Jenny (00:28)
Are you curious about how to get ranked first on Google when people search for flower farmers like you? Well, today you'll find out as I chat with Julia from homegrown reach all about SEO or search engine optimization. Now this is a big fancy word that all it means is when people search for flower farmers or for businesses like yours, that yours comes up on the first page of Google and hopefully
the very first website that pops up in their search. And this is really important for people finding you when they're looking for flowers online. And Julia is an absolute expert in this. She is actually an SEO consultant for agriculture and horticultural businesses. So her goal is to make SEO strategies approachable and easy to implement for all small businesses.
so they can reach their customers organically and help their businesses bloom. She lives in Philadelphia with her Siberian Husky sidekick, her husband and her two kiddos. And on the side, she's actually working on revitalizing their previously neglected garden. Plus she runs a travel photography site and experiments with spicy recipes in the kitchen. She is an all around super amazing person and is an
absolute wealth of knowledge on the subject of SEO. So I know that you're going to learn a lot today. So I encourage you to grab a notebook and a pen to jot down notes, or if you're out in the garden or out in your flower farm weeding and listening while you work, be sure to come back to this one because there are some real gems. All right, so let's get into it.
Jenny (02:09)
Hey, Julia. Thanks so much for coming on to the show today. I'm really excited to talk to you about ranking on internet searches and SEO. And you are the expert in this. And so this is going to be a really fun conversation. But to start off, can you just tell everyone just a little bit about you, what you do, and how you help farmers?
Julia (02:13)
Yeah, thanks for having me.
You
Yeah, so I run my business, HomeGurrenReach, doing SEO for farmers and other agricultural businesses. I've been doing this for almost eight years. I actually started with, I still run it, another business called Julia Renee Consulting, where I do SEO and Pinterest for small creative businesses. And then a couple years ago, I started getting some inquiries from some farmers and a landscaping company.
And I realized they didn't really have someone to turn to for SEO advisor, getting their site optimized. I'm working with small farmers is something I'm also really passionate about. I love getting CSAs and going to the farmers market. so I live in Philadelphia and anytime you move even a few blocks, it's like a whole different environment. You have a whole new farmers market to go to, like a different composting company that you have to use.
And I of course kept moving. So every time I moved I had to find all these new businesses to work with and I was having a lot of trouble finding them on Google. So I kind of saw that there was a need to help them rank higher on Google and reach people like me who were searching for what they're offering. So that's when I started. I launched Homegrown Reach about two years ago and yeah, I've been working with a lot of farmers and small agricultural and horticultural businesses.
Jenny (03:58)
So basically what you do is you help small businesses rank higher in internet searches so people, their clients or potential customers can find them easier on the internet. Like in a nutshell, is that basically what you know? Okay, perfect. Well, we all need a little bit of help with that. So what is, I'm just curious about this. What is your background? Like have you always worked with SEO? Like how did you get into this like super niche thing that you help people with?
Julia (04:08)
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah, so I have no formal background in SEO. I am entirely self-taught. I started, I don't even know how long ago, I started a travel photography website. I still have that as well. Like I think at least 10 years ago or something. So I learned, you know, SEO and you know, lots of other forms of marketing to help that grow. And then I was in a very boring corporate job and I actually wanted to...
Jenny (04:41)
cool.
Julia (04:54)
quit my job and freelance so I could go to grad school. have my degree in history focusing on the Viking age, so I've kind of been all over the place. Yeah, so again, no formal training in SEO at all. But yeah, while I was in grad school, I started freelancing working with lot of small businesses on content writing and kind of just using the SEO strategies that I'd learned for my own travel site.
Jenny (05:04)
Whoa.
That's so cool.
Julia (05:24)
to help their content rank higher on Google. And then I realized that they didn't really understand SEO or why all of a sudden their blog posts were performing really well on Google. So that's when I started focusing on doing more optimizing of websites and doing a lot of SEO trainings and things like that to really help people understand how to rank higher on Google and then what they should be ranking on Google for.
Jenny (05:48)
Awesome. so for people listening, they may not understand exactly what SEO is. So we're talking about search engine optimization, but could you just give us like a quick explanation of what exactly SEO is, what it means and why that might be important for small business owners?
Julia (06:08)
Yeah, so SEO stands for search engine optimization. Really in the US, Google is kind of the main search engine. DuckDuckGo is starting to grow a little bit. is used very infrequently. But Google is kind of like the main search engine. But they kind of follow all the same rules. But SEO is basically the practice of making your website easy for search engines to understand what to rank you for. So there are lots and lots of different metrics that go into this.
