Brick and Mortar Visibility

Did you know that 46% of Google searches are for local intent?

That’s huge for Brick and Mortar Service Based business owners! 🙌🏻

It’s actually easier for us to be found. However, so many brick and mortar service based businesses are NOT taking advantage of creating great content that gets found.

Our guest today talks all about the nitty gritty of SEO.

Here are just a few of the topics we cover:
1. Creating great content that gets found and how to do that.
2. How to repurpose your content in creative ways
3. And why your blog is so much more important than your IG following.

Show Notes

Did you know that 46% of Google searches are for local intent? 

That’s huge for Brick and Mortar Service Based business owners! 🙌🏻

It’s actually easier for us to be found.  However, so many brick and mortar service based businesses are NOT taking advantage of creating great content that gets found. 

Our guest today talks all about the nitty gritty of SEO. 

Here are just a few of the topics we cover:
1. Creating great content that gets found and how to do that. 
2. How to repurpose your content in creative ways
3. And why your blog is so much more important than you IG following. 

Want to connect with Amber Peterson  to learn more about what she does or just say hello?
www.pinwheelstrategicmarketing.com
 
Like the episode?  Please tell us! 
DM me on IG or Amber

Better yet, please leave an honest rating and review on your favorite podcast app.  They mean the world to me and I’ll be able to shout YOU out on the podcast. 

Episodes Mentioned: #108 with Miranda VonFricken

Work with Melissa:

One on One Coaching: Create a Brick + Mortar Business that Allows You To Kick Ass in ALL Areas of Your Life. Every. Single. Day. 

90 Day Rebel Women Mastermind: The Community to Empower Yourself + Grow Your Business in 90 Days.

20 min. Coffee Chat
 

Amber Peterson’s Bio:

As a content marketing and SEO specialist, Amber Peterson knows that carefully crafted content paired with strategic SEO is the key to long-term visibility and increased revenue for most businesses. 

Whether she is creating and content and SEO for women owned businesses or educating on the value of these strategies, Amber leverages her marketing expertise to grow visibility and traffic for entrepreneurs and business owners. 

When she is not working with her clients, she loves being outside with her family in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, wine tasting, and planning her next vacation.

BIO:
In 2009, Melissa Rose started her business in the basement of her home. She taught the art of dance to students of all ages while her babies were right along with her in the pack and play.  With her passion, resilience, and nose down she created a business that has become "The Highlight of Your Week" for her tribe, her team and her community.  

In 2015 her life shattered when her husband of 15 years walked in the door and asked for divorce.  They had 5 young children at the time ages 11 down to 2yrs. old.  Little did she know at the time, that that one decision would create the foundation to build the life of her dreams.  Fast forward five years later, Melissa upgraded to a second location, a team of 14, and launched an online membership called Dance on Demand. 

Along with running a successful brick and mortar business, Melissa is also a visibility coach for brick and mortar businesses, Melissa guides other boss ladies to a flourishing brick and mortar business that provides for their own tribe - creating a legacy for themselves, their family and their community.  She has a podcast, “Brick and Mortar Visibility” that she dedicates to sharing tips, tools and strategies she’s learned in her brick and mortar business to help others in theirs.

Melissa is a super mama of five kiddos, enjoys long hikes or playing in her garden.  At the end of the day you can find her snuggling with a self development book with an ice cold beer.

CONNECT with Melissa:
https://www.msmelissarose.com/
LinkedIN 
Instagram
Join the Community on Facebook

What is Brick and Mortar Visibility?

Hey you! The daring brick and mortar business owner, turning heads and owning the scene in your community. I'm here to salute your blood, sweat, and tears with a sassy nod to being a true Rebel Woman!

Hi, I'm Melissa Rose—mom, business owner, and your no-nonsense visibility coach. I've cracked the code to becoming the 'Only Option in Town,' and now, I'm spilling the beans on this podcast.Get ready for stories that'll light a fire, foolproof strategies that are hotter than your morning coffee, and practical tips to elevate your brick and mortar empire.

This ain't your grandma's podcast. It's a rollercoaster of realness, grit, and glam, custom-made for you, the badass business owner. So, buckle up, Rebel Women, because we're about to turn your business into the talk of the town! Now, let’s get real!

Melissa: Do you know that 46% of Google searches are for local businesses? You guys, my local brick and mortar's, service-based businesses, this episode is for you. Let's get real.

