#161 – SEO for Web Designers in the AI Age with Lindsay Halsey of Pathfinder SEO

Shannon Mattern (00:01.688)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the profitable web designer podcast. Today I am joined by Lindsay Halsey of Pathfinder SEO. And for over 15 years, Lindsay has been creating impactful future-proof SEO campaigns for businesses of all sizes. And she enjoys teaching SEO to site owners and web designers via courses and coaching. And this is the second time Lindsay has been

a guest on the Profitable Web Designer podcast. She's spoken at the Simply Profitable Designer Summit. you know, just we're so honored to have you back on the show to talk about all things SEO. So welcome back, Lindsey.

Lindsay Halsey (00:44.508)

Thanks so much Shannon, excited to be here.

Shannon Mattern (00:46.702)

Yeah, so we were just chatting before I hit record that the last time we actually did a podcast interview was over 18 months ago and a lot has changed in the SEO landscape in 18 months. I know in the business, the Pathfinder SEO's business has shifted significantly. So why don't we like start there and you can tell me a little bit about, you know,

what some of those changes are and what kind of precipitated those.

Lindsay Halsey (01:21.852)

Sure, yeah, and I can start with kind of the smaller and easier piece of the pie, which is what's going on, kind of how did Pathfinder shift, but it really does segue into how AI is changing search and sort of what AI means for SEO right now. And simply put, Pathfinder, SEO, we're still out there, we're helping site owners, web designers, and agencies take a guided approach to SEO. Our focus is really on training and process and community.

Shannon Mattern (01:33.528)

Yeah.

Lindsay Halsey (01:50.62)

And so we have kind of removed the software piece from the puzzle. And that is to say, when we started our company years ago, we wanted to build a really simple, easy to use SEO tool. Think of like a dialed back, Ahrefs or SEMrush or Moz Pro, and keep things really simple with just basic keyword research, know, tracking of domain authority, some backlink tools, et cetera.

Well, as everybody has kind of noted, the world in the software space is moving really quickly just, you know, and fueled by AI. And so when we thought about tackling large problems, like how do we track brand mentions and performance and visibility on AI, which kind of is now under the umbrella to an extent of the world of SEO, we thought as a small software company, we really just couldn't solve those problems. And so that our members would be best served by

pairing sort of our training and office hours and all the things that we have available in Pathfinder and then having external tooling in terms of the software. So that's a little bit about what's happening at Pathfinder. But more exciting is really how AI is shifting things in search and what's happening there. And I think that's what most of you all are here to kind of tune in and learn from a bit.

Shannon Mattern (03:10.477)

yeah, for sure. And I just want to first like acknowledge the bold move that you made to make the shift, you know, in, your business. And, know, it just like sometimes I, let me just say for me, I have been in situations where the writing's on the wall and I don't see it.

Lindsay Halsey (03:33.722)

It took us a little bit, but yes, I've been there too. Yes.

Shannon Mattern (03:35.438)

You know what I mean? And like, and I'm very resistant to it, or I think I can like, work my way out of it instead of making like the the harder decisions that are, or the bigger decisions or the, you know, to, to, like to sunset a software product and really think about how to thoughtfully pivot to better support.

your students and clients and everybody that's been working with you. That's a huge, huge endeavor.

Lindsay Halsey (04:10.883)

It was a big endeavor and we didn't make the decision quickly and we didn't see the writing on the wall quite soon enough because we were so close to our own business. And then there's also this part you've invested and poured your heart and your time into something and you love it and it's still fun for you. And there's that emotional side of things and then there is the business side of things.

Shannon Mattern (04:21.623)

Yeah.

Lindsay Halsey (04:35.559)

and so anyways, when we started to think about what it meant to solve some of the big problems that are out there, that, that software that's in the SEO space is going to need to solve for, and thought about kind of where our strengths, it's not in the technical side of developing software. It's in the training, the communicating, the strategy. and so once we kind of saw that it became a little bit easier and then we got that freeing side of being like, we did it. We like, we.

Made a decision, we broke it down into a series of steps. It is, you know, in some ways framed and feels like a failure and in other ways it feels like, now we're actually doing what we were probably supposed to be doing all along.