But basically you just want to make sure that your website is super clear about what you do what you offer where you're located So, you know so you can rank higher on Google for those keywords that people are searching for and then also when they get to your website So they understand what you do, you know what you can offer them So that way they can convert into customers because you don't want to just rank on Google for the sake of ranking you want to make sure that you're ranking for the right things and Bringing the right people to your website. So that way they'll convert and you'll grow your business
Jenny (07:07)
Awesome. So what are some tips that you can give small scale flower farmers to actually rank higher in Google searches so their customers can find them and connect with them in a genuine way?
Julia (07:19)
Yeah, so the first thing that you need to do is to have a website. Especially, I mean, I know Instagram is fun. You get to post a lot of pretty pictures. But when people find you on Instagram, if they want to get the information about like where you're located and the hours that you operate and the different services that you offer, they're still going to go to your website from Instagram because otherwise they're going to have to scroll through a million different.
pictures to try to like piece together your hours or the flowers that you offer, things like that. So you need to have a website. And then on your website, I recommend having at least a few different pages. So obviously your homepage, having an about page, at least one services page. This can definitely be more if you offer a few different services and then a contact page for people to be able to easily contact you.
So on your homepage, make sure that you have information right away about like, you know, that you're a flower farm and where you're located. I see this a lot of times where people kind of have like that poetic language, like, you know, I design your, you know, dreams or something like that, like talking about like wedding bouquets. But Google and potential customers like don't know what that means. Yeah.
Jenny (08:33)
They're like, what are you talking about?
Julia (08:35)
Google
reads from top to bottom just like a human does. So you need to have the most important, most clear information first. So this also means don't only have the city that you're located in in your footer. Make sure it's clear right from the get-go, right at the top of the site. Say, I'm a flower farm in Philadelphia. And then on your home page, you want to make sure that you do have enough information to give Google to kind of know what to rank you for, know what your website is about.
So this means don't just write like one sentence and call it a day. Especially because you'll probably see that the websites that are ranking towards the top of, whatever the keywords that you're trying to target are, they probably do at least have a few hundred, you know, words on that page. So if you just write 10 sentence or sorry, 10 words, you're not going to be able to outrank them if they have like 500 words. So making sure you have enough information on your website. So this can be, you know, again, about your location, about the services that you offer.
about who you are, why you love flower farming, different flowers that you're growing, the seasons that you operate, especially if you're open for you picks and you don't have people showing up at your door in January. Making sure you have that. Yeah, they might. They're a little desperate in January, I think, for things to do. So making sure you have lots of different information and then your homepage you can also use to kind of like lead people to navigate to the other pages on your website. So making sure you have
Jenny (09:45)
Yeah, cause people might do that.
Julia (10:04)
clear calls to action. like if you have a little, you know, paragraph about who you are and what you do, you know, you can have a call to action that leads to your about page. If you have little blurbs about the different services that you offer, have calls to action that go to the different services. And then about the services pages. So I do recommend if you offer like a few different services. So let's say you offer like wedding flowers and then you have, you you pick on your farm.
have different pages for those so that way you can target the different keywords that are associated with those different services. And then also those pages can speak specifically to those clients because if you are trying to reach people interested in hiring you for their wedding flowers, if they go to that page and you have a bunch of information about you pick first, they might be confused about like, well, this might not be exactly the service that I'm looking for.
they might not spend the time to like scroll down to the bottom of the page where you have the information about the wedding flowers. So if you have those like very different services, you know, I would put them on different pages. If you just offered you pick, you don't need to have like different pages for like the 20 different flowers that you have. You can kind of just have one page for you pick, but making sure that you have, you know, those very different services like separated out. It's also easier to target.
those two very specific keywords with different pages rather than trying to target very different keywords with one page. So then on your about page, again, just having, you you can have some fun facts about who you are, about what you do, because people really do like to see the person behind the business, especially if they're passionate about like supporting small businesses, they want to get to know, you know, who they're supporting, you know, why you love what you do and things like that.
And then on your contact page, it can be very straightforward. You don't need to have 500 words on your contact page. Just have like, you know, your email, your contact form. You can also like have, you know, your social media icons to lead people to, you know, follow you if they want to kind of keep up with what you're doing. So I know that was a ton of information, but basically just make it very clear about, know, what you do, your services, where you're located. Make it...
