Rachel Lindteigen of Etched Marketing tells us how she helps businesses create the best SEO & content strategy for their website.
Tell us about you, your career, and how you founded Etched Marketing.
Rachel Lindteigen: I founded Etched Marketing in 2017. After leaving the corporate world. I was the Senior Director of SEO and Content Marketing for a NY ad agency, and the company was sold to an investment firm in the fall of 2016. Within 90 days, my role had been eliminated, along with others. I couldn’t find a position that gave me the challenge I wanted for my career along with the flexibility I wanted for my young family (my son was 1 at the time), so I started my own business instead of going back to the corporate world.
Do you have small habits that made a meaningful impact on your life and business?
Rachel Lindteigen: I take time to clear my mind and focus on myself each day. Whether it’s a walk or a workout, I do something physical each day that gives me that time to clear my head, and I’m more focused and ready to go after that. I also break large tasks down into smaller ones. This allows me to avoid that feeling of overwhelm that can happen and be more productive in the long run. I choose to work part-time, but I’m able to get everything done I need to, thanks to focus and productivity. I am very intentional about my time and how I use it. I don’t look at email, social media, or text messages when working. I put everything on do not disturb and get to work.
How does Etched Marketing market its product/services online?
Rachel Lindteigen: My company focuses mainly on organic traffic. I am an SEO strategist, so I work on finding content opportunities, creating great content, connecting with my audience, and providing value while optimizing all of the content that I create so Google can find it, understand it, and show it to more people. I’m also active on some social media channels to help build my audience and connect with them. I focus on serving my Ideal Customer and building our relationship over time.
What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to manage your online marketing?
Rachel Lindteigen: I use a lot of SEO tools for my online marketing. I like Moz and the Google Keyword Tool for keyword research. I use TubeBuddy or Keywords Everywhere for YouTube keyword research. I like Google Suggested Search, Answer the Public, Google Related Searches, or People Also Ask for content ideas. I use Planoly for social media posting and Canva to create my graphics and images. I also rely heavily on Google Analytics to see what’s working with my audience and what’s not, so I know how to adjust my content strategy.
What is your hiring policy/process, and how do you retain your employees?
Rachel Lindteigen: I currently use a few freelancers to help with projects when they’re needed. I’m not hiring full-time staff yet.
How are you funding your growth?
Rachel Lindteigen: I re-invest profit into the business and fund the growth that way. Yes, I could grow faster if I took a loan, but I’m happy with the pace we’re growing and having control over the business.
Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?
Rachel Lindteigen: I have different competitors – some are SEO tools that offer SEO training in the hopes that you’ll buy their tool, and others are SEO agencies that offer to do the work for you. I focus on providing value to my clients and students, proving the ROI on our campaigns for my clients, and being a resource to both, so they want to work with me. I want people to feel empowered to learn search engine optimization and content marketing so they can grow their business with free organic traffic, and that means I have to help them understand how it works so they can succeed.
Tell us a customer success story of yours.
Rachel Lindteigen: I have a client that I’ve worked with for the past 3+ years. I love them. They do everything they can for their SEO and content, and because of that, we are able to rank in position #1 for both brand terms and non-brand terms that are closely related to their business. We’re also on page 1 in Google for terms related to their business but a little further up the sales funnel. We’ve grown our keyword search visibility and organic traffic significantly over the past three years we’ve worked together, and today, 50-60% of their total traffic comes from SEO (organic traffic) each month, along with more than 50% of their leads. We’ve been very strategic with our content development and targeted keywords their Ideal Customer uses, provides value and optimizes everything for Google.
Your final thoughts?
Rachel Lindteigen: Right now is the best time for businesses to learn or start using SEO (search engine optimization) and content marketing. SEO takes time to generate results but the sooner you start, the sooner you start to see results. If you’re not choosing keywords your website can rank for and optimize everything you create so that Google can understand and share it with new people, then you are missing out on organic traffic. I know ad costs are up, and many people are frustrated by ads in the post iOs14 world. They’re harder, more expensive, and don’t convert the same, but you can replace that missing traffic for free if you learn or hire someone to do SEO on your website and blog. You can end up generating more traffic than you were getting from ads if you do it right.
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