The Systems & Workflow Magic Podcast

125: How to become a Googled Answer As A Small Business Owner (Let’s Chat About SEO) featuring Christy Hunter

Today, I have Christy Hunter on the podcast to discuss the importance of SEO for businesses and provide tips on how to get started. We go over the need for businesses to be the Google answer when someone is searching for a solution. Christy also shares her experience with SEO and how she turned a negative experience into an opportunity to help others.

Meet Christy Hunter

After paying for a professional, expensive website redesign that made false SEO promises AND moving my wedding photography business clear across the country… I quickly (and painfully) realized the importance of SEO. I then decided to tackle SEO head-on and, ultimately, found a new passion and challenge that I love. Now, I’m passing on everything I’ve learned (and continue to learn) about SEO to help my fellow entrepreneurs realize their business dreams by increasing their visibility with online searches.

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Read The Shownotes + Transcript Here.

Dolly DeLong: Hello, and welcome to another Systems and Workflow Magic podcast episode. I am your Systems and Workflow BFF and guide, Dolly DeLong. I want to prepare you for today’s podcast ahead of time because this episode may sound overwhelmingly technical, especially for any of my more creative-minded business owner listeners. Okay. So don’t run away. Please don’t turn it off because I believe this is foundational knowledge. You need to apply to the backend of your business. So, we will be talking about SEO. It’s an essential piece of our companies. I don’t care if you are a maker, online business owner, or service provider; SEO is necessary. And it’s something that many of us business owners neglect because it’s overwhelming. We don’t know where to begin. We certainly Didn’t start our businesses to become experts in SEO. I know I didn’t become like I didn’t want to become an SEO expert when I first started my service-based business back in 2018. So we push it aside. So I will say this. Again, this is an essential building block to our business, and regardless of whether we are running the show on our own or we’re in the messy middle of growing out a team, we still want to keep SEO at the forefront of our minds because, business-wise, we want to be the Googled. Answer whenever someone is searching for the solution that we, AKA our businesses, can be the answer to. So today, on the podcast, I have invited Christy Hunter.
Now, after paying for a professional, expensive website, redesigning it that made false SEO promises, and moving her wedding photography business across the country, Christy quickly and painfully realized the importance of SEO. I feel this like I’m reading this, Christy, and I think this cause we’ve all been there. Christy then decided to tackle SEO head-on. And in the end, she found a new passion and challenge that she loves. Now, she’s passing on everything she’s learned. She continues to learn about SEO to help her fellow entrepreneurs make their business dreams a reality by increasing their visibility with online searches, which we all aspire for. So Christy, welcome to the systems and workflow magic podcast. Did I leave anything out?
 
Christy Hunter: No, Dolly. That was amazing. Thank you for having me. I’ve been a long-time listener and follower of your podcast, so it’s exciting to be here, chatting with you and nerding out about SEO today.
 
Dolly DeLong: Well, I’m so excited. And like I said earlier, I think this is an essential building. Everybody needs to learn. And I want to encourage listeners not to tune Christy out because she has a lot of knowledge to share, and don’t talk yourself out, don’t say, well, I’m too dumb to figure out SEO; listen in. Something might click with you, or you might. Take on one point and just let go of it. So, I want to encourage listeners to stick with us. I know you’ll get more than one point from Christy, but I was hoping you could keep repeatedly listening to this episode because SEO is essential. So Christy, you probably already know this. I want to treat my podcast episodes like mini masterminds. Because I know my listeners are either in the beginning years of their business or are growing it out. I think I said this phrase earlier: they’re in the messy middle, growing it and realizing they need to set up systems and workflows on the back end of their business. And so they’re making this traction. So, I want my listeners to walk away with some strategy. So, that’s why I’m excited about discussing an SEO-related strategy today. So, let’s start with the definition of SEO. Let’s begin SEO one-on-one. What would you say the definition would be for SEO?
 
