Meredith's Husband: 0:42

Hey, this is Meredith husband. I've got some SEO advice for you, but I'm gonna keep it really simple so that you can understand it. So make sense. And most importantly, so you can actually use

Meredith: 0:57

Hi. Hey, can you hear me? Yeah? Can you hear me? I can hear you. Um, hold on a second. Oh, my hair looks terrible. A little something. We're doing the podcast so it doesn't doesn't know. But I still need to look at myself. Are we actually recording recording? Yeah, we started. Yes.

Meredith's Husband: 1:22

I didn't know that we started started. Yeah, that's why I'm sounding so professional. You are? I know, I was. I didn't know if we started. Oh, hi. Hello, everyone.

Meredith: 1:33

Business is good right now. Actually, I just came back from Maryland, where I had a shoot that I just went so well. So the kid is five. Yeah, name is Isaac. And I love him so much. Last year, we couldn't shoot because of COVID. Right. And they were out of town. So especially couldn't shoot. It was before the vaccines. And I've been photographing him since he was one years old. And I tell you, every year, I feel like we get closer and closer and closer. And he gets older and understands more about love and is so vocal. He's just like, in the middle of shooting, he's just looked up and it goes, I love you so much. I just love you. I love you. I can't believe you're here. And my heart is just So it was really lovely. I flew down in the morning and flew back at night, the same day. And the parents are amazing. And it was so it was so great. And then tomorrow, a car is going to pick me up at nine in the morning in the morning, nine in the morning. I know. Reportedly people say it does. I've heard rumors.But yeah, yeah. And then I'm going to Northampton for the day. And this is one out of three shoots for this family will want me to capture their extended family the summer. And then we're gonna make a big album, and everyone's gonna get an album and it's gonna serve as their family's history legacy heirloom.

Meredith's Husband: 3:31

So sounds like a really good client.

Meredith: 3:34

I know.

Meredith's Husband: 3:35

How'd they find you? They?

Meredith: 3:40

That's a very good question. They found me through Google. No way. Yep. Actually, as did the client in Maryland.They also found me through Google.

Meredith's Husband: 3:54

What at a 10 out of every 10 clients. Well, how many what percentage of your clients find you through Google new clients? Yeah, new First, I'd say eight. Probably.

Meredith: 4:06

I'd say eight. I'd say one will find me in Yelp. But Yelp just started this weird thing where you have to pay to see your

Meredith's Husband: 4:17

Yelp is figure out ways to make right.

Meredith: 4:21

And they also they also hide, like 80% of my reviews. Mm hmm. Because they don't believe they're real. So it says I have 20 reviews when I've got like 80 or something and they're great reviews, but nobody can see them. Right? Yeah, and then one or one will come from. Park Slope parents every so often a Park Slope parents will come through. Yeah, if just if not recommended through other clients.

Meredith's Husband: 4:57

How many like you know, other photographers? How do other photographers get get their business? How do they how to how do they find clients or clients find them?

Meredith: 5:04

I you know, that is a good question. There are so many courses about how to get leads.I know sticky albums, I think they're called. There are many, many ways. But that is one of the hardest things is finding new clients. And then they're there. You know, there are there's the do you put your pricing on your website. Do you not put your pricing on your website, right. And then some people Will say, Oh, don't put your pricing on your website, because then you want the clients to call and then you want to guide them through everything.

Meredith's Husband: 5:44

Yeah, there's I mean, I have I have thoughts on that I, certainly if you're, if your prices are like the lowest good, the low price leader, definitely put your prices on your website. If it's a, if it's a feature, if it's a selling point, then yes, so if you're the cheapest, absolutely, if you're not the cheapest, then then it's kind of up to you. If you're really good at selling, if you'd like, you know, getting if you're if you have that skill, and not everybody does, of being able to talk about your prices and sell people on packages in person, then I would then keep them off your website and say, you know, something simple like starting at. But for SEO purposes, you do want to have at least a page that is about your rates, or your investment or your fees or whatever. Because people if if somebody is has found you, and they're thinking about hiring you, what sometimes people do is they'll go to Google, and they'll type in Meredith Zinner rates, and they'll want to go right to your rates page. And so you want to have that page. And then if at the very least, you'd want to say, my rates, start the session fees start at such and such and, and products are extra, you want to say something, or, or just have a link, just say, hey, if you'd like to know my pricing, shoot me an email, and I'll send you my pricing or something like that. It is and it is always it's good to get people's email address as well.

