Optimizing for success: SEO Strategies for deck builders with expert Daniel

April Edwards (0:45) Hey everyone. Welcome back to the DeckBuilderMarketers Podcast. We Love Deck Builders. I’m April growth strategist here at DeckBuilderMarketers, where we help deck builders grow their business and have the business they deserve. So if you’ve been wondering why your website isn’t bringing in as many leads as you’d like, or you’re just not showing up on the first page of Google when somebody is searching for a deck builder in your area. This episode is for you. So SEO can seem like a mystery. What the heck is it anyway? But it’s actually one of the most powerful tools you can use to grow your business and get more eyes on your work. Today, we’re really lucky to have our very own SEO expert, Daniel here, he’s going to break down how SEO works, and we’re going to talk about how you need to be patient with it, and why, if you are not doing SEO, it could really be costing your business in the long run. So Daniel, thanks so much for joining us today.

Daniel (1:44) Thanks for the invitation, April. I’m glad to be here today.

April Edwards (1:47) So Daniel is, you know, a lot of things that we do here at duck builder marketers are very nerdy, and I would say Daniel’s role might be one of the nerdiest, apart from development. So he’s really digging into data all the time to make sure that you know what we’re doing is going to make an impact. And it’s important, because things change all the time, the way that I mean even talking about motorized pergolas, you know, people know them as louvered pergolas now, or smart pergolas. And so you have to constantly understand how searches are changing and how people are changing in order to keep up anyway. Let’s start with what the heck is SEO anyway? And why does it matter for deck builders?

Daniel (2:32) Sounds good. Well, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, right? And in simple terms, it is the process of optimizing your website to increase its visibility in all search engines like Google, Microsoft, Bing, Yahoo, and any other search engines that are being used around the world. And the idea for this is for us to start appearing on searches when people is looking for the products you sell, the services you provide, or even information surrounding the topics of the services that you’re offering to your audience. So the idea of SEO is practically kind of guaranteeing that you have that top position in organic searches, specifically or the searches that the audience is doing for the products you’re they are looking for. If you have a strong positioning for your pages and for your website in the search results, you are more likely to be found on online and you are more likely to be clicked on. And ultimately, of course, the goal of search engine optimization is to help attract website visitors who will become customers. At the end of the day, they will become clients, that will become your audience, that you will start building, you know, all your community around that organic traffic.

April Edwards (3:42) So, I always like to break it down super simple and compare it. I mean, you know, I’m not a young pup anymore, and I do remember YellowPages back in the day. And so, you know, obviously the Internet is a library, and it’s where people, you know, go to find businesses. I think for deck builders. SEO is extremely important, because if somebody’s going to drop $50,000 on a project, they’re going to be doing their research first. And it is a consumer driven world, so referrals are great, and they’re always going to be one of your highest, you know, close rates, but they’re still going to go online to search for you. You know, they’re still going to they want to see that you’re showing up first. That shows people, subconsciously, that you are an authority. Let’s talk about the customer journey a little bit more. What type of content should you have on your website that really serves a homeowner that’s, you know, looking maybe, looking out the door and considering to do something with their backyard?

Daniel (4:39) Yeah. Well, service pages are important. They should be in your website, and they should be included since the beginning. But then I always defend the idea of having blog post of any other topic that is maybe not exactly, for example, what we are offering to our clients, but have it have some relation with the need of information that they have really. To that service. So for example, and this is especially important for different reasons, because we are already providing information about the service. We are already explaining, you know, what do we do? How do we do it? What can they expect from the service, and specifically for this tech building project, for example, but we can also build content around that tech building activity. So for example, decorations, design ideas, you know, things that are not related to the construction of the deck, but it’s related to the use, or maybe the usability that people can have with that deck. And we are bringing that service into the context of the people, right? So we are not only telling them we can help you build a deck, but also we can, you know, give you examples of how you can use it, how better use it, how to maintain it. And we start building from that information. We start building first, that organic positioning that we are starting to appear more online for new people to find us. But the important thing here is that we are also positioning ourselves as a trusted company, that they can ask us for things, and we can answer them without any problem, because we are recommending and advising a specific information for them. So that’s important for building trust and to become also a thought leader in that specific niche you’re working on. So that’s also important to cover different types of blog content related, of course, to that service, but that it will help us to establish that thought leadership position within the market.