Christy Hunter: So the way that I like to describe SEO, uh, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. So if we break that down, search engine, meaning whatever platform you use, like Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, you’re going into a search bar and typing in words to find information. That’s what a search engine is.  Other platforms utilize SEO, such as search engines like Pinterest and YouTube. But the big ones we’re usually talking about are that most people use Google and hear that name. They’re pretty familiar with it, but it sounds like a fancy word for optimization. And I think that’s where many people get tripped up and scared. Uh, it was funny when you talked about Learning SEO, and you might be in different phases of business. I was three, probably three and a half years old,  before I heard about SEO. Like, I didn’t even know that it existed. I was like, wait a minute. You can control where you show up in the search results. I had no idea that was a thing. So. It’s not like I was born knowing all of this. You can learn it. It’s not that scary. But when we think about optimization, we’re giving our website or blog the content we’re creating; we’re giving it the best chance of showing up well, ranking high, and doing well. In the search results so that when someone is putting in words into the search bar, and they’re looking for help, they’re looking for information or a service or a product, we want to show up and as high up in the search results as top as the top of the page results as we can so that they are encouraged to find us, click over to us, learn about us, fall in love with whatever we’re offering, and then, you know, hopefully, reach out to us in terms of purchasing a product or booking a service.
 
Dolly DeLong: Can I go back and ask you a question that I should have asked you before we hit record? But you said you moved across the country. So, where did you move from? And first of all, I want to say I’m so sorry about what happened to you online. While I was like, when you sent that to me, and again, I knew it was coming into the interview. I was like, Oh, when I read that from you, I was like, Oh, we’ve all been there. Cause I’ve been there. It’s like being promised something online, and you purchased it. And you’re like, okay. This is not anything that I expected. This is worse. This is not meeting my expectations. So, where did you move from? Where did you move to? And I love that you still turn something negative, and you turn that around. You’re still taking control, and you’re okay; this wasn’t delivered for me. So I’m going to take control. And so, just like giving up. I applaud you for that. I think that’s great.
 
Christy Hunter: Thank you. Yeah. So, I was initially living in Tennessee. That’s where I spent, I mean, 90 percent of my life. I was there for 30 years, and I met my husband there, who’s in the military. And I told myself I would never fall in love with anyone in the military because they would make me move away. And he did. So I ended up relocating from Tennessee, where most of my friends and family were in the Eastern part of the United States, then moving to Southern Arizona, where I knew no one. I was running a wedding photography business. My portfolio from Tennessee to Arizona didn’t transition. It looked very different. I was starting over, and I told myself I would rebrand my life after getting married. My name had changed. I was moving to a new area. I wasn’t being found on Google already. And so I told myself, well if I get a new website and have a professional do it who knows what they’re doing, that will be my solution because I knew marketing and networking would be difficult. For me, where I was going. I didn’t know anybody. The area I lived in was an hour and a half away from the target city where I was going to work because I lived in a very tiny town. There were no wedding venues. There were, there was nothing. So I was already, you know, had that distance on top of everything else. I got this new website, which was promised to be SEO optimized for what I wanted to be found for, but I didn’t know what that meant. Okay. I just knew that’s how you show up on Google. And, sure enough, the website launches, and I’m super excited. I go into Google; I type in, you know, Tucson wedding photographer. That’s what I wanted to be found for. And I was nowhere to be seen. And I searched, and I mean, I was on page nine or 10. I was like, gosh, I must’ve missed myself. I didn’t even see myself anywhere. And then I was like, well, wait a minute. How do you control where you show up in the search results? When I started learning about SEO, I realized how much was not done on my website. And I said, you know, It is what it is. It wasn’t distinctly outlined in our, you know, contract of I’m going to do X, Y, and Z. It just said it was going to be SEO optimized. And so I just said, that’s it. I’m going to learn it. I’m going to put it in place. And within less than a year, I ranked on page one from the keyword I wanted to show up for. I started contacting other photographers to do a second shoot for me, who didn’t even know who I was because I was so new to the area. But they weren’t doing SEO or putting those things in place. So, Google shows you what’s currently available for that keyword. Once you start to understand what it is, you can also understand what your competition’s not doing; the ability to move up and overtake them is a lot easier than many people would initially think. Yeah. 
 
