Level Up Your Blog with These Game-Changing AI Tools

In my latest episode of the Blogger Genius Podcast, I welcome back Britt Reber, founder of Growing Your Traffic, for an in-depth discussion on the transformative role of AI in blogging and SEO.

Britt shares her thoughts on how best to leverage AI tools, which are her favorites, how to maintain a human touch in your content, and evolving monetization strategies for bloggers.

Show Notes:

• MiloTree
• Join The Blogger Genius Newsletter
• Britt Reber
• Growing Your Traffic Resource Guide
• Personality Quiz: What Digital Product Should I Create?
• Become a Blogger Genius Facebook Group
• ChatGPT
• Jasper
• Nightwatch
• Keywords Everywhere

Subscribe to the Blogger Genius Podcast:

• iTunes
• YouTube
• Spotify

The Value of Connection in a Digital World

Building Genuine Relationships

Despite the vast amount of information available online, genuine human connection has become increasingly valuable. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified this craving for connection, leading people to seek out content and communities that resonate with them.

Actionable Tips:

• Engage with Your Audience:** Respond to comments, emails, and social media messages to build a sense of community.
• Share Personal Stories:** Incorporate personal anecdotes and experiences into your content to create a more relatable and engaging narrative.
• Offer Value: Provide valuable content that addresses your audience’s needs and interests, fostering a loyal following.

AI Tools for Content Creation and SEO

Britt shares her agency’s experience with AI tools, highlighting their role in enhancing content creation and SEO. She expresses her preference for Jasper, an AI writing tool known for its versatility and ease of use. While ChatGPT is also a viable alternative, especially with its paid version offering more up-to-date information, Britt believes that investing in a quality AI tool can significantly enhance content creation efficiency.

Actionable Tips:

• Choose the Right AI Tool: Evaluate different AI tools like Jasper and ChatGPT to find the one that best suits your needs.
• Use AI for Drafting: Utilize AI tools to draft content quickly, then refine and add your personal touch to maintain authenticity.
• Stay Updated: Keep up with the latest AI advancements to leverage new features and capabilities.

Effective SEO Strategies

Britt also shares about her favorite SEO tool, Nightwatch, which allows users to monitor keyword rankings and connect with Google Analytics and Search Console. This tool provides valuable insights into traffic trends and keyword performance, enabling her agency to track client progress effectively.

Actionable Tips:

• Monitor Keyword Rankings: Use tools like Nightwatch to track your keyword performance and adjust your strategy accordingly.
• Analyze Traffic Trends: Regularly review your website’s traffic data to identify patterns and opportunities for improvement.
• Optimize Content: Continuously update and optimize your content based on keyword performance and user behavior.

Keyword Research Strategies

Keyword research is still very important for driving traffic. Britt highlights the effectiveness of using Google’s autocomplete feature and the “People Also Ask” section to discover relevant keywords. She encourages listeners to analyze the top-ranking pages for their target keywords to understand what makes them successful.

Actionable Tips:

• Use Google Autocomplete: Type in your main keywords and see what suggestions Google provides to discover related search terms.
• Explore “People Also Ask”: Review the questions in this section to identify common queries and create content that addresses them.
• Analyze Competitors: Study the top-ranking pages for your target keywords to understand their content structure and strategy.

The Role of Backlinks

Britt explains that backlinks are crucial for improving a website’s authority and visibility on search engines. She notes that a natural backlink profile is essential, which means having a diverse mix of links from both low-powered and high-powered websites. Google favors this variety, as it appears more organic.

Actionable Tips:

• Create High-Quality Content: Focus on producing valuable, informative content that naturally attracts backlinks.
• Guest Posting: Reach out to reputable websites in your niche for guest posting opportunities to gain quality backlinks.
• Analyze Competitor Backlinks: Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to study your competitors’ backlink profiles and identify potential link-building opportunities.

Monetization Strategies for Bloggers

The monetization landscape for blog monetization is changing. Traditional revenue streams, such as affiliate marketing and ad placements, are becoming less effective due to increased competition and changes in user behavior. Britt advises bloggers to explore high-ticket affiliate offers and to consider creating digital products, such as online courses or mentorship programs, as a means of generating income.

Actionable Tips:

• High-Ticket Affiliate Offers: Partner with brands that offer high-ticket items to earn higher commissions.
• Create Digital Products: Develop online courses, eBooks, or membership programs to diversify your income streams.
• Offer Services: Consider offering consulting, coaching, or other services that leverage your expertise.

The Importance of Personal Connection

Britt emphasizes that when people invest in a mentorship or membership program, they are often buying into the person behind the brand rather than just the product itself. This underscores the necessity of sharing personal stories and connecting with audiences on a deeper level.

Actionable Tips:

• Build Trust: Share your journey, successes, and challenges to build trust with your audience.
• Engage Personally: Offer personalized interactions, such as live Q&A sessions or one-on-one consultations, to strengthen your connection with your audience.
• Show Authenticity: Be genuine and transparent in your communications to foster a loyal and engaged community.

Conclusion

By leveraging AI tools, maintaining a human touch in content creation, and exploring diverse monetization strategies, bloggers can navigate the evolving digital landscape and achieve long-term success.

Key Takeaways:

• Embrace AI Tools: Use AI to enhance content creation efficiency while maintaining authenticity.
• Focus on Connection: Build genuine relationships with your audience through personal stories and engagement.
• Diversify Income Streams: Explore high-ticket affiliate offers and create digital products to generate income.

