Episode 018: Everything Copywriting and SEO w/ Kaili from Reveal Studio Co.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to Everything SEO. I’m super excited. This will not be the first little interview that’s going live, but this is the first one I’m hosting. So, forgive me, but today we’re talking with Kaili from Reveal. She did my website copy that I’m absolutely in love with, and I used quite a few of her resources.

So I absolutely trust in her expertise, and I just wanted to talk to you about today about how copy kind of plays into your SEO. I’ve mentioned this before, and it’s even one of the things that I recommend doing before you do blogging, because if you send traffic to your website, but it’s not actually optimized, you’re Doing nothing.

Like you’re not going to be able to capitalize off of it. So without further ado, Kaili, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself? Yes. Hi, thanks for having me. So like you said, I’m a copywriter. I focus primarily on website copy and sales page copy. Websites are my first love.

They are so fun to write for me and I writing yours was a blast. So thank you for saying those kind things. I am the founder of reveal studio co. I create beyond writing website and sales page copy. I create a lot of templates and resources that help people who maybe want to do it themselves. They’re not ready to hire a copywriter.

Maybe it’s not in the budget, whatever it is. I still want to make sure that everybody out there can, you know, have really great copy, because It’s kind of a foundational part of owning a business, scaling a business, optimizing a business. If your messaging is unclear in the online space, especially, you’re going to have a tough time convincing people to buy or work with you.

So yes, yeah. I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve recommended a template of yours just because it is so ingrained and woven into everything on your website, like in, in your funnels. And if, you know, if. I have a client who wants to add their freebie at the bottom of their blog post, which is a pretty common ad.

I’m like, do we have, are we tracking these? Do we have something that they’re going to do afterwards? Like, what is their next step after downloading it? Because we have traffic here. You have something for them to do, but like what comes next? So that, that tends to be one of my most recommended is your freebie to pitch resource.

Actually. So I think the best place to start would maybe to be to ask. Where do you recommend starting? So when you do copy, like, where do you start? What is something that they need to focus on? Kind of like if they’re going to write their own copy or if they’re even just thinking about it. Um, cause I know when I approached you, um, I had obviously stalked you a little bit for Instagram before I bought.

And part of the reason that like I was held off on it was I was like, I don’t know if I need copy. Um, well, I knew I needed it to some extent, but I was like, is this, is this Something that I need right now. Can I just kind of get along with it? And it wasn’t until I was going more full time in my business and I was like, okay, I have, I’ve worked on my blog and now I have people come to my website and they’re doing absolutely nothing.

Like I had people checking out my services page. I had people going to my contact page, but like nobody was doing anything. My conversion rate was terrible. So I guess maybe what’s the true sign that maybe you need to tweak that copy real quick. So, I mean, number one, if it is in the budget, if you are capable of paying a copywriter, everyone should, unless you yourself are a copywriter.

I think it comes before anything else. You, you shouldn’t have a designer work on your stuff. There’s nothing for them to design if there’s not copy. Maybe what can come before copy would be photos, I guess, so that by the time the website is ready to go live, because photographers sometimes have a longer, Period of time when they take the photos, when they’re ready to go live.

Right. So maybe that, but I think Cardinal rule is if you can, you should, when it comes to copy, if you can’t invest, or maybe you’re a year in and you’re just now hearing this and you’re like, oh crap, I didn’t know that. Some signs that you should invest either in a copywriter or clean up your, try to clean up your copy yourself would be kind of like you just said, your website’s not converting.

So people are going there, but they’re not doing what you want them to do. You’re getting a lot of questions when you’re on a discovery call, and they are questions that you didn’t intend for that to be what the discovery call was about. Right? You’re like, okay, it’s obvious that something is unclear to people.

That’s a big, a big one. Yeah. You’re not making sales. You’re not converting anything. So maybe no one’s inquiring, or if you sell products, nobody’s buying. Those are all signs that the messaging on your website or on your shop or in your emails is unclear and people don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing.

And a copywriter. Is going to be able to come in and kind of identify maybe where the messaging gaps are happening and apply some sales psychology strategies to your copy so that when people arrive on your website or open your email, they know exactly what they should do and they feel excited to do that thing.

I think that goes really well with, um, blogging in general. One of the things that I do when I work with a client or when I recommend when people go to write their own blog content is that you use the messaging you already have. So if the messaging that you have isn’t clear, it’s not going to be clear in your blog post.

