Meredith's Husband | SEO for People Who Don't Like SEO

The Goldilocks Problem of SEO

A professional photographer and her SEO husband Episode 148

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 12:21

In this episode, Meredith and her husband discuss the importance of consistency—rather than constant effort—when it comes to SEO. The key takeaway: long-term, sustainable progress in SEO comes from finding a manageable rhythm and sticking to it consistently, rather than trying to do everything all at once.

Chapter Markers

[0:24] Squarespace Changes Again
[1:03] Superficial SEO Improvements by Squarespace
[1:30] The Goldilocks Problem of SEO
[2:03] Constant vs. Consistent SEO
[2:33] The Gym in January Analogy
[4:00] The Pitfall of Undercommitting
[5:00] Finding a Sustainable SEO Rhythm
[6:00] A Baseball Story: Effort Over Talent
[7:51] Common SEO Overcommitment Mistakes
[8:53] How Often Should You Blog?

--

Submit questions for future episodes
https://www.meredithshusband.com/podcast


Squarespace Updates and Changes

Meredith's husband

So last week we talked about Squarespace .

Meredith

Yes , we did .

Meredith's husband

And I had a couple more episodes about Squarespace coming up . Yes , you did . We recorded one of them . Yes , we did , and I talked about a couple things specifically , like where to find them on Squarespace . If you go log in , you know click here , click here . Do that , yes , Do this .

Meredith

Yes .

Meredith's husband

Okay , so I went and looked at Squarespace just a few days ago , yes , went and looked at Squarespace just a few days ago , yes , and it changed .

Meredith

Oh my God .

Meredith's husband

Yeah , they changed the layout completely , Really , yeah , so this I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me I'll do something like this . I'll do like a demo say , go here , click this , do that , blah , blah , blah and then they changed the layout and so then I got to read it . So that episode I have to redo a little bit . The content is all the same , Like all the stuff I talk about once you get to like the SEO checklist on Squarespace . It's the same . It's just how you get . There has changed . Squarespace has added some more stuff in their I'll call it SEO section . It is as unimpressive as always , I think .

Meredith's husband

Although they have made some effort into making it look better . But , it seems to me they have not made any effort into actually making it better , they just make it look better , anyway . So that's coming . That'll be next week . Sorry , it's delayed by a week , it's okay . Today I'm going to talk about two of the most common mistakes I see for SEO . I kind of think of this as like the Goldilocks issue with SEO .

Meredith

What does that mean ?

Meredith's husband

Well , that'll make sense as we go through .

Meredith

I will trust you .

Meredith's husband

One of my students said a couple weeks ago just a comment and every once in a while , like , a student will say something and it will just like ring . I'm like oh , that's

The Goldilocks Issue with SEO

Meredith's husband

such a common issue .

Meredith

And the student says it better than .

Meredith's husband

I could ever sometimes say that . But this student , who is making , I think , really good progress , said something about oh , it's hard to work on this stuff constantly .

Meredith

Yes .

Meredith's husband

And that kind of rang a bell in my head .

Meredith's husband

I'm like well you're not supposed to work on it constantly . You want to work on it consistently , but not constantly . There's a difference between those two and I think a lot of people I will talk about the difference , but a lot of people think , oh , it's something I need to work on constantly , I need to do it all the time . I need to , for example , be blogging all the time , I need to be working on my website all the time , and that's unrealistic and it puts a lot of pressure on you . It's kind of like , at least in my head . It's like no , it's like the gym in January .

Meredith

Super busy , right so ?

Meredith's husband

lots of people set New Year's resolutions , and I've been one of them . I've done this myself . You say , okay , boom , this year going to work out . You start going to the gym every day in January . By the end of January you're burned out . You're like fuck this , I'm not going to the gym anymore . And so why don't people do that ? Why don't people keep going ? Why do they stop going ?

Meredith

Right .