Super easy for people to find the information find how they can contact you because you want to keep them on your site You want to convert them to customers? You don't want them to get to your site be very confused about what you do and then leave your site very quickly
Jenny (12:29)
Right? So talk to us about keywords because that is a key compo keywords, key component of ranking in these internet searches. So can you tell us a little bit more about what that means and how people know that they're like using the right keywords to attract the audience that they want to their website?
Julia (12:32)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so keywords are basically the phrases that you type into Google to, you know, be able to find flower farm near me or something like that. It's kind of misleading because it is keywords, so people think, it's just one word. It's just like flower or farm. It can be like short phrases, so don't be a little misled by just the keyword. Yeah, keywords are basically, you know, what you're going to be using on your website to tell Google what you should be ranking for.
So I'm just gonna stick with flower farm in Philadelphia as my examples So you if that's your keyword that you're targeting and you don't have to have the same exact keyword for every single page Obviously if you have like a wedding flower Page you want to make sure you're targeting a keyword related to wedding flowers But you know for your home page if you're targeting flower farm in Philadelphia You want to make sure that you're using that in your what's called an h1 heading?
Jenny (13:19)
Yeah.
Julia (13:42)
So this is kind of like the main heading on the site, the title on that page. And it kind of signals to Google that this is the most important text on the page. You don't want to have more than one H1 heading, just one H1 heading. If you use a platform like WordPress or Squarespace or something like that, when you write a blog post, whatever the title is that you put in the blog post, they automatically make that the H1 heading so you don't have to mess around with trying to...
add an H1 heading or something like that. So if Flower Farm in Philadelphia make that the H1 heading, I do recommend incorporating it also somewhere else within your website copy. So kind of like what you want to be aiming for is using your keywords 1 to 5 % of all of the website copy on the page. So if you have 500 words, so making sure you're using it like a minimum of like five times. If you can't make that mark,
like perfectly, like don't stress about it too much. Make sure you're still writing like a human. And you're not just kind of like cramming in these phrases wherever you can. And you can also like kind of switch it up and do keyword variations. So like instead of flower farm in Philadelphia, you can also use Philadelphia flower farm. Google knows that, you know, that means the same thing. So.
within your website copy and then another place on the back end of your website that you want to be using it is in your title tags and meta descriptions. So this is the title tags and meta descriptions are what you see on Google when you search for a keyword. So the title tag is like the, you know, the blue highlighted text. That's what you click on to go to that website. And the meta description is like that short paragraph of text underneath. So you don't want to just leave it as like home because that means nothing to anyone.
Jenny (15:31)
Mm-hmm.
Julia (15:34)
You know, you want to like, especially for your homepage, you want to make sure that you use your business name. I see this every single time someone just tries to have like Flower Farm in Philadelphia as their homepage title tag. Google will change it to your business name. So they like to see the business name. You can still add like Flower Farm in Philadelphia, you know, after your business name, but that's just like one thing I see every single time. So, you know, for example,
I'll just use my business name, homegrown reach. And then you can have like a hyphen or a line or something like that. then flower farm in Philadelphia afterwards. Cause that is a one of the ranking metrics that Google looks at is what keywords are used in the title tag. The meta description actually isn't a ranking factor. But it's important because you want to make sure that you're using the meta description to speak to your ideal customer. Maybe tell them how you're different from like the other websites that are ranking or like,
specifics on what you offer because that is going to be what compels them to want to click to your website over you the other websites that they're seeing. So make sure you're keeping it informative and concise. One thing I see on a lot of website platforms, say this especially on Squarespace, is they give you more characters than Google actually allows for. So you want to keep it within, yeah they give you like 400 characters, Google only gives you 160. So
Jenny (16:56)
Yes
Julia (16:58)
If you go over 160, Google will cut it off. like just stick with 160. Especially because I see a lot of times people try to fill out all 400 characters so that way then they don't have like the most important information at the beginning. So then Google is actually just cutting off the important information that they have. So 160 characters, including spaces for the meta description and 60 characters, including spaces for the title tag.
So just to kind of like summarize, because that was a ton of information, but use your keywords in your H1 heading on your website pages, 1 to 5 % of all the website copy on that page and then in the title tag. And if you're able to in the meta description as well, but title tag is the more important ranking factor.
