Hello Reader,

Fifteen years ago, if you'd told me that Future Me would have a reputation for being pretty freaking good at getting super smart people found in Google, I would've looked at you like you had three heads.

Back then, I was a communications generalist, with a focus on public communication. (Which is how I got interest in digital work like blogging—I saw an opportunity to reach the public directly without rolling the dice with media coverage.) SEO? Sure I knew about it, but it was something I thought was for programmer types, not strategists like me.

(In my defense, that's actually kind of not that far off—check out this article from that time!)

At that time, I was playing around with a couple of personal blogs—both of which happened to explode thanks you, you got it, the search engine. I didn't really understand how it was all working, but looking at my stats I knew that people were searching for what I was writing about and that it was leading to opportunities for me.

Fast forward to becoming unexpectedly self-employed after a layoff during the Great Recession that became this business, and SEO is the backbone of our work and success in terms of my own lead generation and authority building. And, of course, it's how I help clients as a foundational marketing strategy.

A lot of people who run what I call "knowledge businesses" assume that SEO is only for products or local businesses. Need a pink linen blouse? Google it! Need a good deep dish pizza within walking distance? Google it! These are those simple solution-focused searches most of us are familiar with.

However, for knowledge, expertise, or authority-based businesses, we often need to pique our audience's interest before they're hungry for the deep dish pizza.

Which means that we need to step back and build our audience earlier—how cool is that? Here are some exciting truths about search and the opportunity it presents to knowledge businesses:

✅ SEO is perfect as a discovery or audience building tool because we know that humans constantly ask the internet (Google, Siri, etc) for insights into their problems.

✅ SEO allows us to educate our audiences prior to their making a decision about the right solution to their problem.

✅ SEO can expand the reach of your thought leadership in clever ways, literally changing minds in the process.

✅ SEO can validate if there's demand for what you're offering because the data is so expansive and specific.

✅ SEO can backfill other marketing tactics that are more sensitive to outside forces, such as ad costs, social media algorithm changes, and your own network's potential.

✅ SEO activities are extremely repurposing-friendly, which means your marketing is working smarter for you.

Now, do not under any circumstances read this as me saying that SEO is the best way or the only way—there are many, many ways to succeed as a knowledge business. I will fight anyone who claims that you must do any specific activity to succeed. We all have our own path, and that's a beautiful thing!

But SEO in many ways is an equalizer. If you're good at explaining your field—which most experts are—and are willing to meet your audience where they're at (tougher for some of us), you can likely succeed in the search engine. Your network size, whether or not you own one of those Instagram hats, and your ad budget don't matter to Google.

This is why I'm reviving several of my popular workshops and more this summer—it's going to be a lot of fun, and I hope that you'll join me! (And, yes, we're hosting a free Community Conversation about this!)

What would you like to learn about SEO? Do you think it's a tool that would help you reach a more aligned audience? Hit reply and share away—I promise I'll read your message!

Talk soon,

Sarah