Episode 017: Everything Branding and SEO w/ Callie from Honeycomb

Hello, hello, and welcome back to everything SEO. I’m super excited to have Honeycomb Create. So today it’s Callie, of course, but today we’re going to talk about branding and kind of how it Goes into seo. I do think branding is such a foundational piece of all this which is why I kind of wanted to kick off this interview series with branding because you can’t get into like copywriting you don’t really want to get on pinterest You don’t want to design your website and you really don’t even want to blog unless you’re like super comfortable and kind of confident in your in your branding for sure because it really does Impact all that and with the google leak not too long ago.

We kind of learned that branding does Play a role. So if you have a strong personal brand, you’re more likely to show up in search and it kind of just builds builds out into everything else. So if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself. Yeah. Hi, I’m Kelly. I am a brand strategist and designer. I’m based in Huntsville, Alabama, but I work with clients around the world to build brands and websites that are strategic and just as beautiful.

So we focus on really refining a brand strategy before we do anything. And if there is one thing that I am passionate about besides really good food and really good wine. It’s It is brand strategy and how critical it is and how clarifying it can be to really understand who you are and what your brand is all about.

So when you say brand strategy, like how does that different than what we think about for just like branding? Yeah, so oftentimes I see people talk about branding and they completely overlook brand strategy as a part of that. And one clarifying point is that your brand is not your logo, which is kind of the typical, like, Thought is that it’s just the visuals whenever we talk about branding, especially in the online space Typically people are talking about the visuals of their brand and that is like a micro piece Of what your whole brand should be And that is where I see people making the mistakes is that they want a really pretty logo But what really actually sets your brand apart is the strategy behind your design and all of those little things that go into and are complemented by your design.

So brand strategy, whenever I talk about that, I’m talking about your tone of voice, your personality, who you’re talking to, getting really clear on who that is, who your community is for, who it’s not for. Who your offers are for who they’re not for and the level of clarity I’m talking down to like. If your brand was walking down the street, what is it wearing?

What type of music is it listening to? Because all of those things, at the end of the day, we start to recognize patterns within our clients and within the people that we’re working with. And all of that goes back to who we are as a brand and some of the strongest personal brands that you see out there are so true to who they are and true to who they are, sometimes to a fault, but they are so true to who they are, that we have zero questions about whether or not we are Are really into what they’re doing or really not into what they’re doing or whether we’re part of their community or whether we’re not a part of their community and that is what a good brand does is it has some level of kindful exclusion where you understand whether or not you want to be a part of it.

Absolutely. And I feel like that’s great information. You need like a brand strategy if you’re going to plan to work with even a copywriter, or if you move on to design or, you know, you do SEO because SEO, we’re picking out keywords that are based on, you know, who you want to talk to and what you’re doing.

And so we need to have all this information to pick the best keywords to make sure you’re showing up in the right places on Google. And when we move on to say your content strategy, which you’re blogging, We have to know who you want to talk to, because first impressions are so, so important to, you know, Google, Google traffic, they, they don’t have like, they’re not warmed up to you, they probably never heard of you, they probably never met you, assuming that we’re, you know, we’re small businesses, we don’t have the same presence of like Walmart, you know, you go on Walmart’s, Walmart’s website, even if you’ve never shopped from Walmart, you know who Walmart is.

You don’t have that same, same benefit as a small business owner. So the first impression to see, you know, okay, this is someone I want to stick around, stick around and learn more about this feels like my vibe versus, you know, someone who you go to a website and you’re like, I don’t, I don’t know anything.

I don’t know what’s happening here. I don’t know if this is for me or not. So I do feel like it kind of comes in there a little bit more. So where do you start with branding? Well, typically with our clients, whenever I’m working one on one with someone, we start with prep work with a lot of questions. I love asking questions to get to the root of what people are trying to say, because ultimately And I find this to be true across many different services.

A lot of times business owners have a hard time conveying what they actually want. They can tell you what they are inspired by. They can tell you what other people are doing that they think is successful. They can even sometimes tell you what they’re doing that’s successful or not working. But ultimately getting to the actual core of what they are seeking is a lot more difficult.

And the only way that I have found to do that successfully, time and time again, is through a lot of questions. Really targeted questions about what it is that you are going after. And Not only that, but what is it that you actually want to say through your brand, because I’m a big believer that a template DIYing can, can get you places.

But when you are really establishing something you want to do for a long time, You need to really understand how you are different from literally everyone else that’s going to come across your brand. Going back to Walmart. This is a key reason why Walmart and Target are two different audiences, typically.

