Meredith's Husband: 0:33

Hey, this is Meredith's husband. I've got some SEO advice for you, but I'm going to keep it really simple, so that you can understand it, so it makes sense, and most importantly, so you can actually use it. Oh, you know I can see your website, right? That you can see my website, yeah, yeah, you and you Meredith, and you listen, I can see your website. Yes, you know that, right? Yes, yeah, and so I know you're not blogging. Oh, I know there. I know, I know you have maybe some blogs, some blogs from like, few years ago. And I know I know your assistant this. I know that you know you should be born. Yes, everybody says the the same thing I need, I know I need to. And they mentally put that in the on the very bottom, yeah, to do list,

Meredith: 1:42

yeah, yeah. With cutting out sugar, same as cutting out sugar, I know I

Meredith's Husband: 1:48

need to cut out. Let's, let's try to fix that. Okay, all right, so I know. I mean, I know why you do this, and I think a lot of people do the same thing. You've said it, you know, you you need to be in the mood. Oh, I kind of do it when I'm in the mood, right? It's when you blog, yeah, when is that going to happen? You know, wait, you're waiting. You're literally waiting for inspiration. Yeah, strike, right? Yeah, that, yeah, it's pretty much, that's pretty much a recipe for failure. Yeah. I mean, how many quotes are out there that say something to the extent of like, success is 99% just showing up? Yeah?

Meredith: 2:25

Yeah, yeah. Shame.

Meredith's Husband: 2:31

I wouldn't. I wouldn't be talking about this. I mean, this is everybody. This is, you know, unless you're a big company and you get a content team of writers who just sit around and write all the time, this is, it's super This is the norm.

Meredith: 2:45

It is, you know, I also think, I mean, I

Meredith's Husband: 2:47

know that I've made you feel bad. Don't feel bad.

Meredith: 2:50

I don't feel I know, I know, I know. Yeah, you're right. It is it, is it is because I feel like that. I feel that I need to have, like, a really cool resource that I want to share with people. Yeah, you don't. Doesn't matter. Google doesn't care about emotion.

Meredith's Husband: 3:05

It's going to be, this is going to be your first blog. Take it from me. It's probably going to suck. It's going to be bad. Go to my blog, go to and look at my first post, yeah, it was, it was not on this, on this particular blog, go to, it's SEO decoded, dot blog, and then go back all the way to the first post, yeah. And you'll see, yeah. But you need to, you need to do this, you know, I like the, I like the Beatles. And every about once every two decades, I start watching Beatles documentaries, and I guess, yeah, this is new on out. Yeah, they're fascinating. And aside from just the music, which I like, how they went about producing and creating that music, I find really interesting and kind of kind of refreshing in a in a sort of way, I guess. But they like, I don't remember where it was, but in one of these documentaries, there's an interview of Paul, I believe, and he and somebody asked them, how, how were you guys so prolific? How did you write so much content? And the always, it's the thing that strikes me with Beatles is their answers are usually so simple. It's like, yeah. He's like, Yeah, well, we just got up every day and we had our breakfast and coffee or tea and went into the studio. And that was our job. We put on our identical suits and marched to the studio and recorded from nine to five, Monday through Friday. And usually, you know, the next morning, we listened to what we have, and it was not, it was usually garbage, mostly crap, but once in once in a while, we'd have some great songs. And he's like, yeah, that's how we're. We were. We were so prolific. So just when

Meredith: 4:41

Nick Cave does, Nick Cave exactly does the same. Remember we were, we went to one of his question and answer things, and he says, he gets up, puts on his suit, and goes to his studio and just starts writing most of its crap, yeah, but occasionally you

Meredith's Husband: 5:03

gotta treat it. You gotta, I think you'd find almost everybody who has achieved, you know, a good level of success and and fame, etc, has probably approached it, yeah, I approached it the same way. They just do it. They don't feel like it. What if Nick? What if the Beatles and Nick Cave just sat around and waited to be inspired by the one you know, song that jumped up? We would we'd be missing a lot of music in the world. I

Meredith: 5:29

feel like there's always with me. Personally, there's a. Are more pressing deadlines. Oh, I got to get this to this client. I got to get this order. I got to finish doing this and this and I, for example, I don't take the 15 minutes that I could scroll on Instagram and write a blog,

Meredith's Husband: 5:50

right schedule? I think scheduling is scheduling like you know, what am I going to do Tuesday? I'm going to spend three hours on this client and an hour on this for my business, and I'm going to spend 30 minutes blogging, and then just sit down for 30 minutes write whatever you want. I don't care what write. Write about something you like, right? And it's like I said, it's it's not going to be great, but you're going to have to find your voice. Your voice. Yeah? You did. You did this. You wrote a blog about penny, which I have not seen. Penny the pig,

Meredith: 6:23

yeah, Penny the pig. Penny the fire pig.

