348: Recovering from the Helpful Content Update: SEO Tips for Bloggers in 2025

[00:00:00] Bree: What is really actually going on with Google? And are our page views ever gonna be the same again? Today I am joined by Nina Clapperton, an SEO expert, who is dropping all the news on SEO on Google's helpful content update and telling us exactly what we should focus on right now to recover lost traffic and improve our rankings.

Is AI going to be messing with us? How can we use it? Should we not? What are some wins that we can implement? All the things. It's a jam packed episode. Let's dive into it. Welcome to the Thrive Podcast, where we believe creators deserve more, more money, more freedom, and even more love for what they do. I'm Bree p, your coach for content creators.

And I know the struggle, the long hours, the endless ideas, the feeling that success is just out of reach. But here's the truth. You've got what it takes. And this podcast, it's your shortcut to getting there from strategies that actually work to behind the scenes insights. We are unlocking your potential one episode at a time.

So if you're ready to turn your creative hustle into a thriving business. Let's get started.

Nina. Hello. I am so happy to finally have you on the show. How are you?

[00:01:26] Nina: I'm so good. I'm so excited to be here. It's been a while since I first started listening, so I'm excited to get to like be on the other side now.

[00:01:32] Bree: Oh my gosh. Amazing. Well, tell us about yourself. I did a little intro for you, but tell everybody who you are and what all the amazing things you have going on right now.

[00:01:44] Nina: My name is Nina Clapperton. I'm the founder of She Knows seo.co, which is basically trying to take SEO back from the tech bros. So it's not just like the scammy tech bros or people trying to make it sound too complex. I'm all for cozy SEO that you can do and have it work around your life. Um, you'll hear me right now, my voice is gonna keep cracking 'cause I've got really bad allergies, but it's because I'm also chronically ill and I have autoimmune conditions.

So for me, I can't work. The 80 hours every tech bro is gonna tell you to do. For me, I need to work 10 to 20 hours a week. So all of my methods are meant to be built around you, living your dream life while having your business, connect with online leads, connect with the right people, and really create that corner of the internet that's your absolute favorite.

And from doing all of that, I've been able to have multiple a hundred thousand dollars months. All of which still shock my accountant. And regularly he emails me like, are you sure this happened? And I'm like, well, you have it in front of you. Like is there some

[00:02:42] Bree: secret? Like you're not telling me how you're actually making your money.

Genuinely.

[00:02:47] Nina: He also thought I was a dog walker at first. 'cause the first time I met him I was walking my dog. So he like put it together weirdly. So he is like, dog walking, it makes that much. And I'm like, no, I don't think so. No. Um, but yeah, so with my methods, I grew my first website from zero to 65,000 page views in six months while working two full-time jobs and two part-time jobs.

'cause yeah, girl was broke, eventually left that job behind. And now I run, she knows SEO full-time. But I always say full-time in air quotes because my entire thing again is like. Make it work around you. I work about 10 hours a week, and you can definitely build a business that does exactly what mine does.

I promise you I'm not good at tech. I break literally everything I touch. Um, everyone who's looked at all of my funnels ever goes, how have you made a penny with this set? Like, what the hell? So it's a good reminder that like, you do not need to be perfection. You just need to have quality content, have the right strategy, and connect with the right people.

[00:03:43] Bree: I love that so much. Oh my gosh. So much of what you said aligns exactly with how I feel. You're like cozy. SEO, it's like, yes, please. And also just like the I, I don't wanna work that much. Yeah. Like, let's be real. I don't want to, I don't even wanna work 40 hours a week, you know? Like if I can work less than 30.

20, like that's ideal. That's me living my best life and we're building these businesses so we can build our best life. So running ourselves into the ground in the process is not the vibe I'm going for.

[00:04:15] Nina: And I feel like anyone who is, it's like why? Like if that's your dream life, fine. But like why? Sure. I guess it's other cool things out there.

So yeah, for me a lot of it shifted as well when like I got my service dog and I had to train him as a puppy, and I'm like, Hey, I actually can't sustain. Full-time hours with this business when my body's falling apart. I've got this, I've got that. Yeah. I know you have a child, like many people have children and it's hard to listen to those experts, quote unquote.