Other Related Blogger Genius Podcast episodes You’ll Enjoy:

• How to Turn a “Nice-to-Have” Product Into a “Must-Have” with These 6 Triggers with Jillian Leslie
• #223: The Best Blog Content Tools You’ve Never Heard Of with Britt Reber
• Why Blogging Is Far from Dead with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper

MiloTree, the Best Tool for Non-Techies to Sell Digital Products and Grow Your Audience

I also want to introduce you to the MiloTree, a tool designed for non-techies to sell digital products easily. It comes with features like AI-generated sales pages, check-out pages, a sales dashboard, upsells, and customer support.

With MiloTree, setting up your products takes less than five minutes, and you can start generating income without any hassle. Plus, MiloTree offers unlimited freebies and lead magnets to grow your email list, and social media pop-ups to increase your followers, all in one place. Sign up today and get your first 30 days free to see how easy it is to start selling your own digital products and growing your audience with MiloTree!

#354 Transcript: Level Up Your Blog with These Game-Changing AI Tools

Jillian Leslie 00:00:07 Hello and welcome back to the show. I’m Jillian Leslie, host of the Blogger Genius podcast, co-founder of Catch My Party, the largest party Ideas site on the web, and founder of software startup MiloTree. We sell a suite of tools to help bloggers and creators like you sell digital products and grow your audiences and email lists. If these sound like things you are trying to accomplish, go check out MiloTree at milotree.com. Sign up today and get 30 days free for today’s episode. I’m thrilled to welcome back my friend Britt Reber for her second appearance on the show. Britt is founder of Growing Your Traffic. She has over a decade of digital marketing experience. She’s been a successful blogger, and now she helps small businesses get discovered through the power of SEO. In today’s episode, we explore how AI is revolutionizing the blogging world, the AI tools Britt and her team use daily, and how you can harness AI to improve your SEO. Also, we tackle some big questions does SEO still work, and if so, how hard is it to master in today’s digital world? Get ready to be inspired and equipped with actionable insights to take your blog to the next level.

Jillian Leslie 00:01:37 And all the tools she mentioned will be in the show notes. So without further delay, here is my interview with Britt Reber. Britt, welcome back to the Blogger Genius podcast.

Britt Reber 00:01:54 Thank you. It’s so good to be here again, Gillian.

Jillian Leslie 00:01:56 And we you just talked that like the last time you were on the show. You did not have a boyfriend and now you are engaged.

Britt Reber 00:02:03 Yeah, I’m super excited about that. And he actually, I was just telling you this before we started, but, he has joined my SEO agency. And so last summer, I got to retire him, and he’s working with me full time now and doing the sales department for our agency. So for anybody that’s listening, that feels like you’re kind of stuck in a grind or you’re, you know, working a job, trying to get out of it, just. No, it’s absolutely possible, especially with blogging and with SEO and everything that’s available online these days. It is, I would say, easier now more than ever to create something that sustainable for yourself and for your family, too.

Britt Reber 00:02:37 So if that’s your dream to retire someone that you love, it’s absolutely possible for you.

Jillian Leslie 00:02:41 Oh, what a great way to start the episode, I have to say. So. So, Brent, we’ve known each other. Gosh, I don’t know how many years. And you just had invited me onto one of your summits and I said, hey, please, you know, come back on the podcast. Because since you’re so immersed in this world of blogging SEO, I wanted to say, what do you noticing in terms of trends? So if I were to say that I know it’s a big open ended question, but what are you noticing?

Britt Reber 00:03:13 Well, I think we can. I think most people won’t be surprised by this, but I think it can be summed up with two letters and that’s I, I think AI is everywhere, and I know that’s going to be probably a big topic that we dive into today. but I would say that’s probably the biggest trend is that everybody is using AI now, including myself and my agency.

Britt Reber 00:03:31 And I think that’s part of why we were able to grow so quickly, is we adopted AI a lot quicker than some other people may have. and I just think if you’re listening to this right now and you’re thinking, oh, I’m annoyed with AI, I’m done with it. Like, I don’t want to be on that train. I want to invite you to think differently, because AI is a really incredible. All of the AI tools are really incredible tools to help you grow your business and grow your traffic way quicker than you can without it. So yes, I would say I would sum that up with AI.

Jillian Leslie 00:03:58 Because I feel like people don’t necessarily have that perspective. They see it as a threat, they see it as competition. So speak to me about why you don’t think of it that way.

Britt Reber 00:04:11 Yeah. Oh my gosh. I’ve talked to a lot of people that feel that way. And it’s a little disheartening when I hear people say, oh, I’m never gonna try AI or I’m never gonna get on that, or oh, hate AI, it’s taking over.

Britt Reber 00:04:23 because it’s really a tool. You know, I think that there’s a lot of there’s a lot of ways that humans are still superior. And so we’ll talk about that in a minute. I think that’s really important for getting a leg up in search results. it is really important to have that human touch. But if you can do ten x to work in the same amount of time with a tool, why wouldn’t you use that tool? Right. And so that’s the way that I try to help people, switch their mindset with that is to think about it as just a tool. It’s not something that’s here to take your jobs or, you know, take over your life or, you know, maybe at some point the super artificial intelligence will get there. But right now, we’re not there. Right now, it’s just a really good tool that can help you grow way faster and way more cost effective. Because like, I know, for me, we used to hire writers and now we just use AI to write everything and it is so much cheaper, so much faster.

