Crafting Compelling Copy in Your Marketing with Sara Gillis

While you may understand the value and importance of copywriting on your website for sales and SEO, what about all of the other copy you need in your marketing? In today’s episode, copywriter Sara Gillis joins me to share how you can craft compelling copy in your marketing. From planning and organizing to tools and storytelling, Sara is covering it all!

LISTEN ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST PLAYER

Apple Podcast App | Spotify | Amazon | Youtube

Guest Bio:

As a copywriter at What Sara Said, copy coach, and host of the Copywriter On Call podcast, Sara Gillis helps female creative business owners, especially photographers, stand out through words. After teaching writing for nearly a decade, Sara left education to help business owners show up authentically online by crafting website copy that’s word-magic for their ideal clients.

Sara shares practical advice to infuse creative businesses with storytelling and heart. Sara coaches her clients to do the work to show up confidently in business and being fearless in pursuing passions and communicating value.

Sara serves clients nationwide but calls South Dakota home. She loves her life with her husband, Jordan, their two hockey-obsessed sons, Lionel (11) and Quincy (9), and their two Doodles, Nellie and Mookie.

Today’s episode is brought to you by DIY Template Shop! Grab the exact email, form, and workflow templates that I include inside the CRM Blueprint Course. Steal my templates and customize them to match your brand and process. Use the code PODCAST for 10% off.

Here are the highlights…

00:16 Meet Sara + In-Person Conferences

01:15 – Importance of Copywriting for Small Businesses

02:38 – Brain Dump and Inspiration Process

03:49 – Organizing and Planning Content

07:03 – Storytelling in Marketing

13:21 – The Role of Video and Captions

17:14 – Consistency Across Platforms

22:22 – Using AI for Copywriting

30:09 – SEO and Keywords

Connect with Sara

Website: whatsarasaid.com

Instagram: instagram.com/hellosaragillis

Podcast/YouTube: youtube.com/@hellosaragillis

Review the Transcript:

Colie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to the business first creative podcast. So today I am chatting with my friend, Sara Gillis of the copywriter on call podcast. She is an amazing copywriter for photographers, but I do want to let you guys know this is the second time we’ve tried to do this. I unfortunately had to tell Sara the morning of our last scheduled interview.

Hey, Sara, my neighbor is getting a new roof. We cannot record today, but we are happy to say that there are no garbage trucks. There are no roofers. There is nothing outside preventing us from having this conversation and bringing it to you. Sara, welcome to the podcast.

Sara: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so glad that it’s quiet enough for us to do this.

Colie: know, and I feel like I really miss Sara because I have seen her twice this year at in person conferences, which we should probably talk about in person conferences at some point during this conversation, but it was just so nice to see Sara in person again for two conferences. I’m hoping that we’re going to find a reason to see each other again before the year ends, but I was just at Mic Check Society and we were talking about it before I hit record.

so much for having me. If it wasn’t her son’s birthday, she would have came to that too, so I would have seen Sara a third time.

Sara: That would’ve been awesome. That would’ve been so awesome. Next time. Next time for sure.

Colie: Next time. So guys, I already mentioned that Sara is a copywriter and you guys all know how I love to have copywriters on this podcast because I think that copy is one of the most important things that all of us as small business owners use, but I don’t like writing copy. I don’t like editing copy. I don’t like doing any of these things.

And so I just like to lean on my copywriting friends so that I get the motivation that I need to do my copy for my marketing and my business in general.

Sara: I love that so much. You are so not alone in feeling that way.

Colie: So Sara, why don’t we start with, cause we’re going to be talking about marketing today because I feel like a lot of us know that we need to write a really good website. Like we all know that we need copy on our website, but none of us really think very hard about all the other copy that we need to write in order to market our business and our services and then eventually make sales.

So when someone is trying to like, well, first of all, When you sit down and you’re like, I need to market my business. I need to write some copy. What is the first thing that a small business owner does in order to prepare themselves to write the copy? Not actually write the copy, but what do we do before we can actually pick up a pen and paper or get on a keyboard and start writing?