April Edwards (6:25) Yeah, so, I mean, it’s funny, because, like as marketers, we kind of are the matchmakers between the customer and the business, you know, but Google is that in between, and a lot of what we do is send signals to Google and talk their language so that it builds up the visibility authority and basically the props that Google’s going to give you know, our deck builders so their websites show up first. So just, I think, to reinforce what Daniel’s saying, just make sure that you’re being the authority. You’re talking about all the things that people are searching for. You’re not just talking about how great you are. That’s for sure. You want to be very educational. Look at your website as a library. You know, it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. So yes, you you want to have a lot of content on your site, but more so you want it to be very helpful, content that people are going to search for. I would say SEO 101, is like whatever query somebody is putting in. You want to have a page on your website for it. There’s lots of different content that you could come up with to really serve the entire customer journey. From the moment they are considering if they want a deck or pavers, if you know, they’re trying to decide if they want composite or wood, what their budget should be, you know, what features they’re looking for. Or, you know, smart pergolas, lighting, you know, inlays, and then, of course, obviously, finding a deck builder who’s the best deck builder. And that’s where reviews and stuff come into play. So we get a lot to cover. I’m going to keep going. I can keep talking forever, but let’s talk about the difference between SEO and paid ads like Google ads. What’s the difference? And really, I guess, what’s the priority there? What should our deck builders know and consider when they’re putting their marketing strategy together?

Daniel (8:08) Yeah, well, the main difference between SEO and paid ads, it’s specifically that context on how are we showing up to people, right? So SEO is about organic positioning, and organic positioning means we are going to be there when people is looking for something related to us, right? So we are not pushing our way to the people’s eyes, but we are just there when they need us, right? So that’s organic positioning and then paid ads. It’s about us putting money we being visible everywhere they are looking at just because, you know, we want them to be aware of that information. So that’s like the main difference between both of them. However, it doesn’t mean that you should choose between one or another the good way to go. It’s kind of combined the strategy using both organic and paid ads. Specifically because at the beginning of an organic strategy and SEO strategy, you will be start acquiring keywords, it will be slow, and the positioning will be slow. So that’s where you can get some help from your paid ads, that you can maybe position a couple of keywords for you to be first, while you’re starting to get some good rankings on your organic traffic, that will help you to scale up the positioning. But yeah, the main difference between them is that one is neatly organic. It depends on people looking for that information, and you being visible there. You providing value to the people that is having a need of information or a need of a service, in this case and in the paid ads, is you being visible practically everywhere they are, right? So that’s why we have also different types of ads. We have not only the search ads, which are shown on the search engine results page, like if you go on Google, you set up a word, and you click on enter, you will see sponsored content in there. Those are ads that’s a little similar to organic in the sense of they are looking for information and you’re there. But then there are other types of ads, which are more pushy in the sense of their display ads. So whenever you’re navigating in any other website, depending on your cookies. Uh, Google will show you an ad depending on what you’re looking for or what they identify your needs are. So that’s why, when you’re navigating science, you may see ads of jewelry, clothes, toys, books, whatever you have in your history, on your internet provider. And then we also have, for example, video ads in YouTube. So when you’re in YouTube, in Facebook and Instagram, you have ads related to whatever searches, whatever interactions you’re having within those platforms. So those are the ads that are a little more pushy in the sense that we are making sure that people can see us and we are available wherever they are, while the organic is we are available wherever they need us. So that may be like the main difference between them.

