PODCAST – The Importance of Local SEO For Small Businesses

In EP 61 of The Wild Womn Hotline, we are joined by Liz Cortes who sat down to chat with us about the importance of local SEO for small businesses.

As both an SEO expert and co-founder of RebelFish Local, she and her husband help small businesses get more traffic with local SEO and help them get more clients by implementing StoryBrand copywriting on their websites.

What separates Liz from other SEO experts is that she will not take you on as a client unless she is certain she can get you ranked on page 1 of Google. 

Through RebelFish Local, Liz focuses on getting your website to rank for those keywords that will make you the most money. 

Because as Liz likes to say, “who cares if you rank for 100 keywords if they don’t lead to more clients?”

In this value-packed episode, Liz walks you through the importance of answering potential clients’ Qs on blog posts and how to set up local SEO for getting on more Google searches. 

She also introduces you to the homepage messaging framework for your website known as “StoryBrand”, which Liz has used to help their clients increase their sales conversions for sustainable business growth. 

In this episode, we also discuss…

• Why local SEO is critical, even if you run your business 100% online
• What it means to have a blog article “pop” on Google
• The most important steps to becoming ranked first on search engines 
• The magic of “The Skyscraper Method” and how to use it to leverage your long-form content
• What is “backlinking” and how does it help you increase the authority of your website
• Recommended tools and plug-ins to help with your SEO implementation
• The differences between Blog SEO and Website SEO
• The importance of setting up a Google business account even if you do business 100% online

Links and Resources

Resources mentioned in this conversation:

• Liz’s favorite tool for SEO optimization (SEO Math)
• 5 Hacks That Will Get You On Page 1 Of Google
• What Are Good Testimonial Questions For Clients? Here Are 20
• Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

Looking for more digital marketing resources? Check out these suggestions!

• PODCAST – Email Marketing Made Easier w/Liz Wilcox
• PODCAST – Creating Content Ownership w/Lisette Harrington

Audio Transcript

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Alright, Liz, I am so excited to have you on today because before we started recording, I was telling you all about my journey to growing my first business. Through local SEO, I cannot wait to hear all of the juicy tips. 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: So when I moved to California in 2009, I realized I’m not the only personal trainer nutrition coach out here.

 And I was making more money where I used to live in Albuquerque, New Mexico than I did here. Figure that, but doubled expenses. And so I thank goodness met online marketers and so many lived here All. Gurus from back in the day that everyone knew all their names. Like I could have dinner with those people and cuz they all lived out here.

So I learned about online marketing, took my fitness business online, and did all the things that you’ve probably done with your business. Free offers and sales funnels and emails and [00:01:00] all the things courses. All of that. And so I learned that and was part of ranking because I saw being a personal trainer, I did like working with clients in person, but also online cuz I was coaching them.

And so that was when I first started learning how to blog. I was ranking that blog back then. It was a YouTube video once a week and then, that was SEO optimized, and then it was a blog. And that’s how I built it up. I built up a fitness page, and weight loss page to 70,000 likes, Wow.

Became an influencer through all that. And so I loved all that. I love creating content and as soon as the live video came out, I was like, that’s awesome. That helps grow. Being in fitness, I, my husband, I’d never, made the income that I knew I could make. And really in fitness, I think you have to work with a lot of clients.

You need to have the apps, you need to have all the [00:02:00] things. And I didn’t want, wanna go down that path. I also wanted to work with my husband, so a friend of ours was like, instead of starting your marketing agency, why don’t you go work for someone? So we got hired on a due sales, increased this other agency’s company from 40,000 a month to 65,000 a month in just three months.

So we scaled it quickly, and, but the owner gambled away the company. That was a lot of money. and gambled away. Let go of half the company right before Christmas. And so we got let go. And two weeks later, a friend of ours was like, Hey, I fired my marketing team. I don’t trust that guy you guys work for.

He didn’t even know the story, what had just happened. He said, pick, come over tomorrow. Pick up a check for 2,500. You can take care of my three laundromats, do all my marketing, and I’ll pay you that for the next year. So we were in business. By month two, he said you guys need to set up a business bank account and a [00:03:00] Company, an organization like this needs to be a legit company.

Cause I can’t be writing you personal checks anymore, So we did that and, we grew slowly and have grown to be successful but SEO. So we started with doing everything at the beginning. Now our GM is. a co-locally specifically, which if you are like, what is local? What does that even mean?

