Transcripts
The women conquer business show is an educational.
Speaker:How to women in business podcast that features stories, marketing
Speaker:news and real life experiences from fun and friendly hosts.
Speaker:Jen McFarland and Shelley Carney.
Speaker:Join us as we dive into the details.
Speaker:So you can slay marketing, overwhelm, streamlined processes
Speaker:and amplify your impact.
Speaker:You'll learn strategies and tactics, leadership skills, and practical advice
Speaker:from successful women entrepreneurs.
Speaker:To help you grow, nurture and sustain your business.
Speaker:okay.
Speaker:That was fun.
Speaker:I don't know what just happened, but welcome to live in conquer business.
Speaker:I'm Jen McFarland, who apparently has not mastered scream yard yet.
Speaker:And I've been going by.
Speaker:I am here and it's okay.
Speaker:That's what happens when you go live, there's going to be a little glitchy
Speaker:things that you work your way through.
Speaker:That's life today.
Speaker:We're going to talk about topic clusters.
Speaker:So it's coming up with fresh ideas based on your own expertise.
Speaker:We've talked a lot over the last few weeks about research and content
Speaker:based on customer testimonials and basic keyword research.
Speaker:But if you want to know the secret to reach the right audience with
Speaker:your expertise, the solution is within you and oh, by the way.
Speaker:It will really help you rank with Google.
Speaker:And it's a really good thing to use if you want to come up in search.
Speaker:So this week's show is all about creating topic clusters or when I'm working
Speaker:with my clients, I often call them content themes based on your expertise.
Speaker:And you'll find that you have this goldmine within you and we're going
Speaker:to help you unlock those riches.
Speaker:Bridges treasures.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:What's up?
Speaker:So in my life, I'm still at my mom's house and she came home on Saturday
Speaker:and we have been adjusting to.
Speaker:That we've getting the correct equipment in place.
Speaker:We have home helpers coming in and we're getting used to each other.
Speaker:She's got physical therapy and occupational therapy going on,
Speaker:still people who are coming to the home to help her with those things.
Speaker:It's a good move forward, but at the same time, it was like, stressful for her.
Speaker:So it's this time period of transition.
Speaker:And then we're ready to move ahead.
Speaker:Now.
Speaker:I think we're in that place where she's good with being at home and
Speaker:good with people coming in to help.
Speaker:And now she's ready to get to work on her physical therapy.
Speaker:So it's all good.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How about you?
Speaker:I have been heads down working on this presentation for the
Speaker:association of philanthropic counsel.
Speaker:So I have.
Speaker:Some clients who are nonprofit consultants, they help nonprofits
Speaker:do capital campaigns and fundraise.
Speaker:They help them hire people.
Speaker:They're just like, they're like us they're consultants, but they
Speaker:help nonprofits exclusively.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:They asked me to come speak at their conference in Portland
Speaker:and I'm super excited.
Speaker:It's going to be fun.
Speaker:It's right down on the riverfront.
Speaker:It's supposed to be like 85 and sunny tomorrow there.
Speaker:So I'm going to speak for about an hour and a half about how to
Speaker:market your non-profit consultancy.
Speaker:And then I'm going to go walk along the river and just enjoy the weather
Speaker:I've been waiting for this for months.
Speaker:We've had blue skies almost all week and.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And in fact, after this, I'm going to go take my dog for a walk and go enjoy it.
Speaker:Cause it's just it's phenomenal here.
Speaker:So I'm really excited.
Speaker:I get to meet I have been collaborating with this group for their
Speaker:conference now for a few months and.
Speaker:And the weather's hitting it just the right time.
Speaker:So I just, I think it's going to be really fun, but yeah, I've been like
Speaker:super like laser focused on that.
Speaker:And I think it's gonna be super fun.
Speaker:And in fact, you're V you're breaking news.
Speaker:That's the thing I gave up to speak.
Speaker:At this event.
Speaker:I had tickets to VidCon.
Speaker:I had my hotel, I had everything and I had to cancel it all, but it's
Speaker:worth it because this is going to be, this is going to be a great.
Speaker:So very good.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, I'm also still completing the prep for my course live cast life style.
Speaker:And one of the funny things is my daughter has decided that she and her two of
Speaker:her friends are going to revitalize her YouTube channel, where she focused on
Speaker:weird Al Yankovic they're super fans.
Speaker:And He sees revitalizing that with these young ladies and there are other,
Speaker:there is another podcast out there.
Speaker:A friend of hers is doing his own podcast.
Speaker:There's a couple of guys doing this.
Speaker:So she's how am I different?
Speaker:And what's, how and how do I do this?
Speaker:And so I've been working with her on her channel and telling her.
Speaker:YouTube first, live stream first and then create the podcast from that.
Speaker:And I've been walking her through it and she keeps coming up with more questions.
Speaker:So I said, go through my slides for my course.
Speaker:I think they're going to answer a lot of your questions and then
Speaker:you can also tell me if you have any new questions based on that.
Speaker:And then I can, that'll help me make the course even better.
Speaker:Looking forward to that course coming out I think I'm going to wait till
Speaker:I get home to record it though.