Shannon Mattern (05:15.617)

my gosh, I've so been there to be like, wait a minute. Did I like, what was I not seeing? Did I mess all of this up? And then you look at it you're like, wait, this is exactly what was supposed to happen because now I get to be nimble. I get to be out in front. I get to be like, you know, on the leading edge of this instead of being weighed down by all of these other things that I was trying to do over here because of the sunk cost of

trying to continue on the path of the thing that I thought I was supposed to be doing. So I just want to say, and I talk about this on the podcast all the time, so everybody, all of our longtime listeners are like, oh yeah, she's talking about like 2023, like the worst year ever in the Web Designer Academy business. So I love that you were able to see it, let it go, and now you've been able to make this pivot.

and be like really nimble to be out in front, be the leader, to be the pathfinder, to be the leaders that you all have always been, especially with all of the changes going on. So let's dive into what those are because I am still like, my head is still spinning in terms of like what our strategy was for the web designer academy and being discovered and being found, you know, even three months ago is now like

Well, is that even still gonna be relevant? So I'm so curious, like where everything is at and to hear your expertise.

Lindsay Halsey (06:52.133)

Well, I'm excited to kind of share with you kind of where things are today and how I've been trying to help like our own business. And then also I still run an agency like how we've been supporting clients through all of this. And people can kind of take both sides of the coin. If you're thinking about your own web design, you know, business website, there's that frame. And if you're helping your clients along the way with SEO.

Shannon Mattern (07:01.739)

Yeah.

Lindsay Halsey (07:14.811)

Kind of it all, it all is the same thing at this point. And that is, I've always said that kind of SEO evolves more than it changes because there are so many flashing lights in the SEO industry that you see of like, SEO is dead. SEO is changing. What you did yesterday won't work. And that's never been my experience in the last 15 years. It's an evolution for the most part for the better because Google's getting better at modeling the real world and the search results. It's a little less gamey.

and a little bit more real world marketing, which means you can't operate in a silo, so you can't have like an SEO department. And it really means that when you invest in general marketing, whether that is writing a piece of content that is improving the design or usability or rethinking through a navigation, if you're out there as a guest on a podcast, if you're out there asking a client for a review on your Google Maps listing,

you are investing in your long-term future on Google and you're investing in SEO. And so I personally have liked that evolution towards this real world because it's something we can all talk about and like you could tell a client about it and they're like, yeah, that makes sense why we would want to do that. That being said, now SEO sort of encompasses this concept that we need visibility across platforms. And so,

One, there are couple different dynamics that are out there that are happening. The first is that Google itself has integrated with AI generated response. So you've probably seen those AI overviews and AI mode. so AI mode is sort of more chat bot feeling. AI overviews are sort of a super powered version of like people also ask or something.

And so we've been here before where Google started like taking our content and showing it. And so people didn't click through into our websites as easily. Well, now the AI overviews are that like way super powered because there's generative AI taking place and there are links to websites, but they're not nearly as heavily showcased. so in Google alone, one dynamic that we're seeing is that the click through rates

Lindsay Halsey (09:26.197)

four keywords have gone down and they've gone down disproportionately your, if you look at across our clients, like blog posts have gone down the most, which makes sense, right? They're informational queries. they're learning oriented. So the overview does a pretty good job. Whereas more transactional keywords are still winning the click and the click through rates are remaining pretty, pretty high. So depending on your business or your client's business, where in the customer acquisition funnel, they get their traffic.

that is going to help you understand or predict how impactful is this shift right now on Google alone. So that's a lot as one piece of the pie. The other piece of the pie is that people are not necessarily leaving, but sort of adding to their repertoire of ways to find information and engage tools like chat, GPT, Gemini, Perplexity. And so there is a search engine-like component to those tools as well.

Some of the market may be shifting from Google Yahoo being into there or certain queries, but now we have this other concept of, how do I show up over there? And you hear people talking about generative engine optimization. So as if as web designers, you needed more acronyms to help your clients understand. Now you're going to be getting questions about SEO and GEO and then also what they'll call AEO, which is answer engine optimization, kind of the question answer type component.

And wow, it can feel pretty overwhelming.

So that's a lot about what's shifting in just like two pieces. But when I think about what I talk to clients about, I talk to them about a couple of things. The first is that SEO used to feel simple. It was about rankings, traffic, and leads. Improve rankings, get more traffic, get more leads in sales, end of story. And that was kind of the whole thing.

Shannon Mattern (10:59.298)

Yeah.

Lindsay Halsey (11:20.631)

Now building your SEO is still about building sort of in my mind's eye, like a long-term value for your business. It's like an owned channel, but it's more about building visibility across platforms. And so we have to change a little bit about how we measure success and actually start to measure visibility more prominently. But clients are understanding that. And so on the one hand, the game's harder. It's harder to win the click. The old rules of the game are harder to play by.

