Episode 5
The One Where We Discuss SEO For Small Businesses With Sheri Mandour
In this week's episode, we chat with Sheri Mandour, Freelance Digital Marketing Consultant and Founder of Digital Tulips, about SEO for small businesses with small budgets.
Where to find Sheri:
Resources from the episode:
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Episode Sponsor:
This season is sponsored by Screaming Frog. Screaming Frog develop crawling and log file analysis software for the SEO industry, and wanted to support the WTSPodcast as listeners to the show. They’ve just released version 16 of their SEO Spider software, which includes - improved JavaScript crawling to help you identify dependencies, such as JavaScript content and links, automated crawl reports for Data Studio integration, advanced search and filtering, and the app is now available in Spanish, French, German and Italian. You can check out the latest version at Screaming Frog's website (screamingfrog.co.uk).
Where to find Screaming Frog:
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Episode Transcript:
Sarah: Hello, and welcome to the Women In Tech SEO podcast. I am Sarah McDowell, an SEO content executive, and I will be your host for today. Joining me, I have Sheri Mandour who is a freelance digital marketing consultant and Digital Tulips founder, and she will be talking to me today about how to do SEO for small businesses. Welcome to the podcast, Sheri.
Sheri: Thank you very much for having me.
Sarah: How are we doing today?
Sheri: I'm very well, thank you. How are you?
Sarah: I'm always in a very good mood when I get to do a podcast, and get to talk to someone. I'm in my very happy place right now.
Sheri: I'm glad. Same here actually, I feel very nostalgic speaking and just relaxed. Hopefully, we will have some fun today.
Sarah: Can you give our audience a brief overview of how you got into SEO, and end up having your own business in freelancing?
Sheri: Well, my story started actually 17 years ago when I got married and moved to the UK with my husband who was finishing off his studies. Although I had my bachelor's degree with honors and accounting and marketing from Cairo university, as well as experiencing work as an auditor for PricewaterhouseCoopers, and also for the United nations. I found it really challenging to find a job that really fit it around my new life and family.
Back then I was approached by a friend who was actually an international human rights lawyer, and she was looking for someone to manage her organization's website and social media accounts. I took on that role basically, and started a long journey of self learning in which really I discovered the magic of SEO, and the digital marketing in general. I was really fascinated by the power of digital marketing, and the impact it had on people.
Wanting to learn further, I enrolled in evening classes at the university of west minister and I obtained a diploma in digital marketing from the DMI learning really the strategy behind all the digital marketing tools and the platforms really was a game changer for me, and it was then that I knew that digital marketing was my new career. This is how basically I started my business. I ended up freelancing having my own business.
I would say it was like due to the circumstances I found myself in at that point in time. I needed the flexible role to fit around my young children, and back then it was really impossible for someone like me, AKA head scarf wearing, Arab Muslim woman, with children, to find a role like that in London. To be honest, as much as I really wanted to go into agency and get that experience under my belt back then, I knew that going solo was going to be what I really wanted to ultimately do.
I optimized my LinkedIn profile, built my own website, and the leads just came pouring down. This Digital Tulips was born, and it's basically here to help ethnic minority businesses level up their online presence through the power of digital marketing. Yes, that's it.
Sarah: Well, that's a fascinating story. Thank you for sharing that with this. Before you started out freelancing and having your own business, is there anything that like you wish you knew before starting, for example, any tools or anything like that?
Sheri: I think I'm running your own business. I thought was going to give me more time. However, at the start everything seemed like double. I would do my client's work and at the same time I had to do my own. The three tools that I definitely wish I knew earlier was number one, was really good accounting software that someone is actually comfortable using. Separating your finances from the start is very essential when you go freelance or start your own company, as well as keeping track of the revenues and expenses.
To reduce the headache, use an accounting software that can link to your bank account, and then automate the processes. At the moment I'm loving QuickBooks which is quite easy, I would say. It just saves so much time because you don't really have to sit down, open an Excel sheet and put all your expenses on a regular basis, and it just does that without you having to think about it.
My next, I think tool that I wish I knew before was like a software to manage potential leads that are coming in place. A place to store my proposals, my price lists by the service on offer, my contracts, my onboarding emails, sending the invoices, as well as the reminders to pay the invoices all that took so much time, and when you're running your own business as a freelancer, that it's essential to invest in a good CRM that you can that you're really comfortable using and that's really going to save you plenty of time down the line.