Speaker:So it may not come out till early to mid July, but if you would like to get
Speaker:on the waiting list for that course, you can go to course.cast.life and
Speaker:sign up to be on that waiting list.
Speaker:So you'll know.
Speaker:That when it comes out and if you're on that list, you'll be offered a special
Speaker:discount for friends and family, a discount or our early bird signer, uppers.
Speaker:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:That's really exciting.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we were talking earlier.
Speaker:Different platforms for your daughter and like how to do it platforms like Patrion,
Speaker:they just take the huge percentage out, any revenue that you generate.
Speaker:It is, there are a lot of options out there.
Speaker:And so she's been talking, you guys have been figuring out where to put
Speaker:her platform so that she can raise money, coming up a lot to some of
Speaker:these other platforms, the creator.
Speaker:The struggles of creator real, because you make things and you want people to
Speaker:participate and then it seems like there's always somebody out there who wasn't
Speaker:and you're breaking up a little bit.
Speaker:Maybe you might not move your microphone just a little bit closer, so funny.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So breaking news, it is VidCon this weekend.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That would have been awesome to go.
Speaker:I had an Anaheim in hon.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's an Anaheim and it, they, it, they had it all set up really great so that
Speaker:kids could go and they had daycare and they have all different kinds of topics.
Speaker:They had, they have groups where you can meet some of the big
Speaker:influencers on YouTube and tic talk and all kinds of places.
Speaker:It's going to be a really neat event.
Speaker:So I didn't realize that you could get in on it through.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They have a YouTube channel.
Speaker:They'd Khan has a YouTube channel and they are doing some of the content
Speaker:will be live streamed on their channel.
Speaker:I'm not sure how long they're going to keep it up on the channel, but they've
Speaker:got it all set up for the different talks.
Speaker:So you can go there and subscribe and click on the bell to get
Speaker:notified when they go live.
Speaker:They're going to be incorporating a lot of ads and stuff for.
Speaker:For their sponsors in their live stream.
Speaker:So it's valuable for their sponsors and them to do it to share that content
Speaker:in that way so that more people can see those sponsors and advertisers.
Speaker:And yeah we're going to put the YouTube link for VidCon in the show
Speaker:notes so that you, if you want to know more about it, you can, or
Speaker:you can just look it up on YouTube.
Speaker:Yeah, and I forgot to do the breaking news.
Speaker:I forgot to do the sound.
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:That's okay.
Speaker:So Toby got his new.
Speaker:Road cast or approach to, so he's going to be quits me the
Speaker:road caster when I get home.
Speaker:So I can have new sounds to myself.
Speaker:We can all have sounds.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't have a lot of other breaking news.
Speaker:I've been reading some interesting blog posts about Google.
Speaker:There's a lot going on right now.
Speaker:Google analytics and what they're going to replace it with.
Speaker:How are they going to do the cookie list future of tracking and ad tech,
Speaker:but there's just nothing definitive yet to really report it breaking news.
Speaker:So I guess we should move on to training.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So it's like baseball.
Speaker:Ooh, let's play ball.
Speaker:So it's a, yeah, it's about leveling up.
Speaker:That was why I picked that.
Speaker:That sounds so it's funny.
Speaker:We have the show flow, which we've talked about a few times and.
Speaker:Shelley asked me if I was still recovering from my concussion,
Speaker:because it looks like code in here of all these different topics.
Speaker:And so I'll be taking the lead on this and Shelly's going to be asking
Speaker:me a lot of questions and talking about her experiences with this, but
Speaker:topic clusters are really important.
Speaker:And one of the reasons that I wanted to talk about this is I work with a
Speaker:lot of people and I've talked to a lot of business owners and they have
Speaker:a really hard time coming up with.
Speaker:Ideas that are well to talk about what do I talk about?
Speaker:They don't know what they can talk about in their expertise.
Speaker:And so what we're going to go through are a few things that are important
Speaker:as you think about the types of topics you want to discuss and how.
Speaker:Brainstorm it so that you're not only getting the expertise, meaning
Speaker:you're bringing the right people in, as you talk about the things that are
Speaker:important to you, but you're also going to get the search benefit from it.
Speaker:'cause you're going to be talking about a broad range of topics, and then I'll show
Speaker:you how that plays out on your website.
Speaker:You could do the same thing.
Speaker:I think on YouTube, where your related videos are related to all of these
Speaker:other elements, you can do this.
Speaker:On LinkedIn, if you have the LinkedIn newsletter and you want to link to
Speaker:like all the different newsletters, there's a lot of ways you can do it.
Speaker:Fundamentally.
Speaker:This is about where, because we're talking a little bit last
Speaker:week, we talked about blogging.
Speaker:So this week we're talking about how to plan out your blog a little
Speaker:bit, but you could use this for just about any topic that is within
Speaker:your expertise that you want to.
Speaker:Is that right?
Speaker:Shelly?
Speaker:I can link everything the way that I said in YouTube.
Speaker:All the cards and everything.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you could do these deep dives in this way.
Speaker:You could do, you can also do it with your podcasts.
