Most entrepreneurs know about the power of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO), but are you considering the role that Social Search Optimization (SSO) plays in your overall visibility online? In today’s episode, Erin Ollila joins us to explore the benefits of optimizing for search across all platforms, along with the critical role social media plays in search queries. Listen in as she provides practical insights into optimizing social media profiles for enhanced visibility and a competitive edge.
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Guest Bio:
Conversion copywriter. Copy Coach.Wing Woman. Word slinger. No matter what you call her, Erin Ollila believes in the power of words and how a message can inform—and even transform—its intended audience.
When she’s not working with big brands and small businesses to marry strategy, storytelling, and SEO, you can find her hosting the Talk Copy to Me podcast or exploring southeastern MA with her family and friends. Erin graduated from Fairfield University with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and then co-founded Spry Literary Journal, which celebrates undiscovered and established writers’ concise, experimental, hybrid, modern, vintage or just-plain-vulnerable writing.
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Mentioned in this Episode:
00:21 – Introduction to SEO vs SSO
04:52 – The Importance of Social Search Optimization (SSO)
08:28 – Optimizing Social Media for Better Search Results
10:59 – Practical Tips for Social Media Optimization
12:43 – The Role of Algorithms in Social Media Search
15:07 – The Shift in Social Media Search Capabilities
23:05 – Leveraging Local SSO
24:58 – Introduction to Local SSO for Businesses
25:26 – Hyper-Local SSO Strategies
26:42 – SEO Challenges and Solutions
28:07 – Content Strategy: SEO and SSO
34:09 – Keyword Research and Implementation
40:10 – Tools and Tips for Effective SEO and SSO
Mentioned in this Episode:
Andrea Jones of Mindful Marketing Podcast
Episode 161: Maximize Your Business with AI: Top Tools & Tips with Dawn Richardson
Listen to Erin in these Episodes:
Episode 74: That Time Erin Ollila Interviewed Me on My Own Podcast
Episode 79: Getting Started with SEO | Simple SEO Series with Erin Ollila (Part 1)
Connect with Erin
Website: erinollila.com
Podcast: erinollila.com/podcast
Instagram: instagram.com/erinollila
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/erinollila
Facebook: facebook.com/erinollilacreative
TikTok: tiktok.com/@erinollila_
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello, hello. And welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast. Have you ever been listening to someone say something? And you’re like, oh no, I think I heard that wrong.
Or even better yet, you’re like, oh, that person misspoke when they really didn’t . This is how I felt when I was listening to my good friend Erin Ollila give her presentation for Andrea Jones of the Mindful Marketing Podcast and the Social Savvy School, during Social Media day recently. And Erin was talking all about SEO versus SSO, and I was like, wait.
I’ve never heard about SSO and once I listen to the presentation, you know me guys, I’m immediately on my phone texting Erin like, hey, come on my podcast and talk about this. So if you are intrigued to learn about what SSO is, stay tuned. Erin, welcome back to the podcast.
Erin: you for having me back. I’m gonna send you, like, anything I’ve ever recorded just for the hopes of getting to be back on the show over and over again. You know that you’re podcasts as well, and I am always overjoyed to be here, so thanks for having me again.
Colie: I mean, I just love our conversations and guys, this is like her third time on this podcast. So clearly I love
her, but today we are going to be talking about SSO. And I thought that I would give an introduction, but I’m going to let Erin do it because it’s her thing. And I just like to sit and listen to Erin talk.
So Erin, tell us what SSO is and tell us why the hell we should care.
Erin: Yeah, so I’m going to backtrack a tiny bit to, actually we’ll bring up Andrea again for a second because she and I have been on each other’s podcast. We’ve done a lot of talking about things like marketing in general, search optimization, and when she posted that she was relaunching a summit for Social Media Day, I was like, Oh, I’d love to be involved.
I really admire her. I just think a collaborative effort would be so fun. What the heck am I gonna say about social media? So, in the recent podcast episode on, when I was on her show, we talked a lot about the idea that the changes of SEO and how We cannot look at, search optimization just from the standpoint of a internet search anymore.
Because that’s not our reality. And where I, as an SEO and a content creator, always, like, am kind of shocked and confused is the idea that more, more SEOs aren’t talking about this. You know, not that I get all of my advice from SEOs. SEO is one of those weird worlds where it’s like, The worst of the worst SEOs exist with like all their black hat techniques and scamming and, you know, like ruining other people’s SEO scores to boost their own.
