#137 – Trust Over Traffic: The Role of SEO in 2025 with Meg Casebolt of Love at First Search

Shannon Mattern (00:01.4)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the profitable web designer podcast. I am joined today by an old friend and colleague, Meg Casepult from Love at First Search. We were just chatting before I pressed record about like, it seems like it's been forever since we've talked, which means we must have known each other for a long time. Cause she was a guest on my old podcast, Pep Talks for Side Hustlers. We have kind of like grown up.

together in this online world, I would say.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (00:31.776)

Yeah, it kind of feels that way. I feel like after you've been in business for like five years, there's just this kind of bubble of people who have all made it that far. And then there's it's almost like, you know, in Saturday Night Live, how after you host a couple of times, they give you like the jacket, you know what I mean?

Shannon Mattern (00:39.979)

you

Shannon Mattern (00:45.486)

Right. Right. Yeah. So I'm so excited to have you back on the show. Can you just introduce yourself and let our listeners know a little bit more about you and what you do?

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (00:59.408)

Sure. My name is Meg Caseball. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I run Love It First Search, which is an agency to help small businesses show up in search results for their websites, their videos, and their podcasts. So a lot of content marketing, content strategy. I also help local businesses to show up in those search results too. I feel like that's sort of the way that a lot of these markets are skewing is several years ago, everybody has an online course and now it's like, you know what? I would really like to talk to a person face to face even if it means I have to put on pants.

So yeah, so focusing on traffic coming into usually your website, sometimes some other marketplaces from places like Google, chat GPT searches becoming more and more common among people who are working with me, Apple podcasts, YouTube. How can you get people to search for, let's put it this way.

When people are searching for something, how can you anticipate their needs and anticipate their thought process so that you are not only the one that shows up in those search results, but you can then guide them into further relationship with you.

Shannon Mattern (02:03.914)

I love it. And we're going to talk about that strategy and just marketing in general and all of the things during our time together today. But I want to dig back into your origin story. what is the path that led you to creating Love at First Search and doing the work that you're doing today?

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (02:25.99)

Sure, so my business radioactive spider bite. I started my business in 2013 because I had my first kid in 2014 and looked at how much it would cost to send him to daycare and went, wow, that's a nope. Like so many of us, sort of financially and reluctantly became freelancers.

Shannon Mattern (02:29.696)

Yes.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (02:50.08)

And I had had experience working in the communications field. had built websites since, you know, like so many of us, were like messing around on the internet. So I started, built my first website in 1996 on GeoCities, right? Like it had always been sort of a hobby for me. And then when I decided to start the business, I went into design. I started designing websites. I utilized my network to start to a great extent. So my first two design clients were my former next door neighbor and my first grade best friend.

because that's how businesses work often in the real world. Before I learned about all these fancy funnels that I have since built and then deconstructed, which we will absolutely be talking about. But I joined a mastermind. This was probably eight years ago. It was run by Marie Poulin before she made the shift to speak about Notion. And it was all designers, very similar to what you're doing now, Shannon. And I said to the designers during a hot seat call,

I feel like my clients are loving the work that I'm putting out and they love the websites, but then they're coming back to me and saying, like, but it's not helping me get new clients. It's not helping me show up in search. How do you all in this mastermind balance this experience of wanting something that's beautiful, that's functional, that's clear, that's easy to update, and that shows up in search results? And the hot seat basically said like, we don't have an answer for it either because we don't have a good SEO person.

And that was sort of the blue ocean moment for me of, I am literally sitting in a room talking to people who need what I would prefer to be doing. Why not test this? And so it wasn't, you know, throw out my existing website and rebuild it all based on one conversation. It was talk to those people more and say, can I work with you on one of your client projects? Can I?

Shannon Mattern (04:28.526)

Mm.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (04:45.67)

come in as a strategist? Can I do the research and present it to you in a way that you can then integrate it into what you're doing so that I don't have to keep learning new CSS?

Shannon Mattern (05:00.146)

And there's like that, don't know if juxtaposition is the right word, but it's like, are getting clients, not using the strategies that you're helping your clients with for their clients. And I think that this is what I was talking about. I just hosted to get your next client challenge. We were chatting about this before I hit record.

that there is a cognitive dissonance that web designers have when they're like, build sites for my clients that are supposed to help my clients be found in search, get high volumes of traffic, know, all of these things, just depending on the business type, obviously. And I feel like that's how I have to market my own web design business. And because that feels so like daunting or the market is saturated or all of these things that we tell ourselves,

We feel kind of fraughty. It's like, well, I'm not doing it for myself. And if it's not working for me and I'm not doing it for myself, then how can I say I can do it for my clients? And then it becomes this like catch 22. So I love to talk to you more about that. Yeah. Yes.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (05:56.762)

Mm-hmm.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (06:07.326)

Mm-hmm. We feel like we have to walk the walk. Yeah, we feel like we have to walk the walk to talk the talk. And I don't think that that's necessarily the case, right? Like, I can point to my client testimonials and my client case studies and say,

Month over month, I helped my clients achieve this level of success and achieve this increase in their traffic. And more so for my clients, this increase in their inquiries based on the website changes that I'm recommending that aren't always necessarily related to their search, but it's related to their search experience. But I don't do that for myself. That's not where my clients come from, because the people who do SEO at the highest level are software companies.

who have content marketing teams with wildly millions of dollars, seven figure budgets to spend on content marketing and the industry is changing so quickly that if I wanted to compete in SEO for SEO, I would have an entirely different business model because I would have to build a media company. But I can also specialize down and say, you know, I work with

coaches, work with photographers, I work with interior designers, I work with web designers. There are specific industries that I know intimately well. I work with agencies a lot of the time. So I'm not even the one at the forefront of the conversation. And for me to do that, I can then get those people incredible results. But I don't have to be the one building my own YouTube channel.