Britt Reber 00:05:10 We can create more content. It’s more helpful. A lot of times it’s more accurate than what humans are writing anyway. so especially in terms of content creation, AI is just it’s just a really incredible tool. And so if you’re not using AI in your business for your blog right now, you absolutely should be or you’re going to get left behind. Unfortunately, that’s just the reality we’re in now.

Jillian Leslie 00:05:29 But what about this idea that there’s so much AI content that’s it’s crowding me out?

Britt Reber 00:05:36 Yeah, that is very true. there is a lot of AI content. And I will say it’s something that in the beginning, Google wasn’t so great at catching. But Google, their algorithm is getting stronger and stronger. So whenever I teach people how to implement SEO, I teach what I call a trust based ranking process, because I think it’s really important to just get Google to trust your website. As long as you have trustworthy content, as long as your website loads quickly, you’re communicating with Google correctly and you have you have real accurate content that’s really helpful.

Britt Reber 00:06:09 especially if you can add that human touch to it. that’s what’s going to make Google promote your website higher in search results. So for people that are like, oh, I just need to create a bunch of content and they’re just, you know, dumping a bunch of content and it’s really not that helpful. Google’s just going to filter you out because that’s just seen as a spammy, like trying to manipulate the algorithm kind of tactic. Whereas if you actually want to get to the top of search results and stay there, you really just have to earn Google’s trust. So you can do that with AI, using AI as a tool to create content faster. But it’s just so important that you always keep that user in mind. And as much as you can add that human touch, add more of your own story to it. Add helpful content as much as you can.

Jillian Leslie 00:06:49 I was going to ask, what does that mean? So let’s say I am, I don’t know, a wellness blogger. You know, let’s say I help people, fix their diet and exercise.

Jillian Leslie 00:07:04 Let’s say I’m like post. post. Like after you’ve had your baby and you want to get your body back and you want to get your nutrition back and your energy back. what does that mean? Adding that human touch that Google notices and therefore says, oh, no, this isn’t just AI content.

Britt Reber 00:07:22 Yeah. Great question. And I would say it’s not even just Google, but also the users, because users are also getting smarter when users come to a page. I know for me, whenever I click on a web page and I start reading through it, I’m like, oh, this is just AI jargon. Like, I can tell someone, just copy this from ChatGPT. I don’t stay on that page very long, and I’m probably not going to sign it for your email list. I’m probably not going to buy your products. So, so I would say users too. It’s very important. But, to answer your question, I think it really comes down to storytelling, which is, in my opinion, one of the most important parts of marketing is learning how to tell stories.

Britt Reber 00:07:55 And so when you’re able to add your touch, your your human touch, your personal touch, to me that means adding your story and sharing more about what? Your expertise. How do you know this stuff? Like what did you what did you do to lose that baby weight when you, you know, had your baby? What was your experience with it? What were your emotions like? and so whenever you can make it a story, especially when you can bring your emotions into it, you’re way more likely to capture your reader’s attention. So you’re more likely to actually gain an audience member from that. And like you were saying, the Google algorithms don’t see that as just ChatGPT spam, because ChatGPT hasn’t had a baby yet and hasn’t lost the weight, and so they don’t have a personal story to share. now that being said, you can use AI tools to share your story more effectively, so that just comes down to getting really good at at prompts, getting good at interviewing the AI tools. So like for instance, if you’re going to use ChatGPT, you could share your story with ChatGPT.

Britt Reber 00:08:50 I like to just speak into a microphone and just say, you know, write a story about my journey with postpartum, you know, weight loss. And, you know, here’s what happened. Here’s the emotions I was experiencing. Here’s what I did for it, here’s how many pounds I lost. Here’s the time frame. And then let AI generate that story for you. And you can you can change it and craft it to be more in your tone. but that way you’re still adding that human touch in your own story.

Jillian Leslie 00:09:14 Because for one second, you know what I do. Yeah. I also give it a writing sample of my writing. I say write in my tone. Write in my tone.

Britt Reber 00:09:23 Love it. Yeah. And you know, for that you can even some people might, you know, copy and paste whole chunks of text for that, but you can even just add links. so I don’t know if that’s something that you do, but I do that really often where I’m like, you know, here’s three more blog posts from the same website.

Britt Reber 00:09:37 Make it sound similar. and ChatGPT is brilliant. It’ll go through and analyze those web pages when it creates that content for you. So yeah, thank you for adding that because that is really important to have that like cohesive tone. So it also just sounds like you. It sounds more like a human.

Jillian Leslie 00:09:52 Wow. You know, I I’m going to be like this person who says, if you can master this, if you can master adding your human touch to AI, you will win.

Britt Reber 00:10:06 100%.

Jillian Leslie 00:10:07 I feel like there are the people who won’t go near AI or don’t. It feels too whatever. And the people who overuse it and won’t add that human element. And if you can find that balance you will win. Now will you win in driving millions of pageviews to your site? I personally think that might be a harder task today than previously. Can you speak to that?

Britt Reber 00:10:34 Oh, 100%. I’ve been in the SEO game for about 11 years now. I started my first blog in 2013, and it was a gold mine back then.

Britt Reber 00:10:42 It really felt like the gold rush. I was at the top of search results for the random stuff, things that today would cost $20 per click to get to the top of those results. If you’re going to do, you know, ads on search engines and it is just not the same landscape anymore, it is very competitive. there’s thousands of agencies that are running Google ads and are running SEO campaigns. There’s probably, I would venture to say, millions of bloggers that are going after those keywords that, you know, those low competition keywords like the long tail ones that aren’t getting a lot of search results. I’m just finding that list is getting smaller and smaller every year because people are learning that there’s tools to find those. And so they’re finding those keywords and targeting them. And the keywords that used to be so easy to rank for now takes a little bit more work and a little bit more effort. And so I think you hit the nail on the head by saying that in order to to beat out that competition, if you can learn to use AI so that you can create more content and create it faster, but then also have that balance of adding that human touch and adding your story to it.

