ON TODAY’S EPISODE:

Why it’s vital to catch your site visitors’ attention as quickly as possible [1:54]
The top three SEO tasks you should prioritize in your business [2:52]
Jessica’s process for finding and implementing the right keywords [5:52]
How to use SEO as a forecasting tool for developing new products [7:12]
The best tools for finding and expanding on your keywords [10:22]
Which pages are easiest to optimize for Google [12:05]
How to tell if your SEO is working [14:05]
How often you should refresh and audit your website’s SEO [16:25]
Using SEO to attract higher-caliber customers for greater profit margins [22:00]
How SEO varies between platforms and how to adjust your strategy [24:35]
The one thing you should start doing today to improve your SEO [29:11]

Download These Quotables to Save and Share

KEY TAKE AWAYS

“When you're doing that keyword research, make sure you search in a few different ways, because it might not be that they are searching ‘mug,’ they might search ‘coffee cup’ instead. Those little differences might make a difference.” [09:46] Jessica Freeman

“That's the most important with product SEO: being super, super descriptive.” [11:34] Jessica Freeman

“A collection page would be easier to rank for, because you have more internal links on that page. Google loves when there are internal links.” [12:30] Jessica Freeman

“Pay attention to those most profitable products. Optimize the pages or the posts that you really want to drive the most traffic to.” [23:06] Jessica Freeman

“That's one of the biggest factors that can help your SEO: linking between pages and products on your own website. Google loves internal linking.” [26:11] Jessica Freeman

“Etsy is a major platform, so I think it's still worth being there, and you can optimize as much as you can on that platform. But you do have a lot more options on your own website.” [26:58] Jessica Freeman

“[Image SEO] is a really high priority. So you want to make sure you are naming the file on your computer.” [28:07] Jessica Freeman

“Start looking at your analytics. That's going to give you as much information, more information than anything else.” [29:19] Jessica Freeman

“It gives us the information, because otherwise we're just making changes blindly, and that's not going to serve us in the long run.” [31:41] Jessica Freeman:

RESOURCES
UberSuggest
Google Keyword Planner
Answer the Public
Marmalead
Join the LABS waitlist and be the first to hear when doors open!

MEET JESSICA:

Jessica Freeman is an Atlanta-based award-winning web designer that helps online business owners build authority and get more clients through strategic websites and SEO. When she’s not working with clients, you can find her teaching inside her Better Collective community or on her YouTube channel.

CONNECT WITH JESSICA

Website: jesscreatives.com | Facebook: @jesscreativesdesign | Instagram: @jesscreatives | YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCCis0sjz5ma8PQoztJm4Wmg

Connect with Katie Hunt

Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.

Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct

Transcript for Proof to Product Episode 226

DOWNLOAD THE TRANSCRIPT

226 | Using SEO for Product Forecasting & Development with Jessica Freeman | Jess Creatives

Katie Hunt [00:00:03] We're taking you behind the scenes with entrepreneurs that run product based businesses. There is so much information out there tailored towards service providers, so we have carved out a space just for you, the creative entrepreneur making and selling ethical goods, whether you are just starting out or a seasoned business owner. This podcast will shed light on new strategies, inspiration and action steps to help you grow your product based business. Hey, friends, I'm Kelly Hudson, welcome to Proof to Product. Today's guest is my friend Jessica Freeman of Just Creative's. You may remember just from episode 161 of the podcast where we talked about optimizing our website, including SEO strategies, keyword research and quick changes you can make to your website to keep customers engaged and buying. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, I highly recommend that you add that to your queue next. But today, today we're doing a deeper dive into SEO, including how to use SEO for trend forecasting and research for future products that you want to create. We talk about why you should focus on optimizing your best selling product categories and those with the highest profit margins, and Jess walks us through her workflow for keyword research. You know, a lot of the questions in today's episodes came directly from members of our LABS community, where Jessica will be leading a training on SEO. And we also have a robust group of resources for people wanting to dove deeper into their SEO strategy. So if that's a conversation that you want to join and you want to watch that training, head to ProoftoProduct.com/LABS to learn more about our group coaching program. Now let's hear from Jessica Freeman. Hey, Jess, welcome back to Proof to Product. I'm so happy to have you here.

