Today we’d like to introduce you to Charlene McCraney.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
SEO originally captivated me in 2014 when I started a personal natural hair blog. I would attend natural hair conferences, write for other publications, and even opened an online natural hair beauty supply store in 2016. I made SEO an immediate focus of my website as soon as I kept hearing about all the benefits of organic traffic. After a short time of optimizing my website, I was completely enthralled with the power of SEO gaining 50,000 – 60,000 page views a month.
Reaching those page views as a one-woman show was a huge deal for me. Even more so because I realized I didn’t need to rely 100% on social media, a platform I didn’t own and couldn’t even control in order to reach the people I wanted to impact the most.
After success with the blog and closing the online beauty supply store, I knew I wanted to help other small business owners harness the power of SEO to transform their business. My goal was to help them understand they can drive more traffic to their website, make more money and compete with a different aspect of marketing outside of social media. I opened the SEO agency in 2020 and never looked back.
I’ve worked with several small businesses, trained and educated over 100 people through my courses and masterclasses, and can’t wait to help more local businesses in the DFW area.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The largest struggle of SEO is getting people to understand what the heck it is! SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of getting search engines like Google to understand your website and return it in search results. In short, I like to tell my clients Google want to know if your website has the BEST answer to what their customers type in the search bar.
Everything from the words on your website, your navigation menu, page speed, what sites link to yours, Google reviews, and technical performance all impact SEO. Our job is to make sure Google knows you exist, loves your content, and wants to return it, preferably on the first page of Google.
The challenge is most people want fast results. They think SEO will be similar to Facebook ads and instant gratification of social media, but it doesn’t work like that. SEO is a LONGTERM marketing strategy and in my opinion the best-kept secret from small minority-owned businesses. However, once implemented correctly, the impact will last for years.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
SEO doesn’t have to be complicated, but a lot of people are nervous about the process because they don’t see people who look like them in the space. When they research SEO on their own the information overload and confusing. It’s rare you find black professionals in the SEO space, and even far fewer of us are black women.
What sets me apart is that I don’t look like the status quo of what you normally see among SEO panels. I’m really proud that 95% of my clientele over the past 3 years have been black women-owned brands. I’m also extremely proud that the bulk of my business comes from referrals, which is a true testament of how I treat and care for my clients. And mostly importantly…results!
My vision is to help minority-owned small business owners be found online and grow their businesses in order to level the playing field. We break down the scary walls of SEO and help our clients understand it is achievable. Between having my team completely take over the SEO process for you or enrolling in my self-paced masterclass, there is an option for everyone to become better at SEO.
Any big plans?
I’m so glad you asked this because I love being transparent, especially with other entrepreneurs. I still work a full-time Finance career, run my SEO agency while being a proud wife and mom of precious toddler. My plans for the future is to grow my agency to where I can run it full-time and fully step into the CEO role. I have an amazing team right now and we are growing every year but eventually, it will not be sustainable.
I’m taking it step by step, planning for the future and trusting God along the process.
In 2023 I’m looking forward to serving more Local Businesses in the DFW area. I love working with my online brands, but I am extremely passionate about helping local brick-and-mortar businesses as well through my SEO VIP Day intensive. One of my greatest achievements was getting a new physical therapy practice on the first page of Google within 4 months through my SEO strategy. Now the practice gets 90% of their clients by people finding them via Google search.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.charlenemccraney.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charlenemccraney/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/charlenemccraney/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CharMcCraney
Image Credits
Rhea Whitney Photography
