#142: How to Use Analytics to Increase Your End of the Year Blog Income

If you want to know how to use analytics to increase your end of the year blog income, this is the episode for you! Who doesn’t need more money over the holidays?

As we approach the end of the year, I always recommend bloggers dust off their holiday content and give it a refresh.

But a good question to ask is what posts should you update, and how do you do it successfully during this unusual holiday season?

I’ve got my friend and SEO expert, Paula Rollo, back on the show share how to use analytics to guide you, whether that be Google Trends, Google Search Console, or Google Analytics.

The goal is to create content that you are confident will do well for you—that will help drive traffic to your site and help you sell during the holidays.

We also talk about how to strategically go after high traffic keywords in your niche, so you can continue to build your traffic from now into 2021.

With this strategy, it’s all about the long game, creating individual pieces of content that support the larger keywords you’re targeting.

With a little forethought and patience, this is definitely achievable. Listen to the episode to learn how step-by-step.

Then please reach out and let me know which strategy from the episode resonates with you the most, and how you’re upping your game in Q4.

Show Notes:

• MiloTree Pop-Up App
• Blogger Genius 4 Biggest Takeaways Email
• MiloTree WordPress Workshop October 14th
• MiloTree Mastermind Facebook Group
• Paula Rollo, SEO
• Google Trends
• Episode 141: 5 Secrets Successful Bloggers Know to Grow Their Blogs with Paula Rollo
• Catch My Party
• Keywords Everywhere

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Intro 0:04
Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTee. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.

Hello friends. Welcome back to the show. This is Jillian, serial entrepreneur, Stanford MBA, business coach, and really business translator. I like to take cutting edge business strategies and show you how to use them right now in your business.

Jillian Leslie 0:31
I’m a big believer in doing B-minus work, so you can actually get stuff done, embracing the mess and getting used to being uncomfortable. If that sounds interesting to you, please join my newsletter, head to bloggergenius.com and sign up.

And once a week, you’ll get an email from me, where I’m sharing my four biggest takeaways from each episode. And you can also become part of my community, I’d really love to get to know you. So please bloggergenius.com.

And for today’s episode, I have my friend an SEO expert Paula Rollo back on the show. So we recorded Episode 139 talking about how to figure out what to blog about using your Google Analytics.

And people really liked that episode, I heard from a bunch of you saying that was really useful. So we decided we would do another, we’d go deeper. Today we are talking about monetizing in Q4 because this is a time when people spend more.

So, how do you take advantage of that. But how do you do it using analytics. We’re talking about Google Trends, which is this awesome free service that Google provides. If you haven’t explored it, we’re going to dig in and you’ll hear how we use it.

Also, your search console, your Google Search Console, and how there are so many gems in there for you to discover. I am a big believer in making informed choices when creating content. And this is the way you do it.

So, without further delay, here is my interview with Paula Rollo. Paula, welcome back to the show.

Paula Rollo 2:26
Thank you for having me back quickly. It’s fun to be here.

Jillian Leslie 2:28
We did our last podcast on how to use Google Analytics to know what to blog about. And it has been such a hit that I wanted you to come back on now that it’s getting to be the end of the year.

So, that we could talk about how to use your analytics to make more money during this special time.

Paula Rollo 2:49
Absolutely, I’m thrilled that everybody loved our Google Analytics talk so much. People are nerding out over numbers like we do. So that’s always fun to know.

How to Make Content Decisions Based on Analytics

Jillian Leslie 2:58
And again, in my podcast that I just recently went live with about my five secrets that bloggers know to be successful online. One of them is to be making decisions based on your analytics.

So, you’re not just looking at what way the wind is blowing and deciding to create content around that, but that you’re really digging in and saying, Wow, my audience is responding.

Okay, so this is a perfect example of this. I’m looking at my podcast analytics. I’m like, wow, Paula, people are really leaning into this episode. Let’s do another one. Because it seems like this is a great way to serve you my audience.

And again, we’re really good friends. And we’d love to have an excuse to get on a Zoom call and talk. But really it was wow, this is working. People like this, let’s do more of it.

Paula Rollo 3:52
I love it. I love it. It’s never the wrong time to talk about analytics and how they can fix your business and make it better.

How to Use Google Trends to Find Seasonal Content for Your Niche

Jillian Leslie 3:59
Before we press record, we were saying okay, what specific things do we want to talk about? And one that really lit me up was this idea of Google Trends. So what is Google Trends? And why is it so powerful? And how do you use it?

