Making informed keyword choices for my shopfront business
Hearing great SEO advice is one thing but is it actually doable?
I started the reality SEO episodes to illustrate how the teachings here and in my course, really impact small businesses.
You can hear the truth direct from real SEO beast’s mouths.
Like Norelle Hentschel, a former student of the Recipe For SEO Success Course, a member of the Digital Masterchefs, and an avid herbalist.
We’ll talk about how Norelle was able to give her online naturopathy a healthy dose of SEO, and the challenges she’s faced along the way.
About Norelle Hentschel
Patient education, lifestyle modification, and an individualised, healthy whole food diet are central to her treatment approaches. As an avid herbalist, she enjoys formulating bespoke herbal tonics to support her client’s health.
Fun fact: Norelle only likes drinking tea out of a clear or white (on the inside) mug. For some reason, she needs to see the colour of the tea.
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And big thanks to MargieTiempo from the Philippines for their lovely review:
“Great show! This show’s contents are truly fantastic.
It has a wealth of valuable information.
I wholeheartedly suggest this show!”
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Transcript
Kate Toon:
Hearing great SEO advice is one thing, but is it actually doable? In my reality SEO episode I talk to real humans and get the truth about how they use SEO and digital marketing to improve their businesses. Like Norelle Hentschel, a former student of the Recipe for SEO Success course, a member of The Digital Masterchefs and an avid herbalist.
Kate Toon:
We’ll talk about how Norelle was able to give her online naturopathy a healthy dose of SEO and the challenges she faced along the way.
Kate Toon:
Hello, my name is Kate Toon and I’m the head chef at the Recipe for SEO Success and online teaching hub for all things SEO and digital marketing. Today I’m talking with Norelle Hentschel. Hello, Norelle.
Norelle Hentschel:
Okay, great to be here.
Kate Toon:
It’s lovely to have you. I struggled with that intro, saying naturopathy quickly is hard. I bet you’re probably quite good at it by now, but it’s a hard word to wrap your tongue around. Anyway, let’s find out who you are. Norelle Hentschel, from Your Remedy Naturopathy loves helping women transitioning through perimenopause, reclaim deep refreshing sleep so they can feel like themselves again. Patient education, lifestyle modification and individualised, healthy wholesome diets are central to her treatment approaches.
Kate Toon:
As an avid herbalist she enjoys formulating bespoke herbal products to support her client’s health. Fun fact, Norelle only likes drinking tea out of a clear or white on the inside mug. For some reason she needs to see the colour of her tea. Are you terrified you’re going to be poisoned?
Norelle Hentschel:
No, I don’t know what it is. It started probably about 10 years ago, and I think I have had times where tea has been so black and thick and just horrible tasting, the type of tea that makes you yeah, feel a bit nauseous. Yeah, I always just, I know I need to see the level of brewing that’s happened in my tea.
Kate Toon:
I’m trying to wean myself off coffee a little bit. I have two coffees a day and I’m trying to get that down to one, which is incredibly hard, so I’ve started trying to have teas, but so many teas taste like flowers. I mean you probably think that’s a good thing, but I want tea to taste like tea, not flowers. Do you find that?
Norelle Hentschel:
No, but there’s lots of great single origin tea out there, so, it’s the herbal tea that you get the taste like flowers, but.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. I’m not into it. I’ve evolved from green tea to decaf green tea, and now I’m getting onto my chamomile, I’m loving a little bit of chamomile. I think I’m just too British, I just like tea to taste like tea.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
So there you go, but I don’t put milk in it. Anyway, why are we talking about tea? We’re not here to talk about T-E-A, we’re here to talk about SEO, so aye. Now, Norelle, we’ve known each other for quite a long time now, I remember spending a deal of time doing a wireframe for your homepage. Gosh, that was many moons ago.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
It was.
Norelle Hentschel:
I suppose you did.
Kate Toon:
You did the SEO course a long time ago, but if you can twist your mind back, can you remember life before SEO before you knew what it was and how wonderful it was?
