142: Ubersuggest and Keyword Research For Your Small Business

Dolly Delong: Hi, and welcome back to another episode of the Systems and Workflow Magic podcast. I am your Systems and Workflow BFF and guide, Dolly DeLong. You all should know this: We are doing a Summer SEO series. Every episode this summer will be dedicated to SEO-related search engine optimization. Why? I want us all to be found on SEO, to serve our dream clients, and to learn how to run our businesses with better SEO systems and workflows. I am excited about today’s guest because she is Bekah Read of Rebekah Read Creative. She has been featured on this podcast before. If you go back to episode 102, that was one of my most popular episodes. And she spoke about. Guess what? Something SEO-related. It benefited many of my listeners, so I invited her back. She will contribute to the Systems and Workflow Magic Bundle, the SEO edition, at the end of the summer. Today, Bekah will discuss keyword research and why you need it to nail that product. First, you need to do keyword research for your website to get on page one of Google. And so before we get into that topic, Bekah, do you mind introducing yourself to the listeners?

Rebekah Read: Sure. So I am a Squarespace educator, website designer for small businesses, and a mom of two tiny, tiny little humans. And yeah, I love helping new entrepreneurs, especially getting their website showing on Google so they can skip the rat race of Instagram and be cheerleaders for other business owners.

Dolly Delong: Okay, Bekah. I am so glad you are back on the podcast because you will speak about the importance of keyword research. Now, listeners, I know I’ve had other guests talk about keyword research, but I want us to look at keyword research in multifaceted ways. So, what may have hit home for another listener? You might have listened to another episode about keyword research, and you’re like, what the what? What was that about? So, I hope that how Bekah explains it and guides us through this keyword research topic will help you. It will bridge that gap for you. And so I know, Bekah, you’ll be talking about debunking keywords and what you need to know. And so I like how you described that as we outlined this episode. So. Yeah, let’s dive into that.

Rebekah Read: All right. So, I will give you guys a little brainstorming exercise later, too. That’s super easy. I’m here to dumb it down because SEO search engine optimization can feel overwhelming for people. I know keyword research is not the sexiest topic, But you need to nail it to make any of the SEO you do later on worth it. So, first of all, what is keyword research? Keywords are like this: They bridge what people are searching online and where your website page appears. It’s a search term or phrase, and you need it to match whatever they’re searching. It would be best to have what’s on your website page, and Google would crawl it. It’ll look at photos. It’ll look at the text. It’ll look like the backend stuff. It’ll crawl it and try to figure out what keywords are on this page.? What is this page about? And that’s how it decides your authority.

Dolly Delong: Gotcha. I’m just curious, Bekah, what got you into SEO?

Rebekah Read: That was not my goal initially, but I think that’s an excellent question. I have to think about it. I, you know, I think I just started in the website design world. I was spending all this time designing my website. And I’m like, I’m not here to do all this work for nothing. I don’t want to make a pretty website and have nobody land on it. I also think I had this far-off goal of getting traffic from Google. I knew it wouldn’t happen immediately, but that was my goal. I don’t have a great relationship with Instagram. I like being on it, But I can get sucked into that rabbit hole, so I wanted to be able to have the opportunity in my business to take sabbaticals away from Instagram But still have my business work for me. So that was like, in the beginning, my thought process was okay, and I will put in this effort. I know it will take a little time, but I will put in the effort because I think it’ll be worth it, and it has been so worth it. I barely got 80 of my clients through; they found me on Google.

Dolly Delong: I love that. I love that. So listeners, Bekah knows what she’s talking about when talking about keyword research and Google, and she’s put in the hard work. This is something that all of my guest experts this summer wanted; I want you all to know that each guest has put in the actual work on SE and O, and they want to help you bridge that gap. Anyway, Bekah, sorry. I was just curious: What got you started with SEO? It’s encouraging to hear. I know we talk about this in our DMS, and full disclosure: Everyone is back in our good business, friends. And so we DM. We have this little group chat through Instagram with another friend and DM each other daily, if not weekly. And it is. I don’t know. Being in the trenches with another fellow mam, business owner,r, and believer is encouraging.

