269: Don't put your eggs in one marketing - BIGGEST lesson for online marketing | Ashleigh Atkinson 

Do you ever see brands and think “how are you everywhere”... you only see the tip of the iceberg. 

In this episode, Ashley Atkinson talks about the crucial lesson of not putting all your marketing eggs in one basket. 

Ashley breaks down SEO in a way that actually makes sense, offers practical strategies for diversifying your marketing, and shares her expertise on building a resilient business that doesn't rely on any single platform. 

If you're feeling overwhelmed by marketing or worried about algorithm changes affecting your business, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you create a strategy that withstands platform volatility!

If you LOVED this part of your trip (the episode), make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah and @theclimbcollaborative 

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KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

✨ Why you need to diversify your marketing channels and not rely solely on social media

✨ How SEO works across platforms (not just Google) and why it matters for small businesses

✨ The importance of having your own digital presence that you own and control

✨ A real case study of a successful product launch despite Instagram being shut down

✨ Practical tips for making websites and marketing less overwhelming for small business owners

✨ How to balance quality content across multiple channels without burning out

SHOW RESOURCES 👇

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @contentqueenmariah⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Other than that, enjoy - chat next week 💕

ABOUT THE GUEST

I'm Ash from The Climb Collaborative, a boutique brand and website design studio helping build businesses from the ground up. Ash has a double degree in Marketing and Journalism, nearly a decade of experience in branding and web design, and a serious love for coffee, camping, and keeping things real.

But beyond the business know-how, Ash is on a mission to make marketing and websites less scary for business owners. She’s all about collaboration, strategy, and helping small businesses not just survive but thrive online.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

 This is episode 269, and I'm talking to marketing expert Ashley Atkinson, all about why you don't put your eggs in one marketing basket. Welcome to the Content Queen Podcast. I'm your host Mariah, entrepreneur storyteller, digital nomad, creator of Content Bootcamp, and founder of Content Queen. I'm here to teach you how to share your unique story, create content, and market your business with strategy to the channels that work for you.

Each week, I'll deliver a story to help you connect to a powerful strategy around marketing, business, and content creation. I'm also joined by amazing souls and entrepreneurs who are here to share their own journey, along with actual steps to help you take your business to a whole new level through amazing storytelling, powerful aligned marketing and content strategy.

Let's do it. Hello, gang. How are you? Hope you are well. This is a great episode. Something I'm super aligned to not putting your eggs in one basket. It was a perfect title for Ash when she reached out to be on the podcast, 'cause I resonated so deeply with it. So let's get stuck into it. We're gonna share more things about SEO.

Ash is gonna share a client that lost Instagram just before their big launch, but still managed to make money because of diversifying the marketing strategy. So Ash is the founder of The Climb Collective, which is a boutique brand and marketing design studio helping. Build businesses from the ground up.

Ash has a double degree in marketing and journalism nearly half a decade in experience of branding and web design, and she's a serious lover of coffee camping and keeping things real. Which yeah, definitely resonate with that from interviewing Ash. But beyond the business knowhow, Ash is on a mission to make marketing and websites less scary for business owners.

She's all about collaboration, strategy, and helping small business not just survive, but thrive online. So let's chat with Ash. Ashley, welcome to the podcast. We just had a great chat before we hit record, as we love to do so before we get stuck into talking, SEO and. Other alternatives for social media?

'cause I love to talk about that topic. Can you just tell everyone a little bit more about who you are? So I'm Ash. I am the founder of the Climb Collaborative. I. So we are a boutique brand design, um, marketing studio based in the southwest of Western Australia. So we really love supporting small, especially regional, but small business owners.

Um. Trades, beauty businesses, um, service providers to really understand the digital side of their business and their website, and just taking that fear away from having and running a website. Uh, I've just seen so many small business owners scarred by agencies and. Um, getting, paying thousands and thousands of dollars to have a website built that they don't even know how to use.

