Episode 064- DIY SEO For Beginning Entrepreneurs_ Simple Steps To Get Found Online
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Welcome to SEO Day Studio with your hosts, the Findability Queen, Denise Millet, and the entrepreneur whisperer, Kim White. This is a space to hear the questions that fellow entrepreneurs have about SEO and get them answered. So many discussions involving techy topics like SEO are loaded with jargon and unnecessary complexity.
So much so that anyone outside the tech industry has difficulty getting to the real meaning inside the information. Denise believes that every entrepreneur can benefit from search engines once they hear how they work in a clear and straightforward way. She is on a mission to help entrepreneurs get the content they spend hours creating included in search engines, so when their customers search online, they're findable.
Because she believes if they can't find you, they can't do business with you. So stay tuned. The fun starts now
Welcome to the SEO Day podcast studio, where we help new business builders get found online without drowning in tech talk. I'm Kim White, and I'm here with your findability queen and SEO guide herself, Denise Millet.
Hello, Denise.
Hey, Kim. Thanks for being here with me today. I appreciate you.
Oh, I'm always honored to be with you, Denise Millet. You sweet listener, though, if you've heard the term SEO about 1,000 times, but it still feels foggy, this episode is for you. Today, we're talking about DIY, or do it yourself, SEO for new business builders.
Denise, before I start asking questions, when you say DIY SEO, what do you actually mean, and why does it matter so much at the beginning?
When I say DIY SEO, I mean simple things you can do yourself to make it easier for the right people to find your business when they search online. And it matters for new business builders because you often don't have a big budget for ads or, agency work or hiring a lot of people.
You're trying to get your first clients or customers, and you need people who are already looking for help to be able to discover you. And DIY SEO is about small, doable steps that make your hard work online more visible instead of invisible, and they are not things that are super techy But in order to feel good about doing them, you have to know where you stand.
And so this is a kind of a way of presenting some simple things to you to, for you to look at and say, "Oh, I, I know that. I know that. I know that." Well, then you're, you are ready to do this basically is what that's about.
Love it. Well, question number one: What is SEO really in beginner terms?
Okay, so SEO in beginner terms.
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is making it easier for people who are looking for help to find your website, your podcasts, your blog, your offers, any content in search engines like Google or YouTube or, wherever. So think of it as you're choosing clear words for what you do, you're creating helpful content around questions your people are actually asking, and you're setting up your site in a way that makes it easy for search engines and humans to understand what you're about.
It's not tricky. It's not being tricksy, whatever you call it, or anything. There's no magic to it. It's other than just being clear, sending clear signals.
So no tricks, just clear signals, y'all.
Got it. Got it.
Question number two: If I'm a new business builder, where should I even start with SEO without getting overwhelmed?
Okay. Start with clarity, not tools, not platforms, not software. Start with understanding. So get clear on who you're talking to and what problem you help them solve. Because if that's fuzzy, then SEO is not going to feel natural. It's going to feel fuzzy, too, right? Second, make sure you have one simple offer or starting point, not 10.
Just one thing like, a service or a starter package or a workshop. SEO should support something real and clear. It shouldn't just be, "Go to my website for everything." It should be directed and speak to the people that need it. I would also say you want to create or clean up one page on your site, usually your homepage or a start here page, so it plainly says who you help, what you help them with, and what step they can take next.
Because those things are read by search engines, and they connect everything all together with what people are searching for.
Gotcha.
That's a lot, isn't it? I said three. That's three things. Three things.
No, it's great. Question number three: what are keywords and how does a new business builder pick them without fancy tools?
Mm-hmm. Keywords are just the words, phrases, questions your ideal person types into a search engine when they're looking for help. So to pick them as a beginner, you first write down the exact questions you heard people ask you using their language, not your expert language. What did they call you? You are not a tax accountant.
You are somebody who files taxes. That's the difference between the words, right? And you want to turn those questions into short phrases like, SEO tips for new business owners, or how to get more website visitors, because that's what people are going to type in. And then you start using those phrases in natural spots, in titles, page titles and headings, and the beginnings of paragraphs, always written in a way that still sounds like a human.
Always sounding like a human.
Speaking of humans, Denise, let's take a minute to hear a word from our sponsor today.
This episode is brought to you by the Findability Queen, Denise Millet. Visit her YouTube channel, youtube.com/@findabilityqueen, for her collection of short videos answering questions about findability and SEO for entrepreneurs every day
We're back talking about how entrepreneurs can use SEO for their businesses.
Let's get back into our questions. So question number four: What kind of content should new business builders create first to support their SEO?
Well, I'm not going to name the type. I'm going to say you want to start with one main content format that fits you. So will you write a short blog post? Will you record a simple podcast or make videos you can put on your website?
Pick what you're most likely to stick with. And then second, for each piece, answer one question per piece. Don't try to answer everything at once. And with each one, you always have to have a next step, whether it's join my email list, or take a quiz, or book a call. There's always something that tells them the next step to take with you because you're helping, so you- they're going to want more help, and that's what you should create things in that stretch of thinking.
I love it. So your content actually leads somewhere, not just nowhere.
Right.
So question number five: As a new business builder doing DIY SEO, all the letters, how do I know if it's working at all?
Just let's keep this simple, okay? Um, watch more of the right people showing up. Are your subscribers going up?
Are you getting new inquiries? Are you getting replies, from your emails or people saying, "I found you on Google," or, "I found your article," or, "I read your email." Second look for, . and I say this understanding it takes time. Look for a gentle upward trend in the visits to your pages, key pages over months.
Not, overnight spikes of thousands. Let's just be realistic. This is a slower process. And then pay attention to how you feel. If you're clear about what you're creating, who it's for, and what each piece is supposed to do, that's a sign your SEO thinking is taking root, and you're getting the hang of feeling consolidated
So I want to comment just that when you get the gentle upward trend, as Denise said, you also have the long-term benefit of it, because those spikes can come and go.
But when you are consistently doing this, Denise is so on point with that's what keeps you in business long-term, y'all. So Denise, for the listener who's thinking, "I like these ideas, but I'm still not sure what I actually need to understand about SEO if I want to handle this myself," what's a good next step?
Well, Kim, as I've said on different times is that's exactly who I had in mind when I created my do it yourself SEO quiz. It's for new business owners who want to understand what they really need to know about SEO, see which parts they can confidently do on their own, and find out where they're missing simple, beginner-friendly things they can learn.
You answer a short handful of questions, seven, I believe, and it gives you a clear result. And it tells you what you're ready for and what you need to look for, what you might leave it, be leaving on the table, so you don't feel like you have to do everything at once, 'cause I know how that feels.
I've taken the quiz and I survived.
I said that last episode too. It's all good. So if you're building a new business and you want to understand what you need to know to do SEO on your own, sweet listener, go take Denise's DIY SEO quiz. You can find the link in the show notes.
Just give yourself a few minutes, honestly, answer them, and let your results guide your next steps.
The quiz shows you which SEO pieces deserve your attention now, and which ones you can safely put on the later list.
Denise, thanks for breaking SEO down in a way that feels doable for new business builders and old ones. I'll just say that. And thank you for listening to SEO Day. If this episode helped you, share it with another new business owner who wants to be more findable online, that's all of us, y'all, without getting buried in the tech.
We'll see you on the next episode.
Until next time.
Thank you for joining Denise and Kim in the SEO Day studio for today's discussion. If you would like one of your SEO questions answered in a future episode, head on over to denisemillet.com/questions to let us know. The link is also in the show notes. We hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of the SEO Day podcast.
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