Rebekah Read: Yeah, I suggest anyone listening find somebody at the same place in your business if you can or in the same field as you because it’s just so. Business is complex, and it’s encouraging to DM each other and ask why Instagram is not working right now. Play ideas off, or I have a demanding client. Let’s chat about it. It’s just been encouraging. So that’s a very side tangent, but

Dolly Delong: Very side tangent. So I know you said you have an exercise you want us to do, like how it pertains to how Google can crawl our app and actual website and look for these keywords.

Rebekah Read: Yeah, that’s okay. I made this the most straightforward exercise you could do because you can go down rabbit holes with keyword search tools. There’s Moz, there’s SEMrush, and so many of these tools are very expensive. We’re not here for that. I’m making this easy for you, okay? So, I want you to take out your phone. Or, you’re probably listening to the podcast on your phone. Take out a notebook…

Dolly Delong: I’m going to take out

Rebekah Read: Alright. And brainstorm. What you think people might use to search for you, what phrase and would people Google? So maybe it’s your business name, the services you offer, or the products you have. And then think of variations of that. So try not to use industry jargon if you can. I know it’s hard because you’re in it, but believe and brainstorm a long list. And then go on your website analytics. You can do this with a Squarespace website; analytics are built into Squarespace. If you have a website on any other platform, you should connect it with Google Analytics. Just Google how to do it; it’s not that hard. Then, go to your Google Analytics and see if any of those phrases you wrote down are also phrases on your Google Analytics that people use to find your website. If there’s an overlap between those two, that’s a goldmine because you’re already ranking for it.

People are searching for it, and you want to be known for it. So keep doing what you’re doing, writing blog posts about that. You seem to be doing a good job there. If you look at your Google Analytics and don’t see a matchup, it’s a thing that people find me a ton for a Shopify blog post I wrote. I don’t design on Shopify, so that’s less than ideal, but that happens sometimes. You write a blog post that people are searching for, and it gets so many hits. And I wrote it like four years ago. So that’s going to happen. But if you don’t have overlap, then it’s time to do some brief keyword research. And You, as I said, you can go and get these costly tools, but the one tool that I love, cause it’s the easiest, I think, is Ubersuggest, and all you do is just type in that keyword phrase that you want to be ranked for. It’ll give you an SEO difficulty, and S, called an SD, will provide you with a keyword volume. So, you want the volume to be high. What?

Dolly Delong: Can I ask? Sorry to interrupt you, Bekah. You were like in the middle of something!

Rebekah Read: No, you’re fine.

Dolly Delong: Forgive me. I thinkin’ would be interesting for my listeners. Do you want me to pull up Ubersuggest right now so we can go through some exercises? Okay, let me pull it up right now.

Rebekah Read: Okay, Bekah, I just opened up Ubersuggest; I will go to keyword overview. 

Dolly Delong: Okay, and now what do I do? 

Rebekah Read: type in whatever keyword phrase you want. So let’s try Nashville, photographer.

Dolly Delong: Nashville photographer. I got it.

Rebekah Read: So Dolly and I both have Ubersuggest just pulled up. I put in a Nashville wedding photographer. You put in a Nashville photographer. What is the search volume for Nashville photographers?

Dolly Delong: Nashville photographer search volume is 210.

Rebekah Read: Wow. That’s not very high. That surprised me. Okay. So, Nashville Wedding Photographer has a search volume of 880, which is good. The SEO difficulty for Nashville wedding photographers is 46. 46 is a little bit high. What is your SEO difficulty?

Dolly Delong: 44.