Jessica Freeman [00:01:48] Hi. Of course I love every time we get to chat, so I know you hear me too.

Katie Hunt [00:01:53] All right. Last time you shocked us by sharing that we only have five seconds to capture and keep a website. Visitors' attention. Please tell me this is still the case that it hasn't shrunk down to less than five seconds, please.

Jessica Freeman [00:02:05] No, it has not. I mean, I feel like maybe I've seen it's kind of like five to eight seconds, OK? I think I've maybe seen like one article somewhere that maybe said, like three seconds, but I'm like, Can you read it three seconds? Like, that's a lot of information in three seconds.

Katie Hunt [00:02:24] Three seconds is like, I hit the page and I go, That's not very much time.

Jessica Freeman [00:02:28] So I mean, it would only be that first three or four seconds, like if your website's still sitting there. Loading Yes, you might lose people. But yeah, you have like five eight seconds. Once people have hit your page, they're looking like reading that first block of text or, you know, looking at the pictures. Yeah, where they're like, Oh yeah, this looks great. Or like, Well, no, not what I was looking for.

Katie Hunt [00:02:50] I want more. All right. Don't let me bounce. Yeah, OK, I want to talk today in more depth about SEO. I know you were on episode 161 last time. We talked a lot about keyword research and a bunch of other things that were like more. Well, it was SEO focused, but I want to dove into this a little bit more for two reasons. One, you're coming to speak in our LABS program about SEO to teach us some strategies that we can implement right away. And then two, we collected an enormous amount of questions from our LABS community leading into your presentation so that we could make sure that we were tailoring it. And some of those I want to tackle here on the podcast just because I don't think we'll have time to cover them in our training. So let's start at the beginning. If someone listening is new to see what are the top three tasks that you would want them to prioritize.

Jessica Freeman [00:03:35] So one would be the first one is like, what do you want to be known for? Like, what do you want to pull up in Google? Search for that. That's like the main thing, and I know you might be listening and be like, but I so like mugs and pencils and like this and that, and I don't. There's all these things like you got to choose one and really think about that. So for me, yes, I do graphic design and branding and SEO like all these things. But like, I want to be known for web design. So that's like the first step is figuring out what you want to be known for. And one kind of key phrase, whatever should be the focus

Katie Hunt [00:04:14] And for the product listeners, I think that they could frame it in a way of like home goods for whatever audience or, you know, it doesn't have to be. I only make this one type of product. You agree with that.

Jessica Freeman [00:04:26] Yes, absolutely. Yes.

Katie Hunt [00:04:27] OK. So that's number one.

Jessica Freeman [00:04:29] Got it. And then the second is I would implement that across your pages and optimize your page titles. So depending on your platform like Shopify, WordPress, Squarespace, whatever, you have the ability to optimize your page titles in the backend. So it's not just home Proof to Product, it's like the you have your keywords, your phrases that you put there instead of it just reading home. OK. And just to clarify, this isn't what people are going to see in the navigation title, and it's like 15 words long. OK. So those would be like the first two things and then third would be taking those keywords and implementing it on the page in the product descriptions. But that's a very large third step.

Katie Hunt [00:05:21] Yeah, I was going to say we should dove into that a little bit separately because I know people have questions about your workflow. Mm-Hmm. Do you want to head into that now or do you want to? OK. So in episode 161 when you were on? Last time we talked about keyword research and the importance of that. But I was hoping you could walk us through kind of your quick work flow. I mean, it's not so quick, but like, what's your workflow for identifying appropriate keywords? And then where do you interject those into your website? How do you know if it's working? I guess that's kind of a bigger question and one that.

Jessica Freeman [00:05:55] So the first step is just doing that research. So choose a tool of your choice. There are several out there. Uber suggests it is one of the easier ones, and it's free. There's also the Google keyword planner Mars. There's lots like you literally can just search on Google and find one and do the research you want to find high search volume and low competition. OK, and the tricky part I will say with product makers and creators is that you may do some research and you're like, no one. There's no search volume for like Parks and Rec themed mug collections or something. Yeah. So then it's kind of like there's a very low search volume. Maybe not, no search. I will buy it. There might I might be the only one, but if so, then you kind of run into. Are you making the products first and basing it off of search results? Or are you making first? And then just kind of saying, Hey, like, this is what I love to create. This is like the theme that I want to have. This is my aesthetic, whatever. And some things are going to be SEO friendly and some are not.

