1 00:00:01,760 --> 00:00:05,600 If your website builds are SEO friendly, but they're still not ranking well 2 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:09,400 or making the sales your clients were hoping. For, Being SEO friendly and being 3 00:00:09,400 --> 00:00:12,880 SEO optimized are two different things. This episode explains why, 4 00:00:13,040 --> 00:00:16,480 and it probably isn't your fault. I think web designers and 5 00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:20,280 developers need to remember that when someone is asked whether their 6 00:00:20,280 --> 00:00:24,080 website is working for them, it's the web designer that gets blamed if 7 00:00:24,080 --> 00:00:25,040 the answer is no. 8 00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:33,740 Most clients don't actually ask for SEO friendly, but they 9 00:00:33,740 --> 00:00:37,340 do ask, will people find me? And that question 10 00:00:37,340 --> 00:00:41,180 carries a lot more weight than it sounds. Because what we 11 00:00:41,180 --> 00:00:44,860 as web designers are usually offering, clean structure, good 12 00:00:44,860 --> 00:00:48,540 hierarchy, fast loading pages, isn't the SEO 13 00:00:48,540 --> 00:00:52,060 the clients are thinking of. Today I'm joined by Nicky 14 00:00:52,060 --> 00:00:55,260 Pilkington, the hands down queen of SEO. 15 00:00:55,580 --> 00:00:59,340 With more than 30 years experience in the industry, Nikki is not 16 00:00:59,340 --> 00:01:03,060 just the go to SEO person, she also teaches 17 00:01:03,060 --> 00:01:06,900 other SEO pros, web designers and copywriters in how 18 00:01:06,900 --> 00:01:08,860 to get websites ranking consistently. 19 00:01:13,580 --> 00:01:17,380 In this episode, Nikki puts words to a distinction that has caused 20 00:01:17,380 --> 00:01:21,100 years of confusion, frustration, and misplaced blame. 21 00:01:21,260 --> 00:01:25,100 I think the first thing to say is it's not a web designer's job 22 00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:29,000 to know SEO in the same way as it's not an SEO's job to know 23 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:32,680 web design. But it's good for both of us to know a little bit about 24 00:01:32,680 --> 00:01:36,160 each other's work and how things go. What most web 25 00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:39,640 designers are doing is producing a website that hopefully is 26 00:01:39,640 --> 00:01:43,080 SEO friendly. So as you say, the 27 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:46,480 images are optimized, the H1, H2, H3 28 00:01:46,480 --> 00:01:49,720 hierarchy's in the right place. No one's using H 29 00:01:49,960 --> 00:01:53,490 headers for style. They're using it in a hierarchical 30 00:01:53,490 --> 00:01:57,250 basis like it should be. There was, there's a space for a meta title, there's 31 00:01:57,250 --> 00:02:00,730 a space for a meta description. You can put alt tags in and things like 32 00:02:00,730 --> 00:02:04,490 that. And all of those things make a site SEO friendly. And that's great because 33 00:02:04,490 --> 00:02:08,330 there are some web designers that develop sites that don't have those things and 34 00:02:08,330 --> 00:02:12,090 they're not SEO friendly. But what that doesn't mean is that 35 00:02:12,090 --> 00:02:15,730 a site is SEO optimized. And that's where things fall down. 36 00:02:16,050 --> 00:02:19,490 Because being SEO friendly and being SEO optimized are two different things. 37 00:02:20,690 --> 00:02:24,110 This is where expectations quietly harden into disappointment. 