Organic Marketing with SEO & Branding Tips for New & Established Businesses
Hey there, besties!
Today on the podcast, we had an amazing chat with Julie from P&W Designs. Julie is a creative powerhouse who made the leap from corporate finance to flipping furniture, to launching her own brand identity, SEO, and web design business. She's all about helping female entrepreneurs level up their branding, SEO, Pinterest, and web design, making their brands shine online while balancing real life and big dreams.
Julie shared her inspiring journey through side hustles, beginning with flipping furniture as a creative outlet, moving to network marketing, and ultimately launching P&W Designs as a branding and web design business. Her story is a fantastic example of how female entrepreneurs can use their skills and passion to create impactful businesses. If you're an aspiring business owner looking to grow your online presence through strong brand identity and effective SEO strategies, Julie's journey is filled with lessons worth hearing.
One of the big takeaways from this episode? Sometimes, following what energizes you means pivoting—even if it means letting go of something you've poured your heart into. Julie shared how she transitioned from making custom planners to leveling up branding and web design for small businesses, and how staying curious keeps her moving forward. This lesson is essential for all women entrepreneurs who are not afraid to make bold moves and evolve their business based on their own growth and passion.
Julie also touched on using AI tools as an assistant—not a replacement!—to help get those SEO-friendly blogs out faster, without losing your authentic brand voice. AI can be a powerful tool for entrepreneurs to save time, but it’s crucial to maintain that genuine touch in your content that truly connects with your audience. Julie’s advice on AI highlights how female entrepreneurs can leverage technology to create high-quality content that ranks well on search engines without sacrificing personality.
Another important discussion we had was about choosing the right web platform. Julie emphasized the importance of picking a platform that fits your business needs—whether it’s Showit, Squarespace, or WordPress. She also highlighted the significance of creating a cohesive brand identity, which is so much more than just a logo. Branding for women entrepreneurs is about creating a full visual and emotional experience that resonates with your target audience, and Julie’s tips on choosing the right elements—from color palettes to scalable logos—can make all the difference in attracting the right clients.
If you're a female entrepreneur seeking motivation and real-life examples of how to pivot, grow, and succeed, you'll definitely want to check out this episode. Julie’s story is full of shifts, pivots, and the kind of bravery that reminds us it's okay to follow our curiosity—even when it’s messy. Her expertise in branding, web design, SEO, and leveraging platforms like Pinterest is incredibly valuable for women looking to grow their businesses online. With Julie's insights, we explored how to create visually stunning brand identities that also function effectively from an SEO perspective, helping your business not only look amazing but also rank higher on Google.
As we wrapped up, Julie offered some fantastic advice for entrepreneurs just starting out: take messy action, stay open to change, and always focus on what truly energizes you. Whether it's branding, SEO, or exploring new marketing platforms, following what lights you up is the key to building a business that is not only successful but also fulfilling. Her approach to helping female entrepreneurs grow through branding and SEO is not only practical but also empowering, encouraging us all to stay curious and keep experimenting.
So if you haven't already, hit play and get inspired to chase what lights you up! Julie's journey shows us that building a successful brand is all about blending creativity with practical solutions, finding the right tools, and staying true to what energizes you.
And as always, let's keep this conversation going—what part of Julie's story did you vibe with the most? Was it her tips on leveraging AI for content creation, her transition from corporate finance to creative entrepreneur, or her advice on branding and SEO for female entrepreneurs? Share your thoughts with us over on Instagram @UntetheredMomentum. We can't wait to hear from you, and let’s continue to inspire each other as we build our dreams untethered and unstoppable!
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Connect with Julie
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Welcome to Untethered Momentum, the podcast where we get real about chasing big dreams as female entrepreneurs.
I'm Leah, your host and fellow business bestie, diving into all the highs, lows, and messy in-betweens.
Tune in for inspiring stories for women like you who aren't afraid to show all that goes on behind the scenes in their businesses.
So come sit down, stay awhile, and let's become business besties.
Welcome back to Untethered Momentum.
Today, I am hanging out with Julie, the creative genius behind P&W Designs.
She is all about helping women entrepreneurs level up their branding, Pinterest, and web design, mixing her love for pretty things with practical solutions.
And fun fact, she started in finance, but soon became the go-to for making things look amazing, which led to her creating her own businesses.
Julie is a powerhouse, balancing a full-time job, family, and her passion for creating custom brand identities and efficient systems.
Oh, and she also has some serious SEO skills, helping her clients grow organically while also looking amazing online.
So let's jump in to Julie's story.
All right.
Hello, Julie.
Welcome to the podcast.
I'm super excited to have our audience hear more about you and your business and how you got started.
So let's first start back before you launched this business.
What were you doing?
So I work in corporate America as a workplace retirement plan consultant, which ultimately means I work with organizations to manage their 401Ks, i.e.
I'm a licensed financial advisor.
So I definitely have a very left-brained corporate job.
And so since 2013-ish, I have had some sort of side hustle.