Katie Hunt [00:07:12] I'm going to interview you here. This is fascinating to me because I haven't really thought about using SEO as a trend forecasting or a product development tool in that looking to see what people are looking for to then create your products. I think most people listening think of Echo as an after the fact sort of thing where it's like, I've made these things, how do I get them in front of more people now?

Jessica Freeman [00:07:35] Yeah. And I know that's tricky because again, it's kind of like, Well, I make this type of thing like, everything is, you know, woodsy. I don't know. And that's what I that's what and I don't want to change it. Yeah. But then you might have to kind of come to terms with there might not be you might not find a quote unquote high search volume for those things. Hmm. But yeah, like I actually have an Etsy shop on the side as a fun thing. And I was looking at my Etsy stats the other day and was looking at all the search terms that are bringing people to my shop. And I wrote down ideas based on that because it was like, Oh, they're searching for this little phrase. I don't have that, but I can create it. Yeah, like, OK, so then I went, created it. So for me, but for me, like, it's a fun thing, it's on the side. So it's like, No,

Katie Hunt [00:08:29] but you have my wheels turning because, you know, we tell people, pay attention to your Google Analytics and your shopping analytics and see what people like. How are people making it to your website, you know? But at the same time, we can also strategically create our products by seeing what people are searching for or just generally out on the internet. And I don't. Well, let me put a caveat here for our listeners. I don't want you chasing a bunch of trends and I don't want you, you know, creating a bunch of products just because maybe they would get some hits. But I think that is a neat piece to layer into your product development that I hadn't really considered before. So thank you for sharing that.

Jessica Freeman [00:09:11] Yeah. So to recap so far, do the keyword research find that high volume, low competition and then you just want to start implementing that? So you found like, OK, so there are a lot of people that are actually searching for green mugs, parks and rec, whatever this is. I love Parks and Rec. Can you tell what I'm watching right now? I like that you want to implement on the product page the product's title, the description, the image, alt text, all that kind of stuff. So I always say, when you're doing that keyword research, make sure you just kind of search in a few different ways because it might not be that they are searching for a mug, but it might be that they're searching like a coffee cup instead. Yeah. So like, those little differences might make a difference. Or if your mug is Parks and Rec, but it really is like Leslie Knope is on there, then Parks and Rec might be higher than Leslie Knope or vice versa. So that can help you kind of see like, Oh, I should use this and that key phrase, then you just implement that on your site.

Katie Hunt [00:10:22] I know some people get a little bit hung up on where to even start with searching for search terms to even see what's like, what would work, you know, like how to node and search for parking metrics like. You know, that's something you're interested in. I know we should look at what our products are and who they're for and start there. But do you feel like Answer The Public or some of those other tools can kind of help you extend maybe some basic search terms that you have in your head and help you think about alternative ways to frame?

Jessica Freeman [00:10:50] Yeah. Answer the public. Marmo lead is one that's Etsy specific like those are good to help you kind of just search, but the other one Google itself is great. Yes. As you're typing in, it'll kind of autofill and you can see some different things that are coming up, but also look like go down to the bottom where it says people also search. And that will give you some other variations of phrases that people are searching that are related to whatever you're searching. So it might give you something like, Oh, maybe I should phrase it this way and that way, or add this additive into the phrase, the more descriptive you can be, the better. Yeah, that's what's most important with products. SEO is being super, super descriptive because like green mug is is not going, it's not going to rank easily. So the more you know, like funny green mug parks and Rec quotes, you know, like whatever that's going to get you a lot more hits than just, yeah. So specific,

Katie Hunt [00:11:58] detailed and not necessarily concise. It can be long.

Jessica Freeman [00:12:03] Yes. Yeah, the longer, the better.

Katie Hunt [00:12:05] OK, do you think it's better to focus on getting your individual product page ranked or like a landing page for a collective of products? So, for example, that you know, green mug that you're talking about? Like, should we be putting more emphasis on that individual page on our website? Or should we be putting more emphasis on a page that highlights all of the mugs we sell?