38 00:02:24,430 --> 00:02:27,710 The site launches, it looks great, everyone's happy, 39 00:02:28,350 --> 00:02:31,870 and then nothing happens. No inquiries, no 40 00:02:31,870 --> 00:02:35,630 traction. And when clients go looking for answers, the 41 00:02:35,630 --> 00:02:39,190 website, not the assumptions behind it, becomes the thing they 42 00:02:39,190 --> 00:02:42,790 blame. When they say to you, is my site SEO 43 00:02:42,790 --> 00:02:46,430 friendly? And you say yes, they presume that means they're going to be number 44 00:02:46,430 --> 00:02:49,970 one for recruitment company in Glasgow as soon as you press 45 00:02:49,970 --> 00:02:53,730 go on that website. And we all know that's not going to happen. So what 46 00:02:53,730 --> 00:02:57,490 most web designers then do is they say, give me 10 keywords, 47 00:02:57,890 --> 00:03:01,330 and your client goes, okay, I am a recruitment company. I 48 00:03:01,810 --> 00:03:05,289 advertise jobs. I'm looking for job seekers. And they give you 10 49 00:03:05,289 --> 00:03:08,130 keywords and you put them in the meta titles and you put them in the 50 00:03:08,130 --> 00:03:11,930 meta descriptions. If you've got a bit of common sense about you, they're 51 00:03:11,930 --> 00:03:15,410 okay. They do all right. And then you hand this over to your client 52 00:03:15,860 --> 00:03:19,540 and they have their SEO optimized website. But what 53 00:03:19,540 --> 00:03:23,180 you forget is that SEO is a huge field. 54 00:03:23,180 --> 00:03:26,980 It's huge. We don't start with the keywords the client gives 55 00:03:26,980 --> 00:03:29,980 us and we put them in a website. There's a lot of research that goes 56 00:03:29,980 --> 00:03:32,980 into it. We need to know the intent of the search. I need to know 57 00:03:33,300 --> 00:03:37,140 who is looking for that type of website. Is that website giving 58 00:03:37,140 --> 00:03:40,900 that searcher the information that they need? Can I 59 00:03:40,900 --> 00:03:44,560 optimize that page for a certain search phrase or not? Are there 60 00:03:44,560 --> 00:03:48,320 other search phrases around it? And none of those things are a 61 00:03:48,320 --> 00:03:52,000 web designer's job. So you're, as a web designer, you're just giving 62 00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:55,920 your client the ability to optimize a site. You 63 00:03:55,920 --> 00:03:59,760 can't. And I, or I, I won't say can't. You shouldn't 64 00:04:00,079 --> 00:04:03,880 be claiming to optimize a site unless you're 65 00:04:03,880 --> 00:04:07,360 doing all the other things that come along with SEO as well, which 66 00:04:07,440 --> 00:04:10,960 in the main, most web developers and designers aren't doing. 67 00:04:11,420 --> 00:04:14,900 Some do a lot don't. And it's not a 68 00:04:14,900 --> 00:04:17,420 denigration of web designers because it's not their job. 69 00:04:18,460 --> 00:04:22,260 Yeah. And it's interesting what some people think a web 70 00:04:22,260 --> 00:04:25,740 designer's job is. And, you know, other people will 71 00:04:26,140 --> 00:04:29,660 think, oh, well, if it's web design, they should be able to do this 72 00:04:29,740 --> 00:04:33,420 and that. And I think that it's about holding really good boundaries 73 00:04:33,420 --> 00:04:37,020 as well. I've had a client recently who's submitted all the website 74 00:04:37,020 --> 00:04:40,680 copy for their website and they said, oh, and we've submitted 75 00:04:40,840 --> 00:04:44,160 the document of keywords that we had done for SEO 76 00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:47,640 purposes seven years ago. You know, we thought you'd find that 77 00:04:47,640 --> 00:04:51,440 useful. I'm like, where? How? I. I'm not writing the copy. 78 00:04:51,440 --> 00:04:55,120 I'm. This is nothing really to do with me. My job as a web 79 00:04:55,120 --> 00:04:58,880 designer is to take the copy and the images and 80 00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:02,680 the brand kit that you've given me and create a website out of it. 81 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:06,710 Like we say that is SEO friendly. I think where the 82 00:05:06,710 --> 00:05:10,110 market is so competitive, I often hear website 83 00:05:10,270 --> 00:05:13,790 designers and developers saying, oh well, when I do a 84 00:05:13,790 --> 00:05:17,510 client's website, I will hook it up to Google Search Console and 85 00:05:17,510 --> 00:05:20,270 I'll do some keyword research and I'll do this, that and the other and it's 86 00:05:20,270 --> 00:05:22,510 like. But then that's not website design. 87 00:05:24,030 --> 00:05:27,750 Website design, website development is taking the brief and making the 88 00:05:27,750 --> 00:05:31,550 website out of them. And I think that sometimes when people. 