Dolly DeLong: Wow, that is just incredible. Thank you for sharing that. I know that sometimes, rehashing old purchases that didn’t live up to the expectations of what they presented themselves can be hard to talk about. So, thanks for sharing that. But I’m happy we had that. That’s like the ultimate comeback story. Oh yeah, I just you like, you’re like, okay, I’m going to learn this myself and apply it and not let it bog me down. And I love that so much. So, I should know this, but I don’t. Are you still a wedding photographer, or are you exclusively just teaching SEO now?
 
Christy Hunter: Well, I’m in a tricky situation because I’m no longer in Arizona. I’m now in Washington state. We have moved.
 
Dolly DeLong: oh, oh, 
 
Christy Hunter: and this is, I know, it’s wild. So this is our last move before my husband retires. And so I’m in this bizarre transition. I have to work on restarting my business and moving to my new area. The wedding season is very short here because we have lots of rain. And so, by the time I get things up and running, we will be retiring and moving back to Tennessee. So then it’s kind of like, why put all my effort there? So now, all of my effort is going into the SEO side of my business and helping other creatives. I’ve already worked with several amazing photographers, helping them understand what SEO is and helping them show up in the search results. It was great. Cause I got to work with a lot of people over, like winter, where things tend to be a little slow, and now engagement season is starting to pop up. And so, yeah, to help them get things under control before those inquiries begin to come

Dolly DeLong: I love that so much. Okay, I know my listeners are screaming at me, and they’re like, stop asking her questions about where she lives, and let’s get into the strategy. So, okay, I will, like, okay, sorry, listeners. I’m just curious about Christy. So now that we’ve established what SEO is, how can you be the searchable term your ideal client is typing into Google? Let’s dive into the strategy.
 
Christy Hunter: Of course. So, when it comes to strategy in general for SEO, it will all vary depending on what you want to be found for and your personal goals. Uh, the, like one of the examples I like to give is, you know, maybe you’re like, you know, you’ve Dolly, you’re a photographer, you’re in Nashville, perhaps you only want to work in the Nashville area, so then you want to make sure that you’re only being found for Nashville type terms. As opposed to middle Tennessee, or maybe cities that are nearby that are only 45 minutes to an hour away, just because they might have excellent search volume in terms of the number of people that are searching for them every month doesn’t mean it aligns with what works for you and your business and your goals. So it’s really about putting everything together in a way that makes sense, but I get so pumped up and excited about SEO because I am a huge social media fan. It’s great. It’s a beautiful tool for connecting with people. But when I learned that I could work on my SEO slowly behind a screen without having to necessarily, you know, dance or sing or, you know, record videos. And the fact that it has lasted for so long that I’ve left Tennessee. Right. I left Tennessee four and a half five years ago. I still have content that I created back in Tennessee. That’s getting me inquiries for Tennessee. I’ve had people fly me back for weddings. Uh, I get to visit my parents because they’re still finding me for the content I made five years ago. That’s still working for me. So, the ability to use SEO as a strategic form of marketing works. Months and years down the road for you, as opposed to social media, where you usually have to be on that platform pretty regularly. You have to show up; you have to show the platform that you’re engaging, using its features, all of those things. And most of the time, unless you have a viral post. Some of your audience might see it. Some people might see it for, you know, a day or two, and then poof, it’s gone. And so the ability to create something that’s SEO optimized on your website and your blog, which you own and have forever. Unless, you know, social media, sometimes people lose access to their accounts, things shut down, and stuff happens. But this is something that will stay with you for a long time. And so that’s one of the reasons. I love SEO, and I use it to put all of my work into creating that content and then let it guide everything else I’m putting out on all the other different platforms.
 
