38: SEO Hacks: Giving Google What It Wants, with Matt Hepburn

How do you reach your people who will fall in love with your product or service? How do they find their way to you? It’s not enough to have an awesome looking website and great content. You need to get the attention of the search engines. That’s where today’s guest, Matt Hepburn, SEO expert is going to help us out. He’s been taking a deep dive in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), for the past 13 years. He currently works for John Hancock managing the SEO for Manulife for all of Canada. Matt shares practical, clear steps we can take to help push our rankings higher in the search engines, including what we should be doing, how to do it, and what we absolutely need to avoid. What You’ll Hear: 05:54 What does Google want? 06:24 Our goal as business owners is to niche down in our industry 09:06 The importance of relevant links back to your website 09:39 First step to improve google ranking if you’re targeting geographically local buyers - Google Business Profile 12:15 It’s a different strategy if you’re an online business 13:10 Matt recommends having one niche per website 15:07 Get clear on what you are offering 16:18 Links are seen as “votes” by google 17:02 But the links have to be relevant to your content 18:40 ahrefs.com or semrush.com to see how competitive your chosen keywords are to rank 19:50 Links within your own site may helpful, provided they’re topically relevant 22:10 Think like your customer when planning your website; what would you be looking for? 22:50 It’s not just about the keywords! 25:42 Here’s what google does want to see 26:50 H1, H2, H3 tags 28:50 Avoid keyword stuffing 33:15 Since SEO is in constant change and flux, focus your content on the value to the user 34:15 Provide your content in different ways, ie audio, video, written, etc 35:40 SEO for podcasting 38:01 Applying SEO for blogging 40:24 The EMJ Podcast - The Entrepreneur’s Marketing Journey 41:07 Matt’s new podcast: Focus Visibility 41:40 A smart SEO step to take when you are going to be interviewed 43:18 Matt’s best tips for taking action Takeaway 44:57 Take a course! Udemy.com 45:15 Google’s free tool for keyword research 43:35 MOZbar is a free google extension that will expand your research   How to Connect with Matt Hepburn: https://emjpodcast.com/ Links mentioned in this episode: https://sparktoro.com/ https://ahrefs.com/ https://www.semrush.com/ https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/ MOZbar free google extension Connect with Joan: https://www.instagram.com/joanposivy/ https://www.facebook.com/posivy/ https://www.joanposivy.com/ Be on the show! https://www.joanposivy.com/be-our-guest.html