Full Transcript

Jen: Good morning!

Claudia: Good morning. 

Jen: I’m gonna guess that if you are a content creator that you have felt the overwhelm, the swirl, the frustration, the resentment, maybe even the anger. You've probably said something like, you know, 

“This algorithm sucks!”

“The algorithm is against me.” 

“The algorithm is keeping anybody from seeing my page!” 

Well, I'm here today with Claudia again and we are talking about how to help us generate people to see our content without feeling like the algorithm is against us. Claudia thank you for being here today.

Claudia:  Thank you for inviting me. I love this topic because search engine optimization is many times overlooked by entrepreneurs and it certainly has a lot of complicated technicalities but there is something every content creator can do and should be doing. Which is understanding the search intent.

Jen: Okay, what does that mean? 

Claudia: Well I knew you were going to ask that. The search intent is the mindset you have when you are going to run a search on a search engine. So you are on an informational mindset it is you're starting to run a search about something. You have absolutely no idea and your search is pretty broad, right? You also have what they call navigational which is you have a website, you type it right directly to the .com and you get there. Then you have the commercial search which is when you are getting close to a decision and you start comparisons. So you're getting closer to a purchase decision. Finally, you have a transactional search which is when you have already decided I am going to buy this and that is your search.

Jen: I'm taking notes while we go because this is this these are such gems. I really want people to be able to see and bring down all of your ideas. So we have the general search which is when you're starting out. That's very informational.

Claudia: It's informational. Then you have a navigational. You have commercial and transactional. 

Jen: And then the commercial is all about comparing like, “Okay, I'm choosing between these two or three things. Let me keep going back to them. 

Claudia: Yes and it's still a search and no decision has been made. I am going to give you an example in a moment. So the thing is the other day you and I were talking as usual about content. And you talked about the customer journey. When you have the the the like the know, the like, and the trust. The thing is the know, the like, and the trust is lying underneath this general search because the moment I start to run a search, depending on what I type, you will show up or not. So you first have the general search and depending on the results, we with our products and services come pop up in the search results. So it's very important that you create content for all these possible steps. Not only for the know, the like, and the trust but also for information to a transaction, so that you can kind of push the sale or answer the questions the person has to make a purchase. So the importance of the search intent is, and going back to your original remark of the algorithm is that no matter what the algorithm changes or how they tweak it, search intent is inherent human. It's the way we search. So that is not going to change. 

So you always have to think “What is this person looking for? Is he on a very initial search or is he or she ready to buy?” and create content for that. Because the search engines work using that search principle. so if I give you an example let's suppose I’m invited on a long weekend somewhere and I haven't done short trips in a long time, so I will need a travel bag. My first search might be travel bag or weekend travel bag which is a very general key search term, very broad. So when I see the results I will see things that are very fashionable and very trendy. I will most probably like a leather handbag because I’m so trendy in fashion I know it's going to be heavy so I want it with wheels. So then I will have my next search will be weekend travel bag or weekend travel leather bag with wheels.

So what you see is as you get closer to a purchase or a transactional situation, your keyword tends to be longer and more specific. You need to bear that into account in the content creation but also when you do the search the optimization of your text. So if you have a website that is a WordPress you can have a plugin that's called Yoast. Yoast will allow you to set the keyword and also the text that appears in google when you do a search and that you can play. But the most important thing is that we need to write text for humans not for algorithms and not for robots and not for the waves of technicalities. You need to think that your text, has to have quality because otherwise no matter what you do to show up if you don't have quality people won't come back to your site or won't stay there with you.

Jen:  Yeah. this is important because if you're always generating content at that informational level it's never going to become more nuanced. Then they're not going to get to know you like you and trust you. So we do have to kind of create content on this spectrum almost. 