Britt Reber 00:11:45 100%, that’s how you’re going to beat the competition.

Jillian Leslie 00:11:48 So if though the game, the name of the game for making money is just driving traffic, how are people taking their blogs and making money? And I have that’s a great question as well. But what are you seeing?

Britt Reber 00:12:02 Yeah. You know, I’m seeing a lot of people who used to rely on affiliate marketing and an ad revenue. So like Mediavine and all those different, ways to put, you know, ad placements on your site. Google doesn’t really favor you anymore. They never really did. But it’s getting, I think, a little worse whenever you have all those ads on your site, because it just makes the user experience a little more clunky, so it’s not as smooth. your website’s usually not as fast. And so Google, you know, kind of penalizes you a little bit now when you have those ads. So you’ve got to have really good content to be able to run ads and a high traffic site to in order to do that.

Britt Reber 00:12:40 So a lot of people are getting away from the ad placements like that. even the affiliate revenue, I think if you’re going to go the affiliate route, I think the key is to find really high ticket affiliate offers and ones that have a really good marketing around them. So like really good programs, you know, courses, products, making sure that they’re really highly rated and they have good ratings online, but they really have to be high ticket if you’re going to make a lot of money, you know, unless you’ve got tons of traffic coming to your site, that’s really the only way to monetize low ticket offers. so aside from that, what I’m seeing is a lot of people are shifting to the information world. So a lot of information products, digital products, whether it’s like recording a training one time and selling that over and over again or building an online course. I know for me, we added a mentorship program to our offerings. we do, we run SEO campaigns. That’s our main offer inside my agency.

Britt Reber 00:13:31 but we found that there’s a lot of people looking for information there like, well, how do I do SEO on my own website? Like I’m a small business or I just started up or I’m just a blogger and I don’t really have income coming in yet. Like, how do I do this myself? And so, yeah, we found that it’s so effective for monetizing to have some kind of, like digital information product, which I know with MiloTreeCart makes it so easy. I love that you offer that platform, because you don’t have to have all that experience and building out a course or, you know, creating some giant program. You really can set these things up. It could even be a PDF download that you can set up in the course of an hour that you can go ahead and start selling. And I, I have seen in myself purchase some really high ticket PDF downloads, believe it or not, like people will pay hundreds of dollars for just a PDF download. If you can make that valuable enough and show people the value.

Britt Reber 00:14:20 So it doesn’t have to be complicated, it doesn’t have to be intense. but I think setting up a digital product of some kind on your website or some kind of digital service, like a mentorship program or something, I think that’s really the key to monetizing these days, because it’s just getting so competitive.

Jillian Leslie 00:14:38 And by the way. So by the way, when we created MiloTreeCart, it was because we we two reasons. One. I would be interviewing guests on my podcast and I noticed a pattern. The bloggers who were making the most money. We’re not only making it from ads, they were selling products and services. And I went, oh, that’s so interesting. And I started to notice that many of them who are making the most money had memberships because of recurring revenue. And then during the pandemic, David, my husband and I, who built we built our products together. We started to notice that when people were home and consuming lots of content, like ad revenue went through the roof and we thought, oh no, we don’t recommend putting all your eggs in one basket like this will shift.

Jillian Leslie 00:15:36 Like everything shifts. And so we said, how can we help bloggers create a way to sell their expertise that they’re honing through all of their content? How do we show them how to turn it into digital products, where they’re selling their knowledge and getting paid for it? And so now all of a sudden I feel like, oh my God, we saw this, and now it’s actually happening. So it’s been interesting for us. And we can watch on the back end of MiloTree how people are monetizing and where it comes, where it where they’re making the most money. It’s not the e-book. The e-book is the foot in the door. It’s the way to say, trust me, I could provide real value for you. It’s in the bundling of your products. It is in the trainings, it is in the coaching, it is in the services, it is in the membership. And it’s about a ladder that you build in relationship with your customer. Hey, if you like this, you’re going to like this 100%.

Britt Reber 00:16:45 And you know, that’s interesting that you you brought it to that because I think that’s part of why it’s so crucial to add that human touch and to add your own story to your content, because when people hire you for, you know, they want to join your mentorship or your membership program, mentorship, mastermind, whatever it is that you’re offering when they hire you, they’re wanting to work with you. So learning your knowledge is important, and they want to know what you know, and they want to know how you know it. But more important than that is they want to work with you. So people more often than not, are buying you like you’re selling you when you’re selling a membership. so yeah, I think that that’s such a beautiful way to tie that into why it’s so important to make sure that you’re sharing your story and showing how unique you are, because that’s what attracts people to you as your personality and knowing you, they want to work with you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people say, what do you do? I want to work with you.

Britt Reber 00:17:34 I don’t even know what you do. I just like your energy. And so I get that a lot at networking events and like, you know, meeting people online, even, they’re just like, what do you do? I want to work with you. And I think that is so much easier to sell than, you know, trudging through like, well, this is what my membership program includes. You know, people don’t want to buy stuff. They want to work with you. So, yeah, it’s just so important to make sure you’re always bringing in that personal touch into everything that you create and everything that you publish.