And I just really wanna help, um, take that fear away for people. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. I, gosh, had a conversation about websites just today, so, yeah, so I totally, and you know, I was learning, um, one of my clients has Webflow and no one would be like that is, and a lot of website designers, obviously, you know, we use WordPress, we use this and.

Then you have to do it yourself. And it's like, this is too hard for someone that's trying to keep the lights on to run this website. So I love that. That is an awesome mission and, um, vision to have. So that's so cool. And we were talking a little bit before, a bit about your background and what you've been doing, but um, people love hearing stories of entrepreneurs.

So how did you get to where you are now working for yourself online? Um, so I have a double degree. I have a degree in marketing and a degree in journalism. So I did all your, um, tick box ticking, you know, go to uni, get the degrees, get your corporate job out of uni. Go climb the corporate ladder. So I did.

I did that, um, was working my way up in a national construction equipment marketing role. I decided I liked marketing more than journalism, so went down that route. Um, and obvi, if anyone's ever worked in corporate, you understand there's a lot of red tape. It's very, uh, these are the rules. This is what we want.

You can't really go outside of that. So I started the Climb Collaborative, uh, on the side of, uh, my corporate role. So just working nights and weekends as a bit of a creative outlet, um, for myself. I. And, uh, about, we were about a year or two into that. Um, and I fell pregnant with twins. Uh, so I was living in Perth at the time, which is the city, the major city in wa.

If anyone doesn't know that, um, and. Uh, it was also covid, so they were doing all the shutdowns and I got terrified and thought I can't be shut down, away from my mom and dad with twin babies. So my, um, I moved back down south a couple hours south of Perth, um, to a regional town called Bunbury. Uh, where mine and my husband's family is and had the twins, uh, they wanted me to go back to my corporate role when the twins were 10 months old, commute back to Perth, and I hadn't slept in about a year.

I still don't sleep and therefore, so, um, but yeah, it just wasn't gonna happen. And my husband said, why would you go back to work? When you don't have to, like, you've got a business on the side, why don't you just do that? So, uh, it kind of grew from there. As soon as I put all of my focus into the business, the business just grew exponentially.

Um, it, it's so funny how quickly something grows when it's your only focus. So when I was trying to juggle it around corporate, it just ticked along and as soon as I went all in, um, it took off. So, yeah, the twins are now turning five this year, and I work full time in my business. I love that we have so many things in common, except the twins don't have that in common with you.

But I studied journalism as well. I was like, oh yeah, me too. It's like, it's so funny how it's such a good degree to have. It's, I really as my, I preferred marketing in terms of work, but journalism is such a wholesome degree. It's just be so much about public speaking, writing, like copywriting is. Such a huge thing, um, especially in like website design, which is what I do and things like that.

And ha I do feel like having the journalism degree has been a huge help with my comms. Mm. Yeah. No, totally agree with that. Writing is my passion. I love it. Um. Yeah, like when you said being stuck in lockdown with, you know, no support, like Yep. And then, yeah, that's a really good message actually for people listening.

Like when you do put your energy into something, it is insane how much it can grow. I love that you mentioned that, because I know there are lots of people that listen that are side hustlers and that plunge can be very nerve wracking. And I totally feel it in my body when you say that. 'cause the same thing happened to me.

It's like. Let's just do it and maybe you're not quite ready and then all of a sudden it just, it grows. So I thank you for sharing all that. It is amazing. So, um, when you messaged about being on this podcast, you talked about, um, and also relate to this, 'cause my Instagram got shut down recently. I got it back, but it was a nightmare.

So you had a client that had their Instagram account shut down for their launch and, but they still managed to have a. Four figure 5K launch. This is just an absolute nightmare, like losing Instagram, especially when you feel like it's your whole, that's where you get all your clients from. Even though if we look at the numbers is probably not true, but we feel like if we all of a sudden shut down Instagram, our whole business is gonna go under and like it hap so many people feel that way.