On the other hand, what you invest in is actually gonna take you further because now when you invest in strategies that work for SEO, that foundation is the same as what works for this answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization. So your campaign kind of stretches further and is even less siloed, if that makes sense.

Shannon Mattern (12:09.175)

So this is all fascinating to me. And as you are just sharing the changes, like what I'm thinking about are, you know, not only my personal use of search and AI and different things, but also like things that we have been experiencing here at the Web Designer Academy and also things that we have been trying and experimenting with to adapt to all of these changes. So

Like just personally, I was like using chat GPT to help me like come up with some ideas to redecorate my bedroom, right? So I am very digitally adept at designing things, but not physically adept. Like I can't judge space very well. Like I don't, you know, match colors very well. So I was asking chat GPT to help me come up with some like

like sizes of different proportions and like just different things. And then it's like, well, here's the perfect rug for your bedroom. And here's this website called rugs direct. And here's a few different rugs that we could potentially see matching the exact vibe that you told us that you, that you told me that you wanted for your bedroom. And I'm like, what is this sorcery? So of course I'm like, it actually literally picked out the perfect rug for me. I've never heard of rugs direct.

I was Googling and all I could get was Wayfair or Amazon. I couldn't even get anywhere close to this website in the top search results on Google. But ChatGPT just drops the perfect rug in my lap. And guess what? I made a purchase within the next 20 minutes. But Rugs Direct also had a rug size guide and all of these conversion rate optimization things to make my purchase experience

incredible because chat GPT also gave me like four other rugs from four other websites. So they capitalized on the traffic that chat GPT sent. And so that was one experience I had. And then on the flip side of that, we always ask people who, fill out our application or request for the web designer Academy, like, where'd you hear from us? How'd you find us? Where'd you hear about us? And they're like, this person was like,

Shannon Mattern (14:34.795)

Chat GPT told me about you. And I'm just like, okay, how can I do more of that? So those are my two experiences that are just different than anything that would have happened even three months ago.

Lindsay Halsey (14:41.089)

Yep. How do I get more of those leads?

Lindsay Halsey (14:51.707)

Yeah, and on your rugs.com point, you really like hit home on why a website is still so valuable, right? Because up to that point, you're like, okay, great. Well, if ChatGPT did all of this for you, I'm like, yeah, but don't you think the direct rugs or whatever their website, it was pretty excited to have you come in as a really informed and educated buyer. Like you don't even need time on site. Your like time to purchase and visits to purchase was like, you know, minutes at most.

Shannon Mattern (15:09.383)

yeah.

Shannon Mattern (15:19.767)

Yeah.

Lindsay Halsey (15:20.653)

And so they've all of a sudden, if they look at other metrics, like how long did you stay on the website? How many times have you been there? How many sessions? They're going to maybe be worried that their business is down. And on the other hand, their business is evolving and how people find them is evolving. And the importance of them then having that great user experience. Because if their site had been slow, if it didn't engender trust, like if you're like, this looks like it was built in 1990.

you know, if it wasn't served in a secure way, like you could have easily just gone to one of the other five results, but instead, you stayed where that usability and that user focus was the best. so that's a lot, like if we start to get concrete, like what are we doing on our websites and things, how are we evolving? you know, we're evolving to try to get more out of every visitor and to try to wow every visitor, with.

like best in class content, best in class design, usability, and then also making sure that they have right at their fingertip the next thing they need. And so like in our business, one of the things we realized is we had a handful of blog posts that did really well in traditional organic search. Not surprising as an SEO company, you know, we were able over the years to build traction for that upper funnel on our blog. Well,

that traction has dropped like everybody because of these AI overviews and AI mode. And so we said, okay, we got to get a little more out of every visitor. We're still, it's not like we went to zero, but now our traffic could be down 30, 40%. What do we need to do? And so one of the things we started doing is being really purposeful about our calls to action and making sure they match the person in the moment. And what I mean by that is most people have a blog post and they smack on it, their newsletter sign up.

Like my blog post, sign up for my newsletter, right? Well, the conversion rate, at least on our end, was somewhere around like 1 % there. So get 100 visitors, get one email newsletter sign up, relatively low. What if instead we gave you the next thing you needed in the moment that you're in? So if you just searched something like what's the difference between SEO and GEO, what if we gave you a getting started checklist?