'cause like I don't really listen to them, so I don't actually know like what their qualifications are, who are just like, yeah, if you just work harder, if you bleed a little more, if you sweat a little more, and I'm like. I'm over here like smelling like a daisy, sweat free, happy, making my money, like much happier than that.

Um, and it really all comes from the fact that I have prioritized organic traffic that is going to run well. I am literally not running. I might be like. With my dog. We're both chasing rabbits in our sleep or something on the couch. Like, that's it.

[00:05:13] Bree: I love it. So, okay, so tell us, I would love to know what's really going on with SEO.

Can you give us a quick breakdown of, you know, what the status of things is since Google's helpful, quote unquote content update? How are things looking for bloggers in. You know, we're going into, we're in quarter two of 2025. What does it look like?

[00:05:35] Nina: I think the main thing is you're gonna hear a lot of negativity, especially if you're in Facebook groups and things like that.

Yes. Unfortunately, people who were hit the hardest are the loudest here Now, SEO. Still alive and well. Uh, first thing I always like to dispel the myth of SEO is not Google. SEO stands for search engine optimization. Google is one search engine. So what we're actually having happen now is that more search engines are coming outta the woodworks of things that people like didn't use before.

Bing. Now there's chat, GBT search, which is another thing I'll talk about in a second. But it is the future of search, in my opinion. Um, we also have like more social media platforms becoming search engines. Mm-hmm. Pinterest is one, TikTok is one. Um, threads are starting to be indexed, which is really great.

'cause like I love threads. So same basically it's SEO as a search engine optimization system. Still alive and well now the helpful content update. The problem is Google fully admitted they made a mistake and unfortunately much like, I don't know, you're like grumpy dad, who like can't really say he's sorry for very long and then even once he says he is sorry, like still doesn't really change the behavior.

That's what we've got here. So we have to kind of wait it out. Our current, um, predictions from Danny Sullivan who is one of the Google liaisons, is that December 20, 25 is the earliest. We'll see full reversals. That being said. The nature of search has changed because the Google algorithm itself has become an answer engine, not a search engine.

And that's where chat GPT search comes in. Because AI mode is all about answering the query. So if we think about like past Google searches, you get like that little like blurb at the top, it's called a featured snippet that would like, I don't know. Mm-hmm. Things to do in Rome. It would like list five of them or something.

Well, this is trying to basically be that, but. It's not doing a great job. It's at the, like I always call it, it's like the Nina just discovered eyeliner and is doing a like highlighter blue line under her eye and that was all the makeup she did stage of it. It's not at the like winged cat liner, like ready to go Taylor Swift era kind of makeup.

Yes. So it is a mess right now and I'm not discounting that, that being said. You can still get a ton of traffic from Google search. Most people who left Google Search are coming back to it. But the main thing I would say is diversify your search engine optimization sources. So chat GBT search is the best for that.

Um, and it really changes the way you optimize, which is really cool. But I think SEO, as long as there are search engine places. It's here to stay. It's just different. It's like they remastered the video game. It's got like a whole new map we have to try and conquer and learn about. And at first we're like, oh, we hate change.

We don't want this new map. Mm-hmm. Blah, blah, blah. And it is buggy. But they're cleaning it up and it's gonna get there. And ultimately, I still have most of my clients finding me from Google. I've been able to help a ton of my clients get their clients to find them on Google. And it still is the best option if you don't wanna do a social media, if you don't want something where you need to post every day.

I had, I think like five days this month that I had 2000 views on. She knows SEO, I haven't published anything new in. Months. Like just like have it, so it is still long form and sustainable growth, which I really appreciate. Yeah. It's just shifting a bit.

[00:08:50] Bree: So tell me, I'm so curious about chat, GPT and the search there, and, and I, you, I saw it in your eyes, you got a little bit excited.

You're like, Ooh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk about this next. So tell me, tell me about that. Because right now, you know, I'm just using chat GPT, like not necessarily as a search feature. It's more so like I'm feeding it content and then it helps me create.

[00:09:11] Nina: And I think that that's really common for us. But actually chat GBTs main demographic are students.

It's mainly students doing research, searching for things. So I would say marketers are kind of like the third highest level of people actually using it. And we're using it for creative means, but most people are using it for students, for search, things like that. My dad uses it to figure out how to write like thank you cards to people or like, or birthday cards and stuff like that.