That is just, you’re wanting local clients. So even if you’re an online business, I think it’s so important to have a stake in the ground in your city. Like your local city needs to know who you are. And that’s not just a Chamber of commerce. Those networking events I don’t know. I’m not into those.

Those I was not as fun. Like I love the online stuff. , I’ll sign up for any online Zoom chats or whatever. But yeah, it’s good to know news stations, like strategic partners locally, other business coaches, people that would be great referral partners. They need to know you and you need to be known locally.

And I think that makes a big difference. So keep listening, [00:04:00] even if you don’t do anything local and you don’t want anyone to know where you live. Just keep listening. We’ll share some strategies with you. So that’s how we got started with Rubble Fish. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: And just a really quick story, everybody listening, is that my first business that I started in 2016 working as a health coach and a nutritionist, Thrived off of my local seo. I had an Instagram, I had a Facebook, I had all of the things, but. Local searches for a nutritionist in Phoenix. And when I moved to Houston, nutritionist in Houston, that’s what drove my business.

And with this business that I now have working with marketing and with branding and running the agency, I don’t lean on my local network and my local community like I used to. And I am like full force leaning into that now because there is a certain element of. This uncomfortable [00:05:00] dependency that we develop with social media and like Instagram and TikTok and Facebook to rely upon driving our business.

And I think that’s such like a short-sighted perspective on how to grow and how to generate leads and generate sales. Because I’ve seen the success that local SEO can create for a business. And it’s still really easy to get caught up in No, you have to. Be pumping out so much content. You have to be doing all of these things.

And I always say I would never advise somebody to not have a social presence. I think in this day and age, it’s a non-negotiable, like you have to have that presence. You have to be visible, you have to build a community. , but you don’t have to rely on it solely. It’s not your only means of generating business.

So can you talk a little bit about maybe like the lifestyle benefits, just the overall stress management benefits, but also the business benefits of splitting your energy. , the digital [00:06:00] marketing in terms of social media, but then also the digital marketing in terms of local seo, just standard SEO O, all of the things.

GUEST: Liz Cortes: Yeah. So when it comes to social media why are people on social media? Maybe they’re bored, maybe they have five minutes. Maybe they’re wanting to check out and see what their friends are up to. Like they’re just logging on five, 10 minutes. Sometimes it goes way longer than that and they suck you into it.

But that’s normally what’s going on. They’re not going typically on social media looking to solve their most urgent emergency right now. Like the sync needs a plumber. They’re not gonna go to Instagram. Most likely. Maybe they would. To get that fixed, they’re gonna go to Google. So that is the power. And when you think about Google, people are going there to get their questions answered.

 Even to YouTube, they’re going asking a very specific question to solve a very specific problem. And if your content shows [00:07:00] up on Google or YouTube, you win. They learn from you. You may get a subscriber alike. They may opt into one of your free offers because they found you. They may even schedule a sales call.

I had, I did a sales call the other day because I have a bunch of blogs that start Popp. . When I say popping, that means they’re showing up on page one of Google, which that means I’m gonna probably get between 10 to 100 people seeing that article on a monthly basis. Now that might not seem a lot to you, but when I write articles, the articles, or I have my team write articles for our clients, they are articles for people that are solution aware.

Are looking to hire someone, it’s just gonna be you or someone else. They’re solution aware. They are still doing their research and I want them to pick us. So I wrote this blog on, it was like, why are, it was like a story brand focus, so StoryBrand copywriting and it was like story brand website, [00:08:00] examples for wellness profess.

So I got an instagramer. She has a large following. She’s I only rely on influencers to promote my business. I don’t wanna do that anymore. It’s amazing. I love their shoutouts. I love paying the money to promote me, but she’s I wanna be a little bit more balanced, especially with what happened with Instagram.

So she was on Google trying to solve her problem cuz she was irritated with Instagram last week. Found us, booked a call. I don’t even think I talk about my fitness background on there, but that showed me there’s a need for this. And she wrote no local s e o , she’s also from Texas, moved to Hawaii and was like, I was like, okay, I get it.

