LIST BUILDING LIVE: SEO and Website Wins with Leanne Wong

LIST BUILDING LIVE: SEO and Website Wins with Leanne Wong

Pat Flynn: Hey, it’s Pat Flynn, and you’re listening to List Building Live, our first ever virtual audio summit right here on the SPI Podcast, where each day we release about six mini episodes to help you grow your email list. Why? Because you don’t own social media, but you should own your audience. So each day for three days in a row, we are bringing you people directly from Liz’s and my communities to share what’s working to grow your email list today.

That’s right, no quote unquote experts or eight-figure entrepreneurs talking about what worked for them years ago, just regular creators like you who are working towards making a living online. Enough talking. Let’s get into it.

Liz WIlcox: All right, Lianne, what is one way you’ve been growing your email list lately?

Leanne Wong: Hi, Liz. Thanks for having me today. So one way that we’ve been growing our email list lately is with Google organic marketing, which is SEO, search engine optimization. So we set up our website, our blog content with SEO in mind, making sure it is search engine friendly and that it can rank on Google and sometimes get picked up by AI platforms.

And then we attract that Google traffic or that organic search engine traffic to our website. And using some of the email marketing membership strategies from EMM, we try to turn that traffic into leads, into subscribers who are, who will be in our community. So, um, I think our main strategy, uh, to attract that traffic and to grow our email list is to create just a lot of blog post content that can rank well on Google, that can drive a sufficient amount of traffic to the website, and have opt-ins in every blog post to, um, capture that traffic and turn that user into a subscriber

Liz WIlcox: Okay, so talk to me about the blog posts and how do you know, number one, what people are searching for to write the blog post, and then number two, what lead magnet or, like, what am I going to put in that blog post to attract people to join the list?

Leanne Wong: Yeah. So we do some keyword research, um, with SEO tools. Some really good ones are Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, Semrush, and tools these days can find keyword ideas really quickly, so you could find hundreds or even thousands of keyword ideas related to your niche and topic that people are searching for. And one tactic to find good keywords are to look at search volume and keyword difficulty numbers, so you are, um, targeting keywords that people are searching for that can actually bring in traffic to your site and are easy to rank for with low difficulty.

So we target those keywords, we research them with these SEO tools, and create the best, uh, content, the best blog post that can rank for those keyword searches. And for opt-ins, we try to create a freebie related to that topic. So maybe if I had a blog post about how to do SEO, I would have a freebie about, “Hey, can you…

You can download this guide about SEO 101 and get this blog post as a resource in your inbox,” or, “To learn more about, um, SEO, you can download this other related SEO guide.” So just tying in the blog post topic with, um, a freebie that you’ve created.

Liz WIlcox: Okay. So each blog post has a, a different freebie or content upgrade.

Is that correct?

Leanne Wong: Yeah. We try to diversify the number of freebies that we have on the website. I used to have just one signature primary freebie that I drive, um, most of my website traffic to. Now I have more of a diversified library of resources, so every blog post has a relevant lead magnet or a really enticing one for people to sign up for.

Liz WIlcox: Okay, so now let’s talk about time, right? Because a lot of people will say like, “Oh, SEO, this is a long-term strategy,” right? It’s not like, you know, you’re gonna post an Instagram Reel and go viral, and suddenly you’ve got 10,000 people on your email list. So number one, I’d love to know, like how long are you taking to write these blog posts in the first place?

Leanne Wong: So before when we did not have AI tools, like when we did not have any kind of automation, like say in 2018, that could take days, um, to write like a high quality in-depth article that ranks well on Google. Now you could write, um, a high quality long form content within an hour or two, but you still need to, um, take time and, and effort to make it SEO friendly, to add in your own spin to it, to make it original, and not get caught up in any of that Google spam detection that might hurt your rankings.

So I think just having the right blog post idea in mind, having an outline, and using some AI assisted workflow, you produce an article, like a high quality article, in maybe an hour or two

Liz WIlcox: Okay, that’s epic. Listen, if you’re looking to grow your email list and you wanna monetize your business, right? You don’t wanna just have, like, a hobby where you’re posting videos online and praying for the best.

Things do take time, and like Lianne just said, you know, now we have tools that kind of speed up the process, but it’s still… Anything worth doing is worth taking the time to do, right? And so I just wanna emphasize that because there’s a lot of people out there that will, you know, sell you a webinar or sell you on a webinar of get 1,000 leads in the first 30 days or, you know, whatever, right?

And it, it’s, it’s sexy and it’s exciting to think, “Oh, I can just post a video,” or, “I can just write a blog post,” or whatever. But it’s really important to understand that this does take some work. And it can be fun, right? Like, write the blog posts you want to write, you know, do the keyword research. You know, what is your unique take on, you know, what people are searching for?

