with a content strategy that's totally free
In this bonus episode, Julie Elster (AKA Mrs. Unofficial Shopify Podcast) describes the free content strategy and "feedback loop" she's implemented on her Shopify store to generate 550 qualified organic visits daily to her store, all without using paid traffic or tools.
The Unofficial Shopify Podcast – Bonus Episode
10/28/2021
Kurt Elster: You have a podcast, don’t you?
Julie Elster: I do.
Kurt Elster: What is it called?
Julie Elster: Double Your WDW.
Kurt Elster: Double Your WDW.
Julie Elster: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: That’s a tongue twister.
Julie Elster: It is.
Kurt Elster: And so, as a podcast professional, could you introduce today’s show for us?
Julie Elster: I guess.
Kurt Elster: All right, here we go.
Julie Elster: On today’s show, I give an update on my Shopify store. This is The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. How was that?
Kurt Elster: Your theme music and your intro-
Julie Elster: It was terrible.
Kurt Elster: I don’t know. I like it better than mine.
Julie Elster: Oh. Thank you.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. On mine, there’s a lot of airhorns.
Julie Elster: Oh, well…
Kurt Elster: Yeah.
Julie Elster: You’re a common guest on my show, so I know about the airhorns.
Kurt Elster: And on your show, I also refer to myself as:
Ezra Firestone Sound Board Clip: Tech Nasty.
Julie Elster: You do. You do. And I get so many emails and DMs on social media with people being like, “Oh, Tech Nasty.”
Ezra Firestone Sound Board Clip: Tech Nasty.
Julie Elster: I’m like, “What have I done?”
Kurt Elster: You know, it’s funny. It stuck on your show or with your audience as opposed to mine.
Julie Elster: You know why? Because they think you’re ridiculous. That’s why.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. My character on your show is quite ludicrous.
Julie Elster: So, you know, do you remember on The Office, like the early seasons, when Jan was Michael’s boss and he’d be on speakerphone with her and you would hear, he would say something stupid, and you’d hear her be like . That’s me when you are doing your Tech Nasty on my podcast, and I think my audience recognizes that.
Kurt Elster: So, focus. You have a Shopify store, correct?
Julie Elster: Yes.
Kurt Elster: And it is called what?
Julie Elster: DoubleYourWDW.com.
Kurt Elster: And you’ve been at this awhile.
Julie Elster: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: You’ve tried different things. And then a pandemic happened.
Julie Elster: Yeah. I was screwed.
Kurt Elster: So, just… yeah. No one was going to Disney World.
Julie Elster: No.
Kurt Elster: What… Double Your WDW, what is it now?
Julie Elster: So, I focus on Disney World planning. So, my store’s a little bit different I think than most of the people who you work with in that I do sell merchandise, but also a lot of it is… It’s information based. So, it’s a lot of Disney World planning information, and nobody was going to Disney World, so not only were they not planning, they weren’t buying merchandise, none of it. Nothing.
So, I went from growth to just a freefall very quickly. Very, very quickly.
Kurt Elster: And then in 2021, what has occurred?
Julie Elster: So, it was like a light switch. The moment that vaccines were announced and started to be administered. It seems like the moment that it was like, “All right, everybody…” I believe it was 16 and up, right? Wasn’t that the age? It was everybody 16 and up can get a vaccine. It was like the next day traffic to my store skyrocketed, like higher than pre-pandemic levels. It was crazy. So, it went from next to nothing to being better than January 2020.
Kurt Elster: So, what kind of traffic are we talking about here?
Julie Elster: Probably 500 to 600 visitors per day.
Kurt Elster: And then how are you getting the 500 to 600 a day?
Julie Elster: So, currently it’s mostly organic. It’s Google search traffic.
Kurt Elster: So, you’re still getting that consistently?
Julie Elster: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Kurt Elster: Wow.
Julie Elster: Yeah. There have been some dips. Like if you follow what’s going on with COVID, that’s where the dips happen with my stuff, just because it’s travel related. But as things… I think the trend has been going up, so you’ll see some drop offs, but the trend has definitely been going up as people are getting more comfortable traveling, more people are getting vaccinated, it’s been moving upward. So, yeah, it’s going in the right direction.
Kurt Elster: So, all right, we got 550 people a day on average, and that traffic is coming from where?
Julie Elster: Mostly Google. The majority is Google. I’d say the next highest is Pinterest. And then you can just kind of divvy it up over social. Probably Facebook would be the next biggest.
Kurt Elster: Okay. That’s a fair amount of traffic that you don’t have to pay for.