Jessica Freeman [00:12:29] I would say the collection page would be easier to rank OK, because you have more internal links on that page. Google loves when there's internal links, so you're linking to all these different products. You can talk about your collection more and that kind of stuff. So I would say maybe try to focus a little more on the collection page, not to obviously not to ignore the individual product page, but

Katie Hunt [00:12:58] well, that seems easier to do because, you know, people may have hundreds of SKUs, but yet, yeah,

Jessica Freeman [00:13:04] yeah. And they're like, Great, I'm going to optimize all hundred things. But if you can create collections, specific pages, which in some platforms, that's all it's natively like, here's all the mugs, but you might go in and like custom create a page that's like all of your funny mugs, all of your parks and rec mugs, anything like that where it's these are all the very specific items. So even if you had like, let's say you have mugs and T-shirts and totes, whatever that are all Parks and rec things, yeah, then you could put all of those like make a collection page just for those items.

Katie Hunt [00:13:47] OK, that makes a lot of sense. That also feels a lot less overwhelming to try to optimize and manage. Yeah. As someone that has 200 podcast episodes has tried to like, navigate and I know you've helped me with that. OK. Here was a question that popped up in a few different ways from people in LABS, and they said, How do we know our SEO is working? Meaning what types of analytics should we be monitoring? And like, are we just looking to see that website visitors have increased or what are we looking for?

Jessica Freeman [00:14:17] So watching your analytics is super helpful because you can to a certain degree, like Google, hide some of it just because of privacy laws and all that. But watching like your top pages or top post and Google Analytics or whatever the analytics on your platform of choice is watching that, obviously, like if you optimize this page and then you're like, Man, this mug is selling like hotcakes. That's also a good indicator. Also watching in Google Analytics, you can also see where people are coming from. So if you're like, I'm getting a lot of organic search traffic like Google will tell you, like it's coming from organic search, that just means Google. Or if you're like, Well, I'm still getting some organic search traffic, but really my top traffic driver is Instagram or whatever, then it's not to say your SEO is not working, but it just might not have enough. Like doesn't hasn't been beefed up enough to compete against the gram. I will say a fun tool that I really love. It's not free is SERP Watch. Watch SERP Watch. You can actually put in links from your website. And it will tell you if it's ranking and where it changes in ranking, so I get an email, I don't say every day, but almost every day where it's like this post is back up to number one. Oh, it's dropped to number two. Oh, now this post is like ranking for this keyword. And what? That's cool. So it's really, really cool to watch that. It can be like if you're not familiar, the reason it moves so much is just Google has an algorithm. I mean, literally, I got an email, a notification earlier this week that was like, this post has swung down. It's now showing like on page one. Oh wow, something really went from spot number one to page one hundred, and I haven't changed anything on my website. And the next day it came back. That's insane. And it was like, OK, now your post is back up to number two.

Katie Hunt [00:16:25] OK, so that leads me to kind of a good next question is like how often should we be refreshing or auditing our SEO? I mean, if you're if that tool is bouncing you from like Page one to Page 100 in a given day, like if you see that you're down to Page 100, that might cause some panic and have you saying, Oh gosh, I need to go revisit the keywords and I need to go restructure this. But you're saying no. So like, how often should we be refreshing or auditing our keywords and how we're optimizing these pages? Yeah.

Jessica Freeman [00:16:57] I would say around every three to four months, OK? Because Google takes a while to kind of get the data from your website. So if you go update it, it might take a while for their bots to read that data. It's not necessarily instantaneous. And then, you know, they're kind of analyzing your site and your page and we're like, We've got this new data now we kind of want to see what it's doing. So if you update it too soon, then you may not know that it may have been good and you just didn't give it a long enough time to cook. Yeah. So every three to four months, I would say, is like the fastest.