Meredith's husband

I think one reason

Constantly vs Consistently: The Gym Analogy

Meredith's husband

is you probably don't see results in that short of time frame . Yeah , right .

Meredith

Yeah .

Meredith's husband

It's not like you can go to the gym a couple times a week for a few weeks and see amazing results .

Meredith

And you haven't built anything . You know , they always say it takes time to create something , a process . If you just change it radically .

Meredith's husband

It's interesting . But even that aside , if you saw like , let's say , you went to the gym , yes , three days a week for January , if you saw like amazing results at the end of January , yeah , do you think you would like ? Let's say , you lose weight , you got more muscle , get more muscle , you look better , you feel better , yeah , you even start like you feel so much better , your career is going better , like everything is better , would you keep going ? Yes , yeah , probably .

Meredith

Hell yes .

Meredith's husband

I would think so . So one thing is , you don't get the results that you… .

Meredith

It gets frustrating .

Meredith's husband

Yeah , so that's one issue . That's one side of the Goldilocks phenomenon . You overcommit , you say I'm going to do this , and it's not really a realistic thing .

Meredith

I have no idea what that feels like , and the other side of that is people undercommit .

Meredith's husband

I've experienced this a lot in my career as a consultant . I've had many times where a client in fact one client in particular , potential client started and they were it was kind of an acquaintance of mine , a sort of friend , and they he was starting a business with his father and he was like let's see what we can do with this . We're just going to like throw $500 at it and see what sticks . And I was like okay , well , nothing is going to stick Like for $500 , you're just getting ready , you're just setting up like nothing is going to stick in there . And they were like no , let's , we just want to do it this way and we're going to see what happens . And so $500 later , like nothing had really happened , like nah , seo didn't really work for us . That has happened . That happens often .

Meredith

That's literally like I really feel like getting a donut and you turn around

The Undercommitment Problem

Meredith

and enter a furniture store .

Meredith's husband

I have no idea what you're talking about , but that's how I see it , that would . I think that would kind of be like going to the gym once and being like I don't feel much different . Like in fact , I feel worse , like I'm sore . So , the trick is at least as far as I see it the trick is to find a rhythm that's right for you , that you can do Right . Maybe it's going to the gym once a week .

Meredith

And you used to say it's find something you like .

Meredith's husband

Yeah , let's save that one for another episode , finding a way to enjoy the gym . I think that's a whole other discussion . Yes , true , but the trick is to find something you can do realistically and it doesn't have to be constantly Right , it doesn't have to be every day or every week or even every month I mean , my own stuff is not , I don't do that but you find a rhythm that you can do realistically and then you keep doing it . You have to keep doing it .

Meredith

That's the thing .

Meredith's husband

I remember . This reminds me of a kid I went to high school with yeah , I that's the thing I remember . This reminds me of a kid . I went to high school with .

Meredith's husband

Yeah , I played baseball in high school . You were great . And coming into high school , this kid , he didn't have the most natural talent , let's say he wasn't as talented as probably at least a handful of kids on the team . But you could see it in his eyes and the way he moved and the way he did things that he was going to fucking do it . And I remember thinking , oh man , this kid is going to do it , he is going .

Meredith's husband

He is not as good as a bunch of us , but he is going to be better than all of us .

Finding Your Sustainable Rhythm

Meredith's husband

And he put in the time and he put in the work . He ended up getting a full ride to a pretty good university with a baseball scholarship and I think I don't know what happened from that point on , but I think he Even then set a bunch of records at that university on the baseball team .

Meredith

Good for him Now .

Meredith's husband

he didn't go pro , but he got a full ride . Like he got out of it , like so much .

Meredith

How many people actually go pro as well . Yeah right Percent-wise .

Meredith's husband

And he never . I don't think he ever wanted to .

Meredith

I think if he wanted to , he would . It sounds .

