In my last blog post I introduced you to Don Sadler, a fellow copywriter who has had tremendous success with SEO. All because he incorporated a few simple techniques that resulted in a huge increase in leads, clients and profits. In fact, about 90% of Don’s new work now comes from someone finding his website via a search using his optimized phrases.
In this post I’m providing snippets of Don’s SEO newsletter series and then adding my own SEO commentary and experiences. Leave your comments and questions below. As always, reach out if you have any questions about your own SEO efforts.
Don:
The details of SEO can get complicated…what I do want to share is how simple and easy improving your website’s organic search rankings can be with just some basic SEO copywriting techniques. How do I know this? Because SEO has virtually transformed my business over the past year.
Jenny:
Don’s experiences are similar to mine. With just a few simple additions and changes to my website, SEO started working for me in no time. As more businesses competing with mine started to get more SEO savvy however, I’ve had to do some additional off page/linkbuilding work to stay in the top spot. But my efforts have been minimal (not to mention a great investment) compared with the business and leads it has brought in.
Don:
Having a website enabled me to send prospects a simple link where they could learn almost everything they needed to know before deciding whether or not to hire me. I envisioned it as an online “brochure” I could send to clients and prospects, but not really as a new lead generation tool.
Jenny:
Don’s perspective reflects exactly how most small business owners initially view their website. They’re not aware of a website’s potential to drive leads and attract clients. However, that’s the power of SEO and online marketing.
Don:
I started seeing results almost immediately. In the first two years of my business, I received just a handful of leads from prospects who happened to find my website. But I started getting a steady stream of calls and emails from prospects within a couple of weeks of “SEOing” my homepage’s copy.
Jenny:
Don and I share similar exciting results in this regard. It took just a few short weeks before leads and prospects found my website and started inquiring into my services. It’s a great feeling!
Don:
Virtually all of my leads now come from prospects who found my website via a keyword search. And best of all, this doesn’t cost me a dime!
Jenny:
About 70% of my new business comes from leads and prospects who have found my website via search results. The other 30% comes from a great referral network and speaking gigs I do on SEO and copywriting. I always liken SEO to having a clone of myself who does the upfront business development and sales work for me.
Don:
To be honest, I hesitated just a little bit to write last month’s article on how easy it can be to improve a website’s search engine rankings by doing some simple SEO copywriting techniques. That’s because I know there are at least a few real SEO experts receiving this newsletter who might scoff at my simplistic explanation of SEO copywriting (you know who you are!).
Jenny:
Don hit the nail on the head here. Many hard-working SEO gurus and technical professionals put a lot of effort behind SEO education, strategy and tactics in order to get their clients’ websites to page 1. However, the level of optimization you have to do depends on your niche, how competitive your keywords are, your competition, etc. For me and Don, we both only did on page SEO which was enough to get us ranked high enough in the search engines to see results.
However – and this is a big caveat that bears repeating – my keywords were pretty niche and not that competitive. So for a business owner who is trying to rank in a more competitive niche, more SEO efforts may have to be done. Not only writing keyword rich meta data (like title and description tags), but on page SEO (SEO copywriting), blogging and possibly/probably off page elements like link building and social media marketing. Again, the extent of SEO you have to do to get to the first page of Google varies widely depending on your niche, your industry and what your competitors who are already on page 1 are doing.
Don hired a technical SEO professional to help him with some of the back-end aspects of SEO. I did the back-end “technical” work myself, because I use WordPress, which removes the technical necessities with just a few plugins and techniques. Now, without WordPress, you bet I’d be hiring a technical person to help me get that stuff done.
Conclusion
This wraps up my 2-part SEO Success Story series. My thanks to Don Sadler for providing valuable insights into what worked with his SEO strategy. If you’d like to receive Don’s content-packed monthly newsletter, you can sign up at http://donsadlerwriter.com.
Interested in learning how to make SEO work for you? Subscribe to my monthly newsletter (you’ll see the form on the upper right of this blog post or you can go to my homepage) where I provide non-technical DIY SEO tips and strategies. If you’d like to learn more about optimizing your business website quickly and affordably, check out my DIY SEO ebook for small business owners and solopreneurs.
Interested in more SEO updates? Connect with me on Google+ today or sign up for my newsletter in the upper right column.
Jenny Munn
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2 Comments
Great posts Jenny! I like how you demystify SEO. Now I’m motivated to “SEO” my site. Thanks for sharing!
Josh, you rock! Thanks for stopping by and I’m so glad you’re motivated. You have a copy of my book, right? Definitely SEO your site and let me know if you have any questions or how it goes. Thanks again for your comment.
Jenny