So like people are using it in different ways. But what's happening is when people need more information, they ask chat GPT for it. So if they're like, oh, like um, can my Golden retriever eat onions? You're gonna ask that in the place that you already are, which I find is very helpful for people. It's ad free, unlike Google search, where it's got like a ton of sponsored stuff at the top.

And what it does then is it actually kind of unlike AI overviews right now, very openly links back to the websites things are coming from. Yes. And it does that natively. But also there's a little button, it like just in that typing bar, I think it's the second button that says search. If you turn that on, it literally turns it into a search engine, the whole system.

And so if I said. I am writing an article about, I don't know, the 10 best SEO tips. Go find me. 20 quotes of people talking about like 20, 25 SEO. It's gonna go out, find them, and then cite them for me. And it cites them just like a Google search result. Like if we think of like the search engine results page, it'll have like little image URL name of the post little preview text I find.

It doesn't pull Metas for that though. It just pulls the actual text, which is nice. Oh, interesting. Mm-hmm. But you click over and then you're there. It also like Will, if you ever like ask it to like provide a source for something or search the web, it will do that for you. And it's doing it differently than the Google algorithm or even the Bing algorithm, which is what it's based off of.

Because what it's trying to do is it knows the person searching. So like if I type into it like who am I? It knows I'm Nina, 'cause it has a memory, it understands my business. Things like that. So if someone search and they're like, Hey. What can I do in Rome? It already knows that they have two kids. It knows that they're celiac.

It knows that like they've already booked a hotel in this space 'cause it's had other conversations saying that. So it's gonna provide better, more personalized results to them. And that's really the benefit. And I know a lot of people are worried about like, oh, it's stealing my content, it's stealing my answers.

It's actually putting your answers forward in a way that someone who then needs to learn more can go to your website. I do think that there's issues with it. I'm not discounting that. Sure. Again, we're still in like the infancy of these tools, but with these AI searches. They're direct, they're to the point.

It actually understands the user and it doesn't tend to misinterpret their search result the way that Google often does. And honestly, it's so easy to rank for like, um, it loves new content. So new content is key. Okay. If you have old content, just update it. Like you don't have to do a ton. I updated an old blog post, I got it ranking number one in a chat GBT search result within three days.

And like it was really just updating the title, um, adjusting the intro paragraph 'cause that's what it sees most. Republish, you're good to go. Oh, wait,

[00:12:16] Bree: wait, wait. Hold on. How did you find out that you were ranking number one?

[00:12:20] Nina: So, um, with SEMrush? SEMrush mm-hmm. They have started building out a tool that you can search, chat, GPT, search results, which is really cool.

But a lot of it too is like, look at the keyword that you were already looking for on Google, and while they're a little bit different, if you put that in, it'll typically get you to the same point. Mm-hmm. Now, the way people search, like on Google, it's like. Rome things to do. Pizza. Yes, like, but with chat GBT search, it tends to be more full sentences.

So it's long tail keywords, it's things like that. And so what I did at first is I typed in a keyword related to one of my posts. Wasn't showing up, so I looked at who was showing up, same as we would do with Google, and be like, okay, what are they doing that I'm not doing? Mm-hmm. What I noticed is every single result was from within the last six months, and my post was like three years old.

Okay. Then I looked at them to see like, okay, what's the structure, what's going on? Mine was very like old school, Google, SEO, like. Very structured framework, didn't really feel fun or have personality. Took no time to make those changes. And then I just kept researching. Now, when I was doing the renewal search, I didn't wanna do it from my account.

I wanted to do it like you can actually like get a, use the free account and search it there, or you can turn on a temporary chat. That way it won't remember that you're doing this search. 'cause just like incognito mode with Google. Yeah. You want it to like. Not be like, oh, hey, you're Nina. Of course you want you, of course we're gonna

[00:13:39] Bree: put you at the top.

[00:13:40] Nina: Yeah. And so like that, that's the main way you find it. Um, we're still getting more tools now that are gonna help us do more work on that. Mm-hmm. But another thing you can do is actually go to your own Google Analytics and you can search like chat GPT as, um, A source. And then you can see everything that's getting pulled from chat GPT as well.

And that's a really good way to start to figure out. What types of keywords people are typing in to get there, like to figure out the, which posts they're getting to. So then you can test a couple of like the common ways people would search that. Mm-hmm. And see where you're standing and see if you can increase it.