Katie Hunt [00:17:38] OK, so three to four months at the earliest? Yeah. And what should we be looking for? Should we be changing keywords or if something's working, do we just not touch it because if it's not broken, we don't want to fix it? If it's work? Yeah. Is that the right phrase that

Jessica Freeman [00:17:52] it's not broken? Don't fix it. So, yeah, if it's ranking fine, then then leave it. And I would say, if it's on the first page, don't change it. OK. Like, don't be like, Oh, I'm on spot five and I want to like, tweak this to see if it'll go to spot one. Yeah. Anything like that. If you wanted to add a link to another related product or blog post or something like that would be fine. But don't change in keywords and like the title and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, if it's working, don't change it. But if you're like, this mug is still not getting any traffic, no one's buying it like I can see in Google Analytics, like literally no one's clicking on this one might just need to evaluate, like, is it a product issue or two? Like, OK, let's try again and see, maybe I need to change the. And I would do the keyword research again because things may have changed in the last three to four months. OK, so go back to the tools and kind of type in again, like green parks and Rec, whatever and see, OK, how's it doing? If you really wanted to be nerdy about SEO and the like the keyword research, you could even keep a spreadsheet. OK, so I searched for this key phrase in January 2020, and then it had this many hits or this search volume, this competition, et cetera. OK, now it's January twenty twenty one. I'm going to do this search again. Has it changed? Has it gotten better or has it gotten worse? Is there too much competition and that kind of stuff? If you wanted to do that

Katie Hunt [00:19:29] when we were talking about workflow in my mind immediately went to a Google spreadsheet. And the reason for that was because I would have a hard time keeping track of all these different keywords that I want to research and then where they're standings were. And to your point, comparison of like, what was it doing last time we did this versus what it's doing? I mean, I'm a total numbers nerd in that respect. But I think that those kinds of data points are really important because it tells us what to lean into and what to maybe pull back on. OK, so if we're looking at a lot of different things, we're looking at our Google Analytics, we're looking to see how much organic traffic is coming in. We're looking at our Google Analytics to see which of our pages on our website are ranking the highest or have the most visibility. We're looking at perhaps our shop analytics to see the correlation between how many, you know, whether shop visitors are increasing and are those people converting to customers. So it seems like. There's a lot of different data points that we could review in this audit. Are there any core ones that you absolutely like, recommend people start with before they get too deep into the weeds?

Jessica Freeman [00:20:44] I would, if you like this is too much like this is a lot of information. I'm getting overwhelmed. I would just look at the organic search. So in Google Analytics, you can see where people are coming from, what if it's organic search, social media, etc. Yeah. Look at the organic search and see, like what are people searching? How are they landing on my site and really pay attention to that and see, like, are people finding me for the right reasons? Is it kind of off, you know, are they like searching this thing and they're landing on my site? But it's like, Well, that's not what my site is about. Like, I remember, I mean, it was like eight or nine years ago, I was looking at my SEO and I had this random blog post about something to do with peanut butter and web design. And I don't like it. It was weird. And that was one of my highest traffic posts for how funny, but not because of web design, because someone was searching like peanut butter things and landing on my site. So like, this was not a good thing. It was funny, but I was like, These people are not coming to my website for peanut butter, and for me,

Katie Hunt [00:21:54] I'm not attracting the right audience, the right.

Jessica Freeman [00:21:57] I'm not attracting the right. Yeah.

Katie Hunt [00:21:59] But also, let me, as you were talking, I was thinking about prioritizing what are we prioritizing in terms of optimization on our site? And like you already mentioned, product categories or collections highlighting that, and that does seem much easier. But I would also layer into this optimizing the product categories in our shops that have the highest profit margins.

Jessica Freeman [00:22:23] Yes.

Katie Hunt [00:22:24] So that you're attracting that higher caliber customer who will also likely buy some of your lower priced goods or other things in your shop. But if we're focused on attracting that higher caliber buyer with the higher caliber, higher priced goods and maybe it's not higher price, but the ones that have the higher profit margin for your business? Yeah, I feel like that's a good strategy to implement here, too, or something to keep in mind as you're looking at the numbers, would you agree with that 100 percent?

Jessica Freeman [00:22:55] Yes. Because if you or someone you're like, OK, but I have like two hundred products, and how do I know which products to start optimizing or go researching? I would say pay attention to what those most profitable products are like. I even felt like my service based clients optimize the pages or the post that you really want to drive the most traffic to. And I know we might think, Well, I want them. I want traffic, I want them to come to everything.

Katie Hunt [00:23:23] I want them

Jessica Freeman [00:23:23] to see it all. Yeah, but like, I'm sure you have episodes of the podcast that you're like, These are like my top ten episodes that have really, really valuable information and I think are the most impactful. And so then I would tell you, go optimize those posts before all these sellers and really focus on those 100 percent.