Paula Rollo 4:14
That is loaded. Google Trends is another free tool from Google. They have a whole suite of tools more actually launched this week, and I’m waiting for the weekend so I can really dive into the Google tools they launched this week.

So, this is another free tool that they have, along with Google Search Console, Google Analytics, which you’re probably familiar with. And it doesn’t connect to your site. It’s just overall what’s trending on Google.

You can go all the way back to 2004 to today.

Jillian Leslie 4:47
Wait. To find it literally google, Google Trends.

Paula Rollo 4:52
Yes, it’s trends.google.com. If you want the URL, but if you just google, Google Trends, it’ll come up. It’s going to be top grade SEO.

Jillian Leslie 5:03
Isn’t that a shocker?

Paula Rollo 5:05
If they didn’t, I’d be worried.

Jillian Leslie 5:08
So, you’re in Google Trends.

Paula Rollo 5:10
Right at the top, right in the middle, it’s going to be asking you like, what do you want to search for? Something like that. Type in a keyword that you’re interested in.

And I do this just for fun sometimes because it entertains me to see what people are searching on the internet and when and why. But you can also just search for things obviously relevant to your site, or relevant to the time of year.

So, I really like using Google Trends for seasonal content. Because it’s not only going to tell you things that you already know, like, wow, every September to October, interest in Halloween goes up. I’m shocked by this, that’s not how you use it.

But you want to type in something like “Halloween crafts,” as your search term. Let that come up, then scroll down, I would put it on the past, 30 days, something around this year, if you’re working with a seasonal Google Trend.

It’s going to show you a graph of the interest over time. But what gets really interesting and what can inform your content is if you scroll down, it’s going to tell you one related topic, and two related queries.

And these two things are wealth of information because it’s going to tell you hey, this is being searched a lot. If something’s says break out. That means maybe this wasn’t interesting before, like COVID Halloween candy.

Jillian Leslie 6:31
Right. Nobody knew last year.

Paula Rollo 6:33
It’s probably up by 1,000% search this month. But you can see things in there that you may not have expected or that you may be like, oh, this is starting to be a trend.

Let me go ahead and get on that trend from an SEO perspective before anyone else because I can see the exact query that people are typing into Google.

Jillian Leslie 6:57
Wait. Explain what a query is.

Paula Rollo 7:00
A query is when you go to Google and you type something in the Google search bar. That’s your query.

Jillian Leslie 7:06
It’s like a question.

Paula Rollo 7:07
Active Google List.

Jillian Leslie 7:07
Right. Exactly.

Paula Rollo 7:09
It could be pumpkin, or it could be how do I carve a pumpkin or it could be COVID pumpkin carvings or it could be any of those things, whatever you type into Google is your query.

But you want to know what specific queries people are typing in so that you can create the content in that way. This is different, Pinterest will give you conceptually, people are interested in pumpkins right now.

Google Trends is going to give you these are the exact words people are typing into Google right now about this topic. So, it gets a lot more granular when you’re in Google Trends.

This will help you because obviously, it’s going to be trending on social media as well. But you’re going to be able to be ahead of the curve in Google and be the only one who’s targeting that specific keyword.

That’s a breakout term, which is a lot more valuable to you than just covering the topic and hoping for the best in Google search results.

Jillian Leslie 8:03
I would say for us with Catch My Party two things put us on the map, Frozen and Minecraft. And what I learned from that was the idea I think of myself as a surfer, and I want to ride existing waves.

Why You Don’t Want to Be a Trend Maker, but a Trend Follower

Whenever I’ve said, hmm, I’ve a party site, it’s really big. I’m a taste maker. Ha ha, I’m not a tastemaker. I’ve tried to start trends. And guess what I’ve had like no success, thinking, I know what’s going to be popular.

Where we’ve won, is when we see something that’s already starting to become popular. And then we jump on that wave and we ride it.

Paula Rollo 8:50
Absolutely. And this will help you be the one that other people see when it’s starting to become popular. Instead of waiting for 10 people post those on Instagram, I better post it. Behind the scenes this is what people are typing into Google.

So, you’re going to be the very first one on that wave versus 10 or 20 years down the line.

Jillian Leslie 9:13
Absolutely.

Paula Rollo 9:14
On the wave of seasonal content.