Meredith: 7:07

Hmm, that's true. Yeah. I think a lot of photographers who are all inclusive, they they do, you know, they'll say, X amount of dollars, and you get these, this number of digital files with it. Yeah. Which, then to me, What's tricky about that is then they're also setting a precedent that clients just assume that if you give a price that digital images are included, but often, then what people don't know is what to do then with those digital images. Yeah. You know, and that's why I do what I do is try to what I do. You know, what I do? Might as well. So I have the session fee at 500. And then all products are additional because and I don't actually have packages, because I want to cater to each client individually. So they only get what they absolutely want and what they love. And I want to put products in their hands, because I don't know searching through your gazillion digital files on your device is not as cute as sitting down. It's just more, you know, you think, Oh, it's so easy. They're right here. But then you've got to scroll through and get to a folder with 1000 or 100 images. And they're all most of them are, you know, if you took them you think they're good until you realize, oh, let me get oh, this is better. Yes, and many other photographers as well. But I prefer, you know, the idea and experience of cuddling on the couch together and going through the album. And like There's mom and having it on your wall and seeing it every day. Yeah, yeah. Having it on you. Yeah. So you can experience it. Yeah. Yeah. And there are studies that show that kids are a lot happier. Growing up with photos of them on the walls, and it Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Tamra lackey was the one who said it. Amazing photographer shout out. But she said that kids who grow up with pictures of them everywhere, feel more a part of the family and see themselves as part of a greater whole and see that their love, because you can actually see themselves

Meredith's Husband: 9:40

know somebody is proud of them. Yeah. In terms of SEO, it doesn't make much difference. It is, like I said, it's good to have that page. You probably don't want to have all your rates. But I think it's also good to have some sort of ballpark or something like in your case, the session fee is whatever and then everything else is extra. And then whenever you can capture somebody's email, even if they're not going to be a fit right away. Hey, you know, it's good to have a list.

Meredith: 10:09

Where do you put that list? Your CRMs.

Meredith's Husband: 10:13

Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of places you could have something like MailChimp, you can just use a spreadsheet you can use a CRM, any number of places but.

Meredith: 10:21

flow desk is really pretty. I don't know if this club asked is so much better than MailChimp flow desk is aesthetically beautiful, its cost more but man it is worth it because It is pretty.

Meredith's Husband: 10:35

Yeah, I think it's getting so that every lots of different industries have their own version of MailChimp or, or whatever, there's so many of them out there. But there's, there's definitely value in having a list. If you've never put any effort into creating a list, it's something you do want to do. Because whatever, whatever method you're using for, you know, promoting yourself, whether it's your website, and Google or Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter, or whatever, those places all have algorithms. So even if you're getting lots of leads now on say, Facebook, there's always going to be a time when Facebook changes something and then all of a sudden, your leads are gonna dry up like it happens no matter what platform you're on. So you want to really own your audience as much as you can, wherever your audience is, always try to get their email so that if and when you know, your Facebook traffic, they change something and your traffic disappears, you then have a way to contact your audience.

Meredith: 11:32

Now. Now, here's my question. You know, you have to people always say you, you can't take someone's email without their permission. So if somebody is emailing you for an inquiry, does that mean they're you can then use their email?

Meredith's Husband: 11:46

Yeah. You mean you can't email you can't send them a newsletter without their permission? Ah, that's what you mean. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you obviously you can't get their email without their permission, because they have to go right, right.

Meredith: 11:57

Right, right. That's what I mean.