[00:14:14] Bree: Ugh. This is so fascinating. I, I love talking about this type of stuff. I know it can be, like, I've had several conversations recently with different people. I talked to Emma on the podcast about this recently, and, you know, it was like, some people are like a little bit scared to start using it or have all the use, like doubts or all this different th these different things.

But I'm like, man, it is, it has helped me in my business so, so much. So. With all of that being said, with Google, maybe getting some things reversed in December with Chachi pd, with all the things, what should bloggers focus on right now to, if recover lost traffic, if they saw a really big decline, and then also just in general for everybody to improve their rankings.

[00:15:00] Nina: The number one thing is stop writing for an algorithm and start focusing on your user. So when you actually write content that matches the user intent, that like your ideal audience would want to read, no matter what platform it is. Mm-hmm. That is so key. So most people I find who lost rankings, not everybody, but many we're in that trap of what worked before and it doesn't work anymore.

So it was a lot of like. Programmatic, SEO parasite, SEO, things like that, that like the words themselves, they sound so stupid and complicated. It basically just means you're like mad lising a keyword. So it's like, can you drink the tap water in Toronto? Can you drink the tap water in Ottawa can? And they're boring posts to write.

Very boring. So I would say Zoom back. Actually figure out who your audience is. Then what we wanna do is build topical authority. That's where you're going to see success. Okay? So you're not just writing on keywords that are easy and rankable anymore. You're actually thinking about, the easiest way to talk about it is like with a travel blog.

You are planning a full itinerary for them for this place? Mm-hmm. Throughout a variety of posts. So you start with, okay, someone doesn't know what they're doing, where they wanna go, you're gonna help them get from there all the way to like what they're booking, all the way to making the booking in this one cluster.

So I found people were using the spray and pray method. Once you build this topical authority and like really connect it all, it will help you recover. Now, it can't help. Purely with an HCU thing, but a lot of people lose traffic for other reasons. So that's gonna be one key element. Second, if you don't have an HCU classifier on your site, you really want to be trying to like find keywords that AI overviews are not triggering on right now, because again, the interface isn't perfect.

So the way that we do that is we go and look for keywords that are not a yes or no answer. Okay? So even if it triggers, it's not gonna be a helpful response. If I go, Hey, how can I get my dog on a plane? The two sentence answer it gives me is not helpful. So instead I'm gonna scroll past it and go to the people who can help me.

And those keywords are mostly like review tutorial, case study, how to make something, yeah. Step by step, those sorts of things where realistically, a one word step for each thing is not gonna cut it. So have those in your arsenal. Then I would say update content for sure. If your content's too old, if it doesn't go together, if it doesn't.

Really tell a story like we are storytellers as marketers and we need to like think about it that way. If it's not connecting, it's not working. And then kind of last thing is like, don't be afraid to cut dead weight. 'cause like that's a big issue that many sites have is Google grades, your site as a whole.

You might have like. Some weird diary entry from 10 years ago on your website, get rid of it or no, index it so that these sites can't see it. And then lastly, a really good thing the Google algorithm leaked in May of 2024. Was that it? Somewhere around there. Um, I. And in it we found that click data is really important.

So basically Google violates everyone's privacy when you use Chrome and it's tracking your clicks across everywhere on the web. And so when you get direct traffic, when you get branded searches, when you get people clicking from social media. All three of those help prove your authority. Mm-hmm. 'cause Google figured out that you can buy back links and like they don't, they're not nearly as important anymore.

So to do those, what you wanna do is have like navigational pages on your site. So branded keywords would be like, she knows SEO, she knows SEO login, she knows SEO's, services, things like that, where they're searching for a specific thing on my site with my brand name in it. Then we want to. Really try and figure out how we can leverage the search we already have, or pardon me, social media.

We already have to benefit our search. That social media can be, emails, does not have to be like pure social. It just needs to be something that says like, Hey, people like you and Google's a popular mean girl. When other people like you, they like you more. That's something that Google consider.

[00:18:55] Bree: Google. Can we

[00:18:56] Nina: quote

[00:18:56] Bree: that flagging that one?

Google's a popular mean girl. Okay, love it.

[00:19:00] Nina: Yeah, and I think like it's just. It all just comes down to honestly like, would a real human being want to read this? Yeah. And does it all work together? Like is, are there storybooks here? Is there a journey here? Are you just trying to get people to book a hotel, to like rush through?