89 00:05:32,380 --> 00:05:35,900 Come to us for websites and it. Can be hard because you hear about all 90 00:05:35,900 --> 00:05:39,660 the DIY website builders and stuff like that, 91 00:05:39,820 --> 00:05:43,620 when people come for websites, they don't realize the intricacies that 92 00:05:43,620 --> 00:05:47,380 goes into the building of a website. They just think it's like a 93 00:05:47,380 --> 00:05:51,180 one and done situation. I think they do. And I think the thing that 94 00:05:51,980 --> 00:05:55,820 is the site swings and roundabouts really. You've got the DIY website 95 00:05:56,220 --> 00:05:59,610 systems like WIX and Squarespace and things like that, and to a certain 96 00:05:59,610 --> 00:06:03,170 extent WordPress. But the problem with those 97 00:06:03,250 --> 00:06:06,770 is that they give people a lot of leeway and 98 00:06:07,330 --> 00:06:10,930 a lot of leeway to get things wrong. So 99 00:06:11,170 --> 00:06:14,770 those types of sites aren't going to tell you. If you put a H1 100 00:06:14,770 --> 00:06:18,610 heading halfway down a page as the third H1 you'd use 101 00:06:18,610 --> 00:06:21,290 because you like the size of the text, they're not going to tell you that's 102 00:06:21,290 --> 00:06:24,930 wrong. As a web designer, you guys know that. You know those things are wrong. 103 00:06:24,930 --> 00:06:28,780 You know about hierarchy, you know about structure, you know much 104 00:06:28,780 --> 00:06:32,460 more about how to make a site look good than the person using WIX 105 00:06:32,460 --> 00:06:36,260 or whatever. And in the same way as the person using WIX or Squarespace 106 00:06:36,500 --> 00:06:40,020 has the ability to optimize a site, 107 00:06:40,180 --> 00:06:43,980 those sites are SEO friendly. Your websites that you design are SEO 108 00:06:43,980 --> 00:06:47,780 friendly. Again, I think it's an education process. I think that 109 00:06:47,940 --> 00:06:51,220 a client that comes to you and says, will it be SEO optimized? And if 110 00:06:51,220 --> 00:06:54,950 you say it will be SEO friendly, then that 111 00:06:54,950 --> 00:06:57,830 to them, you have said to them, you are going to be number one for 112 00:06:57,830 --> 00:07:01,590 your chosen key phrases. Yes. And the only thing that you can do with those 113 00:07:01,590 --> 00:07:05,430 clients is I don't know your whole process. But lots of web designers will 114 00:07:05,430 --> 00:07:08,910 say give me 10 keywords or give me the keywords for this page. 115 00:07:09,310 --> 00:07:12,910 And they'll put them into the meta titles and they'll put, they'll write a little 116 00:07:12,910 --> 00:07:16,590 meta description, they'll put the content that the client's given them into the page 117 00:07:16,910 --> 00:07:20,350 and they've done everything they should do. As a web designer, that is your job. 118 00:07:20,640 --> 00:07:24,360 You've done what you've been told to do. The client will then come back, I 119 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:28,200 think at times and say, but I'm not number one for recruitment in Glasgow, 120 00:07:28,200 --> 00:07:31,640 or I'm not number one for, I don't know, widgets in 121 00:07:31,640 --> 00:07:35,360 Brighton or whatever. And the reason that they're not is because they're not SEO 122 00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:39,040 experts either. You've basically said, what keywords do you want putting in? 123 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:42,640 They've given you those. They're not experts. You're not an SEO expert. 124 00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:46,320 No. SEO experts looked at this, there might have been a bit of keyword research 125 00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:50,050 done somewhere down the line. And what they've got is a website that has all 126 00:07:50,050 --> 00:07:53,690 the SEO fundamentals in it, but not 127 00:07:53,690 --> 00:07:57,370 in the right way. And then someone like me comes along 128 00:07:57,610 --> 00:08:01,130 and says to them, oh, I see, you haven't optimized your website. 129 00:08:01,690 --> 00:08:05,290 And that's where it all falls down. Because they think they've optimized the website. 