She doesn’t wanna do local s E o. , but we worked up together package. She was like, she needs local EO and what she wants. So I was like, I’m gonna give her what she wants. Yeah. But then my goal is next month to add on local eo cuz she just doesn’t get the power yet. And that’s okay. She’s brand new. She [00:09:00] found me from one block.

She has not been following me. She doesn’t know. And that’s okay. I’m gonna help her out with a little package and then go from there. So I think that’s what the power and the potential is. if you like to create content, whether it’s a podcast, a blog, YouTube video. , you can get that to rank on Google.

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: And like to be completely transparent, I like creating longer form content that actually solves problems because to be completely like honest when it comes to social media content, I see that as the flashy attention grabbing. Let me try and get your attention. Whereas that’s great, but is a 32nd video really solving a bigger problem for me.

I have never looked for a solution on social media. I never have. I don’t find my coaches through social media. I don’t search for solutions for my business on social media. I go to Google, right? Or if I’m trying to get a [00:10:00] literal step-by-step tutorial, I go to YouTube. I can learn on Instagram and I can learn on TikTok.

Like I have so many videos saved on TikTok of like, how to do this with your makeup or how to do this with your content, or whatever it may be, right? But I’m not going there looking to learn something. I’m using the app to Either have something to do, fill my time, look at cool stuff, and if I find something that’s relevant to me, it’ll spark my attention and maybe I’ll go click over.

But it just seems like such a more roundabout, difficult way to get somebody’s attention, whereas it works, it’s effective, but let’s put, let’s not put all of our eggs in one basket and let’s create a more balanced approach where we have things that we’ve done. Optimized put out into the world and it’s gonna continue working for us for months and months and months.

 That’s what I understand one of the big benefits of S SCO to [00:11:00] be. So can you walk us through like how do we show up on the first page of Google? Cause that’s ultimately what we want to have happen. When somebody types in a search word, we wanna be one of the first results that come up. But there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes in making that.

So can you walk us through why we wanna be on the first page of Google for a search result and like what goes on behind the scenes to make that happen? ? Because I know there’s a 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: lot . Yes, there’s definitely a lot and does help. I could show you things, but we’re listening right now. You’re multitasking right now.

 Big picture when it comes to creating, let’s just say blogs, you want them to be 1500 words long, that’s how long Google wants blogs to. The other thing, before you decide to make a piece of content, you need to Google that keyword that you’re wanting to rank for and see, can I write a better blog than these other people listed?

Okay? So you [00:12:00] need to be willing to make a better blog, adding more photos, like you could still use like your carousel graphics and create a blog around what you already did on Instagram for carousel. You could add those in there, but you want to. Photos or graphs or Canva, stuff like that’s added into that blog, and you have to say, can I write a better blog than these other people?

The other thing to look for is if there’s something you wanna talk about, but when you Google it, it’s like Forbes and it’s these giant HubSpot, these giant, huge companies or forums that are on page one of Google. Most likely you’ll never rank for that keyword. So don’t even waste your time talking about that unless you already have a huge email list and most of the people that find your content is because you’re emailing them.

 But you’re creating this content, so you show up on Google, so you wanna rank for that. So for me, when looking for keyword research, like if it’s even only 10 people searching per month, , like sometimes it’s worth it to do [00:13:00] that. And I think a really great thing can do is everyone’s doing sales calls.

I’m sure if you are only have online products, you may not know, but you could go read your own reviews and see what are people saying. There’s q and as on product pages, like what questions are people asking. Even on your Google business profile, people cannot be asking questions.

 So you could start there by answering the questions that you get on your sales. Over, or you get on your dms over and over the same questions. If you keep getting the same question and you can’t answer them with a blog post you should probably go write that blog post. That’d be a great place to start.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t answer them and be nice and be like, oh, here you go. Here’s a blog. But yeah, what, whatever you’re asking about, like those are what your people care about and they wanna know. And if you can write an amazing blog post, it’s also gonna save you time. because you could forward it to them.

You could answer their little question, but forward say, Hey, I have this resource. Get more eyeballs. [00:14:00] The longer they can. stay on your website, the better Google. Doesn’t like it when people click off your website within eight seconds and they’re like nope. I didn’t find what I wanted. I don’t I don’t like the format of this blog. Yeah. It’s like that. And you’re branding? Branding. Yeah. So it’s I’m sure you have a specific way, like you like blogs to look like layout design. We don’t do that stuff, but that is just so important. So I love, even when I see sites, I’m doing Google audits.