Melissa: If you're running a brick and mortar business, raising some kiddos and juggling all of life's offerings, let's be real and call you what you are. You my friend are a rebel woman, you've put your blood sweat and tears in creating a storefront that lights you up, serves your clients well and contributes significantly to the community you love. You are my hero. And I'm pretty sure we could sit down and talk shop for hours cause I get it! I have a brick and mortar business myself for over 12 years, a handful of kids and a few passion projects that I love like this one. Hey there everybody. My name is Melissa Rose and I am your visibility coach for brick and mortar businesses who want more clients coming in their doors. I have a passion for helping and serving those who are also living life on the edge going for their dreams and creating a legacy through their kick-ass business. In this podcast, we're going to share the nitty-gritty of running a successful brick and mortar business. We're going to share stories we're going to talk strategy, and we're gonna learn practical tips that leave you inspired, empowered and equipped to create the life of your dreams. Are you ready? Let's get real.

Melissa: Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Brick and Mortar Visibility. I am your host, Melissa Rose, and it's always so great to be here. The sun is shining. It is freaking cold in Wisconsin. Oh, my gosh. I am recording this on March 10, and I'm just downward cranky about the weather. I had a yoga class this morning and they teased me. They're like, Melissa, this is what March is. It could be 50 degrees or it could be 20 below. We just don't know. And right now it was three degrees this morning. And I'm thankful I don't have to work outside in it. But just knowing that it's cold like that makes me cold. But by the time
this airs, it's going to be warmer. I guarantee it. So I am super excited about this episode because this is a topic that I talk a lot about with my clients when we first start. A lot of clients come to me because they want more visibility. They want more people coming in the doors. They want more profits in their pockets, but they also want to be able to hire another team member so they have that time freedom, or they want to scale to some online products or services so that they can scale and grow that way. And when we dive in a little bit deeper and dig in, I always come back to who you are, what you do and who you serve. And one of the ways we do that is by clarifying your message, but then we have to clarify that message and get it out to the people. And how do people find you? People are going to Google you. They're going to look for you. That is the number one way people find you. Okay, so I want your SEO to be top-notch. In today's episode, we have a guest on content creation and SEO maximization Amber Peterson.

Melissa: Before we dive into her amazing episode, I want to just have a listener shout out. We have a rating and review from Miranda VonFricken. She was on the podcast on episode number 108. She is our LinkedIn expert. You guys, she has a workshop coming up in April. If you are not on LinkedIn, go back and listen to this episode 108. She may convince you to be on it because she is all things LinkedIn. Here is her lovely review. "Love, love, love. Such fantastic energy and information. It's practical, we can implement right away and full of resources. Wonderful show! Melissa is fun to listen to as well." Thank you, Miranda. And again, go check out her episode. That one was super helpful and people are eating it up. Again, she's got a workshop coming up in April. I'll link that in the show notes as well. Very reasonably priced and full of jam-packed information.

Melissa: This episode is jam-packed. In fact, it's probably going to be a bit longer than most of the episodes that we record. However, it is so, so important. And if you listen to this episode and you think, man, I really got to do this, I just don't know how to break it down or how to get started. I'm your girl. I can help you. This is exactly what I do in my business for clients. I help you figure it out, break it down. I know there are so many things we should be doing as Brick and Mortar service-based businesses. All right? We can read all the books, we can listen to all the podcasts, and we can try to do all the things. But my zone of genius is helping you break it down into actionable steps that get done. All right? I invite you to check out one-on-one coaching. If you go to 'msmelissarose.com/coaching', that is my one-on-one program. I have two spots available. This is geared towards that Brick and Mortar service-based business or a service-based business that wants to grow and scale. And they are overwhelmed with all the day to day stuff that you have to do. And they can't even fathom getting bigger or growing more because there's just so much on their plate right now. So we're going to sift through that and narrow down exactly what needs to get done right now so that you can take those actionable steps every week and see progress and grow forward so that we can add on a team member and get things delegated and off your plate and automated so that you can finally see and feel that time freedom that you deserve. If that sounds like something you want and desire, I invite you to check out my one-on-one coaching program, 'msmelissarose.com/coaching'.

