Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry.
Kevin: Welcome. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie, and today I've got an interview with Darcy Sullivan, who's done a lot of SEO work for me, for a lot of the chiropractors inside of the Modern Chiropractic Marketing group, and so we're going to dive into SEO. We have kind of had this theme going with Google, Google My Business, and then SEO is a big part of that, and then we're going to dive into all kinds of stuff today - on page, off page, SEO, some mistakes chiropractors are making. That's happening a lot, for sure, and then we even dive into some steps to creating a successful SEO campaign. This isn't the first time I've had Darcy on. [0:01:01.9]
She has been a guest, I think this is either the second or third time, and we'll always get updates on SEO. She's a part of the Facebook group and helping a lot of chiropractors. She is going to be contributing a module inside of the Chiropractic Success Academy, so definitely a resource that I highly recommend and enjoy speaking to and getting some updates. And again, she helps out with my SEO and my private practice. Before we dive into that episode, I do want to mention the fact that I'm super excited about attending and fortunate enough to speak at again, and that’s going to be Forward 2019 in St. Louis. I'm actually pairing up with John Morrison, and we're diving into a really good 2-hour marketing presentation, where we're going to jump into a lot of what I talk about, some new stuff, though, and a lot of the story branding and messaging that John does. So we're going to team up. We have got it really good. We have submitted the outline of the presentation. We're excited about it. [0:02:03.3]
We will be there together, presenting, so I highly recommend that event. It's going to be in St. Louis. You can go to ForwardThinkingChiro.com and right up there on the top, you can get your tickets, and all kinds of great stuff - amazing speakers. Really, this list is awesome. And this is going to be September 20 - 22. And again, that's at Logan University, my alma mater, so I'm looking forward to going back. You know, I haven’t been back in a while. I graduated in 2005. I think I went back in 2006, eh, maybe it was 2007, for a Motion Palpation Institute seminar. And that's been the last time I've been there and it's going to be interesting to go back. I know they got the Purser Center there, which wasn’t there when I was in school, but it will be - you know for me, I think it's going to be an exciting moment, you know, to be able to go back to school, but being on stage there and presenting to chiropractors. [0:03:01.2]
It's come full circle, and it's exciting, so I'm looking forward to it. So join us there. Again, that's ForwardThinkingChiro.com. Many good speakers. I'm excited to speak with John Morrison and him and I will be doing more of that in the future as well. So, check that out, and let's dive right in. This is my interview with Darcy Sullivan. Okay. I've got Darcy Sullivan on the podcast again. I really enjoy talking to you. I know you and I have known each other for many years now, and you've done my SEO and now working with a lot of chiropractors out there, so, take a minute to introduce yourself again.
Darcy: Okay. Hi. I am Darcy Sullivan. I am the founder of Propel Marketing and Design, and I love working with companies to help them improve their online presence and their website rankings.
Kevin: Yep. And you've done that for me. So, I appreciate that.
Darcy: Thank you. Glad to hear it.
Kevin: Definitely. You know, it's just been interesting - we have been diving a lot into different things inside of the Chiropractic Success Academy. [0:04:06.2]
We just had our CSA retreat in Portland, Oregon. Been talking to more and more chiropractors every day and every week. I was also in Tampa at Dr. Jeff Langmaid's event, and spoke with them, but one of the common themes definitely seems to be Google and obviously akin to that is the SEO. So, that's obviously your expertise. There's definitely a need for it, and let's -- I want to just
dive right into some of the top mistakes you're seeing, from an SEO standpoint that most chiropractors are making.
