Increase Your Google Rankings, Traffic and Sales with SEO

I have to admit, I actually underestimated the power of what is needed to do great SEO. SEO is critical and needed for every business. Today, we are going to discuss how high quality websites and podcasts contribute to SEO, the components of really great SEO, and more with my SEO Specialist and SEO prodigy Chloe Spencer. Chloe Spencer is the Marketing Manager & SEO Specialist for Live Out Loud. Chloe started her first company when she was 14 with a Neopet website that ranked at the top of Google and made her thousands of dollars a month. She now runs an SEO and marketing agency. She has been featured on ABC, MSNBC, Huffington Post and more. You can find Chloe here: Chloe Spencer Chloe’s MSNBC Interview Ask Loral Show Notes [01:46] Chloe has 26 SEO clients. Today, we are going to talk about how Chloe got into SEO. [02:16] Chloe's dad is Stephan Spencer one of the top SEO experts in the world. He was a great mentor, but he didn't build her company for her. [02:26] Her first site was a virtual pet site that she monetized with AdSense. It ranked at the top of Google and she received tens of thousands of daily page views. [03:08] When she was 16, she started speaking professionally, and she started doing SEO for clients at 19. She is also a brilliant SEO coach. [03:59] How high quality websites and podcasts contribute to SEO. Components that contribute to really great SEO. [04:14] Search Engine Optimization has two pillars on page SEO and off page SEO. [04:27] On page includes content, keywords, technical SEO, page speed, etc. Off page is about link building and building authority using targeted keywords. Content quality has to be compelling, but off page SEO is almost more important, because Google is concerned with trustworthiness determined by who is linking to you. [05:24] You need high-quality sites linking to you in order to have the ability to rank. [05:38] Majestic is the top tool to check link authority. Look at the trust flow metric. Aim for a 20 or 30 at the least. [06:55] You build trust flow by building up your links. Be careful that you don't hurt your SEO with link building. [07:31] Spammy links are going to be really detrimental to your SEO and your rankings because they really lower your link authority. [07:37] Spammy links can actually get you a manual penalty from Google. [08:03] Black hat links might work for a little bit but sooner or later Google finds out and it will come back to bite you. [08:10] Do your link building correctly by being clever and creative. Create really amazing and compelling content. [08:22] Don't just post your blog content on your little corner of the Internet. Push it out to the world and get some eyeballs on it. Work with influencers, advertising, and SEO those articles, so you get some traffic and eyeballs on it. [09:21] Black hat link building is going against Google's guidelines and doing things like mass article generation and low-quality links back to your site. Things like link directories and link farms or mass comments or low quality blog posts. [10:10] The worst is comment spamming blogs. Often, these are no-follow and don’t pass any link juice. [11:07] Shady link schemes will get you penalized. The difference between black hat and white hat is really just following Google's guidelines. [11:18] White hat focuses on creating awesome user content. [13:07] Ask your potential SEO firm if link quality or link quantity is the most important. High quality links are the most important. It's all about quality not quantity. [13:53] The Yoast SEO plugin is good for optimizing title tags and meta descriptions, but don't worry about the whole red light green light aspect that it gives you. The title tag is your title attribute. It's at the top of your browser window. It is the most important spot for your keyword and shows up in the search results. [15:49] Focusing on keyword density could get you close to keyword stuffing. It's about where your keywords are. Title tags, heading, subheadings, once or twice in the body. [16:20] SEO in social media. SEO is critical to rank in Google. Social media marketing is still necessary. [18:41] Using social media to drive traffic to your website can help with SEO. Google does look at how much traffic you are getting. [19:55] Google Search Console and Google Analytics. These are necessary for every website. [20:33] Moz Keyword Explorer. [21:22] One of the biggest mistakes people make is not using keyword research tools. Moz is fantastic. [21:41] Rank Ranger is great for tracking rankings. It's important to track your mobile rankings as well as your desktop rankings. It's also important to make sure that your site is mobile friendly. [22:13] Link Research Tools are awesome for looking at your own link profile. [22:35] Use Link Research Tools to run a link detox report and then disavow any low-quality links. [22:40] Pitchbox is really great for reaching out to bloggers and influencers. [23:26] The number one thing that everyone needs to know about SEO is that it takes time and it is ongoing. Links and Resources: Chloe Spencer Chloe’s MSNBC Interview Ask Loral Loral’s Real Money Talks Majestic Yoast SEO Plugin Google Search Console Google Analytics Moz Keyword Explorer Rank Ranger Link Research Tools Pitchbox