Speaker:And essentially that's what we're doing here, where we're taking these different
Speaker:topics and we're doing, sometimes you just don't know what people are going to find.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:The other day yesterday, Toby's I don't know if I want to do this show
Speaker:because I don't know if anybody's going to show up and I'm like, if you're
Speaker:excited about it, they will be excited.
Speaker:Yeah, let that inform you because for me, that show did really well and a
Speaker:lot of people showed up and watched it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we're going to explore it and we're going to see what happens next.
Speaker:So the first part is to really think about how you are communicating
Speaker:and what this is called in SEO.
Speaker:Land is E.
Speaker:And or eat, which is funny because my example is about chocolate cake.
Speaker:So I guess it's all tied together.
Speaker:So eat is what Google is looking for.
Speaker:When they're trying to decide if your website is worthy of sending people
Speaker:to, it could be the same thing where, you know, when you are, if you create
Speaker:a lot of YouTube videos, when you see previews of videos coming up in
Speaker:search, it would be the same thing.
Speaker:So they're looking at these different layers of.
Speaker:Who you are, what you do in order to determine whether
Speaker:or not to serve your content.
Speaker:The first dimension of that is E or expertise, and they're
Speaker:looking at the creator themself.
Speaker:So that would be like, in this case, they're looking
Speaker:at Jen McFarland and Shelley.
Speaker:What is the body of work that these creators have made and
Speaker:they can look at everything.
Speaker:And so they're looking at and evaluating whether your expertise is aligned.
Speaker:This is why, if you are an acupuncturist you don't want
Speaker:to suddenly be talking about.
Speaker:Something completely unrelated, like lighting your livestream.
Speaker:You want to stay in your lane because Google is looking for all of the
Speaker:things that are part of your lane.
Speaker:Does it mean.
Speaker:It does.
Speaker:And we have found that when you completely radically change, sometimes you're going
Speaker:to have a small group of people who do stay with you because they like you, they
Speaker:will stay with you no matter what you're talking about, because they just like you
Speaker:as a person, a friend, a brand, whatever.
Speaker:As long as you're not going.
Speaker:Turning into a different person.
Speaker:They like you.
Speaker:So you can change your brand.
Speaker:You can change your focus.
Speaker:You can hone in on things a little more if you need to in the future, but to get
Speaker:started, of course you want to be very clear about who you are, what you're
Speaker:talking about and who you're talking to.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And that is entirely about expertise.
Speaker:And again, we're talking about Google, but the same is true with your audience.
Speaker:You know what Shelly's talking about, like whether they're going to follow you
Speaker:or not, and you have experienced in this because you made a radical shift, from
Speaker:talking about treasures, to talking about.
Speaker:Content marketing, you know how you put out the information about treasures?
Speaker:Basically, it was what I was going to say.
Speaker:It was related, but, and you've retained some of the audience, but then from
Speaker:the Google perspective, they're like, wait, they were talking about treasures.
Speaker:So it takes a while then to build up that expertise so that
Speaker:Google will send people to you.
Speaker:So there's two different layers of what's going on.
Speaker:Which is the audience later.
Speaker:And the people who know you layer and then the people you don't know who largely
Speaker:come from Google, other people sharing, all of that kind of expertise that you're
Speaker:sharing that then other people want to share your work with their friends.
Speaker:So then the second layer is authoritativeness and it is
Speaker:the actual content itself.
Speaker:So it's not only you as a creator.
Speaker:It is, or the professional, if you're a professional.
Speaker:You are a creator.
Speaker:If you're putting something out into the world, it's also the content itself.
Speaker:Is the content itself good?
Speaker:Or are you just creating it for the sake of getting clicks without any substance?
Speaker:Or are you creating it just to sell something, but you don't really
Speaker:know what you're talking about.
Speaker:We're seeing this happening a lot where people get something like
Speaker:Jasper or pepper type or some of these AI writing programs and.
Speaker:And or a topic and create gobbledygook just so that they can rank.
Speaker:And now what Google is doing is they're going through with humans, it's crediting,
Speaker:but it takes them while to do it.
Speaker:So it's really important that whatever you create is from is within your
Speaker:expertise and is authoritative meaning you're creating it to
Speaker:create value, to help people.
Speaker:And that it is based on expertise and part of what helps with that
Speaker:is if you link to other things.
Speaker:So something like a topic clusters, you might link out to HubSpot or SEMrush, or,
Speaker:any of these different SEO companies to show that you have, well-researched it.
Speaker:And you're like within your lane of.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And the way you present it can be attractive as well.
Speaker:For instance, if you're doing a demo of a product and here's how
Speaker:you use it, here's step by step.
Speaker:And then your review of it.
Speaker:People are going to watch it again and again, because they're going
Speaker:to go through those steps with you.
Speaker:But if you are doing a conversation about a topic, you're more likely to get people
Speaker:in the beginning where it's live and they can participate in that conversation.
Speaker:So you want to think about how you're presenting your content as well.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:100.
Speaker:And then the third dimension that Google is looking at is a little bit
Speaker:more technical and not like it's the website, it's the platform itself.
Speaker:So if you're presenting on YouTube they like their own.
Speaker:But if you have your own website, which I highly recommend, it's looking at
Speaker:things like what's the other content on that website, is that trustworthy?
