281: Creating an SEO Strategy with Pinterest   

Michele Williams: Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice. On the podcast today is Julia Bocchese, an SEO and Pinterest consultant for small businesses in the creative industry. We’re discussing business strategy for interior designers, covering essential strategies for your website, Pinterest direction, and SEO. Julia shares some simple, actionable reminders that will help position your business to be found online. If you're an interior designer looking to improve your digital presence, this episode is packed with expert tips to enhance your strategy and grow your business. Tune in to learn how to effectively optimize your online strategy!

Every day, empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design industry, educator and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit as a Choice.

Hi, Julia. Welcome to the podcast.

Julia Bocchese: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.

Michele Williams: Always. It's so fun. I was thinking the other day, you know, we all need websites, and we all need to have our information on the Internet, but not everything works for every person. When I saw some of the conversations that we were going to have with Pinterest and SEO and that kind of thing, I've tried Pinterest two or three times, and I mean, not just me, but I hired teams to try it. I got shadow-banned one time. We didn't even know why, didn't even know what happened. And then we started realizing that not every platform is for every business. Right. We have to choose the ones that really work for us. And it didn't work for me. But what was so interesting is it worked so well because, you know, it's funny, we don't go for coaching advice and think, oh, let's go to Pinterest, which makes sense, right? But if I'm looking for something beautiful, I'm going to go to Pinterest and then I'm going to hope that it's going to feed back to my website. So, we'll get into all of that. But I'm curious to ask you, how did you get started in business and what brought you to the world of SEO and Pinterest and all those things?

Julia Bocchese: Yeah. So, I started my business a little over seven years ago. The first year I was kind of just trying out everything. I was doing some design work, and some social media managing with Facebook and Instagram. And then I learned SEO and Pinterest on my own because I actually started with a travel blog. I kind of learned how to get, you know, a lot of traffic to my blog with Pinterest and SEO, and then this was around the time when Instagram and Facebook really started changing their algorithms. I got tired of trying to keep up with it because I mean they change it every three months, I swear. So, then I started focusing more on SEO on Pinterest because I saw a lot more results with my clients that way. They were getting, you know, a lot more clients in the door, getting a lot more traffic, a lot more sustainable traffic with both of them. So, I focused on SEO on Pinterest after the first year and dropped Facebook, Instagram, and design work. Especially for a lot of the service-based businesses that I work with, people are going to Google to search specifically for an interior designer near them or something like that, and then they are going to Pinterest because Pinterest is actually a search engine. They are searching for specific topics, inspiration, or ideas. It’s not kind of just like on Instagram where you scroll, you might follow some people and like someone who maybe lives on the other side of the country or even in a different country and you're never going to hire them, but you just kind of like what they have to offer. Whereas on Google and Pinterest people are going there to search specifically for something and if you have what they're searching for, they're much more likely to go to your website and then you can use that traffic to get them to hire you and become a client or sign up for your email list or sell a product, kind of whatever you have, wherever you want to channel them, you can use your website to do that.

Michele Williams: Yeah, that was the whole reason that we were looking at Pinterest more as a search engine for us. That SEO, we were looking for it to be like a Google, that it would push back. And it does work that way really well if you've got the right traffic on Pinterest, it's just like anything, whatever it is we're putting out there, we have got to put it in the right place so that the right people see it. So, I'm curious, when you start thinking about Pinterest, where do we start with? Just what do I want their Pinterest to be? Let's say somebody did not have a Pinterest board or they had one that had been very neglected. If they were going back to create A strategy around it, not just jumping in and throwing a bunch of pins at it. How do they start thinking before they do anything? Strategy. I love the strategy conversation before the active doing.