And I can understand that when my Instagram shut down, I was like, oh. Oh my God, no. And then I realized you have a lot of other content channels, you're gonna be fine. And you know, lots of your clients find you in multiple different ways. So can you share this, like what happened and how did it still manage to be okay?

Yeah. So, um, I. Yeah, they ended up, they had a 5K launch, uh, in the first couple days, even though on the actual day of their launch they shut down. So, uh, there was a lot of work that went into the build of this business. So, um, not just putting all their eggs in one basket, so. Uh, when they started working with me, I was like, okay, this is a great brand.

It was a, um, e-com brand, um, a skincare range specifically for women of color. Color because especially in Australia, there's not a lot, um, that is targeted towards women of color. So I said, this is a great product, a great brand, and there's so much potential here. So what are we doing? We're we're build because they came to us just to build, to build the website.

Um, and they were already doing Instagram and socials and stuff. Um, but yeah, they were across everything. So TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, um, a few other things I think. And then I said, okay, also pr like, what are you doing? Uh, who, who are you talking to to get this like, launch into the news? Local newspapers and, um, podcasts and things like that.

So they'd really done the work in the lead up to really cover all their bases. Um, so that when, when we did launch the website, a lot of people knew about it. It was already, the launch was three months. There was three months of lead up to the launch. Uh, so, um, everyone knew where to go. So then when we launched the website, which was stunning, if I do say so myself, uh, they, uh, it just.

Like nothing really was limited. The social media went down, but people were still making sales. The website was there. Uh, the brand awareness was there that when they typed into Google to find the business, they just went to the website and placed their order. Mm. However, I knew the launch was coming up, so, yeah.

And also on that, prior to launching the website, we had a landing page up collecting people's, um, emails. So that's another area is obviously when you're building a website, always collecting emails because that's, they're the only people that you can actually always contact if any other of your platforms goes down.

So, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, that's so true. And I think, you know, one of the things you've said is like having that sort of omni-channel approach, you know, not putting your eggs in one basket. And obviously we can sit here and say, yeah, of course if you put all your energy into TikTok, it will grow, and you might have.

Heaps and heaps of followers on there. But what if you put a little bit of energy into different, you know, Instagram, Facebook, having an email list, like, yeah, your numbers will spread across these channels, but you're not solely relying on one. So if something does happen, 'cause at the end of the day, we don't own these social channels.

They can, like I literally, a month ago now had an email, both of my accounts got taken down 'cause I got caught up in a client's account that got taken down and it was like. Just like that gone. Mm-hmm. And it was lucky that we had a contact meta that helped us. Otherwise I would still not have an Instagram.

Yeah. It took, I think it took them, they've got it back now. It did take about three weeks. Uh, it's a, it's a big thing to have happen because people do rely so heavily on Instagram. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think what happened with them is it was just that on that launch day. They were engaging so much a lot with people because everyone was like, um, they had a lot of uh, micro influences on board, doing posts and things like that.

And this is now live. This is live. And they were commenting and sharing and engaging so much that meta thought they were a lot and shut them down. I was like. It's serum is about engagement and you're shutting down an account that's engaging. I don't understand. We'll never know, honestly. You'll never know.

Yeah. Um, yeah, it just, so I guess I'm curious 'cause I definitely can stand on that soapbox and say, you know, especially that's why I always went into content marketing and not. Social media marketing or Instagram marketing, like that can be trendy and let's make lots of money there. But for me it was like I would hate to put a client's eggs in one basket and then we only rely on that place.

So what piece of advice would you give to any business owner? That is probably going all, I think I rely a little bit too much on one marketing channel. Mm-hmm. Uh, so first of all, it would be find out where your target audience actually is hanging out. So if they're not on LinkedIn, don't put a lot of energy into LinkedIn because at the end of the day, if you are a solopreneur or a small business owner, you probably don't have a lot of time to be putting.

