145: The Importance of SEO During Life Challenges With Laura Jawad

Dolly: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Systems and Workflow Magic podcast. I am your Systems and Workflow BFF and guide, Dolly DeLong. Today, I’m excited to introduce another contributor to the Systems and Workflow Magic bundle, the SEO edition, with you, Laura Jawad. Here’s what I’ve gotten from Laura’s website. I want Laura to do a more official introduction for the audience, but I think this was pretty cool, so I just had to share it. Laura is a PhD-trained scientist turned personal trainer and birth doula who has built two booked-out businesses using the art of SEO. So, I’m so excited to have Laura on the Show today because she has a lot of knowledge about SEO, which is why she loves SEO. I’m thrilled she will share her story with us and tell us what else she will contribute to the bundle. So before we get started, Laura, Laura, do you mind introducing yourself to the audience?

Laura Jawad: Yeah, you’ve done a pretty good job. So well. I’m Laura, an SEO strategist for female service providers, coaches, and course creators. Given my background, a lot of my clientele is from the health and wellness space, but the services I provide and the tips I share apply to anyone. They are providing a service, or who is a solopreneur.

Dolly: I know you shared this a little bit with me before we started hitting records, but do you mind sharing, at whatever your comfort level is, why you got started with SEO, why it’s been so impactful for you, and why you are digging into SEO?

Laura Jawad: Yeah. So, when I started my birth doula business and personal training business, they both began as in-person businesses in Seattle. In 2020, I had to take things online. As I figured out how to do that and learn more about online business, my understanding of online marketing was that online marketing was social media, and social media was online marketing, right? That was my rudimentary understanding of that process. My background is in academics and science. I have no marketing background. As I started trying to pivot my business into the online space, I found that Instagram and Facebook are not my comfort zones, right? And I wasn’t having a lot of success there. I was starting to think that online business was just not for me. As I began to look at, or sort of, I guess, lean into, the type of posts I enjoyed creating, it was the long-form posts, the 2200-character captions. I started putting those on my website. As I did that, I started getting traction from my website, and suddenly, I was getting leads and clients. And that’s when I started digging into why that was happening and how I could get more. And so that’s the SEO piece, right?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. And it’s the art of getting Google to serve your business at the top of search results for relevant queries. And so, during COVID, I invested heavily in my SEO. And that was a pivotal time for it because there were a lot of life disruptions around that time. Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t be on social media 24, and SEO is this great long-term run-in-the-background strategy.in 2021, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I chose to keep my business running while I was going through treatment. Again, I couldn’t show up on social media the same way, but I had invested all my energy into my SEO, and my leads and clients kept rolling in. I had, I think it was in 20, maybe it was in 2022, my socials hacked.

Dolly: Again, my leads and clients kept rolling in, and right now, once again, my family is being impacted by my husband’s health, and I’m in a caretaker role. And so, once again, I can’t be on socials. And so I’m leaning into my SEO. So SEO has really, you asked why it’s been so impactful for me because this is a bit of a rambling explanation.

Laura Jawad: So I’ll bring it back. It has almost been a safety net, right? It has caught me and held me and my business when I can’t do short-term, high-energy marketing strategies.

Dolly: First of all, Laura, thank you for sharing that side of your story. I know that’s hard, and you’re still walking through different facets of it. So, I appreciate you sharing that with my audience. I’m not trying to be a listener. We’re not trying to be all doom and gloom. Hey, if you don’t do SEO, all these things will happen, like bad things, but in life, we’re trying to share that life will continue to occur in our lives and our businesses regardless. And it would be very wise to lay some good foundations for your business. Suppose you want to continue to keep running it. And you don’t necessarily want to show up on the hamster wheel of social media. And again, I’m not dogging social media, TikTok, Instagram, or whatever. I don’t want to hear a don’t send me a mean DM, okay guys? I love social media, but there is a lot of wisdom.

I am laying a good foundation for SEO because it will work for you when life happens. Again, it’s not a fast-hit thing that will happen overnight. It is a slow growth process. Laura, we have been doing the Summer of SEO series this entire summer, and we’ve been talking about different facets of SEO and how to start applying it to your business. This week, when this podcast episode airs, the Systems and Workflow Magic Bundle, the SEO edition, comes live. So you know you can take action and purchase the actual bundle. But, There is this temptation of thinking, Okay, when I buy this, instantly, overnight, my SEO, the magic will happen, and then everyone will find me tomorrow. And it would be best if you didn’t have that conception. It would be best if you didn’t think that would happen.