April Edwards (10:40) I really like that you brought up doing Google ads in especially when you’re starting with your SEO. Because SEO doesn’t happen overnight. I like to say that you know the difference between the two is, you know, Google ads, soon as you stop paying leads dry up. You’ve built nothing. You have nothing like you’re paying for something that’s it. It’s pretty black and white. You do have good control over it and stuff like that, which is great. And obviously you can get leads pretty quick from it. SEO obviously takes longer, and even if you stop working on it, it’s not going to immediately dry up. It will dry up. We actually have case studies of clients that have left working with us to take it in house, or, you know, work with a family member or something like that, or a different agency, and their results tanked. And I have one particular case study where one tech builder’s traffic went down so bad within the first month that if you do the math with the amount of traffic that they lost with the conversion rate on the website, multiplied by their close rate, and then their average project price, it was about $750,000 you know, that they potentially lost by not keeping up with it. I think the point is, is, if I use the YellowPages reference, you know, if you’re showing up organically, and you’re showing up in the ads, it’s just creating a better impression, and you’re taking up that real estate, and it’s just making you seem like more of an authority. And it’s subconsciously those signals that are going to the user. The other thing is, Google’s not going to directly say it, and you could, you could argue with me, but when you have Google ads running, it is sending signals to Google’s algorithm that people are interested in what you have. And so my opinion is Google ads will help, indirectly, help with your SEO. Do you agree?

Daniel (12:25) Well, all the traffic that you can get into your site, it doesn’t matter from which channel it comes, it will be valuable for your SEO, because at the end of the day, the search engines consider the behavior of your of your audience in order for you to consider you valuable for the people in general. So if the people that is coming, for example, from ads are staying in the site or having a good performance or a good behavior, like visiting other pages, filling a form, or, you know, having some actions within the site, it will show search engines that the site is valuable for the people that is interacting with the app. And that’s a good message. So it would also help the positioning, and also, at the end of the day, especially if we are still working on positioning, any specific keyword, we can also push it with the ads in order to see if the actual audience is interacting with it. So that’s also it’s a good way to combine them both and see if it’s actually a term that it’s bringing interest, or it’s like waking interest in people, or if it’s definitely something that we can let down and focus on other keywords specifically.

April Edwards (13:25) Yeah, and you do have more control with the Google Ads too, in terms of if there are particular services that you want to push, you know, like, I would never recommend, most of our deck builders don’t do deck repairs, but I would never recommend, you know, having keywords for, like, paying for that traffic. You know, you want to pay for the high value traffic. So we got a couple of questions here. We’ve got UglyDecks from Canada. They want to know, how do you know whoever you hire for this is good at their job? That is such a good question. We’re going to go into the journey and really what to expect. And I really hope that you guys find this powerful, because it is difficult. I mean, you guys are busy and you’re paying for somebody to do SEO. It’s super nerdy and technical. You don’t always understand what people are doing depending on who you’re working with, and all you know is you’re investing, and you might not be seeing a return on it right away. And that takes a lot of patience, and it’s scary. So we’ll talk about that a little bit, but I do just want to press it’s super important that whoever you work with you don’t have to understand SEO, but they should be giving you the warm and fuzzy that they’re doing things and they are disclosing what they’re doing and making it simple for you to understand, and meeting with you regularly, and God forbid, they’re not just sending you a bunch of data and making it so you got to figure it out and analyze it yourself, like they should be telling you what’s going on. So we do a pretty good job, I gotta admit, of holding our clients hands and helping them understand that. So just one more question here, while we’re still on the paid ads and SEO. So what’s more cost effective SEO or paid ads? I would look at it in this way. This is from UglyDecks and Canada as well. I would look at it this way, SEO is an earned asset, so you’re really building up something again, that’s not going to just disappear overnight, whereas paid ads will if you stop paying for them, if you know what your cost per lead is for both channels, it’s going to give you the confidence to invest where you need to. So again, with paid ads, you have more control depending on the amount of searches that are out there, and, you know, the the population and stuff like that of the area that you’re targeting. You know, you could ramp up your ad spend in anticipation of, you know, a slower month, you know, things like that. But do you have anything to add, Daniel?

Daniel (15:40) I would just add very related to what you were saying. I think that also the main difference. And maybe what would be a little explaining of that cost effectiveness. If you stop putting money on the paid ads, it will immediately stop, right? If you stop putting money on the SEO, maybe we can talk a little further about that later. But if you stop your SEO strategy, it will keep going for a little while, but then you will see it go down. So it’s pretty much, maybe also with the immediacy of the effect when you’re still working on it. Well in terms of control, as you were also saying before, the paid ads are a little more effective in terms of we can control which keywords we want to be bidding for, right? So we are not in SEO, of course, we focus what keywords we would like to appear for, but it depends on the search engines and also in what people is looking for, and all the keyword variations may exist, but in the paydays, we have more control in that sense. So it depends on the perspective, I would say.

