SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION FOR SMALL BUSINESS

If you’re running your own business – you’re probably wearing a lot of hats. I know I do! Marketing, clients emails, keeping my shop clean, blogging. It can seem overwhelming!

You may have heard of SEO – or Search Engine Optimization – but you might have some preconceived notions about it, like…

-SEO is hard

-SEO is time-consuming

-SEO is confusing

What if I told you that it’s not confusing? In fact, it’s pretty simple if you know what you’re doing.

And what if I told you I could teach you, in just a few hours, how to optimize your website to get to the top of Google?

What would it mean to your business to have a steady supply of new clients without have to pay for marketing? For me it has meant the difference between staying in business and looking for a dreaded “real job.”

Before I tell you about my SEO class for small business owners, how about I let some of my past students tell you about it.

“I met Leah at the Newborn and Beyond Retreat and attended her SEO class. It was a game-changer, totally blown away! I’m looking forward to more mind-blowing moments and learning lots of new marketing and SEO tips as a member of her group.”
-Kristen Mackey
Son Kissed Photography

“Leah has been a tremendous help as I’ve been working on SEO. Her ability to know what you need, plus give precise information to get your website up and running smoothly with driving people to your website is incredible. I have a better flow of customers now because of her SEO coaching. She made SEO easy to understand. I highly recommend her!”
-Mary Bannon
Divine Heart Connections“SEO is my weakness. When I learned that SEO was being covered with Leah, I found myself hoping that I can recover from the holes that are always left when we relocate. I learned so much! Leah was by far one of most thorough teachers that I have ever worked with. Leah hit on some many items that are easily adjustable, make sense, and align by perfectly with my business. Leah, I truly appreciate the knowledge that I gained from you. It was all so enlightening!!”
-Emily Moncus
Emily Moncus Photography

“I appreciate you taking the time to show me how to improve our website. It is obvious there are many places to improve our organic results. I’ve paid more then $10,000 for someone to keep our site in the top 3 spots, and after meeting with you I realize I am throwing money away. Thank you for the insight, you are very knowledgeable and thorough. I will take what you recommended and make the changes to our site. Very simple but impactful changes! Thanks.”

-Jason Flannagan

First Impressions Family Dental Care

“I’ve had a chance to meet and learn from Leah during a Newborn And Beyond Photography retreat. The retreat had a long list of amazing teachers and vendors but what I loved the most and learned the most from was Leah’s class. I actually told my friends that the whole retreat would’ve been worth the investment for her class alone! She is extremely knowledgeable and willing to share all she knows. Friendly, open to questions ( a lot of those 🙂 ) and willing to go the extra mile to help her students. I am extremely grateful for being able to learn from her and I hope to be able to attend more of her classes. Highly recommend her to anyone who wants to learn more about the business / SEO side of photography.”
-Aneta DeAngelo
Yellow Lollipop Photography

I had the pleasure of meeting Leah at an event in South Carolina and learned so much from her about SEO.

-Caralee Case

Caralee Case Photography

Ok, back to my story. Don’t worry, it has a happy ending! I built my first photography website, www.lseverson.com, back in 2004. It routinely topped the Google search result pages for my specialty, which was baby photography in Indianapolis and Carmel, Indiana. So I did what a lot of small business owners do when there’s a certain part of their business that’s humming along smoothly.

I stopped paying attention to it.

I always ask new clients how they heard about me. When I was at the top of Google, people would say

“I was searching online for a photographer” or “I did a Google search and discovered your website.”

But when business slowed down and I realized almost all my clients were repeat customers or referrals, I knew something was up.

So I did a very. scary. thing. I Googled my keywords.

I had a pit in my stomach as I was doing it because I was pretty sure I knew what I was going to find. And sadly, I was right.

I had disappeared from Google. (cue tears)

Now in reality I was still there. But I was buried deep in the bowels of Google. No one would ever find me on there.

If you’re not on the first page of Google, and more specifically – if you’re not one of the top five organic listings – you might as well not even be there. Sure, people can type your web address and find you, and people can type your business name in the search bar to find you. But the people who were looking for a baby photographer in Indianapolis or Carmel, IN were not finding me. And my business was struggling mightily.

The first time I was at the top of Google I had gotten there by dumb luck. I knew that wasn’t going to happen again. I realized three things…

1. I needed to be at the top of Google in order to bring in those new clients automatically without spending any marketing dollars.

2. I knew absolutely nothing about Search Engine Optimization.

3. I could not afford to hire someone to do SEO for me.

I knew if I was going to climb back to the top I was going to have to learn Search Engine Optimization and make it happen. So that’s what I did. I read books, took classes, studied websites and blogs, ran a-b optimization tests on my own site, and slowly but surely I made it back to the top of Google.

Learn to Do Your Own Search Engine Optimization

What’s it worth to your business to have a STEADY SUPPLY OF NEW BUSINESS WITHOUT SPENDING A DIME ON MARKETING?? For me it has meant the difference between continuing to run a successful, financially stable portrait business or getting a j.o.b.