And I have met some people that are still doing this, but my first side hustle was flipping furniture.
And it was my creative outlet.
My husband actually just called me today and said, Hey, can I bring a table home for you to flip?
So I still do it once in a while.
Ultimately, I stopped that when I had my daughter five years ago, because if anyone as a mom, you know, like moming is exhausting.
So physical side hustles ended kind of at that point.
And then I was also in network marketing for like two and a half years.
And then I started P&W Designs officially in 2021 as a custom planner and physical paper planner business.
And I ran that for two-ish, two and a half years.
And then in 2024, it's kind of organically shifted to what it is today, which is the branding, SEO, web design, Pinterest.
What prompted you to start the journal?
That's a unique jump from doing furniture to MLM, to then having a journal.
Like what prompted that?
It was the MLM actually.
It was the fact that I had a corporate job and then I had the side hustle and every planner that I found was either for just network marketing, right?
Or just would only fit my corporate job.
And I wanted something that could do both.
And I still to this day have a custom planner for myself.
Because I find if I can't fit my life into the planner, the exact way that I want, I won't use the planner.
And so I'm still definitely a believer in the custom planner side.
It's just a lot of work.
And ultimately, when I was trying to do more mass planners, I was paying for a local printer, and I was losing money.
So part of the ab was not that I lost passion.
It was just I'm taking time away from my family as a quote unquote side hustle, and I want to make sure that it's worth it for that.
There's a lot of questions I have about this.
I feel like you and I are very much similar in trying new things and shifting and changing.
So when you were doing your paper planner business, my question for you is, what was the moment that you're like, okay, this has to change?
Was it like all of a sudden you started looking at your bills and you're like, okay, I'm losing money, or was it this is becoming too much work?
What was that shift for you that ultimately led to that change?
I think for me it was, I started to feel less passionate about creating the content around it.
So I'm super into productivity, time management.
If you go back to my early stage, I also have a podcast.
So if you go back to the early stages of the Being Better Everyday podcast, it's all about productivity, time management, etc.
But I get sick of talking about it, and that was kind of my shift of like, okay, I can talk about it, but I don't really want to anymore.
And it almost felt too tied to my corporate job because obviously corporate jobs are all about productivity and efficiency and blah, blah, blah.
So that was part of the shift was just that I didn't feel the energy around it anymore.
And then the other thing was at the end of, so 2024, again, this was re, no, what year is it?
2024, 2023.
For my 2024 planner, so Q4 2023, I was launching the 2024 planner.
And my goal was to sell 10.
It wasn't a huge goal.
And I didn't even sell 10 of the dated planners.
And obviously, now knowing what I know about SEO and marketing, like I feel like I should have approached the marketing differently.
But the custom planner side was very successful.
There's only so many business owners that want that.
And there's only so many, it just almost wasn't creative enough.
And that's how I got into the branding side of things, right?
I wanted to do more than just draw the lines in the planner.
I wanted to do more around the business.
I love that.
And so what advice would you have for someone looking to make a similar shift in their business focus?
I feel like I am always in a state of just following what energizes me.
Now, I will say I have that luxury, right?
I'm not reliant 100% on this income to pay our bills.
And so having this is something that is on the side gives me the luxury of following what energizes me and not being scared to do that.
I think I'm constantly in a state of following where the wind blows me when it comes to my business.
But it has also given me so much experience.
And I think that's the huge blessing is I can talk about so many different things.
And I feel like I can help other small business owners just because I've experienced it.
And at this point, you know, I've had an LLC for four years, but I've had some sort of business for almost 10 years.
And that just gives you so much bravery and shifting and knowing things will work out.
Or if they don't, then you pivot.
And that's what I did.
And I still had fun doing it.
I also think the same way as you.
Like I feel like every experience that I've gone through has taught me something.
You know, whether it was like a total flop within three months, I learned, okay, this is what I don't want.
This is what I don't like.
And that's such a brave thing for you to be able to recognize that and trust your intuition, trust your gut and just be able to shift and pivot with the how it coming down on yourself and saying like, oh, I failed and then I suck at everything.
A lot of people do that.
They say, well, this one thing didn't work, so then I just am a failure in everything and I'm not going to try.
So kudos to you for having that bravery.
How are you learning more about yourself throughout this?
The one of the things that popped in my head while you were talking was learning about human design has really helped also show me what direction to follow.
Human design is something hard to explain, but ultimately it's like this chart that says based on how you were born and the energy and it's this Eastern way of looking, you are meant to do certain things and you are meant to show up in a certain way.
So it's not like Enneagram which is more of a programmed personality, this is your inherent personality.
For me, I am a projector, which ultimately means I'm supposed to wait for the invitation and then follow that guidance.
So real examples of that would be that's how we got connected, right?
You invited me, I didn't chase you.
And for projectors, that energy is really important and it's something that I have actually a hard time following that guidance of just waiting.
But that's how my planner business started.
I created a planner for myself and then I shared it on social media, and somebody reached out and was like, I need one, right?
So they invited you to start the business, essentially.