April Edwards (16:34) Yeah, Hopefully that was helpful. Please use our chat message us on any social ask us another question. We definitely want to make sure that you got some value out of that. So let’s go into the journey now. This is the topic that I’m extremely excited about with this segment, because it’s rough, guys. SEO doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s an investment, you know, either in time or, you know, what have you. So we really want to do a good job of kind of painting a picture in a methodical way of what you should be looking for, and you know what kind of the top KPIs key performance indicators are that you should be monitoring in lieu of really reaching that momentum? And you know when your SEO efforts are fully matured and you’re getting that consistent lead flow, can take a little bit of time. So Daniel, tell us a little bit more about the different stages in the journey and kind of time frames that you can use and gage as to you know when to expect what?

Daniel (17:32) Yeah, well, at the beginning we can call it. The foundation of an SEO strategy is pretty much the acquisition of keywords, right? So when we start posting content online and optimizing our own website, because SEO is not only about posting new blogs all the time, but it’s also about optimizing the content that we already have, right so that first stage, which is when you launch a new website, or when you relaunch your website after optimizing it, we also say that it takes around One to three months for search engines to understand what changes have been made to your website, right? Because we also may have in consideration that in SEO, we are not only talking to the people, to your audience, but we also talking to search engines, right?

April Edwards (18:14) Yeah, so we need to make content for both.

Daniel (18:16) Exactly. So we need to make sure that the content is understandable for people, and it answers people’s questions and everything. But at the same time, we need to make sure that search engines understand what that content is about, what does it say, and in order for them to consider us valuable, right? So that first stage, we call it the post launch visibility, which is that stage that may take three months, like months one to three, and it’s pretty much we launched a new website, or we optimize the website and we request a new indexation for, you know, search engines to crawl it. Crawler is the action of search engines looking at the information within your website and understanding what it is about. So once they know what it is about, they start saying, Okay, I will index this page for these specific keywords. I will index this page for these other keywords, and I will do it in these different positions. So it’s that process of search engines understanding what it is about, what do we have in our website, and then how should we position in terms of those specific needs of information? In that first stage, we usually measure impressions. Impressions is the number of times in which we appear as a search result in Google or any other search engines. So the idea is for impressions to increase, because we are also increasing the number of keywords that are related to our website. We also measure the keywords, of course, because if we just optimize the website, or if we are just posting new content, we should be acquiring new keywords and therefore appearing in more searches. And then another important KPI that we consider, especially in this first stage, is to measure what are the most visited pages in those first couple of months, because we can also see if there is a trend or if there are some information that is more important for the. Audience in general. So we can also start looking at what kind of content we can focus on, first to, you know, keep building on that. And then, you know, keep constant analysis on the data that we have. That is the first stage, the visibility. The first three months we’re starting to building that foundation. Then we have the second stage in which we are trying to improve that traffic and the rankings we have. So in that first stage, search engines were understanding what we do. In this second stage, they already understand it. Now we are trying to get higher in those rankings. And that happens when we start bringing traffic to the site, and that traffic starts behaving the way we want them to behave. What do I mean with that? When someone gets into your website and they leave right away. That’s a bounce. So the idea is for us not to have bounces, because a bounce indicates search engines that the content of that website is not solving someone else’s like the people’s needs of information. So if you get into a website and the website takes longer to load, you get out of there even before it loads. Or if it’s loading very slow, you get out of it, that’s a bounce too. So if you leave the website like I would say it’s like under five seconds, or something like that, it is a bounce. So the idea for us not to have bounces, right? That’s the first thing, and that’s a good indication if we have a low bounce rate, or our bounce rate is decreasing. That’s a good indication for search engines to understand that people is finding that content valuable. And then another important behavior that we would like the people to have within our website is the average session duration, right? So ideally, the longer the audience stay within our website, it means that they are finding the right information within it. So if people is getting into the website, reading the blog, or reading the service page, and then at the same time, they’re visiting other pages within the site, or they’re filling a form, or those activities are showing search engines that people, or the audience in general, are finding information valuable within it, and then they will consider it, you know, rank it higher. So that’s the second stage for us to start acquiring new traffic, and that traffic to start behaving the way we would like to, in order for us to get better in the ranking. So that’s why we start measuring in there the traffic, especially the organic traffic, it should start increasing because we’re acquiring new keywords, we’re also measuring the clicks. So how many clicks are we having in the search result page? Which means we are appearing the impressions are how many times we’re appearing, right? So we are appearing, for example, 3000 times this month. But from those 3000 times, how many clicks are we getting, right? So we also calculate the click through rate, so we can see what is the proportion of people that is not only seeing us as a result, but also clicking on our website. And that’s important for us to start building ahead on that second stage. In the third stage, we are starting…