Lindsay Halsey (17:28.141)

or something that was relatively easy for us in an automated way to give you as a download. But it's the thing that matches your intent. Like you searched for this keyword, you read this content, and sprinkled throughout that content was a reminder of something for free that meets you where you are right now. And then now you're on my email list and I can start drip content, et cetera. So that worked really well. We increased our conversion rates from like 1 % to 5%, which more than made up for the decrease in traffic.

So helping clients in that way has been one of the things that we're saying, okay, we really need to shift our focus to making sure that user experience is at the forefront, whether that is improving the call to action, improving the site speed, improving the design. And that's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because we know that Google is looking at and studying and machine learning from things like dwell time and engagement. So when you get those good visitors, you end up starting to see more and more of them.

because Google's learning off that behavior. The other thing that we've done for ourselves and other clients is we've had to layer in some Google Ads. that's another thing of saying, OK, great. If we have a good funnel, but it just doesn't have enough volume behind it right now, what if we go in and we pay for some of that traffic and use that to propel the funnel forward as well?

Shannon Mattern (18:48.274)

Yeah, the thing that is really interesting to me about what you just said is the metrics are now going to look completely different and how we used to define success.

now is not necessarily aligned with what actually is happening and what user behavior really is anymore. So it's apples to oranges in a way, in terms of like what you're seeing, what we're seeing in metrics. And so, yeah, like really under making sure that you understand that as the like web designer and that you can communicate that with your clients.

and say, like what got us here might not get us there. And this is why these things are not maybe what they used to be. And we wanna make sure we know that so that we don't go solving the wrong problems.

Lindsay Halsey (19:46.061)

Exactly. And it's a particularly muddy time in the world of analytics and data. So, you know, one of the things I think as web designers and digital marketers, we've always loved is this idea that we engage in an area that's highly trackable, right? Rather use Google Analytics or Fathom or whatever analytics tool you like to use. We can tell you like, where did your traffic come from? All sorts of things. And depending on how much you value privacy, you can add in all sorts of

Shannon Mattern (19:50.509)

You

Lindsay Halsey (20:11.994)

creepy tools that tell you what the actual email address of the user is, et cetera, right? So we've lived in this world of a lot of data collection, data attribution, and a lot of emphasis on being able to put our finger on, this is what I got from organic, this is what I got from paid search, paid social, email, et cetera. And in this world right now, we're living in a much muddier space in terms of analytics, and there's a couple dynamics at hand. The first dynamic is that

Privacy has become increasingly important. And if you enable something like Google's consent mode by having a cookie banner that lets me pick and accept and reject, you can't track the people who either reject or just basically don't do anything. And you lose tracking like 30 to 50 % of your total traffic. So if nothing else in the world was happening right now and in this month,

You had that cookie banner and a year ago at this time you did not, which is a lot of our clients are sort of in that shift. They've been like making their way to this Google consent mode gradually over the past year. Then things are going to look down in the data. the first thing that makes me think is this is why we have to have conversations and not just hide behind reports. We have to talk to clients because it's not all in the report.

It's not all in analytics, what the value of a Google ads campaign or the value of an SEO campaign or their email or their website as a whole. So those conversations are really important. Then we add in like the world's uncertainty and 2025 being kind of a year with a lot of change. Some industries are up and some are down in demand. Some it could just like shift from month to month and they don't know how to make decisions in their industry space. And so we have like changes in demand and that changes how

That definitely changes how people search on Google and things like that. And then we have all this AI stuff coming in and happening in the data. And so it's really a challenging time. And if you're just valuing sessions and like data in analytics on conversions, you're gonna be potentially making decisions informed by data, but not necessarily getting enough of the whole picture.

Lindsay Halsey (22:26.806)

And I think that's been something where I know as an agency, we really try to help our clients and make sure we're communicating enough so that we make good decisions and solve the right problems in the right way. And don't just follow like a singular line based on a singular data point.

Shannon Mattern (22:44.265)

What I am hearing out of everything that you're saying is it is such an incredible opportunity for web designers and agency owners to step into a leadership role. And now more than ever, like they have so much value to add to their clients. Like truly more than any other time.

Lindsay Halsey (23:09.53)

I agree. think you can, if I were sitting like saying, okay, I've always stayed, I've been an SEO. So I actually can't really design a website like unlike all of you out there. And if I did, it just wouldn't look very good. But I get that it's sort of, saying to yourself like, okay, now that things are evolving even more quickly and there's even more acronyms, like I am brushing this under the rug. Like I'm a web designer, I'm staying in my swimming lane. And I think that there are ways to do that. But at the end of the day,

Your clients are going to want great web design, great development, a great website that can also get found across these myriads of ways. And the good news is if you get comfortable with talking about it and like framing strategy and navigating, you offer way more value to your clients today than you ever have because this is a bigger problem to solve. And that getting comfortable in that space, there's a lot of common sense. Like it's not about having the best tool in your pocket or some trick.

