Sound Bite: Is SEO Still Necessary For Your Solo Business?

Watch the Episode on YouTube

Is SEO still relevant in the age of AI?

As AI tools continue to reshape how we search, communicate, and even run our businesses, some are wondering if the traditional SEO playbook still holds value.

In this short episode, we discuss the evolving role of SEO and what solopreneurs need to know to stay ahead.

Whether you’re just starting to build your online presence or looking to level up your strategy, this episode will help you make informed choices about where to invest your time and energy in a rapidly changing digital landscape.

Like the show? We'd love it if you'd leave a 5-star review!

Being a solopreneur is awesome but it’s not easy. It's hard to get noticed. Most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone...until now. LifeStarr's SoloSuite Intro gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one-person business. 

So, if you are lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, or are having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even just lonely running a company of one, click here to check out SoloSuite Intro!

Transcript

Carly Ries: 00:01

SEO, search engine optimization. This can be such a challenging thing for solopreneurs, especially if marketing is their main focus. But it's changing. And in the age of AI, things aren't what they used to be. And I have some thoughts on this and so does Joe.

Carly Ries: 00:20

And we discuss those briefly in this very short episode of the aspiring soulpreneur. Be sure to tune in. You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship. My name is Carly Ries, and my co host Joe Rando and I are your guides to navigating this crazy, but awesome journey as a company of 1. We take pride in being part of Lifestarr, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneurship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions.

Carly Ries: 01:00

We help people work to live, not live to work. And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you. So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the first time around, or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around. We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone.

Carly Ries: 01:23

So, Joe, my entire career has been in marketing, and I feel like I wanna say something that might be controversial within this space. today, we're addressing SEO for solopreneurs and just kind of the basics.

Joe Rando: 01:40

And SEO is search engine optimization.

Carly Ries: 01:42

Yes. Like, how to get found when somebody types something into Google, or other search platforms. So the thing that I really want to drive home with solopreneurs is I want you to ask yourselves if SEO is the right solution for you. A lot of times solopreneurs only need 3 or 4 clients. And, the SEO, the search engine optimization game can be a long play, and it could take months to get found on search, longer for some people, shorter i you, really get a winner piece of content.

Carly Ries: 02:21

But I don't think a lot of solopreneurs have time for that anymore. I think they want clients from the get go and really need that paycheck coming in so that they can either leave their current job or make their business profitable. And so before we dive into this, I just wanna throw that caveat in that, SEO has always been like, you need a website, you need to get found. You your keyword research. SEO SEO SEO, and I don't think it's necessary these days for a lot of solopreneurs.

Carly Ries: 02:47

So that is my first point.

Joe Rando: 02:51

Can I just add to that? So I agree with you. It's almost unwinnable for a lot of categories just because the big guys have won it. It's done.

Joe Rando: 03:01

And you're never gonna displace them at the top of Google for anything that's not really specialized. Do you remember the time we talked about the idea of becoming a ferret portrait painter for people with pet ferrets? Sure, you can rank for that, believe me, because there's no problem. Probably not a lot of searches on that, but you can get that. But the point is, I do think it's important, and I have seen this not work, but you type in somebody's name or the name of their business and it doesn't show up at the top of Google. if you type Joe Rando, you might not get me at the top, because, there are a number of us in the country.

Joe Rando: 03:39

But if you type Joe Rando LifeStarr, I'm showing up number 1. And you really, really want that to be true, and it isn't true for a lot of solopreneurs. They don't take it that far, and I really think you should. Somebody should be able to find you and see your website if they're interested in you.

Carly Ries: 03:55

Yes. That's a great point. The other thing I wanna say just for today's purposes, because when it comes to SEO, we could go into keyword research. We could go into the h one tags and the alt tags and what you should put the meta description.

Carly Ries: 04:10

And these are all the basic things that you should still do just to kinda dot your i's and cross your t's. I don't think we'd necessarily need to go into that for the short episode. If you do a quick Google search SEO one on one, you will find everything that I was just talking about. But what's funny is I said Google search, and what's interesting in the SEO world is just how it's kinda getting flipped on its head because of AI and the way that AI is finding answers for people. And I think the traditional rules of SEO are now changing.

Carly Ries: 04:47

I think of George B Thomas. He always talks about humans first, and I think it is more relevant now than ever. And when it comes to your content, your website, your promotional materials, everything, instead of thinking like, oh, keyword research, I think you need to be thinking about what does your audience want, how do you solve their problem, how do you convey that to them, and really resonate and be your authentic self. Gone are the days where you can just send, like, a blast promo out and hope it sticks. You need to really connect on a human level, and I think that is gonna be the biggest thing for SEO moving forward is to be the most human you can be in an AI world.