Dolly DeLong: I love that so much. So Christy, how would you recommend a small business center? Let’s create a scenario for a small business center. They’re wearing all the hats and doing that on their own. Where should they get started with SEO, then? It is a very overwhelming topic to look at and think about. I remember when my son was. Not even one. That’s when I started conquering SEO, and I was so overwhelmed. So overwhelmed. I didn’t know where to begin, but I took some excellent courses. But still, where does one start with SEO?
 
Christy Hunter: you were definitely on the right track in terms of education and understanding what you’re doing in the first place because if you go onto your website or a recent blog post, you’ve made. You start willy-nilly making changes, uh, you could end up doing more harm than good. So you want to understand what the point of everything is. And so, I’ve got a free resource that talks about four steps to take when starting with SEO. Some are thought-based, and like foundational things, you want to have laid down before you. Go on to your website to make changes. Then, we talk about actually making changes and putting in the work. And I’ve got some additional blog posts and content creation, so I’m following my rules here. I’m talking about things that you need to do in the proper order. Because the way that SEO works is. A lot of it is just one step after another, just building and building on top of each other. But the most significant tools are making sure that you understand what you’re doing, why you’re making the changes that you’re making, and that you have an actual strategy behind the decisions that you’re making. One example that I love to give, especially for photographers in the wedding industry. Many people will say, Oh yeah, I blog all the time. I blog about weddings. I blog about client education and then see it on their website. And it’s geared towards things a couple might need to know about. That’s still very genuinely helpful. But it’s after they would have booked a photographer.
You want to capture those people before they have hired someone for your service. And so, while you could have all of your ducks in a row when optimizing a post, your page titles are correct, and you have an excellent heading structure. Your images are optimized. You have alt text in place. You’re using keywords. All those things could be done, but if they find you after they’ve booked someone for your service. It’s not going to bring you clients. And so it’s about being intentional with the time you’re putting into it and setting that excellent foundation for the other content you’ll create.
 
Dolly DeLong: Okay. Let’s hit up on that because how do you get those people before they book, let’s say? We have wedding photographers then. And do we get those clients to book us even before they do? I don’t even know how to phrase this question. Are you tracking with what I’m 
 
Christy Hunter? I am. I am. No, I hear you. So that’s all. It’s like the magic secret sauce, trying to figure out how you can get in front of them before they even know that they need you. When we think about weddings, we want to consider what they do before hiring a photographer. They might be looking for wedding venues. They might be considering wedding planners. You could target the future groom considering proposing something in your area. There are so many things that happen before we come into the picture. And so we want to make sure that we are talking about those things and optimizing the content that we’re writing in the right way So that when a groom goes into Google and says, oh, places to propose in Nashville, You come up, and they fall in love with the way that you’re helping them. They trust you. They see your photos, and they get excited. And then they say, you know what? I’d love pictures of this proposal. They reach out to you, then they’re engaged, then they’re getting married. And so it’s really about understanding what your potential clients are thinking about before they’re ready to get in front of you, but also making sure that it aligns with What works for you and your business. So, when it comes to weddings, maybe you talk about some of your favorite venues in the area. I know I was in Tennessee. That’s where I first started my wedding photography business. And I cannot tell you how many barns I photographed. There were barns everywhere. And if it were up to me, I probably wouldn’t want that to be the primary type of wedding that I photograph. So, I won’t be blogging about Nashville’s ten best barn weddings or barn venues. That doesn’t align with. What I’m hoping people will find me for is that Instead, I might blog about the ten best garden venues in the Nashville area. So, it’s, again, thinking about what they are doing before they need you and what makes sense for the type of client you want to work with. 
 
