to come into your inbox but getting out in person and networking and hosting your own live local events. But remember that live local events have a presence online. I put an event on Eventbrite. You know, that’s how a lot of, you had a great tip earlier, where we go and we search. What comes up when you Google your business your name? You should know that. What comes up with me are my events. They go up on Eventbrite and people have heard of me through Eventbrite. So that is a way to add even more legitimacy that’s free and easy and has a lot to do with offline marketing too. It is all interconnected in the world in which we live.
Meg: It is absolutely. That is why SEO is simply a layer. That is why you can’t just hire an SEO person and say SEO my site and then I’m going to be over here. That totally doesn’t work. It is an integrative part of your strategy, your brand strategy, and your social strategy and we’re just a layer. We can help you come up with how you want to be known in the world but once you have that you’re golden, you’re good.
Annie: Awesome, so we’ve been talking today, you talked to us about how it is so important to know what we want to be known for. And know what we are going to look for on Google, what we want the internet bouncer Google to know about us. The second tip being, being intentional about understanding the landscape, where do we fit. Where are we already coming up in search? Are we optimizing those page titles and descriptions and even knowing where to put those things. Are we putting them in and being clear? We are going to get to the final tip but before we do that, I would love for you to tell us, if folks are interested in SEO I know you work primarily with Squarespace sites. But tell us how the audience can connect more with you after today.
Don’t miss this special opportunity for “Branding with Friends” fans…
Sign up for Meg’s free website audit at clappingdogmedia.com/seo-audit/
Meg: Sure I actually do Wordpress, Shopify, and Squarespace. So if you sell products, if you’re on Wordpress whatever. So you can find me at Clapping Dog Media. I do a lot of Instagram Stories. I am not awesome at doing posts but in stories I show up quite often. So you can check that out. If you go on my website at clappingdogmedia.com right on my homepage there is a free audit. You just type in your URL. It comes up immediately with how Google sees you. So that is a really good starting point. So if you are brand new to this, if SEO still feels like a foreign object go check it out. Just do the audit. It is literally no obligation there is nothing but a cool report that gives you and ABCD or F. If you get an F follow up with me we’ll get you fixed.
Annie: You get an F for fantastic you need to keep working on it. I am so glad you offer something like that. Meg is so kind to come on today. You can connect with her at clappingdogmedia.com. We are going to have links anywhere you are watching this episode. But of course she is giving away this free audit and she already talked about how important that is to know what is going on with SEO and now you know what it is so we know you have to know what is going on with it. So I encourage you to take advantage of that free audit from Meg. Before we go, I so appreciate you being here. We did have those two powerful tips. What would be your third and final word for business owners if we leave them with one more thing we can do to improve their SEO.
#3 Action Tip
Keep showing up - and do it regularly.
Meg: My final tip, and I have a lot of tips so I could keep going forever, is to show up and to show up regularly. To keep showing up on social, keep showing up in real life, keep showing up on blogs. It makes a huge difference, keep blogging. To have a 3.5 tip, my .5 tip is to make sure you have Google Analytics. It is a free service that is on your website. Only look, it’s overwhelming, but look at your acquisition menu. Figure out where your people are coming from. Are they coming from social? Are they typing in your URL directly? Are they coming from social? You can really start to get an understanding of how your strategy is working and where people are coming from. So show up regularly and then take a peek at the acquisition menu within Google analytics and that will help you a ton.
Annie: Awesome well if you stayed to the end of the episode we have learned so much today. We have learned what SEO is. We learned we need to be intentional about how we are found on Google. We need to know what comes up on Google and optimize those descriptions. And finally that awesome call to action of we need to show up, and not just online. The things we do offline are affecting how we are perceived online and of course those clients that are coming to us and or not coming to us. So, Meg thanks again for being here. You shared so many great things. I think we’ve learned so much today about how branding and SEO make each other better and ultimately help you grow your business.
We hope you enjoyed another episode of Branding with Friends. So many thanks to my friend Meg Clarke of Clapping Dog Media. I hope you will tune in next time when we will tackle another topic that meets branding and business. Till then, I’m Annie Franceschi of Greatest Story Creative. Find all our episodes, branding resources, and more here at greateststorycreative.com. Have a great day!
“Branding with Friends” Episode 3
Show Notes + Resources
Here are 3 key tips on how to use SEO to grow your service business:
Know what you want to be found for
Understand how Google reads your site
Show up - and do it regularly
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--- Facebook - facebook.com/greateststorycreative
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To learn more about SEO or to seek Meg’s help:
• Enjoy Meg's free SEO audit found at clappingdogmedia.com/seo-audit/
• Reach Meg directly at clappingdogmedia.com
• Follow Meg on Instagram @clappingdogmedia