Darcy: Oh, okay. Great. So, I think one of the first ones is SEO right now isn't just about your website. Right? You've got on-page SEO and you've got off-page SEO. On-page SEO is what happens on your website that helps you climb up Google, and then you have off-page SEO, which is what actions you can take off of your website to help improve your rankings. [0:05:12.3]
And when it comes to on-page SEO, I think one of the first things that I see with some chiropractors that haven’t really dived too far into content marketing or SEO is they just have a plain website that is nothing more than a brochure. And they're really missing the opportunity to connect with their audience. And another thing that I see - well, there are a number of them and we'll go through them - but a lot of people tend to use what I call "doctor talk," where they're talking to the audience using the terms as they relate to what you're going to do when somebody gets there versus using the terms that people are searching. So, if I'm coming to you because I've got a shooting pain in my back or I have this problem, sometimes the words that are on your website don’t match the search terms that people are actually using. [0:06:09.9]
And I think you did a great job with this when we worked your website, one of the times that we talked about adding content, is we have got the problems words and the solution words. So you've got why they would be coming to you, whether it's back pain or a sports injury, and then you've got ART or the process that you walk through. But if I haven’t seen you yet, and I don’t know about some of these advanced techniques, you're not going to be able to pull me in by just talking about them without using the words that I'm searching for.
Kevin: So you're saying there's just been a big incongruence between what actual people will search in Google versus what people are actually putting in their website a little bit too scientific?
Darcy: Yes, specifically as it relates to the chiropractors. So it's going to be harder to rank for terms like, you know, shooting pain in the back, or whatever people are coming in to see you for…[0:07:06.0]
Kevin: Yep.
Darcy: … if you don’t actually use those terms in your website.
Kevin: So, you know, obviously one of the things chiropractors would love, and I think a lot of them mistakenly think this is all SEO is is that if someone is going to search chiropractor, Boca Rotan, and they want to be number one on there, which I get that for sure, but that's hard, especially if you're in a very competitive area. But, there's more to SEO than that. Right? Like, people just aren’t searching chiropractor, Boca Rotan, and getting to a site. Like there's a lot of other ways and a lot of different terms people search that could get to your site.
Darcy: Absolutely. And I've seen this with a lot of chiropractors is once you get down into the nitty-gritty, and you don’t have to necessarily do it on your website, it can be on your blog if you write a specific blog article, that people can find you using more what we call long tail keywords, where they're longer. Right? [0:08:05.9]
Kevin: Yeah. Break that down. Break down "long tail" for us.
Darcy: Okay. So that could be neck pain due to car injury.
Kevin: Uh-huh.
Darcy: Or car accident. You know, you, the longer the keyword phrase, we call it a long tail versus short, which would be "chiropractor." And the nice thing about going with a strategy where you're trying to use some of these longer terms, keyword terms, is that you're going to relate better to your audience. And I've seen this with a number of chiropractors in your group. When they say, "Darcy, you know, after we chatted, I took that into account and I started putting together content around some very specific topics that I knew related to the audience that was coming through my doors." And then they're getting more people coming through their doors because they feel like they're relatable. They see, "Oh, you fixed this specific problem for somebody else or oh, you have content on your website that specifically relates to my problem," and not only are you addressing the problem, but then you're linking and giving information about the solution that you offer for that problem. [0:09:12.4]
Kevin: Okay. That makes sense, and that's why probably things like a blog are so important. I know I preach that a lot. I think sometimes oh, when chiropractors hear that, they think to themselves, like, "Oh, I'm not going to be a, you know, compete in the blogosphere and write these robust blogs that are going to be, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of views and make me famous." It's not really about that necessarily, right?
Darcy: No. And I'm glad that you brought that up. So one thing is - I think people think, "Oh, my gosh - I have to blog every single week." And you don’t. And I think that, you know, now with your blog, if you hide the date then you're at a place where somebody isn't coming to your blog and saying, "Oh. Well they wrote a blog a month ago." And it's more about the quality of content, and for those people that are thinking, "Oh, I just don’t have time," you can still provide lots of value to your audience without taking up too much time. [0:10:12.7]
And two tips that I want to give for that are - you know, there are tons of resources that are already out there, and you can leverage what I can, or what other people call, OPC (Other People's Content). So, let's just say somebody has already put into account and done some amazing videos that relate to specific exercises or stretches that you want to talk about. You could put together a blog and embed their videos. So you're getting a blog that has quality content; you didn’t have to deal with the production level of doing the filming yourself. You get somebody that's watching the videos, so they're staying longer on your website, which is a great indicator to Google, and you're providing quality without taking up as much time. [0:11:01.0]
And another example that I'd like to give is infographics. So, if somebody already has an infographic out that is on, you know, what you can do at your desk, some stretches, or anything that you know your audience would directly relate to, you don’t necessarily have to have a designer go out and redesign it. You can provide that on your blog as long as you give credit to the original source, and I would suggest adding content around it to build it out more, but you don’t have to necessarily start from scratch.