Jillian Leslie 9:15
So again, back to Catch My Party, when all of a sudden coronavirus hit and people stopped throwing parties. I didn’t even go to Google Trends for this. But I said, Okay, how are people going to be throwing virtual parties.

I knew parties weren’t going to go away, just the whole way we think about them was going to change. And I said to my assistant, Ana, we’ve got to get in front of this. We need to write the quintessential post that cornerstone content on how to throw a virtual party.

And by the way, that’s like one of our number one posts. And then the second one was once things started opening up, I knew again, I think it’s in our bones that we have to come together and celebrate.

Therefore, how do we come together in person and celebrate safely? And I said, we need to write a cornerstone piece of content about celebrating safely with social distance. Which has tips like be outside and wear masks and set up hand sanitizing stations.

Like nothing that you wouldn’t have thought of. But I wanted to put it all in one place where people could come and go, oh, right, I need to do that. And then from those cornerstone pieces of content, we’ve been able to go okay.

Then I look in my Google Search Console, for example, one thing that keeps showing up is social distance party foods. So, guess what, we are writing a post on social distance party foods, like what do you serve? Like what kinds of containers?

One thing that we do show is you can have cupcakes and they can all be in individual containers, so that people don’t have to all be reaching for the cupcake. You can almost put them in little boxes, and go, here’s your cupcake for the party.

And that way people can stay safe. Or serving individual water bottles, or drinks instead of oh, here’s the water container. It’s like, no, you know what, this is the time for plastic water bottles, and how to decorate them and make them cute.

So, it’s just like thinking about this is a trend. I know, this is a trend, I’m riding that trend. And that has been super successful for us.

Paula Rollo 11:27
Well, and one of the things if you use Google Trends when you when you identify something like that you can go in and you can also compare search terms.

So, to use that example, I would go in and I would type in “virtual parties,” and it would give me the graph. And then next to it, there’s going to be another bar that says ‘Add’, and I would add another term of “Zoom parties.”

And then it’ll say who, which of these is more popular? Is Zoom parties becoming more popular, or is virtual parties becoming more popular kind of compare. Or safe parties or social distancing parties.

You can compare all of those things to see which one is being typed into Google more frequently, because some of the things like I use the Keywords Everywhere tool, that tells me how often people are searching things per month.

And it’s really useful for long term content, like how to change a diaper or something. But it’s not useful for things that are breakout content, because it doesn’t have a lot of data over the past several years of virtual parties or Zoom parties.

There’s no data yet for Keywords Everywhere. So that’s where Google Trends comes in handy. Because you can compare these two concepts and say, virtual parties are slightly more search than Zoom parties are.

Safe parties are not as searched historically, but actually last week it started spiking as safe parties. So, things like that allows you to go I know that conceptually, this is what I should be writing.

Google Trends Will Keep You Up on What Is Trending Now

But which term should I target with this concept to get me the most amount of traffic for what I want to do?

Jillian Leslie 12:58
What I think is really powerful about that is in our own niches, in our own industries and our own little slivers of the world, we have our own internal terminology for things. So, I might call something different than you call it.

And it’s a way to get out of your own lexicon. And think beyond that. Because something that is a no brainer that I think is so obvious, might not be obvious to you.

Paula Rollo 13:26
Right. Yeah. And actually, Google Trends will also give you that data, say you’re a southern blogger, and so, most of your audiences are from the south or the other way around, maybe you’re the Midwest, whatever it may be.

It also gives you a content breakdown by sub region. And so, the interesting thing about this example virtual parties and Zoom parties is that virtual parties are more popular in Minnesota, in Missouri, in Tennessee, in Washington State.

But Zoom parties are more popular in California, Texas, Florida and Georgia. So, even that you can get to that granular level of saying most of my people are in Texas.

So, even though virtual parties is a slightly bigger search term, I know that my actual audience, which is Texas searches, Zoom parties more. So, I’m going to go ahead and go over Zoom parties.

Jillian Leslie 14:20
So, given that the world is different this year, the holidays are going to be different this year. How would you be thinking about using Google Trends to help you create content?

What I’m going to say to people is, are there ways you can think about your niche specifically during this time? In fact, by the way, we did a podcast episode, I want to say it might be two years ago for Q4.

How to Create a Gift Guide Post for the Holidays

And you had said to create like a gift guide right for Christmas, but what you said that I thought was super interesting, because I went back and I read through the transcript of that.