Norelle Hentschel:
Oh, no, there was no life before SEO. No, it was very much a when I first became a naturopath around 10 years ago, I sort of was, “Oh, I just want this pretty website.” And that’s when websites were all about all the white and design and these pastel-y colours and people as another naturopath colleague says, “Laughing while they’re eating salad.” Throwing their hands up and laughing while they’re eating salad.
Kate Toon:
Eating salad is hilarious for some reason. I don’t know why.
Norelle Hentschel:
Exactly. So otherwise cliche. But anyway, it was more about, I’ll have this website and people will come, they’ll just, once I have it there, it’s there. They’re going to find me. And I’m going to have all these clients that are just going to find me. And of course that was not what happened. There was zero SEO done on the site. So yeah. So that went for a while and then I sort of did get a bit savvy about, yeah. This SEO thing. And I decided to get my website redone. So I contracted someone who did it, who was including SEOs, great. They’re going to build it and they’re going to have SEO in it. And it just didn’t happen. And about that time I’d started following you online and just kind of doing that sort of stalking kind of thing as you do to suss people out.
Norelle Hentschel:
And then I started to go hang on. I don’t think I’ve really got SEO and yeah. And then it was, yeah. It was sort of I had considered the SEO was like this secret specialist well out there kind of thing that you couldn’t possibly understand unless you had five degrees in it kind of thing. And it was only those who’ve been initiated can do CEO kind of scenario but certainly listening to what you were saying. You were like, “No, no, we can all do it. We can all do it.” And it became a lot less, scary and something, oh yeah, I think I should know about this. And I need to learn out, learn what it is and how I can use it.
Kate Toon:
Yeah.
Norelle Hentschel:
Because I don’t get ripped off again.
Kate Toon:
A few things I want to pick up there. I love it when people say, I was buying a site and it had SEO in it, like SEO is the milk that you mix in your tea. Smeared SEO over the top, like peanut butter over toast. And, and I think that’s a real pitfall that a lot of small business owners fall into. They buy a package from a web developer and it says the site will be SEO-ed, but they don’t know what SEO-ed means, but they just go, yay. So they can’t tell if it’s being done or not. And I like the idea of an initiation. I think maybe this should be initiation. Like we all go into room wearing black robes and you have to drink for the sake of the Google cup and be branded with a, I don’t know, a picture of, I don’t know, John Mueller on your bottom, poor John Mueller.
Kate Toon:
I hope you’re not listening to this. For those of you who don’t know, John Mueller is an important person at Google who now will probably never talk to me again. So yeah. How do you say you began to kind of get a bit realised that maybe the SEO that had been done on it was not all that it should be, and that coincided with you, maybe realising as well that maybe SEO, wasn’t some dark art that you need a degree in. And I have a degree in ancient history and poetry, and I’ll tell you, it comes in very handy when I’m trying to SEO websites. So I remember, you took the course and you started to implement, but you did a lot more than that. I was talking there about, doing the IA for your site, working out your homepage, you really embraced this and started to kind of do a lot more, started to look at your design and your copy. And did you kind of get a little bit obsessed with it all?
Norelle Hentschel:
Well, yeah I did. Once I understood it, I sort of became, I was this is what I need to do. This is going to make a huge, big difference. And the other thing I like about it is, I mean, SEO is not set and forget, but it is something rather than sort of spending a lot of time, we can spend a lot of time generating social media posts and things like that. But once you’ve sort of got things reasonably cooking along on your website and the SEO is doing well, you’re just tweaking and it’s there. It’s not getting bumped off by an algorithm or anything. If it’s something that people are searching for and you’ve got the terms, it is relatively stable. So, I mean, I’m just a one woman band with my business and that sort of thing appeals to me because it’s a time factor as well.