And then there’s like, you know, that range where it goes all the way to like the best of the best. And, and, you know, it’s confusing to me that none of these people are talking about social media when it is, I think, something that is really going to be changing how we approach SEO. Optimizing our content as business owners, specifically as smaller business owners, meaning not like enterprises or multi billion dollar brands.
So, Again, I’m trying like, well, how can I collaborate with Andrea? And I really thought the idea of if we’re going to put so much effort and focus on on social media, we all know how much time it takes. I would say 93 percent of the people total like fake search here, but 93 percent of the people I talk to also hate being on social media
Colie: Oh, wow.
Erin: paying attention to SEO in general, traditional search engine optimization, in the past year you’ll know it is the rockiest, wildest time in the entire history of SEO. So many people ask me, like, what’s next?
And my truest answer, even to this day of recording, is I don’t know, and if anyone tells you that they do know, you, you shouldn’t listen to them. I think that is even the people I admire. the most in the SEO world, we’ll say the same thing. We don’t know what’s coming. Here’s, here’s maybe our hypothesis.
Here’s what we think. Here’s what you should continue doing, but we have no clue what’s changing in the next month, in the next five months, in the next five years. I recently did a podcast episode with Brittany Herzberg, who’s also been on your show, and it’s not live yet, which is why I find so interesting, because we talked about, regular traditional SEO and the evolution of it and how people are searching on the internet.
And the day after we recorded, there was a major SEO change in which the both of us said something contradictory to the change the day before in the recording. you know, like, this is the idea of like, everything’s changing so fast. We don’t know what’s happening. We, focusing too much on the future of traditional search where we could be better using our time to think about how are consumers searching.
I don’t remember if, I think it’s a HubSpot stat that 31 percent of searches are actually starting in a social media platform, whether they’re taking an omni channel approach and like, you know, starting in social, moving to the website, that’s one thing, but if that’s one third of the searches, In the internet, as it relates to shopping, like, that’s a pretty ginormous figure.
So, how has your business optimized its social media is my question. And again, this is like, why is no one talking about this? Like, if no one knows what the future of SEO is, why are we not focusing on the immediate present of SEO? in the things that we can adjust. So, that was a spiel. Sorry, everyone, but I’m going to bring that back to kind of explain why Colie wants me on the show and wants to have this conversation. you’re not super familiar and you just heard me rant, is search. Engine optimization in the barest clearest way, it’s basically making your content or copy or marketing efforts clearer and easier to get found by someone who is putting a search term into a tool like Google. So if I am searching for Colorado photographer, I might find Coley because she has optimized her photography website, so that way people in Colorado.
can find her and hire her, right? Um, that’s just, that’s SEO in its truest sense. Now. SSO, it stands for Social Search Optimization, and it is the idea that we can optimize our social media output to be better found using the specific search functions of the platforms we’re using. And just want to talk about the key, like, acronym for a second.
I told Colie before we started, I’m like, I don’t even know if I made it up, to be honest with you. I did a super quick Google search and I do actually think that this is a term that lives on the internet. Erin Ollila did not make up SSO, but it is not a common acronym because when people talk about optimization on social media, what you will hear is SMO, which is just social.
Media optimization. I don’t like that. Like in the idea of like having this conversation about search because social media optimization is anything from like picking a good username to like having pretty pictures to thinking about what color fonts were using to being consistent with our publishing schedule.
Like that says nothing about search. And I think search is such a Of course, SSO falls underneath SMO, but it is such a huge umbrella of work and, analyzation that it deserves its own little
Colie: Yes.
Erin: So, to, we’re like a bunch of minutes in. To round this all together, it’s extremely important because while I cannot forecast exactly what’s happening in the SEO world, I can tell you exactly what you can do on social media.
Right now to make improvements to better get found by your ideal clients and I And not only is that helpful for the immediate present time where you’re hoping that people actually, you know, find your business, but it, it serves you in two ways. One, fingers crossed your websites are already optimized, like do it.
Even though I have no clue what the future of SEO is, you really do need that foundational marketing asset to be optimized, but pending that you have. an optimized site, even if it’s not perfect, just lightly optimized. And then you have an optimized social profile. They’re going to serve you like threefold in the future because all of the efforts you’ve done now will put you way above your competitors.
Because if your competitors are not doing the optimization of their social channels at this very moment, Next year, next month, next five years when SSO becomes a much bigger deal and people are paying a lot more money to get marketing strategists and to do this for them, you’re already ranking for
Colie: Yes.
Erin: that everyone’s fighting for.