Jenny (17:46)
And if for any of the people who are listening to this and they think that Julia is speaking gibberish right now, don't try not to get overwhelmed by it because when you like, when you have a website host, like if you don't have a website yet, or maybe you do have one, but you just don't quite know all the little pieces and parts that Julia's talking about right now, it's really figure out a ball. Like if you can go to like, use Squarespace for my flower farm website.
Julia (17:52)
I know.
Mm-hmm.
Jenny (18:14)
There are a lot of guides out there. mean, maybe you can ask Julia, go and ask her on how to, you know, use those tags or find the meta descriptions. Um, but there's also help articles and there's just like a lot of stuff you can Google, like how to modify title tag in a Squarespace website. like, don't let any of this like website jargon put you off from it because it's all very figure out a ball. So just don't be intimidated by that. So, um,
Julia (18:42)
Yeah.
Jenny (18:44)
One of the things that I did very early on with my business is I was really good about writing. Well, maybe I shouldn't say really good, but I was tried really hard about putting blog posts on my website at regular intervals that sort of reflected the services that we did, know, added value to our customers that would sort of, you know, get them more interested in our products and putting keywords in those blog pages. And so I know way back when, when I started my website, you know,
Julia (18:51)
You
Jenny (19:12)
more than a decade ago, that was a key component of ranking higher on Google. Would you say that that still helps today? you know, getting that more information on there, or is that something that has, is maybe not so relevant anymore.
Julia (19:27)
No, I think it's definitely relevant, especially with kind of like all the stuff going on with AI right now. Google is really focusing on ranking, you know, that higher quality content over like the, you know, AI bot stuff. So yeah, really focusing on creating some, you know, quality content in your blog post is going to be what helps you the most. So the reason kind of blog posts help your SEO
Jenny (19:33)
Mm-hmm.
Julia (19:52)
is for a few different reasons, but you can target a lot more different keywords with your blog post. So maybe if someone is planning their wedding and they're kind of more on the information gathering stage, they're not looking specifically for wedding florists near me, but maybe they're searching for wedding flowers that may be blooming in June in Philadelphia or something like that.
So you can target keywords like that, still kind of like get them on your website, introduce them to your business, introduce them to the services that you offer, so that when they are ready to book their wedding florist, you may be top of mind because they've already kind of like checked out your website, they like what you do and things like that. So you can kind of target these different types of keywords with blog posts, kind of reach customers in a different way.
And the more often that you put content on your website, the more often Google is going to come back and crawl your website and see what your website is saying. So if you launch your website and then you don't touch it for five years, Google has no idea if you're still in business. They don't know if you're still relevant. But if you are regularly putting up blog posts, even just like once a month, Google's going to come back, see that you have new content, and crawl it and kind of see what to be ranking you for for that new content.
Jenny (20:55)
You
Julia (21:11)
So it of helps in a few different ways.
Jenny (21:11)
Okay,
interesting. So does traffic affect SEO? So what I mean by that is if I had a competitor and we were doing the same thing in the same area, if I got more people to my website, funneling people there through social media or just from meeting them in person, does that help with ranking it all on SEO or not?
Julia (21:18)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, definitely. if you have Google Analytics set up, which I definitely recommend everyone get set up, you can see how much traffic you're getting to your website, how many pages people are going to, which pages they're going to, how long they're staying on your site, how engaged they are with your site. So Google is also seeing all that information because I mean, obviously they're tracking it for you with Google Analytics. Yeah. So Google Analytics. the two tools I definitely recommend setting up.
Jenny (21:57)
So what is Google Analytics? Tell us real quick what that is.
Julia (22:05)
are Google Analytics and Google Search Console. I know Google Search Console is not widely known about, I'll get into why I love it. But both of them are free. Google tracks all kinds of different information on your website. So how much traffic you're getting, where people are coming from, where they're located, which pages they're going to, whether they're coming from Google or social media or somewhere else, how long they're staying on your site. So all this.
you know, different information that's helpful both for kind of like, you know, SEO purposes to make decisions that way. But also like if you're really focusing on Facebook and then you check your website or Google Analytics and you see you're not getting any traffic from Facebook, then you know, that can kind of help you figure out, maybe I should try this other marketing platform if, you know, Facebook isn't performing well. So that way you're not kind of just wasting your time. Google Search Console is similar to Google Analytics.
but it's just tracking information that's coming from, you know, traffic that's coming from Google. So it's gonna show you the keywords that you're ranking for, how much traffic you're getting for those different keywords, you know, what you're ranking for, the number of pressions that you're getting for different keywords. So kind of like how your site is performing on Google, that's what you're gonna see in Google Search Console.