Speaker:Is it coded well, or does it have malware or viruses on it that
Speaker:could be harmful to other people?
Speaker:Does it have, is it well coded?
Speaker:Does it perform well?
Speaker:Are people going to have to wait eight seconds before
Speaker:the L the website even loads?
Speaker:It's looking at the overall, how long has the website been around
Speaker:the overall trustworthiness of the content itself, where it lives?
Speaker:So these three things go together, hand in hand, and that's really one of the basis.
Speaker:For how Google is looking at your work.
Speaker:How do we know this?
Speaker:Because this is one of the few things that Google has actually written up on
Speaker:their website, as one of the ways that one of the factors for how they're looking
Speaker:at you and looking at your content.
Speaker:So how you communicate is incredibly important.
Speaker:Having one website with all of your stuff is really important because
Speaker:you're not spreading out your creator expertise among a lot of places.
Speaker:You can have content on.
Speaker:YouTube and apple podcasts and LinkedIn, but ultimately you really do want to
Speaker:have that content hub in one place where you are putting all of your
Speaker:authority and expertise in one place.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:I know you worked really hard on that and I'm still getting there.
Speaker:We do have our live cast life hub where all of our content lives in
Speaker:our about page tells you what we do, but it's not maybe as beautiful.
Speaker:And user friendly is what Jen has.
Speaker:Yeah, I've worked really hard on it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's changed a lot even since we only put other Shelly.
Speaker:So it's a process.
Speaker:And that's the thing.
Speaker:I always tell people in the beginning, you just want that good enough
Speaker:website and you want to get the hang of whatever it is that you're doing.
Speaker:So don't put a lot of pressure on yourself on the trustworthiness of a website, but
Speaker:just know that it'll come, especially if you continue to create things within your
Speaker:expertise that are helpful and authority.
Speaker:So that those are the two that you maybe have more control over, especially if
Speaker:you're not a web developer yourself and you don't or a brand specialist
Speaker:and know everything about branding.
Speaker:The next dimension is the next set of the next acronym is, your money or your life.
Speaker:So what this means, and I think that this is interesting because it
Speaker:really does seem to me like this.
Speaker:All topics.
Speaker:The next dimension is, are you providing accurate information?
Speaker:Could your information do harm?
Speaker:And you can say we already talked about that.
Speaker:That's authoritativeness, right?
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:But it's also.
Speaker:Something separate that's being looked at and you could, I know
Speaker:people will look at these topics and think I have seen things that are
Speaker:harmful in any one of these things.
Speaker:So it's a judgment, right?
Speaker:Whether or not something is doing harm or not, I think it's an entirely a judgment.
Speaker:What is that kind of your take on this?
Speaker:I think you have to be careful in what you're using to support your.
Speaker:Your theories, your arguments.
Speaker:In our case, if you go into our little treasure community, there are people
Speaker:who are supposing where the treasure was hidden and nobody knows for sure,
Speaker:except for a couple of people like the ranger of Yellowstone national
Speaker:park and the person who found the.
Speaker:They know where exactly the geographical coordinates of where it is, but
Speaker:other people are supposing about.
Speaker:And then they take those suppositions and treat them as fact.
Speaker:And then they start to build their case upon that.
Speaker:And then they get angry at anybody who questions, their facts.
Speaker:So you have to be careful.
Speaker:You're not doing that.
Speaker:What you state as a fact really is a fact.
Speaker:And then not just your opinion and then building your case.
Speaker:And then you know that I'm right in your wrong kind of an attitude.
Speaker:If you have.
Speaker:Strong research and surveys that you can use and support your
Speaker:theories and your arguments.
Speaker:Then, then you can build upon that.
Speaker:And then you can tell people, this is my opinion.
Speaker:Here's how I feel and not to treat it like it is the one and only way to do things.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And how do we know that your money or your life is important?
Speaker:We know that it's important because Google has told us it's important.
Speaker:We know it's important because it's also talked about on several different places.
Speaker:Again, all of the main.
Speaker:SEO topics, main SEO providers.
Speaker:Everybody's talking about how important good content is.
Speaker:So what are the topic areas where they consider your.
Speaker:Your money or your life or these to be critical topics.
Speaker:Like I said, it's just about everything.
Speaker:So it's like news and current events.
Speaker:So that includes this cause this is about business and tech and we don't
Speaker:talk about science, but science, it also is government and law.
Speaker:So anything about politics or.
Speaker:The legal system, anything related to that financial advice?
Speaker:So investments, retirement crypto, all of that kind of thing.
Speaker:Shopping information.
Speaker:So product reviews and research in that regard, anything
Speaker:about shopping medical advice?
Speaker:So drugs, hospitals, emergency.
Speaker:All, anything in that realm is considered, inaccurate information
Speaker:could do harm and then people.
Speaker:So that encompasses race, religion, sexuality.
Speaker:These are very broad.
Speaker:So it's really easy to have information taken down.
Speaker:If you are not dedicated to providing the best information available.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And if you care about your audience, then you're going to care about the validity of
Speaker:what you're saying and explaining to them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you're going to have to talk about where it is that it comes from and how
Speaker:this fits within your area of expertise.
Speaker:So those are the two things that are just we're grounding.