Because it’s not, I will be honest with you. It’s not. You will have to put in the hard work and lay the foundation. Ironically, right before Laura and I started HitRecord this morning, I was going through social media and Laura. I follow each other on Instagram, and Laura posted this fantastic story about how one of her clients has been walking through an SEO strategy with Laura. Still, it’s been, like, what, what, six months, Laura, of working with you, so I’m putting in the time and labor of seeing some fruits now of SEO. So, I thought it would be interesting for Laura to share short-term SEO strategies and how you can experience some—I don’t want to say quick wins. I don’t wish to make it sound fast, but short-term strategies can be used, and long-term strategies that she would recommend for the listeners. I know because she does this with her clients over time. So I thought it would be interesting to discuss this with you, Laura. Also, anyone who purchases the bundle can start applying the short-term strategies with these resources or look at it as a long-term strategy. Does that make sense?

Laura Jawad: Maybe it would be helpful for folks who haven’t invested in SEO yet to determine what that timeframe looks like. Because if you are coming from the space of social media, where it is like a 24-—or 48-hour cycle, SEO is more of a 3- —to 6-month to 12-month cycle. It is a long-term strategy. But we do it to reiterate what we said earlier because once your SEO has, I like to use the word vested. I want to think about SEO as if it were the stock market. Once it’s working for you, it just works. You don’t have to tend to it every day. So, there’s an initial investment period. There’s also a long-term vesting period during which you reap the benefits. But really, we’re thinking about a minimum of three to six months. For a given piece of content, it takes about 12 months for SEO to mature. And it depends on so many things. So, this is not your quick-win strategy. This is your long-term sustainable marketing strategy.

Dolly: That’s great. And I was also, let’s start right before Laura and I hit record. We were trying to think of more analogies, and I started discussing the analogy of being a farmer. And then we both were like, wait like I was, I openly admitted to Laura. I was like, I am, I’m not a farmer. I don’t know all of these terms. If you are a farmer or if you’re a gardener, maybe think of it as If you want to have crops or, I don’t know, produce something that will impact your family years down the line, what, what steps do you have to take as a farmer or as a gardener to make that happen and still cast that vision, 5, 10, 15 years down the line? There is work you’ll have to do physically. And so if you, if that analogy hits, I don’t know—or another analogy. Laura and I are both moms. How many kids do you have? Laura?

Laura Jawad: I have three.

Dolly: You have three. And I, this is kind of like a, like a, a sarcastic question; I know how you’re going to answer, but let’s say you expected all three kids when they were born. To like walk, starting day two. You’re like, hey, you need to start walking and talking now. I doubt you were like that because you were a very loving and nurturing mother, and you were the same for me. I did not expect Jack and Blaze to know everything and know all the things. I am nurturing them and helping them figure things out daily, and I am now seeing the fruits of this. Again, I don’t know if this is a good analogy, Laura, but stick with me. I am now my husband, and I am seeing some fruits of our labor of love with our five-year-old because he is the coolest kid. Still, we had to, like, help him out, figure a lot of things out from one to four and a half, and now he can do so many cool things, and we’re still cultivating a lot of things that will prepare him to do things when he’s 10, 12, 13, think, think of this as a long term strategy for your business. This is a long-term strategy if you want a parenting, Farming, or business analogy.

Laura Jawad: I’m going to throw in my crappy analogy just because I want to tweak the timescale of our analogy a little bit. Because SEO is long-term, but it’s not a 5, 10, or 15-year strategy. I mean, it’ll work for you for that long. It doesn’t take that long to vest. So, I have a terrible analogy in a blog post on my website relating to gardening. Again, this is what we were talking about. I’m not a gardener; this is my loose understanding of gardening. But if you want to have a beautiful garden, you’re round. You might have to plant bulbs in the spring that don’t bloom until the fall. And so in the spring, maybe you’re going to the gardening center, purchasing starts, and putting those in. So they look good right now. And that’s your social media. And then you’re planting bulbs that will bloom in the fall. And that’s your SEO. And I like that analogy because it’s the timeframe that SEO works on. We’re talking about a scale of months to a year versus decades. But yes, it’s the same idea. It’s a labor of love. It’s not a quick win. It’s something that you do have to invest in. And then, even once it has vested like we’re still nurturing it, you can still do monthly maintenance tasks. Um, but to me, I enjoy that more. Again, like you said earlier, I’m not anti-social media. And actually, I think everyone should diversify their platforms. I also would never tell and rely only on social media. We need to be omnipresent. We need to diversify our platforms. Not only does it make us more visible, but it’s also an insurance policy when something goes wrong. In terms of my energy and personality, the work that I do on my SEO aligns better with my introverted personality. And I enjoy sitting behind my computer and working on my SEO. To me, it’s like the marketing that I enjoy the most. Um, yes, there is still; I think this is where I was going with it. There is still maintenance. There is still stuff to do. I’m going to just, I’m going to put a pin in that because I think I’m starting to go off in a direction that we’re not,

Dolly: it’s okay. Fine.