So it’s kind of like, you know Oh gosh, I, this is the worst explanation because I really don’t want to talk about like colonizers, but like Christopher Columbus found the U. S., not potentially, obviously he’s not the first guy here, but like he just decided to like, I claim this land as mine. Okay, please do not go and be a colonizer in general, but that’s what you’re doing right now.
Like, you’re claiming your space in social media when other people aren’t because they have not seen the value of it yet. if you claim it now, you’re not fighting for those little parcels of land in a year or a year and a
Colie: Yeah.
Erin: now. So, I’m gonna take a deep breath. I talked for too long.
back to you, Colie.
Colie: It’s all right. I hope that you guys were all paying attention to Erin because I’m just listening to her, you know, again, she’s one of my favorite people to just listen to talk. And if you haven’t listened to her podcast, it’s called Talk Copy to Me. It is amazing. If you happen to like the sound of her voice, you should go subscribe to her podcast.
But getting back on my podcast and SSO, I feel like when, as photographers, when we first got on Instagram. We were really doing SSO without anybody telling us to. We were doing it through, our hashtags. We were doing it through the captions. We were doing it through even our username, because at some point they’re like, not only do you want Colie James there, but you want Colie James Boulder Family Photographer, so that if someone’s looking for photography in Boulder, Colorado, they can find you.
So, I don’t think that this is a new concept, but I think that it’s a new concept now because people have kind of just left it by the wayside. And this is definitely not the time to do that because I happen to not be a millennial. But Millennials, you guys are out there, and you Gen X people, actually is it X
or Z,
It’s Gen Z people. You guys are looking on TikTok to answer your questions. You’re not going to Google. You’re not even going to YouTube. You are going to TikTok and saying, how do I make chicken soup? I mean, I think that you guys are at the point where you’re also asking for like the things that you need for your business.
But. If you aren’t doing that yet, I think that is coming soon. And so this whole idea of SSO is what can we do to optimize ourselves for people who are on social media apps, looking for the things that other people tend to go to Google for. I’m still Googling. I mean, I am, I am not looking on Tik Tok for anything.
Erin: too, except when I don’t notice that that’s what I’m actually doing. So, here’s an example, and I want to put a historical point back in one second, too, of why there is a difference between, like, the inception of Instagram and photography until now. Because I think it’s important just to consider why the shift is so Vital at this moment versus of kind of how it’s been throughout time.
Like, duh, of course you need to put your job in there, right? But like now there’s a real reason for it. But to speak about like TikTok or any of these other social platforms, here’s where I think people don’t recognize, regardless of their generation, exactly that they’re doing it already. If you go on, like Instagram as an example, and you see that like suggested reels, Do you know what I’m talking about?
I don’t even know if, like, if
Colie: Mh, Mh, Mh, Mh, Mh, Mh, Mh, Mh, Mh, Mh,
Erin: sucked into things like that, like, not necessarily every day, all the time, but what’s happening is the algorithm has me figured out. The algorithm thinks, okay, this lady loves to look at videos about plant propagation, sourdough starter stuff, right now, especially because it’s the summer where we’re, we’re recording, gardening things, right?
Children stuff. So we’re gonna serve her up all these reels. So while I am not typing in anything like, how do you propagate a snake plant or anything like that, I am literally being served these things because I’ve looked at one or two videos on them in the past. So I am actually learning. of my search history or because of the videos I’ve previously watched.
Now, can you reset algorithms? A hundred percent. You can do that with SSO, but when we do look at these things that are being served to us, it’s working the same way. Your search history, your search efforts are creating an ecosystem for you, and that ecosystem is what you’re seeing. So, talking about being a business owner and wanting to be in other people’s ecosystems, but SSO can work just the same for you as a consumer who want to adjust what ecosystems you quote unquote live in within your social media networks.
So, and this actually brings me back to that point of like historical. that I wanted to mention. Instagram was absolutely a place for photography when it started the early days, it was like, Photographers did so well, but the average everyday human was also posting pictures of their meals and, like, their children.
It was so photography specific. As it changed, people started using it for business and realized, you’re mentioning, if I don’t put my job title in here, no one will actually find me if they are looking for a wedding photographer. And if I am posting all of these wedding pictures of my clients, but never have like my location, what, how, how’s this working?
It’s not. Let’s throw the location in there. Social media platforms, or networks, or channels, whatever you want to call them, not search tools. They may have had a search bar, not right away, at all, but once they did get the search bar, people were not able to, um, find them. Topics, they were able to find usernames.