I don't have to be the one constantly blogging to prove to my clients that I know how to blog. I can point to my client results and say, look, this speaks for itself. Without needing to build a seven figure media company to teach people how to do it, when I'm not teaching them how to do it, my role is to do it for them so that way they don't have to learn how to do it. So I'm not an educator. I tried that. I like it.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (08:13.284)

I'd rather be a mentor than an educator, so let me not create an educational.

Shannon Mattern (08:19.382)

I love that so much, you know, and like it's interesting. It's like, you were talking like I got my clients from referrals, from people I know, from this group that I was in, from talking to people and not by like trying to be found. so web designers are the ones listening to this podcast. This is who we're for. And

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (08:38.949)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (08:46.156)

You know, for your specific business, relationships are everything. For your clients, traffic marketing could be everything or local SEO could be everything. It just depends on the client. But for you, you don't need a high volume of traffic to get clients. need trust. You need trust more than you need traffic.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (08:50.828)

everything.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (09:06.054)

Yes. Yes. 100%. And I think you told me several years ago, you and I were having this conversation while I was doing your SEO strategy. And I said to you, Shannon, I was like, why are you doing this right now? And you said, because my people are searching, not scrolling. Right? So what I need is trust from people who have made that recognition.

Shannon Mattern (09:22.37)

Yes.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (09:30.244)

And I don't need to have the big, know, these people are getting a million hits a month and I'm gonna get them to 1.1 or 1.2. I work with service providers to a great extent who have already gone through that revelation of I need to be found in search by the right people at the right time when they're ready to buy from me. Which is such a specific awareness.

that I don't need to show up in search results for like, well, what is SEO? No, I don't want you yet. You're not ready for me yet. My brain is wasted on you right now. Once you figure out these 10 things, or if you wanna jump past those 10 things, and I'll just boss you around, I'll just tell you what to do. You don't have to learn all that stuff. I'll just tell you what to do.

if somebody introduces me, which is often, you know, I have one client and then they talk to somebody else and then that person sends me six clients and then one of those people talks to their neighbor and then suddenly I, and then so I have these little pockets of for a while I was half travel agents because one travel agent just kept sending me people in her mastermind. For a while I had six of the 10 people who show up if you Google business coach for interior designers.

Not the interior designers, the interior design business coaches. And I would get on a call with them and be like, just so you know, full disclosure, here are the five other people that you're competing against that I have already done the work for.

and here's how I'm gonna present you differently, right? So you hit these niche pockets. Sometimes it's like, now all of a sudden I have a bunch of clients in Charlotte, North Carolina, because there's a business coach in Charlotte, North Carolina who loves me, right? Like these pockets happen naturally and organically from referrals. And then I can look at those search results and be like, look at that, there's my clients. It's a really interesting long-term strategy that can't be forced.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (11:25.424)

but it can be leveraged.

Shannon Mattern (11:28.946)

Absolutely. I totally agree with you. It's like follow the threads where they go, but initiate the, you get to leverage it. You get to initiate. You don't just wait for it to happen. There are ways that you can make the first move in asking for referrals, asking.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (11:35.878)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (11:50.478)

you know, for kind of like, I call it like asking for clues as to where your next client might be or like, you know, who, who else can I meet? You know, tell me you're like my dream client, give me like, are there two more people like you that you could introduce me to? What podcasts are you listening to? Like all of that stuff.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (11:54.542)

Yeah!

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (12:06.04)

Yeah, instead of, yeah, instead of saying like, I'm low on clients, I need to do some lead gen, let me go post on Instagram. Go back to your existing clients. Start with, hi, how's it going? I've been thinking about you. For me, that often turns into like, hey, I just took a look at your website and I see that you're ranking for this now. Isn't that awesome? Do you know anybody else? And half the time that turns into, I'm ranking for that now? Great.

I've actually been thinking that we should work together again, right? So it's not me coming being like, more money, please. But it's engaging in a relationship. It's having a retention strategy. It's having a communication method that's based on, like you said, relationships and not just conversions.

Shannon Mattern (12:44.568)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (12:56.366)

Yeah. So let's talk about social media because I hate it. know you do too. And you like made the bold move to not be there. I am not, I always had like one toe in and I gave myself permission several months ago to take that toe out altogether.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (12:59.792)

Do we have to?

Shannon Mattern (13:21.166)

unless it was in service of my podcast guests, right? So like my quote unquote strategy is if it's helping me to spread the word about my podcast guests and their business as like reciprocity, cool, I'll share it on social media, but I have no desire to be there, to create content there, because like I said earlier, like we have discovered

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (13:25.382)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (13:51.146)

after many attempts, paid ads, like social media strategy, whatever, that our best clients are searchers, not scrollers. So I know you made that decision. Can you tell me why you were like, I am done with this?

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (13:53.808)

Mm-hmm.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (14:06.982)

I am not done with it. I wish I could be. wish I could be. But my approach to social media is not social media bad, other marketing good, SEO good, right? Like I think all of us need to examine critically what our relationship is with all of these different marketing strategies and the ways that we want to interact with our clients and the ways that we want to be found and the ways that we want to communicate and to make

Shannon Mattern (14:09.098)

oooo

Shannon Mattern (14:20.008)

Yeah

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (14:36.23)

clear boundaries, both for ourselves and for the people that we're working with. So for me personally, I used to have like a Facebook group when it was a thing to have Facebook groups. And I saw the quality of leads going down and I saw, you know, I was spending money on a social media person who was then posting the same things that everyone else posted because she had dozens of clients that, and I started to feel like I was just doing the same thing and it wasn't getting results. So I evaluated that and said, this is not worth the time energy resources that I'm putting into it. And I shut down the Facebook group.