If y’all go to LizWilcox.com/blog , like, you will see the most ridiculous blog posts of, like, about email marketing and… But they’re fun. They’ve got fun pictures. They’ve got those content upgrades Lianne is talking about, and y’all, those rank, okay? And I… What Lianne hasn’t mentioned is, you know, you can also get suggested by AI, right?

Like, if If you’re in ChatGPT or something, and you’re asking it questions about, you know, let’s say email marketing, you know, the bot might suggest me, and I’ve actually had not just leads, you know, “Oh, I found you through ChatGPT,” but people that say, “Oh, Claude suggested your membership to me, and so I… You know, it literally gave me the sales page, and I signed up within minutes of knowing who you are,” right?

And so I l- am so excited to bring Lianne in because, you know, a lot of people’s, “Oh, SEO is dead.” It’s not dead. It’s, it’s changed. It’s evolved just like anything else, so I’m really excited to bring this topic up. Thank you so much, Lianne.

Leanne Wong: And I think one more thing I want to add to that is the content you create on your website that is search engine friendly, and if it’s ranking on Google, so if it’s optimized for search discovery, that article can continue to bring in people, leads to your website, like, long after its publish date.

So maybe you’ve spent a couple hours or maybe half a day working on a really good piece of content, and that content is ranking now, like, today on Google. Four years later, it can… And if you haven’t deleted that article, it can continue to work for you, like how it is now with AI searches. It can continue to show up in other platforms as well.

So think of it as, I think, something that will continue to have legs long after its publish date.

Liz WIlcox: Seriously, I mean, a lot of you listening have pro- you know, you’re, you found Pat Flynn probably from an article he wrote 10 to 15 years ago, right ? Like, it really does have that lasting power. So I love that so much, and the last thing I will add before we share Lianne’s way to get on her email list is I have also set up my homepage so that when people come to it, it’s optimized for you to sign up, for you to get on my email list, right?

And so right at the beginning, you know, I’ve got, like, this hot pink button in the top right-hand corner, and it says, you know, like, free swipes, and then I ask… You know, the whole story, if you go to LizWilcox.com, there’s a whole story that I’m telling you of, “Hey, if you are X person, your next step is Y. Y is my lead magnet,” right?

And so it’s this storytelling, and on the homepage- itself, I have five, or I ask you five different times to join my email list. And that, you know, if you’re getting that traffic, ’cause a lot of my traffic will come from articles other people write about me as well. You know, I’ve been in a podcast interview, or they’re reviewing my membership, or, you know, they’re suggesting some of my products.

And so I actually do get quite a bit of traffic to my homepage, and so I’ve set that homepage up for success for the leads. So, ooh, I’m just, I’m getting excited thinking about people going in and being like, “Oh, okay, let me, let me go into my, let me write my first blog post,” or, “Let me rearrange my About page,” or whatever.

Like, I’m getting excited genuinely.

Leanne Wong: Yeah, update your website. Like, people need to find, like, meaningful, original content. Like, people want to hear from your perspective, and they’re looking for, like, unique points of view, and to learn from other people with a lived experience. So if, um, like for yourself, Liz, I think, I think people would be hungry to learn more about what, you know, what you’ve been up to.

I think they probably do, but they are excited to learn about your strategies, your experiences, and they are searching. People are actively searching for email marketing tips, templates with Google, with AI tools. So I would say, like, just publish, continue publishing and getting your content out there.

Liz WIlcox: Love it so much. All right, Miss Leanne, how can we join your email list today?

Leanne Wong: Yeah. So I think the best place to go to is my website. It’s leannewong.co, and at the top menu there is a link that says Resources, and if you click on it, you’ll find a list of free SEO resources to get started.

Liz WIlcox: Awesome. Thanks so much.

Leanne Wong: Of course. Thanks, Liz, for having me.

Pat Flynn: Okay, another great list-building strategy from one of our amazing community members. I just love seeing people find ways to grow that I didn’t even think of. That’s something I’ve always loved about being in communities with other entrepreneurs. It’s just so inspiring and motivating at the same time.

If you need that in your list, a group of business peers to help you take what you’re learning here at this event and turn it into real action, come join us inside the SPI community. Not only will you finally have people keep you accountable, you’ll have all the resources you need to make a living online, not just with email marketing, but content creation and monetization as well.

And right now, we’re offering 50% off and some other fun bonuses just for List Building Live listeners, and that’s you. Just go to SmartPassiveIncome.com/listlive and use code 26LIST, that’s 26LIST, to grab this special rate. SmartPassiveIncome.com/listlive, and use code 26LIST.