April Edwards (22:53) Wait, Hold on. Okay, let me break it down. So first stage is after the website is launched. We’re trying to get good with Google. We’re trying to establish some visibility. That’s between one to three months. Then the second stage, we’re really focusing on making sure that our rankings are going up, making sure that the traffic is good, and that’s between three to six months. So guys like we haven’t really even not much has happened at this point. We’re talking six months in. Now I’m being definitely things can happen, and they will. But this next stage that we’re going to talk about, I think, is where you start seeing more of a significant impact. So I just wanted the audience to know the timing of everything.

Daniel (23:31) Yes, exactly! And in this third stage, is where we start getting conversions right, because conversions, the thing is that we can happen before, because we’re still building that positioning, we’re still getting ourselves a little higher in those search results. So we may get conversions in the first six weeks, yes, but they’re not going to be consistent. You know, it is not going to be a constant flow of conversions, in that sense, because especially the positioning is low, so the amount of people getting into the website is all over. So in this sense, what we’re doing in those first six months is practically working over getting more traffic that will more likely convert. So we get that funnel right away. In this third stage, which takes from month six to 12, we are now measuring Well, the bounce rates, the time on page which we were talking before, but also the conversions, which means, okay, how many people is filling the forms? How many people would like to, you know, get more information from us. Maybe they want to get a free estimate. How many people is actually wanting to take action from that content that they have already seen before, right? So it’s not only about getting people into the website, but also making people take an action within the website. We also are doing it from the first content that we’re posting, but at the same time it will be scale up with the increase of the organic traffic that we are obtaining on that first stage, and then the fourth stage is pretty much the ongoing success and maintenance. You know, if you’re doing an SEO strategy, especially with SEO, you have to be up to. Mics in your website every month, if not by weekly. Because the thing with SEO is that the algorithms are constantly changing the way Google works now it’s totally different than the way Google worked last year, and it’s totally different than the way Google worked 10 years ago, right? You as a user may believe that it works the same way, because the interface hasn’t changed much. You know, there are some specific like richer snippets or specific results that highlights more than others, but pretty much the way Google works is the same in that aspect. But the algorithm is constantly changing. The algorithm, and specifically what changes is what they consider valuable, what types of content or forms of content, it’s more important, and they will decide to highlight in a different section, as you can see now, in Google, if you do any kind of search in Google, you can see not only the organic results, but if you’re looking for a service, you will also see the Mac back right, so there’s a Mac with the businesses, and then you will see the sponsor content. But you can also see images, results, you can see news. You can see all the kind of results that can happen. So the optimization will make sure that you are you know that your content is staying up to date, not only with the algorithm, but also it is not getting obsolete through time, specific. So the optimization is also important to ensure that you’re getting the position you want to be for a longer time.

April Edwards (26:20) Yeah. And I mean, your competition could, I mean, you got to look at what’s going on with your competition. And, I mean, as a business owner, you got to know what your threats are, you know. And so we look at the competition to see, I can see, when I have a strategy call with a prospect, you know, I’ll look at their competition to see, like, where they are now, and then if a lot of times I’ll see a competitor and their their organic traffic is going up like this, so you can tell that they’re doing something. And while they might not be out ranking, you know, the deck builder that I’m talking to now, they might be leader. And so it’s super important to, you know, understand what’s going on with your competition. Because if you stop doing SEO, they’re just gonna dominate. You know, they’re gonna take over eventually. So we’ve got some questions here. So another one from UglyDecks in Canada. So it sounds like a brand new company should start with paid ads and then move into SEO. Your opinion?