You know, I looked at the analytics for my Instagram and I went I'm spending a lot of time and hiring somebody else to create these graphics that look like everyone else's graphics or even that look like me and have my voice but People aren't then saying I found you on Instagram. They're still saying I heard about you through Shannon I found you on Google. So why am I investing my time and resources there? So I moved my Instagram to a nine grid Because my business is a referral based business. It's a high

high cost, low volume business model, I don't need to be on the high volume places. So, you know, I had a podcast for 100 episodes that I did promote on social media about how to critically evaluate the role of social media in your business and in your personal life so that you don't become dependent on something that is completely out of your control.

And then I got myself off of social media. I got my business off of social media. And then I started writing romance novels and I had to go right the hell back onto social media because that is a high volume, low cost business model. And my people are hanging out there, but I also have a podcast. I'm also on Reddit. I also am reaching out and sponsoring other people's podcasts. I'm also doing book swaps with other authors. So even though I have gone back onto social media,

That is not my primary objective or primary marketing strategy, even though I'm there for my sort of side hustle alter ego.

Shannon Mattern (16:34.969)

my gosh, I'm like, wait, this is totally new information that you started this other business. This is fascinating. And you're like, for this model of low price, high volume, these are the things that work for that model.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (16:56.966)

There's a limit to how many $4 ebooks you can sell to the same person month over month. And when at the $4 ebook, you actually make $2.74 or if they get it on Kindle Unlimited, then you make like $1.37 for each one of them. You have to be a volume based business. You have to get your name out there. You have to get more reviews. have to play a different marketing game. I haven't gone to Amazon ads with it yet, but they're coming because I want to have a back catalog of

Shannon Mattern (17:00.942)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (17:18.478)

Yeah.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (17:24.984)

of novels, but I'm working on the sequel. so until that gets published and I can spend money on the first novel to get people to read the second novel and then I'm have the Christmas novella and write. All of that is a very different model for a very different product at a very different price point for a very different audience. It's B2B versus B2C. It needs a different marketing strategy. So I'm taking my SEO skills and using them way more to sell romance novels than I am to sell SEO services.

Shannon Mattern (17:55.106)

So is this just like a forgive the pun passion project for like figuring out a creative new way to use your SEO skills in addition to like just wanting to have this creative outlet? Like it seems like a fascinating way to be like, let me have this skillset. Let me see what I can do with it for something that like I really enjoy creating.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (18:12.579)

Yeah, it was more about...

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (18:24.452)

Yeah, so I think the way that you said it is reverse of the way that it happened, but it is sort of the answer that we came to, which is I started writing the romance novel during the pandemic as a creative outlet because, you know, self-care, right? I started reading more. I started spending less time on...

Shannon Mattern (18:39.81)

Yeah.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (18:44.486)

my like on a screen because it wasn't good for me. It didn't feel good. I spent less time scrolling social media. I spent less time watching mindless Netflix. And I started reading more romance novels because romance novels are like cotton candy for your brain. They're so happy. You know they're going to end right. It was exactly what I needed at that time in my life. And then I started dreaming romance novels. And then I was like, OK, I guess I should write this down. And then two years and 100,000 words later.

I released my debut novel last year, you know? So it wasn't an intentional like, today I'm going to write the great American novel. The creative outlet came first and then the side hustle became the creative outlet. And then that became the marketing for the creative outlet. So it's like almost like writing the novel is a completely different skill set. No, it is writing the novel is a completely different skill set than marketing and selling the novel. But

Shannon Mattern (19:18.651)

You

I'm out.

Shannon Mattern (19:32.078)

WHAAAT

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (19:38.958)

I have this complimentary skill set of not only being able to write the novel, but also being able to know how to, like I self published a business book so I knew how to self publish it. So I didn't feel like I had to go out and query and go to the editor and get all the, like I know what my vision is for it. So I can go Google to find out who I should hire as my editor and network to find out who I should hire as my cover illustrator. And so using these skillsets, and I think a lot of us sort of,

put ourselves into these boxes of, I'm a web designer and that's all I can do. But the marketing skills that you're learning can be applicable to anything else that you want to put it to practice for.

Shannon Mattern (20:19.138)

That's so fascinating and sorry for the barking here. I'll have my editors get this, edit it out. I have to show you this little monster. She's adorable. Where is she? Yeah, wherever she, like what am I doing here?

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (20:32.614)

I want to see.

Hey little one. I see a chocolate lab.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (20:41.926)

Is she hiding? Aww.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (20:47.718)

So cute.

Shannon Mattern (20:49.09)

You gotta be quiet.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (20:51.44)

You know what's funny is as soon as your dog started barking, my dog got up and was like, F this. Like I have headphones on, I don't think he can hear me, but you know, he started moving around and like shaking himself. Because as soon as you start recording, they're like, I've definitely got to make noise now.

Shannon Mattern (20:55.63)

Hahaha

Shannon Mattern (21:01.838)

yeah.

Shannon Mattern (21:08.246)

she's down here. Whatever these dogs. Okay, so we'll edit that little barky piece out but

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (21:09.748)

Shannon Mattern (21:20.814)

She just was like, hmm. Yeah, so I'll just dive into the next topic. So I want to...