Norelle Hentschel:
So, but this isn’t set and forget totally because I still do go back and tweak. And, as you learn, you are always learning more and more and going, oh, actually that’s a better keyword or people are looking for it in that way or things like that. So you’re tweaking all the time, but once you’ve sort of got the base, understanding of it’s a really solid foundation for that. And yes. Also, I did the course, I think, and then spoke to you and you said, “Look, do your own website.” Because I think I’d been a bit, was feeling a little bit battered by having paid out lots of money for websites that weren’t, they were pretty, but they weren’t functional.
Norelle Hentschel:
At the end of the day, what you want the website to do is attract the people. You know, it’s a lead generation for me as well. So yeah, I got into doing copywriting and I wouldn’t say I was expert in any area, but I now at least have an understanding in it. It also helps I’ve used copywriters subsequently from that like contracted out some stuff. But I can now brief them better because I understand what it is that they’re trying to do.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, no, I love that. There’s a few things I want to pick out of what you just said there. I think the DIY thing is great for that because once you’ve built something yourself, even if it isn’t stellar, then you do understand and you become a better client for web developers and copywriters because you understand the challenges that they have. I can’t build a page until you give me the content, basic stuff like that one of the biggest problems-
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
… is that. But the other thing I think you mentioned there is your sites were pretty but not functional. And I think in the wellness industry, in naturopathy, which for some reason I find really hard to say you do get a lot of sites that have the sound of wind chimes on them and dream catcher overlaid over the copy. And they’re pretty, but they’re really hard to use. They’re not responsive. And it’s they’re trying to be woo, woo and soft, but they’ve lost the whole point of the site, which is to explain the offer and to sell the offer. Do you find that when you look at your peers website, do you think, oh my God, what am I looking at?
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah. And a lot of that is, and I mean, I find it with other websites when you’re going there and you’re going, I just want to know what you do. I want to know what the offer is, how much it costs and is it the right one for me? So I want to use it again because I am, I don’t employ reception or anything or anyone to kind of screen or calls so I like to use it almost as that.
Norelle Hentschel:
That’s my front desk, my reception, and people can go on there and hopefully, and there’s again, more work or ways to be done with it, but they’ll sort of go, oh, this is what Norelle is about how she practises naturopathy. And this is what she does. This is who she works with. Yeah, do I kind of gel with this person? And if not, well, that’s also good because, it saves both of us time and that. So yeah, definitely that functionality is so important.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, that’s it. And your site if you look at it, I’ve got it up on my screen at the moment. Look, it’s a simple site. It’s got a nice clean navigation, a nice colour scheme. We get to see a picture of you straight away, really easy to read copy. this would look great on a mobile device or whatever. It’s just easy to get there’s video there. So I get to know you. Really clear headlines, like health issues I help with, nothing, treatments. It’s just clear and obvious and that’s so helpful to just get people through. You’ve even got FAQs at the bottom that cover off things like what your qualifications are and whether you need a fund rebate. You’ve got logos. I mean, it’s great. It’s fantastic. You’ve done a fabulous job.
Norelle Hentschel:
Thank you.
Kate Toon:
And you mentioned earlier that it’s not set and forget, but once you put that hard work in it kind of, it pays back the time you invest faster than other mediums. And I’ve got a few stats now you know I love a stat.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
I found this stat this morning, so I love it. So Google, we now has about 92% market share globally. And 53% of all website traffic comes from organic search. And that means that basically SEO, according to highervisibility.com, SEO drives 10 times more traffic than social media. Has that been true for you? I mean, I know you do, do social media as well, but where do you see your traffic coming from?
Norelle Hentschel:
Oh, I definitely in it because I ask when on my intake form for new clients, ask how they found me and I’d say 90% is, it might be even 95% is, yeah, through an organic search that has triggered. Often I do a lot of blog posts that kind of answer those questions that people are searching for. I give a quite an in depth thing. So again, people sort of can go, “Ah, this is what she is. This is how she would approach it. Does that sort of suit me?” Great. Yeah. They call me and that. Or no, they move on to somewhere else. So yeah, definitely I’d say that. And when I look at my stats in analytics, yeah. Most of my traffic is that yeah, organic. So that’s to it.