That much effort into every different channel. Uh, I'm a big believer in quality over quantity, so if you're gonna do something, do it well. Uh, so first of all, finding out where people are spending their time. So are they reading blogs? Are they on LinkedIn? Are they scrolling, TikTok? Are they in Facebook groups?

And then really putting your energy into those areas, uh, and then always having your own. Like a few years ago, I used to say, you don't need to have a website. You could, you can get away with starting out with just a Facebook or Instagram page, you know, and like. I still believe that to a degree, if you're really just in the very start, just getting your name out.

If you haven't done anything before in the area and you kind of just need to build up a bit of rapport, get some clients behind you. But as soon as you can, you need to have a digital presence that you own, uh, so that you can start collecting email addresses, um, check checking out your traffic and where it's coming from, things like that.

Yeah, because even what you're saying, you know, like I'll find where your audience is if you have a website or where they're most engaged, actually, that will tell you. Lots of people assume that most of their customers or people, website traffic comes from social media. But actually, if you look at the numbers, I think it's on average, it's only like 11%.

Across the board come from social media, um, you're probably just more building a really good brand awareness on that page. And that also helps you with like, expectation of a channel. Mm-hmm. The day that I realized that I don't need to market my retainer services, like book me do this, X amount of spots left.

The easier my life was because I could just create content to build relationships with people, which I love. And my clients were coming from other places because I learned that. 'cause I looked at my analytics and realized that actually, yeah, socials is just really about building my audience. It's not necessarily about selling to them, and that made my life easier.

Mm. It really is. It's about building brand awareness and trust on those channels. And then sell. You sell on your website. Once they're actually like interested, then they'll go to the channels to be sold to. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like a massive stat on this, I can't even remember. It was like X percent of your sales will just be from.

People landing on your site rather than like, through socials and stuff like that. So I wanna talk, um, a little bit about SEO because I think also there's just so much going around around SEO at the moment with social media as well, like, oh. People are going to social media for searching things, um, keywords on social media.

And it's like, as soon as you tell people like, oh yeah, like you need to think about s like, ugh, what is that? It's scary. It's overwhelming. It's a lot like, even like, 'cause it's an acronym like SEO, everyone's like, what is this? Like, it seems so complex. Yeah. Um, what are some practical strategies that you've found have helped clients, especially 'cause you're in that.

You deal with a lot of, um, small business owners that I guess this stuff is just not what we wanna be learning. Yeah, yeah. So I'm a big fan of keep it simple. Uh, and the easiest way that I explain SEO to people, so SEO stands for search engine optimization. So. It is not just Google and it any, any platform is a search engine.

Instagram is a search engine. So it is how people, how those platforms understand what you do and give people that knowledge. So the clearer you are about what you do, the easier it is for those platforms to go, oh, this person's looking for this. Here's some people that do that. That's the easiest way to explain it.

Um, a lot of people do get confused with like SEM, which is search engine marketing, which is when people pay for ads. Um, so that's how when you pay to get to the top of Google or if you pay for, um, Instagram ads and meta ads and things like that. Uh, but yeah, the, the easiest way to explain it is you provide a service.

You need to make it really clear on whatever platform it is, what you do, and then when people are searching for that, the platform will crawl or read your content and say, yes, this person clearly provides that service. This is the person you're looking for. And give your information to those people. Yeah.

I love that. Simple is key. And it's interesting because you mentioned social media and things like this because we always just automatically go, oh, how do we rank on Google with SEO, right? But it's, it's about now, like if you think back to 2020. Lots of us were coming up with cool names for our products and services.

Yes. Like, and no one knew what they were. Um, but now, because everyone is searching stuff on Instagram, TikTok, social media, whatever, if your product name is something like crazy mm-hmm. People are gonna be like, the, the algorithm is not gonna know that you need that, or the search engine is not gonna know you need that.

So. That's why really articulating what you do is important because otherwise these platforms don't know. I also am a victim of that. Um, my business is the Climb Collaborative. So the reason behind that is because we wanted it to encompass so much. So we wanted to collaborate with our. Clients and customers and it to be like really about relationships and community and collaboration.