Laura Jawad: yeah, two analogies.

Dolly: Let’s chat about some short-term strategies that you recommend. For example, what do you have them do when you work with your clients? Then, we’ll discuss some long-term strategies.

Laura Jawad: Yeah, well, let’s not say short-term and long-term, correct? Because there is no short-term SEO, there are, let’s say, foundational practices that are quick and easy to do. And so those are going to be. For example, filling in the SEO titles and meta descriptions, and I hate how jargon that sounds. Still, it’s essentially the information that specifies how Google shows your website in search results. Every website-building platform has a space for you to select this information, and Google uses it for its content. It uses the words in those fields to provide context for understanding your website. Filling that in helps your website perform better in search results. And that’s an easy thing to fill out. This is a simple thing that a lot of people overlook. When we fill it out, we make sure to fill it out with words that provide context, our keywords, and our SEO keywords, which is a whole big topic in and of itself. I bet you’ve had some people in this series discussing choosing your SEO keywords, right? Yeah. So, a really like low hanging fruit, that’s the word I was trying to think of, rather than quick, win, let’s say low hanging fruit, is going to be your SEO titles and metadata, filling those in with your SEO keywords to provide that context. Another low-hanging fruit will be ensuring that your above-the-fold headlines contain those keywords. Ensure that our photos And file names are named with keywords such as Alt-Text.

Dolly: Oh, gotcha. 

Laura Jawad: But the file name. So, instead of naming our files IMG234. Jpg, we should name it Postpartum Personal Trainer Laura Jawad, right? We should give them file names that have keywords and context. A lot of the low-hanging fruit, Dali, comes down to keywords and content. When I’m working with someone for the first time, I find that we’re looking at their keywords and content. Are they using keywords, and are they using keywords in the right places? Some right places are metadata, the above-the-fold headline, and the image file names. Those are straightforward places to Pop those words in.

Dolly: Are you talking about long-form content like blogs, podcasts, or YouTube videos? What type of content are you talking about?

Laura Jawad: all kinds of content. You know, the words on your homepage, about page, and services page are content.WoTheon, your blog posts and podcast show notes are also part of the content. So, whichever content is discussed on your website, you should use keywords. The types of keywords you use might vary depending on whether or not we’re talking about Your home page or your services page, where you’re going to use more transactional type keywords, Versus your blog posts your podcasts, where you’re using more informational Keywords, right like different parts of the funnel,

Dolly: Yes.

Laura Jawad: We always discuss keywords no matter where or what content we discuss.

Dolly: I know we’re going to get more into, we don’t want to call it long-term strategies, but that’s the only term I can think of, but taking it back before this low-hanging fruit,

Laura Jawad: Yeah,

Dolly: How do you even help your clients grasp where to get started? I know, I could bet. I don’t want to say I know, but I can bet that clients will never express being overwhelmed when they work with you for the first time. I don’t, Laura, I don’t know where to begin. I’m overwhelmed. How are we going to do this? How do you take them from that? They want to jump off. I don’t even know. The, like the proverbial cliff to, Hey, let, let, let me hold your hand. This is where we’re going to get started. Good.

Laura Jawad: Absolutely, and so no matter how I work with a client, I work with clients in three ways. So I provide what I call to do it yourself, done with you, and done for you services. And do it yourself is like a site audit and strategy call. Done with you is coaching and SEO coaching. And then done for you is done for you, SEO. But no matter how I work with a client, we first do an SEO site review and an audit. Because if you were to sit down and tackle SEO in its entirety, it would be overwhelming. So, the first thing I have to do is get the information they need, and I need to take a deep dive into their website and online visibility and look at what’s already working because we want to keep that. Then, they also look for opportunities to improve their SEO and find those opportunities to help them get found on Google. So, the outcome of an audit is essentially a prioritized to-do list. So instead of looking at it as this big complicated topic, it’s okay. Here are the concrete action items we need to do or the steps we can take to implement better SEO on your website. Then, we can start going through that list one by one. So, I don’t think it’s that overwhelming of a process once you do that. That’s why I start everyone with that site review and audit process.

Dolly: Gotcha. That’s good to know. What would you recommend to a person who didn’t have the option to get a site audit process? Where do I start if they were going to do it myself?