Katie Hunt [00:23:48] So just to relay this further for our audience, I really want you guys focused on optimizing SEO for the pages on your site that are tied to your most profitable products. So the things you're making the most money on and then the things that are selling best to your best sellers because that will attract that kind of customer that buys more than just one thing. Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Freeman [00:24:15] Yeah, because if you if you just to reiterate, like if you have a product already that you're like, everyone loves this and you're like, but I haven't even optimized it then, but maybe it's like everyone comes from Instagram or, you know, just word of mouth or whatever focus on that. So you get even more people to that product.

Katie Hunt [00:24:35] I love that. OK, let's talk about platforms. Several of our LABS members submitted. Like I said, these SEO questions, and there were several that focused on platform specific SEO. So, for example, there were questions about should we approach SEO optimization on Etsy the same way we would tackle it on Shopify or Squarespace and again, looking specifically at the eCommerce aspect of this. What are some of the similarities? And then what are some of the differences among these platforms, if you don't mind?

Jessica Freeman [00:25:06] Yeah. So I don't know a ton about Etsy only because you can't build websites on it. But I know the SEO part of it since I have my own shop there too. But there are some similarities in that you can optimize the product title, you can optimize the product description and then you have a place to add your tags, your keywords. Basically, they call them just tags on Etsy. You are limited on how many tanks you can have, whereas other platforms you might not have that. What's missing on Etsy is you can't really optimize like the image optics. I was going to ask them, like you. I mean, I mean, in theory, yes, you could name the file on your computer like Parks and Rec mug and upload it. But as far as I know, that doesn't actually help because Etsy has its own platform and that kind of thing. So you don't have that and you can't really. I don't think the linking between products really has any impact, either. That's one of the biggest factors that can help your SEO is linking between pages and products on your own website. Google loves internal linking because it just helps them. Their bots are kind of like spider web between things instead of like, OK, dead end. Yeah, it's just like, think of it like when you're driving around your city and you just keep driving and you turn left and right and left and you just keep going. That's what like the linking is doing instead of just turning right and then it makes sense. And it just helps Google, like, find more of your content in your products. So that's another thing that's kind of missing on Etsy. But Etsy does help promote your products and like you. It's a major platform, so I think it's still worth being there and you can optimize as much as you can on that platform. But you do have a lot more options on your own website. And whether it's WordPress or Shopify or Squarespace like you, those are all pretty similar in terms of you can edit the image, I'll text the description, the pages, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Katie Hunt [00:27:22] How important are the images to have those named correctly on your website have the metadata in then? And like in the metadata, I assume that's where you put the keywords. Correct?

Jessica Freeman [00:27:34] Yes. Yeah, that's pretty important, especially when it comes to products, because that shows up pretty popularly. Is that the right word when you're searching on Google? Like for me, my images on my site, I mean, I still optimize them. But they're not as important because when people are searching like website tips and they're like, they're not really looking at the images, you know, like whereas when you are searching for products on Google, like they have that strip of images right there. Yeah. So that is a really high priority. So you want to make sure you are naming the file on your computer. You know where it's like image one two three dot JPEG. Make sure you're putting your keyword there. And then once you upload on your website, there's a place to put the alt text and the description. That's where, again, you want to put that information, but you want to make sure you are not just stuffing it full of words. Google is very, very smart. They do not like that. So don't just sit there and type like a whole list of keywords, just like with commas in between each one. You want it to actually describe what the product is. So just literally Greenberg with Leslie Knope quotes from Parks and Rec or whatever it is, that's helpful. So in the end, end there.

Katie Hunt [00:29:04] This isn't like a hashtag stuffing where you want the 30. Right?

Jessica Freeman [00:29:07] So yes, no, we don't want to do that.

Katie Hunt [00:29:10] That's all right. You could encourage our listeners to take action on just one thing after listening to this episode. What would you want them to do?