Jenny (23:25)
Awesome. Yeah. Those two tools, I know that I'm not using them to their full potential, but the information that you get from there can be super eye-opening and can really help you to get more people to your website and more people that go to your website, the better it is. So what about, Google business profiles? I feel like that is a big one that is sort of underrated and like kind of forgotten about sometimes. you tell us a little bit about maybe optimizing that and
Julia (23:30)
You
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jenny (23:55)
using that for our better potential.
Julia (23:58)
Yeah, so Google Business Profile used to be called Google My Business. They keep changing all the names of things. I don't know. I know. Yeah, and like Google Data Studio is now called Looker Studio. I don't even know. It's very confusing. But Google Business Profile is, that one is for like location specific businesses. like, yeah, flower farms. Yes.
Jenny (24:04)
Why do they do that? Like Facebook does it all the time. It's so confusing.
Yep.
for flower farms.
Julia (24:26)
So if you have a you know a physical location definitely get Google business profile because this is where you can rank on Google Maps So if someone is you know goes to Google Maps searches like flower farm near me That's where you can kind of show up on Google business profile. It's also really helpful because this is where you can get reviews You can also kind of like give some you know a snippet of information about your business who you are
your hours, you can link to your website, put your phone number if you have your phone number that you want to be listed. So that way people can easily contact you. They can obviously see the hours that you're open. So they again, don't show up your door at like 6 a.m. in January. So it's really helpful for kind of like giving Google that information directly to kind of know what to rank you for on Google Maps.
Jenny (25:08)
You
Julia (25:16)
So to kind of like optimize it, you do wanna make sure that you do have your Google or your business description filled out. Again, I think you get like 750 characters with that. So it doesn't have to be crazy long, but you do again wanna get straight to the point like I am a flower farm in Philadelphia. This is what we offer, this is what we do, things like that. You don't really wanna like just fill it with a lot of fluffy language. You wanna kind of get straight to the point.
You can also add services. So again, if you offer like you pick and then you also offer like wedding services, you can have those different services listed. If you have products, like if you sell like dollar YouTubers or something like that, you can list the products directly on Google business profile and then link to those product pages. You can also add updates. So like kind of similar to what you would be doing on social media, add updates about like
you know, maybe if you're now opening for the season, you're offering, you know, different flowers for Easter or Mother's Day, you have different specials going on. You can add all of those updates, you know, to Google Business Profile for people to see. And then also so that way Google knows if someone is searching for like Mother's Day bouquets, they know that's what you're offering right now. So they can, you know, know to rank your business profile higher. So it's kind of like...
taking all the information on your website and condensing it down and then also has like some social media components with like adding updates.
Jenny (26:40)
Yeah, I think that the Google business profile is really important for local businesses like us flower farmers. We're selling local flowers in our local communities. And that is a really big way that people find us. Like I know me personally, when I search for just any other business, like I'm
in Google maps, searching for restaurants in my area. Like I'm not always just searching on Google. I'm going to literally the Google maps app and searching for other businesses. So I think that can be huge for flower farmers. And something that you said was.
The, reviews, how people can leave reviews on there. think that's really important too. If somebody is searching for a flower farm, you know, CSA and they see two flower farms in the area pop up, but yours only has one five star review and the other competitor has 10 five star reviews. Like chances are they're probably going to go right over to the person who has more.
higher ranking reviews. And so I think that is another really cool piece of that Google business profile. And it's really easy to set up, isn't it? Like, don't you just go to like Google business profile and like, just set it up, right?
Julia (27:45)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I will say they keep changing the verification process. So it's kind of annoying. Yeah. Yeah. So they used to send a postcard in the mail. Sometimes they still do that. I just worked with someone recently where they were just able to get a verification code sent to their email address. So that's super easy. They don't always make it that easy.
Jenny (28:02)
Yes, they used to send me something. They used to send it in the mail to write. I don't know if they still do that,
Julia (28:21)
Sometimes they make you record a video outside to show your physical address, like the number on your street, and show that you're a farm. So it could be very different depending on what mood Google is in when you try to do it. But I've had some people get denied in the verification process just because Google has bots that are looking at things.
you can still repeal the process. I've had someone who just got denied for who knows whatever reason, and then they just like submitted a copy of their like electricity bill and showed, you know, the address on the bill and their name and then they got it approved. So you can, you can appeal the process if you don't get verified or maybe they'll just send you a verification code to your email and you don't have to worry about that.