Speaker:I want to ground us in, when we come up with our topic ideas, things that
Speaker:we want to talk about that are the most important to our area of expertise.
Speaker:They all have to remain.
Speaker:High quality focused and linking out to all of the other, the greatest resources,
Speaker:because we always want to create the highest level of content possible.
Speaker:And this is what helps us show up more online, because this is a lot of work,
Speaker:writing a blog or creating a video.
Speaker:All of these things are a lot of work.
Speaker:So you want to make sure that whatever it is that you're doing, it is
Speaker:definitely going to get seen and heard and appreciated by all of your people.
Speaker:So the next thing that you least have to think about at a very high level
Speaker:is that people search for a ring.
Speaker:So if you think about it, the latest statistics are that like 87% of all people
Speaker:with a smartphone, which is a lot of people, our phones they're using their
Speaker:phone as a search engine, 87% of the time.
Speaker:Every day and we're all searching for different reasons.
Speaker:We might be searching to navigate to something, just to learn about something.
Speaker:That's, what's called a navigational search.
Speaker:I don't know anything about this topic.
Speaker:Help me understand like this, a big general, certain, and
Speaker:you might want to come up with.
Speaker:Informational.
Speaker:So what is this like how, what is some specific information on a topic?
Speaker:So it could be like, what is live stream or what is acupuncture or what is
Speaker:business, coaching, marketing, coaching, energy, healing, whatever that topic is.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And you want to have stories case studies about.
Speaker:And again, I want to encourage people to really think about what it is that
Speaker:they look for in search, because what we're going to talk about is capturing
Speaker:people with the LA the big searches.
Speaker:So the big, what is this?
Speaker:And getting them into your content.
Speaker:So they go all the way down to where we're commercial or transactional pieces.
Speaker:You're comparing products or you're encouraging people to buy from you.
Speaker:And part of that is that you want them to get in on a general search
Speaker:and then just start weaving through all of your levels of expertise.
Speaker:And that's really what leads people to buy.
Speaker:And the reason is it takes so many.
Speaker:The points now for people to decide whether or not they're interested in
Speaker:what it is that you're talking about and how you talk about it, what your
Speaker:services are that really, what you have to do then is find different ways to get
Speaker:people at different points in the funnel.
Speaker:So they're like, man, women conquer business keeps popping up or wow.
Speaker:Shelly keeps coming up.
Speaker:This is how that we do that is that we we go through.
Speaker:And make different trips of content.
Speaker:We describe our expertise in several different ways and it
Speaker:eventually will become the contact point that will lead to a sale.
Speaker:You can separate your content out into these different playlist so
Speaker:that you have a playlist that covers the definition of, the overview
Speaker:of what it is that you talk about.
Speaker:Then you can have a playlist that gets more into the information.
Speaker:Then you can have a playlist that describes products
Speaker:and reviews of that sort.
Speaker:And then you can get into the transactional, how can I help you?
Speaker:Or you can also do a one piece of content that funnels all of that
Speaker:starts off with the definition and then works down to the end where the
Speaker:transaction is a lot of webinars.
Speaker:Start off that way.
Speaker:Yeah, totally.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Although there are a lot of webinars that seems to just go
Speaker:straight to the transactional.
Speaker:And I don't think there is good.
Speaker:They're not helpful.
Speaker:They're not helpful.
Speaker:And people are going to sign off.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so that's why we talk about this.
Speaker:We want to.
Speaker:Help you welcome people in and work their way through all of the
Speaker:different layers and levels of what it is that you are offering and
Speaker:all of your layers of expertise.
Speaker:That's why there's so much gold inside of you as the expert is you have
Speaker:this within you, that you can talk about all these different dimensions.
Speaker:And help people in these different ways.
Speaker:So how does this play out?
Speaker:I'm scared show this next slide.
Speaker:For those of you who are listening, it's going to be.
Speaker:A lot of arrows so way that this brings to this is a topic cluster.
Speaker:So the way that you do this is maybe you have four or five
Speaker:different layers of expertise.
Speaker:Maybe you have four or five different services that are all
Speaker:related to one major broad topic.
Speaker:So you have one topic hub.
Speaker:So say you wanted to talk.
Speaker:Leadership.
Speaker:And next week, we're going to talk about what that means that
Speaker:pillar post or a skyscraper page.
Speaker:And you wanted to have one big post about leadership, and then you have all
Speaker:these different dimensions of leadership discussed in that one post, but then you
Speaker:break it off and write articles about each of those different dimensions to.
Speaker:Sure your overall position and expertise in leadership.
Speaker:So it's a lot of different related topics surrounding one big topic hub.
Speaker:And that's essentially what a topic cluster is.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Are those letters significant.
Speaker:They are like the informative or the navigational or the
Speaker:commercial or the transactional.
Speaker:So each one of your supporting articles about a particular topic.
Speaker:They also could be how tos, which are typically navigational or people
Speaker:that are trying to learn something.
Speaker:They can be comparing two different products that is helping people
Speaker:understand and maybe get closer to making a buying decision.
Speaker:They can be commercial.
Speaker:So that is when people are ready to be.