Kevin: Yeah, that's one thing that we have done inside the Chiropractic Success Academy. We have content repository in there.
Darcy: Yeah!
Kevin: And it's not meant to be canned and everybody using the same thing, but it's meant to, "Oh! Here's a good topic and good information," and then you can take a lot of that, some of it, add in their own stuff, plug in their YouTube video that they have and make it a little more personalized to them, but at least it's a really good starting point for them.
Darcy: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that really does, I think, take the ease off of somebody coming in that says, "Oh, I just can't do this." [0:12:04.6]
And the other thing is using tools, like we have talked about before, Grammarly, to make sure that, you know, your content, that the grammar is correct.
Kevin: Yep.
Darcy: Because you don’t want somebody coming to your website and being like, "Oomph, how I am going to trust somebody with my body when they don’t know how to hardly write something."
Kevin: I'm an amazing editor of content now because of Grammarly.
Darcy: Yeah.
Kevin: Yeah, it's great. And the other thing that we use, too, is Yost for SEO.
Darcy: Yes. Now, I'm glad that you mentioned that. So Yost is great if you're using WordPress. I just… sometimes people think because they have a plugin, like Yost, installed or they bought some of kind of package when they signed up with Go Daddy, that they're "doing SEO."
Kevin: Yeah. That's not right.
Darcy: And it's not right where they, you know, unfortunately some people think, "Oh, I have Google Analytics installed on my website. I'm doing SEO." You're not doing SEO. Those are tools, but you've got to take those tools and use them. [0:13:06.7]
Kevin: And part of doing SEO, I guess, would be creating content.
Darcy: Absolutely. And you know, we live in a content world and there's a couple of ways that you can relate and maximize the pieces of content that you put together.
Kevin: Yep.
Darcy: And you know, if you are writing long form blogs, you need to make sure that you're breaking up the content, that it's easily scannable, and that it directly relates to your target market. And you've got to think about, before you even create a piece of content, what is the goal - what is the action that you're trying to get somebody to take, and make sure that that action, that they know to take it based off of that piece of content.
Kevin: Perfect. So you mentioned a few things and I want to get a little bit of, to break it down a little bit here. Time on site - Google likes that, right? [0:13:59.6]
Darcy: Yes. So that would be the dwell time, how long somebody dwells on your website. And there are a number of different ways that you can help increase this. And one would be - well, let's start with the very basics. Your website has to be mobile friendly these days. Right? Like if somebody is on a phone and they go to your website and it's loading too slow or it's just not mobile friendly, they're gone.
Kevin: Yep.
Darcy: They're absolutely gone. And you have to have an SSL Certificate for security purposes as well. So when somebody lands on your website, now they need to know, as soon as they get there, that they're in the right place. So your homepage kind of be the best of. Right? They should see, okay, this person does offer, be specific, they treat, you know, this pain, this pain, this pain. I know I'm in the right place. They offer these services. So your website should, your homepage should just kind of be like the best of, and they should be able to not only know that they're in the right place, but then easily navigate to the content that they need to get to within a couple of clicks. [0:15:06.3]
And then from there, like if they're finding your website a blog, then they easily, you want to include links back to other content to get them to stay on longer. So, if you're writing a blog and it's talking about back pain, you could click, you know, include a link inside your website to another page that relates to it, or if you talk about a service you provide, then you could link to a chiropractic service that relates to it.
Kevin: Perfect. Good. Thank you. Another thing - blog frequency. Would, what, like I try to cover this a lot. If they did a blog a month that would probably be a good start for them. What do you think as far as frequency?
Darcy: So, one - it always comes to quality over quantity.
Kevin: Okay.
Darcy: And I think that, you know, you’ve got to talk to your people the way that they want to listen. So you can't just dump in tech, you know, tech talk and relates to doctor talk. [0:16:04.8]
Kevin: Okay.