Joe Rando: 05:34

Dale Bertrand, talks about search. And he says this whole idea of keywords is out the window. He said, your content should be, first of all, you need to answer those questions, like you said, that the customers have, that your customers have. And it's good, Dale Bertrand says, to think about the questions that people that actually wanna buy are gonna ask. Quick story, but years ago at my last company, we were number 1 on Google for the search life in the 22nd century.

Joe Rando: 06:12

And the reason for that is not because we were futurists or anything, but because I had written a kind of a comic blog about shopping in the 22nd century because somebody had asked me appear on a panel talking about shopping in 10 years. I said, I have no idea what shopping is going to be like in 10 years. I can tell you what it's gonna be like in a 100 years because, you know, it's easier to spot long trends than to see the short ones. And that showed up for years. We were number 1 on Google for that search and did no good, never converted to customers.

Joe Rando: 06:46

So just being number 1 on Google does nothing. You really wanna be focused on people that are looking to buy what you sell. So that content, talk about the problems they're facing, the solutions that you provide, you know, be brand focused on yourself and what you're about. You know, create guides, worksheets, templates, checklists, these kinds of things that people use when they're making decisions. Marcus Sheridan is always talking about creating calculators and pricing things and anything where you can help people calculate something.

Joe Rando: 07:19

You know, quizzes, and surveys, those kind of, quizzes that you take, are you ready to be a solopreneur? People love those things. Those kinds of things can really drive traffic, and sometimes help you to find actual customers. So Yep. I really feel that's important.

Carly Ries: 07:36

The one caveat I have for SEO that I will say quickly is for local SEO. If you are only attracting local clients and customers, get that Google listing, get those reviews, really build that out and focus on local search terms that you can get found in your area. And, again, the reviews are huge. So really focusing your strategy around getting testimonials, 5 stars and all of that jazz. But that's only if you're only attracting people within your location.

Carly Ries: 08:05

If you can take anybody from anywhere in the country or even the world, SEO is a different ballgame these days. Local SEO, I still think is relevant and, helpful to focus on.

Joe Rando: 08:20

Well, just a really important thing, I heard from Neil Patel. they did a bunch of research. They found that, talking about AI, that human generated content, human generated content gets 5 times more traffic than AI generated content. And I think the reason for that is that, AI is really kind of like the average of everything.

Joe Rando: 08:45

Right? So it's kind of looking at everything out in the world and coming up with that average. So it's really kind of bland on its own. And so you really need that human component, and it's really showing up in terms of, I mean, 5 times more traffic. That's huge.

Joe Rando: 09:00

And the other cool thing is that low fi, low fidelity content that you with a selfie stick on a video talking into your phone while you're walking down the street is performing better than the high production stuff, which means Solopreneurs can make that stuff all day compared to, you know, the really high production stuff that's expensive. But that's actually doing better than the fancy stuff. Few other things about, just getting people driven to your site. Keeping your content fresh and updated is really important now. That makes a big difference.

Joe Rando: 09:32

And podcasting is significantly less competitive than blogging now. So if you're having a podcast, you're likely to get more traffic from the podcast than you will from putting the same amount of blogs out there. So there's just a lot more blogs. Podcasting is harder, but it produces the results. So just wanted to mention those 2.

Carly Ries: 09:53

But love putting blogs out. You can convert your podcast transcript into a blog post with creativity. You don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Joe Rando: 10:03

Sites with blogs get 75% more organic traffic, and they get 48% more backlinks. So you really wanna have a blog. I'm not saying not to have a blog, but having a podcast is another way to compete, and it's less competitive than the blog. So I think it's important to just, keep that in mind as you're doing this. You're not gonna play against the big guys, but you do wanna produce a website that's worth going to.

Joe Rando: 10:26

And, if you're thinking in terms of attracting your customers, it will help you to convert customers.

Carly Ries: 10:34

Yep. Well, Joe, I think that is a great place to end this soundbite episode. Listeners, we hope, you followed and you agreed with everything we said. If you don't, please let us know. Otherwise, we will see you next week on The Aspiring Solopreneur.

Carly Ries: 10:47

As always, leave those 5 star reviews, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, YouTube, the works. We so appreciate it. See you next time. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go.

Carly Ries: 11:07

So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At Lifestarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.