Meredith's Husband: 11:58

That's what typically, yes, there is a law that if you have a form on your website, and you have a newsletter, somebody has to check that little box. Yes, I'd like to get information from you. You're not supposed to just email somebody who you happen to have their email

Meredith: 12:17

Now but what if that person inquires into your services, then can you add them to the

Meredith's Husband: 12:23

No, because they're not signing up for your newsletter? Technically, they're not signing up to get a newsletter, they're contacting you to ask a question. Oh, it's technically illegal. Themselves from a sure sure. Yeah. If you have an unsubscribe,

Meredith: 12:38

do I have I don't think I have a box. Sign up for my email, sign up for my dog. You don't know you don't have a newsletter? I do have a newsletter now. Oh, you do? Okay. So if that's the case, and you're you know, you have a list and you want to start a newsletter, you want to, you know, get people's permission, the thing you would need to do is send them an initial email, say, hey, you know, first name, I'm starting a newsletter, would you like to be on it? If you you know, if so, great. If not, please click the unsubscribe button below. That's a pretty good way to you know, to get started. Then MailChimp or flow desk, or whoever use is going to say like this, you know, this person. If you get too many people saying your spam, they'll shut you down. Well, yeah. And it's like it's only like 2% or something. It's not Oh, yeah. You got a reputation to protect so long story. But the point is, if you're starting a list, you want to get people's permission. So, okay, that's good to know. If you just ask them, just ask them right up front, like, just, you know, be honest. Say, Hey, I'm starting a list. I know you didn't opt in, if you if you want to. Yeah, no problem. If you don't want to just click unsubscribe, we'd love to have you. But yes, no hard feelings. Yeah. And say once and see what's going to be in it. You know, don't say I have a newsletter. I mean, people don't sign up for newsletters because they want to get a newsletter. There's something in the newsletter they want. So tell them what's going to be in the news, right? Like specials or whatever, if you have them. Right. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're very welcome.

Meredith's Husband: 17:33

And this is this is again, this is a huge topic, but there are definitely there's a couple first steps that you're gonna that everybody has to take. And number one is getting an SEO plugin. So if you have a WordPress site, WordPress uses plugins to do a number of things. To do anything for SEO, you're going to start with an SEO plugin. WordPress doesn't have SEO settings by default. So you need to install a plugin. Where do you get the plugin? You can just go when you when you log into your WordPress site, just go down to on the left hand side, it says plugins, go install new and then you can do a search. And there's a bunch of them.

Meredith: 18:10

maybe not the leaders, but there's two that are the most well known Yoast SEO is the most well known. All In One SEO is the other I think, most popular.

Meredith's Husband: 19:22

So when you think that you're actually doing things you're it is it is checking stuff, but it doesn't, you know, don't think that when your lights are green, you're going to all of a sudden show up on page one.

Meredith: 19:33

So everybody so my three SEO pros were sitting here thinking Oh, my God thinks that those lights actually mean something. Now, so we technically made the SEO worse, but the lights were then green. Holy smokes those Yeah. Wow. Okay, good. So, so anyway, that's the trend. So other other plugins, the other plugin I mentioned all in one, SEO has actually been my favorite for like 1015 years. Repeat that again, All In One SEO. You don't need to remember it though. They they have they have also started implementing their own version of the red, green, of course, yellow buttons. And the problem is that that makes it

Meredith's Husband: 21:14

Yeah, so I always liked all in one. But then fairly recently, within the last year or so, they like I had all my all my clients started mentioning their, their site was slow, their site was slow, their site was slow. And all in one had released an update. And when I went to look at load times I use it use a tool to see which plugins are making your site, the slowest. All of a sudden, All In One SEO went from like, you know, 10 or 20% of your load time to like 70%. Wow. So we got rid of that one. And the one that I use and like now is called framework SEO framework is literally like frame work framework. Yeah. So if you went to if you try to install a, you know, go to the install a new plugin page on your in your WordPress admin, and just do framework SEO, you'll find it you can see that one. And it's very light, it doesn't try to do SEO for you. It doesn't, you know, have extra features. But it does have all the has all the things you would need in order to in order to do your SEO no bells and whistles of Green light red. No. Yeah, I mean, a minimal there. Yeah, they're very useful that their features are very useful. But it's none of the extra stuff. That's not there's no gimmicks there for just the sake of like. So then you would, again, just cavewoman question. So then you would just delete the all in one or whatever ones plugin you have. And then