Darcy: And I think that, you know, people do get hung up on, "Oh, I should blog once a week, twice a week or once a week, two times a month." If you feel like that's too much for you, again, you can go to leveraging other people's content or you can look at past performers that are doing good. We call this evergreen content - content that maybe you did a year ago that is still relevant. Right? Because stretches or whatever haven’t quite changed, you can go and just take some content that you know is already performing pretty well on Google by looking at your Analytics, what's actually driving traffic to your website, not the top one or two, because they're already performing probably at their better level - but take some of those that are a couple down from there and jozsh them up, you know, vamp them up, add to them. And then move them to the top. So you don't necessarily need to start from scratch, so you don’t feel as overwhelmed. [0:17:02.4]
Kevin: Good.
Darcy: But it is good to get, you know, fresh content out there as often as you can without feeling overwhelmed, and you know, putting together a 300-word blog just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Kevin: Is there a range of word count?
Darcy: I mean, I usually like to see good quality over 1000.
Kevin: Okay. Perfect.
Darcy: Usually over 1500, but that can be a lot for some people.
Kevin: Yeah.
Darcy: And so, you know, I don’t want anybody to turn away from doing it because they don’t feel like they can keep up with that. And if you can leverage video, right, you're going to get people staying on there longer.
Kevin: Definitely. Perfect. Okay, and then early on, you mentioned, obviously there was on-page and off-page. Can you break down a little bit of the off-page?
Darcy: Sure. So off-page is what happens off of your website. And I know that you had, I believe, a couple of podcasts specifically related to Google My Business and online reviews, and those play key factors. [0:18:07.1]
In addition to that, you have your overall NAP Citation - your Name, your Address, and your Phone number. And those need to be consistent off of your website. So when you go through your social media, when you're looking on Yelp, when you're at places, everything needs to match. I know sometimes when people or companies get started and then they move around that sometimes they don’t get in the habit of updating that. So there could be old information that's unfortunately floating around there. And for that, you know, you can use, if you're concerned with that or don’t feel like you have time to go in and clean it up, you can use citation services like Moz Local or Whitespark.
Kevin: Okay.
Darcy: And Whitespark has a couple of different options. They have citation builder services, citation audit and cleanup services and additional local search audit services. So you just, again, want to make sure all directories and anywhere your company is mentioned online that it's pointing to the right information. [0:19:14.7]
Kevin: Perfect. That's great.
Darcy: And also, off-page, you know, we talked very briefly about social media, but you also have - that's a huge one. Right?
Kevin: I think that's something that a lot of chiropractors don’t get either, and I kind of wrap it up as like a total web presence thing, is if you're on, you know, Facebook and Google and YouTube and all those things, how much that's going to do for the Google Search as well.
Darcy: Right. So with that, what I'd like to say is think about findability. Yeah, you might not, Twitter might not be the place that you decide you're going to keep pushing your information out, but it would better for you to have your social media presence there and if somebody were to look up something on there, see your company instead of a company that also has your same name, or somebody else take the name that you wanted within a social media site. [0:20:10.8]
Kevin: That makes sense.
Darcy: So I say, you know, claim all the major ones, and then if you're going to use them, great. If you decide they don’t work for you, at least you've got something that has your company information, your website information. People can find you through them.
Kevin: Yeah, it's like, it's like Yelp as well, where there's a lot of chiropractors and myself included, we're kind of, I mean I think a lot of people are disgruntled with Yelp, and…
Darcy: Yeah!
Kevin: … they're frustrated with it, and they think that it's a, you know, situation where you've got to start paying for ads and if you stop, they're going to take your reviews, and I know there's a lot going on with that, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't have a well-developed Yelp page, hopefully get some organic reviews, but then, you know, Google does like Yelp and so…
Darcy: You know, it is a factor in your ranking, these online reviews. [0:21:01.2]
And it - people know when they go and they read reviews that there's going to be a chance that there's going to be some negative ones. And I think that it gives you the opportunity, if you do get negative reviews, if you reply to them in the right way, it really can benefit you more than some of the positive. It might sound weird, but I think it allows you to address people's thoughts or concerns in a way that you couldn't before.
