Episode
What Small Business Owners Get Wrong About SEO (with Mariah Magazine)
- Podcast
- The Edward Show
- Published
- Jun 12, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4143
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Summary
E1073: Most small business owners know they should care about SEO, but they often misunderstand what moves the needle. I'm joined by Mariah Magazine to break down what small business owners get wrong about SEO, why keyword research is more than just picking phrases with search volume, and how business owners can use search data to make better decisions about their websites, offers, and content. Mariah shares how she got started in SEO after leaving school, what she learned working in a small agency in Buffalo, and why she now focuses on making SEO understandable for small business owners who are not technical marketers. We also talk about one of her favorite SEO stories: a candle company that used keyword research to discover demand for mini candles and made sales before the product was even added to the website. Topics covered: - Why many small business owners think SEO is more complicated than it is - How keyword research can validate demand before you invest in a product or page - The difference between SEO keywords and brand messaging - Why "nobody is searching for what I do" usually means the keyword research is too narrow - How Mariah thinks about commercial and transactional keywords - Why business owners should look at the actual Google results before choosing a keyword - How to think about keyword difficulty, domain authority, and topic authority - Why search competitors are not always the same as business competitors - Mariah's basic keyword research process using competitor analysis, Semrush, and SERP research - Why many service businesses need separate pages for separate services - What makes a website more useful for cold traffic from Google and AI search - Why About pages, Contact pages, service pages, FAQs, testimonials, and trust signals matter - Why fi…