Speaker:You're lining up when you're not you're exactly lining up everything that you
Speaker:talk about within your expertise, with a different stage of the content funnel.
Speaker:So you're capturing the people who have general questions, and then
Speaker:you're capturing the people who are ready to make a buying decision.
Speaker:Cynthia says it's very helpful.
Speaker:She loves it.
Speaker:Who says this, Cynthia.
Speaker:Hey, Cynthia.
Speaker:I'm so glad to see you.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So what does this look like in real life?
Speaker:It looks like this and Shelly is so mad at me for not having a piece of chocolate
Speaker:cake on and the background even, could have one big thing in the background.
Speaker:So the topic cluster example that I have is chocolate.
Speaker:And you might have.
Speaker:So say you talk a lot about recipes.
Speaker:Say you talk a lot about baking and one of your specialties is
Speaker:making chocolate cake, for example.
Speaker:So you have all these different things that you can be talking
Speaker:about related to chocolate cake.
Speaker:But the thing I want you to notice is that all of these topics, they don't overlap.
Speaker:Entirely.
Speaker:You're not talking about the same thing over and over again.
Speaker:You're talking about different aspects of chocolate cake.
Speaker:So for example, is flowerless chocolate cake.
Speaker:Gluten-free this is a question.
Speaker:This is a question that a lot of people might have, and they're just looking
Speaker:it up, but then if they get there, then they might be like, oh, there's a lot of.
Speaker:A lot of blog posts here about chocolate cake.
Speaker:So you link back to your ultimate guide to all chocolate cakes, because
Speaker:maybe they're not just interested in flowerless chocolate cake and
Speaker:whether or not it's gluten free.
Speaker:Maybe they want some good recipes.
Speaker:So you have the ultimate guide to chocolate cake, but then you offer
Speaker:different topics around chocolate cakes.
Speaker:So it could be chocolate cake versus chocolate brownies.
Speaker:Those tastes different.
Speaker:I think they do.
Speaker:You can also chocolate versus a chocolate cake versus cupcakes, also different
Speaker:chocolate wedding cakes, chocolate cake recipes, how to bake a chocolate
Speaker:cake, low calorie chocolate cake and nutritional facts about chocolate cake.
Speaker:So these are all different ways that you can be talking about
Speaker:the topic of chocolate cake.
Speaker:It's all different areas.
Speaker:And these are different people who are going to be looking
Speaker:for different aspects of this.
Speaker:You can do this if your area of expertise was marketing.
Speaker:So say your central point is email marketing.
Speaker:You don't do 10 posts about what is email marketing, because they
Speaker:start to cancel each other out after awhile, you would do maybe.
Speaker:You know how to get higher engagement, which email marketing
Speaker:platforms do I want to use?
Speaker:How do I write an engaging newsletter headline?
Speaker:So you're talking about all these different elements that are related to
Speaker:your centrally focused hub or your big topic, but they're a little bit different.
Speaker:The other thing that you can do.
Speaker:And this is also really important is say you have four or five different
Speaker:layers, different types of expertise.
Speaker:So in the case of our chocolate cake, They may be also talk a lot about low calorie
Speaker:sweet treats, and they talk a lot about things like frosting or different things
Speaker:that you can use to decorate your cake or different elements that are related.
Speaker:You also want to speak to those things and make sure that people
Speaker:know where to find those other times.
Speaker:So they can always stay on your website or stay in whatever your content bucket is.
Speaker:If it's, again, LinkedIn or YouTube or, wherever it is that you're keeping
Speaker:all of your content, you want to make sure that people know that they're in
Speaker:the right place and that they can get access to all different types of things.
Speaker:And that's essentially what a topic cluster is.
Speaker:And then how you get people out to some of your related.
Speaker:So that one in the middle.
Speaker:Is that your, that's your skyscraper tentpole.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that is your side scraper or your pillar posts is called a lot.
Speaker:And you can do this in a lot of different ways.
Speaker:So when I talk to clients about this, I don't call it topic clusters.
Speaker:I call it content themes.
Speaker:So you maybe have one area of expertise.
Speaker:And that's like your hub.
Speaker:That's the main thing that you'll talk about.
Speaker:And you might have one really long post that describes it, and
Speaker:then you have themes or different ways that you're talking about it.
Speaker:You can do this with social media.
Speaker:For example, you could be like this month, I'm going to talk about.
Speaker:Logging, or this month I'm going to talk about social media.
Speaker:And then, one week you talk about social media scheduling tools.
Speaker:And one week you talk about how to engage when we can talk about productivity and
Speaker:social media, you talk about all these different dimensions and then you have
Speaker:one topic and it's really important to do it this way, because you're centering
Speaker:your expertise around all of the different factors that you can think of.
Speaker:The service provider.
Speaker:So since I work a lot with service providers, one way that you can look at
Speaker:it, if you're like, I don't know anything about chocolate cake, this isn't helpful.
Speaker:Another way that you can look at it is problem, solution and results.
Speaker:And you just keep going through these three dimensions of it.
Speaker:What are the problems that my customers have?
Speaker:What is a solution that I can offer?
Speaker:What are the results?
Speaker:So this is a baby.
Speaker:Way of looking at it.
