Powerful Women Rising - A Business Podcast for Female Entrepreneurs

SEO Made Simple: How to Grow Website Traffic (Without the Tech Overwhelm) w/Kelly Kumler

• Melissa Snow - Powerful Women Rising, LLC • Episode 119

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SEO doesn’t have to be overwhelming or expensive to actually work.

In this episode, I’m joined by Kelly Kumler, a brand and web designer with a serious love for SEO, to demystify what it really takes to get aligned, organic traffic to your site (without keyword stuffing or obsessing over trends).

Whether you’ve been guessing at keywords, blogging at random, or hoping your pretty website will magically rank, Kelly breaks down a clear, human-first approach to search engine optimization that supports your business goals and helps the right people find you.

We talk about:

  • How to choose keywords that are actually winnable (and what tools to use) and the page structure both Google and humans love 
  • Why your site needs dedicated service pages and how they help with search engine optimization
  • How AI tools have changed the game for SEO
  • What to DIY vs. outsource and when to make the switch

This episode is your invitation to stop relying pretending SEO doens't exist and start building a simple, sustainable strategy that will pay off over time.

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Melissa Snow is a Business Relationship Strategist dedicated to empowering women in entrepreneurship. She founded the Powerful Women Rising Community, which provides female business owners with essential support and resources for business growth.

Melissa's other mission is to revolutionize networking, promoting authenticity and genuine connections over sleazy sales tactics. She runs an incredible monthly Virtual Speed Networking Event which you can attend once at no cost using the code FIRSTTIME

She lives in Colorado Springs with two dogs, her soul cat Giorgio and any number of foster kittens. She loves iced coffee, Taylor Swift, and Threads.

SPEAKER_01:

Hi, Kelly. Welcome to the Powerful Women Rising Podcast. Hi, Melissa. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. Thanks for coming on and being a guest. I'm excited to talk to you about SEO. I get so many podcast guest applications and they're all so good. I just love it, it's so fascinating to see like all the different areas of expertise that people have and all the different like takes people have on different topics. But yours stood out to me because SEO, I feel like, is one of like the great mysteries of the business world. And it's like, I feel like I talk to so many people, and I'm one of them. That's like, yeah, SEO is really important and also scary, confusing, and I'm going to pretend like it doesn't exist. So excited to talk to you about this topic today. Before we dive into that, tell everybody a little bit about you and about what you do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So again, my name's Kelly. I own a brand and website design agency called Kelly Ryan Co. And we also specialize in SEO. Um, I was a teacher for seven years before I got into branded website design and really started with the like, this will be fun and creative. And as soon as I heard about SEO, it was one of those like words I knew, but didn't actually know anything about. But when I realized like how important it was to your website and like what a website designer can do in the way of SEO, I knew that it was something I really wanted to dive into. And it was really my first big investment in my business was investing in a small group coaching program, all centered on teaching website designers SEO. So since then, I've been a bit of a fanatic and it's become a really big part of how I run my business. And, you know, I see that the changes that it makes for my own clients.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I love it because I think there's so much talk in the business world, especially like small business and online business. We talk so much about social media and social media marketing and how to go viral and how to do reels and how to do all these things. And not as much about SEO. Like it's one of those things that we're like, oh yeah, that would be nice. Um so okay, let's start at the very beginning for people who don't know what SEO is, or maybe who like think they know what SEO is, but maybe they don't. Let's start with that.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, yes. So SEO is search engine optimization. So most commonly we think of it with Google, but those rules have changed quite a bit, but we can get more into that later. Um, but it's really how your website and the content on your website shows up across any search engine. And we really start, all SEO starts with keyword research, where we need to figure out, you know, what are people searching for? And how do we have that show up in our website or our blog posts or even our YouTube videos so that our content is being put in front of the right people's eyes?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. So does SEO, you mentioned YouTube videos and also websites, does it also have to do with like what we're posting on social media or not as much?

SPEAKER_00:

Just recently, actually, Instagram became a searchable uh result. So on Google. So it does. And there's also kind of there are own like SEO rules within the Instagram algorithm. So yes, it's really important everywhere, but the algorithms might be different between Google and Instagram and YouTube and Pinterest, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, got it. So for purposes of today's conversation to simplify things and also not make this like an eight-hour interview, let's focus specifically on like search engines specifically. So whether that's Google or Yahoo or whatever people are using. Um, when it comes to SEO, what would you say are some of the most common mistakes that you see people making, especially with their website?