130 00:08:10,490 --> 00:08:14,060 One of the hardest ideas for clients to accept is always also one of the 131 00:08:14,060 --> 00:08:17,620 simplest. Visibility isn't something you install once 132 00:08:17,860 --> 00:08:21,500 it's ongoing and it's maintenance. And selling 133 00:08:21,500 --> 00:08:24,940 SEO or even websites as a one and done 134 00:08:24,940 --> 00:08:28,260 solution sets everyone up for the same disappointment 135 00:08:28,500 --> 00:08:32,180 just later. If I optimize a website today and it's 136 00:08:32,180 --> 00:08:35,500 number one for all of its search phrases, let's say it's not going to be 137 00:08:35,500 --> 00:08:38,420 number one for all of its search phrases. If I do nothing and leave it 138 00:08:38,420 --> 00:08:42,000 for six months because someone else is going to come along and 139 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:45,800 optimize their site, or a new company will come along, or a competitor 140 00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:49,600 will come along or something will happen, Google will do 141 00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:52,840 an update and suddenly they won't be number one anymore. And 142 00:08:53,080 --> 00:08:56,920 SEO is always going to be an ongoing thing. And I 143 00:08:56,920 --> 00:09:00,440 think that the mistake that web designers and web developers 144 00:09:00,920 --> 00:09:04,760 make is selling it as a one off thing. They sell it as a 145 00:09:04,920 --> 00:09:06,920 your site is optimized. Here you go. 146 00:09:14,040 --> 00:09:17,760 When budgets get tight, corners get cut, usually where the 147 00:09:17,760 --> 00:09:21,159 impact is hardest to see up front. The copywriting, 148 00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:24,960 the strategy, the intents and what feels like 149 00:09:24,960 --> 00:09:28,360 saving money early on often just ends up as more 150 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:31,810 costs further down the line. I think SEO, 151 00:09:33,010 --> 00:09:36,730 web design in general for SEO has been an educational 152 00:09:36,730 --> 00:09:40,410 process for the whole 30 years I've been doing it. I don't know how 153 00:09:40,410 --> 00:09:43,890 many times I have said it's an education process in 154 00:09:43,890 --> 00:09:47,690 calls, articles, podcasts, whatever. Over 30 155 00:09:47,690 --> 00:09:50,810 years. It's been a lot and I'm still saying it. And you think people would 156 00:09:50,810 --> 00:09:54,290 be bloody well educated by now, let's be honest, but they're Not. 157 00:09:54,530 --> 00:09:57,450 And this is the thing that, like you say, they've spent a big chunk of 158 00:09:57,450 --> 00:10:01,130 money on a website and you know, they've probably had to think about it 159 00:10:01,130 --> 00:10:04,250 and save up. And if they've paid for branding as well, that's a big chunk 160 00:10:04,250 --> 00:10:07,890 of money. And everything is sold towards this 161 00:10:07,890 --> 00:10:11,570 end goal. And the end goal is when your website launches, it's going to look 162 00:10:11,570 --> 00:10:15,050 amazing and it's going to do really well for your business. 163 00:10:15,530 --> 00:10:19,170 And then someone comes along and goes, oh, have you thought about SEO? And they 164 00:10:19,170 --> 00:10:22,930 haven't thought about it because why would they, why would the managing director of 165 00:10:22,930 --> 00:10:26,610 a coaching company think about SEO? That's, that's not his job. Why 166 00:10:26,690 --> 00:10:30,410 would the owner of a boutique gallery think 167 00:10:30,410 --> 00:10:33,970 about SEO? As far as they're concerned, that's their web designer's job. That's 168 00:10:34,290 --> 00:10:38,130 like all locked in there with web design. A big part of the problem is 169 00:10:38,130 --> 00:10:41,810 the web designers that don't understand that 170 00:10:41,810 --> 00:10:45,050 SEO is a different thing. They are all, they willfully 171 00:10:45,050 --> 00:10:48,850 misunderstand that it's a separate thing. And 172 00:10:48,850 --> 00:10:52,050 so they will say to their clients, yes, we'll SEO the website. 