You said, “Try not to create a general gift guide, try to create a very specific gift guide, serving a very specific part of your audience.” So, it’s not just toys, it might be board games, or puzzles, or like you’ve got little teeny kids.

What are little teeny kid gift ideas? And I would say now, because we’re in this weird time of COVID, how would you think about getting granular getting specific when it comes to holiday content?

Because holiday content from last year might not be relevant this year. So, what would you be doing to make your content specific for this year?

Paula Rollo 15:50
One of the first things I would do is go to Google Trends and play for about 20 minutes and I would literally start a timer because if you’re like me, you’re going to get obsessive like it’s really interesting.

Jillian Leslie 16:00
It’s really interesting.

Paula Rollo 16:01
Even completely not related to my business. I actually showed this tool to my husband the other night, and we sat and just played with search terms for like 30 minutes.

Because it was entertaining to see like, wow, people in this State are more interested in spaghetti than people in this State. It’s just funny.

Jillian Leslie 16:18
I was reading for Coronavirus that when people in certain regions where people were googling intestinal issues, there were Coronavirus spikes in those areas.

Because that’s one of the symptoms but it’s not necessarily the first symptom that you think of and yet they were able to correlate that data with where Coronavirus was growing.

Fascinating. It’s fascinating.

It is.

Paula Rollo 16:46
So, I would set a timer so you don’t spend too much time than is really necessary. But I would play around with different searches around your niche, or that you think people in your target audience might be searching.

Maybe it’s trying to figure out, with job losses, like cheaper Christmas meals, or how to make a fancy meal on a budget, a lot of things along those lines, see what kind of anxious searches you can make in a way.

There’s obviously going to be a lot of anxiety going into the next few months. So, try typing in different things to see if you can get in the mindset of the searcher right now.

Because that’s really what’s going to make the difference is that’s going to help you figure out how people are searching for things now even leading up into the holidays. Is it I don’t have enough money for Christmas?

Or is it, how do I connect with grandparents who I can’t see because of COVID. In certain States, that’s going to be an issue in other States, that’s not going to be an issue, because some States are doing a lot better than others.

And by December, hopefully even more States will be doing better. But it’s trying to lean into that and say, what types of content are people looking for.

And that’s just going to take a lot of typing into Google Trends, because you’re not going to be getting the data from your other tools. Because this is so new and so fresh, you need to see what’s breaking out right now.

And I will do things like typing in Christmas, and going down to related queries and going down to related searches and seeing what’s a breakout term. And then I type in that breakout term. And I go down and see what are related searches for that.

Even if the original breakout wasn’t relevant to me, I may try the breakout plus craft if I’m a craft blogger, or the breakout term plus food if I’m a food blogger and see what comes up.

Because that’s going to give you a lot of information that you can then work with, to take to here’s my actual niche.

Here’s my actual content that I already have created and see how you can shift your content around or create new content that can serve those searchers.

Jillian Leslie 18:55
Yes, talk about kind of a rabbit hole, like you will be gone, it will be gone.

Paula Rollo 19:01
And that’s why I literally set a timer. I know that sounds ridiculous. But I could spend hours in Google Trends. And it’s really only going to give you value in the first 20 or 30 minutes. Because then you need to just start actioning what you found.

You’re not going to find something that’s so life changing an hour in it’s going to be really interesting, but it’s not necessarily going to be as far as like, return on investment worth it past 20 to 30 minutes, you just need to start implementing what you’ve seen.

And then that data from what you implemented will give you more, like you saw people are asking for social distancing food, but you never would have seen that term if you hadn’t gone ahead and got that initial post up.

And then that post and you’re ranking for that post. Inform your next piece of content because then you shifted over to Google Search Console and you said, “Hey, I have some authority on this topic.”

Google’s sending people to me for parties, but what they really want to know is what should they eat at the parties and so that’s the shift, I use Google Trends, it informed my first two or three pieces of content.

And then I’m going to go into Google Search Console. And that is going to tell me authoritatively, what I can win. As far as the next few search terms go.

With the MiloTree Pop-Up App You Can Get More Instagram Followers

Advertisement 20:13
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How to Win Keyword Search Terms for SEO

Jillian Leslie 21:33
Let’s talk about winning, because you said something in the last podcast that I thought was really interesting, which is you go after search terms, and I said this you gamify it. Can you explain?