So, that too has shifted, where now, if you put a search, term into the toolbar in a social media platform, you’re being served topics as well as usernames. And that’s where it shifts so large, because where you were once kind of like Pigeonholed into this like random few words that you could use like Colorado wedding photographer or Colorado family photographer Now you have so many things every single picture is an optimization like, opportunity.
Your, your username, your bio, the links you put in your bio. The image, the title of your video, the captions, and the post, like, copy or content, whatever you want to call it. Every single one of those things I mentioned is a new optimization opportunity.
And that’s because you can search like a search, like would be on Google, right? You put in a term, you get results. You didn’t have that before. So like, it was common sense, it was helpful, but at this precise moment, Most of the platforms are publicly admitting that their search tools are part of their SEO efforts within the algorithm.
Instagram just last year made it very clear that they were deprioritizing though keeping hashtags, which is another SEO opportunity, they were building out their own true SEO efforts within the platform. then to finalize this little lecture I’m getting right here, the reason why it’s such high priority is because, in your example, it’s perfect.
You’re only getting results when you put in a keyword for that specific social channel. are not giving you the results for someone’s website, who might have optimized way better. They are not giving you the results for LinkedIn, let’s say if you’re on Instagram. You’re only getting the results within that platform.
So, it can’t be true. If you only like to use one platform for your business, let’s say you’re like a big LinkedIn er and you’re not a fan of anything else, that’s perfect! You’re getting results from the place you want to show up. You’re getting results from the place your ideal clients are. And, if you like to spread yourself a little bit more wide and be on multiple channels, then again, let’s do it!
Perfect! You’re throwing your net in a place where you can get all of these optimization opportunities from multiple channels. So, it just, I think the reason why it’s so important is you never had this. People like to think that they had this opportunity for getting found, and that’s not the case. The reason you were getting found was two things.
Your Well, kind of three, but like your username and or like the descriptive name like the title I guess I would say as well as the hashtags you used that was the only way you could get found now if anyone’s ever done hashtag research before they’re gonna see that you’re again like one post in 331 million posts Let’s say for a popular hashtag, right?
Like, and then for the, like, everyone says, Oh, go for the lower hashtags. Yeah, that’s cool. But you’re still one in, let’s say, 150, 000 posts, and you have to have the searcher making that, like, very specific term as well, which is harder to do. So, if you can optimize by using the same standards that you would use for your general website, like, you know, SEO, keywords, and just using them naturally through the copy, making sure your images are titled, things like that, then you’re going to rank more immediately, which is not easy to do in traditional SEO.
It takes time. And you’re going to, like I said, claim that land, put that flag down. Oh my god, I hate that I’m using so
Colie: Mh. Ha ha!
Erin: this, like, Colonizer terms, but like I guess it’s maybe the best example I can come up with at the top of my head is it’s truly like you’re saying I own this land of Colorado photographers, and I’m gonna be willing to part with a little bit sure, but I’m, I’m gonna do such good work that, like, fertilizing, oh my god, I’m so corny today.
Fertilizing this land that it’s going to be mine now, it’s gonna be mine next month, it’s gonna be mine next year, because Instagram, Threads, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, all of these channels, they want their users to stay on platform, and they want to make it as easy as possible for themselves.
They are
Colie: Yes.
Erin: how can we have the most advanced Social searching network and and offer up all of these things. They’re like no Thank you. You want advanced? Go to your Google browser. You want specifics? I’ll serve you up specifics And if Colie is gonna make it so much easier for them to showcase a like a Colorado photographer They’re gonna be like just go see Colie.
I’m not wasting my time with other people like Colie’s done the work Just go see Colie right here is her content and I mean I always joke that, like, Google is your wingman, but, like, if we’re looking at the opportunity that’s directly in front of us at this precise moment in time, the social media platforms can be your wingman, because they want your good content,
Colie: Yes.
Erin: want it as easy as possible for them to get done.
Mm
Colie: media platforms want to serve the best content because they want to keep you engaged. Like, I would say every morning after my husband has brought me my latte in bed, I, well, I used to just sit there and scroll after he left for work, but now I do it when he’s left. But like, I get a good 30 minutes of scrolling.
All I want to do is have my first cup of coffee, my first latte in peace, and I want to scroll. And so anything that, Instagram can do to show me videos, to keep me engaged, to stop me from getting bored and being like, okay, I’ve had enough Instagram for today. And like moving on with my day, they are happy to do.