So, you know, if you’re talking about your offers on a sales page, I want you to talk about your offers the same way in your blog post. Like you need to carry it across and I think that’s just one of the other ways that it kind of impacts SEO is because when you’re talking about one thing on one page, you should be talking about it on another, like all of your web pages, all of your blog, it, it should have something to do to do with each other.

It like, if you’re a copywriter, you should be writing about things that are copywriting, not your, your kitchen remodel. So having that consistent messaging across the board really does help you show up in search, um, and does help conversions. 100%. One more thing I would add because I do think this is easier for people to grasp.

If you’re even considering hiring a designer for something, that is your cue that the first thing you should do is hire a copywriter. So if you realize you need a designer to design your website, okay, then that is your key that, oh, I need a copywriter first. If you realize I need a designer to design my sales page.

Okay, you need a copywriter. I think a lot of people it’s a lot easier for people to understand when they need to bring in a designer and they almost forget that number one designers are going to have a tougher time doing a good job and making their design effective if they don’t have high quality copy.

The point of design is to maximize a message and to make it easier and more fun to engage with. So if the message is not good, the copy isn’t good. A designer is going to have a really hard time making it effective. And then now you have a really pretty website with words that aren’t doing anything. For whatever reason, people tend to think, well, you know, I went to school, I went to college, I wrote reports, I got.

Good grades in English and they think that that means that they could be a good copywriter for themselves. They’re just two completely different skills. It would be the equivalent of saying like, well, like I took art class and I have colored and coloring books. So why would I hire a designer? It’s like, well, they’re not even remotely the same thing.

No, I can. I mean, I can attest for that. I have, I would just go for me for English and definitely cannot write my own copy. I feel like I was actually the worst person to talk about. I was like, I have no idea what to put, but that kind of leads me into what if so something that I suggest to clients specifically, or people who are reaching out is that they have like an optimized blog page.

I want to make sure that, you know, it’s good for SEO. So like everything structured properly, it’s aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate, but a lot of people Designers typically don’t do like one off. They’re like, I’ll do your, do your website, but it’s a little bit hard for them to say, if you’re already working on a template or you had, you DIY’d your website for any reason to have a designer, just do a blog one.

So a lot of people end up buying like a whole new template. Should they just fill out the template or how would you recommend going about that? Cause obviously we have, we have copywriting templates and then we have web templates, but. Well, I guess what would be the best way to bridge those together?

What’s interesting, a little future plug here, so this problem is one that the main designer I work with, Identity House, and I have been discussing for years, we are in the middle of launching a brand called Built for Dreamers, BFD, where it solves this exact problem, the design templates already have the copy template in them, um, because I totally agree, it is a little confusing, well, if I got the template, the design template, I feel like The thing is to fill in the sections with copy.

So you are working backward. You are doing design first. So to answer your question, I think ideally you write the copy first, and then you find a way to make it work in the template. Maybe you have to move some canvases around, switch some things up. Yeah. I mean, the copy should come first. Then there is no, I don’t, I don’t know how else to answer that.

Unless a copywriter worked with the designer on the template and really Was thoughtful in the order of sections. The copy needs to come first and you should most design templates are customizable enough that you can drag sections around and so it’s like if they said a banner should go here but when you wrote out your copy it’s a paragraph or a list you should be able to just pick a new canvas and move the banner down or, you know, vice versa.

But I would sit down and I would write your words first, get them to a place where you love them, and then figure out a way to make it work in the template. I would not use the template as the dictator of your copy. I think that’s a really good thought. I mean, I, I personally went through the template shopping myself and was guilty of hiring a website designer before a copywriter.

I just bought it. There’s pause on my project to make space for it, but would have definitely done it backwards if I could have, if I would have known, if I would have realized, but I definitely think that really plays into the user experience as well as, cause I mean, with, with SEO, there’s two different things.

We have, you know, user experience and then we have how we put keywords in our copy and how that works. And when we started working on my website, you asked me if I had any keywords and most of them came naturally in the copy. So I was like, just go with it because they’re all centered around my services.

And one thing that I recommend when people work with a copywriter is having a few keywords in mind, especially for those main pages, and asking the copywriter if they can, if they can integrate them. If it’s not possible, it’s totally fine. I, I recommend having the basics on your main pages for SEO. I recommend having the main like the basics on the main and your main pages for SEO instead of like deep diving into the copy, because ultimately your main pages they do need to rank, but as small business owners, we’re going to have a better chance for ranking for those long tail keywords, which just aren’t possible in the main pages.