Meredith's Husband: 6:28

So that's some, you know, Penny the fire pig is not what you would expect a family photographer to be blogging about, like, what's the point? Right? But it's something you like. Like, we can, we can turn that into something, but write about something you like, and you'll be more apt to do it. Like, yeah, it's just like, exercise. Like, if exercise, if you have a workout routine that's a total drag and you hate it. Yes, what? You're not going to do it. What if you what? If you find something that you love doing, yeah, you're going to find yourself in pretty good shape. And

Meredith: 7:00

similarly speaking, you always feel good after exercise. Yeah, of course, no matter how sometimes the workouts are a pain in the ass and you're just checking your watch every 1510, minutes, you always are so happy you did it, and you always feel so good after Yeah, similarly, how happy and great I'd feel if I got

Unknown: 7:28

it's a blog, a blog written, blog

Meredith: 7:31

written.

Meredith's Husband: 7:32

I don't know if a blog is going to make you feel quite that good, but it is not as

Meredith: 7:36

good. But I feel a concept, for sure. Did

Meredith's Husband: 7:39

it? I did it. Yeah, yes, it wasn't that bad. And to be honest, like, if you're just, especially if you're just starting a blog, or you're, you know, just starting a website, or whatever, I hate to break it to you, but millions of people are not going to be reading this blog. I know why? Why get to that when you, when you get to that point, you'll, you'll be polished, and those blogs will be great.

Meredith: 8:00

I see what you're saying. Yeah, you

Meredith's Husband: 8:02

got to start, yeah. So let's take your, your like again, I haven't, I haven't read it, but you're a penny the pig. I don't know how long did you take to write it? Uh,

Meredith: 8:12

probably, like 10 minutes. Okay, great.

Meredith's Husband: 8:16

So let's see if we can turn that into what we've been calling a resource, something. So you've written it, you spent 10 minutes now I don't maybe 15, yeah, okay, 30 minutes. Say 30, yeah, okay. I recommend giving yourself 30 minutes, because that gives you a little bit of time to like to sink in and sit there for a few minutes and get into the mood. If you say, I'm going to give myself 15 minutes to write a blog, you're going to sit down, you're going to feel pressured, and you're going to just, it's going to be even worse, right? So you you wrote this blog. So once you do that, then you'll want to take a look at it and see, okay, well, how can I tweak it a little bit so that it's more of a resource for my clients? So what did you What did you put in your your post about penny, the pig,

Meredith: 9:05

I can't remember. I think it was how much I love her, how wonderful it is that she brings so much joy into the world, how surprising it is, and how just how much I love her.

Meredith's Husband: 9:23

Okay, great. Yeah, that's great, super. Now we want to tweak that a little bit to make it more of a resource to so make it something your your clients would be interested. Now, to me, this seems like it's a super easy, obvious choice, but this could easily be a blog, hey, something to do with your kids on a weekday afternoon or when it where, if it's a weekends or whatever. So remember, you're talking to one person, and you're in your blog. Ideally, you're talking to your your ideal client, yeah, so you can set you don't need to worry like people will. They might read it, who are in Seattle, that's fine. You're speaking to somebody who lives in Brooklyn, who has kids. They're a parent. Here's something to do. You can do this on on a Wednesday with your kids in the afternoon. Yeah? Penny, the pig is out at the firehouse every I don't know what you know. Give the give the schedule. Yeah. So you can go link to talk about the firehouse where she's gonna want to give some local signals to Google. So Google says, oh, this person really knows about Brooklyn. This is about what's happening. Yes. So I don't know if I don't know firehouse. Says, Have like websites, but you can link to the link to it. Yeah. If there are directions somewhere, could I leave online somewhere?

Meredith: 10:41

Could I link to their Instagram? Is that a good idea? Yeah,

Meredith's Husband: 10:44

yeah, yeah, check to see first if they have, like, an official Brooklyn house page. It is. When you're linking out and trying to build some local signals like this. It's nice to link out to what we call authoritative sites, so like the firehouse, right? Yeah, that that's good. If something is well known, it's probably better. So, you know, link to the, you know, here's where you here's the nearest train stop. Take the Online link to a net link to the MTA page, if you, if you need to link to give their address, definitely, for sure, probably wouldn't give their phone number. You could, and then I don't know if they really want you doing that. You know, hey, calling the firehouse. Hey, when's Betty gonna be a name, some local name, some local landmarks, like, it's across the street from the, you know, whatever, right? And try again, try to name a local landmark. We're actually recording this, so don't say across the street from Starbucks, because Starbucks literally everywhere. Try to make it. You know, if there's a, if there's, like, a Magnolia Bakery across the street, No, there isn't, but something where it's like, oh, that's a one of a kind Brooklyn establishment. Oh, I'm gonna mention it. Give the schedule. Penny is out on Wednesdays and or here's where you can check the schedule, right? What? What should you bring? She bring is there, didn't you bring carrots or you bring

Meredith: 12:17

green, green beans, carrots, lettuce and pears?