Basically.
And that's also how the rest of this started.
So if you think about my branding side of the business, a friend of mine had reached out and was like, hey, this is my concept.
I know you're really good at creating things in general.
What do you think?
And I was like, well, what do you think about me just making this a whole brand for you?
And she's like, that would be amazing.
And that's how the branding side of the business started.
So every single pivot has always been this kind of nudge from another friend.
My business, I used to actually run by P&W planners, and I had friends reach out and say, no, you really should be P&W Designs.
So it's been all these little nudges.
And that's, again, learning about myself.
I'm learning to slowly lean into that.
It's just not always the easiest thing for me, because the other side of projectors is that we see things.
So I am not great at starting things from scratch all the time.
But if you give me an idea, you give me a concept or SEO, you give me a website, I can immediately see how it should be better.
Yeah, I definitely want to look into human design.
You're the third or fourth person that I've talked to that has also gone through their own, and it is a big process.
There's tons of pages of results and all the learning.
I am an Enneagram 7, but I fight that.
I am not naturally an extrovert.
I love the experience, but I want to be invited as well, so maybe I am a projector.
A lot of my friends are projectors.
Yeah.
What is an Enneagram 7?
We want new experiences.
We can't just be sitting around, twiddling our thumbs, sitting at the beach four days in a row on vacation is not my thing.
I want experience, adventure, and that's also my brand voice too, my brand personality.
I think it's an archetype, and so I'm an explorer in that.
So it all fits well.
I can connect really deeply with people one-on-one, but when you put me in a room full of strangers, I will stand at the wall because I cannot just approach people.
But if I'm invited in the group, I will overshare typically.
And so that's where I feel like the Enneagram 7, it fights me, but I am.
It's interesting because I'm an eight.
I wonder if my wing is a seven.
It could be, yeah.
So a lot of my friends are nines.
Nines are like the people pleasers of the world.
And an eight is somebody who's extremely direct, which also is a great partnership with Rejector, but also will stand up for people.
Like I just want to help, and sometimes that doesn't come off that way.
That's so interesting.
Yeah, I definitely want to look into my human design to see where I'm at.
Yeah, so I love learning about myself, but I feel like, and you mentioned something too, of like your friends saying, hey, you're really good at this.
And I've really struggled with that with all of my businesses.
Like, I don't know what I'm good at.
I mean, I have people coming to me, but it's for like a huge array of things.
And then I fine-tune my thinking or like, be more aware of what they're asking me, because maybe I just forget that, oh, so-and-so asked me for help on whatever project.
And I just, you know, I don't think that that's a skill.
I think everyone knows that, right?
And so it's hard to like sometimes focus on what people are asking you so that you can create a business around it.
One of the things that I feel like is projector is the fact that I can see solutions in things, and I don't know how to explain it a lot of times, which is why even with branding, I can just see it, I can't explain it.
And so now I really want to know.
We will have to follow up.
I really want to know.
All right.
So what makes your business unique compared to others in your industry?
What sets you apart?
I kind of side mentioned this again, I'm at P&W Designs, I'm focusing on kind of the visual identity side of branding, web design, and Pinterest management.
And on the branding side of things, I love a good line drawing.
And so there's all these rules when you get formal graphic design training and branding and logos, and there's certain designers that feel very strongly about simplicity and logos and scalability.
For me, I like the balance of being unique, especially as micro small businesses, right?
Had a conversation with somebody this week, and she's very adamant that she wants lavender and a hummingbird integrated into her branding.
And that's where I would come in, right?
Because that's the type of line drawing and unique illustrations.
So I would say on the branding side of things, I'm not a minimalist designer.
I definitely still believe in scalability and making sure you have logos that are multiple logos, right?
So you can use them for different applications.
And then on the web design side, the really important thing that I've kind of, the hill that I'm willing to die on right now, is that SEO needs to be integrated.
And that's from experience.
So I had a planner website for a year and a half and did not really get any organic traffic.
The website was pretty, but I didn't get any organic traffic.
And I'm realizing through formal training, through search engine optimization, that it's definitely the balance between pretty web design and search engine optimization.
Even when I'm working with my current customers, I'm working with a bookkeeper right now, and her title, her main title on her website, is going to be bookkeeping services for the small business owner, something like that.
It's not some creative motto statement because it needs to be searchable.
And I have come across a lot of web designers and or just websites in the small business world that it's clear to me that they're missing an important opportunity to continue to grow their reach.
And so that's, I would say, a differentiator with my web design is that I am making sure I go beyond the basics of SEO.
And I even have a series right now that I'm working on because as a small business owner, none of us know what SEO really means.
I want to make sure that people understand what it means as a small business owner so they know what they're really looking for in order to grow their business, which is obviously all of our goals.
And then Pinterest management, I wouldn't say there's anything unique necessarily.
I have formal training from a Pinterest course, and it's just something that I started it because it was, again, something I could do to make things pretty.
That's always been kind of my thing, is make things pretty.