Claudia: Yes and the good thing is that you don't need to recreate topics because you have a topic let's suppose going back to the weekend leather handbag. I can create content for informational purposes, comparison purposes, and for transactional purposes. So, for instance, it's always the same topic so one of the comparisons would be leather handbags verses I don't know... Or the fly things that you use for airports. The other thing you can say is wheels versus not wheels. Or “The 10 Things You Need To Know About Your Handbag”. And then when you go to the transaction you can go like let's suppose the at the advantage of a Samsonite versus a Gucci bag. That is really close to the decision assuming that Samsonite and Gucci would-be competitors, right? So you can go and you need to be outgoing with your content. You need to answer the questions your potential clients have in mind and not think “If I answer this question i will lose my client.” You know?

Jen:  Right because some people think like I don't really want to tell them this because it might shoo them away and I have an example that I want to share. A woman I know has a service that's really for vegetarians and vegans but really you don't ever find that in her content. So by the time I dove into her content and I bought the service and it was for vegetarians. I was like “But I don't want to be a vegetarian.” And I never really understood why she didn't tell that upfront because if I knew that in advance I never would have bought it but it would have it might have repelled me but I wasn't the right customer for that service anyway. 

Claudia: Well the problem there is as usual the buying persona.

Jen: I know right. It always comes down really the buying persona! 

Claudia: The buying persona is at the core of everything.

But, let's suppose the guy who wrote “They Ask, You Answer”  Marcus Sheridan has a wonderful example about what you should write or not. So for instance he and his partners had a swimming pool business so they would come to your house and they had this fiberglass swimming pool. He created content back then about comparing fiberglass swimming pools versus concrete swimming pools openly.So you want people to be informed about what they are buying because an informed buyer doesn't complain. Sometimes for refunds and then they ask the right questions so you really need to peel off that layer of jealousy with your business etc and be open. Because you don't want these things to pop up later

For instance, you know she could have written that her products are so good that people who are not vegan but are allergic could also benefit from consuming these products.

Jen: Yes, yes. 

Cladia: You know and that is because she first doesn't know her buying persona enough to feel that she can be open. 

Jen: Exactly.

Claudia: Ascend on market research to understand that there are opportunities by using the right information and is unnecessarily jealous about her information. We can't be jealous you know?  You need to be open.

Jessica:  Yeah. When I work with my clients I want them to know when they come to work with me inside The Content Creator Studio. They're not going to get a million plug-and-play options for social media because I don't think that that works. Whenever you get a plug-and-play thing you wind up massaging it so much that you might as well have freaking written it yourself. Right? So I want to be very open there are no plug-and-play things but I'm going to teach you at the foundation at the root how to create content that works for you and for your audience. 

But imagine that I hinted in their customer journey that I was going to give you everything you needed to plug and play. You would get in there and you would feel like you got swindled. And I agree like you we don't want unhappy customers. 

Claudia: Yeah. But you know and the terms such as plug and play can be catchy but they tend to fire back because the understanding of plug and play is different for everybody. A lot of people think that plug-and-play means I don't have to do the work. 

Jen: That's right or that it’s one size fits all. 

Claudia: Yes and even if you'd have plug and play you still have to adapt it to your industry. You still have to do the research. You still have to show up. So how relative is that plug and play? I’d rather say that I made it. I'd rather say at your pace. This is the case of The Content Creator Studio but yes plug-and-play is tricky. 

Jen: When we're talking about creating a spectrum of content so that it does the heavy lifting for you. People watching this might be thinking like “Oh my god this is one more thing I have to think about,” but I really, and I know that you're into this too, once you put something out there and it's rich with these search terms it's searchable forever whether you're using Pinterest or a blog or YouTube. If you layer your content with these words it can continue to do the heavy lifting for you.

Claudia: Yes and not only that the thing with search engine optimization is optimizing text not only to be found but to be enjoyed and to be legible. If you do pay for any form of paid promotion pay Google ads or Facebook ads or if you really want to throw your money at LinkedIn ads do that, the moment you stop paying the moment you stop getting the traffic generated by payment. Instead when you do keywords...good keyword and keyword search and you bear search intent in your head and when you write, that continues to work for you. That's the real concept of evergreen. That's a real concept of passive income because once it starts to work and it starts to gather then it will work out for you.