Julia Bocchese: Yeah. So, it all goes actually back to your website content. Whatever blog posts, portfolio photos, or things like that that you have, that's going to dictate your strategy on Pinterest. If you are designing a lot of luxury homes, but on Pinterest, you're pinning DIY, how-to paint walls kind of thing, that's not going to match what people are going to be finding when they go to your website. You want to make sure, whatever website content you have that is going to dictate your Pinterest strategy. So, think about the different categories that you have for your blog posts. Whether it's designing patios, bedrooms, or kitchens, or something like that, and then take those categories and that's the types of boards that you can create on Pinterest. You can also get a lot more specific than just kitchens. If you design a particular style of kitchen or particular colors or something like that, then you can expand the boards and get more specific with the style, the color, or maybe who it's for. Whether it's for families, apartments, or something like that, take those categories, and use them on Pinterest. Because whatever you're pinning on Pinterest is going to go back to your website, so you want to make sure everything is aligned and matches there.

Michele Williams: You're right when you talk about going into Pinterest and clicking on an item and then it takes you to the website and it feels like you went to the wrong place. The goal we want when they come in is to see our website and think 'Oh, here you are, this is what you do, and this is what I’m looking for’, and we show more of what they are looking for. I love that idea. I really like it. When we've been looking up how to do a couple of different things, it's really good for some of the how-to's. You go to YouTube and see some of the videos and then you can go to Pinterest. But I like it when they take you back to a blog post and then the blog post kind of walks you all the way through, usually a DIY or a way to do things right, or here's what we did. Or I know I was looking up a lot when we were trying to figure out the color of our floors. We were having all of our hardwoods refinished and I was trying to think of how to cut down the red in the floor. We have a red oak, and I don't want it to look so red and yellow. How do I do this? And then there were a lot of designers that had boards out there with all the different colors on different stains of wood and how they mix and what they do, and so it was super helpful. It was funny because even when I followed the path and went back to their websites, quite a few of the designers, I went and found them on Instagram to start following them because I enjoyed their work and what they were doing. So maybe I'm not buying from them initially, but I am starting to close the loop and create a closer connection if you will.

Julia Bocchese: Yeah. And on Pinterest and with any platform, it's rare that someone is going to see one of your Instagram photos and immediately go and hire you. You're using Pinterest and Google and every social media to kind of get these people into your ecosystem, maybe them up if they are interested in working with you kind of in the future and stay connected with them. So, when you do bring them to your website, whether it's from Pinterest or somewhere else, make sure all of your blog posts have calls to action to get them to sign up for your email list or maybe even check out your services or me on Instagram or something like that. So that way you can stay connected with them, and give them more information if they are interested in checking out your services. So that way they don't just go to your blog post and then just leave once they got an answer or you know, something, you want to make sure you're using your content to stay connected with them and then hopefully turn them into a lead down the line.

Michele Williams: I love how you said your Pinterest strategy is based on your website strategy. All right, so then that begs the question, what is the website strategy built on? So that's why it's so important to have a strategic plan for your company that the website follows along with that plan, and then the SEO for Pinterest or whatever else, wherever Instagram, wherever you are, follows along with the website so that people don't get whiplash when they see you in one place or another. That's why we even used to talk about, making sure you have the same headshots, and all of these different places so they recognize that they're actually following and seeing the same person over and over and over versus somebody who's got multiple versions of themselves out there. It can be very disconcerting when you're trying to build that trust to say, do I even want to follow you? Do I want to hear what you have to say and see your take on the world and that kind of thing? We'll just keep talking about Pinterest for a minute. When you think about how much time usually goes into crafting a good Pinterest strategy and putting up pins? And I know there was a time when it was like, I don't know, 15 to 20 pins a day. We were sitting there almost robots pinning to try to get pins out there. What does it look like today? I know that it shifts and changes like all the other algorithms, but if we were just trying to just start to build a good, healthy presence, what are we talking about there?