And it's a long form search engine and definitely something I enjoy more than social media.
Let me just ask you this and you can tell me if I'm wrong.
Out of branding, SEO, or web design, if a new business had time or budget for one of those items, would you agree that SEO is probably the first thing to tackle?
Oh, that's hard because if they don't have branding, you can't have a website and then-
But where do they start?
So if they had to take baby steps, because this is a brand new business that they're bootstrapping.
So let's say I have a full-time job, but they are starting the side gig.
What do they start with first?
I still almost say branding, but you could do baby branding if that makes sense.
You don't have to go all out on the big packages, and I think that's one of the other things that I am very empathetic to is the limited budgets.
But people will make a decision about your business within, I think it's like two seconds.
So you need to make sure that you are attracting the people you want to attract visually first.
That's going to be your warm market of people you already know.
So once you are attracting the people you already know, then I would say the next part is the web design.
But the web design should include SEO automatically.
Now, if you are a business owner that already has branding in web design, well then obviously your next step is making sure that you are optimized from an SEO perspective.
So again, I am working with somebody who is starting their business actually on January 1st.
And we are going to do kind of an abridged branding package in web design.
I am working with her budget to make sure that she can feel confident in starting her business, but it doesn't have to be this elaborate brand at that point, right?
It just needs to be something she can feel confident showing up in.
I am the biggest believer, and I've said this before, is just taking messy action.
You can always refine it.
You can always adapt and shift and grow as your business shifts and grow.
But I do believe that you're right.
Like if you, and I think you mentioned this in the class that you taught for my group.
If you build it, they will come.
That is false.
That's false.
You can build a beautiful, and you spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a web design.
And if you're not optimizing it with the SEO, they will not find you.
Correct.
And I think that's the hardest pill to swallow.
If you focus on making the website, right?
Like if you do hire someone or whether you do it yourself, you make it good enough, but then you focus on adding that SEO, that's going to be a better use of your time versus spending months and months and months on this beautiful design that's not optimized.
Would you agree with that?
Agreed, for sure.
Yeah.
And that's the hard part, right?
As again, I've seen gorgeous websites that, I mean, again, just I'm obsessed with, right?
But if they don't have the basics, and there's certain web platforms that also are really hard to do the basics on.
I found Shopify is one where it's, they're not really built from their web page templates to optimize SEO.
It is dependent on web platform, but I have experience in WordPress, ShowIt, Squarespace, and Wix at this point.
And most of those, you can optimize SEO.
So speaking of that then, for the DIYers that are going to be listening, what tools or platforms would you recommend for beginners in both branding or web design?
From a branding perspective, I think definitely making sure you try to stick, if you don't have formal branding, right?
Which is definitely the world I came from.
And I feel like branding yourself is also the hardest, so sometimes my color shift.
But I would say Canva is going to be your best friend, right?
I live in Canva.
I have thousands and thousands and thousands of designs in Canva.
And color palette typefaces, you definitely can somewhat live in Canva.
I asterisk the fonts because there are certain fonts that people became obsessed with, and now I can immediately see that font and know that they're DIYing their brand.
So again, baby steps.
It's a good place to start if you don't have the budget to go formal branding.
You should be able to find some websites where you can download fonts for free, and then again, you can then upload them to Canva.
So a lot of my branding clients, right, we have custom fonts because then we know that they're not going to be something that everyone uses.
And then Coolers, COOLRS is a great place to start, to kind of see the mix of colors if you're just starting out and wanting to mix colors together, it generates color palettes.
So that's on the branding side, but on the SEO side, I would say the biggest thing is making sure that you have your tools, if you have, this is assuming you obviously have a website, right?
But the biggest thing would be then making sure you have the tools set up to track your results so that you know if you are improving things or not.
And so we can link in the show notes my free guide that kind of walks through all of it.
But you'll have, you know, you're going to want to have all of your Google profile set up.
And most business owners I found have like one of the three, not all of the three.
So you need to have Google Search Engine, Google Analytics, and Google Business Profile set up.
And they're all separate, which thanks Google for that.
And then Bing Webmaster, which is still like people ignore Bing, right?
Because it's only 3% of web traffic.
But that 3% is 500 million clicks per month.
And so even if you get 10 of those, I would be happy, right?
So Bing Webmaster is very similar to Google Search Engine.
And then I personally love Ubersuggest or SEMrush.
Ubersuggest is something where you can get a lifetime membership.
And if you are a blogger, I 100% recommend that you do that, because you can do unlimited keyword research, as well as kind of track your SEO metrics.
So, and again, all of those are in the workbook.
So, and it goes through like what you should be looking at as far as information.
And it also goes through the errors from an SEO audit perspective so that if you do have errors on your SEO audit, you know what they mean.
And then what about websites?
You mentioned Shopify is not conducive for adding SEO.
Are there websites or platforms that you would recommend people start on or avoid?
Not WordPress.
No.
I have a lot of WordPress clients and it just is way more complicated than it needs to be.
It's kind of-
All the plugins.