Julie Elster: Right.
Kurt Elster: It’s just an owned channel. You’re not paying for traffic here.
Julie Elster: No. No. No. It’s been really… It’s crazy, because if you go back and listen, because I know you’ve done these updates with me. What is this, like number five maybe? We’ve done several updates with my business since it started three or four years ago. Early on, I was very much about social. It was all about engagement on social, and building an audience, and Facebook, and Instagram, and like connecting with people, and building that audience, and gaining that trust, and being a human being to them. But at some point, that just kind of took a life of its own and it was interesting because 2020, I was kind of like, “F it.”
Nobody was traveling. I, like on a personal level, was very depressed, and I know we did an episode about that too on this show, where it was very, very difficult. And I… You know, you were trying to encourage me to pivot, and I tried, and nothing was working because it doesn’t matter how you pivot. Nobody’s going to Disney World right now. In mid-2020, that’s just how it was, and there was not a ton I could do about that.
So, I was like, “I just need to take a break from it mentally,” so I stopped. I posted to social just to keep it going, like here’s just an update on here’s what’s going on, and here are COVID updates, and the parks did reopen eventually, so like here are the rules, but it was very minimal. It wasn’t as intense as it was before, and I wasn’t as focused on trying to connect with people as I was in the beginning. And at the end of the day, I found that my content was strong enough where I didn’t have to. I wrote quality pieces and people were searching for them and finding them, and the social helped, but it wasn’t… I had already grown the audience enough where I didn’t need to be pounding on that as much anymore.
Kurt Elster: Okay, so you get the audience to a point where you say this is… I’m comfortable with this. It’s self-sustaining.
Julie Elster: Yes.
Kurt Elster: And the audience really is like podcast plus Facebook group.
Julie Elster: Yes. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: Okay. And then separately, you’ve also been publishing content to your Shopify store as pages and blog posts, and then that’s generating 550 a day average organic search.
Julie Elster: Yes.
Kurt Elster: How?
Julie Elster: Well, I think because early on, I was grinding away at social, so early on it was very much like following up with people on Instagram, and every single DM I got asking a question, I’d follow up and link to my site, and I would answer any question, and I’d post to Facebook every day, and I started a Facebook group, and so I was like, “You got questions? You want to know more about this? Join my group.” And so, I really pushed the group really hard, and the podcast, so I host a podcast where I talk about it every day, and every podcast episode, I’m like, “Link in the show notes, and learn more about this, and find out more about this.” And so, eventually all of the things that I was really grinding hard on in 2018, 2019, early 2020, have eventually turned into a snowball effect where I don’t have to grind quite as much to keep the organic traffic coming.
Kurt Elster: So, what were you doing daily versus now that’s changed?
Julie Elster: So, previously, I lived on my phone, on like Instagram, or on Facebook, on my computer or on my phone, and it was just constantly… You know, the game of like you search through hashtags, and you comment, and then you get engagement, and you get followers, and then you try to link to this or that. I mean, it just… It’s a constant. It’s a constant.
And in the beginning, I think you have to do it. There’s no way around it. You have to as social proof, really, just to prove that you know what you’re doing, you know what you’re talking about, you’re legit, you have to do it. But like at some point, I was like, “I’m set. I’m legit. People know I’m legit. I don’t have to play the game on Instagram anymore where I have to follow hashtags.” I post on Instagram to be helpful, and useful, and to share my knowledge, and my content, but not so much… It’s not the grind that it was two years ago.
And the pandemic kind of forced me to stop with that and it’s interesting that it just kind of… It ended up taking on a life of its own before I even realized. It just… It came to a stop because the pandemic stopped everything. But then once everything very quickly restarted, I realized like, “Wow, my content’s here, and it’s good, and people are finding it because I put in that work before.” And so, now it just has kind of snowballed.
Kurt Elster: All right, so what does this content strategy on site look like?
Julie Elster: What do you mean?
Kurt Elster: Pages, blog posts, how many, how long, what goes in them? Make this work for me too.
Julie Elster: Oh my gosh. I write about anything and everything. Anything I can think of that is useful or helpful, I write about it. So, whatever-
Kurt Elster: Teach me your magic, traffic witch.
Julie Elster: So, for me, it’s Disney, right? So, I sell Disney shirts, and planning guides, and I write about Disney content, so anything that’s helpful, or useful, I write about it. I just write, and write, and then I just put it out there. I put it out there on Pinterest. I put it out there on Facebook. I just put it out there and that’s the end of it. I don’t know what else you want me to say.