Sara: Yeah. For me, it’s a, it’s an inspiration process that has to happen. It’s some sort of a brainstorming process. I often call it a brain dump. I hate that term. It just sounds so weird, but that’s what works for me. And so, um, Whether it’s reading something that is inspiring me and it can be something related to my industry or completely not related.

I’m a, I’m a book reader, constantly reading. And so if I’m reading a piece of fantasy romance and loving it, that helps me to get my mind creatively inspired. And so for me, I have to have some sort of an inspiration gathering type of, of time before I’m able to actually put pen to paper or fingers on a keyboard.

Colie: So let’s talk about this brain dump because I often hear people are like, you know, you should just sit down and put down all your thoughts. But I feel like the piece that’s missing from the brain dump is not. Dumping your brain, because I feel like a lot of us can do that very easily. It’s what happens after we throw all the spaghetti on the wall, if you will.

And we don’t know what to do with everything once it’s on that piece of paper. So I think the key is organization, but is there something that comes next before the organization of all of the thoughts that you’ve had?

Sara: Yeah. So for me, I start my brain dumps with like all of the random things occupying space in my mind, like the doctor’s appointment I need to make and you know, the groceries I need to add to the list. All of that has to get out before I can think of anything business wise. And so once I get all of that stuff captured somewhere, whether it’s a post it note or a note on my phone.

It’s about trying to think, okay, what’s coming up in my business and how can I align my content, my copy, my words in any sort of frame to support that upcoming thing, whether it’s a launch, whether it’s just something I’m noticing. That my clients are struggling with a question that’s popped up in my DMS.

Like, how can I align the words that I’m putting out there to address that thing? That thing that’s coming, that thing that’s coming up for me, that thing that I’m seeing in the world.

Colie: So when it comes to like content planning specifically for your marketing, do you feel like it’s really important to think about the medium in which you will be sharing it before you actually start the brain dump process? Or is it that you start to organize and rethink your thoughts once you have a specific piece of content in mind?

Mm

Sara: It’s kind of a chicken and egg type of thing. For me, I, I tend to think bigger picture, not necessarily per medium. So if I’m thinking, okay, what is the most important message here that I need to, to get out there that aligns with my goals, whether it’s, you know, content or copy related that message.

Can be illustrated or communicated in multiple different mediums. And it’s going to shift in terms of how I, you know, what tone I take, what type of, length that needs, what types of depth that needs based on the medium, but I got to get that message right first, if that makes sense.

Colie: It does. So if you have a topic, how do you get like, okay, for myself, if I want to make sure that people know that your systems should be easy to manage and be stress free, I mean, that’s a big lofty thing, but then when I’m trying to think of like how to get to the nitty gritty, then do I start making like sub Points or bullet points under that, that communicate the different ways in which that applies, or is there something else that people are doing when they’re actually sitting down to think of the content planning as a whole?

Like, I think I’m trying to figure out how do you. How do you focus your brain? Because I feel like that’s, that’s definitely my problem. And like, I have all of these ideas and organizing them and structuring them into the particular pieces of content, I think is where I struggle the most. And like you said, if I’m not feeling inspired, but I force myself to sit down and do it, nothing comes out of that.

Like I have to be inspired in order to start the work.

Sara: I’m with you there. I mean, I used to work pretty exclusively in VIP day models and I can’t do that anymore because I can’t force the creativity to just happen on a Tuesday because I told a client I would write for them on a Tuesday. I just, I can’t force it. I have many practices that I, that I engage in to try and get myself there.

Again, you can’t force it. So I think for me, when I’m creating either for myself or for my clients, what I like to think about in, in that kind of creativity piece is, okay, if I’m moving from idea to making it concrete, right? How can I make it concrete? Maybe I tell a story. So if my system is not stress free, if it’s stress full, what does that look like?

What does that mean? What, how does that manifest for me in my day to day life? And what feelings or emotions or perceptions? Frustrations. Does that bring out in me? And so I immediately go to a storytelling point of view. So sometimes it’s helpful to okay, a stress free system. What does that look like?

But sometimes it’s even more helpful to flip it on its opposite side. What is a stressful system look like or a life without a system?