Speaker:So you could be like, okay, like I'm, any of these things, he could be talking
Speaker:about email marketing to bring it back.
Speaker:What are the problems that you see people have with email marketing?
Speaker:How would you suggest that these different problems get solved and what
Speaker:are the results that they can expect?
Speaker:And that's another way you can tackle these topics.
Speaker:And Delta, right?
Speaker:Delta.
Speaker:I know no pictures.
Speaker:If you want to see what this looks like in real life, let me show you on
Speaker:the women conquer business website.
Speaker:I feel like I have done a fairly good job of tackling this problem.
Speaker:If you go to the women conquer business website and you go to articles, you'll
Speaker:see that, business leadership, marketing.
Speaker:Reviews cause I do a handful of product reviews and then
Speaker:resources for subscribers only.
Speaker:So then if you go in here, these are different basically.
Speaker:Product hubs.
Speaker:These are different areas of my expertise.
Speaker:And if you dive into any of those, you can get more articles
Speaker:and get more information.
Speaker:Or if you scroll down, you can see all of them.
Speaker:So there are a lot of different ways of doing it.
Speaker:This is a very straightforward way.
Speaker:You can do it any number of ways and get to the same result.
Speaker:It's really about just helping people get to understand you in a more holistic way.
Speaker:And my central is the livecast lifestyle.
Speaker:So I can go ahead and add, say, okay, live streaming as part of
Speaker:it, podcasting is part of it.
Speaker:Blogging's part of it, social media posting and contacts is part of it.
Speaker:Email marketing is part of it.
Speaker:It's the hub is all around the livecast lifestyle and that's how I'm creating
Speaker:my course to cover all of those things.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And Cynthia says, that's what service providers do solve problems.
Speaker:And I think that is fundamentally true and also something that
Speaker:a lot of people forget, that's what we're doing all the time.
Speaker:So it's okay to also be solving some problems in your content.
Speaker:You're not giving too much away because a lot of times people are
Speaker:never going to do it themselves.
Speaker:They're not, but they want to hear whether or not you can help them with that.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:They're more likely to engage with you.
Speaker:So don't be afraid to go into that, problem, solution results,
Speaker:Delta as Shelly calls it, where you're talking about those things.
Speaker:Because when you start grouping your content together based on expertise,
Speaker:you're in a really good place.
Speaker:So if you want to know how to take that to the next place, what we're really
Speaker:talking about here is looking at your areas of expertise, looking at your
Speaker:services, just to wrap this up and then.
Speaker:Doing some brainstorming sessions around all the different areas within
Speaker:that, that you can be talking about.
Speaker:That's really what this is.
Speaker:What are all the different things within your areas of expertise?
Speaker:Shelly just listed off a whole bunch.
Speaker:So that's why all of you have all of this expertise from, with it.
Speaker:You have a gold mine within you.
Speaker:You talk about it all the time.
Speaker:You're answering the same questions over and over again.
Speaker:Now, take that and share it in a systematic, meaningful way so that
Speaker:people understand they're more likely to get you and that's what you want.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that's how they resonate.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And become more loyal and bond it to you.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I feel a little tired.
Speaker:I'm saving a lot of work.
Speaker:I know it sounds overwhelming, but you can do these things over years.
Speaker:This is not something that you have to do right away.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You just have a list and you just start like checking that stuff off.
Speaker:Thank you, Cynthia.
Speaker:I'm glad that this is excellent information for you.
Speaker:If you like this information and this kind of style, I highly encourage you to
Speaker:subscribe to the women conquer business newsletter that is@womencookerbiz.com.
Speaker:Slash newsletter.
Speaker:And every week I share tips that are similar to this different topics that
Speaker:are helpful to people, especially service providers and help them get exactly what
Speaker:they need to move their business forward.
Speaker:I subscribe that's right.
Speaker:Get every Sunday.
Speaker:And then what do you have for us?
Speaker:Oh so yeah, I'm afraid livecast life workbook that you can download
Speaker:that walks you through all the steps of becoming a livecast producer.
Speaker:And you can get that at guide dots.
Speaker:livecast.life.
Speaker:Hey.
Speaker:Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker:All right, so let's move on to.
Speaker:I mean moving into tweaks weeks though.
Speaker:We, yeah.
Speaker:What's your tweet, Jen.
Speaker:And the week.
Speaker:So I have been, like I said, I've been so heads down on this association of
Speaker:philanthropic counsel work that I have.
Speaker:And as you notice, maybe today, my slides that did not include chocolate
Speaker:cake all of that was created in Canon.
Speaker:Canva has been making some minor changes and tweaks inside of their programs.
Speaker:Presentations a little sharper.
Speaker:I think it also helps if you're developing graphics.
Speaker:So I've noticed that they're now sharing with you.
Speaker:If everything is equal distance they're sharing.
Speaker:If everything is lining up just right, they're making it a lot easier, I
Speaker:think, to make your graphics, but.
Speaker:And since I have these massive presentations, I have noticed that
Speaker:there are no longer limiting the number of slides, which is fantastic.
Speaker:So I have a lot of really long presentations that I like to give.
Speaker:I tend to use Canva because I like pretty or organized.
Speaker:I don't put a lot of content on mine and.