At the moment I'm using a tool called the Persado which is amazing, it saves all my templates and in one place. It has dedicated folders for all my potential clients and leads where I hold all their necessarily details, and the process of nurturing them until they become actual clients, and it even has a client portal which is great as it's a place where all the information for both me and my clients are located in one place.
No more searching on my emails, no missed emails. Everything's just really sorted, and I think my final tool, although I knew before, but I didn't use it except in the last few years, which is really a project management software where you can really manage your daily tasks, and if you can sort of find the software that you can integrate with your CRM is just amazing. Once you get that potential lead, you nurture that lead.
It will automatically formulate a file into the project management where you have all your processes. It's a place where you, even as a one person company using a software like this is really beneficial, because you can keep track of processes, your tracks, your deadlines, what to do. I'm using Asana at the moment, and I'm actually using the free version and it just does that perfectly.
I know also Monday is fantastic and I've also used Trello. Use different kinds of tools, but essentially you want an accounting software. A software to manage potential leads and software to manage your ongoing processes in your business. These are my three things.
Sarah: Love them, and they definitely sound like lifesavers to have. Definitely worth knowing. We know about you professionally, your career, and how you got into this industry. How do you feel about quick fire round of questions?
[Quick Fire Round]
Sarah: Wonderful. Earlier in the podcast, I said that we will be talking about how to do SEO for small businesses. My first question to you, Sheri. Why do small businesses need SEO?
Sheri: Well, a small business doesn't have the big budgets of large scale organizations, and so they need to be really savvy in terms of where to allocate their budgets, to maximize their profits really. Rather than continually relying on paid advertisement that I see a lot of businesses do, whether it's Google ads or social media ads, or even just not really going into anything digital, ask yourself, you need something to bring traffic to your website that is not going to cost you money all the time and this is where SEO comes in.
SEO is really a long term run, which has really cost effective. A small business website can use SEO to rank higher in search engine results, which in turn is going to bring more qualified potential customers to their site, but they have to be savvy. I see it day and day out, a lot of small companies, they reach for very high ticketed keywords. Keywords that definitely they want to rank for. They really need to think about their keyword strategy.
They need to narrow down and hunt their niche, and find keywords that are actually related to the niche or their potential audience. I'm going to talk about that later on when we discuss the fundamentals of SEO, but essentially a small business needs SEO, and it needs to be really savvy in terms of the content that they have on their site and the keywords that they're optimizing for.
Sarah: Wonderful. Yes, you've done my job for me there as the interviewer, because that is my next question.
Sheri: Really? Okay.
Sarah: Yes, it is the fundamentals. Yes, it's important. What sort of things should small businesses be thinking about then? What are the absolute fundamentals to have in place?
Sheri: Just like you can't build a house without any solid foundations, you really can't build your online presence without a solid website structure. Search engines can properly crawl and index your web pages. I've audited really hundreds of small business websites. What I found was that small businesses often have a website that looks really cute and pretty, but isn't built for search, even sometimes not even built for their users in mind.
I would think that there are really eight major SEO fundamentals small businesses should tackle. The first one is to make sure their website is actually indexed. Now, one of the best ways to check if your website is actually crawlable by Google is to use Google Search Console. Another thing that I see a lot with small businesses is that they don't really make use of Google Search Console and Google Analytics. I do encourage them to do that.
The first thing that they should do is find out if their site is actually indexed. They can do that two ways. First way, which I think is the best way really, is to sign up for Google Search Console. Once they do that, they can have access to their website account. They can go under the coverage report which is under index. They'll find that somewhere when they open the Google Search Console.
There, they will see the pages that Google has actually indexed, and also the pages that haven't. If there's any issues, Google will alert them. They will be able to identify which pages are not being indexed, and try to fix that. Another easy, quick way to do it is on Google itself. When you are really quick Google Site Search, you go on Google and you type your site, then the colon, then your URL for your site, you click Search, you'll get a list of the pages Google had actually indexed.