Julia Bocchese: Yeah, before it was definitely quantity over quality, and now it's switched where Pinterest is really focusing on quality pins rather than pushing out 50 pins a day or just repining the same thing over and over and over again. I mean, it's going to differ also for every business to see, you know, kind of what works the best. So, I recommend trying out five to ten pins per day, kind of see how that works. If that's too much, start with one or two pins a day, and then kind of build it up as you go. If you have a lot of content on your website that you can use, you can probably, you know, be able to do the five to 10 a day. If you're just starting out, you just launched your website, you only have one blog post right now. Then, you know, kind of just start with one a day or one every other day and then build it up as you have more blog posts that you're able to pin. So, you're not just pinning the same thing over and over and over again. I also recommend testing out different types of pins. I'm sure you guys have tons and tons of beautiful photos that you can use. You can just pin the standalone photo, or you can also pin graphics. It can be a photo that has a text overlay, or it can be a collage of a few different photos with some text on it. You can also try video. If you're doing a lot of videos for Instagram reels or something like that, you can just repurpose that into video pins for Pinterest. Kind of test out to see what performs the best. Pinterest has its own analytics, so definitely check out your analytics in there to see what's performing well. I recommend focusing on the clicks that you're getting to your website and not just the impressions you're getting.

Michele Williams: So how many people actually click and follow through to go look?

Julia Bocchese: Yeah. Impressions just mean that people have seen the pin. It could be while they're scrolling or while they're searching for something, but it doesn't mean that they've taken action on that pin. It just means the pin is ranking well, which is good, but it doesn't mean that people are doing anything with that pin. So, you definitely want to make sure you're focusing on the engagements that your pins are getting whether it's the saves, the clicks to your website, or comments. If you're doing a lot of videos, people can like and comment on the videos. So, check to see what kind of engagement the pins are getting and then use that information to dictate the strategy going forward.

Michele Williams: I think impressions feel so silly to me because when you think about it, they're just saying this is how many eyes we put it in front of, but that doesn't mean that person saw it. If I just scrolled past it and I can't control what they're feeding me anyway, they're controlling the feed. That's what's so interesting. But I guess if you look at it and how it plays into the clicks, but as a standalone, like you said, I wouldn't look at it and think it was great or bad. It's just whatever they're serving up for dinner is kind of what you're going to get in that particular case. All right, so if we talk about that with Pinterest, let's back up then to the website. What are some of the easy things we can do on a website to make it a better place with SEO.

Julia Bocchese: The easiest thing is saying your location.

Michele Williams: Is that not the truth? How many people? I go out to people's websites and designers, and I'm looking at them and I'm like, I don't even know where you live. Even the contact is a form. It has no address, no location. I don't know if you’re on the east coast, I don't know if you're on the west coast. I know nothing, and it's really frustrating. I'm like how would I even know that you could serve me if I was your neighbor?

Julia Bocchese: Yeah, exactly. So, it's confusing both for potential clients that are going to your site who may be finding you on Instagram or something like that, but then also Google doesn't know how to rank you for those locations. Or when someone in your location searches for an interior designer near me, Google will use the location that you put on your website to match where people are searching for the near me keywords. If you don't put your location anywhere, you're not going to rank well for that location. So, putting your location very clearly for potential clients to see, as well as for Google, at the top of the page in multiple locations on your website is important. Don't just put it in the footer and you think that's good. You really want to make it clear to Google and potential clients where you're located, and the areas that you serve. This doesn't mean you have to list out a hundred cities or anything crazy like that. You can just say southwest Florida or the Philadelphia area or something like that. If you do kind of serve a larger region, but definitely put your city, and areas that you serve, and also say what you do. I just did an SEO audit for an interior designer who used words like interior and designer separately on the page, but never once did she say interior designer together. Google doesn't know enough to connect the dots. A lot of times, if you're using interior at the top of the page and then designer near the bottom of the page, you need to say interior designer, or interior decorator, whatever your service is.

Michele Williams: You know, it's so interesting to me that there are things like that that are so easy, yet they're the things that we often miss. Like, we're not thinking about them in the same way. You know, we're thinking, well, of course it makes sense if you read it. But the challenge is we got to get them to the page to read it. So, if the words aren't together, we never get them to the page. Yeah, I've seen a couple and I'm just like, if you're calling me and I don't even understand what I'm looking at, I promise you, your client doesn't know what they're looking at. You can't, but the location is the one that gets me the most, tell people where you are and where your service is. And you know, it doesn't have to be your home address. I know there might be people here who are working from their homes. You can just say, you know, serving, like you said, southwest Florida. You can put something that's just a state or even an area of a state that gets us closer than just nothing. Nothing out there. Okay. So, telling their location and being very clear on what they do. What else are some good SEO tricks or must-haves, if you will?