When we think of Walmart and Target, we know that there is a large brand overlap between the things that they offer. But they do it in wildly different ways. I mean, they could not be more different in the way that they approach their marketing and the way that they do things and the reason that it works is because they are consistent.

They’re not trying to necessarily compete with each other. Their messages aren’t even trying to compete with each other. You just know whether or not you’re going to go to Walmart for something or whether you’re going to target for something, and it’s very clear what those value propositions are. For everyone who’s in an industry, which is most of us that have multiple people doing what we’re doing, just the reality, that’s a really good takeaway for us to say, we don’t have to be out here doing things in like some special, proprietary, unique way to actually be effective.

Walmart and Target are not like reinventing the wheel over here. They’re essentially department stores for everyday goods. They are simply understanding who their audience is. They are understanding who they want to approach, and then they are consistently saying, doing, sharing the same things over and over and over again.

Their colors are everywhere. Their logos are everywhere. They’re doing it strategically. Their stores are designed to remind you about the branding all the time. Walmart’s blue, Target’s red. We know that because they have done it so effectively. And so for a good brand to really stand out, it’s not necessarily about being proprietary or doing something that is like revolutionary.

You can do that, but a more effective strategy is to say, okay, I am one of dozens of brand designers that someone can hire. But our differentiator, the biggest thing that I do differently than other brand designers, is I deliver in a week. And I have done that for four years and I’ve refined my process and I have my own kind of way that I do it and we have this really just special relationship that we have with our clients and we have a Particular way that we like to deliver things And I didn’t do that same process over and over and over and over and over again It is so refined at this point that every single client gets that same You Like Ritz level experience when they work with us, but I’m not special.

I’m a brand designer. I’m a designer amongst hundreds, thousands of brand designers. And that is not what makes my brand special that I have this proprietary thing. It is the client experience that we deliver, and it’s the way that we do it within our own brand. It’s the way that we talk about the things that we do.

It’s the way that we present our work and the way that we do it, and that is what makes a brand special. It’s, and that’s what makes a brand memorable at the end of the day. We’re not trying to Ram in the wheel. I want people who experience our brand and see it for the first time to be like, that’s for me.

That’s the experience I want. That’s who I want to be with. And that’s who I want to work with. And when you have that visceral reaction to something, that’s an effective brand and the visceral reaction can actually go both ways. You can be disgusted or you can be obsessed and but both of those reactions come from a brand that knows who they are and doubles down on it.

And that’s where. The effectiveness comes from I think it’s a really good point. I myself included, you know, I went to do my branding and my copywriting and I was like, Oh, my God, what’s my differentiator? I do the same thing is, you know, there’s a SEO group for women and there’s like 30, 000 people in there.

I do the same thing in some capacity is all of these different women’s women’s all these different women and I really had to step back and say, what is like my thing? And it’s that I want you to be comfortable. I want you to be, you know, cozy when you’re thinking about these things. I don’t want you to be feel feel like I’m throwing technical jargon at you.

And I want you to feel comfortable when you consume any of the information that I’m providing or when we’re chatting or. You know, you’re on my Instagram, like, I want you to see that, you know, maybe my kid knocked down my poster in the background and it’s just there because I just haven’t gotten to it yet.

It is what it is. So that’s a really good point. And it comes over. And like you’re saying, showing up wherever you are in the same way. And that really comes over into, you know, your blog content and how you take that blog content and put it other ways, you know, um, SEO. Goes into podcasting, it goes into Pinterest, like all these different platforms come in and can influence your SEO.

So if you’re showing up consistently everywhere, it’s going to give you a better little boost than it would if. You’re act, you know, talking about your kitchen renovation here versus coming over here and talking about branding. So those are two different things. Yeah, and I would take that a step further and say that your investment in whatever it is that you’re going to do after you address your brand is going to benefit greatly.

And you are going to save potentially thousands of dollars if you get the branding piece right. If you really understand who you are as a brand, you’re going to hire better service providers because they’re going to be aligned with your goals and your understanding of who you are. You’re going to get better results from those service providers because you have things that they can work with.

I mean, if you hire a Pinterest agency, they need a really good website, they need really good branding, they need clear color palettes and typography. All of those things go into effective Pinterest pins and ultimately driving traffic back to wherever you’re trying to drive traffic back to. You’re going to hire so much better and you’re going to see better results and ultimately you are going to be happier because there are less revisions, there’s less room for questions because you have buttoned up so many things.