So I would rather someone have a copywriter put their all into the main pages. Making copy that converts versus trying to shove a keyword in when it doesn’t feel natural, let, let an SEO go into your back end and put it on your page titles and your metas, because that will, as long as they’re all around the same topic, the same industry, the same services, it will help you rank right, like all at the same time.

So I feel like it has a really good relationship copy and SCF. But anyways. I think we have a really good amount to kind of work with. So I would love for you to kind of provide an actionable tip. I want, you know, everybody who’s listening to be able to take something away from today and kind of implement it.

So even if it’s only in 15 minutes or they can sit down and do it themselves. I would love them to be able to take that next first step. I love that. So I think the easiest thing that I can suggest somebody does that I can do for them is on my site. I have a free resource called web copy prep questions and it kind of walks you through each main page of your website, right home about services.

And it asks, like, have you done this? Have you done this? Or, you know, think about this. Here’s what we need to answer on this page. So it just kind of guides you. That would be my first tip if you’re looking for something completely free. If you have a little bit of money and you want to invest, well, another free tip.

There should be somebody in your life who you know is going to be really, Blunt and honest with you who also maybe does not fully understand what you do. Okay, I know some women are side eyeing their boyfriends right now. I think a really easy way to understand where there are gaps in your website is to ask that person to read it just once and then say, like, were there any questions?

Were there any areas that caused you to pause or you didn’t know what to do that? You want your website to work for people who have never heard of you before. Ideally, they have ideally, and especially in the online industry, they’ve maybe engaged with your instagram. They follow you on threads. They’ve read your blog, whatever, but we want it to work regardless.

Maybe they literally just found you on the Google page and now they’re on your website. So ask somebody in your life who’s going to be honest with you to tell you where they got confused, where they had to reread, where they didn’t know what they were supposed to do next, and then use that as kind of a guide on areas that could be improved messaging and clarity wise.

Get the free resource from my shop. If you have a low budget, you should Find a copywriter who can do website audits so that you’re not paying them to rewrite everything. You’re basically paying them to redline your web copy and tell you, hey, this section could be improved by doing X, Y, and Z. Here are some ideas for that.

They’re not going to rewrite it for you. You know, remember, this is still an entry level service, but they are at least going to tell you how to improve the conversions, how to improve the copy. And then at the end of the day, if you are able to invest it. Get a copywriter, just come in and redo it, take it off your plate.

Doesn’t need to be something that you are actively trying to fix. There are professionals. I would say, and it’s, yeah, for me, it’s definitely paid off. And I absolutely love reading what I say, but the tip about having your significant other or even just a friend who’s really blunt and maybe doesn’t know what you do, read that.

That is such a good one. I mean, I cannot tell you how many times that I’ve talked to my, talked to my own husband and he’s like, I’m I love what you do. I don’t know what it is. Yes. And so if if they can’t get an answer after reading your website, if they are done with your website and their response is like, Yay, I love it.

But what? Still, we have a problem, but they should be able to read your website and then tell anyone what you do. I think that’s a really good point. I also think that the website audit is a really good like partial place and. You’re right, it is important if it for, like you were saying, that if someone just comes from anywhere, they should be able to understand like a whole thing about Google and getting this traffic through SEO is that, you know, a lot of these people have never heard of you.

They are not searching you by your brand name. It’s really cool if you have a strong brand presence and they are searching you by your brand name, but that comes after a few years of having a business and building that online presence. But in the beginning, they’re looking for answers to their problems, and that’s where the long tail keywords come in, and then they find your website, so it’s very likely that they have no idea who you are, and have no context to what you do.

I mean, it could be anything. But I think that puts us in a good place for today. Did you have anything else you wanted to leave us with? I don’t think so. I think we really covered it. It’s just that if you want, I think you said this at the beginning and it’s worth reiterating. You’re going to invest in SEO and you’re going to send more people to your website.

You don’t want to be sending them somewhere where they got there and then they don’t know what to do next or they choose not to take a next step because they’re confused. They think the copy is bad. They don’t like your vibe. So the copy, especially on your website, is just really, really, really important.

It’s not an area to slack on. I say, we have to remember that we are not, we’re not influencers. We, I mean, are, we have a huge quarter social into our business, but we’re not influencers. We’re not technically bloggers getting a lot of website traffic. Just the traffic is not going to bring us a couple hundred dollars a month, a thousand dollars through, through placement ads.

Like it would a food blogger or a mom blogger. We have to have sales. We have to have clients. To kind of keep it going precisely, but I think that is a good place to end. I hope that you got something good out of today’s episode all pretty much everything that we talked about. I’ll have in the show notes down below for you to peruse at your own free time, but until next time.

Thank you.