Speaker:The Google decks, they just don't do as much those slides I find PowerPoint
Speaker:to be maddening and frustrating.
Speaker:And so I tend to use canvas slides.
Speaker:I know that last week, Shelley, you talked about using Google slides and animation.
Speaker:So I think this is all just about personal preference.
Speaker:The right tools are the ones that you use, right?
Speaker:The ones that work well for you and have become part of the.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you have a tweak of the week?
Speaker:I've been using a lot of Bitmoji and I think there are a lot of fun.
Speaker:If you're interested, they do have a Chrome extension Bitmoji.
Speaker:You can create a little in.
Speaker:Cartoon person that looks like you and you get to design and you
Speaker:get to design their face and their hair and what they're wearing.
Speaker:And it's a lot of fun.
Speaker:And then you can incorporate that into your emails.
Speaker:That's like, all you want it to do is respond back and say,
Speaker:thumbs up or team awesome.
Speaker:Or something like that.
Speaker:You can pull those in very easily.
Speaker:You can pull them in to your slides.
Speaker:You can pull out, you can use them on your phone.
Speaker:They are.
Speaker:Integrated with Snapchat, if you're into that too.
Speaker:You can also, if you're a couple, you can, send things out as a couple.
Speaker:My daughter does that with her husbands, so there's, they have a
Speaker:little couple emojis and they're both in it and they're like, oh, happy
Speaker:mother's day or something like that.
Speaker:Or thank you or whatever.
Speaker:And the two of them are together and there are a lot of fun.
Speaker:Check it out and play around with that a little bit.
Speaker:It can be a lot of fun and it can be like a little bit of a,
Speaker:cartoon representative of you.
Speaker:And I think it's just another way of adding to your own personal brand.
Speaker:I like the emojis.
Speaker:I used them for a long time and then I don't know why I stopped.
Speaker:And then when I made my Bitmoji, everybody said it didn't really look
Speaker:like me and then somebody else made it.
Speaker:And I was like, I don't think that looks like me.
Speaker:But anyway, I think they're fun.
Speaker:I always love it.
Speaker:When you send me emails and texts that have been mochas in it, I think
Speaker:they're, they always make me smile.
Speaker:So I think that's, I think that's important.
Speaker:So there you have it.
Speaker:Those are our tweaks of the week.
Speaker:Are you ready, Shelly?
Speaker:For the inspirational.
Speaker:Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker:So this is from Marcus, a really is meditations.
Speaker:And he said, you could enjoy this very moment.
Speaker:All the things you are praying to reach by taking the long way around if
Speaker:you'd stop depriving yourself of them.
Speaker:So as yourself, what is it that I want?
Speaker:What am I working toward?
Speaker:What is important to me in this life?
Speaker:And why am I striving?
Speaker:When you answer that question, try to get to the deepest level.
Speaker:And when you do that most often, you're going to find
Speaker:that you want to feel secure.
Speaker:You want to feel loved.
Speaker:You want to feel supported.
Speaker:You want to it's a feeling.
Speaker:That you're after.
Speaker:So if you want a new car, there's a feeling that you're after.
Speaker:What is that feeling?
Speaker:Is it pride?
Speaker:Is it security?
Speaker:What is that feeling that you're looking for then instead of waiting until
Speaker:you have that new car to feel that.
Speaker:Find a way to feel it.
Speaker:Now, maybe you just think better thoughts or maybe you can be
Speaker:counting your blessings basically.
Speaker:And taking stock of all the things you already have in your life.
Speaker:All the people, all the support, all the love you have in your life.
Speaker:And you can get to that feeling that much quicker instead of waiting until.
Speaker:You get to a certain place in life, you can start feeling those things now.
Speaker:And I think that's a really wonderful way to live each day is just to
Speaker:be grateful for what we have count our blessings and share the love.
Speaker:I think when somebody in your life passes or has a major incident like a
Speaker:stroke, it really reminds you to You don't take those moments and connect.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I think that's really important to remember that.
Speaker:And there just been a lot of things going on in the world and
Speaker:in our lives, it seems lately.
Speaker:And I think that's a really important thing to do is to take a step back and
Speaker:not deprive yourselves of the fun and the joy thinking that you'll always
Speaker:have time later because you might not.
Speaker:So I, I think that's a wrap for today's show.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Thank you for joining us today on women conquer business.
Speaker:And next week, we'll be talking more about those pillar posts, the
Speaker:skyscraper content that will help you be at the center of your expertise.
Speaker:So we talked, we didn't talk at all about chocolate cake.
Speaker:We just talked about all the other parts, like the frosting and stuff.
Speaker:So next week, we're going to get into the meat of the matter.
Speaker:And everybody out there have a really great week.
Speaker:And talk to you later from sunny Portland, Oregon, have a good.
Speaker:Thank you for joining the women conquer business podcast posted by Shelly
Speaker:Carney and Jen McFarland, please subscribe and leave a comment or
Speaker:question regarding your most challenging content creation or business problem.
Speaker:Then share this podcast with family and friends so they can find the support
Speaker:they need to expand their brand and share their message with the world.
Speaker:Check the show notes for links to valuable resources and come back again next week.