Are you just trying to like review every single, like, I don't know. Lawnmower out there to make a commission. Like people don't want that. You have to build the trust first. And so that's where the topical authority of the other content comes from. So we really wanna make sure that we are building that out and so that no single blog post exists in the ba a vacuum.

It's part of an ecosystem. Yeah. Those are like the main things I would say to some degree. Like if. You get hit by an HCU, clean stuff up, but largely pivot right now. Pick another traffic source. What do you mean by hit by an HCU? So that means that like during one of the helpful content updates, you lost traffic.

Okay. Okay. You lost traffic positions and impressions in your Google search console. Okay. And when you search your website, it will not come up on Google typically. Mm-hmm. Because you have what's called a classifier. It's like a hidden, like shadow ban essentially on your site. Okay. Which is the thing that Google accidentally added that they're still trying to figure out how to remove.

Oh,

[00:20:15] Bree: cool. Cool. Um,

[00:20:16] Nina: you will not see it. It's not something you can go and look for. Okay. But typically it means that at a time when one of the helpful content updates was running your traffic, your rankings and your impressions all together plummeted. And typically if you search the term site colon and then your domain, I.

Your site will not come up because you have basically been shadow banned from search. So that's why we need to be like kind of cognizant of the fact that all of your efforts, unless you scrub your entire website and start from scratch, which I think is not the best option here. It's way better to be like, I clean things up, it's ready to go.

Mm-hmm. I just have to wait for like this to happen. Yeah. So go do something else. Don't just sit around. Don't just sit around and complain. We need action. And so that's where we wanna try to find another organic traffic source that can work in tandem with Google. So we're not hurting ourselves as we wait.

We're just getting more information. So for me, that's Facebook groups. For other people it's Pinterest. For other people it's Instagram. Um, I just find Facebook groups a really. Easy platform where you get to have fun, have a community. Mm-hmm. And you tend to get more clicks off of Facebook than you would off of something like Instagram.

[00:21:25] Bree: Yeah, yeah. Or like a Pinterest or even just keeping in mind that, you know, you may not be ranking on Google and Google is pissed at you right now, but you could be ranking on chat, GPT or Bing or all of these other ones.

[00:21:37] Nina: Yep, exactly. And like they all function very similarly, I would say. Yeah. I actually think Bing search results are higher quality than Google at the moment.

Um, and there's a new one called. I think it's called dm, DIEM. That's a women powered social media framework meets Google search engine. That's been really interesting. It's kind of having a its moment right now and with all of those, like if Google got mad at you, there are other, go find other friends elsewhere and unfortunately they don't have like the biggest traffic share yet, but we can get it there, especially if all of us are focusing on it.

Um, and I think it's important just to remember that like. Not forever. And also like as much as it sucks, Google didn't owe you anything. Like people get banned from TikTok and Instagram algorithms happen literally everywhere. I think ours just didn't have that happen to us in a long time. Right? So for many people who got hit, they're quite upset because of it, and I totally appreciate that.

I didn't get hit, I was able to be. I'm very secure in my sites. And a large part of that is because I have two traffic sources. Um, I also have my email list and I make sure that all of my content is so connected to each other that it's all part of a journey.

[00:22:45] Bree: And you know what I really, I, I, maybe this is just me personally, but I'm, I'm feeling like it's not just me.

'cause I'm seeing, like you started to kind of mention it a little bit. I'm seeing people start to kind of move in that direction with social media, but just like. We were in such a huge wave of like hustle culture for so long. I've completely jumped ship from listening or following anybody that talks about that anymore.

I'm like, that is so outdated and so not the vibe anymore. I feel like most people are feeling that way and it is this like, it's still a mental shift for me though. I was just having a conversation with a friend this morning where we are both wanting to, um. Work on Instagram together, and we both love the platform and want to grow over there.

But one problem I told her that I was having, that I, it's a mental block, is feeling like I need to be able to do this fast or I need to be able to do this in 20 minutes. And if it takes longer than that, it's not worth it. It's wasting my time. And I feel like that's kind of also aligning with what you're saying is like, you know.

Sometimes cranking out those blog posts where it's like, all right, I've got this quick outline. I've got all these questions to answer, boom, boom, boom. Let me just knock it out. Is a is quite different than like, let me tell a story. Let me really think about the, the client experience, the audience experience.