Daniel (27:15) No, I would say, I mean, of course, paid ads give you like a faster result in that sense, but you should do both at the same time, at least if you’re just starting your business, I would recommend you to do both at the same time. For a simple reason, the paid media can give you the right away results that you’re looking for, right so you will start getting more leads and clients right away. But if you wait until you have some clients to start doing SEO, you’re losing time. I always like compare doing SEO with investing in which people say, if you wait too long to invest you will lose the opportunity to get some interest on that money that you may be investing in in the future, right? So it is the same way as SEO. We know that SEO takes time. So in that idea, the faster you start with it, the better, because while you’re getting some leads with paid media, you’re starting to position your site in those specific keywords related to the service. So when the idea is for you to start building that position, and then the idea is for you to start like decreasing the budget that you’re having in paid media, because any specific keyword is already positioned organically, so you don’t have to pay for it anymore, right? So that’s the way to complement both strategies. So I would recommend for you to start with paid media and also with SEO. Start building that foundation, and then when you see that SEO is helping and the position is good for some specific keywords, you can start decreasing the budget and search, and then maybe focusing that budget on display or video or any other ads that may be useful for you. And I’m saying this is not paid ads in the digital world, if you see that your audiences, they have a builder in your town, and that builder is important because there’s a lot of traffic that sees it. Maybe that budget that you’re setting into search, you have position already that keyword, so you don’t need that budget. Maybe you can put it in a sponsoring an event in your community, so you can have that visibility, you know, in order for you to be visible for people in your community and in the space you want to offer your services in. So I would start with both, just because SEO takes a lot of time you should, you know, capitalize that time while you’re getting the leads on paid media.

April Edwards (29:15) Well, plus there’s a quality score within the ads, and I believe, and it’s kind of dependent on how well your site is optimized for the keywords you’re trying to pay for. I guess, quick tip like keep that into consideration if you create a landing page or if you just point people to your website. All right, we got another question here from Precision Builders, how should a brand new company with not very much online presence get started with marketing? So I don’t know we’re still like working through all the live stream stuff here, but I did post a link to an article that is really helpful. And if you can’t see the link, just search for how to market my deck business on a budget. And it loves that you should be doing help to get going. But I would definitely say your biggest priority is getting that Google business profile up and going and optimized as much as possible whatever questions they ask you. You put it in there, like, just fully flush it out. Do you have any other words of wisdom? Daniel.

Daniel (30:15) I would say, well, in order to have online presence, you know, get a website, make sure it is optimized. So just start getting like, that position for this specific service. If it’s something that you can do, get some link, maybe the media outlet. If you have friend that is journalist, if you have you know, business partners that also have website, get them to refer your site. And you refer their site to because you start building links around and start, like creating some value around your website. And the most important thing, especially for local businesses, get your Google business profile optimized and fill it out. It sounds complicated to optimize it. It’s really very simple. Just fill your information, you know, get the information on your name, your address, your phone, your website, put the information about your working hours, your services, your products, try to get reviews on it, and answer to those reviews. That’s also very important. So in order for you to just start building that online presence, get a website, and also get a Google business profile and be very consistent in the information you have in both of them, because also search engines recognize when your Google business profile says something and your website says something completely different. And also, if you’re getting mentions on for example, you see those pages that says the best building companies in this specific city, you know. And if they are listing company that has a name but the website, maybe you change, for example, the name of your company, and therefore they are linking to your site, but your site now has a different name. Those inconsistencies also affect your positioning. So the idea is to, you know, be as coherent as possible with all the listings that you have in your website, in your Google business profile, and then the other listings that you may be creating. So for example, in those specific examples of listings that you don’t control, try reaching out to them. Hey, thanks for linking us. We changed our name, but it’s the same company. You know, we would appreciate if you can, you know, adjust this information just for people to have, like, the most updated information in there. So, yeah, just make sure that all the information you have is coherent with your business.