Jenny (29:03)
Hahaha
Yeah, so there's like a little bit of a lag where you like sign up and you just have to verify like, yes, I'm a real business or I'm actually where I say I am. But other than that, it's pretty easy to set up. And then one other thing I just wanted to say is from personal experience, I don't recommend putting your personal phone number on Google business profile. I did that way back when I first started my business and I get so like.
Julia (29:19)
Yeah.
Jenny (29:39)
I could be, this is just speculation, but I get so many spam calls now that I never got before. Just having my personal number out there up there. So my quick nitty gritty advice would be to get a Google voice number. It's a free platform that you can sign up for. We have one now for a business. It's you just like, it's an app that you put on your phone. You can sign up to get a phone number and you can use that as your free business phone number. So.
Julia (29:44)
Hmm.
Jenny (30:07)
I recommend doing that to anyone who's going to be going and signing up for Google business profile. And just in general, like for work life balance, you should have some separation there. So yeah. Okay. So I feel like we've been going over some really good stuff that farmers can use to use on their websites from all the stuff we talked about with using keywords and the location, all that stuff on other pages on their website.
Julia (30:08)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Jenny (30:34)
using Google Analytics, like signing up for that in Google Search Console. And I want to say, even if you don't quite know how to use Google Analytics, just getting it set up on your website is just, if you can just get it set up so it starts collecting that data for you, you you can kind of figure out how to utilize data later on. And then talking about Google Business Profiles. So,
Let's say a farmer is just starting up their business, or maybe they've been doing it for a while and they've been working on this stuff. They've been updating their keywords and updating their website and working all this for a while. Getting that ranking on Google, like getting on the first page of Google when someone searches flower farms near me, can someone expect that to happen like instantly?
Julia (31:23)
Usually no. Yeah, yeah. So I will say for brand new websites, you've never had a website before, it can take a few weeks before Google even crawls your website to kind of like understand what your website is about. So another thing that you can do in Google Search Console is you can request indexing on your site. So basically you just submit the URL.
Jenny (31:24)
Usually takes a little while, right?
Julia (31:49)
you'll see if you have Google Search Console set up, there's like just a little top.
toolbar where you can inspect a URL. So you can kind of just nudge Google basically like, hey, check out this page. They won't crawl it instantly, but it does kind of help speed up the process a little bit. But usually will take at least a few weeks before they even notice changes on your website. So it's not going to be instant. It also depends on different things like how competitive your area is. So if you are in New York City, you probably won't rank.
the first page on Google for like many many months. Could be longer depending on like how much you're investing in your SEO, how much traffic you're getting from other sources and things like that. If you are in a small town and there's only one other flower farm you know near you, you might rank on the first page of Google the first result within like a few weeks to a couple of months. So factors like that can vary you know quite a bit. Typically what most people can expect is like starting to rank better on
Google within like three to six months. So this means like if you are on the 10th page of Google right now, that doesn't mean you're going to jump to the first page of Google in three months. You'll probably see like gradual increasing in your rankings within a few months. So it's hard to say, but usually a few months it's very very infrequently going to be like instantaneous.
Jenny (33:16)
I would say that anybody who is trying to rank higher in Google searches to just be patient with it and keep working on this stuff because eventually you will climb the ranks. mean, I know for me, it was like I just kind of discovered suddenly, I like Googled myself one day and I was like, my God, I'm like the first one that comes up and that.
Julia (33:37)
Mm-hmm.
Jenny (33:40)
I mean, it really took me years for that to happen. And it was, you know, I was learning all this stuff, trial and error, self-taught, like, like you were in the beginning, Julia, and just like really figuring out as I went, but the time's going to pass anyways. So you just got to be patient with it and know that it's going to work if you keep on doing the work. But let's say that you have a competitor in your area and maybe it's just like two of your, a couple other ones.
Julia (33:42)
man.
Jenny (34:10)
Are there like little things that people can do to try to rank a little bit higher than their competitors if they're doing very similar things? Is it about more volume to put on their website? Is it about quality? Is it about traffic? Like what is going to get you to that like number one spot when someone Googles you're the first person that pops up?