Kurt Elster: Well, you know, it’s I have to sit down, and I need to do keyword research, and then once I’ve got my keywords-
Julie Elster: I don’t, though.
Kurt Elster: Then I need to write exactly 800 words. And then I need to keyword optimize that.
Julie Elster: Oh, I don’t think that.
Kurt Elster: And my image needs to be such and such a way.
Julie Elster: Oh, no.
Kurt Elster: And then publish that this particular way.
Julie Elster: Okay. I think I figured out why I was confused with your question, because I don’t do any of that. I do none of that.
Kurt Elster: No. You just write the content that people want.
Julie Elster: I do. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: And make sure it’s decent quality. It’s as long as it needs to be. And ‘lo and behold, traffic shows up and Google rewards you.
Julie Elster: So, I think part of what helps me with that is I have a Facebook group, so people ask me questions in the group, and in my Facebook group, I have it marked as a private group, and then you know when you join a private Facebook group, you ask questions before people can join. So, one of the questions I asked is like, “Well, what questions do you have about Disney,” or I don’t remember how I phrased it, but it’s like what questions do you have about Disney World. What are your holdups? And so, I read through that as people join my group and people will be like, “Oh, it’s finances, or it’s traveling with children,” or whatever it might be.
And if something catches my eye, I might write about that. Or if it’s something that I keep seeing over and over again, I might just write about that.
Kurt Elster: Aha. We have found… You have revealed your magic to us, traffic witch.
Julie Elster: Wow. I’ve only been talking for like 10 minutes and just now I finally answered your question.
Kurt Elster: Okay, so here’s how this works. This is what’s going on. You’ve got multiple traffic sources, so you’ve got a podcast.
Julie Elster: Yes, I do.
Kurt Elster: You’ve got blog posts and pages like guide type articles.
Julie Elster: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: And we have dozens, hundreds, thousands? How many?
Julie Elster: I’d say hundreds.
Kurt Elster: Okay, so we’ve got a couple hundred, few hundred.
Julie Elster: More than a couple hundred. I have a lot.
Kurt Elster: Oh, really?
Julie Elster: Oh yeah. I have a lot. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: So, you’ve been doing this for years, though.
Julie Elster: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: All right. And then we’ve got a Facebook group, and then obviously people can email you. And then I think there’s a contact form and we have some social media.
Julie Elster: Oh, I get DM’d. Instagram is really where people DM me a lot. I get a ton of Instagram DMs.
Kurt Elster: Okay, so we’ve got a network of things all pointing to each other, all fairly discoverable, and then in them, you’re interacting with people and encouraging them to ask you questions.
Julie Elster: Yes.
Kurt Elster: Which is really like, “Hey, reveal to me your pain or problem.”
Julie Elster: Yeah. I’m constantly telling people like, “Ask me your questions. What are your questions?”
Kurt Elster: And then you have your niche, which is Disney World.
Julie Elster: Yes. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: All right, so niche, we’ve combined our niche, and then a feedback loop in which people reveal their pain or problems to you, and then you go write articles about that based on your experience.
Julie Elster: I’m really glad that you explained it to me because I had no idea.
Kurt Elster: I mansplained it to you.
Julie Elster: I was just doing it.
Kurt Elster: You explained the whole thing to us. I mansplained it to you.
Julie Elster: You were like, “Let’s go record a podcast.” I was like, “I don’t understand what you want me to say.”
Kurt Elster: We were sitting on the couch. I’m silent. Saying nothing. And you just kept riffing about how you were generating traffic and how it was working.
Julie Elster: Okay. That wasn’t riffing. That’s called conversation.
Kurt Elster: And I was like, “This is a podcast episode.”
Julie Elster: My name’s not Paul Reda. I don’t riff with you.
Kurt Elster: You’re doing a podcast episode. Unfortunately, you do. You have been sucked into my improv.
Julie Elster: Yeah. I started very hard on social because I thought… I was like, “That’s how I have to be an influencer,” or whatever. Now, I’m like, “That’s just stupid. I don’t want to be an influencer because that just seems like a big waste of my time.” Social media is a means to an end, I guess. I don’t know. It’s proof that I’m legit and then the traffic will hopefully be organic from there. And that seems to have worked for me so far.
So, if people are listening to the podcast or googling and then they look for me on social, they’ll see like, “Okay, she has a lot of followers. She’s legit.” I think was my end game.
Kurt Elster: But it worked.
Julie Elster: It did work. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: You had mentioned Pinterest was your second traffic source after Google.
Julie Elster: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: What’s the split? 50/50, 60/40, 80/20?