Colie: I mean, and that’s so interesting to, of course, pivot it to the storytelling part, because I think that a lot of us are trying to hit those bullet points. Like I said, we’ve got this big topic and we’re like, well, I need to communicate this. And these are the things that I could communicate after, but a piece of story is how you actually hook the people in. People aren’t really going to sink their teeth into your message if you’re not hooking them with some type of story to bring them in. And so what do you find as most helpful? Do you think of stories that specifically go along with the pieces of content or the messaging that you are trying to create?

Or do you have some other kind of way of, um, keeping a track of like when an interesting thing happens with a client or when a client tells you something that happened to them. Do you have a way of keeping track of all that so that when you are inspired to write either for yourself or you ask this of your clients to kind of bank and get that storytelling, you know, nibbets from wherever they are to get started?

Sara: Yeah. I mean, I would say that I’m a pretty avid consumer of stories, whether it’s movies or TV or books or just life. I love to people watch. I’m a pretty avid consumer of stories. And so when it, when I see something, when I read something, when something is said and it, it inspires me in some way, I love the phone notes app.

Like I’m, I’m a basic girly in that regard, but at the same time, I find a lot of inspiration in just reading through what my clients share with me and in engaging with them on our kickoff calls. I think that just our turns of phrases or the way that we, the way that we make our coffee in the morning or the way that we, approach our work desk or our working environment that day by simply saying, okay, Well, this is what I do when I’m getting in work mode.

Like even those tiny little details help to bring some storytelling alive. And that’s unique enough and, concrete enough to really propel us forward into, into a story that has some sort of a takeaway.

Colie: But Sara, what do you do when you get a client and the client is like, I don’t have any stories and you’re like, everyone has stories. And they’re like, no, I really don’t have any stories. Like, how do you get them to think about the stories that are like, inside of them that they’re just unaware of.

Sara: One of my favorite questions to ask is what is something that like someone who knows you really well, whether it’s your spouse, your best friend, your kids, whatever, someone who knows you really well, they are walking around in the world and they see something and they’re like, Oh, that is so Colie.

like what is something that they would see that would be that representation of who you are? And people always have an answer for that. That’s my favorite question because whether it’s a book that they love or a beautiful landscape or something, it reveals something to me about who you are as a person.

I can, I can usually noodle and get, get you to expand on that idea a little bit more.

Colie: I mean, I literally just thought that my version of that is what kind of reels do your besties send you?

Sara: Yup. That’s a great way to ask that question.

Colie: what kind of reels do they see on Instagram and they instantly think of you and they send them to you? Like, can you just share the last five reels that someone sent to you so that I can get an idea of What people think you would be interested in or what would spark something in you that they feel compelled to send it to you.

Sara: Yeah. Mine would be dog related or spicy romance related or some sort of um, some sort of someone falling down because that’s where I’m at in life.

Colie: I mean, Sara, are you of the age yet where every time you go to the doctor, they ask you if you have a problem falling?

Sara: Yes. Yes.

Colie: So it’s really funny. They always ask me that question and I’m like, Oh no, I don’t have that problem. And it’s like the moment that I leave the doctor’s office, I’m like, no, I’m constantly watching the ground so that I don’t trip on a crack and like twist my ankle.

And when I walk down the stairs, I now do it slowly with purpose because yes, I definitely, I mean, I guess it’s not a fear. It’s I know that I am clumsy and that if I am not careful, I will end up falling. My daughter. Continuously tells anyone who goes to Disney with us this story, we were walking through the Panera parking lot to get to our hotel and I felt myself trip because there was like a dip in the, in the, yeah, in the parking lot and instead of just falling, I ended up like, protecting myself and doing a somersault on the ground so that I didn’t like, slam.

And she keeps telling people these stories and I’m like, no, that isn’t important. I mean, I do know how to fall and not hurt myself because I’m constantly falling. So I, I just do these things naturally and don’t even think about it.

Sara: I would have stood up and like done the gymnast move and been like, Ah, I landed it. I nailed it. it.

Yes. Yes. Love it.

Colie: okay, so beyond storytelling, cause I feel like that is a very important piece that, you know, people are often not focusing on when they’re going to write their marketing content. But what is something else that you feel like people really struggle in terms of not prioritizing the copy when they’re thinking of their marketing activities?