Dolly DeLong: I want to extract two points from this and hope to repeat them to the listeners. So Christy, in a way, is sharing that it’s essential to consider our ideal client’s client awareness journey, from when they haven’t even proposed to when they have proposed or are planning the wedding. So you need to, like, I’m not trying to stress you guys out, but we should create content for these different awareness and planning phases. I love that you hit up that. It’s essential to create content for the various stages.  I look at it as an awareness journey. And then, I also love that you hit the point that you don’t have to post everything you’re taking photos of. If you want to, it is like attracting a specific type of client and posting curated blogs or pictures. We keep using photography as an example because we both have this foundation and background in photography, but it’s so true. For example, when you start curating and posting what you want to attract, you will start attracting those types Of clients. And I one hundred percent resonate with the whole barn wedding thing. I also live in middle Tennessee and, my husband and I got married in a very moderate; we got married at the Ruby. Did you ever hear about Ruby when you 
 
Christy Hunter: yes. Yep. Mm hmm. Mm 
 
Dolly DeLong: I, we loved it. We both grew up going to church. We’re both very faithful Christians, and we are like, It’s not even a church! I’m surprised we didn’t get married. We laugh about that all the time, but It’s such a modern, classic venue, and if I were a wedding photographer, That is what I would probably put out too, just like ideal, modern venues that I would want to photograph weddings at. So, those are two excellent points, Christy. So please, listeners, it is okay not to post everything you do. And then also to create content for the different awareness journeys of your ideal client.
 
Christy Hunter: That’s wonderful. And I give different examples of this throughout me; I have an actual whole course. It’s called the SEO basics course, and it is dedicated to helping people with either very little or zero knowledge of SEO understand all the different facets that go into it. And I give other examples. So while we’re, like you said, we’re talking a lot about photography, think about a Web designer. Maybe they only want to work with people who use the show-it platform and hate using Wix and Squarespace. They’re not blogging about optimization or design tips for Wix or Squarespace because they don’t want people looking for that help to reach out to them for their service. They’re only going to be talking about everything, showing it related to what they want to be found for. And so again, it’s about thinking about what people need help with, what information and assistance they’re looking for, and what you want people to book you for. 
 
Dolly DeLong: Okay, Christy. We just discussed the importance of creating content for the client journey. Before diving into SEO strategy, is there anything else you want to add?
 
Christy Hunter: Um, well, when it comes to content creation, we already talked about longevity. SEO and ensuring that your website and the content you create are optimized. And so that’ll work for you for a long time. Another thing that excites me is the frequency with which you have to create this content. WWhen we think about social media, we think about people posting daily. If I had to sit down and write a blog post every day, there’s no way I would get through it. Like I, I couldn’t do it. So, that’s one sort of myth that I’d like to address and talk about, which is the fact that SEO can work for you. You can see a significant increase in traffic and intentional traffic, as well as people coming to your website who want you to find your services without blogging and creating new content, right? Every day, maybe instead, you write two killer blog posts a month, then you break up those pieces of your blog and what you’re talking about and repurpose them for social media, create a real, and create a YouTube short video about it. You can use that one piece of content you’re putting a lot of effort into to show up in multiple ways. And it will feel like you’re showing up and marketing yourself constantly without having to blog and create content every day.
 
Dolly DeLong: I love that so much. Do you usually know what your blogging workflow looks like? Do you usually blog these two? Do you typically blog two blog posts a month? Or what is your cadence for yourself?
 
Christy Hunter: The critical part is ensuring you’re honest about what you can do. So maybe I have, you know, two or three audit clients in a month. When I do an audit for a client, if I’m doing both a technical and a content audit, where I’m looking at the backend of their site, but then I’m also looking at the words and the content that they have put out on their site, that quickly is going to take up at least a week on my calendar. All right. Period. They’re probably getting no joke because I am sitting there,  recording my screen, and talking to them. It’s about four to five hours’ worth of my feedback in an audit. It’s pretty in-depth. And so if I have a lot going on, I might tell myself, you know what, if you can get one blog post out this month, you’re doing great. And that’s a good thing to think about. You know, especially for service-based businesses, you’re probably not booking at the last minute. You’re booking yourself out, you know, a few months ahead of time, especially as wedding photographers, you’re booking, you know, a year and a half out ahead of time; look at your calendar and see what you have space to do. Don’t completely forget about it. Just like I would never say, I will only blog and never show up on social media. That wouldn’t be something I would recommend because you’ll reach different people in different ways, but be realistic with what you have the time to do. And I would much rather have you create one high-quality piece of content than push out three or four blog posts that are just poorly done.
 