Yeah, this blog format is terrible. And I’m like, Hey, go check on this lady’s website. This one looks good. You should follow, have your web developer make it look like this because it makes the user experience better. There’s strategic things on Google and keywords, but then also layout brandy.

All that stuff is so important when you wanna be seen and notice and people to pick you. Yep. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: And so we’re talking about three different things, and I wanna break down each of them. So the first thing that we talked. Was, and I believe something [00:15:00] called the skyscraper method that you’re talking about, like finding those high, highly searchable blogs.

That are not by those like industry dominating companies like Forbes, like HubSpot. I agree. Trying to write a better blog than that. You’re never gonna do it like the size of their research team, the size of their writing team. It’s just don’t even try. However, there is a method that I know. If the, I haven’t tried yet.

I’ve been researching it cuz I am really looking, what is it? Tell us the skyscraper method. So really looking into how to get out of relying on social. So what I understand the skyscraper method to be is basically what you said the first time is where you research a keyword. Or you type in a keyword into Google that’s relevant to your industry, relevant to your business, relevant to whatever it is that you d you’re doing, and you look for what are the top articles that are popping up?

When I [00:16:00] type in that keyword, you then look at that article and analyze how many links are they adding? What’s the format of this, what’s the story they’re telling? What’s the flow of this article? What’s the data that they’re reinforcing? How many photos are in it? How is it. And you basically go and you take that article and you write a 10 times better.

One, you create more information you reformat the blog so that it’s easier to read and easier to learn from. And then you look at that blog and you see the original blog that you’re using and you see what are the websites or the sources that are backlinking to that blog. And then you reach out to those people and say, Hey, I have an updated resource.

Would you want to use this to provide for your reader? Or whatever it may be. So now those huge websites are backlinking to your blog that you wrote, which means SE or Google’s gonna love you even more. Cuz it’s telling Google that, hey, this is a reliable blog that a lot of people are [00:17:00] backlinking to. So let’s show this one instead of this one.

So is that something that you’ve seen to be really effective? Is that worth 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: like more time than 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: it is like giving us results? Or how would you approach the skyscraper method? 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: I like that. What I really love about that method you just shared is the last part. looked at who they’re backlinking to. And then contact them. How many people do that? No one does that. And there’s times when we’ve audited clients and we’re looking for what backlinks are out there, and we’ll see.

Maybe they spoke or were interviewed on a university a.edu backlink or a.gov backlink is like gold. So cool to have that like that just shows so much authority to your site. But we’ve seen where they are. It’s called a no follow back link. That’s what you don’t, you, those are okay to have up online, but when [00:18:00] they’re those big ones, it says, no follow.

That’s selling Google. , it’s that needs to be changed. The back links so that it does say to follow and like that you get credit to your site. So you’ll have a list of sites that are the no follow or the d there’s different back links, but I love that last part of it and I think it is worth that time.

 Another thing that was missing from that was how many key words are in that? . So if, let’s say you’re writing a blog on social media, will, there’s tools out there that will analyze well, how many times do the top 10 blog posts talk about social media or are they’re talking about ins, whatever the keywords are.

So then you can make sure that if all of these 10 blogs use these five words this many times in your blog, you should probably do that too. But in a different. So that’s the only thing I see that would add on. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Yeah. And some of my favorite tools, guys, I use the Yost SEO plugin for WordPress. Are you a fan of that? 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: We actually [00:19:00] switched all of our clients to rank Math seo. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Okay. Wait, okay. 

Tell me all about this tool.

Because I’ve been using Yost SEO plugin, which like it, I think it’s only for WordPress blogs. . Okay. Yes. But what it does is basically like analyzes everything that I’ve written for, is your keyword showing up enough? Is it in the subheadings? Is it in the meta description? Is it in the slug? Is it in all of these different things?

Is it tagged on your images? So tell me about the one that you recommend your clients use. Is there a better option? ? 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: Yes. Sorry. We made a decision to switch all of our clients for free over to this new one, which. We had to do a lot of extra work to switch all them over cuz we thought two years ago it was worth it to change.

 It does all the things that Yos SEO does, plus more cool things. and my favorite part for me, That [00:20:00] doesn’t do this all day to day is it gives you green lights, means you wrote a good block. green. Yellow, yeah. Yellow, red and the percentages. All of that. That’s what I like the best. And yeah it gives you great reports.