It's actually about having conversations with clients, understanding their business. And one of the things we've been kind of mind mapping a lot for clients these days is to help them say, OK, who's your target audience? And what's the customer acquisition funnel look like? Let's map that out. What is at the top where people are building awareness? What's in the middle where they're in consideration? And what's at the bottom when they're in conversion, right? Let's talk through what that flow looks like. And then talk about like, well,

How do we actually put people, how do we connect with people? Most people need to go through the whole series. How do we connect with people in each of these steps? What are the marketing channels? Is it social media? Is it email? Is it organic search? Is it paid, et cetera? And then we kind of start to map together, okay, this is like how we're gonna actually, this is building our marketing strategy. And what you'll find is different businesses, the...

concept of SEO or the concept of Google ads or getting some kind of traction on chat, GPT, et cetera, you can decide like, hey, is it going to fit into all of these pieces and into all of these areas? Is it going to go from awareness to consideration to conversion? And if so, you know, how do we do our keyword research? How do we frame our content strategy and things around that? But I've just been finding kind of breaking that down for clients and helping them understand how interwoven everything is.

Lindsay Halsey (25:28.694)

and realize they usually can't skip like a whole segment of that funnel has been a pretty basic strategic way of helping people break things down.

Shannon Mattern (25:38.589)

Yeah. When you were saying all of that, like, is it this channel? Is it that channel? I'm like, it's almost more like when is it that channel and what stage in the journey is it that channel? Because you said it's like visibility across platforms. And so it's like, it's going to be all of the above, but in what scenario and in what part of the journey. And so I was thinking about this. I work with the conversion rate optimization team, Lee Scott at Zana Tain.

consulting, and she's one of our web designer academy students. The way her mind thinks is just not the way my mind thinks. And she's like, Shannon, we really need to set up a YouTube channel for you. And I'm like, absolutely not. And she's like, no, we really do. And I'm like, I don't want to build an audience on YouTube. have no desire to do any of that. And she's like, no, it's for generative. It's for GEO and AEO. And I was like, OK, fine.

You know, like in that term, she's like, no, this is what we're learning about how content's being distributed and scraped. know, we just want to make sure that, you know, you're, you're showing up in the places that you need to show up so that you can take advantage of all of these things that are happening. And so I'm not creating new content for YouTube, but I'm like, yes, we can put my existing content there and things like that.

And so the intent, like the rationale now is different. Like, and if I didn't know that, I would just be like, yeah, I just don't want to be, like, I don't want to put resources into that, but tell me the reason. And I'm like, okay, I'll put resources there.

Lindsay Halsey (27:24.73)

Yeah, we're definitely taking kind of a similar approach of like this multi, even if you're invested as SEO, like maybe you say, okay, we're fueled by SEO and email marketing and I don't do social and I don't do this and I don't do that. Okay, that kind of used to work. Like I think a lot of people would say like, you don't have to do all the marketing things, just do three really well. I remember being told a lot as like a business owner and I'm like, okay, just do three things really well over and over again. And that would be enough.

And we've started to find that maybe that's not quite the case anymore and kind of trying a different approach, which is to say, instead of going deep into three channels, what if we go wide, but with a thread that makes sense across all of them? And so that means like, if we're trying to get out there and share our expertise in the space that we're in talking about SEO, we're gonna do it across all of the ways we can. We're gonna get a ton of at-bats with the same thing.

So we're not doing like one blog post here and then something on YouTube and then something on social and then, you know, totally different topics. We're saying, okay, right now everybody's talking about SEO and AI. So we should probably get into that and lean into it with multiple blog posts, some YouTube videos, some paid social, some just, you know, organic social posts. We should probably be running some Google ads in this space. We should do our own webinar. We should try to be a guest on podcasts.

Like we should do all of the things in one topical area and not before we shift and go write that next blog post or do that next thing. And all of a sudden you see how it hits every channel. You you're like, yeah, that went out on my email. yep. There was a YouTube video, et cetera. And so in some ways it's easier because you just can sink your teeth into one thing and do it really well across a lot of channels versus always being like, another blog post is due today. You know, it's Tuesdays and I

publish a blog every Tuesday. This like kind of quality over quantity or more reach has been resonating well with kind of where things stand in SEO, AEO, GEO.