Rebekah Read: Both are a bit higher than I would like to see, especially when starting because you have very little content. So, I would say start playing around with keyword phrases in Ubersuggest and use variations. Even if you type in a keyword,  you can scroll down once the page is pulled up. If you scroll down a little bit, it has keyword ideas. So I’m losing, and it has Nashvill,e TN photographers. The volume is 1600, excellent. The SEO difficulty, or SD, is 55. Again, that’s too high. It also has a slight yellow so you can tell yellow h is less than ideal.

You’re going to go to the green. You want to try to get the SEO difficulty between 15 and 32. Usually, if it’s between that range, it’s a keyword that people are probably searching for. If you have an SEO difficulty of zero, nobody’s searching for it, so don’t try. But if it’s between 15 and 35 or 32, that means people are probably searching for it, and you can look at the volume—make sure. And it’s also something you can rank for. So that’s how you find some good keyword phrases. And then maybe get three or four. We’re not trying to get a ton of keyword phrases. Even two is fine. Butt you take those keyword phrases that you found and start adding them to places. If Ubersuggestt seems overwhelming, I have some free suggestions that will work phenomenally well. One is to go to Google and search for the keyword phrase. Then scroll down a bit, and you’ll see it says keywords like this or search terms like this. So that gives you some ideas. You can also go to Pinterest, which is a search engine, or YouTube, which is also a search engine. So those are both, again, if you go to like Pinterest and type in your keyword phrase, It’ll also come up same thing with other keyword ideas. Those are three easy, free tools that you can use to find and collect other keyword phrases. They won’t tell you about the SEO difficulty but give you some ideas.

Dolly Delong: Quick question, Bekah: what is Uber suggesting? What is the free level? Like how, how, like, how often or how many times can you use it to be

Rebekah Read: Okay, here’s how I hack Ubersuggest. Because Dolly knows this about me, I am like the free expert. I don’t want to spend money on anything. Not a thing. So this is what I do. With Uber, I suggest you get five free searches for a day. So you could do five and then come back tomorrow. Or, if you’re using Chrome, use it in a private window since you can only do one free search, seep using incognito windows. This is what I do.

Dolly Delong: Gotcha.

Rebekah Read: there you go. That’s one way of hacking it. Yeah.

Dolly Delong: I love it. I love these little hacks with Bekah. Okay. And then, of course, YouTube is free. And Pinterest is free.

Rebekah Read: or just Google. Go to Google, scroll down, and see what other keyword phrases are. It usually will come up with ones that won’t work for you. Sometimes, it’ll have, let’s say, you’re searching for a Nashville photographer. It might have the actual name of the photographer, and obviously, that’s not a phrase you want to use. But some of them might work for you. Mm

Dolly Delong: Gotcha. Okay. So let’s say we did the, okay. So we went, did Uber suggest, and did keyword research on Pinterest and YouTube. How long should a person do that? Because that could take hours. Like a person could go down a rabbit trail. 

Rebekah Read: they sure could. Don’t, don’t do that. Put a timer, do it for 10 to 15 minutes, and then move forward with your life. Because the bulk of the work will be adding keyword phrases to your website, I’d have you doing that rather than creating a blog post and searching for keywords. For a ton of time. Of course,e I want it to be a keyword people are actually searching for, but, yeah, so 10, 15 minutes and then going to adding those keywords to, I have seven different spots I thought of on your website that you can add them. So,

Dolly Delong: Share those seven spots with us.

