IAM2182 – Understanding the Content You Create to Gain Attention for your Business – Part1
Special Podcast Interview with Michelle Calloway
In this episode, Gresh discusses the importance of understanding target audiences and explains that all businesses are essentially media companies in the digital landscape and emphasizes the importance of understanding Google for effective SEO.
Gresh discusses the significance of identifying relevant keywords beyond just business names.
He highlights the need for local businesses to optimize for specific locations. This approach can uncover numerous search opportunities.
Gresham’s primary website (where you can find links to all of his services and resources).
Business Pillar: Visibility
Episode Link: Tech with Heart
Check out our CEO Hack Buzz Newsletter–our premium newsletter with hacks and nuggets to level up your organization. Sign up HERE.
I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!
Transcription:
The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!
Gresham Harkless Teaser 00:00
And I think once you get into the understanding of, first of all, the people that you're trying to target, but also business by which you're trying to hopefully optimize for, you start to really understand a little bit more about what Google is doing and why they're doing it.
And it'll kind of, kind of lay the foundation for all of the steps.
Intro 00:19
Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. And I wanted to share with you one of the episodes that I was a guest on for someone else's podcast.
I always talk about how important it is to build a media company.
One of the next best things you could do is be on somebody else's media company.
So I had the pleasure of being a guest on this podcast and I wanted to share a little snippet with you because it would help support the 8 business pillars we've really been trying to focus on with a lot more of our content, a lot more of the solo episodes that I'm doing.
So make sure of course that you subscribe to our podcast, but of course you take some time out, check out the show notes and subscribe to the podcast that I've been featured on as well too, and get to learn about some of those 8 business pillars and how you can continue to kind of leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to of course, a rock star in luminary.
So this is Gresh signing out. I hope you enjoy this I AM CEO special episode.
Michelle Calloway 01:09
Hello and welcome to Tech with Heart. I am your host, Michelle Calloway. Tech with Heart is all about empowering entrepreneurs to embrace technology, systems, and strategies that will help them stay competitive and relevant in a rapidly changing digital environment.
And what better topic to talk about than SEO? And for those of you who don't know, SEO stands for search engine optimization.
So with me, I have a very special guest who's very passionate about empowering small business owners.
He's created an incredible community and he's doing amazing things to come alongside and educate and support small businesses so you can crush it online through things like SEO.
He talks about a lot of other stuff, but today's topic is about the 12 things that small businesses need to know about SEO.
So welcome to, first of all, let me just tell you, His name is Gresham Harkless Jr. And he is the CEO of CB Nation. He's got his own community.
You might want to check him out. And Blue 16 Media is his company. So please welcome to the Tech with Heart stage, Gresh.
Gresham Harkless 02:16
Michelle, super excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Michelle Calloway 02:19
I'm excited that you're here too, because I think we're very like-minded and heart centered in our approach to help small business owners embrace technologies. A lot of small business owners, 90% of them have said that technology itself is the biggest pain point that they have as a small business owner.
So we're going to talk to them about some strategic things that they can do to start helping them to get served up as a friendly and professional entity in the eyes of the worldwide web.
So you have a course, your course is called You Are a Media Company. So what exactly do you mean by that and how does that relate? If it does relate to all businesses?
Gresham Harkless 03:04
Yeah, I definitely think it relates to businesses in the sense just because I've always said, I feel like everybody's in the media business, whether you know it or not. If you really looked at digital marketing as a whole, I often compare it to going to the grocery store and figuring out what dishes, what ingredients you want to pull and put into your cart to create that dish that you want.
So I always usually talk about sweet potato pie as it's getting a little cooler.
That's my favorite dish that my mom makes. And I always say that if you're trying to figure out what ingredients you want to put into your cart to make whatever it is, sweet potato pie, chocolate cake, banana, whatever might be your thing, you wanna make sure that you put the right ingredients into the cart and those ingredients are all the tools that are out there.
You're talking about SEO being 1 of them that we're going to talk about a little bit more, but you're also talking about TikTok, Instagram. You're talking about email marketing, face-to-face marketing, podcasts, blogs.
These are all ingredients that could be really essential to helping you to really crush it, to connect with your ideal client, to really reach your goals.
So it's so important that you understand the kind of the pros and cons of each of them so that you can put the right quote unquote ingredients, use the right platforms, use the right marketing strategies so that you can reach your ideal clients and customers and crush those goals.
Michelle Calloway 04:19
So essentially all businesses are media businesses, especially in the realm of online. Would you agree?
Gresham Harkless 04:25
I would definitely agree with that.
Michelle Calloway 04:27
Agreed. I agree too. So yeah, 1 of the things that we focus on to check Apart Entrepreneurial Network is to help people crush it online.
Because there's a huge difference between doing the old brick and mortar, having people walk through that door versus trying to stand out in a sea of digital noise, right?
So that's what's happening in the World Wide Web. And so with that said, how important is it to understand how the World Wide Web works and how you do get served up when people are searching for anything related to what it is that you're offering?
Gresham Harkless 04:59
It's huge. And I think that we forget about marketing being a psychological thing that you're trying to connect with, you know, brands and organizations sometimes if you're in the B2B world, but even if you are in the B2B world or you're also in the B2C world, you're connecting with humans. You're trying to connect with them.