Dolly DeLong: I love that so much. Okay. You probably, I don’t know if you’re even going to bring this up, but I was thinking about this. What are your thoughts about GPT or AI and incorporating it with SE because, like it’s, it’s been out for over, well over two, I don’t know, a year and a half now. And I feel I don’t know. I love AI capability, but at the same time, I think there is a fine line between completely copying over what chat GPT spit out and then creating a. SEO-rich blog posts. Cause I know people type in and create SEO-rich blog posts for me. And so, what are your thoughts? What is your hot take on that?
 
Christy Hunter: You are, you’re spot on. You’re speaking my language. So, there have been several updates. Google pushes out algorithm updates constantly. Some are small that we don’t even know about, and some are much bigger, but over the past year, it’s been pushing out many updates and focusing on content quality. The reason for that is that AI has become so predominant. People are going into AI; they’re putting in some prompts, but they’re not rereading it to ensure that there’s even correct information because it can spit out incorrect information. They’re just copying, pasting, and, you know, putting it in there. But when Google is ranking content, it wants to make sure that the information that you’re including and the way that you’re writing it is engaging, that it’s interesting, that people are staying on the page, and it’s answering the question. For example, if I were to blog about a wedding venue, there are two different ways of doing that. Some people might optimize a wedding day blog post and hope it finds them for that venue. But if I were an actual customer searching online for a wedding venue, I want to find inspiration. Sure. I want to see photos, but I also want to know about venue details, the capacity, the style, and what it looks like at different times of the year. And so, I like to use chat GPT and things like that as a good source of brainstorming, but I would never rely on it. To write my physical post, I’ve played around with it several times to help maybe write a meta description, something that’s not super important to SEO ranking but still has to get done, or maybe provide me, you know if someone were, you know, I could go into chat GPT and say, if someone was an SEO beginner, what are the first four things that they might want to know about? And that could give me some inspiration for some content to create. But I wouldn’t just sit there and say, okay, now write 500 words for me on the topic. What I would, and Google wants to see, is that you have experience, knowledge, and expertise in what you’re talking about. And AI can’t copy that. AI can’t say, well, when I was at this venue, I realized the window light was gorgeous in this room. So I had to shoot here. AI can’t do that. You do that.
 
Dolly DeLong: Yeah, that’s right. I love that. So, I recommend using the tools but not abusing them.
 
Christy Hunter: Correct. And they’re cracking down on that, you know, further and further along, as things start to become more predominantly used and, you know, being authentic about whether you wrote this or whether it was AI-generated.
 
Dolly DeLong: I love that, and it just has a reminder to the listeners like you are the expert in your specific Business field, like whatever business you’re running like you’re the expert So don’t second guess yourself and think, well, something else can create this for me because I’m short on time like You take the time, be intentional. Like what Christy is saying, if you only have time for one blog post a month or one long-form piece of content, then really put forth effort in doing that, like definitely utilize a tool like AI and maybe ask it for prompts, but then take those prompts and then extract your knowledge from your actual head and put, infuse it into the blog post. Whatever long-form content you create, this is just a reminder that you can still be original. You can still be yourself. Because that’s like, what, why do people hire you because of you, not because of AI? So, these are the things I wish we could talk about. Okay. Oh, because there’s so much I want to know about SEO.
I feel like I know enough to be. It’s not too dangerous, but I know enough to optimize things, but I feel like. I am still not even hitting the tip of the iceberg with SEO, and I know our time is running out because we are over 30 minutes, but if you had any other time, like last minute, like getting to and getting started strategies to share with the listeners. Like you, you shared what SEO is, how to like the ability to use SEO and strategic long-form content marketing. Like what is the point of SEO? Do you have any other rapid tips to share with the listeners? 
 