Kevin: Definitely. Definitely. Perfect. So yeah, you know, the off-page and conceptual terms is everything off your website, I guess, off Google, but definitely on all the other platforms that are out there that Google does like and rank, and it just helps for a nice total web presence and increase SEO.
Darcy: Yes. And also, you know, there are link-building strategies involved that are part of your off-page SEO campaigns, and these relate to, specifically - I suggest to people that are trying to rank locally that the more involved you are with your community, you can usually get links back to your website that will help improve your rankings as well. [0:22:15.5]
Kevin: Perfect. Alright. And then, any other mistakes, glaring mistakes, that chiropractors are making, or did we cover that pretty well?
Darcy: So I would say another big one is not knowing where their website's traffic is coming from.
Kevin: Ah! Perfect!
Darcy: So I think some people can be a little overwhelmed with Google Analytics.
Kevin: Uh-huh.
Darcy: And so for them, I suggest Clicky, which is also a free analytic software that some people just find a little bit easier to use.
Kevin: Okay. And let's switch gears a little bit because we don’t want to bash chiropractors too much, right?
Darcy: No, not at all.
Kevin: You know, it's funny because obviously, the big thing is overwhelm and it's trying to be a doctor, some of us trying to be a doctor, trying to be a business owner, trying to get out and network…[0:23:06.0]
Darcy: Yeah.
Kevin: … face-to-face, and so then, this whole thing gets a whole other profession, really. That's why I'm a big believer in outsourcing as much as you possibly can. But if you can, concisely, I want to just run through some steps of creating a successful SEO campaign.
Darcy: Okay. So, the number one, and I think that some people kind of just skip over this or generalize it, is really outlining your buyer personas. And because you can't just say that anybody needs chiropractic services. They do. But it's hard to relate to people when you're talking to anybody versus you know, narrowing it down and having a couple of different specific buyer personas that you're talking to. So then, that outlines and changes everything because then you know where they are online. You know, I was talking to a chiropractor the other day who was talking about running these short Instagram videos, and then I asked him, and I'm like, "Well, is that where your buyer persona goes to search for information?" [0:24:09.8]
And he's like, "I don't know," and I'm like, "Well before you invest all this time and money in it, you know, you need to map out who it is that you're selling to and where they go to find information online before you just jump on the bandwagon with some of these specific techniques."
Kevin: You know, I want to interject real quick because it's interesting you bring that up. I do some one-on-one stuff with some chiropractors I'm working with and we have dove pretty deep into psychographics.
Darcy: Uh-huh.
Kevin: And then, I first really dove into that topic with some of Seth Godin's information, and then recently, I'm reading a book called Clockwork and the gentleman's name that wrote it is pretty long and confusing. Actually, it's Mike Michalowicz, but it's spelled with way too many letters. [0:25:01.2]
So, yeah, it's called Clockwork and he actually dove into psychographics as well, and then he talked about - so, for the audience, I know you know the difference, but the difference between a demographics and a psychographics and the best analogy I can give is your demographics are your typical things like age, race, sex, income, all of whatever, location. Well the psychographics would be if I mention a crossfitter. You kind of know like, okay, certain age group, health conscious, definitely fit and into all of that type of stuff. There's definitely a persona of that person, but then what this book broke down was trying to find the congregation points of these psychographics, and so like crossfit, where is there a congregation point? "The Box," they call it. Right? They even named it something, and so, you want to try to find where - first, you need to really get clear on your psychographics that you're going to be targeting and then from there, you want to get clear on where do these people congregate. [0:26:07.8]
And sometimes it's offline, like a Box, and sometimes it's online, like I'm a big sponsor of a triathlon group and they have a really good closed Facebook group in there. So it's a congregation point for a particular audience for me. And that's kind of what you're talking about, is like, you know, is your clearly defined audience even on Instagram, or are they on whatever. Right?