Jessica Freeman [00:29:18] I would say, start looking at your analytics. There are so many business owners that don't have analytics, and if they do have analytics, they're not even looking at them. Yeah. And like, that's going to give you as much information like more information than anything else. Yeah. So like you, I would say go install analytics right now or if you have it installed, like go look at it and that will let you see what's coming if you don't have installed, like install it and then then 30 days come back. Because if you just jump into optimizing right now without looking at analytics, you don't know what's already working. So we kind of need to get a preview of, yeah,

Katie Hunt [00:30:03] we need a baseline working.

Jessica Freeman [00:30:04] Yeah. Otherwise, you're just kind of like, OK, I'm just going to like, start doing this and I don't know what's what and what's working.

Katie Hunt [00:30:12] So hopefully we look at our stats. I can go down a rabbit hole and Google Analytics. I find it fascinating, and I think it's really interesting to look at the customer journey and how they land on our site and where they go, and I'm always fascinated by which blog posts or podcast episodes for me. Are, you know, most engaging for people, and it's just I think it's really it gives you a whole other viewpoint about who your customers are and how they're interacting with your brand. And so I wanted to add to that. I agree the one first step should be getting that set up if people don't have it set up. And then if you haven't looked at it in a long time, I would encourage you to go look at it so you can start doing some comparisons side by side. But you know, if you could even set aside an hour a month at the end of each month or whatever the 30 day cycle is that you're on to take a look at that. And if there's key things that you want to keep tabs on, you know, you could put it in a Google spreadsheet where it's like, Yeah, we have this many visitors last month and we had this was our average order value for the car and this was, you know, the amount of orders we had or whatever it is that you want to keep track of. I do think it's incredibly helpful from a larger strategic standpoint to be monitoring those numbers on a regular basis and looking at your analytics, not just from a CIO standpoint that's obviously going to help people come to our site, but it's the what next that we want to be paying attention to. I think, yep,

Jessica Freeman [00:31:41] it's it gives us the information because otherwise we're just making changes blindly, and that's not going to serve us in the long

Katie Hunt [00:31:49] run. It's not going to serve us, it's not going to serve our customers. No way. All right. Just what is next for you? What are you working on that you can share with our audience?

Jessica Freeman [00:31:57] I'm just doing a lot of client work and really diving into serving my membership community. The better collective. If you want more SEO help, I do. I have several SEO training sessions there. I also do a monthly Q&A so people can hop on and just ask me any question. I love that. So we just hop on Zoom and ask answer questions, all things websites and SEO and tech problems and troubleshooting. So yeah, that's one of the going on.

Katie Hunt [00:32:29] I love it. Are you still offering your quarterly services for updates and stuff too? Is that appropriate for product based businesses?

Jessica Freeman[00:32:37] I have limited availability for that, so you can reach out and see and see.

Katie Hunt [00:32:43] OK, fair enough. All right. Where can people find you online if they want to check out your services and value on Instagram or anywhere else on social media?

Jessica Freeman [00:32:50] I am super easy to find justcreatives.com and at just creatives on pretty much every social media platform.

Katie Hunt [00:32:59] Just thank you so much for joining me today, guys. Listening. We will include all of the links talked about today in our show notes. And Jessica, this was amazing. So thank you.

Jessica Freeman [00:33:07] Yeah, thanks for having me. Of course,

Katie Hunt [00:33:09] I can't think of anyone better equipped to teach us about SEO and website strategies than Jessica Freeman of Just Creative. So thank you again. Just for joining me today. Friends, go make sure that your Google Analytics are set up. And for those of you that already have it running, set a time on your calendar to review the data either monthly or quarterly. Also, I loved what Jess said about using SEO and keyword research to not only help with driving traffic to our site once we have products created, but also using this stuff in the preliminary stages of our research and development of new products. I had not considered leveraging SEO and keyword research for that previously, but Jess definitely got my wheels turning there. Be sure to check out the show notes for links to tools and resources that we shared today on the episode. And if I can ask one favor before you go, if you enjoyed today's episode, would you please consider subscribing to Proof to Product on your favorite podcast player and leaving us a five star rating and write a review about what you've learned or implemented by listening to the show. I honestly love reading each and every one of your reviews like this one from Emmy three? She said, I absolutely love this podcast. This is a safe space where you will be inspired, informed and will leave equipped with suggestions that can help transform your business and further develop your creative life. I love this, Emmy. Thank you so much. All right, friends, thank you again for joining me today. I'll be back soon with the new episode.