This is the best thing to do to find out whether your website is actually indexed or not. The second thing that you need to do is you have to, basically, do what I would say look at your website and check its functionality. Your website, is it loading quick enough? Users are impatient. Your website needs to load quick. Make sure your site is quickly. There's a lot of tools online. There's like the PageSpeed Insight by Google that can show you if your website is quick or not.
Is your site mobile-friendly? Again, we're in 2021 here. Your site needs to be mobile-friendly. There should also be no broken links, of course. Making sure that your site is safe and secure is another factor. The functionality of the website, from its core, is essential to build that SEO fundamentals we're talking about. Also, the third thing would be the layout. Make sure that the layout of your site makes sense. Can users navigate your pages properly from homepage?
Can users scroll one page to the next and back again easily? All of these things that people don't really think about when they built their site from the beginning, especially as a small business, most probably does it themselves, or hires a really cheap developer to do their site. They don't really take into consideration, these things. It's important, if you're building your site now, to take a look at these. Even if you've already built your site, to go back again and analyze and see if it's actually making sense. Is it mobile-friendly? Is the layout okay?
The fourth SEO fundamental I would say is also to make sure that you're using the right keywords on your pages. Once you've structured your site correctly, your navigation is fine, your mobile and all of that, taking a look at the keywords and think about the words that your users are likely to use when searching for your product or service. Don't think about what you as a business owner want on your site, but think about the user and how they would like to navigate a site like yours.
Look at each page and ensure it's unique and serves a purpose. Each page should have a unique title that represents what the page is talking about. Also, concentrate on your niche because this is where you're going to see the gains. Longtail keywords are your friend here, because if you're a small business, you don't have a lot of resources to put that onto your site, going and aiming for these longtail keywords on your pages, you will reap the rewards.
The fifth fundamental I would say is to focus on your unique offerings or geographic location. This goes hand in hand with choosing the right keywords. Rather than just being general, let's say, for example, I'm a cleaning company, let's say focusing more on narrowing your offering. For example, I'm a cleaning company in Stanmore for instance. Putting a geographic location onto it would actually, again, give you that SEO when it comes to the SERPs.
The sixth fundamental is steering away from cheap emails that promise you false hopes. I've seen it over and over again when people come to me and say, "I've got this person that sent me this email saying that he's going to give me 1,000 links for $50. I'm going to be number one next day." Unfortunately, plenty of scammers out there that's really driving false hopes to small businesses. Even if you hire someone to do your SEO, as a business owner, it's important that you're aware and informed of best practices when it comes to SEO, so you won't get be fooled by these people.
You know what they're going to be doing and you let them do the job, but you as a business owner should know what they're doing just to make sure they're not really ripping you off, because unfortunately, this industry is not really regulated. There's so many amateurs out there, and so many people promising lots of things for little money. At the end, there can either they can link badly to your site and penalize your site, or they will do anything and just take your money. Really, you need to--
Sarah: Just to add to this point. I'm guessing what you're saying here is if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Sheri: Exactly. Exactly. I think because they're so desperate to be on first page, because they feel that, obviously, being on first page, that means that they'll get the traffic. They really, unfortunately, get conned by these people. I did see a lot of people unfortunately pay so much money and at the end, just get nothing. Yes, it's something that they really need to think about. My seventh SEO fundamental would be then to build genuine meaningful links to your site, and not through these link farms and these emails, dodgy emails, but by yourself or through a digital PR company.
For instance, if you have some resources, I know that it's time-consuming and can be expensive, however, links are really important signal to Google. If you are a small business, there are local directories that are actually relevant. I know a lot of people have been saying, "No, don't do directories." Actually, if you are, let's say, a plumber who is an edge where it's important to be on directories like in Yelp, and other important directories because this is where people are using to browse and search for people like you.
Definitely think about the local directories and have a link to your site from there is a good place to start. Also, reaching out and collaborating with your, for example, current suppliers or customers that have used you in the past, for instance, and asking them to review whether your product or your service. Perhaps writing an article or reviewing in a relevant industry magazine or blog. If, for example, you have a product, ask maybe a blogger to review it and give their honest opinion.
Obviously, good old PR comes in place here. Digital PR is really going and moving forward now. It's a great service that you can use if you're just at the start, and you want someone to do that reaching out for you and telling people, "Hey, if you're writing blogs...