Jillian Leslie 00:18:01 And I think that we’re in this weird, atomized world. So just being able to say, like, I’m like, I, I connect with you is so valuable. I was I was doing this previously, which is like blogging can be very lonely like your other the mom friends that you have in the playgroup, like they don’t know what you do and there’s real value then in finding mom friends who are bloggers.

Jillian Leslie 00:18:29 And you can do that on the internet. And it is about coming together in community, even if it’s just like two people. Like there’s something about that connection. And I think AI is going to kind of live in a world of information, and then there’s going to be this connection, and I feel like information becomes cheaper over time and connection becomes more valuable.

Britt Reber 00:18:55 100%. Yeah. And I think that’s why we’re seeing such a shift where people are, like like you said, people are so happy to consume content and to sign up for memberships and courses and things like that, where they have a connection with that person that’s generating that content or that’s, you know, created that membership program is you’re right. I think people are just starved for connection these days, especially through Covid. We definitely saw a big shift in like, you know, the way that we all operate socially. It’s like I’ve I felt socially awkward after that, but I also felt like I was just craving that human connection. And I think so many people have been feeling that way.

Britt Reber 00:19:28 And so, yeah, you’re 100% right that I think I will always kind of live in this information bucket where you’re right, it’s just going to get cheaper and cheaper basically for information. But that connection is going to be it’s going to keep increasing in value over time.

Jillian Leslie 00:19:45 Because I always talk about creating that connection with your audience and providing value. The best way to do this is through email, through a newsletter. And how do you grow your email subscribers? By offering a freebie that is irresistible to create one, use my. I promise it’ll take you about ten minutes and you can grab this at Milotree.com/freebieprompts. After you’ve created the content, use my Canva template to set the whole thing up, and then you can use a tool like MiloTree to deliver this for free to your new subscribers. Again, grab this milotree.com/freebieprompts. And now back to the show. And that’s why I always say have a point of view. Because, it’s okay to repel people with your point of view as long as you’re attracting other people with your point of view.

Britt Reber 00:20:50 Yeah. yeah. That’s how you gain those superfans.

Jillian Leslie 00:20:54 Exactly like I align with her. I like the way she’s thinking. I think that way. I want to be. I want her part of my universe.

Britt Reber 00:21:02 Yeah, 100%.

Jillian Leslie 00:21:04 So let’s talk about I mean, you do SEO for a variety of clients using AI tools. Would you walk through the AI tools you are using and what you’re using them for?

Britt Reber 00:21:19 Oh, absolutely. So I will say, when it comes to content creation, I’ve been a Jasper fan from the start from back when they were called something different. Jasper is a little more expensive, but to me it’s worth it. I will say that for people that don’t want to spend money, ChatGPT is totally fine. And there is a paid version for GPT that’s like $20 a month. So if you wanted to store stuff like your tone of voice and things like that, you’re branding information. it does make it more helpful. It’s also more up to date information when you pay for ChatGPT.

Britt Reber 00:21:49 So I would say if you’re going to use AI, pay for a tool, even if it’s just the $20 a month for ChatGPT, I think it’s worth it to pay for it, because that way you’re not getting outdated information. You’re making sure it’s all in your tone. What?

Jillian Leslie 00:22:02 Wait, what is it about Jasper that you like?

Britt Reber 00:22:05 Yeah. So Jasper just has a lot of different options for the types of content that you can create. And so it just makes it really easy to go in and click, like, I’m making a Facebook ad or I’m making a blog post and and it’ll just be more robust content without you having to prompt it so much. so we’ve just found that over time, Jasper just works better for our agency because of that. But like I said, ChatGPT has pretty good content, especially if you’re willing to do the $20 a month plan. you can make sure it’s more accurate that way. And, it’s just a little more cost effective to use ChatGPT. But we personally prefer Jasper.

Jillian Leslie 00:22:40 Okay, so what else? Like, what are the secret tools you’re using that people might not have heard of?

Britt Reber 00:22:46 Yeah. So one of them is, which I don’t hear so much in the blogging world. I hear it more in the SEO world. it’s called Nightwatch. So Nightwatch I o is my favorite SEO tool. this one is. It is a paid tool, but it lets you monitor keyword rankings. So it lets you connect Google Analytics and Google Search Console so you can see the traffic coming in and the trends and stuff around that, but it actually lets you monitor as many keywords as you want. You do have to pay per keyword. There’s different like pricing tiers. but you can monitor, I mean, even thousands of keywords if you wanted to and you can monitor thousands of different websites. So this is how we monitor all of our clients, keywords. So we can see over time, every single day, it’ll update to tell you where what position you are for each of those keywords, so you can see when your number one for certain keywords.

Britt Reber 00:23:37 You can see when when you get a big, you know, uptick like, oh, all these keywords that I was ranking, you know, 98 and 80 and 74. Now I’m ranking number two and three. So you can actually monitor that, which you cannot do through Google Search Console. so it’s really valuable for actually seeing how effective your SEO is. so that’s one of my favorite tools. a couple that bloggers probably already know about. Our number one is Google. I love just using Google to find keywords. just typing in, you know, the first couple words that you think might be related to things that you sell or content that you want to write about. just use that autocomplete and that people also ask to just see what other people are googling. and that’s I mean, those sometimes there are high competition keywords. You can’t really see all the competition stuff around that. but you know that that’s what people are searching for. So if you’re on a budget, just using Google for free is a great way to find keywords.

Britt Reber 00:24:34 oh wait.

Jillian Leslie 00:24:35 And I’m gonna add something to that, which is take those keywords that you see and see what the results are, and see which posts are ranking one, two, and three. And notice what those look like. And if you could beat those posts.

