David:

[0:00] Well, today it's my pleasure to have with me Lois Wyant from JFT Web Marketing. Lois first embarked on a business venture during high school and later on had a portrait studio with her husband. She has been doing online marketing and has achieved the top three ranking in Google. I'm not sure exactly what that means. I know it's more. She knows what that means. And so now she's sharing her knowledge and expertise on SEO enhancement and online presence and things like that. They’re things that I need to know a lot about, and I'm sure a lot of you do as well. Lois, welcome to Redeeming Business Today podcast. I'm glad you're here.

Lois:

[0:35] Thanks, David. It's a pleasure to be here. I really appreciate it.

David:

[0:38] Thank you. And so, Lois, what is one way you believe that we can honor God in our business that other people may not know about?

Lois:

[0:46] You know, I really feel that at times that we as business owners, first off, don't recognize when he's opened up a door for us. Um it's so easy to say oh that door was closed oh that door was closed but then you're not really recognizing the doors that were open and it kind of like in my experience you know we had a very successful portrait studio for 30 years and honestly we were just getting pretty exhausted it's tiring to chase down brides and two-year-olds and we were ready.

Lois:

[1:21] We were ready to slow down but it's really hard to like not do something you've done for 30 years, and I really look back now because it's easier to look back than to look at it when you're in the situation so I look back now and I really see where god opened up doors for me because I was in charge of the marketing for the studio and I was the one who started us off with a website and the SEO of that website and it was something that I really enjoyed doing and I can see now where God let me use those opportunities to build the photography studio to kind of get that urge in me to want to learn more about it and to just keep learning about it so that I now help other businesses to achieve getting online and being noticed yep.

David:

[2:19] Very good no that's good you're right we like what you say closed doors but don't realize open doors right

Lois:

[2:28] Yeah, we're I mean we're always it's easy to say oh god did that why did he do that why did he do that but then not to recognize oh look we, look what this happened. Look what happened. We know you would just kind of say, oh, it just happened, you know, but really God's hand is right there.

David:

[2:46] It never just happens. It never just happens. It never just happens. Lois, I'd love for you to take about five minutes or so and tell us your journey, how you started from high school to kind of where you're at today and what you're doing now.

Lois:

[3:02] Oh, okay. Well, I, so we, in high school we had clubs, and I was put into this cake decorating club and really enjoyed it. And I have kind of an artistic side. I'm a little more right brained. And so, we got really good at it. And then a friend of the family was getting married and my mom volunteered me to do their holding cake.

Lois:

[3:25] I was, you know, looking back, it was like, oh, that poor cake. But yeah, I couldn't get the flowers to stay on. So I was usually two picks to hold them on and doing all this but you know it just again god opened the door and people started requesting cakes and that's how I paid for my college um completely free I paid for it all just by doing making cakes yeah and so my original goal was I was going to, open a full service bridal studio in Georgia I don't know why Georgia but that was just in my head you know I was just a silly little college girl you know and so the only thing I didn't have experience in was photography specifically wedding photography I had I was working on a minor in photography but I did not have the experience of a wedding photography so I found a photographer to work with that summer before my senior year you know before my big move and everything and here we are 40 years later married with three kids and six grandkids and you know God just Turn the pages. So, I joined his photography studio, was in charge of the marketing, and here we are.

David:

[4:43] You grew from there. Very good. So very good. So, we're going to talk about SEO. So, for those few who do not know what SEO is, what is SEO and how does that impact your business?

Lois:

[4:57] It's search engine optimization, and it's what you do to your website so that it gets ranked higher. The goal usually is Google, but there's other search engines as well. But it's the purpose of doing what Google tells you to do so that you can rank higher.

David:

[5:15] Okay. And so, there's probably not just a page somewhere saying, here, this is all what Google wants you to do. You probably have to find that by trial and error a little bit.

Lois:

[5:27] Actually, Google usually is pretty open about it. But some of the most important points are you will not rank high in Google if your website is not fast. You will not rank high on Google if your website is not mobile friendly. Now, those two work together because I think we're at 68% of people do all their searches on their phone. So, if your phone doesn't look good on mobile and it doesn't load fast, because I've heard people say now that our attention span is actually shorter than a goldfish. So, your sight has to come up very quickly because I've watched goldfish before and they.

Lois:

[6:11] Pretty zippity and don't really pay attention to me when I’m waving at them in the little glass sure that's what the people are that are searching for you on their phone they got has to be open fast then you have your on-page optimization so you've got to let google know what it is that you offer you have to be very clear about it and it needs to match what people are searching so there's a website called answer the public.com and you can actually put your topic in there and it'll actually give you a list of actual searches that are coming up on Google. So, you can really specifically answer those questions or make those your keywords

Lois:

[6:51] that work into your website. So those are a couple of things that are really very important that you won't rank on Google if you don't accomplish those items.