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (21:21.86)

No mine's right here. Yeah.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (21:30.106)

Yeah, hold on. Now that he's heard me talking about him, I've got to give him a greenie so he'll leave me alone.

Shannon Mattern (21:38.466)

So I want to switch gears and ask you about the deconstructed funnels that you mentioned when we were chatting at the beginning. Tell me more about like the complicated funnels and then the deconstruction and like, what led to all of that and where things stand now?

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (21:56.11)

You know, I've always been a huge fan of listening to the reactions of people and responding to them, even if it's not what the marketing gurus are telling us to do. Hey, can you get out of here? Go, go. Thank you. He laid down right next to my desk, I chewed the bone. So I've always been a huge proponent of listening to what your people are telling you and what they're not telling you.

Shannon Mattern (22:05.516)

Yes.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (22:22.566)

And so, you know, I started my business in 2013, primarily as a service provider. I had people come to me and say, we want to learn SEO, can you teach us? So I created a course. I ran through the course live several times because that was what they asked for.

And then I started creating low cost self-paced courses because that was what was selling in my market at the time. And then the pandemic happened and people came and said, hi, can you create a membership for us? We want more accountability. We want more live calls. So I did that. Right. So like a lot of the ways that my business has changed and evolved is not, hmm, I think today I'm going to get some more monthly recurring revenue. It's been people are asking me for something that I can provide for them and I'm going to respond to that request.

And so, you know, because I was working in this space of self-paced courses and low-cost recurring membership and teaching people instead of doing it for them, I built out the big, you know, seven-email welcome sequence that has the automated, you know, segmentation and the quiz that guides you to the...

What at what stage of business are you and which is the best fit for you? And then you have the segmented automations that say well if you buy it in the next seven days that you get 50 % off because the Right like I had all of it I still have it all set up in the back end of my you know active campaign even though I'm planning to move off active campaign because their price hikes and blah blah blah, but um You know, I still have all of it, but it stopped working. So I went should I? well

Shannon Mattern (23:58.286)

Yeah.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (24:00.942)

Maybe I'll reverse. It stopped selling on autopilot. It stopped selling through the automations. I started seeing that I needed to do more sales calls. And then once I started doing more sales calls, the reaction that I got from people was, I don't want to learn this. If I'm going to learn something, I want it to be botany.

If I'm going to learn something that like I want to do some, I don't want to waste my time, which is what it is and which is what it feels like. I don't want to waste my time learning something that I can just pay you to do for me. Right. And there was this big market shift, probably 2022 ish, where people just went, I cannot do one more self-paced anything. I'm so tired of sitting at my computer. I don't want to learn anything else. I don't want another self-paced course. Just tell me what to do.

And once I saw that market fluctuation, I shifted back to doing more done with you. So most of my delivery is not let me give you some sort of automated course, and it's not let me take over your website and do it for you. It's let me give you a strategy that you or your team can implement, but I will do all of the research for you. And once I made that shift into selling strategy instead of selling services,

I didn't need all of those segmentations and optimizations because the strategy can change based on who I'm talking to. I don't need the tool to segment for me. I need to get on sales calls. So I started pulling out and turning off all these segmentations and automations and just having my call to action for most of my emails be, do you want me to audit your website?

And that way I can have a one-to-one conversation with you. Do you want to hop on a group hot seat call with me? Do you want a free discovery call? Right? Like, it came back to me and my time, which, you know, all of the email marketing that I had done took me out of it, but it also took me out of it. You know, I lost those connection points with my clients. And so as I started saying, OK, well, I no longer offer these self-paced, like people can still buy the self-paced courses on my website. I don't think I've sold one in two years.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (26:20.774)

Because nobody wants them. Okay. They sold at the time. They served their purpose. I give them away to specific, you know, summit events in case people do want them. Sure, they're still an asset in my business, but I'm not spending my time selling them. So why am I investing my resources in an automated strategy for something that people don't want?

Shannon Mattern (26:40.31)

Yeah, I.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (26:41.058)

I would rather just have a conversation.

Shannon Mattern (26:43.98)

Yeah. No, I totally, I have noticed that shift too. And my model is, I wouldn't say high volume, but I'd say it's like mid volume, right? So we run a group coaching program, you know, still web designer Academy group coaching program. have a higher level group coaching program. We just launched a lower level membership. And so what I noticed is those

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (26:54.384)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (27:13.134)

funnels where I wrote them and I was there, did it all, but I'm not there. They do not.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (27:19.738)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (27:23.864)

connect well with people as something when I'm there live. Like when I'm there live with the ability to have a conversation with you, whether it's in a group setting or, you know, whatever it is there, I think people are craving that connection with a real person, that relationship. There is so much content and we can talk about like, like you said, with AI and chat GPT and all of this, there's so much content like

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (27:25.942)

Yeah.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (27:43.587)

Yep.

Shannon Mattern (27:54.648)

there's what's missing is connection. Like that's an opportunity to, to show up more and create those relationships and connections, even if they are on the other side of a screen. I.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (28:08.966)

But you're still showing up live, you're still answering their questions, you're still teaching in real time. They can still raise their hand and say, wait, I didn't understand that. I don't want to have to wait a week for your, you know, customer service platform to finally get back to me. Like, I don't want to wait for something to unlock so that way I can get to the next stage of this. Even if you're running a leveraged program like you are and not one to one services, you are still providing live support.

Shannon Mattern (28:11.372)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (28:17.195)

Yes!