And you find it really fun. It like a fun thing. It’s like you get that dopamine hit when I’m sure you’re ranking for something? Can you talk me through what that really means to you like step by step?

Paula Rollo 22:01
Sure. So, I have, and this is something I actually do with all of my SEO clients, because this is just the way I look at it is wildest dreams, keywords.

And what that means is we all have those keywords like yeah, it would be great to be the top when somebody searches how to blog. But it has to be more than just, it would be great to ha ha, that’s never going to happen.

Like no, it could actually happen. It’s not probably going to happen this year. But if you start working on it now, and you’re strategically building towards that wildest dreams keyword, you could win that next year, if you’re really putting all the pieces into place.

So, I will start with something like I really like to be in the top spot for “how to blog,” I’m not going after that keyword. So, I’m using it as an example. None of my plans are going after that keyword.

But say I want to go after how to blog?

Jillian Leslie 22:54
Select, “How to start a blog.”

Paula Rollo 22:57
Sure, how to start a blog. Then I’m going to start looking at way smaller keywords. I can’t win how to start a blog. I know I can’t. But my goal is to win how to start a blog in 2020 or 2021.

So sometime in the fall of 2021. I want to be winning how to start a blog. So I’m going to start this fall. And I’m going to look for keywords that are easy wins, nobody’s going after because only 200 people a month search them.

And I’m going to start writing that content.

And it’s short content, it’s sweet content and answers one question and answers that question really, really well. And then from that 200 keywords, I won that one that I’m going to go on to 300 or 400 keywords that’s related to how to start a blog.

But maybe it’s how to start a food blog, food blog would be really big. Also, I might do like how to start a keto blog, because that’s probably like 800 people a month search that.

And I could do how to start a keto blog and just build from there. And I would look in Google on how to start a blog. And you know how you type something into Google and you scroll down it says ‘people also ask.’

And I would write blog posts on every single one of those people also ask not because a lot of search, usually those people also ask are not very highly searched items, which is kind of interesting.

If you type that into something, it’s like zero people a month search, which the zero is always a lie. Because there are things in my Google Search Console that it says zero people a month search this you’ve got 500 clicks from Google.

Especially in the lower regions. There are some room for error down there. But I want to win that and I want to be where if somebody types in ‘how to start a blog’. And then people also ask that’s like, ‘how to start a blog on Wix’.

And they click that people also ask and it balloons open. I want that to be my site right there. So not really on page one, but I’m kind of on page one. If people click and they’re interested in this more granular thing.

And then if they’re interested in that Google is going, hmm, every time we serve up content that’s around and related to ‘how to start a blog’, this person’s coming up. And so about six months after I was working on all of these things.

And I’ve got, 10, solid pieces of content, they’re all winning their time keywords. So then I would write ‘how to start a blog’. And then I would link to all of those, and then all of those would link to ‘how to start a blog’.

And that would continue from there, I would look at them like two weeks later, I would look at ‘how to start a blog’ is ranking number one for because it will probably rank for other small keywords before it ranks for how to start a blog.

Because ‘how to start a blog’ is a really big term, it’s probably like 110,000 a month.

Jillian Leslie 25:43
So wait, I want to stop you there. So, what you’re doing is you’re looking at your post, ‘how to start a blog’, which is probably going to end up on page seven.

Paula Rollo 25:53
Page seven, I will be happy with seven.

Jillian Leslie 25:56
Okay, so let’s say it’s on page 100, because it’s such a popular keyword.

Paula Rollo 26:03
And you’re so new.

Jillian Leslie 26:04
You’re so new, nobody’s even read it, you put a Pin up on Pinterest, you post it on Facebook. And that’s about it. Okay, so you’re going into where to take a look at where that is showing up for you?

How to Use Google Search Console to Help You Win Keywords for SEO

Paula Rollo 26:20
Google Search Console. And then when you get into Google Search Console, you can go to ‘overview’. And then you’re able to track the performance of specific blog posts.

So, when you go under ‘overview performance’ you click and then there’s a little graph, it’s super fun. But there’s a spot to click ‘New’. And there’s a plus mark. And when you click that, you can search by page.

So, you can put in your full-page URL that you want to track. And then Google Search Console is going to tell you here all of the terms where you appear anywhere in Google for this post.

And you’re not going to get this information from Google until the post has been up for a couple of weeks. And it’s going to start growing. But that’s why I write this post six months in because I want to then see what that post starts to rank for.