You have to update everything.
I was on WordPress for a very long time because it's free, right?
And like I was constantly running into like, oh, this button is down or whatever is like not working.
And it was such a headache.
I will like, I have to just pay for something for it to be just done.
Yes, that agreed.
I-
So I definitely work with entrepreneurs that are on WordPress.
And once you're kind of committed, especially if you've had a website for nine years, you're committed.
But I would say my two favorites right now are Show It and Squarespace.
And for different reasons, I find that Squarespace is the best all-in-one platform.
It can do courses and memberships and physical product and digital products and blogging.
Now, it's not as good as the WordPress back end of Show It for blogging, but you can still get what you need to get out of it.
And I have blogs that are already tracking that are only two weeks old.
So clearly, it works from an SEO perspective.
Yes, it's a little bit more design-restricted than Show It, but seriously, like, pick your battles, right?
So most of my clients, if they're looking to grow their businesses from a course or product perspective, I think Squarespace is a great place to start, and it's not that expensive on the base level.
And then Show It is, I would say, a web designer's dream, because it is clearly the most flexible design platform out there, but I don't find it very user-friendly for the average entrepreneur.
If you're going to have an ongoing web designer, and they're going to be the one that are always building your webpages and sales pages, etc., then Show It's fine.
But if you want to have some ownership as an entrepreneur and not have to outsource every single time you want to update something, that's where I lean Squarespace.
That's really good advice because I feel like Squarespace, even if you have to start with a template just to start, and then eventually bring in, like, when you do a full rebranding or adding more options to your suite or web design, you can literally just start your website and just be up.
Like, it's not going to be SEO optimized or anything.
You have to obviously add those things.
But as far as design goes, you can use a template to start and then make tweaks and bring someone like you in to actually make it cohesive to their branding.
So I actually, my first web design client, we launched a website in 24 hours.
What?
Because of that.
So I am a huge believer in templates because I have an affiliate with a template designer for that reason.
Because I'm just, why would I spend 10 hours designing the layout of a website when I can buy a template and then put it in the custom branding and maybe make some tweaks?
People don't notice that it's a template.
My, actually, fun fact, my website is a template.
I love it.
Like, why am I going to waste the time with something that has already been proven from a design perspective?
I can design from scratch.
Why would I waste the time?
And so that actually keeps my cost down from a web design perspective, too, because I'm not sitting here going, it has to be my design, right?
But yeah, my first web design client, and she's not SEO optimized at this point because I didn't know about that back then, but she had a trucker hats as a product.
And so we just needed to get the site up so she could sell.
And we designed it within 24 hours, she did the copy and made $500 the next day.
It's never too late to add SEO.
So if we're talking to people that have had their website up for three years, you literally can go back.
It does take work because I just told you right before we hit record, I launched my business in May and I went back and started adding SEO to the web pages.
It obviously would have been a lot faster if I did it from the beginning, right?
But it took me a couple of hours to at least get a few pages up and optimize and it probably would have taken you less time because you're an expert here.
So us DIYers, it does take us more time, but hiring someone like you, you're the one that can go and do the SEO keyword research.
Maybe talk about that.
What does that look like if people wanted to work with you?
What kind of services do you offer in terms of SEO?
One of my kind of base packages is called SEO Audit and Optimization.
And what that does is I'll go through, run an audit report on kind of like the technical side of SEO, which will be like site speed and other errors that are coming through from an Ubersuggest perspective, and then explain them, and also explain how to fix them.
So that's step one is just the technical SEO errors that are coming through.
And then from there, I will then audit, on the base package, five of your main web pages.
So what that looks like is, for example, obviously a home page is usually included in that package because it's the most important page, right?
So I'll go through and I will look at, do they have proper header tags?
And all of these terms, FYI, if you're like, I don't know what that means, again, we'll link back to my podcast because I have a whole series on SEO, but I'll go through and audit their header tags.
I'll audit the copy length because copy length is actually very important from a Google perspective.
If they have alt text within their images, if their keywords are going to be something that will drive traffic or not.
And so for example, I was researching for breastfeeding, lactation class versus breastfeeding class has a different volume.
So knowing which word to use.
And so for any service you have, you should know which words and which order to use them.
So I'll do that for five pages, tell you here's what your current issues or things that we can optimize, and here's actually how to fix it.
So giving you the actual keywords I think you should use and the new titles.
And then from there, I'll also do a competitor research.
So I will kind of ask or search, right, who is a main competitor that you're competing against, and then look through their keywords, help communicate that to you.
And then the final step is actually giving you 20 keywords that you can then continuously use in your website that are direct to either, your customers that you're trying to attract or your business.
Again, it's gonna be dependent on the business of what they look like.
So that's the base SEO audit and optimization package.
Right now, I have it at a base price, too.
Eventually, that will go up.
And then the other thing I'm doing is I, and then let's say there's a more established website that's been around for a while and has never optimized their SEO, then I go on retainer.
So most small businesses can't afford thousands and thousands of dollars within a one month price, right?