April Edwards (32:14) Okay, cool! We had another question from Garden structure asking, what’s your advice on qualifying? I tried to reply in the chat here, because I’m not exactly sure what your question is. I could take that in a million different ways. So if you can kind of re-ask the question, we’d love to answer that for you. I would like to kind of end things with really going over the top mistakes that we see deck builders make with their SEO. I’II kind of kick things off here and then have you fill in the blinks, Daniel, but I think the first is just not even doing anything. I would say, not updating your website and not having it built technically sound. But the biggest thing is, I mean, sometimes I talk to prospects, I offer a free strategy call if anyone’s interested, where I go over your online presence and give you tips and kind of point you in the right direction. But a lot of times they won’t even say where they’re located. So I want to see how they’re ranking in a particular location when I’m doing my review and I don’t even know where they’re at, so Google’s not going to know where you’re at, so at least put where you are, even if you know you have a home address, like you don’t need to put your home address if you don’t want, but put your city, put the areas that you serve on your site, and then just getting a Google business profile up and not adding rich content to it, I would say, is another thing. And we haven’t really talked about reviews very much, but it’s something that I just can’t reinforce enough how important it is for you to have a system in place to get those reviews. People will leave you reviews. If they are happy about their new outdoor living space. They just get busy, you know, and they forget. And so you kind of have to keep reminding them in a very sexy way. And so having a system in place that automates that for you really helps. And I’m not going to spill beans, but we give our clients a little something, something something that helps with that too. Am I missing anything? Can you think of any other like high level, big mistakes that you see deck builders make?

Daniel (34:08) Yeah, from the SEO perspective, I have two examples that they happen just because deck builders don’t know about it. And they have all the right to not knowing about it, because they are very technical within the SEO right? So April really covered so important things like that, you have to include within your website, you know, the information being clear about your location. But again, talking about the fact that we are also communicating with the machines, right? We’re talking with the search engines. We’re talking with technology, in order for technology to understand what we are and where to position us. I would say that the two biggest mistakes is first, not knowing about indexation, right? So we sometimes, well, when we are not SEO savvy, or, you know, if we’re not learning about SEO, we just assume that websites are just appearing automatically on Google, and that’s why we have a website. It will automatically. Really appear on Google. Sometimes it does, but not necessarily. It happens for all the pages within your website. So I think one of those mistakes, or it’s not really a mistake, it’s maybe something that happens because you just don’t know about it, is that make sure that all your important pages are indexed right. So through Google Search Console, you do that exercise, and then the other thing would be, every word that you use within your website is a potential keyword you can appear for. And this is important because this is not only about the written content that you have, like the titles, like the meta tag, like the body of your blog post. It’s also about the titles of your images, for example. And this is very interesting, because we’ve got, well, in my career in general, I’ve had examples of clients that have weird keywords appearing in their keyword report that they are like, I don’t understand. Why am I getting traffic from this keyword? Let’s say an example they got. It’s a bank, for example, or, well, in this case, a deck builder. And they are just getting traffic from a keyword that says, family having a picnic in a park, right? And they’re like, why am I appearing as a search result for this specific keyword? And the answer is, you should check your images titles, because the titles of your images and the meta tags related to your images are also taken into consideration for you to appear as a search result. So every word that you use, even if it is visible for the audience or just visible for the search engines, it’s also a potential keyword you can appear on. So again, this is not really a mistake, but maybe something that happens because you don’t know about this. So just knowing about it, and, you know, making sure and being conscious that this is also an option for us to strengthen our positioning. The idea, especially with titles from images is to focus search engines on a specific topic, right? If we are a deck building company, want to make sure that all the images that we use have titles related to the building, right? So this is multi level deck. This is a composite deck. This is a custom deck. It has degrading to have the lightings, you know, using the terms related to the service. What happens if we have a lot of images with different titles in the site, just search engines won’t understand the main concept or the main information of your page, right? So if we focus on the meta tag, that’s how they are, called this information, if we focus all these meta tags within that keyword or that idea, they will understand, okay, this page is about tech building services in this specific town in this specific state. But if we don’t, they will say, okay, the title says deck builders, town and state. The content says deck builder, custom deck, you know, composite deck and all of that. But then the images said people working on a project or constructing a kitchen, or, you know, women talking to a phone. You know, those specific like random titles that are just misleading the search engines on what the real content of the page is, so that may affect those video positioning. So just make sure that all the words that you’re using within your website, even if they are visible or not, have some consistency with your value proposition.