David:

[7:01] Okay. So, if I go to, what did you say answer the public and type in a keyword and there's a bunch of questions on there right am i just using that my keyword or am I using words from the questions on my website

Lois:

[7:16] So all right so you're your subject you'll say that you're I don't know I’ll throw something you're a HVAC company so you'll put HVAC and it'll give you a list and I actually have search this one and it's like 200 questions that people are asking or comments or things that they're searching for. So, then you get through and you pick out what questions are going to be beneficial to you. You make that topic or that answer accommodate your location. So, whether it's your town, or if you're in a big area, like I have a client who's in the Bronx. So, we actually break his pages down to every neighborhood in the Bronx. So, there's a lot of pages there and you want to make sure that you're answering that question either by actually listing the question and then listing the answer or in your content, you're answering that question.

David:

[8:09] Okay. So, you can just have it as a bunch of facts and like frequently asked questions and answer those questions. And that's part of your search.

Lois:

[8:18] You can do frequently asked questions, or you can make it like a part of the tips. Okay. So, like, all right. So, since I started with HVAC, we'll go with that route since it's something that I've been working on recently for their website. So, the HVAC company that I'm working with, we actually change their content every season. So right now, we're working on making the content on the things you need to do to prepare your furnace for winter. And so, every page would go in. Some of the things you wanted on like a specifically city page or a neighborhood page is that you want to include the main keyword in your title. You want to give the content to answer that question you want to give some things to see in that area so that you're associating it with that town you want to include a map of that area so go to Google’s map you need to use their map because the more times you use Google’s tools in a page the better your rankings are and then you want to go through and you want to find a YouTube video about that town and put that in there and then you also want to backlink it to Wikipedia.

David:

[9:33] Interesting. So, you're really tying into a town then as far as for your HVAC person. Yeah.

Lois:

[9:41] So Google gives more information to local searches.

David:

[9:46] Okay. All right. So, what about somebody like me? So, I want to, I'm also a business coach and I love time. I'm very productive.

David:

[9:54] I'd like to help people with their time because they don't always realize it. They want to make more money, but it's systems and it's eliminating waste and it's when it comes down to time is money and if you can do things quicker and more efficiently you're saving a lot of time you're making money and so just helping people with their time what would be a and i don't i don't need to be in my particular town I can help anybody across the nation so what would somebody like me what would I do to get better ranking on Google?

Lois:

[10:25] Okay. For you, I would say that you would need to, again, go to what's, answer the public, find out what specific questions are being asked about time management. From there, you're going to go in and you're going to create a YouTube video to answer each of those questions. Then you're going to go back to your website and you're going to create a page about that particular topic. And you're going to put in your content about the topic better to be bullet points than long content because that goldfish is not going to read all those paragraphs, so bullet points are going to be better for you you're going to then embed that YouTube video in there and then you're going to go and take and share that link into articles on LinkedIn.

David:

[11:13] Okay. Okay.

Lois:

[11:15] Very good. I really feel that that's where you're going to find most of your topical clients. And you can go into Facebook and go into different groups and share that information as well.

David:

[11:29] Okay. So, I did look on that site a little bit since you mentioned it. And I know there's all these different, it's like a whole big wheel about when and who and why and all that stuff. And there's like from less to more frequently asked questions. So you just take the most frequently asked questions and talk about those, I suppose.

Lois:

[11:52] You're going to talk about the questions that you know that your particular clients are looking for.

David:

[11:57] Gotcha.

Lois:

[11:58] So if there are questions, and you also want to think about questions that people have asked you and work with those questions too. But you want to think about what works best for your particular topic. And what resonates most with the type of client that you're looking for.

David:

[12:17] Okay. And so how would I, I sometimes get hit with this, are you making something up and nobody wants this? Or are you actually solving a real problem? How do you determine that? Because I feel like the things I value, but maybe the people I'm talking to, they don't need that. and maybe I'm fishing in the wrong pond or something. Or maybe I need to do something different. Yeah.

Lois:

[12:46] Yeah. I really think that it's a complicated point to find your particular niche of people. And that's probably a lot of throwing in the fishing pole rod and, you know, really throwing in the tackle and trying to find the right particular pond. But –, I think that if you're not finding your client where you are, then you need to probably either switch to a different pond or tweak your information a little bit more. Do a questionnaire. Ask the people that you are communicating with what's important to them. What do they need? What services that you provide do they like?

David:

[13:31] Right. Very good. Very good. And so, you've helped a lot of people. What are some common mistakes you have seen people make that would be handy for people to avoid

Lois:

[13:42] Oh common mistakes well especially the first two things if your site's not fast and it's not mobile friendly then you probably just don't pay for a URL don't pay for your hosting just close down your website because it's not doing any good your website's designed to be kind of your billboard, you know, 24-7, 365. It needs to be informative. It needs to be something that is going to get somebody's information. You should use it as a leak magnet so you're giving away something so that they want to request more information so that you're creating an email list.

Lois:

[14:27] It just needs to make sure that you're following Google's rules and then keep tweaking it okay.