Kate Toon:
Yes that traffic.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. I love the way you said, it’s almost like your… It’s a bit of a receptionist and what you want to try and do is cover off all the common questions you get asked or that people might go, “Oh, I don’t know, this I’m going to pick up and ring up the phone.” Because of course you’re more than happy to deal with people on the phone, but you are in practise a lot of the time. You’re treating someone.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
You can’t be dropping… So I like the fact that you’ve covered off those FAQs on the homepage. I think that’s really useful. What are the common questions you get asked and such a simple thing you mentioned there on your client intake form. And also, I think it’s a great idea to have on your contact form as well. How did you find me? And then the question I love to ask straight after that, especially on the contact form is what did you type into Google to find me? Because they just did it seconds ago.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
And obviously for you, it’s going to be like naturopath Brisbane or whatever, because it’s a location based business.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
Or they’re typing in your name or a particular treatment you offer or a particular problem you solved. So you’ve got lots of angles and I think lots of people go, “Mm, it has to be naturopath Brisbane, naturopath Brisbane, naturopath Brisbane.” It’s like, no, no, no. There’s lots of ways in to you. And obviously as you build up your social media and your reputation, people are going to also be searching for your business name and your name as well. So I love that you asked that question. I wanted to add that one more question to it. What did you type in? Because I think it’s illuminating.
Norelle Hentschel:
That’s a good one. And I mean, I do actually mind my search console stuff because you can see what queries have triggered, not necessarily to book. I mean, that’s would be an, I don’t even know if you could do that, but you can see what queries drove people to the website. So I find that quite useful. I mean, I had this post flow post, I just sort of done off about how apples were an everyday super food kind of thing.
Norelle Hentschel:
Because I was a bit, about all this full on Acai berries and now I’m like apples are super so I bashed off this one. And it gets a whole lot of traffic each month it’s probably the… randomly at the top performing website. But people find it because they’re looking for grated apple for diarrhoea so. Which is… okay.
Kate Toon:
First time we’ve mentioned diarrhoea on the podcast, which I think is a landmark moment, but yes, carry on.
Norelle Hentschel:
You’ll never invite a naturopath on again. You’ll never invite a naturopath. But from that, I was able to actually I did a post on natural treat at home treatments for the diarrhoea. So that was kind of going, okay, well I’ll put the link in there so that people who are actually coming for that, and you sort of expand out what you are offering, and what people, yeah, the information they’re getting when you… And search consoles, you don’t pay for that. That’s part of the Google suite. So it’s a-
Kate Toon:
Yeah. It’s such a useful tool and one that people don’t recognise.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. You can see what your Google has already decided you rank for. And often it’s not the things you’ve gone for, you’ve been picked up for other things. And I love the insight you saw there that people were coming to the article, but it wasn’t a hundred percent answering their query because that’s not what it was for. So you made a piece of content that would and link them together.
Kate Toon:
And you can obviously look at those paths through your site to conversion in Google analytics, by setting up goals. Although they’re being a bit funnier with the new GA for goals are being a bit funny, it’s going to be more about kind of things happening on your site. But anyway, I think that’s great intelligence, but I think what I like about you is that you’ve got that on your intake form because we can look at all the tools on the world, but what’s also really helpful is to just ask our customers and, they’re not a hundred percent accurate.
Kate Toon:
If I say, how did you find me? People are, “Well, I’d never heard of you. And then all of a sudden you were everywhere. And I don’t know what the touchpoint was that made me go to your form. I can’t remember whether it was an ad or this or whatever.” But you get some intelligence from them. Lots of people said, “I read this weird blog post you wrote about cheese or something. And that made me laugh.” And so I did a bit more and it’s, wait, okay, it’s okay to do blog posts about cheese, it is doing something.
Kate Toon:
So I love that there’s the data, but there’s also really interesting anecdotal information you can get from our customers. So you have embraced digital marketing, built your own site. You’ve got copy on there. You’ve written blog, post. You are obviously aware of keywords and whatever. How has grasping SEO changed your business? If you put yourself peer to peer with some of your, I would say competitors, but I’m sure naturopaths are all very lovely and friendly. Do you think it’s made a big difference to your business in terms of the amount of customers that you get?