April Edwards (37:55) Good Stuff! that kind of ties into a question that we have a little bit here. So the qualifying question was out of 100 How do you propose filtering out the shoppers and price based clients? Kind of a loaded question. There are different approaches that we take to help with that. Your form. We try and drive everybody to the form on the website, because it gives us that opportunity to ask those lead qualifying questions for custom deck builders. We typically have a budget drop down menu with minimum. So, you know, a lot of times that’s 15,000 25,000, whatever it is that you’re looking for that you don’t want to go under. That’s an indicator that they might not or you might not be the right deck builder for them because they don’t have the budget right asking other questions like, How soon do you want to get started? If they’re saying, next week? I don’t know that type of client, really, it’s your positioning. So that’s what Daniel was talking about. If you’re selling products and services, you know, it’s difficult. It’s more difficult because what is, you know, you need to make it very clear and what your priority is. I think positioning, having a good online presence, showing up everywhere, being consistent, leveraging all the places where people are spending their time, people won’t be ready to rock and roll as soon as they see your site. So you know you want to nurture them and establish that trust through social media and email marketing. If you’re doing retargeting ads as well. That’s a great way to continue to show up and just remind people that you are worth your price. If your website looks bad and they only see you one time, they’re not going to look at you as big of an authority. So I hope that helps anything you want to close out with?

Daniel (39:40) Just mentioning the velocity in which an SEO strategy can boost or start giving results depends a lot on people. Remember that SEO is about organic, and organic is about letting people do their research and find the information. So it also depends a lot on what people are doing or the behavior they are having. And I will give you an example with this idea. An SEO specialist does a research on keywords before proposing or doing a proposal on the content that we can create or the keywords that we should include. And usually, these platforms give us an estimated search volume for any specific month, right? So we can have that as a guide, but that’s just an estimation. Like we can actually see the real result once it is posted and see if it is being positioned, you know if it is getting traffic, if people is actually interacting with it. So it depends on that information. And specifically, when you’re in a niche market, the amount of people doing searches is way smaller, and therefore the velocity of it to have results is also slower. So it depends a lot on people. And I compare niche markets with countries, for example, because before I worked with other agencies in which we had clients in different countries, and it happened that we had clients from Colombia or Mexico, which are big countries that have a lot of traffic, they usually got results faster than clients that were located in Uruguay or Bolivia or Peru, because Bolivia and Peru Uruguay, they have lower population, but at the same Time, there’s a lower chance for people to be looking for those keywords at that time. So is your local business in a niche? It’s the same situation, but, you know, in your community, so what are the chances that your community is actively looking for tech building all around the year? It’s not that high. So it also depends on the amount of people looking at it, and then the amount of people interacting with your results. So it depends a lot on this specific behavior from people and what people is looking for. But that’s why, especially for niche businesses, it takes a little longer, but it is worth it. I what I like about SEO is that it has that snowball effect that it also happened in finances. You know, when you’re doing investing and you’re getting, like the compound interest, it has also a snowball effect in which you’re getting interest over the interest that you already got before. So in SEO, it works the same way. You’re getting visits, not only from the content that you just posted today, but you’re still getting visits from the content you posted a year ago, two months ago, three months ago. So you’re still bringing traffic from them and just building from there. It’s like you’re having a building, the first content is the foundations of that building, and you’re just adding floors on it. So the idea of an SEO is just, you know, keep building on that foundation that you have already established.

April Edwards (42:10) Love it. Love it. Well, Daniel, thank you so much for all of this valuable information. I definitely think our listeners are walking away with a much clearer idea of how important SEO is for their business. And I mean, just like you said, just like building a great deck, it’s about having a strong foundation. And you know, I guess our biggest tip here is just be patient with the process. For everyone watching, if you’ve been struggling to get your business noticed online, or wondering why leads aren’t coming through, hopefully, you know now, so SEO is the answer. It’s not an overnight fix. You need to find the right partner, and you’re going to see long term success. So it was really great to have some listeners come in with some questions. So we’ll continue to do this. I did put a link here to book a free strategy session with me if we weren’t able to get to your questions, or, you know, you wanted me to review your individual site. I’m always here to do that. And as always, if you have any questions or need help getting started, reach out to us on the website social media. We’re here to help grow your business and help you get those leads rolling in. So to our listeners, make sure that you tune in to our next episode, and as always, keep moving forward.