Not so much of we're an agency and we provide a service to you and then see you later. And then the climb is like about how it's like in business, everything's a journey and a climb, and. Helping people climb to the next level. Uh, but yeah, Google and Instagram don't understand that, obviously. Uh, we do website design and branding and like social media and education and marketing education and things like that.

Uh, so for example, on. I know that you do a lot with yours is social media and content. Um, on Instagram. My, so our handle is the client collaborative, but our Instagram name is website and small business Experts because people don't understand that your name in your bio is actually a search engine optimized.

It's, um, searchable. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, because I was definitely a victim of that. People don't search the climate collaborative, they search website design services. That's very true. Unless obviously someone has recommended you. But it's, it's interesting how much Instagram and, and even, um, not even just search with words, but search with voice.

'cause obviously people now. You have Siri, you have all sorts of Alexas and all of that. Mm-hmm. You wanna search something, how would I say that thing rather than how would I also type it? So lots of people use, like my dad's got into Siri. It's been very interesting 'cause he thinks, and this is actually interesting to note 'cause this is how people think these like technology works and this is how they use it.

So my dad will say, Siri texts Sue, which is my mom's name. And she'll say, okay, what do you wanna say? And he would say back, tell her I'm on my way home. So Siri literally writes, tell her I'm on my way home, because that's what he is asked Siri to say, not. I am on my way home. So Siri texts my mom and says, tell her I'm on my way home.

And my mom's like, what? These go because it, when we're searching things right, we're gonna search it exactly like he was thinking, he was telling Siri what to say rather than actually exactly what he wanted to say. It was very funny. Um, but this is what happens, right? We, when we're searching things in voice.

It's very, what would someone say or how would someone type something? Not how my program is named. Like I have one. You know, we used to always, I used to have ones like cash in on your content and like all these cool, fun names, but also like, sometimes it just has to be like a content marketing course.

You know what I mean? It, we have to make sure that when we're thinking about naming things, we also have to have something that really does explain what we do. Otherwise, these platforms aren't gonna know how to deliver it to people. Right. And you have to think about what, what exactly are people going to be typing into Google, for example, they're going to be like, oh, I really, I'm really struggling with content in my business.

I know it's really important. Oh, content course, content marketing course. That's what they're typing in. Or these days it's probably a bit more specific than that. It'll like be, um, where is the best? Where, what's the best content marketing course or, um, affordable content marketing, marketing course, things like that.

Um, or, yeah, thinking about how people say things. Obviously these days it's very different. Mm. And now, like with ai, like Chachi PT can now pull resources. So the, you are also trying to get. Found on chat GBT, but now Google has Gemini and like if I write something for example, like, um, today I was searching average email open rates.

'cause I wanted to see if it changed. And what it does is it crawls all these websites and it gives me a summary and then it, like it credits the websites. Mm-hmm. Which is so interesting, right? Because now AI can kind of do a little bit of work for you of collating. So it's sort of. The more, which is plain more, why it's even more important to be creating good content on your website that.

Is optimized because I, I don't know about you, but because I get that summary at the top now, I don't even scroll down. Um, so yeah, there's so much more that goes into it. I was also thinking about your dad and how he, uh, with Siri. Siri, a bit behind on the Times because if you did that to chat GPT, it would know all over it.

Yeah, exactly. Siri needs to keep up. Well, I've recently got Apple Intelligence, so I don't know. Haven't really explored it that much, but, um, it, yeah, it, so how have you seen AI change, SEO, and what you do with your clients? Um, well, people, there's a lot of talk about, um. Like SEO is obsolete, but I think what people are thinking of is they, they tie SEO with Google.

And like Google is obsolete. Like what I just said, like I'm not even scrolling down. I'm reading the summary. Finding the best one out of the summary and going to that SEO isn't just about Google, so if you are like a chat, gpt is a search engine. So if you are optimizing your content, making sure it's the best, most relatable, reliable content you are like and optimizing it, then.