Like same thing with yos. You get your reports, but it, gosh, it, yeah, it was worth it to change over back when we changed, we. 31 clients we were working with two years ago when we made the decision to change them all over that month. So that was an investment for us to do, but we felt like it was worth it.

So we’ve been using it for two years. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: You have these specific tools that help with like blog optimization.

It also does the same thing for website. Can we talk a little bit more about the difference between blog SEO versus website seo and kind of the big themes that separate the two in terms of what you should be focusing on to optimize both? Yes. 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: When picking. [00:21:00] Your main keyword for your website, you’ll optimize this, the pages of your site.

So typically you’ll have your homepage. So when it comes to your homepage, what I’d love to see is your business name. So what is your business name? And it could be your own personal name too. So it’d be your business name, a pipe. So the pipe, that’s a straight line on your keyboard. Then you put your main keyword and then.

The next section, you do another pipe, then you put your city and state, that’s where the local comes in. So you get some local traffic. So typically there’s enough space in room to put those three sections, and that is on the title tag for your homepage. Okay. So I didn’t lose anyone with this techie talk.

That is so important that you have the right one. That could mean, maybe don’t [00:22:00] say photographer, but if you do wedding photographer San Diego, you see how you probably get better traffic and Google’s gonna show you more frequently when you have that and then write more blogs. And isn’t writing like 10 blogs on, we’re doing wedding photography.

There’s gonna be different versions. , that could be a good place to start. Business coach is really hard. I research for a friend. Personal development stuff like personal brand. Oh that’s like just dominated. So when it comes to coaches and consultants, you have to like deep dive to figure out what that keyword is.

 We’ve been working with some more like story brand. For that type of certification or brand builders is another big one. A lot of people are doing and they’re like, I wanna rank for my city and that certification that I [00:23:00] have, or like an acupuncturist that can do the think it’s called the Gonstead method, where that’s like baby chiropractic when it’s in the belly.

and move things. I could be calling that wrong. Sorry if I called the wrong thing. , like that’s a specific, or yoga certification that you have. That’s something cool to rank for locally, that you’re gonna get some traffic. And so knowing what that is, I think it is important to either have a service area page that talks about that specific service that you offer and as it relates to your city, or write blogs, talking about.

Different questions that come up around that keyword, that service, and you have to go more a, we call ’em longer tail keywords. So if it’s just two words, that’s hard to rank for it. If it’s two or if it’s three or four, it’s a little easier. But some are tough. Like right now, real estate, if you’re a real estate agent, it’s really hard to rank on Google [00:24:00] for a realtor in your city, even a little.

I, I worked with a realtor last week and she picked out four neighborhoods. I was like, oh, this’ll be great. I have my husband looking, cuz before even on a client, we make sure that we can deliver and make them get on page one, like fully confident. For her. We had to tell her, no, these littles neighbors I never even heard of.

I’m like I have friends all over San Diego, I don’t even know where these areas are. And he is no, it’s too competi. I’m like, I’ve never heard of ’em. He is like, Nope, it won’t work. And so he was like, she needs to do a social media and a a website strategy instead of seo. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: So that’s really cool that there’s like that awareness up.

So the goal is you wanna be competitive and if you can’t be competitive, then that local SEO may not benefit you in the long run. And what you’re talking about is doing that like super extensive. And trying to find something that you can be locally competitive for because I swear I’ve seen the [00:25:00] benefits of local seo.

That’s what grew my first business and I just so happened to be in cities where there were not a lot of private nutritionists and health coaches working. A lot of them were in clinics or hospitals under that brand name of the clinic or the hospital. Whereas I was completely independent in Houston.

Huge. Nobody was doing private nutrition consulting in Houston. So that was just like a golden egg opportunity. But what you’re saying is to really get the advice and the input of somebody that is. In the SEO industry, like what you’re talking about that you do with your company to help you decide, is local SEO a viable strategy for you to grow your business and for you to generate leads?

Or is something like a website and social media strategy gonna serve you better in the long run? 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: And you can test it out locally. If you can’t rank locally, you’re probably not gonna rank nationally. Like you talked about your previous business the two key words that I. [00:26:00] My fitness business four was nutrition coach.