Julia Bocchese: Yeah, so kind of going along with the website copy, saying who you work with or the types of clients that you serve a lot of times people will just say like, yeah, I do interior design. I'm like, do you do it for families? Do for people who are retired, and this is their second home. You do vacation homes specifically. Get specific on who you serve, because again, this is going to be something that people are looking for when they visit a website, but also if someone is searching for like interior designer for young families or something like that, that's exactly what you do, then your website is much more likely to be ranking for that. You can also definitely use keyword research tools. That will give you a lot more data on how many people are searching for different keywords, and what the competition for different keywords is. But just kind of like at the basics, say your location or areas you serve, say you are an interior designer and then say who you work with, who you serve. So, that way both Google and potential clients know that information. Then kind of with the location on the other end of the spectrum, I've seen people have 20 different location pages where they take the exact same website copy and then just change the location. I did an audit recently for someone who had 26 different pages which is a lot.

Michele Williams: Google doesn't like that, do they?

Julia: Yes, this is an outdated practice.

Michele Williams: That's like you are cutting and pasting. Yeah.

Julia Bocchese: Yeah. So, it's called duplicate content. It's kind of like you're plagiarizing yourself, where you're taking all the same information and then just changing one word or something like that. So, Google doesn't like that your entire site could be plagiarized or not, sorry, not plagiarized, penalized by Google. So, this could hurt your entire site in the future, or Google just might not even look at those pages. With this audit, I could see that Google hadn't indexed most of the pages, which means they saw the pages, but they decided not to rank them because they weren't relevant. Don't have a million different location pages. If you do have like two or three very different regions that you serve. Like, I've worked with some people who winter in Florida, so they do projects in Florida and then they have their, summer location in like Michigan or something like that. So those are obviously two very different locations. You can have a page for each of them, but make sure at least 50% of the website copy on that page is different so it doesn't look like duplicate content that Google doesn't like. Just trying not to trick Google because that doesn't help you in the long run.

Michele Williams: So, what I'm hearing you say then is the same things that we always talk about. Knowing who you are, what you do, who you serve, how you serve them, and being very clear with, that on the website. And it is more than just being clear. It's grouping words together. I always say to people, and I'm no SEO expert, but I usually say, to think about putting things together in the way that the people who were looking for it would say it. Put that on the site. If they’re looking for a designer for a small family or family with kids or whatever it is, if that's what they're looking for, back to your point of doing some, Google keyword research so that you can see it, then we can pull that in and we can start to say, how do I use those terms on the website? Because that's what they're actually looking for. Even if I might state it differently, how can I state it in the way that they recognize it and want to come in? It blows my mind that we know who we are and what we do. Like if you were to ask those people, they can give you the answers. But if somebody else is looking at our website or looking at our content can't figure it out. Maybe that's the good thing to do is if you write it, ask somebody who doesn't know anything about you and what you do, ask them the questions to see how they're interpreting what it is you put out there.

Julia Bocchese: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I have to do this for my own website. Especially SEO can kind of get like the techie jargon. So, I had a friend a couple of weeks ago, I made some changes to the website and she's like, this doesn't really make sense to me. So, I have to make sure I'm breaking things down, writing, and using language that people understand and are searching for. So having another set of eyes can be really helpful.