It's going to perform well across whatever platform people are searching on that. I think people just, uh, they get a bit confused, like, okay, yeah, maybe I. It's just that the, the, the spectrum's got bigger. We're not just just analyzing what, uh, people are clicking on through Google now. There's so many different avenues now, so it's definitely not obsolete.

If anything, it's more important that you focus on good quality content that is optimized for search engines. Mm-hmm. Even on TikTok, my partner and I have a travel page and we put our travels on and you know, you used to write a caption like this was fun with like an emoji and then some hashtags, but now it's like.

We have to think about what are people searching things to do in X, Y, Z? And then we'd, so we've, we've got a series where we're sewing our patches. We buy patches and we travel onto our blanket. And when we do it, he, my partner edits it. So it's like a summary of the place and then the patch. So now I'm like, okay, we have to write things to do in that place.

So we have things to do in Rome. And then we'd have the different places that people would be searching because that's what, how people would find. Content. Mm-hmm. Um, because this, that's what they're searching. And actually, when I look at stats now for clients on TikTok search, they show you how many people have found you through searching for something.

Mm-hmm. And then they'll actually show you the things people have searched for. So one of my clients, um, they, people were searching quirky restaurants, and this is a, um, a restaurant not like. It's like a take, like fish and chip kind of vibes. And they have some really quirky stuff in it. They have a table for their salt and salt, so you don't, you don't say I'll have chicken salt.

You do your own chicken salt, so you can put as much as you want. They have these like spray bottles of their vinegar and then on the tables they have wet wipes to wipe down the tables if you want, or your hands, 'cause seafood is, you know it, it's all fresh as well. So that's like someone was searching quirky restaurants.

I'm like, well that's quirky. That's something that everyone always writes in the Google Review. So I was like. Well, I'm gonna take that keyword and I'm gonna turn it into content because that's what people are kind of looking for at this point in time. So then I can leverage that. So these channels are kind of telling us what to do as well, right?

They're telling us what to search. So it's, it's really about analyzing, isn't it? Like actually looking into the data of what people are searching for. Because if you run a business, just because you think people are searching for that service specifically in that way. They might be thinking of it as something completely different.

They might not have the technology that you do, like a mechanic or something might, that you might think they're searching for. Um, like, oh, what's the example? I don't know. You, they're looking for suspension upgrades, but then the people are actually typing in lift kits. So you have to actually really look at the data and what people are searching for to be able to.

Like optimize properly. Mm. Yeah. The TikTok algorithm is wild. Oh, I looked at Cara a couple of caravan tiktoks and now my whole feed is just caravans. Yep. Yeah, it's, and but the good thing about TikTok compared to Instagram is your algorithm, you can manipulate it so much easier. Yeah. So like you could then now start watching cake videos and in a couple of days your algorithm will be completely transformed, whereas.

Instagram, they've now brought out a feature you can reset your own algorithm and that feels like it's only way I can get the stuff that's annoying me out of my feed 'cause I can't manipulate it like I can. My TikTok algorithm, so it's, I didn't even know you could do that yet. Yeah, it's a new feature. Um, I don't, you know, how they roll things out to certain people?

Um, I don't know how many people have it, but I know it was launched in the States. I think I haven't looked for it 'cause I got banned and then I was off, I was Instagram for a bit, so I, I don't really scroll into as I used to. But even like you think about Meta has now its own AI and people are asking it questions and I imagine like.

It's delivering content. So even in your captions, your videos, your, I mean hashtags, I still use them, but eventually they'll probably become obsolete because it'll be just key words. Right. But hashtags is basically SEO anyway, right? It's just in the form of a hashtag. Yeah, I know. I remember the days when you used to like follow specific hashtags of stuff you were interested in.