Julie Elster: No. Yeah. No, Google’s way… For a while, Pinterest was my biggest. Like earlier, I’d say like a year or two ago, Pinterest was my main source of traffic. And so, during that time I used Tailwind, and so you have to… You can use a free version of Tailwind. I paid for Tailwind and it’s a way to share content with people who have similar content, so like you share their content, they share yours, and it lets you auto generate your content on your Pinterest page, and so it does a whole bunch of stuff that helps grow your Pinterest following.
And so, that was really great early on, and that’s kind of slowed in the last, I don’t know, six months to a year. And Google has definitely outpaced Pinterest. But I think had I not started with Pinterest, that wouldn’t have happened. You needed that Pinterest following first, and because I was able to get so much traffic through Pinterest, I started to rank on Google.
So, early on, I needed Tailwind. I needed Pinterest. And now, Pinterest is kind of its own thing as far as my content goes, and I’m ranking on Google because of that. Does that make sense?
Kurt Elster: Yes.
Julie Elster: Okay. I have no idea if I’m explaining this right.
Kurt Elster: Let’s talk technical SEO.
Julie Elster: Oh, God. I’ve had like two glasses of wine already tonight, so I don’t know if I can talk technical SEO.
Kurt Elster: What theme does your store run?
Julie Elster: What? I don’t know. What theme does my store run?
Kurt Elster: Artisan by Out of the Sandbox.
Julie Elster: Artisan by Out of the Sandbox.
Kurt Elster: Phenomenal.
Julie Elster: Yes. They’re super.
Kurt Elster: And do you use any SEO apps?
Julie Elster: No. No, I don’t.
Kurt Elster: I think you use one at-
Julie Elster: Do I?
Kurt Elster: JSON-LD, is that installed?
Julie Elster: No. Nope. Nope.
Kurt Elster: Really?
Julie Elster: Is there an SEO app I should be using?
Kurt Elster: I don’t think so.
Julie Elster: You help manage my Shopify page. I’m horrified that you’re like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, this SEO app,” that I don’t have installed.
Kurt Elster: I don’t know anymore.
Julie Elster: Somebody’s about to get fired.
Kurt Elster: Ooh, it’s gonna get awkward in the Elster household. You can’t let another man manage your Shopify store. That’s ridiculous.
Julie Elster: I’ll hire a woman. It’s fine.
Kurt Elster: Oh, good point. So, the Pinterest strategy is just use Tailwind?
Julie Elster: Yeah. Yes. I started-
Kurt Elster: Does Pinterest know about this?
Julie Elster: Yes. No, so Tailwind, if you’re going to use a service to pin your stuff for you, use Tailwind because they’re authorized. Otherwise, Pinterest will flag you as spamming, so make sure you use something that’s authorized. And Tailwind is authorized. And they have a free service, but the paid service, like if you’re early on, trying to get your content to grow, I think paying for Tailwind is the way to go. It just… It lets you do so much more when you pay.
Kurt Elster: Are there any fun apps you use?
Julie Elster: No, that’s it.
Kurt Elster: What’s next?
Julie Elster: I don’t know. I’m gonna keep writing and yeah, I think that’s it.
Kurt Elster: That’s the beauty of the feedback loop, is people just show up and tell you what they want you to write about, and then you write about it, which causes more people to show up.
Julie Elster: Yeah. It’s funny because early on, it was so much strategy. It was so much like… It was so much thinking about like, “Where’s traffic coming from?” And sources, and how do I get in front of this person, or that person. But now that I have so much organic traffic, it’s a little bit easier, where I can just as things happen, and things are new and exciting, I just write about it. And obviously, I share it to social, and I put it on Pinterest, and I’ll post it on Tailwind so that it’ll reshare in Pinterest, but it’s just less pressure. And so, I think being present on social is important and early on, you have to really, really hustle. It’s nice to get to the point where I don’t have to worry about it quite as much and I can just write and focus on that, and I have an audience, and I have a Facebook group, and a podcast, and people who care about what I have to say, which is interesting and different and weird.
Kurt Elster: It is fun.
Julie Elster: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: You know what? That’s all I got. Anything else you’d like to share with us in this update?
Julie Elster: No. I was not planning on coming in this office and talking right now.
Kurt Elster: Well, thank you for updating us.
Julie Elster: You’re welcome.
Kurt Elster: And we will be back with another update when the mood strikes me.
Julie Elster: When I’ve had three more glasses of wine?
Kurt Elster: Yeah.
Julie Elster: Okay. Bye.
Kurt Elster: Good night.