So I was on page one, Google Above 24 Hour Fitness, all the large companies, San Diego nutrition coach and weight loss personal trainer. Those are my two key words that drove so much traffic, helped grow social media and all email list, all the things, those two key words. And even when I closed down that business, I still kept the side up because.

Oh, baby, I shouldn’t say this. You still get discounts, right? ? Yeah. My my people that still send me free stuff even though I’m not in fitness for seven years. , I still love that. Hopefully you’re not. Keep 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Reagan right now. That swag. I’ll take it. 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: I’ll take it. Lemon, of course. Send me some workout clothes.

I totally need more workout. Close. Oh 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: my God. Can you put me on that mailing 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: list? I I still get it. I still get invited to all [00:27:00] the gluten-free expo. I’m like, totally. I’ll go to a gluten-free expo. Like I love it. That is absolutely. So you have four tickets? Sure. We’ll totally go there. So I still keep it up because I appreciate the Marie stuff and they should have done their research to see how it blogged in seven years, but for three, , I was still ranking for those T two keywords.

 So what I did for a while is I was, I would get Google phone call or Yeah. I used Google, the free phone number on Google business. Yeah. I would pass over those leads to other people in our city for a while now that’s dried up and I don’t rank for anything online anymore in the fitness cause it’s been seven years now.

But yeah, that’s something I think is important. But try to, Locally first try it out. you can’t rank for business coach in your neighborhood you’re probably never gonna rank for that online unless you rank a ton of content. Yeah [00:28:00] I think that’s where to start.

But local typically could help you. I say for when it comes to local traffic. If you have a Google business profile, which if you work from home like we do, you can hide your. So you can set it up and then hide your address. You don’t even have to have a website to have Google business profile.

 So you can still get some local traffic and you just pick the right categories you set up. It has to be your business name. You can’t keyword stuff. We will report what I researched. Clients were like, oh, they’re keyword stuffing report, report to Google. . That is not good. So if you’re annoyed that your competitors are getting more you’re supposed to have your legal business name be your Google business profile, and if it’s not, you know who’s doing it.

You’re like, they have like all these words. You’re like, you can just click the report button and no one will know we do it too. And they’re not supposed to be doing that . Yep. So click report and then you’ll get more traffic. But so for the average [00:29:00] person when they come to. Maybe they’re getting a hundred visitors to their Google business profile or their website a month.

 And then following our strategies, even in our free offer, bef of apply our main one on our site, you could get up to a thousand people finding your Google business profile and then it will track how many of those will click to your website. And if your website’s branded well and you followed what’s taught on this podcast from Tristan, her team, then.

your stuff will probably convert. Yeah. And you’re gonna grow your business. Yeah. But if your website looks terrible, it was like, looks like it was made 20 years ago. Or it was made for $5. It’s not, it’s probably not gonna convert. And you need to fix that first. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: And just to highlight the importance of Google business guys, I don’t think enough entrepreneurs, anybody that works with me, I’m like, you’re getting a Google business.

Because not only does it help with local SEO and search results and conversions to your website, [00:30:00] but it’s also something that is one of the strongest ways to showcase your testimonials because they are user generated. You cannot go in and edit anything that anybody leaves on a Google business. You can flag an inappropriate comment, but it’s still up to Google’s discretion if they take it down or not.

So what that means is anything that’s been written by somebody that shows up on your Google. They had to press submit. They wrote all of it without any of your, say, of course. I suppose you could always be like, say this, and they can decide if they want to. But from my perspective, in terms of building credibility, establishing your authority, and really showcasing your results, having that Google business where all of your testimonials and then what you can do for your website and your social media and all of your other marketing is just pull pieces that they’ve written from those testimonials and use them on your website. Do not ask somebody just to email you a testimonial. Get it on your Google business. [00:31:00] That is visible to everybody that finds you on Google.

It reinforces the legitimacy and credibility of what you do as an expert. And it’s also, like I said, nothing that you have control over editing. And people that find you on Google know that. So in terms of optimizing, , our Google business. You said you have a resource for this, what is this resource, ? 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: Yes, I do.

I have a mini course for those of you that like step by step how to do it. It’s a mini course. It’s five videos. It’s called Five Hacks to Get on page one at Google. And so it is local focus. But like I said, you can hide your address and I talk about that in the mini course. So it’s videos, a PDF checklist.