So they'll hire me on retainer for a couple of hours of work a month to slowly work through their entire website and optimize it from an SEO perspective.
So right now, I'm working with somebody and we're literally rebuilding all of her service pages.
All of her, we've rebuilt her blog templates so she knows what to do from a blogging perspective going forward to get results.
And we're already seeing an increase in traffic.
So that, you know, if you're sitting here as an established business owner nine years in and like, why am I not getting more traffic than I would expect?
It's probably because of the keyword side of things.
And it takes time, like you said, if you're established, but that's where retainers come in and just baby stepping and picking priority pages.
It's really cool what you're doing.
Number one, I feel like you do have a heart for helping women entrepreneurs or just entrepreneurs in general, being able to provide them the tools and then let them run with it, or have you step in and do it for them, right?
Where if you're setting them up for success with giving them the 20 bank of keywords so that they can then use, I think that's a really cool, unique proposition that your business has and being able to be affordable for small businesses is super important, especially if this is not their full 10 gig.
And this is not something that is bringing in a lot of income yet, because it is a daunting thing.
Like, SEO is not sexy.
For me, it is not sexy.
It is not something that I enjoy doing.
It is not something that like I wake up and I'm like, I'm so excited to add SEO to my website.
And so people like you that be able to offer that service for people at a low cost, and I'm not saying your prices will stay low forever, but right now-
Currently they're-
Hurry and get in there with her.
But I really do appreciate your insight.
Mention one thing about blogging, quick.
Yeah.
Where I want entrepreneurs to approach from a content creation perspective is doing the keyword research first.
I've talked to a couple of people about this recently, and the people that are getting results from a blogging perspective, one of my clients actually just hit a million impressions on Google in the last three months, which was super exciting.
And sometimes it's a fluke, right, of like, something takes off.
Every single piece of content that we create, we start with keyword research on the title of the piece of content.
And then that title and keyword research gets replicated across her blog, YouTube, and Pinterest.
And so if you're an entrepreneur that is blogging and or on Pinterest, or again, multiple long form content places, you need to start with the research of the keyword before you write the pieces of content.
Because I've again, done some blog audits lately, and I'm like, yeah, it's technically set up fine from an SEO perspective.
You have your old tests, you have your right headers.
But unfortunately, the keywords that you're using don't have enough volume, so you're never going to get results.
And keyword research is something that I feel like is very hard to click.
It took me eight, nine months of researching keywords and understanding it to really kind of have it click.
So if you're an entrepreneur sitting here and like, I don't understand keywords, that's where I come in, that's where I can help explain it.
And again, start listening to podcasts.
Because if you're an entrepreneur, you need to understand it, period.
Because it's the cornerstone of getting traffic.
Well, let's talk about AI and how we talked about this in our meetup.
How writing blogs with AI is wonderful because it helps you get the template, but you can't leave it at that, number one, because it's not your brand voice.
So there's two questions I have for you.
How do you utilize AI to help you write content faster and be SEO friendly?
And then on the flip side of that, how much, I don't know how to explain this, but sometimes keyword stuffing is not the answer.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
So you explain that dynamic of like, how do you use AI to help?
And then also not keyword, get in that keyword stuffing, blogging or whatever content.
So Google has recently upgraded their algorithms and crawl ability to try to read whether a human is writing the content versus a computer.
Right?
They're trying to target quality over quantity.
And I mean, think about it, that's kind of where social media is also going, is quality over quantity.
And so with that, I do use AI a ton.
So first of all, I use it for meta descriptions, because meta descriptions are not a ranking factor.
So I tell ChatGPT, hey, this is what my website is about.
Please write me a meta description that's under 150 characters, so that it is readable and it is unique, but I'm not spending my brain power writing it because it's not a ranking factor.
But I also use AI for the draft blog.
So think of AI as your assistant.
So with ChatGPT 4 in particular, I will tell ChatGPT, here's my keywords, here's my tone of voice, here's my title and a couple subheadings.
Please write me a blog that is at least 1500 characters about that topic.
And the other thing you can do is if you have a podcast, you can upload the transcript of the podcast so that it has more input.
The more input you can give it, the better the output will be.
And so then I have 90% of my blog already done.
And it allows me to show up as a small business owner who's doing this part time and have a blog and have YouTube and have podcast when I don't have a whole day to work on a piece of content.
So it's certainly not perfect, but it's not meant to be perfect.
It's meant to help from an SEO.
And then yes, adding that tone of voice, adding my sarcasm and do it.
I feel like Chatubiti doesn't do a good job with sarcasm.
So.
I have learned that too.
Yeah.
But it's amazing to be your assistant and be your copywriter for like first draft, especially if you give it the keywords and the headings.
Now on the comment of keyword stuffing, back to Google cares about quality, it's kind of an intangible, but if you use a keyword too much, it's going to feel inauthentic.
So it needs to feel like you're talking, and you're not going to say that, I don't know, whatever keyword it is, a million and a half times in one sentence, right?