David:

[14:35] Very good and so is this Seo only for online businesses or does it work for brick-and-mortar businesses as well

Lois:

[14:43] Oh yes brick and mortar businesses for sure too i mean any type of service business or business that basically is helping people.

David:

[14:55] I suppose that's because when I was a kid, we used to have the white pages and the yellow pages. And we don't have that anymore. And now we just have all these people who have all these websites. And I know looking for a plumber. It's just like, look up plumbing.

Lois:

[15:10] And it's usually a plumber near me.

David:

[15:15] Yes. Plumber near me.

Lois:

[15:16] So when I started marketing for the studio, it was all direct mail. So you know postcards and all kinds of things like that that we were sending out to people.

David:

[15:27] And I’ve seen it come around circle because then we got away from it and then now i know some people are doing postcards again especially

Lois:

[15:34] During the political seasons.

David:

[15:37] Oh yeah oh yeah very good so how has your relationship with God impacted the way you do business helping people with their SEO?

Lois:

[15:49] I would say that God has given me a lot of patience. People, it's a confusing area of business and it changes constantly. I mean, it's just, it's just a surprise all of a sudden, you know, like, oh, you know, Facebook is doing this now, or Google's doing this now. So, it's just a continuous change. But I just, so the name of my company is JFT Web Marketing. And that stands for Jesus First Today. And that is just a reminder to me is like when I sit down with anything that's got JFT Web Marketing on it, I'm thinking, yeah, God, this is for you. We're doing this together. And he's given me the urge to really approach the challenge of the changes in excitement. You know, I just enjoy learning the new things.

David:

[16:49] Good. Good. And so, what's on the horizon for you? Are you looking at anything new and exciting this next year?

Lois:

[16:57] Oh yeah. AI.

David:

[17:01] What about AI?

Lois:

[17:03] AI is so much fun. I am having so much fun with AI, especially AI videos. They are so good and there's so much fun to do. And they're coming out with AI chatbots, you know, not this typical, like what we think of chatbots where it says, hi, which of these services would you like to know more information about? You know, they're actually sounding and being like real people. I have a mentor who shared that he just reached trade his AI and he calls it Becky. And Becky was chatting with somebody, and he partnered with somebody to do an affiliate. And so, somebody is chatting with Becky and says, actually says, I can't afford this. And Becky, the chat bot, went back and said, well, you know, we ran a special two weeks ago that I could give you and made the sale. It did not have human interaction. And we have AI phone calls coming out.

Lois:

[18:03] Okay, so pretend, let's imagine that you're an auto repair place, okay? And you've got your chat hooked up to your phone. It answers your phone, okay? So, it answers your phone, and it says, it knows, recognizes the phone number. You know, it's just all the personalization that can happen to it. It sounds like a regular voice. And it says, hi, Karen, how are you today? Is it time for another oil change? Looks like it's been three months. And, you know, Karen goes, oh, yeah, actually, I was calling about that. But also, I need this, you know, like, okay, well, let's schedule an appointment. It schedules the appointment and says, is there anything else we should be aware of? You know, and it's like, it sounds like a real person. It's doing the conversation. It's making the appointment. You just think of the time that a person is saving and how personalized I feel because it called me by name. It knew that it was time for this to be done to my car. And I'm just a happy person because somebody recognized me. and just see all the good things that it could actually take.

David:

[19:07] Yeah. Must come a long way. It's come a long way. Yes. So how can my audience find out more about you if they want to work with you and have you help them with their SEO?

Lois:

[19:19] Yeah. So, I'm at JFTwebmarketing.com. And you can also email me at info @JFTwebmarketing. And I'll tell you what, I'll throw in an extra bonus for your listeners. So, send me an email and I will offer you a 15-minute website audit. I'll let you know what you should change on your website. No cost, just for your listeners.

David:

[19:42] Okay, very good. So, they just have to mention the Redeeming Business Today podcast and away you go. Very good. That sounds like a great thing. So, in closing, what is one thing from our talk today that you would like my listeners to act on?

Lois:

[19:59] Okay. So, my dad always told me growing up, work smarter, not harder. And, you know, I think about when I was like in third grade, the teachers were telling us all about, oh, computers coming out. And by the time you're in high school, you know, we'll have all the stuff doing my own computers and we will have to work so hard. And then computers came out and I felt like we were working harder, and we were coming up with what we could do on this computer. And I think that this is the first time as an adult, I feel like, you know what, things might get easier. I think this AI type of marketing is going to give us some time back. So, work smarter, not harder.

David:

[20:44] Work smarter, not harder. And that, and that is the challenge though, is when you get that time back. What do you do with it?

Lois:

[20:51] Yeah.

David:

[20:52] So, well, thank you so much, Lois, for your knowledge and expertise and encouragement. Friends, that's all we have for now. I trust you've been inspired to redeem your business, redeem your time and buy back for God's glory. And remember that time has limits. You can't do everything. So, choose wisely.