173 00:10:52,370 --> 00:10:56,050 Yes, the website will be optimized. Yes, the website will be fully 174 00:10:56,050 --> 00:10:59,730 available to be ranked in Google. And all of those things 175 00:10:59,730 --> 00:11:03,490 mean different things. Yes, the website is SEO friendly. That doesn't mean it's 176 00:11:03,490 --> 00:11:07,250 optimized. And when your client says that 177 00:11:07,250 --> 00:11:10,450 to you, when your client says, is this website going to be optimized? The knee 178 00:11:10,450 --> 00:11:14,130 jerk reaction is to say yes, because it's going to pass the page 179 00:11:14,130 --> 00:11:17,910 speed insight tests, is going to say it's 100% on 180 00:11:17,910 --> 00:11:21,510 accessibility, 100% on SEO, hopefully 100% on 181 00:11:21,510 --> 00:11:25,230 speed and all of that. And as far as you're concerned, it is SEO 182 00:11:25,230 --> 00:11:28,910 friendly. But the education process comes in 183 00:11:29,150 --> 00:11:32,829 telling your clients what SEO friendly means and what 184 00:11:32,990 --> 00:11:36,030 search engine optimized means. And until 185 00:11:36,510 --> 00:11:40,030 web designers can understand that and web developers can understand that 186 00:11:40,350 --> 00:11:44,060 and put that out there, then clients are still gonna 187 00:11:44,060 --> 00:11:47,900 keep misunderstanding it. And again, it's that education 188 00:11:48,140 --> 00:11:51,740 process. It's getting it out on podcasts and things 189 00:11:52,140 --> 00:11:55,900 like this and articles and blogs and in general conversation 190 00:11:56,220 --> 00:11:59,700 of just because you have a website doesn't mean you 191 00:11:59,700 --> 00:12:03,180 automatically are going to be found on Google or AI 192 00:12:03,180 --> 00:12:07,020 search or whatever. Because in the same way as if someone 193 00:12:07,020 --> 00:12:10,850 came to me and said, redesign my website, I couldn't do it. And 194 00:12:10,850 --> 00:12:14,170 you, and I know I designed a page and you pulled its pieces, 195 00:12:14,650 --> 00:12:18,490 rightfully so you pulled its pieces in so many ways that I hadn't even thought 196 00:12:18,490 --> 00:12:22,010 of because that's not my job. That's not what I do. 197 00:12:22,410 --> 00:12:26,210 And it hadn't even occurred to me that I need to leave space 198 00:12:26,210 --> 00:12:29,970 and I need to. This needs to have this color and this needs that. That 199 00:12:29,970 --> 00:12:33,530 doesn't occur to me because that's not my job. And it's the same thing. That 200 00:12:33,530 --> 00:12:36,890 you could produce a website that is perfectly SEO friendly 201 00:12:37,390 --> 00:12:41,230 and it has keywords in the meta title and it has a nice 202 00:12:41,470 --> 00:12:45,070 clickable description and it has the hierarchy of the 203 00:12:45,070 --> 00:12:48,670 H1s, and you may even have done a really, 204 00:12:49,070 --> 00:12:52,710 really good job of an internal linking structure and topic 205 00:12:52,710 --> 00:12:56,390 clusters and things like that. But at the end of the day, I'm going to 206 00:12:56,390 --> 00:12:59,950 look at it and say, but that's not going to work. And this is why. 207 00:13:00,590 --> 00:13:04,150 And what happens with web designers, I think, 208 00:13:04,150 --> 00:13:07,690 is that if they tell their clients that a site's 209 00:13:08,010 --> 00:13:11,730 optimized, they say, yeah, your site's optimized. Give me some 210 00:13:11,730 --> 00:13:15,410 keywords. They put those keywords in, the client goes away. The client comes to me 211 00:13:15,410 --> 00:13:18,330 and says, my site's been optimized. And I go, yeah, it hasn't. 212 00:13:19,050 --> 00:13:22,730 And then we all look bad, all of us. The web designer looks bad 213 00:13:22,890 --> 00:13:26,570 because they've told the client it's optimized and it's 214 00:13:26,570 --> 00:13:29,930 not. And the client looks bad because they feel a bit stupid 215 00:13:30,170 --> 00:13:33,980 because they believe that and they don't know who to trust either. And I look 216 00:13:33,980 --> 00:13:37,740 bad because it looks like I'm going, yeah, web developers are. Which I'm 217 00:13:37,740 --> 00:13:41,420 not saying, by the way, and everybody looks bad in that situation. 