And really, the stats have proven, you could use a keyword once, and you can still rank for it.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
So you do not have to stuff, or stuff.
It is definitely something that if you use it well, and you answer the question, or you answer what that keyword is about, you can absolutely rank for it.
I couldn't tell you how many times I use SEO monitoring tools in my current blog, but it's not often, it's maybe twice.
And I'm already showing up on Google, and the content's only three weeks old.
Again, it just has to make sure you're actually the quality is there.
And you should be fine.
And the title needs to be keyword friendly, not fluffy and cute.
Yes.
And not make sense.
Yeah, I think that was the thing.
Even with my new website, when I launched my first H1 title was I make things pretty and functional.
And then I learned about keywords and SEO, and I was like, yeah, that's not searchable.
So now it's all business web design.
You did teach me in our meetup that if there is no space on that page to make a keyword make sense, you can hide it via code or behind a photo.
So there is ways to add it secretly to your website, right?
Yeah, I believe this works.
I obviously haven't tested it thoroughly.
But for example, again, with my bookkeeper, I wanted to make sure that her homepage had bookkeepers and Minneapolis because from a local SEO perspective, I want to have her location in there.
But I already had enough headers and I didn't want another one.
And so I just made it the same color as the background.
And again, Google is a computer.
It doesn't actually need to see it to read it.
And so it can read it without the human person seeing it.
We'll follow up on that and see if that.
Yeah.
Your website is launching November 1st.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, good.
We'll definitely look at that.
What are the biggest misconceptions about branding or design that you've encountered with your clients?
So there was one person that I was talking to, that I was working with, that I actually declined to do a proposal for, for web design.
And she comes to mind because it's around branding.
And I think I've learned this, especially with my clients too, is branding is not a logo.
Branding is the whole picture.
And if you have one logo, you are not diversified enough.
You need to have a logo mark, you need to have a stacked logo, you need to have a horizontal logo, like a primary logo, and be able to use those in different ways and in different deliverables.
And so this person had a logo that was a circle with her face in the middle of it.
And I just couldn't, and I couldn't, and her branding colors were literally one color, and it was like the primary grass green color.
And I was like, I'm willing to do a web proposal for you if you allow me to expand your branding, because I can't work with that from a website perspective.
I just can't.
And she was like, no, I love my branding.
And I was like, but it's not a brand, right?
It's a color and one very Canva made logo.
So I think making sure you have diversity, and it's okay if your colors change a little bit over time.
To me, again, I don't follow the strict rules because I get sick of things.
But I use multiple logos for my clients all the time.
And then again, on a web design thing, it doesn't have to be complicated if you use the right platform.
And I think platform is probably the biggest decision you need to make.
And there are a lot of web designers that are only one platform.
So do your research on the type of web platform you want first, and then find a web designer.
Because you don't want to be restricted as a business based on the person you want to hire if it's not going to be a fit for you.
So first of all, I want to applaud you for turning down business.
That is probably one of the hardest things that anyone starting their business, or even just if they're in their business to do, is to turn down money and opportunity.
But on the flip side of that, if you had started working with her, you probably wouldn't have made her happy.
You probably wouldn't have been able to help her, right?
And so how do you feel confident, first of all, to be able to turn that down?
Well, I had actually built a free sales page for her.
And so I had experience working with her, even for a little bit.
And she was somebody who didn't match my communication style.
And so now it's like a vibe check.
And I know that seems dumb, but I think I'm learning the importance of having a, even though it's at night, because again, I work full time.
So when people have to be willing to work with me and the fact that I work at night on my business and not during the day.
And then I will get on a quick 30 minute phone call.
And if we seem to like vibe, then I'm good.
But if it feels like they don't understand my value or aren't willing to listen to my expertise, which is in this case, that's what it was, right?
She was like, no, I love my branding.
I'm like, you're trying to attract a high end buyer, and this is not reflecting that.
Then I just had to decide that it wasn't going to be worth my limited time that I do have.
But yeah, it's definitely a recommendation of making sure you do have a phone call and get to...
I want to make her happy, and I want to also make myself happy and not feel like not energized by the project.
Because if I'm not energized, it's not going to be my best work.
Yeah, energy is a thing.
I absolutely believe that.
I've hired the wrong people, and it sucked my energy so dry that it actually affected my other work with other clients because of just how...
She got in my head, it made me feel like I wasn't doing the right things, and it's not worth it in the long run.
So how do people know, or what kind of questions can they ask to make sure they're hiring the right person?
So whether it's they're hiring a client, they're saying yes to a client, or maybe it's they're trying to look for a designer, like what qualities or what questions should they be asking both sides?
I think if you're hiring a service provider, for most of it, I would say it would be if you vibe with their past work.
Every designer, it has a different aesthetic.
I think of BrightonMade as a very...
She did Jenna Kutcher's recent branding.
She has a very distinct vibe.
And you are not going to go to her if you don't like her aesthetic, right?
Because designers just naturally have an aesthetic.
That's probably the point.