And what other support or content I can create that Google seeing like, yeah, this post is kind of about X, we’ll put it on page three for this smaller keyword. And I’ll go, hmm, “I’ll write that blog post.”

And I’ll link to the posts that I really want to rank for ‘how to start a blog’. And it takes a long time. But it works. I know this is probably like people are like, “Oh my gosh.” Like, this is a year of work. Yes, it is a year of work.

But when you start ranking for a keyword, that’s 100,000 search a month, and you’re in the top three, that’s a lot better than working on one post a month, that’s maybe going to get 1000 page views, those are great.

But those all need to be building towards something that really matters to you and your brand. So it’s not just oh, I could win this random keyword. It’s long term I want to win for “how to start a blog.”

The desire is going to inform every smaller keyword that I try to win. I’m not just going to try to win any old smaller keyword. I’m going to try to win these specific ones that are pointing me toward my “wildest dream” keyword.

Paula Rollow

How to Link Your Posts for Optimal SEO Juice

Jillian Leslie 28:23
Here’s a question, are you then linking your 10 posts that you’ve written around how to start a blog? So, you’ve got your how to start a blog post? You’ve got 10 I’ll call them supporting players? Are you linking those 10 supporting players to how to start a blog?

Are you linking the supporting players to each other? How are you thinking in terms of links structuring?

Paula Rollo 28:53
Everything links to how to start a blog 100% all relevant posts link to that. Now, the other smaller things don’t link to each other because they’re not all going to be relevant to each other.

Somebody who’s like saying, “How do I start a Facebook page for my blog?” What plugins do I need when I’m starting a blog? Those two things are unrelated. So they don’t link to each other.

But somebody who’s talking about plugins does need more information about how to start a blog. And somebody who’s writing about Facebook needs more information about how to start a blog.

So, they all link to the big one, and then only where relevant and where it will fit naturally in the body of your post is a good way to think about it. Do you link to other things?

If it’s not something that’s naturally fitting in the flow of what you’re writing for that blog post, then you don’t need to fit it in if it’s one of these smaller keywords.

How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be for Maximum SEO Benefit?

Jillian Leslie 29:43
How fleshed out? How long are my supporting player blog posts?

Paula Rollo 29:51
Only as long as they need to be.

What does that mean? I know that’s not a great answer. Bloggers really want a number, and there’s not a number for these things. And you can get really bogged down in every post.

And this is a rumor that’s going around is like, make a post 1000 word epic, whatever, no, don’t do that. You’re a big how to start a blog needs to be an epic 1000, 2000 word post.

How to start a Facebook page for your blog needs to only have as many words as it takes to tell someone how to start a Facebook page for their blog, and no more and no less.

Jillian Leslie 30:29
That’s so interesting. Because I would say conventional wisdom is more is always better. Two thousand words is what you want to hit. And yet you want to hit 2000 words, but you don’t want it to all be filler like that’s a lot of pressure. And I like what you’re saying.

Do what answers the question. Get people to solve. You’re solving that person’s problem. And no more, no fluff, no distractions, no feeling inadequate if you come in at less than 2000 words, because I think that can be paralyzing.

Paula Rollo 31:07
I wouldn’t come in at less than 300 words, because then you weren’t thorough. And that’s just not going to be good. It’s not going to be a good piece of content, like at least two 300.

But otherwise, don’t do more. And if it’s 258, and you’ve really answered it, that’s fine. But generally, 300 is the smallest I’m going to go for but that that is enough room to fully answer a question and no more.

And don’t try to squeeze in like this is supposed to be about how to start a Facebook page for your blog. And I’m just going to squeeze Twitter in there too, because that’s helpful.

No, you write another post. That’s how to start a Twitter for your blog, or how to start an Instagram, that’s a different post that you link to just because it would be helpful to someone doesn’t mean it needs to be helpful in this blog post.

Because then you’re diluting the authority of that post, that post needs to be only about the thing that somebody typed into Google. And then they’ve got to you and you answered that question. That’s it.

How to Update Current Holiday Posts for Today

Jillian Leslie 32:04
Okay. Just to switch directions for a second back to holidays and Q4. Let’s say, I’ve been blogging for a while, and I’ve got 50 holiday posts. How do I make them relevant today in this weird time?

Am I making new posts? Am I updating those posts? What’s your recommendation?