Shannon Mattern (28:27.886)

you

Shannon Mattern (28:36.781)

Yep.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (28:38.054)

and group community and connection that cannot be automated. So the marketing strategy that you're doing is much harder to automate because really our marketing should be a preview of what it's like to work with us.

Shannon Mattern (28:53.037)

Yes. Yeah, when you're trying to automate all of that, let me just try to stuff as many people through these funnels as possible to maybe get a few people to come to work with me. I've also noticed that those people aren't as connected to me and don't stay as long. And so.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (29:13.094)

It's much harder to retain, it's much harder to convert, your cost per lead is gonna go up. And then you're also gonna have all these people who have joined your email list and left because they didn't feel connected to you. And then maybe sometime in the future, somebody says, oh, don't you want Chan's program? It's like, oh, I think I've looked into that and it didn't seem like a good fit for me, right? So I don't wanna say these leveraged or large scale automations.

Shannon Mattern (29:18.242)

Yeah.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (29:38.04)

are detrimental to our businesses, but they aren't giving a full preview of what it would be like to work with you as a service provider. And sometimes when you are so focused on piling new people into that funnel, you forget the importance of... And it's like, my funnel was a 3 % conversion rate. That also means you have a 97 % of people who didn't buy from you. And that's okay based on your business model, but it means you're gonna have to work that much harder to get those discovery leads.

Shannon Mattern (30:08.334)

Yeah, so good, so good. with the work that you're doing with your clients now, you've said we're doing, it's about being found on these different platforms, on Google, in chat GPT, which is one that I didn't even think of. How many questions are we asking chat GPT to compile lists for us and things like that? Podcast, all of those things.

What are some of the shifts that you have seen or trends that you're seeing that like maybe just a couple years ago when we talked weren't a thing and now are things that not only do we need to consider as like business owners ourselves, but like that will blow our clients minds when we talk to them about, you know, what we can do for them.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (31:01.894)

You

Yeah, I think I would say probably three trends that I'm seeing off the top of my head. The first one is a decrease in sales and a need for more trust in the sales conversation. I think several years ago, people were more likely to say like, that sounds like a good deal. The countdown timer's on. I'm going to buy that based on urgency. And those people have been burned. And it takes more time, and the economy is in a worse place.

that people don't have as much disposable income even within their businesses to invest. And so they have to be more discerning. And so it's up to us as marketers to not only explain to people what we can do for them, but also make sure that it's the right choice for them. And not just take money from anyone who wants to give us money, because we don't want to be the ones burning those future leads. And I will regularly say to people like,

You're I'm not ready. You're not ready to work with me yet Here are other people that I want you to talk to you and that's where my referrals to web designers come into play where I'm like Okay, first before before you hire me. I need you to go through and do this on your website, right? Or before you hire me. I need you to do some copy editing that brings me to another trend that I'm seeing which is the importance of bringing your own voice and your own specialty into the ways that you talk about your business

with the way that people are using ChatGBT and Gemini and Cloud and Jarvis and all these generative AI tools based on large language models to write their content for them, they all sound the same. And that is the way that the large language models are built. That is a feature, not a bug. You are using other people's content to train AI to write the way that other people write.

Shannon Mattern (32:45.396)

Yes.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (32:59.854)

And therefore, if you use too much AI to write your content, you sound the same as other people because that's how AI works. It's process called language homogeneity. I just learned this because I interviewed an AI specialist on my podcast. And so I'm happy to introduce you in case you want to talk to her.

like that idea of language homogeny that pretty soon all of us are going to start to sound the same because we're all using this. Even if you're like, but I trained my GPT. OK, it's still based on those same large scale language models. You're just doing a better job of saying, here's my voice, here's my outcomes, here's my this, here's my that. But if you want to stand out, you either have to get more specific or you have to find ways to speak differently than other people. And a lot of that comes down to both specialization and thought leadership.

being able to say things that other people may not know or may not want to hear. So I did an entire, you know, hundred run podcast on making that decision on whether or not to leave social media or become less dependent on social media, which was not the popular topic to talk about. And then now I've started a podcast about how to be more human in your marketing, where we're talking about these pieces of

you know, how to generate, how to use generative AI in a way that's supportive, but also you can still sound like yourself, right? And those are not topics that are directly relevant to, oh, hire me for SEO. But I want to be known within the marketplace for something that isn't just, you know, here's my, how did you do your keyword research? And here's the best tools. Those are still important parts of my overall marketing, but they're not the most important thing because now I'm having these conversations with people about, you know, oh, SEO is dead.

I think that's the third trend that came to mind when you asked this question, which is zero-click search results. More and more people are going to Google, they're seeing the summary at the top of it, or they're going to chat GPT, they're getting that information, and they're not clicking. There's more information available to you without needing to click through to a website. And so there's this...

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (35:10.704)

kind of marketing strategy, especially among people who aren't as familiar with search marketing that are saying SEO's dead, people are seeing huge drops in their traffic because people aren't clicking anymore, and all of that is true. However, people are still searching. But their behavior and the ways that they're interacting with those search results is changing. So I could go to Google or could go to Chat TV, I could say, I'm a web designer, what podcast should I be listening to?

and then your podcast might show up, but I'm not clicking through to your website. I'm gonna go into Spotify and I'm gonna look it up in there and it's not gonna look like it's a search result for you. But then once I get to your podcast, then I might click through to your show notes or I might hear a call to action where you say, to this URL and then I type it in and it looks like direct traffic, but it's actually your content marketing system working. We can't track that anymore, but that...