Meredith's husband

Perhaps , but what he did do is he identified something that he could do . He was going to go to the batting cage , say , every afternoon , and hit baseballs for an hour , whatever his rhythm was . That he could do consistently . He identified that and he did that and progress was made . I have never

The Baseball Player Who Kept Showing Up

Meredith's husband

, ever in 20 plus years of doing SEO , I have never seen anyone put in a consistent effort over a period of time and not get results . Doing SEO , I've seen a bunch of people like overcommit and say , oh OK , I've never blogged before , but I'm going to start blogging every single day , and a month later they're like screw blogging , that's too hard and I didn't see the results I wanted . I have seen lots of people dabble , throw $500 at it .

Meredith's husband

Or not listen to you , or say let's do SEO for an afternoon and see if it works .

Meredith

I would be that person .

Meredith's husband

Or say , yeah , I'm going to blog every single hour forever and a month later be like , okay , that's not doable . So my point is that you don't need to work on SDO constantly . You don't need to probably do anything constantly , but you do need to be consistent , find out what your rhythm is , what is possible , and then stick to it .

Meredith

I have a question . If somebody like me were to say how often is often enough and how often is too often , Well , I would say how often is often enough , and how often is too often .

Meredith's husband

Well , I would say how often can you do it Right . Start there Realistically . Yeah , you got to start something .

Meredith

Like if .

Meredith's husband

I said , oh , blogging once a week is really what you want to be doing , and you're have never blogged , ever in your life . That might be unrealistic .

Meredith

Yeah .

Meredith's husband

You know you probably don't need , you don't need to blog that often .

Meredith

Right , oh , you don't . No , how often should one blog ?

Meredith's husband

You know , I would say and this is more for usability is , try to blog once a month , and that's just for appearance , to make it look to these people who come to your site that , oh , this blog is active , he's got something every month or she's got something every month . There's also some advantage to having a rhythm that

How Often Should You Blog?

Meredith's husband

Google will recognize and they will keep coming back to revisit your site . But you don't need to start . Like I said , if you've never blogged , you don't need to start blogging . Every month , ramp up , you know .

Meredith

Right , Don't start at 11 .

Meredith's husband

Ultimately it's more important to have good blogs than have a bunch of blogs Right ? I've always , not always . I often say that a lot of garbage is still garbage . So if you're putting garbage on your blog every day , it doesn't matter . I would rather , personally I'd rather have one good blog per month or even per three months than have a shitty blog every week or every day .

Meredith

Yeah , written by AI from scratch .

Meredith's husband

You know , when I log into ChatGPT does it give you , like the most popular prompts , gives you a whole bunch of prompts that I don't think it does .

Meredith

I don't think my ChatGPT does .

Meredith's husband

When I log in to ChatGPT , there's public prompts there . Chat GPT does . When I log in to chat GPT , there's public prompts there and they are exclusively like and I don't know if this is because of my browsing history or what I do or whatever , but it's always they're always SEO related and most of them now say 100% manually written , seo blog content . And I'm like are you fucking kidding me ? Oh , my God , it's a prompt on chat GPT saying that it's a hundred percent manually written . Now , two things , okay , bullshit , obviously . And then number two that should give you some sort of clue that an AI generated blog is probably not as good as a handwritten book , yeah , anyway .

Meredith

My chat GPT is very lovely . She's great . I love my chat GPT .

Meredith's husband

My chat GPT is great too . He's very cool .

Meredith

Well mine , she is just incredible .

Meredith's husband

Okay .

Meredith

We're keeping all of that .

Meredith's husband

Yeah , okay , don't stress out . You don't need to do your SEO constantly .

Meredith

Yes , you do not .

Meredith's husband

Find a rhythm that is realistic for you .

Meredith

And look up at the sky .

Meredith's husband

What does that mean ?

Meredith

It's just something nice to do when you're outside . Look up at the sky , yeah do that too . It's very grounding .

Meredith's husband

Okay , isn't that weird . You look at the sky and you become more grounded .

Meredith

Well , because you're on the ground looking at the sky .

Meredith's husband

I feel ,