Paula Rollo 32:29
So, I would go into Google’s Search Console, because that’s what I do every day. And I would in the same place that you looked at performance, and you looked at your overview and your performance.

Instead of putting in a new page, you can put in a new query. And again, query is what people are typing into Google. And I would take something like, let’s look ahead to Thanksgiving, and I would type in Thanksgiving as the query.

And then what it’s going to spit out for you is every search term that you rank in Google that also has the word Thanksgiving in it. So, it might be Thanksgiving dinner, or it might be Thanksgiving with my in-laws that I don’t like or it might be.

Thanksgiving, whatever you name it, it’s going to give you a whole list. And also, on those search terms. If you click any one of those, like, wow, I’m ranking on page 15. for Thanksgiving food. Let me click that and see what blog post is ranking.

If you click the query, it’ll tell you what posts, it will also tell you how frequently you’re on page one for that. So, it may have been a one off that you were on page one of Google for Thanksgiving food one day only.

Or it may be something that you’re always on page one of Google but it’ll give you that granular information as well. So, I scroll through these and try to find, first of all, anything that I’m on page two, or the bottom of page one for seasonal content.

Because that tells me hey, if I improve this, I can be at the top of page one. And two; I look for things that I’m ranking somewhere. And it may be page 10. So that would be like a search position 100.

I’m going to look for if I’m ranking for something that I didn’t write about. And this happens a lot with holiday content. You’ll see those things like you saw in your search console.

I keep coming up on page seven or eight for social distancing party food, and I didn’t really write that, like I mentioned it, you probably had a sentence that said social distancing food in the blog post, but the blog post wasn’t about that.

So, I’m looking for that content too that, like, hey, I have some authority here Google seeing that, I have a post adjacent to this. And so, then I’m going to go and write that content and interlink.

I’m going to make sure that I backlink the posts that was showing up for it to the posts that’s actually fresh on my site specifically about that content.

Jillian Leslie 34:48
And then would you put a COVID spin on it today, knowing that hopefully next year, that post might be irrelevant. What would you do?

Should You Talk About Covid in Your Posts?

Paula Rollo 35:01
I personally would not, I would do things that are looking forward to evergreen that are more like, say spending Christmas alone or Christmas ideas when you’re distant from your relatives or something.

Things like that are going to be relevant to some people every year. And so try to keep in mind that’s a relevant term right now to probably a lot of people. But I would spin it in such a way that it’s going to be relevant to people.

I have a sick relative that I can’t go see this year, or finances are really tight in 2022. And so I’m not able to go visit my aunt like I do every Thanksgiving, something along those lines, but it fits everyone.

That’s the type of thing I would try to be positioning in. And then there’s also a lot of talk and data around posts that have COVID Coronavirus, key terms like that not getting as much ad revenue.

So, I’m also very conscious of that, like even just putting the search term in it, advertisers are not paying as much for those ads, just because they don’t know what you’re saying. They’re afraid you’re giving bad advice.

Jillian Leslie 36:14
They don’t want to be associated with those words.

Paula Rollo 36:17
Exactly. Just because there’s not a lot of trust, you could be spouting off some COVID cure for all they know and they want to avoid that. And the only way to avoid that is to really SOS.

To block those words.

So, I avoid those words, personally, there are times that there would be an exception, and especially if there’s a trending topic, that’s just you know what, I’m going to win this big keyword that everybody’s searching right now because I can.

Then go for it. But if it’s more general than I would keep it evergreen where next year, it’s going to be relevant to people who also can’t see their family or who also need a Christmas dinner on a budget.

Jillian Leslie 36:49
Now, if you do write about it, would you have a spreadsheet where you put that post in it? So next year this could be evergreen content, but you’re wanting to write to let’s say you’re willing to write about Coronavirus.

So that you know next year to go in and delete that text so that you can still have the authority of that post.

Paula Rollo 37:10
Totally. I mean, anytime you can create a spreadsheet, I would create a spreadsheet.

Jillian Leslie 37:16
Sometimes, though, I think I’m drowning in Google Sheets. I’m like, why did I create this one? So, I have to now make sure that I know that I’ve created it. So it doesn’t get lost.

But yes, so that’s what I would probably do is write to the kind of specific, maybe use some words depending on the post, like if I am doing one about social distancing, it’s hard not to be talking about what’s going on right now.