218 00:13:41,740 --> 00:13:45,500 Whereas the more that you can educate clients in your 219 00:13:45,500 --> 00:13:49,340 or potential clients in your sales process to say, look, these are 220 00:13:49,340 --> 00:13:52,660 the things you need. And in the same way as you'd say, we'd advise you 221 00:13:52,660 --> 00:13:56,220 to get your copy written professionally, we'd 222 00:13:56,220 --> 00:13:59,830 advise you not to design your own logo in canva. We'd 223 00:13:59,830 --> 00:14:03,630 advise you to whatever other 224 00:14:03,630 --> 00:14:06,950 things you would advise people to do. You might advise people to talk to a 225 00:14:06,950 --> 00:14:10,030 UX specialist or your personal ux, 226 00:14:10,830 --> 00:14:14,550 like consultation or whatever. Should we just stop hearing that same 227 00:14:14,550 --> 00:14:18,190 person? I won an award for my ux, so I wouldn't be 228 00:14:18,190 --> 00:14:21,790 sensitive. As I said, I thought, 229 00:14:21,790 --> 00:14:25,230 no, she is a UX person. It was the first out of the three awards 230 00:14:25,230 --> 00:14:28,610 I won. The first one was for user experience, so I won't be sending them 231 00:14:28,610 --> 00:14:32,010 elsewhere. But there's a moment in almost 232 00:14:32,090 --> 00:14:35,690 every project where someone says, I can do that as well. 233 00:14:36,410 --> 00:14:40,250 And sometimes that's true, but often it's how 234 00:14:40,250 --> 00:14:44,010 clear professional boundaries start to blur and how quality 235 00:14:44,010 --> 00:14:47,690 Drops. There's the branding and the logo and the graphics, 236 00:14:47,930 --> 00:14:51,530 and then there's the web design and then there's the 237 00:14:51,530 --> 00:14:54,910 ux, which we all know you're amazing at, and then there's the 238 00:14:54,910 --> 00:14:58,750 SEO and the copywriting that, and they're 239 00:14:58,750 --> 00:15:02,590 all different parts of something. And, you know, it's really nice to get someone who 240 00:15:02,590 --> 00:15:06,230 can do all of those things, but don't you want an 241 00:15:06,230 --> 00:15:09,670 expert in each of those things? I was going to say, I consider it to 242 00:15:09,670 --> 00:15:12,830 be like a jack of all trades. When someone says, oh, I could do the 243 00:15:12,830 --> 00:15:15,190 whole lot for you. I can do the brand and I can do this and 244 00:15:15,190 --> 00:15:18,230 I can do that. Yeah. I mean, I don't 245 00:15:18,790 --> 00:15:22,410 want the guy who mows my lawn to tell me he can fix my 246 00:15:22,410 --> 00:15:25,930 radiator. This is the moment everything 247 00:15:26,010 --> 00:15:29,370 comes into focus. Because a website that looks great 248 00:15:29,610 --> 00:15:33,450 but doesn't work doesn't just disappoint clients, it damages 249 00:15:33,450 --> 00:15:37,290 trust. And when someone asks, has your website 250 00:15:37,370 --> 00:15:40,970 helped your business? The answer rarely lands where it 251 00:15:40,970 --> 00:15:44,490 should. You don't want your clients. When someone says to them, 252 00:15:44,730 --> 00:15:48,520 oh, how do you feel about your website? Oh, I love it. It's absolutely amazing. 253 00:15:48,520 --> 00:15:52,240 It looks brilliant. It's never brought me any business. Yeah. 254 00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:56,280 And that's what you don't want, because you're selling a website not 255 00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:59,200 just to look good. And I know some people just want a shop front and 256 00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:01,880 I get that. And they just want to be able to send people from their 257 00:16:01,880 --> 00:16:05,600 LinkedIn profile or from DMs or from social media. They don't care about 258 00:16:05,600 --> 00:16:09,040 Google. They should, but they don't, and that's fine. But 259 00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:12,800 when someone says to you, how many have you had inquiries from your website? 