Britt Reber 00:24:52 Yeah, yeah, 100%. That is something that is very effective when you’re trying to rank blog posts especially is going and seeing what are the top blog posts? What do they look like, you know, or those web pages that are ranking in the top three positions? What do they have and how can you make your content more robust? More of a human touch more helpful. Can you add video content? Is there, you know, parts of this content that these websites didn’t touch on that you can explain and elaborate on? Google loves promoting content that’s really, robust and really, like lengthy but in a helpful way. So not just like lengthy for the sake of adding a bunch of fluff, but just making it very comprehensive.

Britt Reber 00:25:34 I think that’s what I was looking for. So Google loves comprehensive content. So yeah, if you can go look at the top, ranking pages and see how can I make my content more comprehensive? Google will promote you over those websites every single day.

Jillian Leslie 00:25:48 And if in fact, in those top three results, one is target or, you know, like that’s not something to go after.

Britt Reber 00:25:57 Yeah.

Jillian Leslie 00:25:58 Like look at are these, you know, are these blogs are these if it’s if it’s like Good Housekeeping or something. Don’t think that you you can’t outrank that.

Britt Reber 00:26:10 Yeah. Yeah. You know, we’ve been able to rank some pretty low power, low domain authority websites over websites like Amazon and Etsy and Macy’s and yeah, really big, high powered websites because of exactly what you’re saying. you know, deciding that, hey, we actually can target this keyword, making sure that our website is trustworthy. So making sure that it loads fast and then it’s a good user experience and then it’s talking to Google correctly and then just creating really comprehensive content.

Britt Reber 00:26:40 I think that’s really the key is making sure that your content is actually really helpful, because Google wants their users to have a good user experience. They’re absolutely dominating in the search results or the search engine market. Right now, I want to say it’s like 96% of search traffic is still on Google despite all these other, you know, DuckDuckGo and all these other a lot of people to Bing. Yeah, but Google is still dominating by a huge landslide. And so they want to make sure that they’re dominating. And the way they do that is by making sure their content is really helpful. So the more helpful and the more comprehensive your content can be, the more that they’re likely to promote you at their top of their results.

Jillian Leslie 00:27:17 Great. Okay. So any other AI tools?

Britt Reber 00:27:21 you know, there’s a tool I love that is not AI, but it’s called Keywords Everywhere. And it is 100% worth the money. I want to say it’s like $30 a year or something. It’s it’s very low priced.

Britt Reber 00:27:33 but it’s a Chrome extension. I don’t know if they have an extension for Safari or Firefox or any of the other, browsers, but I use it in Chrome, and it’s amazing because it actually will give you analytics for every single search. So you can just type a keyword into Google, you can just search whatever, and it will tell you what the search volume is. It’ll tell you what the competition is. You can see all the different, websites that are ranking. It’ll show you the domain authority for those websites. It’ll show you how much search volume those are getting. So you can kind of have an idea of, oh, if I get to number one for this keyword, I’ll probably get 1100 clicks a month, because that’s what the number one is currently getting is 1100 clicks a month from Google. so it just shows you a lot of insights and data for every single search that you could think of. so that’s a great way to analyze keywords and figure out, you know, is this a keyword worth targeting? Is this going to be difficult to rank for? Like how much effort do I need to put into to get to number one? And who’s going to be worth the effort? Am I going to get enough search volume from it? So, so it’s not an AI tool, but keywords everywhere is very helpful for SEO.

Jillian Leslie 00:28:34 When you look at a keyword, let’s say you’re you’ve got your keywords everywhere and you see something, at what point do you say the search volume is high enough? And I could go after this keyword and I’ll do it like I get. It would probably be different for each client with their different domain authorities. But what do you look at when you go ooh that’s like juicy.

Britt Reber 00:29:00 Good question. So I will say that I personally don’t not target a keyword because of low search volume, and I’ll tell you why. So I do prefer going after the keywords with big search volume, because obviously that’s going to bring the most traffic, right? If you can rank number one for a keyword that’s got 5000 or 10,000 searches a month, you’re going to get a lot of that traffic coming to your website. So those are definitely the ones that you want to be targeting the most, I would say. And and trying the hardest to rank number one for. But I actually never discount those low volume keywords. Sometimes I’ll even see keywords that have zero searches per month, which it’s never really zero.

Britt Reber 00:29:37 It’s usually ten or less, but they just say zero. but I love targeting those because they’re a lot easier to rank for, because people usually aren’t competing for a keyword that supposedly a zero searches per month. and once you start ranking for those keywords, even though you’re not getting a lot of traffic for it, you are gaining more of Google’s trust. So the more that Google starts to rank you number one, the more that they start to rank you number one. So even if it’s for these low traffic keywords where you’re really not getting a lot of people coming to your site, you’re still number one for something. And so that, you know, builds trust with Google and it builds trust in Google’s eyes that, well, we already put you number one here and you haven’t screwed that up yet. People are coming to your website. They’re clicking around. They’re staying for a while. They’re not immediately bouncing. so because we can trust you, we’re going to rank you a little bit higher on these other harder keywords.

Britt Reber 00:30:28 So I you know, like I said, I always do try to put a lot more effort into those keywords that have a lot of traffic. But I try to never discount those low traffic keywords, because that can just start to build trust with Google and build authority with Google by ranking for those lower keywords, even though you’re not getting a lot of traffic.

Jillian Leslie 00:30:48 okay. Any other tools?