Shannon Mattern (29:33.405)

You know what is super interesting I'm thinking about as we're talking about all of this. So most of our listeners are solo service providers. They're typically not agencies. And everything we're talking about here is like what they would do for their clients or how they would advise their clients. And the strategies we teach to them for like getting clients are old school relationship marketing.

Like it's not traffic marketing. It's not almost any of this stuff that we're talking about because like when you, when, I'm listening to this and I, if I imagine myself as a solo service provider on the other side of the, the earbuds or the microphone, like listening to this and thinking like, I have to do all of this on top of everything else I'm doing. I also just want to reiterate, like actually you don't.

because you don't need that much volume of traffic and eyeballs and all of these things. And so if that's your goal and you want to have an agency and you want to have a lot of clients and like have a one-to-many marketing strategy, sure, you still get to use old school analog ways of marketing, relationships, word of mouth, referrals, being proactive, getting in the right space, meeting people the way Lindsay and I like just met each other through like

researching online how, who might be aligned and like reaching out and building a relationship. So all of that still applies to you. If you're like, how do I get clients as a solo service provider web designer? So I just wanted to like put that out there. So I don't want y'all listening to think like, wait, I have to go beyond every single channel now to get clients. Like, no, please don't go do that. But

Lindsay Halsey (31:24.185)

Nope.

Shannon Mattern (31:28.319)

you get to listen to all of this and really understand how to help your web design clients, not just have a website that isn't like operating like a revenue generating asset for them. you understanding how all of this works helps you better advise them or like you said earlier, create that excellent experience. when someone does

land upon them through a or geo or whatever. So I just wanted to like, allay any concerns.

Lindsay Halsey (31:59.972)

That's a really good, yes. And I should really clarify the like some of these examples of like what we're doing. It's what we're doing for Pathfinder, which like national to international audience. And we're in the thought leadership space. So obviously we invest in creating a lot of content. That's kind of part of the name of the game. Yeah, exactly. And so that's it. And it's a huge investment. always like, we have, you know, three of us and marketing and doing this stuff is a huge amount of what we do.

Shannon Mattern (32:14.441)

Yeah. We do too.

Lindsay Halsey (32:28.345)

day to day and so that's on one side of the coin and we're doing that for our larger clients at our agency, right? So our clients that are spending two or $3,000 a month on ongoing services with us are in that kind of realm of like, we're getting more hands on across, we're getting our hands in more things, if that makes sense. If you looked at our agency website, which is we're a tiny team, there's three of us.

We would probably like to stay that size for all of time. We love our business and the lifestyle it's created and how are we getting new clients there? 100 % relationship, so referred business. And so we've been doing work in that space this year to keep our foot on the gas of maintaining and building those relationships. And then we try like a new thing every year. And this year, our new thing is we're gonna go to conferences with some of our favorite clients, like in their industry.

And it's almost like having a wing person with you because you're in an industry you'd like more clients of and you're with somebody that you have a great relationship with. And we're going to go and hang out in those spaces this year. And, and that's different. Normally we go to like other SEO conferences or things in, you know, WordPress, word camps, et cetera. But those are like the two things we're doing. And if you look at our site, like almost no blogging. And if they are, they're probably generated by AI and do nothing for us.

Very, you know, it's a brochure website has a contact form on it and a couple of testimonials. But so anyways, and we're still growing and doing well. So totally good conversation of like, yeah, what is what's the big picture when you're sort of all in and then hey, what's the one person business owner reality is like, you're going to have to be way more efficient with your time. And if if you have one thing to do, I think relationships are the name of the game.

Shannon Mattern (34:22.929)

I love that wing woman strategy that is brilliant to tag along with your best clients to their conferences and get introduced as like their SEO agency. Like brilliant. I can't wait to hear how that goes. Cause I can't see it not like working well to like get some new clients in that, that industry. So, so good.

Lindsay Halsey (34:27.661)

Well, we'll see.

Lindsay Halsey (34:46.519)

Yeah, I think it should be, we're trying it in two different contexts and in two different industry spaces and different events and we'll see how it goes, but I'm excited about it.

Shannon Mattern (34:56.073)

Yeah. So let's talk about now how, how we discuss, here's the, like the landscape. Here's what's going on. Here's kind of how, just even your role as a web designer is evolving beyond design. And there is a huge opportunity for you to, be even like, I know you all are strategic. I know you're plotting customer journeys and wanting to create great experiences, but now more than ever.