Melissa: Now, Amber is an expert in SEO. She has some great Nuggets here. We talk about how to create great content that gets you found. We talk about how to repurpose that content in creative ways. She's got some really great ideas. And then we talked about the importance of doing that blog and how that just genuinely helps your business so, so much. I know it doesn't sound sexy y'all, but it's so important and it's so, so good for your business. So I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I do. It's my geeky self coming out in real-time. So enjoy my podcast interview with the lovely and knowledgeable Amber Peterson.

Melissa: Amber Peterson, welcome to the Brick and Mortar Visibility Podcast. How are you?

Amber: Good. How are you?

Melissa: So good to see you. Thanks for coming on. I'm super excited to talk about this really geeky subject, SEO.

Amber: Me too. I can talk about it forever.

Melissa: If you would have asked me five years ago if I would be so into it, you would have laughed at me because I barely knew how to work my computer six years ago, I used Facebook and email. That's all I did, y'all. And to now understand and have a concept of the somewhat dangerous. Know enough to be dangerous. Amber is our expert, though. So I'm super excited for you to dive in. So tell everybody who you are, what you do, who you serve. Where are you coming in from? All the fun stuff?

Amber: Sure. So, yeah, my name is Amber. My business is Pinwheel Strategic Marketing. It is a kind of a pairing of content creation and SEO kind of married together. So I work primarily with women-owned businesses who are looking to expand their visibility through attracting people to their website with really great content. And the big thing that I've learned from my clients is either you're writing great content, but they're like, nobody's reading it. And we realized there's no SEO behind it. Or they've paid SEO experts, they've done all that and they've got a website, but they're not creating really good content, so they're not standing apart from their competitors. So my agency kind of marries the two where we are working to create the content and optimize it for SEO. It's kind of the perfect match. I feel like, because you really need both, you'll hear lots of people say, oh, SEO is more important, content is more important, but you can write the most beautiful content in the world if no one's reading it except for your mom, it's pretty useless. And you can have a great SEO strategy. But if people get to your website and they're like, eh! it's fine, and they leave, also not great. So we like to put those two together and really create a good visibility strategy.

Melissa: I get so many clients who want that website looking so pretty and so lovely. And I'm a big advocate of B-plus work. I'm okay. B-plus work gets the job done. But don't get so caught up in how pretty it looks if there's no meat behind it if there's no substance behind it. And that's what you're going to talk about. Real quickly. Personally, you have kiddos, you're a mom. Tell us a little bit about where you are in life.

Amber: I do. So I live in Washington state, about an hour north of Seattle, and I have three daughters, ages five to almost twelve. I'm married to my high school boyfriend. We're married for almost 20 years. And we have a little 'Boston Terrier' that we love. We like to hike and go wine tasting. Washington has amazing wineries. Just get outside as much as possible. We do a lot of camping in the summer. We love to travel. We're going to Hawaii in March. We're so excited because we haven't gone anywhere in forever. But yeah, we just really like to kind of enjoy where we live. I grew up in Alaska, as do my husband. So we talk a lot about Washington looks like Alaska, but you have amenities, which is kind of cool. But yeah, it's kind of crazy life with three kids. They're all dancers. So I do a lot of dance studio drop-offs and pickups and working out of my car, all that kind of stuff. But it's fun. I always wanted three daughters. Now that one of them is entering teenage years, I'm not so sure about that wish, but we'll see how it goes.

Melissa: Yeah, just one day at a time, lady. One day at a time. You got this. All right. So can you just tell us? I know what SEO means, search engine optimization, but in layman's terms, what the heck does that mean? What does that mean for business?

Amber: Yeah. So really, it's just the simplest way to say it is, It's choosing the right words and phrases. That when people go to Google and they type in a question, they type in a search query, you're hitting those words and phrases. So when we go to Google to ask a question, when you type it in, you'll see, like an auto-fill. And those are like common questions right there. Google is telling you this is what people search for. So you want your website and your content to answer those questions and utilize the same terms and phrases. It's really the simplest way to say it. But people get very like, 'uhh' when they hear SEO because it sounds complicated. And for myself even, I thought it was very complicated until I really dived into it. And it's like, okay, it's kind of like a puzzle that you're just kind of figuring out. Like, what are my customers my clients looking for? And how do I show up for them in Google search?