Michele Williams: You had mentioned blogging earlier too, Julia. How often do you blog, what to blog? I remember back in the day when a lot of people, well, not a lot, but I'd say a fair amount of people who are now influencers, especially in the whole beauty and home industry, had blogs and that was the way they influenced. They wrote all the blogs, they put all these pictures and then they went to monetizing their blogs. So, we went from being very blog heavy where I can remember subscribing and getting multiple blogs a day and just pouring through the blogs and the first kind of ideas of people really putting their thoughts out there or their pictures or their view on things. And then Instagram came, Pinterest came, and so you could start to see things, maybe a bit more, collected from multiple places at one time without all the words. And so, then we kind of took this blog, blog, blog, blog, like every day they were writing a blog, or you know, three, four times a week to swinging back over to put out the occasional blog. First of all, who should blog? Should we all be blogging? Should everybody be blogging? And if so, what do we talk about and how many do we need to put up to make it effective?

Julia Bocchese: Yeah, so I do think most businesses would benefit from blogging. Maybe like your local dry cleaner, they don't need to have a blog. But most service-based businesses should be blogging. You definitely do not need to blog every day. Yeah, that's something that worked like 15 years ago. And if you think about it, a lot of those blogs were like two sentences long with like maybe a couple of photos. So, they weren't high quality, they weren't anything that kept you invested.

Michele Williams: They were closer to what we would put on an Instagram post.

Julia Bocchese: Yeah. So, blogging has definitely changed a lot. I recommend at least one strategic blog post per month. if you can do more than that, you know, definitely go for it. But if you want to do other blog posts, like kind of behind-the-scenes projects that you're currently working on or something like that, that's great too. But definitely at least one blog post with the goal of ranking well on Google with it or using it to convert clients that you're, getting traffic from Pinterest or something like that. Not every blog post is going to rank well on Google. So, if you're doing kind of a lot of the behind-the-scenes or different types of projects that you're working on, that's helpful for showing potential clients what you're doing, but it's not going to get them to your website from Google. So, in terms of the type of content, I do recommend thinking about what your ideal client would be searching for, and what would be beneficial to them. Again, I did this SEO audit recently for an interior designer and she was doing a lot of different types of blog posts. Some were heavy for DIYers, like how to pick a paint color for your bedroom or five different, you know, blue paints that are popular this season or something like that. Where people reading that blog post aren't going to be inclined to hire her because she's given them the information that they are searching for which is this one easy thing that they can definitely do themselves or even just like hiring someone off the street to paint. They don't need to hire an interior designer to paint one wall. So, using blog posts where people are searching for things like maybe how to hire an interior designer, and different types of interior designers to look for. You can also get very specific on maybe projects that you've done in your region. I live in Philadelphia, and we have a lot of row homes and what's called trinities, where it's like literally one room stacked on top of another in these historic houses. So, if an interior designer is going to write about different ways that you can make these trinities seem bigger or something like that using design that is going to reach people in this local area because that's a very location-specific topic. Then she shows off her expertise by showing she knows how to work in these specific types of homes. So, people are much more likely to hire you know based on this blog post. So kind of think about what your potential clients are searching for, how you can be helpful making sure you're staying away from like the more DIY topics which are much more popular according to keyword research tools and maybe Pinterest analytics and things like that, but if it's not going to serve you in the long run, then I wouldn't recommend doing those. Then think about, you know, location-specific blog posts or location-specific projects that you do. So, if you live in Florida, don't do things on winterizing your home or you know, things that just don't make sense at all for your location.