260 00:16:13,310 --> 00:16:16,750 And you say no, then that makes your web designer look bad. 261 00:16:16,750 --> 00:16:20,590 Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah. And it's not the web design that's wrong, it's 262 00:16:20,590 --> 00:16:24,350 the SEO or it's the fundamentals in the site from a. From an SEO point 263 00:16:24,350 --> 00:16:28,110 of view that are. Meaning it's not being ranked, it's not being found, or the 264 00:16:28,110 --> 00:16:31,750 wrong traffic's coming in and things like that. And these are all things that your 265 00:16:31,750 --> 00:16:34,910 SEO person is going to look at. Is, is it the right traffic? Is the 266 00:16:34,910 --> 00:16:38,390 person coming to the website seeing what they expect to see? Are you being ranked 267 00:16:38,390 --> 00:16:41,980 for things that really, you're not serving the intent of that 268 00:16:41,980 --> 00:16:45,300 search? You're not. Are you being ranked for things that is just bringing in people 269 00:16:45,300 --> 00:16:49,140 who want freebies? I think that not having an SEO on board or 270 00:16:49,140 --> 00:16:52,780 web designers fighting with SEOs, this happens a lot. Anything 271 00:16:52,780 --> 00:16:56,460 that is where your web design is fighting with your SEO or your web designer 272 00:16:56,460 --> 00:17:00,220 doesn't want to bring an SEO on board. I think web designers and developers need 273 00:17:00,220 --> 00:17:03,780 to remember that when someone is asked whether their website 274 00:17:03,780 --> 00:17:07,399 is working for them, it's the web designer that gets blamed if the 275 00:17:07,399 --> 00:17:08,159 answer is no. 276 00:17:13,759 --> 00:17:17,119 Not all SEO is smoke and mirrors, but good 277 00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:20,879 SEO is rarely fast, tidy or packaged 278 00:17:20,879 --> 00:17:24,399 as a one off. Knowing what questions to ask 279 00:17:24,559 --> 00:17:28,239 and which answers should worry you makes all the difference. 280 00:17:29,359 --> 00:17:32,630 The easiest thing is to add a process. Ask them 281 00:17:33,030 --> 00:17:36,630 how they would do this, how would they work with you? And ask them how 282 00:17:36,630 --> 00:17:40,270 they would work with you on a one off basis and on an ongoing 283 00:17:40,270 --> 00:17:43,870 basis for a client. And any SEO 284 00:17:43,870 --> 00:17:47,710 that bites your hand off at a one off process, I would say 285 00:17:47,710 --> 00:17:51,550 you discard them straight away because they're just 286 00:17:51,550 --> 00:17:54,470 looking for lots of little one off jobs and those aren't 287 00:17:54,630 --> 00:17:58,150 necessarily going to help your clients if they don't discuss that with you, 288 00:17:58,510 --> 00:18:02,270 if they don't discuss how that would work out. But anybody who, 289 00:18:02,350 --> 00:18:06,070 their process is just old school, right? We find some keywords, we 290 00:18:06,070 --> 00:18:09,710 find out how many people search for them, we will put them in various 291 00:18:09,710 --> 00:18:13,470 places, we'll submit you to some backlink directories, 292 00:18:14,990 --> 00:18:18,674 that kind of thing. Old school SEO from 10, 293 00:18:18,746 --> 00:18:22,510 15 years ago. And there's a lot of it around. Those people 294 00:18:22,830 --> 00:18:25,980 haven't progressed since 2015 or something. 295 00:18:26,460 --> 00:18:30,300 What you're looking for is people that talk about their whole process being about search 296 00:18:30,300 --> 00:18:33,780 intent, about being about the kinds of 297 00:18:33,780 --> 00:18:37,420 visitors that a client wants, about the kinds of visits, visitors a 298 00:18:37,420 --> 00:18:41,140 client doesn't want. So you know anybody. One of the first 299 00:18:41,140 --> 00:18:44,260 things I say is, right, these are the people that you don't want to come 300 00:18:44,260 --> 00:18:47,500 to your website. You don't want people who just want free information and are never 301 00:18:47,500 --> 00:18:51,060 gonna do anything with it. You don't want other people who are basically your 302 00:18:51,060 --> 00:18:54,780 competitors looking at how you write things and things like that. Get people to 303 00:18:54,780 --> 00:18:58,620 talk about their processes, ask them for their own results. A lot of people won't 304 00:18:58,620 --> 00:19:02,300 be able to give loads of results because they'll have 305 00:19:02,300 --> 00:19:05,980 NDAs with clients and things like that. So they can't give away search phrases. 