Melissa: Yes, but the technicality of it and that it doesn't have to be hard. I got caught up in the technicality of like, oh my gosh, this has to be hard. But there are different ways to do this. Brick and Mortar businesses, you guys, we are local. We are local to our community and 46% of Google searches are for local businesses. They are looking for you. People are trying to find where do I send my kids to take dance? Where's the best pizza place in town? What's the best chiropractor near me? They are finding those places, so we need to be on top of that. And so many Brick and Mortar business owners do not take advantage of this. So it doesn't have to be hard. So what is one way that business owners can help with that SEO?.

Amber: So in my opinion, the best way is to have some sort of content on your website that you're optimizing. So local businesses, I think it's almost easier to rank for SEO because you're already getting niched down by location or town, wherever you're at. People, if they're looking for a dance studio, they're not just putting dance studio, they're putting dance studio near me. And then Google's looking at their location because everything is always like looking where we're at. And so if you're hitting all of those local points and then if you have, not constant but like frequent new content that also talks about all those little keywords, then it's not only just like your address on your website that's ranking, it's all these other pieces. Because the more touchpoints you have on your website, the higher you rank. So for example, let's say a restaurant, a lot of people I speak to who have local businesses are like, well, what the heck am I going to write about? Like I'm a restaurant. But if you like, your website, of course, should have all of the normal things. But if you also have a blog where maybe you talk about festivals in your town or you create like maybe you live somewhere that the tourists come through. In my town specifically, we have a strawberry festival every spring. So if someone was like Googling the strawberry festival and I created a blog post that said best itinerary for the Marysville Strawberry Festival, then my restaurant is in that blog post. Not only are you providing information that kind of taps into your whole area, which is nice for building links and linking to other businesses, but you also are showing up in a really helpful piece of content for someone who wants to visit your area. So you're feeding the Google algorithm, but you're also providing something of value because we all know now that consumers, do more research now they're a little more savvy. They want to know about, not only what you offer, but what are you like, people just don't make decisions like that. They want to look into it. So if you provide something of value and they can look at your business and be like, wow, that was really helpful. That's going to stick in their mind, especially local businesses. I get a lot of like, I don't know what I would write about once a week or once every other week. Look at your entire community. You don't want to talk about yourself every week anyways. You want to be the community over competition type thing. So think about your area as a whole. What could you talk about? And what are other people Googling about, that you could land among that search.

Melissa: I just did this with my blog two weeks ago with the dancing house because you actually inspired me to go back to this. So everybody, as you know, I have a dance studio. And when I first started really paying attention to SEO and really paying attention to digital marketing, I started a blog because that's what they told me I needed to do. But I had no idea what I was going to write about. So what I did you all is I just wrote like a really short four-section blog. And the first part was, hey, how are you doing? The second part was highlighting a student. The third part was telling a new class that was up and coming or a workshop that we were doing. And the fourth part was something to do in the community. And I didn't realize that that was intuitively right to do because I was creating value for my clients by showcasing another venue or place to go to like a theatre show or a children's workshop or children's theatre workshop. And then I was creating a community by highlighting those students. And then, of course, I was selling as well. And by selling, I was using those keywords 'tap class for littles' or 'tap class for three-year-olds' or something like that. So it was just very intuitive. And now we've done that blog consistently, and that's the keyword there. We do it every two weeks, and we've been doing it for about five or six years now. And we hit that blog. We email it to our list, and this past Sunday we had a 56% open rate on our email. And my admin, the next day, I didn't look at the numbers yet, but she goes, Holy cow! we just had an influx of registrations for this week. And that's pretty normal that we'll get sales right after we hit publish. But then I looked at the open rate for the email and it was just like it's working as far as just really paying attention to the subject line and all that fun stuff that I geek out on. But it's because of that blog that we've been consistent with people expected in their newsletter every other week now. And it's just this compound effect that we're feeling, which we're very thankful for. But it comes back to that consistency.

Amber: Yeah, absolutely. And you touched on repurposing the blog content. I think a lot of people get overwhelmed with marketing activities in general because everybody is telling you, like, you need a blog, you need to be on social media. You need to be on TikTok, like all the things. And so people get almost deer to headlights. Like, I'm not going to do anything, but you can take one blog post and turn that into a newsletter. You can break it up and turn it into social media posts, especially if you feature other businesses. You can send them the blog and say, hey, I wrote this. I featured you if you'd like to share it. I'd love that there are so many ways that you can take one piece of content and turn it into weeks of content. And so, I think content marketing should be the basis of any marketing strategy because if you have a really great blog post, you can go so many different directions with it. One of my clients right now takes the blog post that we write, and then she does a video and uses it almost like a script. And then she shares that video to her social media, and we embed the video on her website. So she's hitting both of those metrics of, like, people like video. Social media likes video, but she doesn't write it. She just records it and puts her own personality into it. And so I write two blog posts for her a month, and her marketing is, I never see a lapse in it. We've taken little pieces and that's it. That's all we do. The two blocks most of the month.