Like that is important, especially if less traffic is coming to sites you want to capitalize on every single eyeball that you get. and we know that you all are incredible at that. How can they learn more about Pathfinder and what you do and like, how do you serve them in that like strategic way where they really become a strategic partner for their clients to

be out ahead and leading their clients through all of this.

Lindsay Halsey (35:59.802)

So we kind of have like a framework that we like to use with SEO and it still works today. And the concept there is the four pillars of SEO. So to be successful in getting found on Google and then now ChatCheap ET and beyond, you need a strong site foundation. So you need that fast site, secure, great user experience, et cetera. Then you need helpful audience first content. That's kind of the content pillar.

You need to add context to your content that's on page optimization. These things haven't shifted. They've in fact just become increasingly important. And this is all with what's already in your wheelhouse. And then there's this offsite component. And that's always the tricky one where you have to also go out and build some authority, whether it's backlinks or Google Maps reviews, et cetera. That's where it starts to feel like, now this is like a little outside of the scope of a website.

But all of these are the things that are still working in SEO. And we have training in Pathfinder that takes you through this. Like for instance, we have an SEO skills for web designers course. It's just a couple hours long and it breaks down. It starts with like the what and the why and the strategy. And then it tackles each of those four pillars. And then it wraps it up like how do I actually make more money now that I know these things and I can incorporate them into my services and add more value.

So that's a great place to start within Pathfinder as just kind of a foundational training place to build skills. And then a lot of web designers that are in our community engage in the community by joining our office hours. So we usually have about three a week and they're really meant for you to come in with questions like, I'm doing this for a client or a client asked me this or I'm pitching this and I don't know, what do you think?

So those office hours usually have like four to six people in them, plenty of time for everybody. And you're surrounded by like-minded designers, agencies, a few business owners in the mix. And we go through those questions, we do skills trainings, and then there's kind of a discussion or a forum, kind of like a Slack channel where you can see people talking about how SEO is evolving, what's happening in the news, et cetera. So that's a little bit about that.

Shannon Mattern (38:13.133)

Yeah, I

Lindsay Halsey (38:15.437)

frame of what still works, like it hasn't all changed, that foundation is the same. And then a little bit about how we're trying to approach things within our Pathfinder community.

Shannon Mattern (38:25.069)

I love that you have the SEO skills for web designers because I still see that as one of those little imposter syndrome gaps that people have where they're like, I'm pretty sure that I'm setting everything up for technical SEO properly. I'm, you know, but my clients are asking me this, this and that and

You know, it's like, they just feel sometimes like, I don't know what I don't know when I'm afraid of causing harm or missing something or being wrong. And like you said earlier, it's like, we can't just kind of sweep it under the rug or stick our head in the sand at this point. And it's such, it's, we talk so much about mindset on this podcast, like the mindset of like running a profitable, sustainable business and even like,

any little bit of confidence you can give yourself that even if you're not going to offer the services yourself, if you can confidently say, here's what I do, here's what I don't do, here's what you need, and set all of those expectations, it's going to help you feel more confident when you're marketing, feel more confident when you're talking to people.

That is everything. And sometimes you don't know that it's just those little things that are missing that are holding you back. feel like, I just kind of feel like I don't know what I'm doing half the time. Like this is one way where you can like fill one of those big gaps.

Lindsay Halsey (39:59.79)

Yeah, I agree with the confidence piece. And I think back to when I first started in SEO, I literally had zero experience. had taken like an HTML class at the local community college as just like a side project. And I was working as a ski patroller, like the opposite job of anything that we all do now. And so I somehow magically decided to try. liked this like, you know, class I was taking and I decided to try to get, my hand about getting hired at a digital agency.

Shannon Mattern (40:13.293)

You

Lindsay Halsey (40:29.217)

And I was working in SEO and like already talking to clients and I knew nothing. had literally, called it like printing the internet. I had been going on a climbing trip right before my job. I printed like a hundred pages about SEO and I like, you know, circled things and did all this stuff and I just studied it. And then all of sudden I showed up and had like the biggest imposter syndrome.

I try to remember back, like, how did I get through that? I went through it again when I left and started my own business. That was another, like, you know, piece, even though I had the skills, I didn't have the business skills, so there was more learning to be had. But how did I do it? Well, I did it by surrounding myself by others. And I learned I never put headphones on in this office space. We had to be there nine to five or whatever.