Sara: I think that there’s a lot of attention and rightfully so being paid to video. And I think that video is great, but in order to have someone truly take an action, you have to tell them what it needs to be. And so video is only as powerful as the caption or the copy that goes along with it. , I’ve found that to be true for my clients, but also for me, I feel like I spend a lot more time on Reels captions than I spend on just a static feed post caption or even a carousel caption.

I feel like I have to nail it in a Reel versus a feed post in any other sense. It’s just really important that, that the copy aligns with what the reel is, is really the purpose of it, right? Obviously, we all want to be entertaining. Obviously, we all want to make someone smile or make someone realize something.

But if the copy doesn’t support that desire, support that motivation, it’s, it’s just not going to convert for you. And I feel like that’s the important piece.

Colie: Now, is that true? Even if you, because I am someone who does not plan my video content. I mean, I literally get, and I hit record and I’ve probably got a topic. Maybe I have two or three sub bullets that I need to make sure that I hit, but in general, I am not scripting my videos. I don’t script this podcast as everyone knows, but.

I feel like if you are spending more time and a little bit more effort, to be honest, on the scripting of your video to make sure that the things that you’re saying are all on point and that you’ve, you know, given a really good call to action, is the caption still just as important or is it just making sure that you have kind of, Hit the highlights for someone who’s interested in what you’re saying, but maybe doesn’t have time to watch your video.

Even if it’s only like two minutes, they just want to skim the caption to get the gist of it and figure out if it’s maybe a video that they want to watch or that they think they can just pass on.

Sara: Yeah, I love that question. I think part of it comes down to the way that you format your caption. I think that making it skimmable, making it scannable is really important, but I, I really, I will die on the Hill of thinking your words are super important to, there have been many times when I am recording an Instagram live or something, and I have a little sticky note with, you know, a couple ideas on it.

And I go off track and I, I love the direction it goes in. And so I just let it. I let it go. I let it follow that. But then I sit there after the live is done and I’m like, I need to write a caption for this now. And I didn’t even pay attention to my sticky note. So I feel like there’s, I mean, you could go either way here, but I do feel like I spend, as a, as a words person, I spend a lot more time on the caption than I probably should or need to, but I really feel like my words are more closely scrutinized than someone else’s.

So maybe that’s just a me thing.

Colie: So I’ve talked about this a few times and normally I’m talking about it going from your website to your CRM because I mean, hello, wasn’t going to take me long to mention your CRM and systems in this episode, but I often think of when I’m talking to copywriters, the transition from social media to your website.

Cause in most cases, people are not going from your website to your social media. They’re finding you on social media, they’re seeing that someone shared something that you did, and then when they really want to know something, they’re going to your website, and of course, they’re reading those really important words.

So how is it that we can make sure that we are being as consistent as possible with our messaging and our brand between our social media captions and the copy that’s on our website?

Sara: I love this question. One of my favorite hacks is to highlight sections of the website copy documents that I deliver to my clients and say, this would be great on Instagram. This would be great to use on social media and I highlight it in a different color so that if they’re like, man, what do I post on Instagram today?

They have an opportunity to hop back into that document and say, okay, okay. Sara said this would be really great to put on Instagram, especially if I’m talking about something that lives on my website, if it’s a blog post, if it’s a podcast page, if it’s a speaker page, if it’s, you know, a service, whatever it is, and try to utilize that same type of copy.

It could be the same exact words, but it could also just be that same tone, that same. Example that same idea, that same story that you’re then bringing over to social media. And that way, when someone does go from that social media profile to your website, they feel like they already know what to expect.

They feel welcome. They feel like. Oh, I’m not just, you know, pulling up a, an Italian restaurant menu, but all I see is Thai food. Like they’re not feeling completely distracted here. Yeah.

Colie: we’ve kind of gone off on this tangent because I tell people a lot of the times, whatever you’ve got on your website, we can probably recycle that inside your CRM. Like, there’s a lot of things, whether you DIY your copy on your website, or you hired someone like Sara.