Melissa: Exactly. I did that. A live video, too. I would take the blog and just do a 90-second video of what was in the blog or highlight it. If you want more, here's the link. I love this stuff, and I love the collaboration aspect of it as well. Like when you're promoting or for the Strawberry Festival example, you being one of the great places to go visit as you're doing the tour. It's just so good for your community because we're a small business, you all, and we're a community, and by working together, we grow together. I want to ask you a question because I will get pushed back when somebody says, I want to grow my Instagram following. I want to grow that. I want to get it to 10K, blah, blah, blah, in their local Brick and Mortar. And they don't want to invest the time, energy into the blog. I know what my answer is. I would like to have you comment on that. And then I want to see if we line up there.
But I always push back why?
And then how do you get them to turn around and be convinced on the SEO or doing a blog?

Amber: I know a lot of people are really focused on a platform. You know, before I made the switch to just focusing on content marketing and SEO, I was actually doing a lot of Pinterest marketing. And in the last two years, Pinterest has completely changed. And clients that I had that were getting 80, 90% of their traffic from Pinterest, it dropped to zero. It was insane. And so any social media platform, to me, you as the business owner, have no say in what they do. We have no say in how their algorithm changes. We have no say in how our reach is. We're just posting on someone else's platform. So while I think that if your client is on a platform, it's good to show up and be present, my goal from all my clients is to draw people to their website and then hopefully get people to join their mailing list because we own our mailing lists. And if all of those other platforms went away, we can still email our list. So if Instagram was super important, then I would also still use content marketing, SEO, take those content pieces, use them as Instagram posts, however I could, maybe make Reels, you do live video, all those things, but try and get people back to your website in one way or the other and get them on that mailing list. Because those social media platforms are amazing, but they could go away tomorrow. We don't own them. And I used to think like, oh, it's Pinterest, it'll never change. And then one by one, all my clients, it was like, wow, we were getting hundreds of visitors to our website every month. And one of them, one month, it was like two visitors.

Melissa: And I was just talking to another business owner today, hers was also Pinterest and it's gone down so much. And nobody can tell her why.

Amber: Yeah! No, I mean, all the things they're saying, now that are best practices because I still have a few Pinterest clients. We're doing them. Nothing's changing. And so it's like, but all the people that she had driven to her website from Pinterest that are now on her mailing list, she still can communicate with them. So as much as social media I think is important, especially if your client is on certain platforms, my one thing is 'choose', don't do them all because that's super overwhelming. But find the one where your client is. But always try and get them to get on your mailing list or consume your content and opt-in somewhere so that if that platform makes a major change, you suddenly aren't like, Where's my audience? Because it's really devastating when that happens.

Melissa: It is. Just a couple of months ago, Instagram was unavailable for a few hours, and it was just very eye-opening then, that I was like, oh, my gosh, yeah, So glad I have my email list. So back to that social media versus a blog. Really, Melissa? Nobody reads blogs. No, maybe nobody reads them, but Google does. And we want to be found. And that goes back to the statistic of most people that are searching are doing a Google search and you're going to be found on Google. I have a friend who has this really cute boutique and no SEO. Amazing Instagram, but no SEO. And I'm like, maybe I'm a dinosaur. Maybe I'm like, usually if I'm going to go to a cute town and do some shopping, I'm going to Google shops in that town or things like that. I'm not necessarily going to Instagram to search stores in whatever town I'm going to. So if I go to Instagram, it's usually after I've been in the store already or after I saw it. But it's not to find something like if I want to find a spa in a different town, I'm going to Google that. But once I'm there and I like it, I'm going to then follow you on Instagram. So do you see that difference, Y'all? So in order to be found, we need to have good SEO.