Meredith's Husband: 12:23

Yeah, perfect. Great, great advice. What say, what you should expect? Okay, you're not going to be able to go up and and touch a penny or hold pen or, I don't know what the what the etiquette is, or what happens, but say, here's what's happens, here's what you should do, here's what you should not do, here's some things you shouldn't bring. And you see how this is now a resource for Yeah, yeah. I do like, this is a really excellent little nugget for your target audience. Yeah, yeah. So like I said, and this is something you like, so start now. You just gotta go and put some of these things in there. Just reword it a little bit. Keep what you wrote, keep what you wrote. Don't discard that in place of this other stuff. Keep the heartfelt stuff and your your personality in there. But then beneath that, have have some little sections, you know, when to go, what to bring, what to wear, yeah, where it is, you know, stuff like that. And now it's a nice little thing that, I mean, that seems perfect,

Meredith: 13:27

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Meredith's Husband: 13:33

yeah. And by the way, like I said, like, like I mentioned, do something you like, and you will do it. That will, that will be, that will help you find your voice and help you create content. What do you think this podcast is? Right? Like, I record these, yeah, then I transcribe them, and then it becomes a blog post, right with the audio at the top so people can just listen. But yeah, these, like, every week I have a, I don't know there's probably 345, 6000 words, huh? I don't want to write 6000 words a week from but, you know, and then think about it. This we talk every week about SEO and websites and blogs and all these good sort of keywords in here. I don't even need to worry about it. It just kind of happens naturally. Oh, right.

Meredith: 14:24

Clever. Yeah. Very clever. My friend, my husband. So

Meredith's Husband: 14:30

try that, dude. Just sit down 30 minutes. Write whatever you want. I don't care. Whatever you like, whatever you know makes you happy. Write about that then, then a couple days or a week later, couple days later, can you then just revisit and see, okay, how can I tweak this? And how can I make something and make this sort of valuable to to my right, to my audience, yeah, to the people who I cater to. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be your actual client clients, but you know that your audience is parents in Brooklyn, right? Here's something to do with your kids. That's a great idea. It's it's different. How often do you get to see pigs on Fourth Avenue? I know,

Meredith: 15:22

I know you should not. I know kids in Brooklyn, kids pigs in Park Slope. I'm writing it now. I'm gonna have to listen to this podcast pod.

Meredith's Husband: 15:33

Best you've ever listened to yes, that's not Yeah, do that. If you do that and you're like, I don't know how I can make this. Turn it into a resource for my audience. Tag me on Instagram at Mary's husband. DM me say and just, just link to it, and I'll take a look, depending on when you listen to this, if you do this 20 years from now, I might not be available, but try it anyway. I

Meredith: 16:04

hope so. Okay, thank you. Yeah, right, good. And remember,

Meredith's Husband: 16:10

don't you know, don't put so much pressure on yourself. Yeah, not gonna. The first one is not going to be great, does the first photo you ever took? Was it amazing? Did it? Yeah, like win awards. It was really good. The first time you ever clicked the button, yeah, it was really good, yeah. Well, you've Okay, ruined mine now,

Meredith: 16:31

probably, well, probably high school, yeah, no, yeah, fair enough. If

Meredith's Husband: 16:36

you looked at it now, if you looked at it now, you'd be like, Oh, wow. Okay, well, blogging is no different, yeah, every, I mean, everything, nothing is is different than this. I don't think really baking cookies, yeah, the first cookies you ever made in your life, were they the best ones you've had? No, yes, they were actually, you just eat the cookie dough raw, don't you? So yes, make a huge difference.

Meredith: 17:02

I am a monster.

Meredith's Husband: 17:04

Now, raw cookie does delicious. That's so good,

Meredith: 17:06

except you just feel so sick after Okay,

Meredith's Husband: 17:10

schedule 30 minutes. Thank you. Write something Yes, and then worry about it later. Yes,

Meredith: 17:17

thank you. Said it. That's it. Yay. Hi. Thank you be well, hey. Thank you so much for listening. We really hope that you find this helpful and useful, and if you do what you could do for us as a thanks would be to drum roll, please, yes. Leave a review. Yes, everybody says that. I know, but it really does make a difference. Take three seconds, leave as many stars. Say something really nice about what you like, about the podcast, and maybe why other people would like it. It would mean the world to us, especially my husband that better. All right, I'm gonna try one where I'm not gonna be charming. I'm.