Laura Jawad: I think that’s where I would say everyone should start with keywords and content, keywords and content. So when we think about how Google prioritizes websites and what they look at, there are three buckets of, let’s say, signals that Google looks at three pillars of SEO. The first one is keywords and content. The second is links back to your website. The third is the technical foundations behind your website. That’s like how fast it loads, how it looks on mobile, and how easy it is for Google robots to crawl through it. That’s the piece that usually freaks people out.

Dolly: Yes.

Laura Jawad: But here’s the thing. Google will not refer anyone to your website unless it is a destination unless it is jam-packed with high-value content targeted toward your ideal client. Right? The content has to be there, or that tech stuff doesn’t matter. And yes, the tech stuff can be challenging for the average business owner, but we don’t even have to worry about that if we don’t have keywords and content on the page. When I start working with someone, that’s where we start. We begin by looking at keywords and content, so if you’re listening to this and want to do it on your own, I could help. I have a thing on my website that walks you through this basic keyword process, which I think is helpful, But it is essential to think about the words, like how do you think your ideal clients are searching for your services and solutions? What words do you imagine that they’re typing into the search bar? How do you want to be found?

Start brainstorming these words, make a list of them, and then make sure you’re using those words on your website. Those exact words. And are you using them in your metadata? Are you using them in your headlines? Are you using them to name your files, your image files? What I find in an audit, Dolly, is that, and I ask this question in audits, what words do you think people are typing into the search bar to find you? And what do you want to be known for? How do you want to be found? And frequently, those words are not on the website because we become blind to our work, right?

Dolly: People make assumptions that the words are there, and they’re not. So, taking the time to brainstorm these words intentionally and then using that to reality-check your website is a great place to start. That’s so good. I want to compliment you, Laura. Hopefully, this won’t embarrass you too much or make your head just burst because you’re so. I hope your head appreciates your coming; I like your background. I don’t know exactly what you’re a specific PhD. As a trained scientist, you are coming at SEO from a very analytical approach. Let’s analyze it, and let’s see what’s working. Maybe I could be wrong about my perception, but I love that you come from a very analytical approach.

Let’s test this out. Science, you have to test things out. To develop, I’m probably using all the terms of a hypothesis. Let’s test this out. Let’s test this out. And I love that you are coming for SEO education from that standpoint because, again, a lot of, know, just a lot of us business owners, there’s nothing wrong with feelings. God has given us feelings, God has made us multifaceted for a reason, yay, that’s awesome. But we shouldn’t just depend on our feelings to guide us through making informed decisions for our business. You will have to, like, test out some things with SEO to see what works, and going back to your, starting with keyword research, testing out, okay, what is, what do I want to be searched for, versus what, how are people finding me, and one way you, I was thinking this, if you guys want to, like, dig deeper into this whole keyword research concept, Yeah. Yeah. If you’ve already worked with an ideal client that you love and they found you through specific keywords, Why not just ask them what they typed into Google instead of you guessing your way through? Oh, I think they might’ve typed this in, and I’ll start using these keywords in my meta description. Why not just ask your ideal clients? Hey, what did you type into Google to find me? And then maybe, Hey, Start testing out the hypothesis from there. So, anyway, I love Laura. I love your brain. I love the way your brain works.

Laura Jawad: Thank you. 

Dolly: That was a very long-winded compliment. So I hope, but anyway, there is beauty in testing different hypotheses and seeing what works and doesn’t. And like we have been sharing over this, this is a long-term process. If you are willing to work, you will see the fruits of your labor. Like 90 days, 120 days, a year, two years. So

Laura Jawad: yeah, and Oh my gosh, there are six things that I want to say in response to what you just said, and they’re all escaping me right now. But Why don’t I say this: when I work with an SEO coaching client, like the minute, that’s a minimum six-month relationship because it is this long-term strategy. It is a long-term process. And so, I would never work with an SEO client for just three months because you’ll never see actual results in three months. And quite honestly, I think six months is like people’s efforts just starting to take off. I think 12 months is probably a more ideal term. Okay. I work with people over months when I walk them through it when I’m done with you because it takes time to see a result. I know what, I also know what I was going to say. I will say one more thing in response to what you just said: when you’re looking for those words, when you’re looking for the keywords, and you can, you can use your brain to think about how you want to be found.

How do you think they’re seeing you? The voice of customer research is so important. And I’m an introvert. You’re never going to catch me doing a voice-of-customer interview. It’s, I, I should, I know I should. I’m never going to do it. But you have other avenues for getting that information. And as you said, one asks existing clients how you found me. You could put that on your meet-and-greet form, right? But you can also go to your intakes and look at how people describe their problems and pain points before you guys can work together. And then make sure you’re using those words on your website,

Dolly: Yes.