Christy Hunter: well, if you want more of a step-by-step guide, as I said, I do have some resources on my website that’ll walk you through and give you visual examples of things because I know some of this is just hard to understand when I start saying things like search volume and competition and stuff like that. You’re what? I don’t understand. What does that mean? So it gets a little tricky, but it’s really about, you know, People are people here. You hear a lot about keywords and the need to use words in different areas of your website, blog, and content. And that’s true, but there’s also a misconception. For example, suppose you wanted to be found for Nashville Family Photographer, for example. In that case, you do not wish to use Nashville Family Photographer in the title of every page on your website, every page on your site, and every post you create; it’s meant to target a different audience. Keyword. And I know that sounds wild because people will be like, but I want to be found for Nashville family photographer. So I should use that word as much as I can everywhere. But what happens is Google starts to understand when you’re creating these different pieces of content, what services you are offering, what you’re about, where you’re located based on all of the natural language that you’re using, talking about different locations that you’ve been to referencing landmarks, all of that stuff kind of builds up on each other. So. Again, knowing exactly where to start is hard, but ensure you understand SEO. Then, like I said, you can check out that blog post on my site. I think I’m getting ready to hit publish on it today. I’m just like reviewing it, which talks about some essential steps to go onto your website and physically make changes. A couple of things I talk about are keyword research, how to do that, and what to look for. Where they’re, where you’re putting these keywords, where you’re using them. I even give an example of how to lay out your page titles. Let’s say you’re a photographer with multiple specialties or a service provider that does various things, understanding how all of that should work on your site, writing page titles and meta descriptions. I also talked about submitting a site map, which sounds intense and complicated. And it takes about two minutes to do. It’s straightforward. See here. The website provider has already created it for you. But if Google doesn’t understand what content is on your website, a site map is just a map of your site. If you haven’t submitted that to Google, it probably doesn’t even know that your website exists or what sort of content you’re providing in the first place. So, it’s just some straightforward things that are easy to overlook. I’ve seen, you know, website titles where you can tell that this particular service provider used a template. They wrote everything beautifully in their template, and they never changed the page titles of their template.
 
Dolly DeLong: Yeah, I see that a lot. 
 
Christy Hunter: Yeah. And it’s just those little things that if you start to make those changes, Google will start sending signals that, Oh, this is what this page is actually about. It’s not about, you know, the Mont Blanc template on the beach. It’s not about that. It’s about different content altogether.
 
Dolly DeLong: Well, Christy, you are a wealth of knowledge. I want you to; I want to affirm that and let you know that. I’m so glad that you are in—this field of expertise. Cause you made it very tangible and easy for me to track along and understand. Cause I’m bursting at the seams, I want to ask you all these questions now. I’m sure I have listeners in the same boat as me. So where can they find you and connect with you? Work with you. Are you taking clients? What does it look like to work with you?
 
Christy Hunter: So one of the most popular services that I offer, and you can, I’m very like transparent on my website about what my services include, what the pricing looks like, it’s all out there, black and white for you to look at. one of my most popular options that I would say 95 percent of my clients that book with me are, and yes, I am taking on SEO clients currently is what I call my mentorship program. And what it is is it combines. You get full access to the SEO basics course education. It’s nine modules. It’s pretty hefty. There’s lots of great information, but it’s all broken up into short videos, so you can watch it, absorb it, see if you understand it, watch it again, and then implement it. But it combines that course with both the technical and the content audits. And so what usually happens is I give the course access to my client. They watch the course. Then, we have a 90-minute video call, during which they can ask me. For any SEO question, they must ensure they understand all the information they just ingested, and we get that clarification. We screen to share it through their website. We pull up the Google search console. We look at all sorts of stuff together and then have the audits. So then I go into their website, and I check, Basically, everything that they have seen in the course. So, not only do they understand education, but they also see it in action on their website. And then I provide them an action plan of, you know, Okay, this is what we saw when we looked at page titles. This is what we saw when we looked at heading tags. Now, this is what you need to do to fix it. Of course, they have the option for me to take care of some of that for them as I go through the audit process, too. That way, if they need me to take a little bit off their hands, so it’s not so much all at once, they have that option out there.
 