Britt Reber 00:30:51 Oh, how much time do we have? let’s see. I’ll, I’ll give one more tool because I feel like I could talk about tools forever. So this is a free tool that I absolutely love. I use it every day. It’s called SEO scan. So it’s SEO scan scan org. And this is like an X-ray tool. So this tool allows you to take an x ray of any web page anywhere in the internet and see what the on page SEO elements are. So you can analyze your own web pages this way. And you can also analyze your competition’s, web pages. So if there is a really high volume, let’s say that there’s a keyword that gets like, I don’t know, 20,000 searches a month and you’re like, oh my gosh, I really, really want to be number one for this keyword.

Britt Reber 00:31:33 And you’re going through and you’re creating your helpful content and you’re, you know, being more comprehensive than the other websites. And you, you’re building your backlinks, you’re building trust, but you still can’t get to number one. This is a tool SEO scan. You can use this tool to go and scan your competition’s web pages that are ranking number one and see, well, how do they set it up? You know, what are they? What are the headings that they’re using? What is their meta title meta description? I mean you can see that part on Google, but it’ll show you just all of the, on page SEO elements so you can see how those pages are talking to Google, because that’s how your website communicates to Google. Is that on page SEO, your headers and your meta titles and meta descriptions? so you can see how your competitors are communicating with Google. And then you can either mimic that or you can, you know, take that and change it and make it better.

Britt Reber 00:32:22 but it just it’s just a really helpful tool for, like I said, analyzing any web page, like taking an X-ray of any web page on the internet for free.

Jillian Leslie 00:32:30 Do you feel like there’s a gamification like that? It’s kind of interesting to see, oh, this website is doing it this way. Maybe we could steal some of those strategies or how are it like, what are the bones behind this blog post or this piece of content?

Britt Reber 00:32:48 Yeah, I absolutely love the competition that comes with SEO. I think that competition is such a good thing. I think that sometimes people get scared of it. Like Gillian, I’ve heard you talk before about how we get to growed up a little bit with SEO and not be afraid to be competitive and to go after our competitors. And I think that’s what makes capitalism work, because without that competition, we just have a bunch of monopolies sitting around. Right. And so, so I think it’s it’s really fun. And when you can gamify SEO, it makes it so much easier to go after these keywords because it doesn’t feel so scary anymore.

Britt Reber 00:33:19 You know, it feels like, oh, this is fun. I can, you know, analyze these pages and see how I can beat them. Something I was going to say earlier is I’ve heard R&D, research and development. I’ve heard that a better, acronym or a better way to explain that acronym of R&D is rip off and duplicate. And I 100% agree with that, especially with SEO. I think that, you know, you always want to be mindful of copyright laws. You never want to go and copy something that someone’s created. But why reinvent the wheel? If somebody is created content and it’s ranking number one, that’s fair reasons why not take some of that, you know, see what they’re doing for their headers. Like what topics are they covering in this content and how can you rip off and duplicate that but make it your own? So how can you add your personal touch to that? Add your story to it, add your expertise. Maybe there’s something they’re wrong about. I see that in the SEO world all the time.

Britt Reber 00:34:09 I see people teach things that I’m like, oh, that I would never teach anybody that about SEO because that actually won’t get you results. That sounds like a waste of time. Like you could spend so much time on that and not get results. So what are they doing wrong? What are they doing right? And how can you add your own spin to it? So, so yeah, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with ripping off and duplicating is as long as you are, you know, being within the copyright laws and not stealing content.

Jillian Leslie 00:34:34 One thing that I’ve noticed from the most recent CEOs that I’ve interviewed for my podcast is this SEO is pretty logical. There aren’t a lot of secrets. It is about putting out good content that is useful and being smart with keywords, with headings, all of that stuff. Let’s assume that’s set up correctly, but at the end of the day, it’s pretty simple in terms of what Google’s asking for. Do you agree with that?

Britt Reber 00:35:11 100%. Yeah, I think that that’s why I get so frustrated sometimes seeing the way that others teach SEO is.

Britt Reber 00:35:17 Sometimes I’m like, you’re really overcomplicating that. It’s not that complicated because you’re totally right, Gillian. It’s it’s actually really simple. there are just a few things I teach people. Make sure to communicate with Google correctly on your website. Make sure your website is trustworthy. So make sure it’s loading fast and it’s, you know, user friendly. Your buttons, your links work. and then number three, build trust with Google. So get other websites to link tiers, get those backlinks so that Google goes, oh these websites trust this website. So I’m going to trust this website. and that’s really it. and you know, and a big part of that too is the content. Sorry, I did skip over that. That is another really important part is having fresh content that’s really helpful. but you’re right. That’s really it. There’s not really a lot of, like, secrets or hacks or anything to make it go faster. It’s really, it’s really just do those things and you’ll get to the top of Google.

Britt Reber 00:36:07 There’s no, there’s no mystery there. It doesn’t have to be complicated or hard.

Jillian Leslie 00:36:12 Now, here’s one last question about backlinks. What is your strategy for getting backlinks? I know that there was this idea that you just want links out in the out in kind of in the ether on the internet. It doesn’t matter if people click on those links, you know, listing sites or who knows what. What is your what is your strategy? How do you think about backlinks?

Britt Reber 00:36:34 Oh good question. I know backlinks is a really big topic. I could probably spend a whole hour talking about backlinks, but, I would say that the more natural the better. And to me, natural means a mix. So Google likes when there’s, you know, like how you’re talking about having all those random links just out in the ether that nobody’s clicking on. That’s okay, as long as you also have high powered links that people are clicking on. So Google likes to see a mix. So, I know for our clients we like to do a strategy of like low powered websites that are linking as well as big like high power industry websites.