Shannon Mattern (36:00.398)

you

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (36:08.516)

was a lead from search. So all of these brand awareness pieces are becoming more important and less trackable. But that doesn't mean that people aren't searching anymore. It just means that we have to work that much harder to build trust, to build in calls to action, and to make ourselves a resource that people want to keep coming.

Shannon Mattern (36:32.088)

That is fascinating. I've never heard anybody talk about the zero click search and how to not dismiss search over that. But if people are changing their behavior, I get to change my behavior to meet them where they are and make sure that it's easy for them to find me on Spotify.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (36:51.844)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (36:59.682)

to that my very next call to action for them is very clear that I have something that they would want the first time that they listen to my podcast that they subscribe that all of the things. So it sounds like it's like the customer journey has always been important, but now that we can't like always connect all of the dots with all of the data really going through and making sure all of those stepping stones are clear.

they're not covered up with leaves and dirt that they're like, you know, like, you know, exactly that it's there, that it's going to lead you to the next step. And yeah, so that's so, so fascinating because I'm sure we all search for things all day, every day. We don't even pay attention to the fact that we're doing it. Yeah, no.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (37:47.534)

All the time, all the time. And you're not clicking through, right. And I think also there's been this shift that like it used to be that when somebody would search for, and we're talking about customer journey now, if people were searching for terms that were unaware or problem aware, the first thing that they would do is click through on that first search results. Now they're reading the summaries, now they're getting that information and the people also ask, you know, they're not leaving the page. So those early, early stage searches of people looking for like, what is WordPress?

Shannon Mattern (37:59.789)

Yeah.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (38:16.688)

they're going to get a summary on the page. And you know what? If you're a service provider, you don't want those people anyway, right? Like, I don't want people who are going to be so unaware and tight on their budgets and risk averse that they're going to be a pain in my ass as a client. I don't want those people. So the way that I describe it, Shannon, I think you'll appreciate this, is like, when you think about The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, like,

Shannon Mattern (38:18.851)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (38:24.055)

No.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (38:40.912)

comes down the tornado, she lands right there in Oz, she looks around, she's like, where the hell am I? And then Glinda pops up and she's like, you killed my sister, cool. And Glinda is not the one that we want to be. We do not want to be Glinda as much as her dress is the prettiest, right? I don't want people who don't know where they are. I don't want people who have no idea what's happening. I wanna be the cowardly lion.

I want to be the one where she's already on that yellow brick road. She already knows where she's going. She picks me up last. I don't have to walk as far. And I still get to go to Oz, and I still get the reward, and I still get paid, and I don't have to work as hard. That's what I think we need to be doing. I don't want any of your people to show up for like, what is web design? But I do want them to show up in a search result for like, best web designers for interior designers in Charlotte, North Carolina. Boom.

Shannon Mattern (39:33.036)

Yes.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (39:33.729)

Those are the people who are gonna buy from you, so stop trying to be found by, you know, the Dorothy who just landed in Oz because she's not gonna be a good client anyway.

Shannon Mattern (39:42.866)

my gosh, I love that so much to think about like, yeah, who do I not want and let's skip over that and, you know, pick somebody up farther, farther down the road, who's way more clear on where they're going, even if they're not entirely sure what's there for them when they get there.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (40:03.236)

Yeah, and I get so many people who come to me and they're like, but there's no search volume in that. And I'm like, there is. If it's showing up anywhere, there are people searching for it, even if it's 50 people a month, 100 people a month. But maybe they're not looking for web designer for interior designers. They're looking for interior design web designer. And that's another 120. And they're looking for websites for interior designers. That's another 240. Right. Like, so sometimes these numbers don't show the full picture of anything.

But if we can be more clear about the intent of who are the people that we want to attract, what are the problems we can solve for them, how would they raise those problems? What solutions do they think that they want? Then you can engage in a conversation that doesn't require you to do nearly as much heavy lifting in your sales cycle. It's probably going to convert faster. Those people might have bigger budgets or be more likely to invest with you because you are so clearly the solution that they're looking for.

Shannon Mattern (41:01.166)

You know what I was thinking about while you were saying that? Like it still blows my mind that there are things that I search for that I cannot find in 2025 that I'm like, I'm searching for this. I'm trying 17 different like ways to say it. And I'm getting nowhere. Like, can someone please just do a better job with their SEO so I could like find them and not have to like dig so hard. Like there's still so much opportunity out there.

that, you know, to think about like the fact that you're searching for something and you can't find it is like mind boggling. So search is not dead.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (41:39.908)

Yeah, or that people are searching. People are searching for what you do and they're not finding you because you're not clear about what it is that you do and who you do it for. That's absolutely the case. I just. I just signed a client. She and I start tomorrow where she. We'll keep this clean. She works in the adult toy space, right? And she gets outreach from SEO people every single day in her inbox where it's like.