Now, I want to say something about the search because you said this, and I just want to make sure that I am like hammering this point in. It used to be that when you searched on Instagram, it was just your usernames, but while Erin was talking, I’m over here on my phone, just in case you saw me on Instagram, and I’m inside of Instagram looking at searching just for the word Dubsado, okay?
And so when you go to the search, first of all, we have Meta AI, and we are going to talk about that in another episode. Other than doing a meta AI search, you have just regular search. So when you look for something, it is going to give you options for you. which it is doing its hardest to find those individual posts, those individual reels that are answering whatever it is that you could possibly want to know about what you’ve searched.
And then the next tab is accounts. So if you want to find accounts that are talking most about the topic that you’re searching for, it gives you a list. Also, it gives you audio, which I mean, depending on what you’re searching for, that’s not real helpful. And then it’s tags. which of course is what Erin was talking about.
We were all so obsessed with making sure that our hashtags were awesome. Guess what guys? Those still exist. So when I search for Dubsado, I have in this order, Dubsado, Dubsado Pro, Dubsado Setup, Dubsado Expert, Dubsado Tips. So it’s trying to think of the hashtags, again, that are going to answer whatever this question is in your mind about Dubsado.
And then you’ve got places, which for this doesn’t make a lot of sense, and that’s why it’s actually blank.
And then we’ve got
reels. Mm hmm,
Erin: social search, and we’ve mentioned it without really describing it, is local SEO. I cannot tell you how Like, am a Massachusetts copywriter. I live in Mass, um, very close to the Rhode Island line, so sometimes you’ll hear me even say I’m a Rhode Island copywriter.
But, I think I’ve only worked with two Massachusetts people in the entire, like, eight or nine years of working. So, um, yeah. for myself.
Colie: mm hmm, mm hmm, mm hmm, mm hmm.
Erin: those terms, people will find me because of those terms.
Now, For an actual hyper local business, restaurants, photographers, wedding planners, any of these types of businesses, you actually are local. You actually have clients near you, and people are not thinking to themselves. Just using Dubsado as an example. And you, you’re, you do, you are a Dubsado pro. Not that Colorado Dubsado pro is going to suddenly like change your entire like financial income, but if you have someone from Colorado who happens to be looking for a Dubsado pro, they’re going to serve you immediately because no one else is doing location with a non location specific term.
So, It could be that you’re, you’re writing the word like, uh, uh, Colorado Dubsado Pro, but that feels weird, right? So instead of that, how about not making that like in your bio or, or any of those things? How about tagging your image about like, let’s say, um, a new Dubsado tip that you have. Tag it in Colorado.
Shoot, you don’t even have to be in Colorado. Tag it California.
Colie: Ha ha ha! Talking Disneyland? I mean,
Erin: But, but, that is SEO. The location is giving you a different SEO opportunity. So, you’re so right in the sense of that, like, it’s probably not serving you much for that term. But is there a potential that it could?
Yes, and that’s you, like, putting that flag down in land that isn’t claimed yet.
Colie: Okay,
I’m going to take that as a challenge. That’s alright. I’m going to take that as a challenge because a couple of episodes ago I interviewed my friend Dawn who talks about AI and she was all talking about, you know, tools that would help you write better emails and I was like, you know what, I’m just going to hop on the bandwagon of some of these.
I’m going to try them out. Hold me accountable. You hold me accountable, Erin. I’m gonna post some stuff with some appropriate hashtags, and I’m gonna start tagging them with Boulder, Colorado, or Denver, Colorado, and we will see if I get any traction. Cause I will say, one of the reasons that I was so interested to talk to you about this is when I was posting a lot of Like revenue generating content.
So in other words, it’s me talking about the fact that I will set up your Dubsado for you or my courses. When my feed was full of that, I was ranking very high when you did a search of Dubsado or now when you do a search of HoneyBook, like I was right there up there. But now that my feed has kind of been taken over by the podcast information, I noticed I’m not on the first couple scrolls for almost anything in Dubsado, which is like, hey, I, I’m not doing my job.
I need to get back on the bandwagon for
this.
Erin: find this such an interesting thing, too, because this is the con like, like, let’s put SEO aside, even though it’s exactly related to it. This is the struggle of content strategy, is what per do you put, like, parcels of your content strategy to different, like, facets of your business? Do you focus on one or another?
Because, you know, you could say you can’t do and be everything at once. Mm hmm. But, when you have a business that has like, for example, a podcast, same situation, a service based business, where you are actually doing the services for others, as well as a product based business, like you are, you have to kind of truly create a strategy that doesn’t, like, Leave one behind.