306 00:19:05,980 --> 00:19:09,380 And you know, much business has gone through a website and things like that, but 307 00:19:09,380 --> 00:19:12,940 have a look for them. The SEO people that you want to use, what are 308 00:19:12,940 --> 00:19:16,780 they ranking for? When you do your search for SEO stuff, do you come across 309 00:19:16,780 --> 00:19:20,580 their stuff? Yeah. Do you sometimes think there's an article by Nikki? 310 00:19:20,760 --> 00:19:24,520 Yeah. Also just as a caveat 311 00:19:24,520 --> 00:19:27,920 on that and not to cover my own ass at all, because I rank for 312 00:19:27,920 --> 00:19:31,320 what I want to rank for. So I'm very happy. SEO is a massively competitive 313 00:19:31,320 --> 00:19:35,160 industry. I wouldn't necessarily expect the SEO person 314 00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:38,680 that you use to be number one in all the search engines for SEO. 315 00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:42,440 They all have their own very specific search phrases that they want to rank 316 00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:45,680 for. And I would ask them that and let them prove to you that they've 317 00:19:45,680 --> 00:19:49,450 done the work on their own website. Don't let them use the 318 00:19:49,450 --> 00:19:53,170 excuse that SEO is a really competitive industry to the fact that they have no 319 00:19:53,170 --> 00:19:56,730 rankings at all. Ask them what do you rank 320 00:19:56,730 --> 00:20:00,050 for, what do you rank for that you wanted to rank for and does it 321 00:20:00,050 --> 00:20:03,890 bring you any business as an example, I rank for SEO and 322 00:20:03,890 --> 00:20:07,690 my local village. I'm number one for that. Every single time I'm in a bit 323 00:20:07,690 --> 00:20:11,250 of a grudge match with another SEO company, I always 324 00:20:11,250 --> 00:20:14,730 win, let's be honest. And it's never brought me any business whatsoever, 325 00:20:15,100 --> 00:20:18,900 ever. I don't think people in the village near me are actually connected to the 326 00:20:18,900 --> 00:20:22,580 Internet, to be honest. I'm not sure they can really go. But I do 327 00:20:22,580 --> 00:20:26,260 it because it amuses me and I fight with this other 328 00:20:26,260 --> 00:20:30,020 company. But there are other search phrases that I have optimized. My website 329 00:20:30,020 --> 00:20:33,780 that do bring me business and my blog posts that bring me business and 330 00:20:33,780 --> 00:20:37,500 my service pages that bring me business. Ask them what they are ask and 331 00:20:37,500 --> 00:20:41,030 any good SEO will be happy to sell you. The thread 332 00:20:41,030 --> 00:20:44,710 running through all of this isn't SEO. It's honesty 333 00:20:45,030 --> 00:20:48,830 about roles, about limits, and about what actually makes 334 00:20:48,830 --> 00:20:52,190 a website work. And the earlier that conversation 335 00:20:52,190 --> 00:20:55,590 happens, the fewer people end up disappointed later. 336 00:20:55,990 --> 00:20:59,550 I hope this episode has made you feel more confident in which parts of the 337 00:20:59,550 --> 00:21:03,310 SEO puzzle belongs to you and what parts should be handed over to 338 00:21:03,310 --> 00:21:06,990 a specialist. Handling clients expectations with confidence 339 00:21:07,070 --> 00:21:10,830 is always a win and I would love to hear your experience 340 00:21:10,910 --> 00:21:14,750 of dealing with clients website expectations. You can send 341 00:21:14,750 --> 00:21:18,350 me a message through my website websitesmadesimple.co.uk 342 00:21:18,670 --> 00:21:22,270 you can use the contact page there or if you go to the podcast page, 343 00:21:22,270 --> 00:21:25,750 you can drop me a voice note on the form there. And I would love 344 00:21:25,750 --> 00:21:29,430 to hear from you. You can also find me on LinkedIn. Holly 345 00:21:29,430 --> 00:21:33,080 cchristy do get a new touch. I always love to hear from you. 346 00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:35,800 And until next time, happy designing.