Shannon Mattern (41:47.091)

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So much opportunity out there.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (42:08.27)

I can double your traffic. can get you found on all these places. And they also throw in social media, which you cannot do for adult toy shops, but we'll not talk about purity culture in this conversation. But she sought me out. Even though she has a wait list, a constant input in her inbox saying, I'll do your SEO for you, she came and she found me and she had a conversation with me because she went and searched for like,

a woman-led SEO company, and then she scrolled down to the bottom of my page and she looked at my inclusivity statement and she saw the way that I talk about not just search, but like this journey of romance, right, that we have with our clients, the relationships that we're building with their clients, and she was like, she's the one I want. So even though she had tons of people who were actively outreaching to her, she went to find, she didn't know me.

but she went to find somebody like me because she knew what values I had. And that was clear on my website in a way that if I'd asked Generative AI to be like, write a website for an SEO company, none of that would have

Shannon Mattern (43:20.206)

So knowing that. Well, no, it's fascinating because of course those random emails, cold emails that landed in her inbox got no traction. There's no trust. There's no, I get who all kinds of pitches, I'll say that loosely because I do believe there is a way to meet new people.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (43:22.246)

Those are some really weird keywords too.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (43:37.37)

Mm-hmm.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (43:44.174)

Yeah

Shannon Mattern (43:49.506)

who are strangers to you in a way that does not feel like the things that I get in my inbox most of the time. But sometimes I get some good stuff in my inbox and I'm like, this person's cool. Yes, to whatever they're asking. This person is a human and did not spam, like do a mail merge and email this to me like through GMass or something. Like it's obvious when that is.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (44:01.786)

This person did their research. This person listened to my podcast. This person, yeah.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (44:13.936)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (44:17.888)

A thing. Yeah. It's like, so it's so clear why that doesn't work. No trust was built. Like there was no connection, no intention of a connection, just spam. But what it did do is get her thinking like, Hey, maybe I need an SEO person that like led her down the path to you, which I love. I love that. How can our listeners bring.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (44:30.534)

Mm-hmm.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (44:36.538)

Mm-hmm.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (44:40.634)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (44:48.014)

What you do on your site, like their personality, all of that, that like really connected them with their ideal clients. Even if they haven't landed on a niche, like how can they bring that through on their site?

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (45:03.078)

Well, I think to be clear, I don't think that everyone needs to have that niche. I don't think you need to say, well, I will only do it for this population or I will. I think sometimes we need a specialty is the way that I like to say it, which is which could be considered like the same thing if you look them up in a thesaurus. But I like to think of it as I specialize in websites that have portfolios for creatives. Right. So it doesn't have to be only artists or only designers or only this. like, what is it that you do best?

Shannon Mattern (45:10.722)

Good. Yeah.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (45:31.298)

or who is it that you do it for, or what software do you use to do it? I love ShowIt. Okay, then talk about ShowIt on your website and explain why people should choose that instead of something else. Your location can also be a way that you are specializing, especially if you're in a small town and you want to go out and reach out to other people in your small town, that's going to convert a lot faster because you can go have a conversation with them and they trust you the way that they may not trust a larger agency.

Part of that messaging is figuring out not only, and Shannon, you sort of like dipped into this a little bit, not just who are you for, but who are you not for? I think reverse niching is just as important as niching. There are companies that I, there are brands and businesses that I don't want to work for because I haven't had success with them or because the type of client isn't a good fit for my personality. And that's okay. I'm in several like women and SEO directories that

Shannon Mattern (46:07.616)

Yeah. Yep.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (46:27.884)

If I'm not the right person, okay, I don't love doing real estate websites. There's like great example. I'm always getting leads from real estate people and I'm like, just, it's not, it's not an industry that I like working in. So I go into my directories and I say, here are people who do. Right. And I think that that's an okay thing to do is to say not everyone's going to be a good fit for you. And you can build a collaborative network of referral partners to help you to still, to not feel like

you're leaving people high and dry. But to just be super clear about what is it that I do best that I can be found for it that then I can do that outreach and say, do you know anybody who, even if you're going back to a previous client or you're going back to, you know, a referral partner from the past, you can say, now I work with these people. Now I give them these outcomes. What's the thing that you want to?

do best. That doesn't mean you have to have one ideal client and that's the only person you work with. But what's the thing that is your, like, not even zone of genius, because I feel like that term gets overused, but like, what's the thing that you that brings you to life that you would be happy to do all day? Who, what are the types of people that you work with? What are the, not like I work with Enneagram Sevens, but you know, I do love Enneagram Sevens.

But figuring out those fits and then finding ways to articulate that and bringing that into your copy, bringing that into what it is that you do so that when people land on your website, they're not going, this is generic web development agency number three. They're saying, this person wants to work with a business like mine. And letting your copy talk to those people.

Shannon Mattern (48:12.93)

Yeah, we call those. Yes, I love that. We talk about that inside the Web Designer Academy about like, we don't need you to niche. If you have one, amazing. Like that opens up some opportunities for you in terms of SEO that just are a little bit easier maybe, or just different. I would just say different than if you don't. like in terms of.

niche, we talk about like your five dreaming client bullet points and it speaks more to like who they are, where they're at today and where they want to go. And not like, you know, these demographics or, you know, niche or anything like that. So it really helps you speak to like who you're really passionate about helping, which when someone lands on you, they know immediately like,

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (48:52.112)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (49:11.898)

she's for me or no, she's not for me. That is not me at all. Like I don't want that. That is not where I'm at. And I think that that's just as important as, you know, saying who you're for, like you said, is being able to say who you're not for. Cause we're doing this because we want to love what we do. Right? We're not trying to like just have a job like we left.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (49:15.931)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (49:39.704)

to do this, yeah.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (49:43.166)

And figuring out how you want to engage with those people. So if you are one of those people who love social media, great, go get your clients from social media. If you love having conversations like this, you know, pitch yourself to different podcasts, start your own podcast. If the idea of public speaking makes you break out in hives, don't do it. There's no perfect marketing solution. There's no perfect delivery model. There's no one way to do any of these things.

Shannon Mattern (49:46.146)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (49:55.756)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (50:01.376)

Exactly.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (50:10.488)

It comes down to knowing yourself, knowing your resources, knowing your capacity, knowing how you want to work and not letting someone else tell you that there's one way. That's the best way to drive yourself a little bit bonkers.