 And so to get that you can go to rebel fish local.com. Five dash hacks. Amazing. That’s what you can get. I’m sure we’ll throw them the show notes. Yep. Click that link. 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Yep. So that’s gonna be in the show notes. Guys. Let’s, I think this has been an awesome conversation about how to optimize your local, how to really drive [00:32:00] traffic to your website, but also something that I love.

Is to let people have a breath of fresh air and take some of the weight off of relying solely on social media to drive business for your brand. At the end of the day, I would never suggest that somebody doesn’t have a social presence because, We’re only gonna continue to get more and more entrenched and invested in tech ai, the Metaverse Web three, all of the things.

That’s where we’re going, and you don’t have to rely solely on it. So this is such a great alternative for people to get that breath of fresh air. Go download the five steps to revamp and improve your Google business. What else would you like people to go check out that you think would be really helpful and really approachable for somebody that wants to get started optimizing their seo?

Oh 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: man. We got lots of logs, lot, lots of resources, I think. I think [00:33:00] that is the best blessed place to get started. And. You are not, I might, I’m glad you preach it too. Like use, maybe you’ll, your team will learn something to add on that you’re not doing that makes a big difference.

I think that’s the biggest thing in getting those reviews. Some people might be scared too about asking for the reviews. I think reviews is something that a lot of people look over and they’re like, oh, it’s fine. I have my Instagram followers. We’re good. We look good. But getting those reviews and we yeah. I have, there is one really cool blog that we have if you search under reviews. Talks about, I think it’s 15 or 25 different questions to ask to get people to write you a better review.

 So five of those questions come from page 100 of this book, if you get a physical book, , but it’s called Building a Story Brand. Yeah, it’s like a marketing copywriting [00:34:00] style book and Gotta tell your Miller story. Yeah. Donna Miller you know who that is. Page 100 has his list of five questions.

Yep. That when you email those out to people and share your Google link, you’ll get amazing well written reviews. That’s gonna be at least five sentences, which is good. 

You’ve 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: gotta literally lead people to the water and that’s why I am gonna go find that blog and link it in the show notes too, because asking or offering prompts, I do this in my offboarding process when I’m offboarding a client.

I’m like, you can expect to receive three different emails. One is what all of the different things that I’m gonna remove you from. The other one is gonna be asking for a testimonial. And in that testimonial email, I have five questions of tell me the biggest problem that you were experiencing before you started working with us.

What led you to choose Wild and One House? What were some of the tangible results that you saw in terms. Stats, data [00:35:00] increases revenue, et cetera. And then tell me about like some of the emotional benefits. Do you feel more confident? Do you feel more clear? Do you feel more bold? Tell me about those things.

 And so by the time that they get done answering these questions, the testimonial is like a chunk, like a multi-paragraph chunk that’s embedded with all of these different words that have to do with the results. They got the work that we did together and it’s a completely truthful. Interpretation of what they experienced working with us, but it also.

Our Google business page because it’s embedded with brand strategy and website design and brand design and Wildman House and all of these different names. So I’m gonna link that blog in the show notes. You can go get these questions that Liz has provided because I cannot say how beneficial it is to lead people to what you.

You know the story to say and ask the right questions. 

Thank you so much for coming on and talking to us. This is [00:36:00] super helpful. I am personally gonna go get the mini course just to make sure that everything is set up perfectly cuz I am a huge fan of getting more bang from your buck in the long run. And this is what I see SEO as being able to provide us as entre.

So thank you so much for your time. And where can people go connect with you if they’re outside of the blogs that I’m going to attach? Is there a different place that you want people to go connect with you through? 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: so I’m the most like on social media, on Instagram or on LinkedIn. Cool. LinkedIn, of course, if you’re b2b.

 Both of us are. B sales. LinkedIn’s a place to be. So that’s where you see me most of the time, but also Instagram. So Liz Cortez online and that’s Cortez with an S. Amazing. That’s how you find me around. But I love chatting and I love messages and hearing. If you got value from this episode, so you can let Tristan know by leaving her review

That’s how she knows if you like. And you want more guests on [00:37:00] preaches, let know. So do that. Five stars, . 

HOST: Tristan Thibodeau: Thank you so much, Liz. This is super fun. 

GUEST: Liz Cortes: Thank you.