Amber: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the thing about social media like Instagram specifically, it's so visual and so it's great for, like, super beautiful images. I used to be in the wedding industry and Instagram was really important. But the lifespan of an Instagram post is I feel like it's less than 2 hours. It's because people don't scroll back that far. And so if someone's following you and they miss a post, it's sort of like, well, they don't see that. But if they're searching and they get driven to your website, you can put a plugin on your website where they can see your whole Instagram, So that's important to have that there. But that consistent content and that SEO traffic have a lot more longevity. So if something did happen with your Pinterest account or I've heard horror stories of people's accounts getting hacked and they couldn't get back in. And so it's like if all your eggs are in that basket, it's very difficult to recover quickly if something happens. So I feel like, my clients are clients of all ages, and it still seems like websites and getting people to your website is very important, no matter the target market.

Melissa: Okay, so I have a business, I have a brick and mortar business, I have a website. What are three or five things that I should be doing to help my SEO?

Amber: So first thing, have that consistent content. So Google is constantly crawling websites to see if there's anything new. So if you don't ever change anything, it kind of becomes stagnant. So even if your consistent schedule is one post a month, just be consistent and put something up that's keyword optimized. So you're feeding the Google algorithm. The other things would be like, make sure because your business is local, you're hitting all those local keywords. A lot of times we just assume that my business is in Marysville. So of course people will find me here. But you want to make sure that's in your text somewhere. If you serve outside surrounding communities, look at all the local words you can put into your text so that if anyone's searching any of those kinds of things you're popping up. Also make sure you set up your Google My Business account, which is just asking you like a lot of those standards, where are you? You can put in what you do, a description of your business photos, all that stuff, anything that Google is asking you to do. I'm a big fan of doing it because they're the ones that we want to make happy. Make sure that you have that all setup. Make sure that your site is loading quickly. So that's sort of on the technical SEO side of things. There are beautiful websites that have tons of moving images and all the things, but when you go to them on mobile, you might be sitting there and it's like, this is not Loading. People will not stick around for more than 3 seconds. 3 seconds is probably generous. So you want to make sure that it is loading quickly. And then also you're optimized for mobile and for desktop. Most people are using a device. It used to be like desktop was super important. It still is. But especially if you're a local business and people are out and about, they're looking for you on their device, their iPad, their phone. So there's nothing more annoying than going to a website on your phone. And the whole thing is all just a mess because nothing is optimized. So that's like the technical side of it. But just whenever you make any changes to your website, just give it a look on multiple devices so that you know like, okay, it's loading correctly. All the images and words are lining up how they should. It's easily navigated. Even my website, it says it was optimized for mobile. But I noticed when it was on my phone, if I clicked the menu, I couldn't actually click on anything. Like it was too small. So just those little like user things because of course we want people on the website. But if they're frustrated and have a bad experience, they're probably not coming back.

Melissa: That's so true. I am prepping for something. I'm speaking out in a couple of weeks and if the customer journey is at all negative, you lost them. So, that's huge, you guys. Huge. Such good advice. I know. Even in your tabs, like in your Pages, tabs to say dance classes in Hudson versus just dance lessons. But be specific and it doesn't have to be shown. It can be hidden, but I take care of that. But when you talk to, if you do your own website or somebody helps you with that. Those are all keywords that should be put in your tabs and in your pages and headings and stuff like that.

Amber: And you can go to Google Ads if you have, like, you can set it up. You don't have to run an ad, but you can use their keyword Finder. And so you can just spend some time typing in words that relate to your business and it'll show you like, how often are they searched? How competitive are they? So if you are trying to rank amongst a huge national brand, that's probably not going to happen right away. You want to choose words that aren't like, oh, wow, this is never going to happen. You want to find the ones that you can actually rank for and really focus on those. But the Google AdWords tool is really helpful for that because it will give you like, how competitive. And if you ever want to run ads it's what you'll be using. So it's a helpful tool. And if you decide to do your own SEO and you have a WordPress website, you can use something called Yoast and it'll walk you through all the things. So you can... it is totally DIYable. It's a commitment. You want to do it for every single page, every single blog post, and make sure that you're going back and revisiting your old blog post to do any updates, things like that. SEO is kind of ongoing, just check in with all your content. So just like designing a website, a lot of people think like, oh, my website is done, it's good to go forever. And that's not the case. You got to check in on the links and all that stuff. The same goes for SEO. You want to always make sure you're kind of updating and making sure you're still ranking and watching your Google Analytics and seeing how everything is continually working for you.

Melissa: Okay, now if I don't want to do that, though, if I don't have a time capacity, I would reach out to you. Correct?