Like that does take a little bit longer, but I just feel like I think about those blogs that I used to read back in like 2015. That was so much of what it was, and I know those sites are still doing well. So I don't know. I just feel like it is this wave and like maybe this good reminder that, you know, certain things are gonna take a little bit longer to maybe draft, create, write, publish, but will be worth it.

[00:24:37] Nina: I totally agree. And I think it's also like. I think what was happening as well a little bit is that we were just creating an echo chamber in the search results. Yeah. So it was all, everything said the same thing. Mm-hmm. It was very formulaic. It was like, the question I get asked all the time is like, how do I write faster?

How do I like get this done in five minutes? Right. And I'm like, you practice. That is the answer. Sure. I'm a very fast writer because I used to get paid like $25 to write an entire novel, and so like for me, I was like, we're cranking that thing out so fast because like mm-hmm. I want to get my money's worth.

So it's been years of me writing to get there, but I also think like good things take time. If everyone could get rich in 30 seconds with this like. We'd all be shut down by some sort of like federal board because they'd be like, no, no, no. What's happening? Yes. Um, and I think especially doing it in an ethical way and doing it in a community driven way, like, sure.

For Instagram you could go buy a bunch of bot followers, are you? No. Because that makes. 0 cents to like actual engagement. Right. And I also like it worked translate to

[00:25:38] Bree: actual

[00:25:39] Nina: dollars. Yeah. And I actually think that like a lot of the people doing that stuff are those like tech bros, black hat, SEO, whatever, who don't care.

Like they're not building a business. The business is on top. And these are all just like little. I don't know, like lunch stands to them that they can close down anytime. They're not emotionally connected to them, which means that they are never gonna make nearly as much money because the main publishers on every ad network that I know of, I've spoken to them, I've spoke to the like ad networks themselves.

They are all like a single, maybe two site person. But it's the brand. It is a built out brand that if you got hit by an HCU, you're not gonna delete the site because you're like, this is my brand. You pivot your marketing channels and then you move on. And most of them like, yeah, they were upset. Like I know Nomadic, Matt was a big one who spoken openly about this.

Um, I know a lot of people in like the food blogging space has spoken about this as well, like their traffic shifted. Massively. Mm-hmm. And we have to adjust to that. Unfortunately. It's kind of like if you had a physical office and they closed the road down in front of your building for six months for renovations, can you do anything about that?

No. You have to figure out a way to get people, maybe you go to them, you start like driving and doing deliveries. Maybe you put up a sign that they can go around back. I don't know. But we have to do something and I think that. Especially, it was interesting, I went to a sum, a summit in person last weekend that was like, for business owners, not online business specific.

And that's mm-hmm. Unusually online business only is kind of the people I know. And it was really interesting 'cause like we have the tariffs coming up, we have mm-hmm. Um, a lot of different things with people boycotting, like Amazon and stuff. The amount of people who've had their businesses crushed by these things.

The, the like atmosphere with them and like when I was talking to them wasn't just like, oh, boohoo, it's over. Like I no have nothing now. They were like, Nope, I figured out three next backup plans. And I was like, that is so inspiring. Like, I freaking love that. It's hard to get to that 'cause like, it's so much easier to be like, this is all I know.

It has to keep working, like it needs to keep going.

[00:27:46] Bree: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:47] Nina: And that's not always the case. So Yeah. I mean. I also think like when you're figuring this stuff out, make sure it's fun for you in case things like this happen. 'cause like with SEO, you're trying to attract your ideal audience. We, we also, I'm gonna rant for one second about this.

Go for it if that's okay. Yep. But everyone is like SEOI need to get 50,000 sessions to get into Mediavine. Yeah. I need a hundred thousand people a month. And I'm like, okay. Why? Why do you need that many people? I had my first a hundred thousand dollars month when my website had 11,000 people and I had 800 people on my email list in my Facebook group, and they were the same 800 people.

Like you do not need all those people because you're just not monetizing them correctly. Otherwise, you are very passive. You're letting someone else control your income and you're waiting. Mm-hmm. So long. With my travel blog, I grew from zero to 60 5K page views in six months. I had my first month on Mediavine, I made $1,500, which like living in, at that point, downtown Ottawa, but usually in Toronto.