Dolly DeLong: Wow, Christy. Okay, everyone. I hope you’re like, after this episode, run and find her. And, are you, like, where can people find you and follow you?
 
Christy Hunter: The website is probably my best place. As I said, blogging and SEO content are my favorite things to do right now. All of this happened, and the transition was rapid from saying, you know what, I’m going to put weddings on the back burner, to helping people with SEO. The need was there. My passion for it was there. So social media is still kind of building over there. But my website is the best place to find me. And it is just SEO coaching for creatives. com. That’s my Instagram handle as well. I also have a service page where you can find everything. I’ve got a contact page for you to contact for booking services. I also have a shop available where you can purchase the SEO basics course, my keyword caramelization mini-course, or even an SEO roadmap. If you want more DIY, use a checklist version of things you need to look for Org to take care of on your own.
 
Dolly DeLong: I love it. I have one more question to ask you. You’re like, please stop asking me all these questions. I’m going to have to invoice you, Dolly. Do you help certain people by showing it, for example, or is it with any website? Yeah.
 
Christy Hunter: what website platform do you use? What type of business do you have? It’s all the same thing. However, some website platforms are slightly more cooperative than others regarding optimization. Options that the website platform uses. I used to show it for my website. That is the platform I use to work with most of my clients. Especially with us as photographers, it tends to be a viral platform. However, I’ve also worked with people who use Squarespace. I’ve used people with more visual builders, such as WordPress and Pro Photo. Whatever platform you work on, we’ll make it work the best we can. The only difficulty is that sometimes, we start diving into the available settings, and you might find that your platform falls behind. And so sometimes people will be like, you know what, before we go into all of this, I see that I can’t do X, Y, and Z. I’m just going to change platforms before we dive into everything. So it just depends, you know, it varies per platform. Those platforms are making updates and, you know, changes periodically, too.
 
Dolly DeLong: I am so glad I asked you that question because I, again, I was like, I think she does show it. But no, it’s so good that you said it applies to any platform. That is so encouraging. I’m telling you, listeners, go and find Christy right now. Um, okay. And I’m going to give this little hint to everyone. I won’t drop the whole secret, but something SEO-related is coming soon. In late summer, Christy is involved. So, I want to give you a hint, and you’ll hear more about that later. So, anyway, Christy, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I am just so excited to connect with you and I. Connect my audience with you, and I hope they will take advantage of your free resources, get to know you, and take that next step in learning more about SEO. So thank you again for coming.
 
Christy Hunter: Of course. Thanks for having me, Dolly. I’m super excited to get this information out there and, you know, for people to understand there’s nothing to fear. I didn’t start off learning SEO and knowing all of this stuff. It takes time. But as we know, education and help are great shortcuts to take much of that stress away. And so if I can do any of that for my fellow creatives, that’s what I’m here for. 
 
Dolly DeLong: Thank you so much, Christy. And for those of you listening, don’t forget everything mentioned in the episode. We’ll be in the show notes. It will be in the blog version of this podcast episode as well. So everyone will be there. Feel free to DM me on Instagram and let me know what favorite aha moments you experienced from this episode because I know SEO feels like a beast, but it is fun to learn and apply to your business. So until then, my friends stay streamlined and magical. You are amazing. S E O muggle you. And I will talk to you all next week about our brand-new systems and workflow-related episode. And until then, have a good week. Bye. 
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