SPEAKER_00:

Probably the first and most common one is just assuming keywords. Um, like, oh, I'm a wedding photographer in Atlanta. So I'm gonna put photographer, you know, wedding photographer in Atlanta all over my website. When really, once you do a little research, you might actually find that that's a really hard keyword to rank for. There's a lot of competition for it. So it might not be the best word to use on your site. Of course, if that's what you do, like you're gonna have that in some places, but you should have other keywords to focus on as well. Um, another big mistake that I see is um using or forgetting about some of the like key factors of SEO, like um heading tags. So all of the text within our websites are tagged a certain way. Um, H1, meaning heading one, H2, H3, paragraph, div navigation. So there are pieces of our website that Google wants to know um, okay, this is the most important thing. Like your main heading on your homepage is going to be tagged as an H1. Think of that as like the chapter of your book. And then you have subheading, or sorry, the title of your book, and then you have subheadings more like the chapters, and then you might have subchapters and some textbooks, right? And so that's where you go into H3 and then paragraph. And so when we misassign those, it can just be one extra step that Google needs to do to like figure out your content and what the purpose of your content is.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. So let's back up to the first one when you talked about assuming keywords. Besides hiring you, which of course we're all gonna do after we listen to this podcast. How do we figure out what the best keywords for us are?

SPEAKER_00:

So there's a few different tools out there. The one that I suggest the most is called Uber Suggest. And they do have a free version, which I think is great. Um, and you can actually put in a keyword. Again, I'll just use, you know, wedding photographer Atlanta. Um, and you can put it in there and it will spit out a bunch of numbers. So the two numbers you want to pay the most attention to are the volume and the SEO difficulty. So the volume is how many people are searching for that term each month. And then the SEO difficulty would be how hard is it to rank for that term? You know, there are some terms like, I don't know, if you just invented a new smartphone and you're trying to rank for smartphone, like that's probably gonna be extremely hard because you know that like Apple and Galaxy and or Samsung, you know, they like have so much money towards their marketing to rank for that word that that's gonna be a really hard one. So it's might be something you have to consider like, is that worth me going after? Or should I look for another term that's going to be a little um easier on the SEO difficulty ratings to try and rank for that term instead?

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, awesome. That's a helpful tip. And so when you're talking about the second thing about talking about like the heading tags and the different places where we have our text, is there certain text that matters more than others? Like, do we want our really important stuff in the heading and not in the paragraph?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we definitely want to have like your main keyword in your heading whenever possible. Now, if it's like super unnatural and does not fit, then you're also speaking to like an audience of people. So even though we're trying to appeal to like the robots behind Google, you still need to talk to people that are actually visiting your website. So don't forget about that piece. But whenever possible, yes, putting those main keywords into our heading is super important. We still want to like use them throughout the copy um on the page as well. But that heading, um, particularly that H1 heading that holds a lot more value.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And I've totally seen the websites that you're talking about where it's like they're very clearly into the SEO. And I'm like, this is great because I'm gonna find your website probably, but when I get to it, I'm gonna be like, this is literally so awkward to read. I don't even know what's happening right now.

SPEAKER_00:

I know it's like the words are like all twisted around and backwards because for some reason that's how people search for it. Right. Doesn't actually make sense.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Okay, so there is a strategic way to set it up and like where to put specific text as long as it makes sense and it's readable. Okay, awesome. Okay, so those are some of the common SEO mistakes that people are making. We've talked a little bit about why SEO is important, especially when it comes to your website and um getting found on Google or whatever search engines um generating like that organic traffic a little bit more. Um, one of the things, obviously, that I'm sure people ask you about all the time now is AI and things like Chat GPT and stuff like that. I feel like so many more people are searching those places now than Google. So, how has that kind of changed the game for SEO?

SPEAKER_00:

It has changed things a little bit, but really we've found that if you have good SEO practices in place on your website, then you're probably going to be showing up both on Google and in Chat GPT or other like AI search bots. So the good news is that you don't have to like redo everything or set up now for one and the other. Um, but it is probably now even more important that you do have these best practices in place because people are looking in several places to try and find you. One thing that is different that I think like helps a lot is having one, like dedicated pages for either your services. If you're you know a service provider, like for myself, I have a page for my website design services, a different page for my branding services, and a separate one for SEO services, because then I can really optimize each of those pages for what that particular client is looking for. And the other piece is that a lot of AI like the AI summaries on Google, you know, you type in whatever question it is, and it pops up with like the little summary paragraph at the top. And they want to like we want to make it as easy as possible for Google to use our content for that little answer. And so having, you know, quick answers throughout your website, maybe it's on an FAQ section, or maybe you take those FAQs and you have like a different blog post for each of the main questions that you get asked and start the post with your own little summary of the answer and then continue writing more in-depth and detailed answer. But it gives you more opportunity to show up in you know that summary version on Google or even in Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I forgot about the Google summary. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's I see it.