Michele Williams: I think the point that you made about not doing a lot of DIY blogs when you're trying to get the person to come in, and to hire you to actually do the work is good because that's a fine line. Sometimes it's like what you're trying to do is to show them how difficult the decision-making process is, versus how to go do it themselves because you want them to hire you to actually do it. And so sometimes it's about thinking a little, kind of to your point, how do I maybe get the idea across that choosing a paint color for your floor is not easy, there are a lot of undertones to it. I can show you some failures, and I can show you some successes and I can talk about the process that we go through to actually do it and why it's important to have somebody who knows how to do the process. So right, you're talking them into understanding the depth of decision-making. I think what a lot of designers are trying to do with some of their first-time clients is trying to help them understand. Like when I go select a sofa for you, I don't just say, I'll take that one. You're looking at arm design, you're looking at what kind of feed am I putting on it. What is the color of the wood, what's the fabric, how is it going to drape on it? How high, how tall, how deep, how full are the cushions? In other words, there are like 50 decisions that need to be made to buy a sofa. So, if the client doesn't understand that there are 50 decisions that need to be made, we're not giving you all the information so you can go do it, but we're giving you enough information to understand that we know how to do it. And that's kind of the fine line when you're doing it. And I would say sometimes, you know, it gets muddy. It really does. But you just, you're trying to set yourself up as the expert that you are. I'll say I've seen other blog posts like How to Work with Me, which are really great blog posts because if written correctly, you could say how to work with an interior designer in the Florida southeast region. And then if it ranks and it pulls it up, not only are they seeing pretty pictures, but they're going, oh, so this is what I need to do to hire a designer. This is how this designer's process works. This is how I could work with them. You're making it easy for them to see if they fit so that they can continue that. So that's one of the blog posts that I tell everybody. I wish you just had one that says how to work with you. Even if it doesn't rank amazing on Google, it's out there when they come and start doing that search. They start to see quickly, like, how do I engage? What are my next steps? What do I want to do? How can I learn more and get that to move forward with you?

Julia Bocchese: Yeah. You can also use blog posts like that to maybe send to potential clients who have inquired, like, hey, this is some helpful information that you can read before our call so you can kind of understand the process. I would say definitely for those DIY posts, it can definitely really get muddy on showing off your expertise versus telling someone how to do something and they go off and do it. So, if you're kind of like, you want to write about a specific topic like that, but you don't want to just have the DIY traffic, I would kind of change the perspective to be like, this is how I, an interior designer choose a sofa for a client or five things an interior designer will look for when choosing a sofa, or things I consider when finding a floor finish color. Shifting the perspective to be this is how I, an expert, do it. Not like, hey, here is how you can do it, and these are things I take into consideration.

Michele Williams: Yeah, I love that. Okay, so far, we have this overall strategy to make sure that the website tells everything important. I still think it's so crazy that we're having that same conversation. You would think by now everybody would know, and I'm not trying to shame anybody but we don't need to be the barrier for people working with us because we don't tell them who we are, what we do, how we do it, who and where we serve. It is really just the basics of that. If we can get those basics in, then we can fluff it up and make it all frilly and beautiful all around it, but it does not miss the basics of interior and designer as words that go together on the page so that Google can put them together. I mean, again, a human who had made it to your page would figure it out, but they might not ever make it to your page if Google can’t understand it. That's kind of the point of the whole thing here. Right. So, then we have our company strategy that informs our website strategy which informs our Pinterest, and our blog writing, and then our blog writing ties back to Pinterest. So, what we're really trying to do is create this big communication and feedback loop, that kind of runs through all of our Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, all the different socials that we're using. It's trying to keep everything kind of connected in this little ecosystem so that people are staying within your ecosystem. I want to touch on this just for a minute. You said something a second ago that I thought was really important. You said at the end of the blogs, to make sure that you have a very clear call to action so they know where to go. I know one of the conversations that we have even in my company is, okay, if somebody comes to your website, how do we tell them where to go? How do they know what to do outside of clicking around and looking? Where do we tell them to start? How do we say get started? How do we say go here next? This is what you need to do. I know, and even in a lot of my programs, after we've gone through, like, I'll give you an example, my CFO2Go program, once we go through the CFO2Go, most people almost, actually, I can't think of anybody who hasn't asked this. But everybody's question is, okay, where do we go from here? What happens next? How do we keep doing? How do we stay in touch? And so, we have a pathway that we have written out that we give them. Right? It's the same kind of conversation that's happening. It's just happening with the person sitting in their home and your website, and so you can't verbalize it. So, make sure that we have written it into the website in a way that it either now that you've followed me on Instagram, follow me on Pinterest. Now that you're on Pinterest, get on LinkedIn or whatever. So that we're keeping them moving through our ecosystem.