Norelle Hentschel:
Yes, I think it has. And the proof of that was because during this whole pandemic I’ve relocated. I started out in Sydney and at the end of 2020, I moved to Brisbane, which where I’d grown up in around Brisbane and studied in Brisbane, but moved back here. And so I had to, not start entirely from scratch, but in terms of location SEO, it was a really good, I know you know, I was worried that it was going to take, I went, “Oh, I need a year to sort of get back up to where the practise was.” But by applying some of those location based SEO stuff, I was able to, yeah, probably about half that I reckon in about six months.
Norelle Hentschel:
I mean, it was a bit hard with all the little lockdowns and, it’s been 2021 was a bit crazy as is 2022. But all things considered, I was quite surprised with how the business has, gone up in this location. Because it is… location is a big part of what I do because I do see people, clients both face to face. I do online, which has been a great part of the, one of the upsides of the pandemic is that people sort of have gotten used to doing that. And they’re more comfortable with that. But yeah, most of my clients probably are face to face. Yeah, so.
Kate Toon:
That’s one of businesses, a shopfront businesses, worst nightmare, relocating.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
You’ve got to educate your existing clients, then you’ve got to reestablish yourself. So that’s amazing to hear that by applying some of the tactics that you’ve learned, you were able to not see such a massive dip, you were able to kind of take the customers you had with you and also get new ones in the area that’s wonderful. That makes me very, very happy and to have survived COVID.
Kate Toon:
COVID, yeah, is a major challenge for all of us. Look Norelle, it sounds a little bit patronising, but I’m so proud of everything that you’ve done with your site because you wouldn’t think that naturally a naturopath is going to fall into your understanding all this technical stuff and you have, and it’s amazing to see so well done.
Norelle Hentschel:
Thank you. Well, I suppose in some ways it’s not, I don’t think of it. Yes, there are technical aspects to it and if you… You should all do Kate’s course if you’re listening, but in the course you do have that quite a big module. I think it’s, yeah, on the technical aspects. And, but I find it’s actually more the, getting into the customer mindset. What are they using to search for you? Getting those keywords stuff done and putting them in there rather.
Norelle Hentschel:
And then as you always say, write for humans, not for Google. And Google is increasingly sort of doing that in terms of how it’s setting up it’s algorithms and all that kind of stuff. But the technical aspect is, I think that’s what I was most scared of initially. But now that I do it’s not so much. And I have a great website developer that does a lot of that for me now as well. So I don’t need to, I do know about it, but do I actually need to do it? No, I get him to actually implement and manage that aspect of it now so.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. I think that’s great
Norelle Hentschel:
[inaudible 00:22:44] for me.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. I think that’s great to kind of know how to do it, but then choose not to do it from an educated and empowered viewpoint. And again, those that statistics site that I was looking at earlier said that 15% of all search queries these days are formed as a question. So I think you’re so right about getting that customer insight, understanding what they’re searching for, what the questions they have and, it is a recipe. I mean, I call my course, The Recipe for SEO Success.
Kate Toon:
Naturopathy humans are all into kind of the right combination of ingredients to, improve your wellness. It’s not one magic pill, just like SEO isn’t, it’s a combination of things based on you and everyone’s different. So, I mean, there are similarities. Maybe I’m stretching the analogy there, but I’m going to, I’m going to keep going it with it. So imagine someone’s listening and they’re at the start of their wellness business and they are thinking, “Oh, this all sounds amazing. She sounds great.” What’s one tip you would pass on to somebody who is at the start of their journey.
Norelle Hentschel:
Well, I’d say definitely, learn it yourself. And when you’re creating your copy or writing your blog posts, something that I always do. And I suspect it might have been a template that I got through Digital Masterchefs is actually starting out with doing that keyword research. And you don’t need a lot of fancy tools. As I said, I don’t have any paid tools. I just use search console. And I also do have an AdWords account. So there is tools there. So I suppose that is kind of a paid tool, but you can also do it by just Googling it yourself and seeing what comes up and what Google suggests as well.