Before you hire people, I see way too many people hiring social media agencies and Pinterest agencies and website designers before they have figured out who they are as a brand. And I’m not saying you can’t do that. I’m just saying that there’s a potential that you are going to end up regretting that investment, not getting the most out of it.

And Really having to defer to another service provider to fill in those gaps for you. And that may not be their area of expertise and they may not know your business as well as you do. And ultimately, no one is going to care as much as you do. And you are the one setting the direction. Too many people are giving away their power whenever it comes to their brand, hoping that someone else is going to tell them who they need to be, rather than fully owning that for themselves, and that is hard work, and it is not always, like, the sexiest work, because it’s not brands and logos, and like, it’s not the design stuff that gets you there, but it’s I can promise you that by doing that work, by digging into who it is that you want to be, and who it is that you want to talk to, and how you want to do that, that is just It’s going to pay dividends later on in your journey, and it doesn’t mean that you can’t change, but it does mean that you have to start somewhere and, um, figure it out from that point.

Yeah, and that, I mean, before I work with someone, I talk to them and I’m like, hey, you know, are you, are you sure this is, this is your brain, like, this is your services, this is what you want to do, because once we start creating content for it, That’s it. If you start ranking for something and then you’re like three months later, you completely flip, not like shift a little bit, but like you’re like, I don’t want to do this at all anymore.

I’m going to do something completely opposite. The work, the amount that you’ve paid me, everything like that, it’s not going to do what you needed it to do anymore at all. And it feel, it does feel uncomfortable. I think that’s a great sign that, you know, if you’re, you’re hiring people and, you know, you’re not getting the right results, but you feel like they’re doing their job.

And you still feel like, I feel like they’re not getting me or, you know, just doesn’t sound like I want it to sound. Or we’re not, we’re not seeing the results that I thought it was. It, it might be time to do some inner reflection and say, am I actually clear on what I want to do? Am I clear on how I want to sound?

Because it’s likely they’re pulling from stuff that you’ve already created. They’re pulling from stuff that you provide. Um, so if that is unclear, they’re going to be unclear. So that inner reflection might be needed. And it does feel uncomfortable. As someone who’s done branding it, it did feel uncomfortable.

Um, because I’m, I’m not, The most confident person and I’m not very extroverted. So my little introvert self was like, Oh, no, I gotta think about these things. So it did feel uncomfortable, but it was absolutely worth it in the end. And some of my my most recent content has been some of my best. It definitely shows.

Yeah, absolutely, and I find that to be the case, too. A lot of times when clients come to us and they are looking for branding, they start the process really timid, and that is so common. Like if you are feeling overwhelmed about the branding process, if you feel scared out of your mind about what could happen in that process, you are not alone.

You are probably in the majority. I find that it’s rare that someone is just, like, super, super confident about, like, going into that process because there’s always this fear. That you get to the other side, and you’re misunderstood, and it’s not conveyed the way that you would like, and then you’re owning a brand that doesn’t feel like you.

And I think the best way to avoid that is, if you were going to DIY this on your own, to really spend 90 percent of your time in reflection, and 10 percent of your time on Pinterest. Mhm. Do not start on Pinterest because you will end up in a comparison rabbit hole that is not healthy for any of us. No, it is not.

And at this point in, in my process, I actually largely avoid Pinterest at all because I’m trying to pull inspiration from real life or from things that I see around me. And I think the best thing that someone can do whenever they’re thinking about their branding and they’re really wanting to start this process and maybe they can hire someone, maybe they can’t, the best thing you can do regardless is take a walk, take a walk and put on some music that really gets you into a good mindset.

And think about who it is that you want to be through your business and who you are as a person, because who you are as a person is a direct reflection into your brand. You cannot, well, you could, but it’s going to be hard to build a brand that requires you to be The biggest extrovert. If you are the world’s biggest introvert, that is going to be really, really hard for you.

And ultimately, you’re not going to show up on Instagram. You’re not going to show up in your newsletter or your blog or anything like that because you are not comfortable in the brand that you created. It’s like building a modern home and you’re really meant to restore a Victorian like that. They just don’t it’s not who you are and so many of us want to and I think this is just like a human tendency to kind of separate ourselves from our business to either Be bigger than our businesses because we don’t think that people will trust us.