Julia (34:33)
Yeah, so one factor is how long you've had your website So that's not something you can really help unfortunately So like if they've had their website for 10 years your sites are like near You know identical with like the quality and the information that you have things like that If they've had their site for 10 years, they're probably gonna rank, you know higher for you at least you know until you're able to maybe get enough content on your website where you're building up that traffic to
Jenny (34:38)
Right.
Julia (34:58)
be able to outrank them. So that's one thing where like you can't really help it if you're brand new and they've had their website for 10 years. But yeah, definitely getting traffic from other places. So don't just launch your website and hope you get traffic from Google. You do need to be active on like social media or your email list or, you know, getting maybe like referrals from like if you got a feature in your local online newspaper or, you know, other local websites or something like that, getting that traffic back to your website.
So building up traffic from all these different sources, make sure it's also quality traffic because Google, know, especially in the age of bots and everything, people, yeah, Google knows, people can, you know, quote, buy traffic, but it's all these bots from like, you know, Russia that are just on your site for like two seconds. Google is smarter than that. They know that's like not quality traffic. So they, you know, weed those out. So you do want to make sure it's quality traffic. So this is where a lot of things with
Jenny (35:37)
Google knows.
You
Julia (35:57)
user experience on your website comes to play. So making sure that your site isn't too slow, making sure your site is super easy to navigate. You have a menu in the top, you have a menu in the footer because if people scroll to the bottom of the page on their phones, they don't want to have to scroll all the way back up to the top of the page to go to the menu. Making sure everything is super clear. You don't have like giant videos on the first thing on your homepage that take forever to load.
So making sure that you're doing all these things to keep people on your site, keeping them engaged. Blog posts can also really help with this because typically blog posts are going to be longer than like, you know, the copy that you have in your homepage and people are, you know, really interested in the information that you're sharing on your blog posts. So definitely, you know, adding blogs to your website can help keep them engaged for longer. So yeah, kind of keep, keep going if you have a competitor. Yeah.
Jenny (36:50)
So keeping, but keeping
people on your website for as long as possible. Like something that I'm always looking at recently is our bounce rates on some of our web pages, which basically what that means is like the amount of time it takes from.
Julia (37:04)
Mm-hmm.
Jenny (37:09)
somebody gets to your webpage, if they go to another one or if they just bounce, they just leave. They're like, nah, not for me. And so you want to try to keep them there. so like something that we do on our blogs is, know, if you liked this blog, you might like this other one to try to encourage people to like click over. so keeping them engaged and giving them valuable information, like it seems like that can help too. Yeah.
Julia (37:13)
Yeah.
Yep.
yeah, mm-hmm, yeah, definitely.
Jenny (37:36)
So how can farmers know if their SEO efforts are working? Like, where can they find the data that shows them their numbers and their performance? Or do they just Google themselves and be like, ugh, it looks like I'm ranking a little higher?
Julia (37:46)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so this is where Google Search Console is really helpful because you can see that progress on what keywords you're ranking for, what position you're ranking for each of them, how much traffic you're getting for those different keywords. So if you're Googling yourself frequently to kind of see where you're ranking on Google, that is a factor that Google will take into account when showing your search results.
Jenny (38:16)
They're like, she's cheating.
Julia (38:18)
They're like, well,
if you really like this website that you keep going to it, then we're going to rank it higher for you because we know that you want to go to this website. So, and then also like if you are like in your location on your flower farm and you're searching flower farm near me, like that is obviously the closest flower farm to you. So searching yourself isn't like...
Jenny (38:38)
Right.
Julia (38:41)
it's not going to be an exact science because yeah, Google looks at all these different factors with people's past search history, where they're physically located when they're searching and know, different things like that. So if you do want to kind of like search for yourself, I would definitely do it in an incognito window so that way can kind of like remove some of those, you know, metrics that Google has tracked for you before. But Google Search Console is going to be the most, you know, straightforward, you know, clear information on like
Jenny (38:57)
Mm.
Julia (39:09)
how you are actually ranking for everyone who is searching for like, you know, flower farm in Philadelphia.
Jenny (39:15)
So I feel like this is all amazing, but I know that there's probably a few people out there listening being like, holy cow, this sounds like a lot of work. This seems like I'm not a techie person. I don't know that much about the internet or Google. Can this work for people who are not techie or not super tech savvy?