It's ba that's basically what TikTok does, except it just, it's picking up because everything's advanced so much, it just picks up what you are watching the most of and then presents that to you. Yeah, it's just the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I saw an interesting video from um, Gary V the other week where he was saying Followers are just gonna become obsolete because we are just like cons.

So views will be something we look at now versus likes and even, um. Followers because now the algorithms are so interesting. We're just sort of getting delivered what we need and we don't often, 'cause we know, oh, I don't need to follow, follow Gary V for example, because I just have to watch one of his videos and then I'll get more of his content.

So it's quite interesting how I feel like keyword search and, and um, algorithms are playing a really big role in that. So it's kind of. As long as we're delivering what our audience wants and needs, we shouldn't have to worry about it. Which goes back to what you're saying about we just have to make sure we understand what our audience is looking for and needs and engaging with.

We just need to keep creating that. And I understand this takes time, but once you hit it, your life is so much easier, right? Yeah, for sure. And once you understand it, if you just. If you take the time to understand it, it really, you just gotta simplify it for yourself. It, it really isn't that hard, and then you just do it just 1% every day.

Just do a little bit every day and yeah, watch it work. Mm. Yeah, that's really good advice because I think we always think it's this big beast of like, we've gotta have all these things in a row. And um, and that's why I think it is important to learn from experts and especially in the SEO website space because it can be super overwhelming.

Um, but what advice would you have for anyone listening that's like, oh, this does feel like a bit of a beast, and I know I need to learn. What my audience is searching and, you know, maybe I need all these fancy tools and all this stuff to get started in understanding SEO or even what our audience is searching, looking for.

What do you always recommend for clients that you work with that are kind of like, this is out of my wheelhouse? Yeah, so first of all, um, whatever your, um, services are. Just write them down. So what exactly, who, who, what do you do and who do you do it for? Then go onto, there's heaps of free tools like Google, um, keyword planner tool and things like that.

They're free. Um, you can go on and just type the keywords that you think people are searching for into there, and then it's gonna come up with a list of what. People are actually searching for in what areas and like how many impressions it has, how many clicks? Um, sometimes that's the thing with SEO sometimes people are like, oh, I'm not ranking for this keyword.

But if you actually search it and do a bit of research, there's no one's actually really searching for that. So there's not, you're not gonna get a lot of impressions 'cause not many people are searching for it. So either they're searching for it a different way or they're searching for it in a different place.

Um, so yeah, first of all, understanding or even just asking people. So that's, that's a good thing that Instagram's for putting out a survey. Ask some questions to your followers. Like what exactly if they were. Looking for your service, what would they search for? And then on your website, make sure you have a specific page for each service.

This is my biggest recommendation, so don't just have a our services page with all of your services lumped into one page because Google or Bing or whatever search engine that your people are on, it's going to take one. Look at that page and go. Uh, I have no idea what this page is about. There's like, um, if it's a beautician, there's like spa packages and waxing and, um, nail things and it's not, it's just gonna get confused.

So you need to have one page for each service. So, uh, if it's for waxing and the, the heading one, H one, it's called needs to be waxing in your area. So, or um, just as long as you are using the key word waxing or what people would be searching for in there, and then naturally including lots of content about that topic on the page.

So. So, um, that's the biggest tip I have. I just see so many people lumping all of their information into one page. Um, they think having a, like a landing pages are great, not landing page websites because Google's just like, I have no idea what this page is about. Um, and it's not going to. Push your content out to people.

So really having specific keyword targeted pages, um, or blogs. So having a blog that's about specific topics. Basically just breaking down your topics into different areas and having specific pages for those topics. Yeah, that's super helpful. And then that also helps with your social content too, because mm-hmm.

That's the stuff. And usually what happens is it is the simple stuff that is what people are looking for. Especially on social media. You'll find that, like you'll do a really simple reel or TikTok or whatever, and it's like captures people's interest. 'cause we can only retain a certain amount of information.