Otherwise or to you know, make ourselves infinitely smaller Because we don’t think that people will be into our personality or anything. And I think that’s one of the biggest mistakes that we could make in our brands. Because the minute that you start, and I see it all the time with clients, the minute that you give somebody something that feels like them.

That resonates with them, that is so aligned with who they are, that they cannot help but to, like, burst into tears or, you know, have the biggest smile on their face that you’ve ever seen. That’s when you’ve done it. That’s when you’ve nailed it. Because you are much more likely to use that brand than you are any other brand that exists.

And that’s why copying what someone else does is. Rarely going to work. It has to be you. It has to feel like you. It has to work in the way that you work the way that your brain works. Not all of our brains work the same. Like your brain needs to work with the way that your brain works. And that is what is missed in the conversation of diluting a brand down to a logo because it is missing.

Ultimately, it is so much more than that, and it should be more than that. We are more than that. I mean, it would be terrible if I, like, got, you know, summed up by my glasses that I wore. That’s essentially what we’re doing whenever we say that branding is just a logo. It’s ignoring all of those other beautiful parts of the thing that people are actually drawn to, because the logo is just something they’re seeing.

It’s not why they’re hiring you, ultimately. And it’s just a, it’s just a pretty piece. Although I do love my logo. Yes. But I completely agree. Kind of taking it into the design aspect, I was just thinking about this. How do you take accessibility into consideration? Because part of, you know, showing up and, And considering SEO is making sure that our, our websites, our branding, our text on our website is user accessible.

So how do you feel about like super sent then typographies or how, how do you put, like, if you do use them, do you have like an alternate you recommend? Yeah. So when I am doing anything, I mean anything, I take a look at it from a lot of different viewpoints and I even run it past. My team members because they’re all going to see something a little bit differently and one of the biggest things that I have focused on in, I would say, the past I would really the past four years has been a deep focus on this is legibility and creating things that are super clear to like a four year old.

You know, maybe they can’t read the word, but they can see the word, and they can make out all the letters of the word, and they can really understand it, because I actually had someone reach out to me who, she was hard of hearing and she told me, and this, this comment changed my life and it was not even about design, but she said, you put captions on all of your videos and I can’t tell you how much of a difference that makes.

I watch every single one of your videos because they have captions on them. And I had never once, I honestly did it for myself because I wanted to make sure that, you know, I could. You know, watch my videos and not have to hear my own voice. And I, that comment changed the way that I viewed literally everything that I do in my business to say, Okay, that for me was just kind of a given and that was something that I wanted to do.

And accessibility is something that I think is probably one of the most ignored. Principles and design. So whether it’s color contrast, which is something I focus on a lot, that’s something particularly you can see that with co work. Co work is like high color contrast. That was my goal for that brand. I was super excited about really incorporating a lot of bold color in there because that level of contrast really can help people to see what you were trying to convey.

And that’s why you can see sometimes on, um, This is an example like a hot pink background. I did a lot of like these bold pinks and blues on the site, but you will rarely see me overlay that with white text because that is actually not as easy to read as putting a white background on that text and having that kind of stand off the page a little bit.

It may not be as aesthetically pleasing all the time, but my goal is for people to read the words on the screen, not be wowed by the aesthetics of what they’re reading on the screen, and it is very easy to get caught up in wanting to have this Ethereal, beautiful museum worthy website, but at the end of the day, we want people to read the words that we have spent a lot of money on or spent a lot of time on.

And we also don’t want to exclude people simply because they are hard of hearing, hard of seeing. You know, these. These things that are simply, you know, factors in their life. They’re just facts of who they are. I would never want someone to feel like they can’t interact with my brand simply because Of those factors, and so I do try to go out of my way to make sure that what we build is accessible, but going back to like tactical things, then fonts, I just generally avoid and that that’s also a personal choice.

I just don’t personally like them in design. That is. Just my own personal taste. So I typically avoid those. But if I do use them, I’m trying to use a heavy enough weight of that font that it is clearly legible. So I’m not trying to use something where you can hardly see it. So hairline, um, anything hairline, I typically avoid.

Um, And on even font weights, I’m looking at regular or medium typically rather than light because even light on a website print is a little bit different. I’m actually working on a print piece right now. Print is a little bit different. You can get away with light there, but regular and medium are usually where I’m leaning towards and bold.

I do a lot of. Um, contrasting typography. So, um, if I really want someone to see something, it’s going to be in a bold font way, uh, so that they can clearly understand that that’s, that’s what they’re, they’re trying to go after. Thank you. It’s something I kind of pushed towards people. I’m like, let’s make sure that, you know, your content is readable.