Jen: But then we have to go back and think about also, you said this in the beginning, what words are humans searching for. I was on a call this week inside The Studio, there was a wonderful Pinterest trainer who came in and she helped a couple of people see that people aren't using the words like I want to “I want a specific kind of coach.” Like nobody would be looking for a content coach. What people are looking for is the word, they want to batch their content. They're not even really looking to plan their content they want to batch their content.

And so what are people what are your people looking for when they want to find you?

Claudia: Right! people want to outsource their marketing.

Jen: Outsource their marketing, yeah.  And that's what you help people with.

Hey, can you tell people a little bit about what you do because I’ve been talking about what I do? 

Claudia: What I do is help clients who don't want to outsource their marketing. 

Well, the thing is entrepreneurs who have been in business for longer than a year tend to see gaps in their marketing, and even if they work hard to put the time and all that stuff they don't see the results of their efforts. What I do is I come in and I see the gaps and try to work them, to eliminate them. Focus on their proprietary solution or the main process they have to take their clients from A to B. So in general what I do is work with what you already have. I don't reinvent the wheel which already takes away that feeling of “Oh I’m starting from scratch.” No, I work with what you have and we try to improve or streamline or beautify whatever you have that is already working. 

Jen: One of the things I want to say about Claudia because I’ve worked with her specifically is she's got this laser focus. She can kind of see things that you can't see because you're too close to it and she's so into the nuance of all of it and she's so experienced that she can... it's almost like she sees the fissures and she sees the holes that we are too close to our own businesses to see. So if you are looking for someone to help you do the heavy lifting, to help you get your marketing to do the heavy lifting for you, she's the person. I highly recommend her.

We're going to keep doing these conversations because she's such a wealth of knowledge but please check out Claudia if you want to help streamline your marketing. I’m going to put your website here (https://bridge2more.com/ ) and what else do you want people to know? What's one lesson?

Claudia: I will hire you to write my bio definitely

Well, a thing that I’ve had a lot this week and that's not related to the specific topic with which we started the conversation is that people want to outsource their marketing. “I only wanted to do this. Why I started my business decorating homes, selling homes, reading the tarot, whatever.”

You know the thing is there are six areas in your business. you have marketing. You have sales you have human resources. You have tech. You have administration. You have finance. If one of them is not working you're going to see it. You're definitely going to see it most probably in your bank account, you know? So marketing is with which everything in your business start and marketing is your relationship with your customer. And relationships have different stages you know. You have the stage when you don't know that person so then you get closer to try to do more things and get closer and get to know that person better. So why would you want to outsource your marketing?

There are certain things you can outsource like email marketing or website management but the relation itself, the getting to know your client, the putting the time to have solid marketing foundations, which is understanding your customer, your message, your offerings, and your strategy to attract clients you can't outsource them. You should look for help to do it because it's something that becomes richer if you have somebody helping you but please for God’s sake, don’t outsource this.  

Yeah when I’ve ever outsourced my marketing, what I have found is it comes back not with my nuanced voice, not with the words I would use, it just doesn't feel like me and I wind up again going in and tweaking and tweaking and tweaking. So what I said in the comments you think you want to outsource your marketing but what if you didn't have to? What if the marketing was easier and it could work better for you? And that's what Claudia helps you do.

Claudia: Definitely, yes. 

Jen: Okay.

Claudia: Yes, you know, stop looking at marketing as a duty. Marketing can be fun but you have to start looking at it as a duty. 

Jen: Yeah, I used to feel the same way because I used to feel like it was I didn't have the understanding of it once you get the understanding, which is exactly what you help people with, it's actually fun. It's part of my business I really look forward to. So I love these conversations, Claudia. Thank you for making time for me. 

Claudia: Thank you for inviting me and talk to you soon again 

Jen: And i will put your website down here (https://bridge2more.com/) so if anybody wants to connect with Claudia please do. The one service that she offers that I know, that i have worked with her on, is so incredible and it can completely change not only how you run your business, how you work with your clients, but also how you do your marketing. We are saying it makes your marketing do the heavy lifting for you. lets your marketing do the heavy lift. so go check her out 

Claudia: Thank you.