So just like Google crawling your website to see how it can deliver it to. Your client. Also, creating content like that is just not a good experience for anyone. A blog, reading something with like 40 million different ideas in it. You're like, just gimme one. I just can only process one, you know? Yeah, absolutely.

If you, with your socials, make sure you're just being really clear on. Uh, the topics. So that's why, that's why TikTok accounts do so well, is because people hyperfocus on one to topic and just create heaps of content around that one topic. Mm. And the same goes for Instagram. Like I try and keep a lot of my content.

There's like, we have content pillars and things like that. I could go into heaps of detail, but mainly around like website design, SEO, and then I have like inspiration and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it helps keep you on track, right? And then I always teach this as well because like when you're looking at your, all of the ideas that you have, you wanna try and fit them in.

To some sort. I kind of bucket them into some sort of bucket so that you can, you know, oh yeah, that makes sense to this, and then that will make sense when I'm trying to sell X, Y, Z, or when I'm trying to promote X, Y, Z, then I can go into detail on that. So I absolutely love that so much to think about. Is there any parting words that you have for the audience on websites, SEO, sort of getting your head around, trying not to put all your eggs in a social media bucket or basket?

Um, probably what I said before. So yeah, just simplifying your whole business, what exactly it is you do and who do you do it for, and asking for help. I, I really flew by the seat of my pants at the start of starting my business and like. Felt like I had to know it all myself or I wasn't good enough. Uh, when the, when I've had the biggest growth is when I find someone who's an expert in that area and just ask them for help.

Mm uh, people more than willing to help. Like, uh, you, if I can give someone a tip that takes me 30 seconds to explain. But that could be a game changer for them. So yeah, just, uh, ask for help, things you don't understand. Find someone who does know a lot about it and just ask for help. Um, build a network of good people around you that can support you, um, in all the different areas of your business.

That is really good advice because yes, we don't have to know it all, even though we think we do. And how can people find you and stalk you and learn more from you and ask for some help? So I'm on an Instagram, um, as long as my account doesn't get shut down. So at the Climb Collaborative, um. I've been really, um, leaning into LinkedIn lately.

So, um, I'm Ashley Atkinson on LinkedIn. Uh, we have a business page, but I really prefer the personal side of LinkedIn, um, and Facebook, the Climb Collaborative. And our website is the climb collaborative.com au. Amazing. Thank you for sharing. And, um, yeah, I loved learning more from you and it got me thinking about.

What I can do for keywords, SEO, and yes, another reminder to put more energy into the website. So that was good. Absolutely. Just set aside an hour, one hour a week and just go in and tweak things. Yeah, that's very good advice actually. That is something I did have in my calendar and it remove, so it needs to go back in.

Thank you. It needs to go back in mine as well. Don't worry. I just keep going. Oh yeah. I'll do it later. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you very much. It was lovely to chat. What are some of the key takeaways for you? I loved how Ash explained SEO, because obviously always think about Google and it's not just Google, it is social media as well and all the things, but I guess the biggest.

Takeaway is how to diversify your marketing strategy and think about all the different ways that you can market your business. I think it's really important, especially as, yeah, social media's a great channel, but it's also growing and getting huge and there's lots of content. And I think what's helped me, my business from day one was really diversify it, but doing it in a smart way, not obviously burning yourself out.

Um, so hopefully it's given you some inspiration to think about some other ways you can market and create content at all things. Be a content queen or king, and remember that developing your strategy and story develops your business. Thank you so much for joining me today. And don't forget to share this with all your business and entrepreneurial friends.

You can do this by adding it to your Insta Stories or tagging us at Content Queen Mariah, or just tell 'em about it. Now if you do rate and review, that is how Ash found this podcast to come on the show. So. It allows me to rank in the charts and all the great things so I can continue to create the content.

So I would love it if you could do that. Follow us on Instagram or TikTok and let me know any topics you would love for me to cover in the future. I'm all ears and I will talk to you soon. Bye.

PodcastMariah MacInnesmarketing, marketing advice, how to be authentic online, business ownerComment