Julia Bocchese: Yeah. And definitely making sure that again, your calls to action are very clear and they're eye-catching. So usually, buttons work well for that. Don't just have a line in a paragraph, like click here to learn more about my services, because that's just going to blend in with the rest of the text. It doesn't stand out. Then it doesn't really kind of entice people to want to go over to your services page to learn more. So, make sure that you have something that is very colorful, eye-catching, and then also very clear because like if you just, I've seen sometimes websites, they have a button that just says yes, I'm like, I don't know what that means. Where am I going if I want to contact you. Yes, I want to learn more. Be very clear. You don't have to be boring and just say like, learn more if that's not kind of what your brand is. But being very clear. And don't just like have very vague, you know, text on a button. So that way people know where they're going to go when they click on it.

Michele Williams: It's almost like when we're clicking on a button, we're opening a door. So, you want to tell them, are you going into the kitchen? Are you going into the den? Are you going to the, where are you going and what are we going to go do there? You really went heads up. All right, so one of the last topics I want to ask you about, we've talked a lot about building a strategy and working on your website, building out blogs and Pinterest, and, looping it all back and forth, and we've talked about Google a little bit and how it's reading and interpreting the data. What is the work that we can do on the Google side of things? If we were to look at our Google business profile or we were to look at something on the Google side, what is it that we can do over there that creates a good alignment back to the work that we're doing more in-house with our Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, website and other areas? What can we do on Google?

Julia Bocchese: Yeah, so I mean you mentioned Google Business profile. That's really helpful for location-specific businesses. So, if you do serve your local area or specific region or city, having a Google Business Profile set up can be really helpful. And that doesn't mean just set it up and forget about it. Make sure you're getting reviews, replying to the reviews, adding maybe an update or two each month, adding new photos of new projects that you have, making sure your description is very clear, and you have different services listed. So, make sure you're going through the process of having that profile optimized and very clear and informative for potential clients, and then staying active with it. So that way you don't just set it up and then two years have gone by, and you haven't touched it because that's not going to really serve you when people are searching in your specific region and definitely connecting that to your website. You can have your website URL on it. If you have a phone number that you want people to call you, you can have that listed so that people can easily contact you. I know that's kind of a personal preference. So, kind of up to you. Like if you want to have your home address listed, if you do work from home, you can have the service area listed if you don't want to have your address public. Google is getting more, I guess, strict with you about how different businesses are allowed to be on Google Business Profile. So, you may need to have something like a studio or a business, sign or listing outside of your address, so just be kind of aware of that. If you only work from home, you may not be able to be verified on Google Business Profile anymore. They keep changing the rules with that. But that's something worth trying out, especially if you do have like a studio or an office or another location, with your business listing where you can meet people.

Michele Williams: Okay, all right. That's a whole lot. I mean, I know that I don't have a business outside of my home anymore, but I've had a Google Business listing for a long time. So it may be that if I were to go back and try it and I know they were getting really weird about the address and what address you could put in and used to, could put in one that was near you, and then it was like, narrow it down, narrow it down, narrow it down. So, oh, well, it's all going to keep changing. Whatever we do today, in six years, we're going to be doing something a little bit different. I think that the new wave of everything is staying on top of it, which is what you even said from the beginning you couldn't stay on top of everything all the time and needed to narrow it down. So, let me ask you this, Julia, as we wrap up. Are there any other areas for SEO that we really need to be considerate of that we've not touched on yet, that maybe we need to bring to attention?

Julia Bocchese: I mean, one thing that's kind of popular right now is using AI tools. I know a lot of people are using AI tools to write their website copy, write blog posts, and do different tasks. So, let's say AI tools are definitely very helpful. But don't just use what the AI tool gives you for a blog post and then put it up on your website. Because Google is actually, they're doing a lot of updates where they're trying to rank the highest quality content that people find the most helpful the best. So, any content that sounds like a bot, wrote it, or just sounds very generic, like anyone could have written it, it's not going to rank very well. So, you do want to make sure that you are, if you are using AI tools to at least start a blog post or give you maybe an outline, that you are writing it, editing it, and adding your personal experience. That is something Google is looking for. They are looking that you have had experience maybe with this furniture company or doing this type of kitchen design. You're not just like having AI write tips on how to write, design a kitchen for you, or something like that. Just something to be aware of. I do use AI tools for some things, but like I said, I would never just have chat GPT write a blog post for me, call it good, and put it on my website, like definitely making sure. Or you're going through editing, adding your personal touches, your brand voice, and things like that.