Colie: Yes. Mm
Erin: can be seasonal approaches and when I say seasonal I don’t mean true like four seasons a year, I mean like maybe at one point you are really going heavy on the podcast because you know you have like an incredible like longer series and you’re like I don’t care, the podcast is it for the next two months and then maybe like when you launched your product shop, was it last year or the year
Colie: hmm.
Erin: Maybe when you launch the product shop you’re going so heavy on the product based things. That’s fine too, but you do have to factor in where you’re putting your efforts on SEO. Not that if you just all of a sudden do that seasonal thing I mentioned, like, oh, I can never be a Dubsado pro again, but you do have to think and you do have to make some decisions on what searches do I want to show up on. What’s the business priority for focusing because if you were to put, let’s say you go Dubsado heavy in the month of like July or September and then again, you don’t do anything for Four or five months you’re you’re not starting from zero because you the content is there it is on your site It is still helping you with ranking on social but you’re you have to Where it’s different is you have to nudge the algorithm again.
You have to retrain the algorithm. So it’s not that it’s not allowing you to be found in search, it’s that the algorithm favors you for something else.
Colie: Yes.
Erin: you being like, okay, Bear with me algorithm. We’re gonna do a little bit more of this right now. So there is a real thing to consider before you think about keyword research, before you think about putting these like things that we’re talking about in action in your business, in the actual content strategy.
And no one wants to do this for social. No one wants to put the effort in to say, What the heck am I even doing on here? Because it’s so fast moving that we’ve, we’re also like dopamine trained. Even as the business, not as the consumer of like seeing these things. We’re also trained at being like, I gotta get this out.
Or like, for example, I just changed my podcasting days from going live on Thursday to
Colie: Thursdays to Tuesday. Mm
hmm.
Erin: on Monday, I, and I, I’m not a super, Super consistent like everyday poster, but on Monday, I put a post about it like hey everyone the new the new scheduling days are Tuesday Tuesday I put a post about the new episode that was on and I have one schedule for today that will go live kind of Like a reminder about the episode but I’m not Like, where’s the strategy here?
That’s three posts in a seven day week that is just for the podcast. We are talking about websites, which as a website, copywriter and content person, like it is related, but it’s not exactly anything related to my bottom line to like working with me as a service provider or, or having me like review work.
So I do have to even think to myself like, okay, that’s podcast heavy. What do I do? Do I shift next week? Week into more like, working with me. Like, so there is this like, not to complicate things and
Colie: A cadence. Mm hmm.
Erin: I’m sharing, I don’t mean this in a silly way, but these SSO efforts are.
Easy. But the pre work, which is figuring out what is important to you, figuring out, like, are there content categories, like these kind of umbrellas of business, that is a little bit more complicated, and I highly suggest if you just spend, like, one business day, one CEO effort saying, like, what do I want to rank for, how does this relate back to my finances and my client attraction, that’s gonna serve you better, And I just know, like, I know everyone, nobody wants to do that type of work, it just seems so much easier to post, but again, just using my examples, those three posts in the, like, and I think the, the week before, the last few posts were about thought leadership, which is my last podcast series, none of this is related to working with me, so there, just putting myself out there, there’s an example of me not really doing the right thing.
efforts in order to, one, serve my clients, and two, turn leads into clients. So, do that work if you can beforehand, and then all of the things we’re talking about, using the keywords, titling your images and your videos, that’s the easy stuff. That’s just reminding yourself to do it every time. But if you can really look at how does this relate, like, because podcast is lead attracting, sure, like, us talking about our show on our social feeds is a smart thing, But we do need a balance and specifically for what the algorithm thinks that we are when they present us to our potential leads.
Colie: Mm hmm. I want to make sure that people did not gloss over what you said, because she mentioned some of the exact same things for SSO that we talk about nonstop for SEO. You still want to title your images and your videos appropriately because Instagram and the other social media apps are using those things when they are searched.
You want to make sure that your titles. Now, A while ago you mentioned keywords and this is the last thing that we’re going to touch on because I think that this is so crucial but I want to make sure that we like hit it home. Keyword research is still a thing for SSO
just like it is for SEO but like Is it, can I reuse my keywords that I did for my SEO, for my SSO, and is there anything else that I should be doing besides talking about them naturally inside of my post and captions just like I would talk about them naturally inside of a blog post?