Julia (39:42)
Yeah, definitely. And also you don't have to like, you know, listen to this podcast and then go out and do like five million things on your website today. this can, it can take your time. You don't need to publish 500 blog posts tomorrow. Like it doesn't have to, you don't have to make all these changes overnight. Like if you right now just have one page on your website, you know, maybe next month add a second page. And then the next month add like a services page, you know, it can be gradual.
Jenny (39:50)
It takes time.
Julia (40:11)
Yeah, so you don't, definitely don't have to be super techie. will say like setting up Google Analytics and Google Search Console are kind of annoying and they, you know, make you jump through some hoops with that. But in terms of like your actual website, I mean, the website platforms today make it super easy. You don't have to do like coding or anything. Like 15 years ago, like it was a totally different ball game with websites. So, you know,
You can get these free or low price templates for different websites. Just fill in your website copy. Like you said, a lot of the website platforms, probably all of them, have different guides on where to find the title tags and meta descriptions, how to add images, or how to resize images so they're not giant and slowing down your site so much. So you don't have to be super techy. And then you just Google different things if you have questions.
Jenny (41:04)
Yeah.
Google's my best friend for all that kind of stuff because I'm not a techie person. but I have people think that I am because I have figured out how to do all this stuff over many, many, many years. And it's just like, well, I just Google it. Like I don't, or I ask people like you, like Julia, I'm like, Hey, I need some help. So yeah. Any final pieces of advice or encouragement for people in ranking hiring Google searches so people can find their business?
Julia (41:07)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean just take it one day at a time, you know Kind of I would focus on doing like a lot of updates on your website Maybe during like the slower seasons when you don't have so much going on You might not want to tackle this like in the middle of the summer Yeah, and kind of like
Jenny (41:53)
Do not recommend.
Julia (41:58)
Also with, you know, making sure that you're giving Google enough time to, you know, understand your website and know what to rank you for. It is, if you're able to do this, I know, you know, if you're like kind of like...
making a bunch of changes to your website right now, but like in terms of writing your blog posts or things like that, you do want to make sure you're planning them and getting them posted in advance so that way Google has enough time to crawl that blog post and to start to rank it before people are searching for it. So like, for example, you know, back to that example of like flowers that are blooming in June for a wedding in Philadelphia. You don't want to post that in June.
You want to make sure that you're posting that at least a few months in advance to give Google enough time to crawl it and start to rank it when people are searching for it. So once you get your foundations done with your website, start thinking about it at least a few months in advance.
Jenny (42:53)
Yeah. And I think when Julia says that she means like, can post that blog post of flowers that bloom in June ahead of time, but then you don't have to direct people to that. Like your audience, can post it on your website so it's there, but then you can tell people about it in June when they want that information. So just making that clarification there, but yeah.
Julia (42:57)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, social media is more like immediate. So like you don't have to, you know, write a blog post about, you know, something you're doing this summer and then post about it on Instagram today. That also kind of goes for like events as well. So if you know you're going to have some sort of event at your farm or like specific holidays, so like Mother's Day, if you're selling specific flowers for that, put it on your website, you know, a couple months in advance, but then, you know, don't you don't have to share about it on social media until closer.
Jenny (43:16)
Yes.
Julia (43:43)
to the date.
Jenny (43:44)
Yeah, great advice. I love that. Well, Julia, thank you so much for sharing all of your incredible expertise and knowledge with us. This has been super helpful. Can you just tell everyone how people can find you, find out more about you, or maybe how to work with you in the future?
Julia (43:51)
hehe
Yeah, so my website is homegrownreach.com. You can find me on Instagram at homegrownreach. And then my email is julia at homegrownreach.com.
Jenny (44:10)
Awesome. Thank you so much, Julia. This has been such a fun conversation. And we will see everyone in the next episode of the Six Figure Flower Farming Podcast. Bye. Thanks so much for being here. Bye, everyone.
Julia (44:19)
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Jenny (44:25)
Hey, one last thing before you go, I have a super quick favor to ask.
If you haven't yet, could you please leave the six figure flower farming podcast a review on Apple or Spotify? If you've gotten any value or insight out of this podcast at all, it would seriously mean the world to me and to your fellow flower farmers because those reviews help them find the valuable information they need to build their profitable and sustainable flower farm businesses. So please just take less than 30 seconds. It literally takes no time at all to just
go ahead and leave a review now and I will be forever grateful. Thank you so much in advance and I'll see you next time.