Laura Jawad: right?

Dolly: Exactly. That way, when your current or future customers read the words, they’re like, wow, she is in my head right now. You want that.

Laura Jawad: But also using testimonials, like the great voice of customer language. You can go to your Instagram and ask in the DMs, like, how would you search for my service if you were searching for what I do on Google? There are lots of ways you can get that language and those keywords. And there are much fancier ways. We could go down the rabbit hole of like e, get a,n analytical it, like how do we validate those keywords and make sure they’re good keywords, but just as like a first order fundamental, let’s make sure we are at least providing the proper context on our page. Those are some straightforward places that any business owner has access to and has the skills to take care of. 

Dolly: Yeah, Exactly. Laura, I am so glad that we are chatting about this. We’ve already over 30 minutes, so I don’t want to take up too much of your time. But I want to say again, as we wrap up, that I appreciate you taking the time to chat with my audience about some low-hanging fruit with SEO and the importance of putting in the work for a long-term relationship with SEO. And I’m so glad that you brought up, like, I’m going to repeat back, like where you would start, how, how you would recommend where to start with SEO. Cause I know, like my listeners, a lot of my listeners like to. They do many things independently because they wear the hat during their business’s first or second year.

Laura Jawad: I get it.

Dolly: This is so helpful. So, I want to encourage you to return to this episode, listen, and take notes. And I love that you mentioned keywords. If you have been listening to the series listener this summer, you know we have spoken a lot about the importance of keyword research in SEO. So be sure to listen to those episodes and then take this, keeping the three pillars of SEO in mind. But as we wrap up, Laura, do you mind sharing with the listeners what you will contribute to the bundle?

Laura Jawad: Yes. And I also connected back to what we’ve been talking about. because. I love keywords and content, right? This is a topic that I can talk about and vile, and it’s something I teach. I love to talk about keywords and content. However, Google’s business profile is another low-hanging fruit, especially for service providers and especially for anyone with a locally serving a local clientele. Okay. If you can tap into local SEO, you have this; it’s like an SEO booster shot. You have an advantage that someone who is a purely online business does not have because you’re competing on a smaller playing field. So, Google’s business profile is another low-hanging fruit if you serve a local clientele for the bundle; I’ve put together a Google business profile tutorial, a step-by-step tutorial that will walk you through exactly how to go to the website, clean your profile, set it up, and optimize it for SEO. Everything we’ve been discussing regarding keywords and content applies to your Google business profile. Okay, to create a cohesive Online narrative, you want to use the exact keywords in your Google business profile as you do on your website. All the keyword research and Brainstorming you do for your website also applies to your Google business profile. So, this is another low-hanging fruit if you’re a service provider who could be serving a local clientele. It would be best to serve a local clientele with a Google business profile. So you can download this resource from the bundle, and it will show you exactly how to set this up in excruciating detail.

Dolly: I love that you all. I know listeners, and I know this about myself. I will put myself in this category. I love some tutorials that hold my hand along the way and give me so much detail. Everyone, go and utilize this bundle if you decide to purchase it. Resource and have you have step-by-step directions, which is what I’m trying to get at. Hopefully, you’ll have it up and running by the end of August. So, if you’re listening to this live, Laura, I want to say thank you so much again for coming on. Do you mind sharing with my audience how they can connect with you and find you, and let’s say they’re like, oh, I want to work with Laura. I want her to walk me through the six-month process so she can walk us through how a person can connect with you.

Laura Jawad: Yeah. My favorite place for people to connect with me will be my website. You can find me at LauraJawadMarketing. com. You can check out my services there and contact me via my contact form there. You can also find me on Instagram at Laura Jawad Fitness. I try to keep up with that. You can find me, contact me through the DMS, and start a conversation. Either way, I’m happy to talk with you again about the do-it-yourself, done-with-you, or done-for-you SEO solutions.

Dolly: Awesome. So, listeners, I will include all the links in the show notes. You know that, and I would love for you all to connect with Laura. She is as bright as a whip, so if you need somebody to help you with SEO, she will be your gal. All right. Until then, have an incredibly streamlined and magical week. You amazing muggle, don’t forget if you’re listening to this live to check out the systems and workflow magic bundle; it just went live. And if you are listening after the fact, I’m sorry you missed out. You can still binge-listen to this entire series, the summer of SEO, and many foundational concepts for your business. So, either way, I hope we have served you well this summer. I will talk to you all next week. Have a good day. Bye.