You have probably spent a lot of time and effort writing those words. And so you want to make sure that you get the biggest bang for your buck out of everything. Each and every word that is on your website. So we will often take like that nice header that you have on your services page, and that becomes the header or slightly rewritten for your proposal.

We will take your about me page and slightly rewrite it. We will look at your frequently asked questions and bring those into your CRM that are very specific for getting someone to say yes to your services. But. I don’t think enough people pay attention to repurposing, recycling, or reusing the words on your website on your social media.

I just don’t think that people, like when it comes to a blog post, they’re like, Oh yeah, I wrote this for my blog post and I can put it on Pinterest and I can put it on LinkedIn and Instagram. But I don’t think that a lot of people are looking back at their actual static pages, like your homepage. Your services page, your about me page.

All of those probably have such great nuggets of information that you could share on your Instagram or whatever social media account is your favorite. And you can probably then reword and reshare that again in three months or six months or a year, because not everyone is seeing every single post that you do.

So, I mean, I think the message that I’m walking away from you with Sara is make sure that you are consistent, but also. You know, make sure that you’re using all of this copy that you have well across everywhere that your business exists.

Sara: Right. There’s no reason it just has to live on your website and only be there. You paid for this copy. It’s yours. It is something that reflects who you are and what you want to do with your business, your heart for serving your people. And so why not utilize it in all of the places in all of the ways? I mean, this is supposed to be, I look at website copy anyways, as like the best of the best.

It’s supposed to be the most. The most true, the most authentic, but also really capture why you’re in business. The bigger, why not just, I need to pay my bills because hello, all of us, but.

Colie: us have bills to pay.

Sara: Yes, but the bigger why, right? Like, why do you take photos in this particular way? What is it about your approach to photography that makes me want to work with you?

All of that is encapsulated on your website or should be. And then why not utilize it? Outward from there. Why not repurpose it, tweak it, capture a little bit here, take a little bit from there and put it on social media, put it in your emails, put it wherever, because it should be the most powerful copy you have.

Colie: dun, dun, AI is going to enter the conversation. So next week I am going to be talking to Dawn Richardson all about how you can use AI in your business. We, we mostly, you know, focused on photography, but Sara, I know that you love talking about how you can use AI for your copy. And I just think some of the things that we just mentioned are really great.

Like how can AI help you? Look at your website and figure out how to use it most effectively on your social media and your other marketing content.

Sara: Yeah. One of my favorite prompts for chat GPT or fill in the blank here, whatever AI you’d like is repurpose this into that. So like giving it a sentence and saying, repurpose this into a. I don’t know, a three sentence Instagram caption with a call to action at the end. And sometimes they don’t play nice.

And sometimes you have to work with AI a little bit more and say, no, I really like, you know, this type of a tone or my brand voice is more passionate, more charming, more joyful, more conversational. Right. And so you have to kind of coach it and refine it. But I love asking ChatGPT to do that work for me because it’s really, Efficient way to try and get out of your own head and say, okay, I have this paragraph that I just love on my about page.

How do I make it into a caption that’s really going to help people understand who I am and why I do what I do? And so it can be that, that it can remove that barrier for you in terms of, okay, how do I repurpose this? It can take that guesswork out of it. And even if you don’t like what it spits out at you.

You can refine it. I often have to go back and forth with ChatGPT. We have a good little relationship by now where it’s constantly like, no, make that less cheesy. That’s one of the first things I always say is make that less cheesy. No more puns or something like that. I think that AI is a great tool and it can be a great way to get out of that writing rut that a lot of us get into.

And it can remove that barrier of sorts. Yeah.

Colie: ChatGBT and I’m not going to say for marketing because one of the things that I did was I outlined a presentation one time. And I was like, I just wonder how Jack TPT would do it. Like, I was just curious. So I put in there, Hey, I’m going to be doing this presentation on how to write automated emails inside of your CRM.

These are the points that I want to hit. Can you make me an outline? And when I looked at the outline that it gave me and I looked at mine, I did prefer mine. But there were definitely like six or seven points in there that I was like, Oh, that wasn’t in my outline, but I should definitely add that into mine as like another point for conversation.