Rebekah Read: So first, it’s just in the text or like the copy of your website. So, look at your homepage and say, okay, where can I organically go? Okay. Add in this keyword phrase. You don’t want it to be awkward. You still want it to sound like a standard paragraph, but where can I add it? Also, Google is smart. And if you add different variations of that keyword phrase, that’s okay, too. Like Google, that’s also good. So don’t be super strict with just doing Nashville wedding photography. You can also do whatever, a variation of that. The other place is in the headers. So, if you, whatever website platform you’re using, you usually have a, it’s called a H1, Heading 1. If you can, you want to use the keyword phrase in Heading 1 or in Heading 2. Next is the page or blog post title. This is on the backend SEO settings. Every website platform has this. If you go to the page, you can click, like in Squarespace; it’s a little setting wheel on the show and the far right-hand side. Add your SEO title and meta description to the Show page. So, add some keywShow in there. If you don’t date that, Google will pull what they think it is. And sometimes, they don’t pull the correct thing. So that’s something you should be doing. Again, this is something you need to do one time. It is not something you need to do ongoing. If you have this stuff, yes, it will take time initially, but you’re done if you have it set up. You’re good to go. So, we have the copy, the header, the titles, the image name, or the file name, especially for you photographers. This is where I see a lot of people mess up. Before you upload the photo to your platform, change the file name. To be keyword specific, Nashville dash wedding dash photographer dot JPEG. So many people have IMG underscores one, two, and three, and no one’s searching for them on Google. So, change the file name. And then once you upload it to your platform, you can also, it’ll usually automatically pull the name based on what you did, but you can also change it in the physical name field. So that’s number four, as well as number five. Number six is anytime you link. So, on your pages. For example, if you’re writing a blog post, you may want to link to your services page from your blog post. Instead of just saying visit services, make your link say something like, learn more about our Nashville wedding services here, then link it. So you have that whole keyword phrase as the link. And then, finally, there is the URL slug. So, if I want to go to your services page, let’s say, usually a lot of times, it might, and this might not be super applicable because maybe you want your services page to have a short slug, so I’m more talking about this for blog posts. And when you’re writing your blog posts, make sure there’s no date in the blog post and have it be three to five words. So, if you have a blog post about a long topic, figure out how to condense it into three to five words, which would be your URL slug. So maybe it’s reBekahrecreative. Com backslash Keyword research, and that’s my URL sub. So those are the seven places to go, so add those keywords. And just as a little side tangent, blogging is fantastic.

Blogging is not dead. People will say is blogging dead? No. Is Google dead? No. So, as long as Google’s a thing, blogging is a thing. So make sure that you’re. Like you, you continue to blog about these keyword phrases, and Google loves consistency. So, if you’re doing all this backend work, that’s awesome. But then it’s, it only does you so much. So continually. And when I say consistency, like I say once a month, okay. You don’t need to do weekly blogs. If that’s overwhelming to you, if you like it, go for it. But even if you only do one every other month, there is still some consistency. So yeah, do that. And then Dolly will link my last podcast episode with her below, but I talked about my Pig Full system, and that’s my system too, like, once you write this SEO-optimized blog, push it out to different platforms, including Google. And again, this is just telling Google, yep, people are landing on the blog post, and it’s valuable. So yeah, that’s my system. I guess a lot of that is work initially, but then you’re done, and it can rank. For example, I have a website in a day. I offer and don’t do anything to rank for that continually. I’m on page one, in the number one or two spot, and don’t do anything. I created that page in 2020, so a while ago,o and I didn’t do anything.

Dolly Delong: wow. That’s amazing. I will say I had a little light bulb moment, Bekah, going back to your seven places where to add the keywords, which again if you’re listening to this episode and you’re like, Is there a corresponding blog post that I can look at this? Yes, there will be attachments to this podcast episode, but I’ve never thought of using anchor text, like to link out, like I’ve just thought of, Oh, click here, not like click. And then, like on the actual text of the keywords, if that makes sense.