And I just listened to all the people in my little cubicle area. And three months later, all of a sudden, I found that I could speak confidently about a topic. And it was from that learning through osmosis. So I think that's, for me, a lot of what we try to replicate in Pathfinder is, OK, well, if we're not all sitting in the same office and we don't have a pal, we can just call with our SEO questions.

Where do I go to just not even realize I'm learning, but I'm learning because I'm hearing it from others. And then the next time a client asks me a question, I literally find myself saying somebody else's words, right? And I find that on podcasts, like when I listen to podcasts, that helps me too. like, Ooh, that's a nice frame of way to explain that. And it comes back around subconsciously in some client answer.

Shannon Mattern (41:57.033)

I love that. That makes me think about, you know, back in the day, I used to work in the marketing department and my first job and my sister worked in the IT department and I would just go hang out with her in the IT department and you know, chit chat and whatever. And I learned so much just about tech back then. But then also I'm like, they don't know what they're doing either. Like, they're, it's not like they already know, like they're having problems, they're researching, they're bouncing ideas off of each other.

They're trying things. It's not working. They're trying more things. I, the, the number one skill you have to have is like curiosity, persistence, willingness to figure it out, really caring about the, people on the other end and wanting to like create great results for them and just being the one to be like, Hey, guess what? I'll lead you through this. I don't know everything, but if I know what your goal is,

and I have some resources and people and tools and things to advise me, we will iterate our way there together. And I am going to take the lead and invest in this for both of us. And who's going to say no to that? That's how I think about it.

Lindsay Halsey (43:14.435)

Totally agree. Yeah, and that's kind of why we don't promise specific results. Like that sounds kind of lame that you're having somebody invest in something without a specific outcome. But at the end of the day, when clients hire us, they're hiring us to help put together a strategy and execute on the strategy and iterate on it based on what we're seeing and bring them honest feedback. This is working, this isn't working, this confuses me, et cetera. And so that I think

The hard part is you don't get there until you have the confidence and you're feeling, okay, this is going well, that you get confident to deliver bad news, right? And you're like, hey, this isn't really on me. Like the game changed, this is happening, you know, here's what's going on. But clients are valuing you for understanding the why, for asking them questions about their business, even if it sounds like maybe you don't know them well. So as soon as I sort of, yeah.

got comfortable in this sense that like every month my job is not to see some ranking arrow go up with sessions arrows go up. My job is to help them steadily be moving into this world and that I'm more of an expert in the topic than they are. And that now more than ever, like almost nobody can relate. I don't know how you call yourself an expert in this intersection because it's changing quickly and it's all totally new. And none of us like.

have a degree in what we're talking about here with AI and SEO. And so everybody's learning on the job and you know a million times more than your client.

Shannon Mattern (44:45.163)

my gosh. And I think I couldn't agree more. And this will be the final point that I make before I ask you to share where we can go to learn more about you. But I just think about my relationship with my team that is gathering all of this data for me, helping make it mean something and help put some, you know.

potential hypotheses and decisions in front of me and like, you know, just kind of lay it all out for me. And I'm like, if the result is that you prevented me from like going too far down the wrong path and falling off the cliff. And maybe I just went three quarters of the way down the path and then turned back around. That's a positive outcome, you know? And I don't think that that's, you know, that's a, that's a result. Like that is a.

Or maybe I did fall off the cliff and then you helped me get up and we like went on another way. And, you know, so it's not always that it's this. Everything always worked out all the time. It's like, how are you helping your client make sense of what's happening, help them make decisions, help them test other things. And you're all on the same team. So I just think that that's,

If we can internalize that, that we don't have to have all the right answers. We just have to be the one that has the courage to lead. Everything shifts. So thank you for what you do. I think it's awesome. think web designers need someone like you who's willing to educate them on this piece. And where can everybody go to learn more about you and connect with Pathfinder?

Lindsay Halsey (46:27.425)

You can check out our site at pathfinderseo.com. There's a free trial in there, so you can get access for free to that course that I referenced, et cetera, and check out our blog, and that's the best place. And then can reach me over email. I'm really slow to respond from any other channels like social, but lindsay at Pathfinder SEO, if you have any questions.

Shannon Mattern (46:49.427)

Amazing. And you can also find Pathfinder anytime on our partners page too at webdesigneracademy.com forward slash partners. You are one of our favorite resources for helping people stay on the cutting edge. So Lindsay, thank you so much for being here.

Lindsay Halsey (47:04.377)

Thanks Shannon, this has been fun.