Britt Reber 00:37:10 one of the ways that we love to do that is through press releases, because that’s a really easy way to get big websites like Yahoo Finance and Business Insider and, Associated Press, you know, those kinds of big websites to link to yours. So, wait.

Jillian Leslie 00:37:23 Can you explain how to how you do that? So you write a press release using Jasper. Yeah. And and then how are you getting those links?

Britt Reber 00:37:35 Yeah. Great question. So we actually use, press release distribution services. So there’s some free ones. I will offer this to your audience. I have a resource guide that I typically only sent to my paid clients. But, I will I’ll give you a link to that, Jillian. So you can put that in these show notes. but there’s on this resource guide that I have, I actually have a list of free press release distribution sites. So these are websites where you can, like you said, go write the press release. You can use ChatGPT. I’ve found more success with writing press releases with Jasper, but either way create a press release.

Britt Reber 00:38:08 There are some rules around it. Like you can’t use pronouns, you can’t say I or we. It’s got to be like announcing something. So that’s why, you know, I will know those rules. So tell AI to write you a press release. and then basically you just go into one of these websites and you just submit it for distribution. So, the free websites are going to be a little more low powered. So there are ways to pay for high powered, if that’s something that you’re interested in. That’s something that our team offers. We have really great because not all press release distribution services are good for for SEO. So some of them will do like nofollow links where you’re not really getting a lot of trust coming back to your website. So if that’s something that anybody listening wants support with, you can email our team at hello at Growing Your Traffic. Com and I would love to give you access to like you know, what are some of the distribution services that we use. And you can order stuff through us.

Britt Reber 00:38:59 but these free ones, you know, I would say if you’re going to pay for press releases, just really do your research to make sure it’s actually going to give you that, you know, that good link juice back to your website. and then if you’re looking for just free backlinks, these free press releases that are on this, resource guide that I have, these are really great ways to just get your press releases with your your links to your website or to your blog, out on the internet for free. And, and it’s immediately usually that they distribute it.

Jillian Leslie 00:39:27 And, are you doing press releases every day? Like can you overdo it?

Britt Reber 00:39:33 Oh good question. You can overdo it. So again, backlinks need to look natural to Google if you want them to really be effective. And so if you’re doing a press release every single day, that does not look natural to Google. So, for our agency, it depends on, you know, what our clients are looking for, if they’re trying to rank locally or if they’re trying to rank on a national level, how often we do these press releases and what kind of websites we send it out to.

Britt Reber 00:39:57 but for the most part, I would say doing about 1 to 2 press releases a month is probably the most that you want to do. Now, if you, you know, just want a big award and a bunch of people are talking about you and now you’re like being featured on tons of podcasts and YouTube channels and whatever, and and the internet’s, like going crazy linking to you. Then you could probably do three, 4 or 5 press releases that month, and it would look natural to Google because Google’s seeing that, oh, everybody is talking about your website right now, but if you’re kind of in this place where, like, you’re manually building all of your own backlinks and not a lot of people are linking to your site naturally in order to make your website look more natural. I would say just stick to one or maybe two press releases a month because you don’t want to make your website look spammy to Google. They’re not going to promote you if they think you’re spammy.

Jillian Leslie 00:40:44 I love that, okay, so if people want to reach out to you because they’ve got I feel like you’ve, I don’t know, shared stuff that’s super interesting.

Jillian Leslie 00:40:57 I have a feeling people will have follow up questions. So if they do, where should they go?

Britt Reber 00:41:04 Yeah. you can just email our team at hello at growing your traffic.com with any questions. We love helping people. we do some free training sometimes too, so you can always come and sit in on some of our free SEO trainings. but we also we have a Facebook page so you can find growing your traffic on Facebook. It’s just called growing your traffic. and yeah. And then I’ll like I said, Gillian, I’ll give you the link to this resource guide so people can sign up there too. And then you’ll get our contact information from that too.

Jillian Leslie 00:41:32 I love it. Well, I want to check in with you again in, like, maybe six months just to kind of see what you’re seeing in terms of AI content, what’s working, what tools you’re using, and how things are evolving.

Britt Reber 00:41:46 Yeah, yeah, 100%. I’d love to because things are changing very fast, especially with AI and with just all the updates.

Britt Reber 00:41:53 Like Apple just had a big update this week. And yeah, there’s just things are changing constantly. So I would love to come back and and share more about what I’m seeing when things change again. Like I know they will in the next six months.

Jillian Leslie 00:42:04 Well, I love it. Well, I just want to say I’m so glad we are friends and thank you so much for coming back on the show.

Britt Reber 00:42:12 Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Gillian.

Jillian Leslie 00:42:14 I hope you guys like this episode with Brit. My biggest takeaway is that SEO is a competition, and if you are a competitive person, this is right up your alley. But it really is about creating the best content using the tools laid out Using I understanding who your competition is, but it’s pretty basic when you think about it. But the world of blogging is definitely changing. It’s no longer just a traffic play. It’s now about cultivating an audience and selling your products and services to them. If you’re thinking, yes, this is what I want to do.

Jillian Leslie 00:43:00 Head to Milotree.com. The best thing about MiloTree is it is user friendly and budget friendly. If you sign up now, you get your first 30 days free. If you have any questions, reach out to me at Gillian at milotree.com or DM me on Instagram at milotree. I love hearing from you and I will see you here again next week.