And so I just want to make sure that because we’re talking about the power of AI, that we highlight. It’s not going to give you a finished product. As Sara said, you have to do a little coaching. I mean, in particular, ChatGPT is free and I always say anything that you get for free, you’re going to have to work to make it better, right?

I mean, that’s how it always goes. You get freebies from people. They’re not giving you the whole, you know, kit and caboodle. You got to get in there and get what you need and then do a little bit more work to make it work. But so for ChatGPT, like, yes. It’s going to spit you out something the very first time that you ask it and you’re going to be like, okay, that’s useless. But the point is not to walk away. The point is to say, okay, well, can you change this to a hundred words instead? Can you start out with this? Can you address this person as this? And every time you do it, it’s going to spit you out something that’s better. And then you kind of, in your mind, remember all the things that you told it this time, so that when you ask it to do that same task next time, it gives you a good result from the start.

And again, You have the opportunity to coach it and tweak it a little bit and get something that is worthy of sharing on your social media account or on your website or wherever it is that you are currently writing copy for.

Sara: Yeah. I love using chat GPT like a conversation, right? Like it’s a back and forth. It’s an even exchange. I may have all of the ideas in my brain, but all of them cannot go into words together. And so chat GPT can be the thing that helps me synthesize all of those thoughts. And. If even if after a back and forth conversation for a little while, it spits out something that still doesn’t quite feel right.

I can often take that and say, okay, I’m going to make this sound a little bit more like me, but I’ve got the skeleton here. I’ve got the bones of what I wanted to say. Now let’s fill in some personality. And that’s really my favorite way to use it. Hmm.

Colie: if someone doesn’t have a website that they can go steal from, because I feel like, you know, I spent a lot of time and energy on my website. There’s lots of good things for me to go steal. But let’s say that someone is at a place in their business where they didn’t really invest. Either in a copywriter or they themselves didn’t invest a lot of time and energy and writing the copy.

Maybe you happen to be a photographer that still thinks that the images are the most important thing on your website. Um, how should these people get started to crafting a website that actually does the selling for them so that then they have this tool that they can always go to when they’re creating their marketing content in the future?

Sara: Yeah, that’s a great question. I’ve served a lot of people who are just starting out in business and don’t have that foundational website yet or all they’ve relied on so far is their portfolio to speak for itself, right? And so I want to say that it’s never too late. It’s never too late to start putting in the work to get that copy into a good place, but I have a feeling that there is some writing of yours still somewhere, whether it’s on Instagram, whether it’s on a blog, whether it’s on Facebook or Tumblr from years ago, like it could be anything.

I feel like there’s, there’s opportunities to take whatever writing you have and say, okay, what is true? What is consistent about this? Am I a sarcastic person? And this comes across in the way that I write. Am I a joyful person? Am I more conversational? Or do I like to be a little bit more authoritative, professional, quote unquote?

And what can I glean from reading this piece of writing, whether I wrote it today or I wrote it a year ago, what can I glean from this? and understand about who I am as a writer, who I am as the way that I synthesize those ideas and those thoughts that shape my business, and what can I do moving forward to make sure that is maintained and true.

And that could be a great entry point for AI, but it could also be a great entry point for someone like a copywriter to say, okay, I want to sound like a writer. conversational because that’s who I am inside. But I want a little bit more joy thrown in here. So how do I get my clients to experience that joy when they read my copy?

And that’s where the back and forth conversation with a copywriter can really help.

Colie: Yes. And I think what we’re talking about right now is if someone already knows that you exist. And they know how to find you on your website, but let’s take one step back and just briefly mention SEO because it’s been a year since I did the SEO, the simple SEO series on this podcast and that got like a lot of downloads.

It got a lot of questions and a lot of interactions, and I feel like I’m constantly trying to bring SEO back to the top because when it comes to my own marketing strategy, like, that is what I am really trying to work towards. is SEO so that I don’t have to work as hard. I’m writing these blog posts. I have this website.

I want Google to do the hard work for me. But hey, Sara, what’s that first step in getting found by Google for what it is that I do?

Sara: You have to have words. You have

Colie: You have to have

Sara: of words.