You can't even like afford rent on that.

[00:28:49] Bree: No. I'm like,

[00:28:50] Nina: that's not gonna get you anywhere. Yeah. And so six weeks later I had my first $10,000 month, and that's because I realized this is not enough. And I started adding in ads, or pardon me, start adding affiliates on top of ads and creating my own products.

So like really when we're thinking about SEO. Think about the end goal first. I'd love to reverse engineer. Yes. So I'm like, what is the end goal? Mm-hmm. How are we getting there? And if you need a hundred thousand people, if you need a million people a month just to be like walking through and wandering your shop in order for you to be making a livable income, something's wrong in your strategy.

Yes. So I think like that's a really big thing for me that I get, like ads are fine. I'm not anti ad. Sure. Use it if you want to. I just think like. My highest ad revenue month ever was $7,500 USD on one site, which is great. That site had 250,000 page views to get that it was the highest season. I do a lot of tricks that I've learned for formatting to improve my RPMs and my RPMs were crazy high, but I'm like that same month.

She knows SEO, which I literally did not touch, like I was doing nothing with it. That month did well over $25,000 in affiliates and products, so. Keep that in mind. I think like you're saying,

[00:30:04] Bree: like 250,000 page views. I'm like, oh my God. Like the way that, and you only made $7,500 from ads. I'm like, the way that my business is set up, man, we would be rolling in the dough because I have all of these other things, right?

Like, and so, ugh. Yes, a hundred percent. And, and, you know, it's, it's not. Far off from like there's certain conversations that I'm replaying in my head that have come up this week for me with the girls inside of Shift, my coaching program and of just like hitting certain roadblocks. Not necessarily was it SEO, but like for some of them it's like I working with brands and like brands aren't responding and all of these things and I'm like, well there's, I mean, look at like the news.

There's also a lot going on. A lot of brands might be kind of like pumping the brakes a little bit, but it's like you are almost giving them too much power. And it's like, you know, and with SEO, like if you're, you're giving it too much power with any one platform, right? If you go all in on Instagram, I, and you come to me for coaching, I start sweating because I'm like, we gotta do something else.

Because if it changes the algorithm, you're screwed any one platform like you have to with these businesses that we're growing. You do have to take back power. You do have to, I mean, and yes, like we're gonna go in on certain things and we're gonna plan for SEO to work, but. Still at the end of the day, like, you know, like you were talking to those women at the conference, like you've gotta be able to pivot and you've gotta be able to, in order for your business to withstand.

Craziness. That is going to happen

[00:31:35] Nina: a hundred percent. And I think it's why it's so important to have a website somewhere you own. Mm-hmm. Yes. That's really important. Have it be organically discoverable. So important. And then, so like my framework for like my signature at course is like first we do organic traffic.

Right now it's Google, SEO kind of a thing. If that ever changed, I would change. I'm omnipresent on platforms because I'm always testing. Yeah. To this day I've tried. Every platform. Google has outperformed every platform except my own email list, but I have to get people on my email list for that to happen.

Right. So like she knows, SEO does anywhere between like 35,000, 75,000 page views a month on different things. But that has never corresponded to like my complete income levels. Sure. 'cause I was able to also take ownership of that income. And you're so right on the brand side of things like. Right now is rough for them.

Mm-hmm. And they're figuring it out. We're figuring it out. Right. It's easy to assume that every brand has a bajillion dollars ready to spend on us, and they don't always. Mm-hmm. Um, but I also think like, yeah, you're playing with a leaky ship if you're only working on one platform, one marketing channel.

Mm-hmm. Because ultimately that's what these are. They are not our business. They are our marketing channel. Exactly. And we need to differentiate that. So my biggest tip. Build a community and like, that's why it's so important to be yourself authentically, but have those real conversations. Get really vulnerable, get like very personal with your audience and, and like obviously hold things back that you don't feel comfortable with, but like be authentic is so important.

Yes. And building that connection. 'cause like we saw the TikTok ban almost happened. Mm-hmm. Everyone on TikTok pivoted. Then now many of them have millions of followers on YouTube. Yes. Do they have a website for many of them still? No. No. Which bothers me. Yeah. Um, but I'm like, but they pivoted and they were able to actually like take that audience they had and it didn't matter where they found them, they could move them.