But to know that I can then pivot this post by editing it and updating it. And knowing that next year, I’ve written it in such a way I can still use it.

Paula Rollo 37:51
Yes. And I would like your H1. So that’s your blog post title, I would make something evergreen, and then your SEO title, which isn’t Yoast, I would maybe make it more relevant to this year.

And then again in that spreadsheets go and say, hey, edit this next year. Same thing for best gift guide of 2020. Well, don’t put that in your URL, don’t put that in your H1, but absolutely put that in your meta description.

Because that’s going to display in Google. But then when they get to your post, it’s just going to say the best gift guide. And that’s great. And next year in 2021, it’s still going to say the best gift guide and the URL is not going to have the date in it.

So, I would do that. And be really creative with your meta descriptions in your SEO titles that are very easy to change. And let your H1 speak for itself with the more evergreen keyword.

Jillian Leslie 38:46
Oh, Paula, you are just a font of SEO knowledge. So tell us, first of all, what services you offer and how people can reach out to you if they have specific SEO questions.

Paula Rollo 39:03
So, I offer an SEO growth kit for bloggers. And that’s where you give me access to Google Analytics and Google Search Console and I go in and I give you 10 posts to write or post update. It’s usually a combination of both.

And these are the things that will give you the most bang for your SEO buck. And you’re able to tell me I really want to go for XYZ keyword. That’s my wildest dream.

How do I get there and I’ll give you some of that information if this is what you need to do right now to start on your path towards these bigger keywords? And so, I prepare this report for people.

So that’s one of my products that I offer. And then I also do an SEO deep dive audit for people which is much more intense. It’s going to go through technical SEO, it’s going to go through the structure of your blog posts, things like that.

And it will also include the growth kit that the other product includes. So, both of these are on my site on paularollo.com. If you search that forward slash SEO, you can see more information about both of those things.

And if you have questions or anything real easy, paularollo@gmail.com is my email. And you can always reach out Rollo with two L’s.

Jillian Leslie 40:17
That’s good. That’s good. Well, Paula, I love having you on the show. I’m going to have you back so that we can talk about strategies for setting in the beginning of 2021. How to set yourself up right so that you can set these goals to go after those.

What do you call them? The keywords letter.

Paula Rollo 40:39
The wildest dream.

Jillian Leslie 40:40
Wildest dreams, keywords so that you can really target those industry in a strategic way. One thing that I always think about when I talk to you is this idea of intentionality.

I’m a big believer, as a blogger, if you want to build a business, intentionality is everything. And every decision needs to be really thought through and understanding your why for why you are making each decision in your business.

Because the truth is, it takes a lot of time to write blog posts. So, you want to make sure that you are grabbing those ideas that will have the biggest payoff for you down the road.

Paula Rollo 41:21
Yes, exactly. They can work for you now, but you really want them to be working for you in the future.

Intro 41:27
I think that’s so powerful. Well, Paula, thank you so much for being on the show. Again.

Paula Rollo 41:32
Thank you for having me again, this was fun.

Join Our Live WordPress Workshop on October 14th at 2:00pm CT

Intro 41:35
I hope this episode gave you real actionable things you can do. And the best part is you can do them in 10 minutes, and you will find the gems, you don’t even have to dig that hard. But this is how you use analytics to make smart choices in your business.

Jillian Leslie 41:54
One thing I wanted to mention, on October 14th, David and I are hosting a live on Zoom WordPress Workshop. We are going to walk you through how to use the Gutenberg editor, how to set up a post and optimize it for SEO using Yoast.

And we’ll be there to answer any WordPress questions you have. We’re doing it all live. It is on October 14, from 2pm to 3pm. Central Time and then we’re going to stay as long as people have questions.

If you are interested head to milotree.com/wordpress. And WordPress is the platform I recommend all serious bloggers and online entrepreneurs use. But that doesn’t mean it’s intuitive. It doesn’t mean that you can just pick it up and learn how to do it.

Watch me go through it step by step setting up a post and then you will get a recording of the session so that you can go back see exactly what I did follow along and then you will be able to use WordPress confidently quickly.

I’m going to share all of my secrets for creating optimized blog posts quickly. Again, head to milotree.com/wordpress sign up for it. It’s a paid workshop. It’s $49. It’s absolutely worth it. We offer a money back guarantee.

So please come hang out with us and learn with us. And I’ll see you here again next week.

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