Let’s remember that people are going to, are looking at these on, on, like on, on their computer screens, but also on phone screens and it can be hard to read. It can be hard to see. And, you know, on the SEO side, like we go into image, I’ll text that, you know, it’s not just a place to put our keywords. It is a place to make sure that it can be understood, give context about the image and just, Make sure our websites are more accessible because that is a part of SEO, but I do in the future plan Do you have like a dedicated us?

Dedicated episode for all the things that we can do to make our websites more accessible because in the end it benefit There is no downside. Yeah, what is the downside of making an accessible website? There is no downside It’s a little bit of time on our part. Yeah, I would take it a step further and say there’s no downside to making your social media accessible either.

And that is something I’m actively working on. I am not the best at putting alt text for my images and things like that in all of my posts. But I, that is something that I am aiming to be better at. That’s really on my priority list. Is making my social media as accessible as possible because you get a minute and a half for someone to see something and there’s no reason if we’re spending our time, hours of our time, batching social media why we can’t just take it one step further to make it just that much more accessible, whether that’s adding captions, whether that’s adding alt text about what your image contains, those little touches are So important in the grand scheme of running an ethical, sustainable business, and it’s something I have focused more and more on as my business has a ball.

It’s something I really didn’t know a lot about whenever I first started designing, and when you learn about it, it’s one of those things that you sort of. You can’t take your eye off of it after you know it. Once you’re aware of it, you’re like, oh my goodness. Yeah, and, and so it’s something that I’m continually learning more about and continually trying to be better at, but you’re right, there’s all these little things that we can overlook easily, like alt text on images, even the, the size of things, I cannot tell you how much it drives me crazy.

To see the size of certain texts. And I actually, I just, my co work postcards, I’m like embarrassed. I’m getting them reprinted because they printed slightly too small. And my husband has a pretty high prescription and he was like, that’s just too small. So even things like that, I’m, you know, it’s a cost for me, but I’m willing to get that reprinted because.

And I will go through the ones that I have, don’t get me wrong, but I’m willing to get those reprinted so that they have a larger text and I adjust the design, but we cannot let our desire for something to be beautiful supersede people’s ability to consume the things that we’re creating. Absolutely. Um, so we’ve had a really good conversation today.

I feel like we touched on a lot of things, so let’s go ahead. And if you had one thing, like someone can walk away from today and maybe. put it into action or change the way they’re thinking about branding, what would it be? I would say set aside some time in your calendar in the next week. And I want you to take a walk, and I want you to reflect on a few questions.

I want you to think about who it is that you are trying to serve in your brand and get super, super specific on who that person is. Who is the person who is going to experience the most benefit from what you have to offer? And then I also want you to think about what impact you want your brand to have.

What are the things that you want people to say about your brand? What are the things you want them to feel when they experience your brand? And what are the things that you want them going and telling a friend about whenever they talk about who you are? Those two questions alone are going to open up a lot of Ideas for you, and what I want you to do on your walk is have your notes app out be safe about it But have your notes app out and take down some notes as you’re walking and think about those things that come up and Sit on them.

I don’t want you to take action on them right away. Just sit on them and let things evolve over the next couple of days and see where that takes you. In terms of thinking about all of the things that you have going on right now with your social media, your website, and your branding, are those things aligned with those two questions?

And if they’re not, that gives you a starting point for what you want to refine and change. I think that’s a really good starting point. All right, so if someone wants to work with you, how would they do that? Yeah, so I have two ways to work with me now. I have Honeycomb, which is my design agency. You can work with us on Brand in a Week or Website in a Week, which are our two signature services for done for you brand and website design.

I would love to chat with you about your website needs. Those are particularly great for established entrepreneurs who are rebranding, but we also do work with people who are just getting started, particularly if you’re getting started on Shopify, e commerce, we do work with a lot of brands, their brand in a week on their Shopify stores.

The other way to work with me is my new brand called Cowork are just getting started, Cowork is a resource hub and shop for creative entrepreneurs. The ones who support them can work with me one-on-one with a brand brainstorming session or a co-working session. Or you can take advantage of all the free resources that are in the resource hub, Including some of your favorite service providers like the combo mama who is featured in there. If you are looking to hire someone that is not me, you can certainly find them there, But those are the two ways to be able to work with me Perfect, everything, of course, will be in the show notes, but thank you all for listening and I can’t wait to share my next episode next week.

And that’s it for today. Thank you.