Meredith: 22:55

and you install the SEO framework, I believe one of the first step is like, Hey, do you want to import your SEO settings from another plug in? Oh, and so you click into a couple of mouse clicks, and it will import all your settings? So you say yes, yes. And then you can delete the old one after you import it. Okay. If you haven't, if you don't have a plug in, then you obviously don't need to do that. Right. Right. Okay. That's good. Yeah, just just so you know, like how fast your website that is, that's a ranking factor. So if two websites are exactly equal, but one is faster than the other, the faster one is going to rank higher. Really? Yeah. And and people just don't like slow websites. No, nobody has time. It's three seconds, three seconds of my Amazon, it talks about people who have money to do research on this sort of stuff. Amazon did a study once, and they found for every, like, 10th of a second that your page takes to load, I think in the checkout process. So every 10th of a second, that conversion rate drops by like 10%. Wow. So it's so interesting. It makes sense. Don't want that you don't, the one thing you don't want to do is frustrate people who come to your website, right slow website is going to do that. Yeah. Because it gives you time to be like, Ah, come on. Alright, forget it. It's not worth it. It's not worth it. Right.

Meredith's Husband: 24:29

And you

Meredith: 25:40

there those are all good tools. They're not free. They're they're all about I think they start around 100 bucks a month go up. They like I said SEO pros use these tools unless you're doing like enterprise level. So like

Meredith's Husband: 25:57

However, most SEO agencies are going to use sem rush that's what I use. And I use it at like I pay. I think it's like close to three grand a year. On

Meredith: 26:16

They don't publish a free plan. But if you sign up for their trial, and then it's a seven day trial, if you sign up for their trial and then cancel, they will knock you down to a free plan, which you can do just one, one site, and it's free. And it's, it's the same tools I use, that is cold right there, my friend, don't tell them I told you, okay.

Meredith's Husband: 28:01

And it will it will keep it'll check your website every week and it will send you it'll it'll send you a report if you want it. And once you see that your score is dropped below a 92, then you want to go back in and fix those as long as your score is above 92, you should be fine. And this is the way to automate it. So what we do for our clients, this is the first step, get your on site SEO above 92, then you don't have to do anything unless it drops below. And they'll tell you if it drops below, and they'll tell you every week, they'll send you the report saying here's your score, these are your top three things, they'll always give you three things. But if you have a 95 and those three things are just not that important. So you can spend your time doing other stuff. And it's 92 just a random use. That's the top 10 It's the top 10% of all of all websites. Interesting. So if you're in the top 10% year, you know, you're not Google's not going to penalize you, you know, the the you're never gonna get to 100 Don't. So don't retry, you don't need to be a 99 You don't get you know, you know, there's no extra credit for an A plus versus an A, right, like if a 96 at a 94 It doesn't really do you any good. Yeah, it's only it's only it's only once you drop below and a once you get out of that 10% that you gotta be like, Okay, I gotta fix things up. Okay, thank you. That's great. Yeah. So that's, that's, that's your, that's the foundation, you got to do that. That's like I said, we do that for all of our clients. That's number one. Doesn't matter what industry you're in or what you're selling. Or if you're on WordPress or any other thing, any other platform for that matter. You got to make sure that take care of your on site SEO, it's the foundation for everything. And that alone is not going to, you're not going to automatically appear on page one,

Meredith: 30:13

can't really drive unless it's an electric car. Okay, well then charge your battery.

Meredith's Husband: 30:43

I love that. That's a thing.com. Yeah, that's kind of the best website name. I can't believe it was available. Yeah, I can't give all the Meritus husband's out there and nobody thought to pick that up. Yeah, because probably never one. No one ever thought

Meredith: 31:05

Oh, all right. Thank you so much. This is awesome. Hope that helps. It does. Thank you. Take care you too. Bye bye.

Meredith's Husband: 31:20

Okay, I hope that helped. I hope that helped your website. I hope that helped your business. I hope that helped give you a little bit of confidence that SEO is not this convoluted, cryptic, crazy thing that nobody can understand. If you did like it and you found it helpful, please share it with a couple of your colleagues. Tell them what you like, or more importantly, tell me what you liked. Let me know interview leave a review on Apple. Tell me what parts you like. And I'll try to do more of those parts. And again, thanks for listening