So I really think that's an important thing to consider as well, is like, you don't want empty follower numbers. You want like a diehard community that really is gonna algorithm proof your business.

[00:33:41] Bree: Absolutely that's, I was at a conference as well last week and just talking, like, the conversation of storytelling and authenticity came up in so many different, um, conversations that it's something that's just like ingrained in me now, and I'm trying to think of it even more as I'm doing things and it's something I always like to do, like in my emails and different things, but I'm like, man, I, I need to do it even more.

And it's something that just kind of, you know, it's one of those things that for some reason or another kept getting pushed to the back burner. Like, oh, let me just crank this out. Right. I think we go into that like crank it out mode, or at least I do, versus like, let me just thoughtfully do this and. Oh my gosh.

I could talk to you for hours about this, uh, but I will not keep you all day. I do want to hear you have a new course coming out called The Profitable Part-Time Blogger. Can you please tell us about this? Because when you told me about it, I got so excited, but I was like, wait, wait, wait. Let's hit record first.

[00:34:42] Nina: Uh, yeah. I'm so excited for it. The Profitable part-time blogger is my signature offer. That's basically you get me on retainer for the equivalent of $2 and 73 cents a day for a whole year. So with that, you're getting my, it's technically six part, but really four part, um, like search powered business framework set up.

So the first two months are we get your website up and running. We work on your mindset. We get you into like the CEO boss mode. In a way that we're gonna build the life that you want to live. Then we have our four part framework of search engine traffic, but then we have immediately blanking on everything.

Again, I use fancy names for it, but we'll just go through it like the normal names. So we have organic traffic, we have affiliates, we have email marketing, and then we have own your income with your own product or service. We also have some bonuses of YouTube, SEO, um, how I'm getting traffic from Reddit and from threads at the moment.

And in the group you get access to q and as with me every quarter, a guest expert, every quarter, and a live challenge every quarter because I know these things take time. I love an instant dopamine rush. So the whole thing is basically, um, I don't like calling it a group coaching situation. 'cause that sounds like a lot of.

Work on your part. I promise you it's not. It's just that you get me on retainer, I will review your page feed, I'll review your posts. I will help you plan a product. I have helped many students revamp sales pages, like whatever you want. I'm in your pocket for a year. So that is launching very, very soon.

I'm so excited about it. Um, it is 9 97 for the first year, and then it renews at a 20%. Rate or whatever that is. I don't know the exact numbers now. Um, mental math is not my strong suit, but it's an amazing community, uh, where we're really helping online business owners get out of burnout over constantly selling services, selling products that, like the quote, unquote selling products 'cause they're not selling.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, and making sure you build a business like I do where I can take three months off a year and not be worried about. Anything going wrong where I can spend most of my days napping on my couch with my puppy and where I've actually been able to buy a brand new car and currently looking at buying a brand new house for myself entirely based on the income of my business.

Well, I wasn't even really working, so I would love to invite you guys to join and, uh, become a profitable part-time blogger. It's a ton of fun. And I didn't even mention all the other cool bonuses 'cause I went a little bit wild with all of the custom GPTs and workbooks and extra bonuses.

[00:37:00] Bree: Obsessed. Sign me up.

I want to be you when I grow up. Oh my gosh. Um, amazing. Okay. We will link to that, um, because I believe at the time this is going live, your course is also going live at the same time, which is perfect timing. So you guys, we will link to that in the show notes. Please check it out. It sounds absolutely incredible and I know like you're saying all that and I know so many of your people are like.

Oh, I, that's what I want. That's what I need. Absolutely. So I think this is going to be a brilliant program. I'm so excited for you as well. Oh my gosh. Okay. Remind us. She knows seo.co, right? Yes. So if

[00:37:37] Nina: you guys, she knows seo.co, you'll find me there. And if you want a quick freebie, she knows seo.co/audit, it'll give you my 12 part workbook for updating your content and getting outta that traffic rut.

[00:37:47] Bree: Perfect. All of that will be linked for you guys. Nina, thank you so much. This was such a wonderful conversation. I wasn't sure where we were gonna go with this because SEO is something that like I haven't been putting a lot of focus on, and I was just really excited to talk to you and you can probably hear my kiddo coming in in the background.

But we'll wrap up this conversation. Thank you for being here and you guys will see you back here soon for a new episode.

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