In my DIY SEO class, you’ll learn…

-How to find the perfect keywords for your business

-How to excel at on-page Search Engine Optimization

-How to build backlinks that work

-How to optimize your blog posts

-How to optimize graphics and pictures on your website

-How to make the most of citations and business directories

-How to get your pictures and graphics on Google Images

-How to optimize your Google My Business listing

I would love to help you get your website and your images prominently displayed on Google. I promise it won’t cost you an arm and a leg, and it won’t be difficult. It will require time, effort and consistency on your part.

Read What Others Are Saying About My SEO for Small Business Class

“I was blown away by Leah’s SEO training! Her content was well organized and engaging. Her explanations were very clear and easy to understand. Before her class, SEO was a vague concept that I knew I needed to address. After? I came away knowing exactly what steps I need to take to improve my SEO and my website’s visibility—an SEO Birth Plan! All in all an excellent class that I’d recommend to anyone running a business who wants their website to work for them!”

Adina Nelson

Firewood Doula Services

“I thought the class was great! It’s so important in today’s tech-savvy society to be easily found on the Internet. When I need to find a business, I turn to Google. So it’s imperative to have a high ranking and be listed on the first page of the search engines. I’m sure every business owners knows a little bit about SEO, keywords, etc. But there’s so much more information that we need to know. Leah’s class gave me a guideline of where to start and what I need to do to get this done myself. I feel very confident that I’m able to do this now myself. I would definitely recommend this class to other small business owners. Leah showed us that it’s not really that difficult to get your ranking up there. All it takes is a little bit of knowledge and time and you can get highly ranked.”

Margaret Kukuc

Kukuc Photography

“This was a VERY informative class! After taking it, I’m confident about doing my own SEO quite easily. I would certainly recommend it to others. Leah was very well-prepared and knowledgeable. I feel I really learned a lot!”

Carol Mellema

Seniors by Carol Photography

SEO Student Results

It’s one thing to have people say great things about what they learned in my SEO courses and coaching. Since I’m asking you to part with your hard-earned money, I feel like it’s important to show you actual results.

These graphics show the growth of a few of my student’s websites as they implement the SEO techniques I teach.

First up are the growth stats for Milligan Counseling. Tori Milligan is a professional counselor with a small private practice in St. Louis, Missouri. She had a website, but it wasn’t driving any traffic. We worked together to find a list of keywords her potential clients would be using. We checked her site’s rankings for those keywords. She ranked greater than 101 in all of them. That means you can go all the way to page ten of Google and still not find her website. For all intents and purposes, her website was invisible to search engines. Tori followed the steps in my SEO class and worked diligently on her site. In just 3 months, she went from nowhere on Google to page one for two of her desired keywords. And her other keywords are climbing fast too as she continues to implement what she learned.

“I am amazed at how much my site has risen since I implemented the simple steps suggested by Leah. The work was not difficult. She explained it in a way that was easy for me – not a tech person at all– to understand and implement. I’ll continue updating my site and adding new, fresh content as Leah suggested until I’m on page one for all my search terms now that I know how to do it.”
-Tori Milligan
Milligan Counseling

seo for small business consulting client

Genny Ward is a photographer in the Fort Lauderdale area. She was paying an SEO consultant to help her with her rankings, but still wasn’t getting anywhere. We tweaked some things to get more of her keywords into the coveted “top 3 of Google search” spots. The number of users on her site went from 147 in December to 256 in January!

“Leah has helped me with my SEO and various ways to implement different strategies on my website. She’s knowledgeable and very easy to understand as SEO can be difficult for me. Thank you for all you help!”

You’re welcome Genny!

seo cooaching for small business indianapolis

Mariela Duval is a photographer in the Atlanta, Georgia area. She “real” job is full-time pharmacist but she’s working hard to grow her studio as she plans to retire from pharmacy in the next few years. Mariela hired me for some one-on-one SEO Coaching.

“After taking an in-person SEO class from Leah, I was very impressed with the information she provided and knew right away I needed further guidance specifically to my website. I hired Leah to review my website and my Google My Business profile. We set up two separate conversations to discuss her recommendations. Leah had lots of excellent information and advice as we reviewed my website and content. She made several suggestions on using keywords, naming images, and content on the website that would be specific to target my audience. We did the same for Google My Business page. I have been so impressed to see how changes that were easy to implement have made such a difference in my SEO and the number of inquiries I am receiving. I highly recommend Leah if you want to work on SEO and understand how to move up in Google. Leah makes it simple, easy to follow and easy to understand. I have loved working with Leah!”

Thanks Mariela!

small business seo optimization coaching

Angela McNaul is a photographer in Virginia. She had been working on her SEO and had made it to page one for several of her keywords. However, she was having trouble breaking into those top three Google spots that she coveted. Angela implemented some easy changes to her optimization plan, and now her low-ranking pages are climbing and more of her page one results are now in the top 3.

seo coaching small business

Get Started with Your SEO

Are you ready to get serious about working on your SEO and getting your site to the top of the search engines? I would love to work with you. If you’re interested in one-on-one SEO coaching or group classes, please click here to drop me a note and let me know what your goals are and how I can reach you.