Shannon Mattern (50:24.014)

So good, so good. how do you work with clients? Like how can our listeners connect with you? Do you work directly with web designers on client projects? Do you work with their clients? Like for those of our listeners out there who are like, I don't do SEO myself, but I want to be able to confidently talk to my clients about this and tell them like what's next after I build.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (50:45.445)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (50:53.735)

a great website for them. Like how do you work with people?

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (50:57.466)

There's pretty much two ways that I work with people. One of them is as a strategist, where you can come to me for your own website or for your client's website and say, I would like this client to write for some of these terms or this client would like to show up in this geographic area. And then I can give you a customized plan that is like, OK, if you're working with

in this place, here's what I want you to do on your Google business profile. Here are the citations I want you to create. Here's how I want you to structure the page. Here's the blog post I want you to write. Here's the language I want you to use. I can create that plan for you and hand it over to you as a web designer, and then you can go implement it. So it's still you. You're still the one working with the client. You're still the one who gets the credit. You want to come on a call with the client and bring them? Great. I'm flexible about who I'm talking to, but...

If you don't want to learn how to do the SEO and you still want to get the results and you want to learn through practical application, that's a really good way to bring me in as a strategist. And I'll hold your hand and explain everything to you because I want you to get results because I want you to come bring all your clients back to me. I want you to be a better SEO implementer and then start to learn this stuff. And then maybe you won't need me as much. And that's OK.

The other option is I do have a leveraged program. have a group coaching program where you can come to live trainings with me. You can come to live Q &As. You could submit things for me to do one-to-one feedback on your work, your client's work, whatever that is. do two submissions a month for people in the program. And they can learn how to do this with guided support, not

self-paced trainings because those don't work for me and I've had worked with a lot of people they don't work for. If you love self-paced training, great, Google has a million of them. There's tons of SEO people who are willing to teach you that. But if you want somebody to say based on this experience that you're having and the experience you want people to have, here are my recommendations. Especially if you're building across multiple niches or sites, it's like, that's.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (53:02.508)

I have done enough of these that I can say, that's going to work on a Shopify site, but it's not going to work on a Squarespace site. So here's the recommendation for this. You know, like having somebody who can look over your shoulder can be huge so that you can then start to have these conversations with your clients. And you can start to build SEO into your processes and then pull me in when you need me. So those are sort of the two ways that I work with people is as a strategist and as a mentor.

Shannon Mattern (53:28.736)

I love that and you really are filling a big, I would say confidence gap for a lot of our students. I know people listening to this podcast where they're like, I know that I can deliver a technically well-built SEO site.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (53:35.718)

Mm.

Shannon Mattern (53:48.718)

you know, site for SEO, like the technical SEO game, I got it. But I feel like I'm leaving my clients in a lurch or I feel like I'm, you know, not delivering the full potential of what this could do, or I feel like I'm kind of just leaving them hanging when the ongoing strategy isn't part of the project, but I don't want to do it for them. But I don't want to do it. Like I just want to, I want

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (53:50.896)

Mm-mm.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (54:11.75)

I don't wanna do it, don't make me.

Shannon Mattern (54:16.682)

I want this site to get out there. I want them to get all, I built them this amazing tool and I want them to be able to use it and leverage it, but I don't want to do that part. And you're really feeling, so their confidence because they feel like they're leaving their clients in a lurch. You know, I coach them through all of that, that their clients are adults and they can go find a person and blah, blah, blah, blah. But at the same time, when there's someone who's like, Hey, I'll just do that.

for part for you. And then you can implement this with your clients ongoing. And also you can like join my membership and I'll like help or join my program and I'll actually like help you as you're implementing. Like, yes, build some recurring revenue.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (54:46.971)

Yup.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (54:58.872)

And you can raise your prices with your clients and build in some markup into this so that way your, yep, your clients are having better experiences, they're having better outcomes, they're happier with their work from you, you're making money back on learning this yourself. Like I think of it as a win-win-win where it's like you're learning, your clients are getting better results, and we're paying each other to do this work together.

Shannon Mattern (55:21.826)

Yeah, and can we all just stop thinking we all have to do everything all on our own without like other people helping us? Well, I would love to talk to you for another hour. It's been amazing catching up with you, but we are at time. Can you tell everyone where they can go to connect with you, learn more about your services, learn more about your books, if that's their flavor?

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (55:28.912)

There's my pre-chance.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (55:47.462)

Sure, not social media, I can tell you that. If you want to find out more about my SEO services and strategy, you can go over to loveitforsearch.com. If you want to tune into the conversation about

Shannon Mattern (55:51.342)

Hahaha!

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (56:02.054)

running a more human centric business and marketing strategy. That's over at aggressively human dot sub stack dot com, because that's where we're hosting it. If you like romance novels, you want to listen to my romance novel podcast that's over at First States and Soulmates. You find that on any of your podcasting platforms. You can get my book about social media and social slowdown. You can find that on Amazon and grab that on Kindle Unlimited. And then if you want to read my romance novel, my pen name is Bailey Seaborn. So, I mean, there's the

five ways to get in touch with me.

Shannon Mattern (56:34.996)

Love it. We'll link up all of that in the show notes. And thank you so, much for being here. It was so fun talking to you today.

Meg Casebolt (she/her) (56:41.702)

I told you you would get an open book and that's exactly what we did. Thank you so much, Shannon.

Shannon Mattern (56:47.182)

That's all I have for you all this week. We'll see you back here next week. Bye everyone.