Rebekah Read: Yeah. I’ll send you one of my blogs that I did where I was. I’ve written so many blogs at this point that I was writing. I think it was like a 2023 recap, and I was linking to so many blogs, and you’ll see. And I think how I did it, as I said, read more. Then, I have the whole blog title,g, and blog posts linked to that blog post. So, there are just so many opportunities to add those keyword phrases. Yeah. And it just also helps people know, if they’re skimming because when you’re writing a blog post, you and I can talk about this a little bit later too, but like, depending on the article you read from Google, Google wants to see about 1500 to 2, 500 words, for a page, which shows that it’s in the top 10 spots of Google. When they analyzed it, the pages in the top 10 spots had 1500 to 2,500 words per page. So think about that when you’re writing a blog post. And that’s a great way to add more words if you’re linking to a blog post or a different one. Say the whole thing. Add an FAQ to the blog post. Now, do I do this very well every time? No, because I’m busy. And I have two kids, so I don’t always do a perfect job at this. But in an ideal world, I would write a long blog post and add these excellent links, which would be.

Dolly Delong: I love it. Thank you. That was good. Good point. And I’m just already thinking, Oh, this would be an excellent carousel post on Instagram. So thank you, Bekah.

Rebekah Read: Yeah, another thing that has helped me is, and I mentioned it with my website in a day service, but if you, a lot of people have, you know, their main pages and one of their main pages is maybe their services page, which is phenomenal. Have a service page. But if you have a lot of different services, like for me, I do website in a week, website in a day, I have Squarespace website courses, and I create a page for every single one. Services because those keyword phrases are more optimized. They’re more targeted. So, a website in a day will be much more targeted than just website services. There are going to be tons of people ranking for website services. So when I created that website in a day page and had 2000 words on that page, that’s why Google bumped me up a ton compared to somebody who has a services page and maybe mentions that they do a website in a day on it.

Dolly Delong: So, can I repeat back what you said? So hopefully, somebody will, okay. So what I understand you are saying is if you have several services, for example, like you were saying, okay, I’ll, I’ll use, can I use me as an

Rebekah Read: Go for it. Yeah.

Dolly Delong: Okay, I’m going to my website now. I’ll use systems and workflow magic, and I offer various services. For example, I do launch planning and then have my launch planning. I do Launch strategy sessions for up to three months, then one 60-minute session just in case somebody doesn’t want to do the three-month session, and then You. The third option is to start with the system shop. If somebody does, they want to do more DIY for their line. So, you’re saying I should divide that into three separate pages.

Rebekah Read: Yeah. And I would even think about launch strategy being one of your services. What is a way that you can turn that into a keyword phrase? Because launch strategy is probably a keyword phrase that’s hard to rank for. So, if you do a niche strategy for entrepreneurs or female business owners, have that be your title or keyword phrase. That would be one page, and then, yeah, DIY. So maybe that page would be a DIY launching for new entrepreneurs. And that would be the title of that page. So yeah, each of those would be separate pages.

Dolly Delong: Wow. I should just Venmo you a bunch of money for this

Rebekah Read: Nope. You really shouldn’t.

Dolly Delong: I know, but that’s good because, honestly, like when you, like for me, I’ve. You know this like I’ve been, pulling back, like niching down, niching down even more, I feel like a few years ago I offered everything and anything regarding systems and workflows. Now I am finally narrowing it down to, okay, I love helping small business owners with launch planning, specifically female business owners who run the show independently. And I feel like I’ve had to just like tears. T tears down my website and slides it back up. So, this is a preshow reminder for me: Show Awesome. Okay. Is there anything else? We are missing. Um,

Rebekah Read: No, I feel overwhelmed by your audience, so I’m going well before I get too far.

Dolly Delong: Bekah, I have two things I want you to share with my audience. First, I know you have free training on designing a website that represents your business. Can you talk more about that? I want me. I learned that many listeners listen to their systems and workflows. They are writing a show on their own. And so I know designing a website that represents them well is probably at the forefront of their minds. So, can you talk more about your free training?