You want them to patronize your business online, or you want them to fill out your form or complete that chat, whatever that action might be.
So it's so important that you pay attention to that human aspect of business, as I like to say, so that you can understand that you are using marketing, you're all using technology as a way by which you can communicate and hopefully get those people to come through your door, even if it's virtually.
Michelle Calloway 05:42
Agreed, that's kind of what Tech with Heart's all about, helping entrepreneurs and small business owners realize that you have to embrace technology in order to make it in an online world, which is pretty much what we're fully encompassed in now.
But then also, you know, to keep that human connection and, you know, and desire as the focus of how you use that technology.
But understanding enough about how the worldwide web tech world works, not that you have to get into the weeds or anything, you just need to kind of understand some basic principles.
And I know that that's why you're going to go over 12 tips now you're going to start talking to small business owners about the 12 things that they can do pretty easily without necessarily having to hire a specialist but yes these are things that you can indeed hire a specialist to help you with because these are the things that are, it's kind of like the old school yellow pages.
These are the things that are going to help you get eyeballs on your media content. So please just lay it out for us, Gresh. Just 1 through 12. Hit us.
Gresham Harkless 06:49
Absolutely. So the first thing that I'm going to talk about is really understanding Google.
And a lot of times when I talk about SEO, I'm talking about search engine optimization, talking about how to be found, the first thing that people want to do is jump to their computer and say, okay, what do I have to do to help to help and make sure that I'm found?
The first tip that I have is actually not about jumping to the computer, it's actually about just understanding what Google is there for.
And I think once you get into the understanding of first of all, the people that you're trying to target, but also the business by which you're trying to hopefully optimize for, you start to really understand a little bit more about what Google is doing and why they're doing it. And it'll kind of lay the foundation for all of the steps.
So when you understand Google, you understand that Google is really about helping people define what they're looking for as quickly and accurately as possible.
Google wants there to be some type of action, some type of transaction, whether that be buying, whether that be spending time, whether it be clicking and listening to a podcast or whatever it might be.
So the more that you're able to accurately provide that value for your ideal clients, the people that are potentially searching for your content or your pages, that's really going to help you to rank higher overall.
But again, before we get into a lot of the nuts and bolts, and I won't get too deep into it, but I want to gloss over and touch on some of that so you understand that, I want you to know that, really think about What is a really great user experience for me?
If I go to a new state and I'm looking for a pizza place and I Google and I find that it's Chinese food, that's not a great experience and I wouldn't use that search engine anymore.
So understand that Google is really in the business of serving to people the things that they're looking for as quickly, accurately as possible.
So a lot of these principles really go, you know, in depth more about that. So again, understand what Google is all about and why it exists. The next thing is know what you want to rank for.
And 1 of the big misconceptions, I think that I see a lot of small businesses do is unless your business name is kind of generic, like it might be Susie's Quilting Shop or something along those lines, if it's kind of a more general brand, you're gonna wanna try to rank for something outside of your company name.
So for example, I'm in the Alexandria, Washington DC area. So a lot of times people might say Washington DC home inspector.
That's their company name, but that has your keywords there. But if you are Gresh's or Michelle's home inspection company, you want to make sure that you're not just ranking for your brand name.
You want to rank for the keywords that you're hoping people will find. So again, you go through that exercise even before you get on the computer of like, what do I provide?
What's my product and service? How are people potentially searching for it?
What are potentially some other things that might be closely related that people are searching for. So home inspection, some people might think that it's home remodeling.
So you wanna just really think about all the potential keywords that you could potentially rank for. Not to say you have to optimize your pages and posts for them.
But again, it's just a really good exercise because you always wanna think that SEO is all about being there when people are ultimately searching.
And so the third thing is having a location for where you want to rank. 1 of the biggest things, especially for local businesses, is that we forget about that while the people that we have as clients and customers might know we're ranked in a certain area, the internet may not necessarily know that.
So going back to that number 1, understanding Google, understanding that Google has kind of like a language, so to speak, that you want to try to translate your content, your posts, your products and services into so that Google understands what it is that you do.
One those big things that people forget about is their location. If you are a local business, and especially if you want to rank in the Washington, D.C. Area, or you want to rank in Houston, Texas, or whatever it might be, you're going to make sure that you have and are optimizing not just for the home inspector part, but the home inspector in Washington, DC, home inspector in Houston, Texas, home inspector in California.
You really want to make sure that you're doing the state, but really start to drill down and think about different cities, think about counties, think about all these different areas that you can serve.
And really you start to see that those searches could be infinite. So you go through that exercise of those these 3 king of pillar things, And those will really help you to start to go through the exercise of figuring out what people are ultimately ranking for.
Outro 11:40
Hello, hello. This is Gresh again. And I hope you enjoyed that special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.
Just like I mentioned in the beginning, we're really trying to laser focus on these 8 pillars and show you as a builder how you can leverage these 8 pillars and really level up there so it helps to level up your business and organization.
So hope you enjoyed this episode and Definitely please check out the show notes so you can learn more about the pillar, learn more about the person that I guested on their episode, and of course, learn more, a little bit more about us as well, too.
This is Gresh signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
[/restrict]