SPEAKER_01:

That's pretty new, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is. And I think they even just recently like changed it or updated it, um, which you know will then be new things that we need to test out and experiment to see. But for the most part, it's still that, yeah, little summary of giving you your answer as quickly as possible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. So for people who are nervous about SEO, especially people who like I feel like when you're in the first couple years of business, especially, you it's one of those things that you feel like you should be doing, but you don't really have the money to invest in having an expert figure it out for you. And so you just kind of let it go because it sounds complicated. Is there like, should we be thinking about SEO before we're at the space where we're ready to outsource it to somebody else? And if so, what are some like simple ways we can start working to improve it?

SPEAKER_00:

One thing about SEO is that it takes a long time and it really grows over time. So it's always a good idea to like be thinking about it, you know, early on in your business and let it be something that grows. But it's also, you know, I get it, like you, especially at the beginning of business, you can't be working on 10 different marketing channels all the time. Um, but if you want to make it a, and I wouldn't say a top priority, but just, you know, something that you are gonna focus on, start with just writing blogs that are related to your business, what you offer, and what your audience is looking for. Because oftentimes doing that regularly and consistently, which is a key, um, you will build up keywords that you're ranking for naturally. It's just, you know, you end up putting content out there that people are looking for. And then later you can go in and get some other pieces established or, you know, hire someone to build the rest for you. And you already have a lot of good content there to build off of.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Is there um like a length that you recommend for those blog posts or like a specific frequency that is ideal?

SPEAKER_00:

I say at least once a month, um, but it's more about consistency than frequency. Um, so you know, posting once a month for a year is better than posting six posts this month and then six more in three months and then never again for the rest of the year. Uh, so keeping that in mind. And then the length, it's always depends a little bit. I do try and recommend over a thousand words per blog post, um, just so that there is enough content there to show up for Google and to like inform your audience. Um, I do use another tool, it's a Chrome extension called Keyword Surfer. And this one is great because I will plug in a keyword that maybe I'm trying to rank for or my client's trying to rank for. And if I plug that into Google, it's gonna show me all of the results. And then next to those results, it's going to tell me how many times is that specific keyword used in that post and how many words is that post. So that I can try and say, okay, so that top post has 1200 words and uses this specific keyword twice. Can I naturally and in a way that makes sense still to my reader, write more on this topic and include the keyword one more time? Because that's not necessarily the whole picture, but it is something that can help you rank better for those words.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, at least gives you an idea of what's working for other people and you can kind of build off of that. That's awesome. These are really good tips, especially for like just getting started. Um, and if we want to try to DIY some SEO, how do we know at what point it makes sense for us to outsource some of this? And how do we find the best people or the right people to help us with SEO?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think it's always comes down to, you know, any marketing, like when am I ready to hire out for that piece of it? But um it's gonna come down to like how much you want to spend within the organic marketing channel. If you really like showing up on Instagram and you get a ton of clients from there, then maybe SEO isn't something that you need to focus on. But um it also there's always the risk with you know Instagram that your account disappears overnight and or gets hacked or whatever the case. And with your website, you own that content and you own that space. And so that is something that is always a nice to have. Um for me, I spend a lot of time on Instagram and you know, posting on there, I get clients through there, but also sometimes I just can't stand to be there. I just kind of want a break from Instagram. And so it's important to me that I'm also getting inquiries through, you know, Google as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that makes sense. So, okay, if people want to connect with you, if they want to learn more about what you do, I know you've got um some good resources on your website and things like that. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so you can find me on my website, which is kellyrian.com, Ryan's with two ends, and on Instagram, KellyRyan Co. I like I said, I'm there a lot. So I always get sick of it, then she's not there for a time. I know then I might disappear for a week, but you know, I'll be back.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. I will put the links for both of those in your show notes so people can click on that and get in touch with you. And I appreciate you so much coming on the podcast and sharing some of these tips. They're really helpful. I took a lot of notes so I can go and try to implement some of them myself. Good. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah.

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Melissa Snow

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