Mm
Erin: Yes, part of me wants to say that SSO, like the implementation, is exactly like the SEO implementation. There is a perk to don’t get in SEO. So, a very quick review. The way to do this is you’re going to do the keyword research. And if anything, I think this is a great project to do kind of like, you know, all at once.
Put aside two hours, do some keyword research, and then don’t do keyword research again for another, like, two months or whatever, right? Um, so you batch the keyword research, coming up with things that are related to your business, your, um, ways you attract your clients, things they’re searching for, all of that.
But then, the day to day, like the posting the videos, posting the images, posting just regular posts, Non image and video post on things like LinkedIn or threads any of those things. It’s the regular old content optimization If you have images and videos, what are they titled something similar to your keyword? If you’re just doing regular content and the images in the videos, what is the social post? Like what are you writing within that social content? Are you using the keyword in
Colie: hmm,
Erin: There are two perks. One of the perks is that unlike blogs, you don’t have hashtags or other functions. And what I mean by other functions are things like on threads, it’s working similar to how hashtags work, but you’re kind of pulling in a topic, like an
Colie: mm hmm,
Erin: So, hashtags, adding, meaning like, you know, like, Directing, someone’s username within your post, that’s kind of like how a hashtag would work as well, by like adding a business or adding a person. Um, those topical things on are another option, or like, not categories, well, I guess it could be categories, but categories or like, topics on YouTube.
Those are all additional search functions that blogs don’t have. So yes, using hashtags are still working for you. Imagine if your hashtag is something like, we’re just gonna stick with this topic, but like, Colorado family photographer. And that’s a hashtag. And you use that term within the written social part.
Colie: mm hmm.
Erin: that’s two efforts. Like, that’s even better. Like, you used it
Colie: And if I add a photo, and it’s Colorado Family Photographer, that’s another checkmark.
Erin: a quick learner. Um, but the other way that it is slightly different that I think is really, oh, excuse me, I want to say one more thing. Um, usernames, bios, and the titles. So, again, I’m Erin O’Lilla, like, at Erin O’Lilla, but I think my title is something like Erin O’Lilla, like, SEO and website copywriter, something
Colie: It is.
Erin: So, thank you. I’m like, I have no clue what I wrote anymore. But that is me using the keyword within my title as an opportunity. where it differs though, and you had kind of brought this out in the way that you asked your question. a blog post, we do not ever want to cannibalize on our efforts, meaning like, use the same keyword or keyword phrase in multiple blog posts because we want traffic to be generated to that one piece of content we’ve created.
It doesn’t work like that with social media.
Colie: Nope.
Erin: those keywords everywhere, right? So like, you might have like, you might decide to yourself, well I’m gonna pick like, I’m just making this up right now so this isn’t like an optimized number anyone, just, just bear with me for the example. You might say, I’m gonna have five overall Um, Keywords that I really care about, like family photography, let’s say like, um, birth photography, wedding photography, whatever.
Those are your, those are your overarching ones, and you’re, you’re kind of treating them like categories, so you’re using them very consistently, very regularly. But then each post, maybe you’re having like a hyper small Keywords. Or you’re using four of them, right? Where it’s like, um, Are you looking for in home photography in, like, your area, Colorado? One of the most important things is blah, blah, blah. There’s maybe like another keyword, like hiring a photographer. There you go. Like these are all keyword opportunities, but if you notice, that’s just natural speech. This is not me stuffing keywords everywhere. And you’re getting that opportunity to use.
multiple keywords, and then use them again later and later. So, I do think there’s a benefit to being organized with this. You know, if you do that batch of keyword research, you have like a log, let’s just say a regular spreadsheet with a list of keywords, and then you write to yourself like, Okay, I’m, I’m used this in July.
Maybe just tick it off. Okay, used it four times, used it five times. So that way you can actually analyze later. Because you, if you’re not, creating a system of analyzation, you’re never going to know if any of this works. Like
Colie: Any of it works.
Erin: in to like Twitter or Instagram that says like, yes, your SEO efforts have been very valid.
None. So you do need to know, like, if you never use Colorado birth photographer. Then you are never gonna rank for it, but you might say to yourself. Oh, it didn’t work right like here’s it’s on my list No, I’m not getting any traffic. Well. How did you use it and like you know everyone like my memory is shit Like it is the worst maybe you have an excellent memory But you cannot remember every single one of these things like so if you can kind of create whatever system like it could be extremely rudimentary for yourself Piece of paper where you highlight it if you used it, whatever That’s gonna give you, like, a way to analyze if your efforts actually worked.