Darcy: Right. So, you know, I love that example that you give because you're going to be able to directly relate and connect with the people within that group and that congregation better than you are just throwing something out there, you know, necessarily even to your generalized audience because your generalized audience on Facebook might not relate to you the same way that these specific ones do, especially if you mention something that directly relates to an injury that could come from what their activity is, or something that's just directly related to them. [0:27:05.3]
And I think that that, connecting with your ideal audience, is such a huge part of successful SEO campaign, digital marketing campaign, basic marketing campaign in general, and people just kind of graze over it without really diving deep into it. So I love that you talked about that.
Kevin: Yeah, we definitely try to dive into the roadmap of marketing, which I spoke about at Vegas, the Parker seminar there, for the first time. But essentially, the mistake a lot of chiropractors are making, and people in general that try to market their business is that they think social media is marketing, per se, and it's definitely a part of it, but it's really just a vehicle and the way I broke it down was you've got the, you know, you've got your destination, which is where you want to get to and that's kind of having your plan and all the different things like that. [0:28:03.1]
Then you have the vehicle, which is your distribution channels, which is, you know, social media, email, direct mail, whatever it may be. And then you've got your GPS, which is really getting clear on your messaging and how you're going to get that there, and then the content is the fuel. Right? And so…
Darcy: Right.
Kevin: … you need to have it all together to have an effective marketing strategy around that, and so, it's no different, even with SEO. If your messaging is off, and you're not creating enough consistent content, then it's going to be hard to have a really well developed SEO strategy.
Darcy: Absolutely. And another thing that I want to mention, while we're talking about, you know, your audience is the words that they use. So you know, we're seeing this growth when it comes to voice search…
Kevin: Yep.
Darcy: … and if you focus on using some of the natural language keywords, these terms that people are using, you're going to set yourself up for success in the future, early on. [0:29:04.6]
Kevin: Yep.
Darcy: So that's perfect and very important. And then you know, we did talk about the fact that SEO takes place on your website and off of your website. So you do have to consider that as well. Then there are some key elements when it does come to on-page SEO that I think everybody needs to consider.
Kevin: What are a few of those?
Darcy: So, obviously, having an analytic system set up so you know what people are doing on your website, how they're getting there. Your website has to load quickly. You need a sitemap. It has to be mobile friendly and responsive. You need an SSL Certificate. Your URL's need to be friendly. So, even today, we're still seeing some URLs that are like, yourwebsite.com/p?523 when it's a back pain page, and it should be yourwebsite/backpain. [0:30:03.8]
Kevin: Yep.
Darcy: You know, your images need to have alt tags so that it's telling search engines what that actual content is, and you know, it used to be that you took a keyword and you tried to sprinkle it throughout every single page on your website. And now what you want to do is do long-form content with a specific keyword designated for each page, or keyword term, and using that, you know, in your H1 tags and your H2 tags, your H3 tags and making it very scannable content.
Kevin: I don’t want to get into the weeds too much, but can you just tell us what an H1, H2, H3 is?
Darcy: So, those are your headers. So those kind of break up content. Because right now, we're such a - we just - we can't pay too much - we don’t pay too much attention. So when we're on a website, we need these like headers to announce like "this is what we're talking about with back pain. Here are some bullet points." [0:31:07.1]
You want to go through and make sure that you're using your keywords with these headers, and you see them when you go to a website or a blog post, when you see a little bit of content and then a bigger, bolder term and then the information that follows it. It allows it to be more scannable.
Kevin: Okay.
Darcy: And you know, we briefly talked about this before, but somebody needs to know as soon as they land on your website exactly what you do within a couple of seconds, and I think you guys, most chiropractors, do a good job of that. It's just on their homepage, it's nice to know and see the services they offer and that link to, you know, the specific service pages, and then also, the problems that people have - the back pain, the neck pain, why people come to see them. So that they know, as soon as they get there, "Oh yeah, I'm in the right place." It's also good to make sure that you have a search bar, which helps. I call that like the catchall. So if somebody comes to a website, they don’t necessarily see how to get to what they're looking for, but they have a place where they can look for it, they're going to find it. [0:32:10.1]
Kevin: Yeah, definitely. And it's part of that whole thing is getting the content out there that they're looking for. Right? That you…
Darcy: Absolutely.