Colie: And specifically, how do keywords play in there?

Sara: Yeah, so keywords are like telling Google what you want to rank for. It’s like the easy button, almost. But you have to figure out the keywords first and then feed them to Google. And the way that you feed them to Google is you use them throughout your website copy, throughout your blog posts, and you use it in a way that’s It still feels conversational, still feels really, natural.

It isn’t, you know, keyword stuffing. I know we hear that term all the time. It’s not, it’s not forced. It still feels like I’m talking to you or I’m learning from you in a conversational, normal, natural way. But it’s just teaching Google by utilizing the same. turns of phrase. It could be a one word piece.

It could often, you know, more of a long tail keyword, like a combination of words, a phrase here, that you’re just continuing to use. Continuing to use because it’s telling Google, this is who I am and this is who I want to see this. So it’s just a way of communicating with Google.

Colie: I love that you brought up keyword stuffing. Guys, in case you’re like, I don’t know what that is, that’s if I tried to say something like, Hey, I’m Colie James. I’m a Denver family photographer who offers in home photography sessions inside of Louisville, Lafayette, Boulder, Erie. I will come into your family and do a photo session.

I mean, do you guys get what I’m saying? That doesn’t even sound a little natural. That is me trying to plug in those words twice in every sentence. And it sounds bad and Google knows that it sounds bad and it is not going to help rank you for your website.

Sara: Right. But if you were to throw in on and about page as a Denver family photographer, and then continue on with your sentence. Then Google’s like, Oh, okay. I know what, I know who to show you to, right? If people search Denver family photographer, guess who’s going to show up? It’s you.

Colie: Sara, do you have any other last words about prioritizing copy in your marketing content before I ask you about your keyword workshop that’s coming up?

Sara: Yeah, absolutely. I think the last piece that I want to share is. Just not to take copy so seriously sometimes it can really just be showing up as you are giving yourself permission to communicate to market in a way that feels good to you and it doesn’t have to be over complicated. I think everybody wants to sound professional or be taken seriously and often that leads to generic copy or to no copy at all.

Relying on your portfolio, relying on your work to speak for itself. And so instead of going to that place, try showing up as you are, try removing all of that pressure to quote unquote appear in a certain way, and just allow yourself to be who you are in your business, and you will find those connections and those ideal clients.

Colie: Yes. And I just want to end with guys, nothing is permanent. Like, it is not like you are writing words and you are going to go pay for like a 30 foot billboard or that you are printing a gazillion business cards. Ask me how I know this. Oh my God. My first set of business cards, I printed like 200, had photos on there, had words.

And then like after six months, I was like, I don’t like any of those photos. And those words are not permanent. Those were not good keywords, like literally, but like anything that we are doing digitally in terms of our website, in terms of our Instagram, our LinkedIn, our Pinterest, all of these things can be modified as you get better at writing your copy, as you are refining your offers and your ideal clients and all of these things.

So the key is to start, the key is to start writing your copy and it will get better the more that you do it. but you actually have to start writing copy.

Sara: Yeah, and give it permission to evolve, just like you and your business evolve, your copy should evolve too.

Colie: All right, Sara, tell me about your keyword workshop because I know that some people are like, I know I need to work on my copy. I know that my website could be better and that my marketing content needs better words, but I just don’t know how to get started.

Sara: Yeah, so I’m so excited to share a free workshop coming up all about keyword research and really how to do it in a simple and straightforward way. I’ve got a freebie that is a keyword cheat sheet for you, and I’m so excited to share it. It really just kind of gives you the basics, the need to know stuff without the fluff, and we’ll actually have some co working time as well to work through finding keywords for your specific business, for your specific industry, where you’re located, and fold those into your copy in practical ways that sound conversational, right?

None of that keyword stuffing here. It’s going to sound like you. So come join me and learn how.

Colie: Yes, guys, I am going to have the link to register for the freebie, which will allow you to register for the workshop in the show notes. Sara, thank you for joining me today.

Sara: Thanks for letting me be here. I’m so glad that, you know, all the construction ended and we were able to chat.

Colie: yes, yes, yes. All right, everyone. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.