Rebekah Read: I created this for newer entrepreneurs or people who can’t yet fork out thousands of dollars for a website designer. And this training is how. It’s my whole process, especially considering my website daily and how to create a website that represents you in a week without being overwhelming. And it works for you even if you’re not tech-savvy. So it’s a 23-minute training, and it’s. I go through my process in the training, but my third kind of point is SEO, right? Because, again, if you’re creating a website that doesn’t do anything for you, that’s useless. So if you want, skip the. If you’re like, no, I already have a website. I like the SEO section. Go to minute 13, and I’ll show you how to make a website that works on the backend. And yeah, it’s just my mission to help people, especially new entrepreneurs, who don’t have much money or time because a website does not need to take you two or three months to design.

Dolly Delong: I love that. And I will be sure to link that in the show notes. And does that have a specific name, Bekah, that you want people to remember?

Rebekah Read: The name is long, so this was not a good example of me using an SEO-optimized title. But we’re just going to call it the microcosm.

Dolly Delong: Awesome. I will be sure to link your microcast training to the show notes. I teased this initially, but Bekah contributes to the Systems and Workflow Magic bundle, the SEO edition. It’s coming out this year. Again, this summer, I’m featuring various contributors to this bundle, and they are sharing SEO knowledge so that this summer will be the summer of SEO for you. You have no excuse. This is free SEO training all summer. And so, Bekah, what will you contribute to the bundle?

Rebekah Read: I have my Squarespace SEO course in there. So, this course is Just everything I taught but teaching you through a video tutorial. Okay. Here’s how we go in. Here’s how we’re doing the keyword research, and then you know, this is where we’re actually putting the keywords on Squarespace and then move into, okay, now you’ve done all that one-time work. What do we need to do to stay consistent? And what’s my strategy there? I’ll lay it out for you in the Squarespace SEO course.

Dolly Delong: Awesome. And why would, why should a person, first of all, listen to this entire series this summer, in your opinion, and why should they invest in the bundle?

Rebekah Read: Ooh, that’s an excellent question. I hadn’t become such a big fan of SEO until I was. I stayed home with two tiny children and could no longer market myself on Pinterest and Instagram and book others. And so I think if you, even if you’re at a place right now where you can hustle, that’s good. But eventually, you probably will not be in that place anymore. And so, having SEO work for you on the back end is just such a beautiful thing. And it won’t go away—it’s there to stay. So listening to the free training and getting all the valuable information is worth your time. When it comes to purchasing, I have realized this, too. You can listen to this training, and if you implement what I said in this training, DM me, and I will look at your website and give you an audit because people don’t ever do this; they like the things they listen to in free training. And that is the—beautiful part of actually making a purchase. And I’m currently in that I made a massive purchase for my business, and it was so scary, but I busted my butt to make those changes in my business because I made that huge purchase. And that’s the same thing with buying this bundle, which has just crazy value. So there’s that, too, but it forces you to do the things.

Dolly Delong: Well, I’m excited about this bundle. I am excited about the lineup of SEO experts in the bundle because you all know I am a Systems and workflow educator. I am not an SEO expert, so I knew I had to bring in SEO experts for this bundle. So, thank you again for being a part of the bundle and coming on the podcast again, Bekah. And, besides joining, like watching your free training and checking out the bundle, how else can a person be connected with you and potentially work with you?

Rebekah Read: You can find me on Instagram or any platform. I’m not as active as I used to be, but I’m on them, just doing my best. Then there’s my website, reBekahracreative. com. So, if you have any questions, you can contact me.

Dolly Delong: Awesome. Well, you all know this. I will put everything we mentioned in the show notes of this podcast episode. I would love it if you all DM Bekah and let her know what changes you will make for your website’s SEO, and just set, send her some encouragement because she’s fantastic. She’s an excellent business owner, mama, friend, wife, and tremendous Bekah; you’re a great person, so I want everybody to fall in love with you. All right. Thank you so much for listening. I want to remind you that next week’s episode will be brand new and all SEO-related. This is a system and workflow-related episode to help you better create systems and workflows for your SEO. So, until then, stay streamlined and magical. You are a fantastic juggler. Thank you for listening to the end. I will talk to you all next week. Bye.