Kevin: … mentioned earlier. So.
Darcy: Absolutely. Then you know, also including links - internal links, external links, including testimonials and social proof. Making sure, again, that you're actually using your keywords on your website. So I've had before, when I start to talk to chiropractors and other people, where we talk about, you know, what specific keywords they really want to rank for and then I tell them, "You know, you're not actually using those keywords on your website." So sometimes, we forget or we just assume that it's there. So it's a good idea to go through and scan your website and make sure you actually are using these terms that you want to rank for.
Kevin: Perfect. I love it. [0:33:01.0]
Darcy: Yeah, and then, of course, like your contact information, every single page. Easy to find. People need to be able to get to you and know how to contact you.
Kevin: Yeah, you know, I just - just to kind of summarize it, I think ultimately, you know I try to tell chiropractors to become kind of a media company in a sense or a content producing machine and it's a lot easier than a lot of people think. There's definitely a learning curve and there's some work to do, but you can do it, and what ends up happening is - you know, I've been, I've been doing it since I opened my practice in 2010, my own practice. Before, when I was a partner and an associate, I didn’t have any say in it and you know, I did do a lot of it. But now, it's, you know, we're nine years into this particular business and you know, we have got a pretty well-oiled machine. A lot of it is being delegated out. I didn’t delegate it out early on and I did a lot of it, but there's so many more resources out there now, and just one of the biggest benefits of creating good content, aside from you know obviously getting it out there and attracting people and educating people, that's obviously huge. But it's just the backend of it, like this type of stuff is, I can't tell you how many people I get that come in because they found some content or anything like that. You know, now we're getting the 8-15 Google referrals a month and it's just - it really helps drive the practice. [0:34:25.3]
Darcy: I love that. And I do think that, you know, you mentioned delegating and planning and I think that you guys, you do a whole day where your, one of your days a week, or at least it used to be, was designated specifically to that. And I think that sometimes what happens is people think of it as an afterthought, but if you can sit down and plan out like the quarter, before the next quarter - what are our main, what are our three main goals. And if your three main goals, one should always be retention and then what are your other two, and then decide what type of content and what type SEO plan you want to have surrounding achieving those goals. [0:35:08.2]
Kevin: I love it. That's good. So now the exciting news. I got a chance to look through it. It looks great. Tell us a little bit about the Academy that you've got put together, the program.
Darcy: So we just launched. It's called Ready, Set, Rank and it is a three-step system that helps people go through and increase their website rankings. I tried to do something that had the short-term wins and long-term game plan without having to feel like you're in a tech tizzy, as I call it. So it -- you can really see results within 12 weeks and it does start with a foundation of identifying, you know, your buyer persona, getting really connected in on that and then upgrading your website. [0:36:01.2]
And most people these days can really handle going in and making edits, adding content to your website. I think most of the people listening probably either have a WordPress website, a Wix, or a Squarespace website, and those right now offer you the opportunity to be able to update and add content with ease. You just need to know how to optimize it and you know, as you mentioned, what to delegate out and what you can handle in-house. In addition, the truth of the matter is is that no matter what SEO expert or website designer or writer you turn to or graphic designer, you know your industry. You know what people are coming in to see you for, and you know how you help them. So you know - you have that basis of what the content should be. It's just a matter of having a plan to get it out there.
Kevin: Perfect. And what's that URL? I'll make sure to have it in the show notes but how can they look into that? [0:37:00.3]
Darcy: You can either go to ReadySetRank.com or PropelYourCompany/ReadySetRank and I'll give you that information as well.
Kevin: Perfect. I love it. It's really good information. I got a chance to look through it. I give my seal of approval, for whatever that's worth or not worth, but you know, I want to thank you for all the information. Every time you're on, you bring really good valuable take-home information, not just 30,000-foot overview stuff. And so I do appreciate that.
Darcy: Thanks! Like I said, you have a wonderful group that you guys are reaching out to. So, glad I could be a part of it.
Kevin: Definitely. Thank you for helping out, and so I know you and I will probably talk soon. Okay?
Darcy: Sounds great. Thank you so much.
This is ThePodcastFactory.com