Norelle Hentschel:
So really write anything with that in mind. And then you look at, you’re not keyword stuffing, but make sure those terms are in there or variations of it, make sure it’s answering a question. Because the content that does, that will be the content that, drives things and don’t underestimate the, I’ve got a few blog posts that have probably driven, $30,000 worth of business to me over the years because people land on that. It’s answering their question, but then they go, “Oh, we actually want someone to guide us through this process.” And then they book in and become clients. So yeah, never underestimate that sort of longer form. Yeah. Slower burn.
Kate Toon:
That is amazing. I love that because I think a lot of people think blog posts are all about information and entertainment, which of course they are. And of course they are further from that return on investment, further from the conversion, but they can be the thing, it can be the tipping point that blog post, which positions you as an authority. As you said, if you’ve really understood what people are looking for and you’ve given them the answer, I got this silly thing, I talk about Norelle, which is the Clive Google factor. And it really applies to you because I always say, you know what, yeah, we know that Clive is 67.
Kate Toon:
He lives with his wife Doreen and he has a dog and he is this old, that doesn’t tell us anything about Clive. But if we know what Clive is searching for at 3:00 AM in the morning, if he’s typing in, why have I got a rash in my groin? And he comes across a post from you about using apples to rub on your groin. He will remember you. He will remember you, he will trust you and he’ll be like, “Well, she really sounds like she knows what she’s talking about, she sounds like someone I want to work with. She’s like someone I want to make an appointment with.” So I love that. I love that you’ve used content to build that relationship. And 30 grand of sales is nothing to sniff at. That’s amazing.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yeah. No. More than I would get off social media.
Kate Toon:
Yes.
Norelle Hentschel:
Other people have different, that’s still legitimate for many people.
Kate Toon:
Well but as I taught, it’s a recipe, a bit a sprinkle of social media.
Norelle Hentschel:
Yup. Exactly.
Kate Toon:
But the core ingredient is that keyword research in customer insight. I love that. Fantastic. So Norelle, where can we find out more about you?
Norelle Hentschel:
Well, you can check out my website, which is yourremedy.com.au and I’m on Instagram at yourremedy underscore and also on Facebook as Your Remedy Naturopathy. So, but I’m on, Instagram’s probably my main social channel that I play around with.
Kate Toon:
Fantastic. Well, I’ll include links to all those sites in the show notes. If you want to go and check out Norelle’s site and see what she’s been doing and read some of those blog posts. If you have diarrhoea, you know where to go. Anyway, thank you so much for coming on the show, Norelle. It’s been fantastic.
Norelle Hentschel:
Thanks Kate.
Kate Toon:
So that’s the end of this week’s show. If you have questions about SEO or digital marketing, head to my, I love SEO group on Facebook. And if you want some fabulous support, while you work on your business, whether it’s serviced or product based or you’re a naturopath, you can consider joining the Digital Masterchefs, you’ll find all kinds of support, training and freebies. In my exclusive VIP membership, it’s open again in three short weeks.
Kate Toon:
So check out the show notes or head to katetoon.com. Now I like to end the show with a shout out to one of my lovely listeners today it’s Margie Tiempo from the Philippines. Hello, Margie. “Great show. The show’s contents are truly fantastic. It has a wealth of valuable information. I wholeheartedly suggest this show.”Thank you so much. That’s very kind of you and thank you Norelle.
Kate Toon:
Thank you for listening. If you would like to leave a review that would be smashing, I’ll read it out and it makes me feel happy. And don’t forget to check out the show notes for this episode where we’ll drop in links to Norelle’s site and her Instagram so you can see the work that she’s done on her site. And also some of the tools that she mentioned, Google Search Console and a few other bits. So thanks for listening. And until next time happy SEO-ing.