Michele Williams: Yeah, I think that's so true. I know it's AI is like all the rage and all the thing. I know it's coming. I'm not fighting it, I know that. But I also think we have to be really careful because everything you dump into AI, it now has. Not to say that it doesn't have what's already out in the public domain, but if you put your own personal internal, like here’s how we do everything into it, and then ask it questions, it now has access to every single thing you gave it. So, I think, and you know the whole conversation around that is it’s still learning and gaining and pulling in information and it’s trying to do this big information grab. So, I’m still just a little bit careful about a lot of but careful about what we put into it now. Come up with an idea. Give me five reasons. Give me an outline. That's totally cool with all of those details, but I'm not putting my private documents out there to say, hey, make this better because now they have it and they can look it up. I'm just not into that. So, I do think we have to be really careful of like you said, how much we use and what we're using it for and how we're claiming it. And I know there's going to be a lot of conversations probably in our future about who owns what, because if it all goes into the collective, who owns the collective? You know, it sounds very existential to say all that, but it is coming. I mean, you know, even now, who gets to say they own what's in chat GPT when chat GPT pulled it from five other people and put it together for you? Well, aren't those five people going to get credit for it? It gets sticky. So just I agree with you. We have to be really careful with that as we move forward.

Julia Bocchese: I will say AI tools at least from what I've seen, like ChatGPT, they're at the best with SEO. I've experimented and said things like write a blog post using this keyword and they put in the most random spots. Or I've asked them to write a Meta description and it's like 700 characters long when you only get 160 on Google. So even if you're trying to kind of like get better at SEO with AI, they definitely are not the smartest tools, at least for the time being. So make sure you are doing your own optimization.

Michele Williams: Yeah, I'm sure they're going to improve and it's going to get better and I'm sure our tolerances for things are going to shift, but for now we should be super careful of that. Julia, I'm super thankful for our time together today talking about SEO and Pinterest and all the things. So where can people find you? Where are you hanging out online?

Julia Bocchese: Yeah, so I am on Instagram. You can find me at Julia Renee Consulting. My website is JuliaReneeConsulting.com. I have tons of blog posts and resources and things like that. If you do want to kind of like dive into more, you know SEO or Pinterest strategies and you have a.

Michele Williams: Free offer for our listeners.

Julia Bocchese: Can. You can go to Julireneconulting.com/SEO-client-freebie. You can probably also get the link on my website. I have it pretty clear. But it's a guide on how you can use your traffic from Google to convert more clients. So that way you're not just getting traffic from Google for the sake of getting traffic. Like you're actually getting quality traffic that is going to convert into clients to help guard your business.

Michele Williams: Awesome. We will also have that in the show notes so anybody listening will be able to get it from there. And again, I thank you for your time today.

Julia Bocchese: Yeah.

Michele Williams: And look forward to talking to you again.

Julia Bocchese: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Michele Williams: You're welcome. Thanks, Julia, for sharing on the podcast today. Grab her free offer in the show notes. Being intentional with a strategy all throughout your business is imperative if you want the client touch point to lead to the next. If you want them to stay involved in that feedback loop, ask yourself, is my strategy complete for the business and for marketing, financials, and operations? Is everything pulling in the same direction? If you don't have a complete strategy or you have no strategy at all and you want to build one, reach out. We love assisting people in doing that work. Our Designers Inner Circle and our CFO2Go program are a combination that is just beautiful, and it puts you in the driver's seat to be able to have a complete strategy with everything pulling in the right in the same direction. I'm going to invite you to choose to be profitable because profit doesn't happen by accident. Profit is a Choice is a proud to be part of the designetwork.org where you can discover more design media reaching m creative listeners. Thanks for listening and state creative and business minded.