And if it's not a designer or a web designer, then I would say it's just, again, maybe knowing...
I know a podcast producer.
Well, if you listen to her other podcasts, you can tell how good of a job she does.
So just kind of knowing if you like somebody's past work, you're probably going to vibe well on future work if I'm hiring somebody.
And I would say, you know, VAs are really popular right now, or maybe it's just my social network.
But I think same thing if you're looking to hire a virtual assistant or somebody to help you in the first small things, ask if you can talk to one of their customers, or ask if they have reviews, because I am finding that people will say they know how to do something, and then they don't actually know how to do it.
So kind of getting that like peer evaluation of it.
Does that help?
Yeah, no, that really does help.
All right, so as we're wrapping up, what would you say is like the biggest lesson that you've learned in your journey so far?
Taking you back from, let's just say, when you first started with furniture flipping to now, what is the biggest shift or that moment?
Or was there any moment that there was like a light bulb?
Or maybe it was a really hard moment that you had to learn about yourself?
I think for me, we kind of touched on this during the episode as well, is that I, my biggest lesson is like chasing curiosity and then just kind of following where things are going.
And I actually, come to think of it, I was on a call with another business owner who I wholeheartedly respect in her business.
And she said that I have a natural knack for being ahead of the curve in some things.
And I have never seen it that way at all.
So from an SEO perspective, now I feel like I'm starting to see other people talk about it, and maybe again, it's my algorithm.
But I just realized how important it was.
It wasn't about looking for the next big thing or looking for the next trend.
It was just, I got curious.
And then I'm like, wait a minute, I need to make sure other people know about this.
And so it's that curiosity that I am willing to follow.
And I do have that luxury because of my full-time income.
I will admit that.
But just as an entrepreneur, if you're lit up by something, there's a reason and follow that and follow that passion.
It sounds super woo-woo, but again, I just follow whatever lights me up and three years from now, that could be something different.
But for right now, it's definitely helping other businesses from an organic marketing and branding perspective.
I love the words chasing curiosity.
Like it just feels like such a beautiful experience.
Most days.
Yeah.
I mean, it can be.
It can be beautiful and it can be really hard too.
So thank you for sharing that.
What would you say your current goals are or where do you see yourself in five years?
P&W, where do you see it evolving?
Do you see adding extensions?
What is that vision for yourself?
I get asked this question a lot, and I never know how to answer it.
But because of that chasing curiosity, I feel like I can never predict.
I filled out, I had this huge plan for my business at the end of last year, and it was all planner based.
And then clearly none of that happened, right?
So even if I make a plan, I feel like the universe says, no, that's not actually the right direction.
Let me ask it this way, what would excite you in a week?
If you could be doing something next week, what would excite you?
Currently, I have four proposals out.
If I get yeses from those four, when I get yeses from those four, I will be fully booked until January of 2025.
That's amazing.
So that part is exciting.
I've never been in a situation to turn down or delay, I should say, business, right?
So that and then my biggest goal is I am sitting here.
We graduated from a private university in 2011, my husband and I, both with finance degrees.
And we, and this is on my podcast, we graduated with $155,000 in student loan debt.
And so 13 years later, we are still paying that off.
So my biggest goal right now is to just consistently be able to dump extra money into our student loans.
And that's not something I am doing today, but that's my ultimate goal right now, is to pay off the dang debt that I'm sick of paying.
Yeah, that would probably feel really good then.
So that's a really cool thing that you can work towards.
So whether it's like tied to your business or not, whether your business shifts or grows or changes, your ultimate goal is that financial freedom from that student loan debt.
That's something you can absolutely work towards and watch the progress.
So that's really exciting.
Yeah, and that will then give me the ability to dream elsewhere.
I feel like I'm not able to dream otherwise because I am the breadwinner as well.
And so that's my short term.
Well, is there anything that you want to leave the audience with, whether it's a question for them to think about or one last thought?
What would you like to say to them?
I think the biggest thing, and this is so cliche because a lot of people say it, is just like you've said, do things messy.
I put things out there all the time that aren't fully ready and not perfect, and then you can just refine it.
And so I think don't be scared to start fast and follow the whims and pivot.
That friends thing came in my head, as you need to.
Great.
And where can people find you to connect?
So I mostly hang out on Instagram because, again, having some sort of side house over the last 10 years, I'm very used to Instagram.
So it's julie.pwdesigns is my Instagram.
And then if you want to check out all things SEO, branding, Pinterest, that is over at bypwdesigns.com.
And I will say, we'll link the freebie, but if you just go to Instagram and type SEO on any of my content, that will get you the free workbook as well.
And that tends to be quicker.
Yeah, we'll link all of us in the show notes.
So thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
I really enjoyed talking to you, getting to know your story a little bit more.
And if you need someone that is as awesome as Julie, you know where to find her.
So thank you again.
Thank you for joining us on Untethered Momentum.
I hope you found today's episode as inspiring and empowering as I did.
Remember, every step that you take, no matter how small or how messy, brings you closer to your goals.
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