Colie: I’m going to say something though, because if you’re using a tool like Metricool, and this is not an ad, they don’t pay me, but they should. Um, if you’re using something like Metricool, you can, if you’re using it to schedule, you can actually search. And then you can see all the times that you’ve used a key phrase or something else.
And it’s just amazing. Also, I am a big proponent of putting all of your marketing content, all of your things inside of Airtable. Why? Because it is searchable. Like, I am all about making sure, because if you know that you have not used a particular keyword in at least two months, and you want to make sure that you use it again, Best way for you to use it again is look at the ways that you used it before.
And yes, you could search yourself inside of Instagram, but what if it doesn’t show you your content? Like you’re just kind of praying that the Instagram gods are going to be nice to you that day. But if you have your content organized in a way, Either when you’re writing it, before you post it in Airtable, or if you look at your scheduling tool, if it has search enabled, you will be able to see when you have used these things, so that you can make sure that you are using your keywords appropriately and often.
Erin: Can I say one more quick thing, because I know we’re like totally at the end of our time
Colie: Mm hmm.
Erin: during my training with Andrea, but Virality is not your goal. I don’t know if we need to like, maybe like, put a clip of this in the beginning of the video, of this audio, in case people don’t make it here, but whatever you do, don’t think about SSO as an option to go viral.
It is not your goal, it’s, you actually probably don’t want that to happen. If it does, no biggie. But, the reason why virality is not important is that you’re using niche keywords, and we want to get the people that actually want those keywords. Would I love to hire Colie to take pictures of my family?
That would be lovely, but we live very far away from each other. So unless she’s making it to Massachusetts, or my family’s traveling to Colorado, it’s not going to happen. So if she goes viral for a post, and it’s being shown in my feed, and Everyone else in the world’s feed for this hyperlocal thing.
She’s wasting her efforts because not helping her. Again, it’s not, virality is not going to hurt you, but it just should never be your goal. You actually want the smaller groups of people to pay attention. If you get three eyes on a post that are actually like, They’re already searching for things like your business, they’re looking for solutions, they’re looking for service providers, and it’s potentially local, let’s just say as an example, then that’s actually three potential clients.
That’s all you need as a service provider. In fact, it might be more than you need, you know? So, really, you want to things that actually are about your business. Like don’t try to attract everyone. You don’t need to use things like, Dubsado Pro for, I mean you could, this could be an option for you, but you don’t need like Dubsado Pro for copywriters, Dubsado Pro for Dubsado Pro for website designers, Dubsado Pro for graphics, and so on and so forth.
Maybe you do prefer to work with a couple of those titles and go for it. That’s a great keywords for you. But you don’t have to do every single potential thing. Client you could ever work with because it’s not helping you so
Colie: Now,
Erin: what is actually helping you And I think this works really well for people who hate Niching down is a good advice, but I also hate the advice, because it’s very complicated, and I think that this is a great example for someone who’s not sure what to do, or not sure how to niche, or, like, it gives, just focus on what you like, just focus on what you like right now, like, you don’t have to talk to all of these things, pick one, and if that doesn’t serve you well, Go to something else, like, switch to something else, and maybe it’ll help you begin to niche, or help you begin to figure out where your particularly good content spot is for you, but you do not want to go viral with SSO.
You want to limit the people who see your post to the right people,
Colie: yes.
Erin: Mm
Colie: take many. Like that’s what they say when you first start a podcast. Oh, you got a hundred downloads. That’s great. What would you do if you met a hundred people in person? Could you serve all hundred people at once? Well, if you’re a service provider, no. If you’re a course provider, maybe, but the point is you want to make sure that you’re getting your content to the people who need it the most or are most aligned with your ideal client and not just kind of throwing it to the wind and hoping that someone that sees it randomly.
is going to come back and be interested in your services. Erin, I love talking about SSO with you. I mean, I feel like we didn’t do enough. I feel like we should come back for another episode, but we’ll see how this one does
first.
Erin: Sign. Me. Up.
Colie: So guys, I’ve already told you Erin has been on this podcast two previous times.
If you would like to hear her and I’s conversations, one was more copy focused and another one was where Erin actually interviewed me for this podcast. So you get to know a little bit more about me and like my personal story, which I never talk about as the host of this podcast, but both of those are going to be listed in the show notes.
And just so that you know, Erin will be back. Erin will always be back and we won’t let it be so long this time. Okay.
Erin: Sounds good. Perfect.
Colie: All right, everyone. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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