Melissa: Right. We work with people really in two ways. So either if you're a content creator and you just need the SEO piece, then we do that on a monthly retainer, or if someone's like, you know what? I need content. I need SEO. Then we have monthly retainers for actually writing content, figuring out all the right keywords, how is it going to be scheduled, all of those things. So that's really the two main ways that we work with people, and most of our clients fall into the, They want content and SEO together.

Melissa: Okay, so let's say we either invest in you or we are DYIers, did I say that right? DIYers. And either way, you're going to pay for it either with money or your time. And you start investing in getting better SEO. How long should somebody anticipate the results?

Amber: I usually see results in about three to six months is when you can really expect to start seeing it. Every once in a while, you might hit a term that's super non-competitive, but lots of people are searching for and it helps. But organic traffic growth does take time. Because a lot of people use social media and they feel like, oh, well, I posted this and then 20 minutes later I had all of these comments and likes. It's definitely not that, it is a long term strategy you're putting in place where you're consistently creating content, you're consistently doing all the SEO work on the back end of your website, and then over time, Google starts delivering traffic to you. So I work with people for a minimum of six months, and usually by the end of six months, we have seen significant growth. But usually, it's in that 'three-month mark', you start to see on their analytics, a little tracking upward.

Melissa: Yeah, I would say the same thing. Three to six months. I think three is doable, I think it can happen. Make sure you're always asking your clients where they found you. Okay? So you know what's working. I'm not really good about checking Google Analytics, even though it's emailed to me. I just kind of whatever. But we have great SEO. I know that. And I know that most of my clients are finding me through Google and we're popping up.

Amber: Yeah. Especially if you're repurposing your content. You can look at your Google Analytics and see, did they come from Pinterest? Did they come from Facebook? and kind of figure out like, okay, I posted this on this day. So maybe there is a certain social media platform that's working really well. You can look back and see like, well, did it have to do with this content that I created at the very beginning? You could have it trackback from your email marketing, all of that. But that's something. Again, marketing is not brain surgery, but it can be very... there's a lot of little things and a lot of times I see people that are like, oh yeah, I'm doing A B C D E. It's like, okay, what's working for you? And they're like, I don't know, because they're not actually doing the measurement on the other end. So we do monthly reports for our clients because at the end of six months of working with us, especially when Pinterest started taking a downturn, it was like, I can't have a good conscience that you should keep doing this. So it's like you want to make measured decisions so that you're like, you know what, I tried this for six months. It is not working. You can invest your money elsewhere because there are a lot of places that will be happy to take your marketing dollars and you want to make sure that you're putting them in the right place that's actually delivering people through your door.

Melissa: Absolutely. All right. So where can people find you to learn more about working with you if that is something that they're interested in?

Amber: Yeah. So my website is just pinwheelstrategicmarketing.com. And I actually set up pinwheelstrategicmarketing.com/brick, so I'm going to have a special SEO starter guide specifically for Brick and Mortar businesses.

Melissa: Awesome!

Amber: So that's just going to give you kind of like a step by step of like how to even check where you're at. So feel free to download that. But all the information is on our website and you can just contact me through there.

Melissa: Awesome. See, now she was super smart by giving us that because now she's going to know where you came from and she'll be able to track that and know where her marketing energy went well. Awesome. Well done, Amber. Thank you so much for sharing. This is something that's super important as Brick and Mortar business owners. As I said, we're local. We depend on our community to support us and in order to have them support us, they need to find us. So thank you for sharing your insights. Go see Amber and check her out and see what she's all about. Download that freebie she has for us. Thank you so much. And if you have any questions or comments, please DM either of us. What's the best social for you?

Amber: It's actually LinkedIn, so it's just LinkedIn and my name is just Amber A Peterson on there.

Melissa: Awesome. We'll put that in the show notes too. Thank you so much, Amber. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and everybody else, have a great week. We'll see you here. Same time, same place next week. Peace. Bye-bye.

Melissa: Oh, my gosh, you're still here. You are such a rebel woman. I have to meet you. Come on over to the Rebel Women Tribe on Facebook created for Brick and Mortar business owners just like you. In this group, we empower, encourage, and support each other. And every week I come in and share with you a tip, tool or strategy that I'm learning in my brick and mortar business to help you and yours. And you guys, this is the real stuff, the nitty-gritty in real-time of what's going on. So come on over to the rebel women tribe on Facebook. I can't wait to meet you.