[Top Agency Series] Secrets to Web and SEO Success With Maggie McTavish of Mango Media

Maggie McTavish is the Founder of Mango Media, a web and SEO agency based in the Niagara region of Canada. With over 12 years of digital marketing experience, she specializes in helping businesses enhance their online presence. Maggie is known for her ability to combine stunning website design with effective search engine optimization. She is dedicated to helping clients grow their businesses through increased online visibility, bookings, and customers. As a new mom, Maggie has also mastered the art of balancing entrepreneurship with family life.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [03:58] How Mango Media marries beautiful website designs with effective SEO practices
• [06:06] Common SEO pitfalls and how to avoid them
• [07:47] Why website load speed is crucial for Google rankings
• [12:39] Maggie McTavish’s tools and software recommendations for SEO management
• [15:49] Maggie’s strategy for targeting a specific geographic niche to drive business success
• [23:03] How Maggie prepared her business for maternity leave through delegation and SOPs
• [26:29] What inspired Maggie to transition from an employee to an agency owner?
• [31:44] The impact of niching down and choosing a focused target market for your business

In this episode…

Running a business often means juggling multiple tasks and finding ways to stand out in a crowded marketplace. But what if there was a key area that businesses consistently overlook or mishandle? Could this be the very thing holding them back from achieving their full online potential?

SEO expert Maggie McTavish offers a deep dive into the world of digital marketing, focusing on web design and SEO. She discusses the challenges businesses face when trying to rank on Google — such as slow website speeds and the neglect of local SEO opportunities — and shares practical solutions to overcome them. Maggie also touches on the importance of having a professionally designed website that draws in customers through organic search results.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz hosts Maggie McTavish, Founder of Mango Media, to discuss the bridge between web design and effective SEO. Maggie offers valuable insights into creating a website that not only looks good, but also ranks well on Google. She shares her experiences working with local businesses in the Niagara region, providing practical advice on improving website speed, selecting the right keywords, and leveraging Google Business Profile for better local search results.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Maggie McTavish on LinkedIn
• Mango Media
• SiteGround
• Kinsta
• Semrush
• Rankability
• Google Workspace

Special Mentions:

• Regional Tree Service
• Nathan Gotch on LinkedIn

Related episodes:

• “[Top Agency Series] Most Valuable Advice When Selling Your Agency With Todd Taskey of Potomac Business Capital” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Growth Through Acquisitions – What is Your KPI and Northstar? With Jason Swenk” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Marketing Tips and Insights from Eugene Levin Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer at SEMrush” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Black Business Leaders Series] Insource: How to Increase Efficiency with Existing Staff and Rapidly Onboard New Staff with Owen McGab Enaohwo of SweetProcess” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “Your website is like your online business card; it’s essential for bringing in traffic and leads.”
• “Balancing entrepreneurship with family life is all about effective delegation and SOPs.”
• “SEO can be an afterthought for new website builds but is crucial for maintaining and improving rankings.”
• “You either pick a specific industry to service or become the best within your local area.”
• “There’s nothing like seeing local businesses thrive through better online visibility.”

Actions steps:

1. Optimize website loading speed: Fast-loading websites keep visitors engaged and rank better on Google.
2. Carefully plan website redesigns: Protect existing SEO value by ensuring all redirects are correctly implemented during a migration.
3. Curate a realistic keyword library: Start with keywords your site has the authority to rank for and gradually aim higher as your site grows.
4. Delegate and build a supportive team: Establish clear systems and delegate tasks to skilled professionals to maintain high standards and scale operations without becoming overwhelmed.
5. Implement standard operating procedures: Well-documented procedures allow for smooth transitions during personal and professional changes.

Episode Transcript

Intro 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, founder of InspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Maggie McTavish of Mango Media. You can check them out at MangoMedia.ca. And Maggie, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out.

Since this is part of the top agency series, a couple of my favorites–I had Todd Taskey on. Todd Taskey helps pair agencies with private equity, so he helps sell agencies. He is the Second Bite Podcast. I’ve probably listened to most episodes because he talks about the valuation space he talks about agencies who have actually sold. He talks about private equities who have bought. And it’s called Second Bite because sometimes when they sell the private equity, the private equity sells again, they sometimes make more on the second bite than they do on the first. So it’s really, it was an interesting conversation about the agency world valuations and everything like that.

Another good one was Jason Swenk. Jason Swenk talked about how he built his agency up to eight figures and sold it. And then his next chapter was actually buying agencies. And he also has an agency mastermind group, where he helps agencies come together and help each other. So check that episode out as well. And many more on InspiredInsider.com.

This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships.

How do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, the accountability, and the full execution. So, Maggie, we’re kind of like the magic elves that run in the background, that make it look easy for the hosts so they can create amazing content, amazing relationships, but most importantly, run their business.

You know, for me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. And I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I have personally found no better way over the past decade than to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on.

So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should. If you’ve questions, you can go to Rise25.com or email us at [email protected].

We actually have a lot of free episodes on Inspired Insider for all the questions we get, they’re free. You can go check them out. What software tools do I need? And every other question we’ve gotten. So check those out.

I’m excited to introduce Maggie McTavish. She’s the founder of Mango Media. Mango Media is a web and SEO agency that helps businesses in Canada and beyond create high ranking websites. With over 12 years of digital marketing experience, she really has an expertise.

I would say, Maggie, you bridge the gap between a beautiful website and design, but effective search engine optimization, because if you create this website, you need people to visit the website, right? So they go hand in hand together. So she works with clients to help increase their online presence, whether it’s bookings, whether it’s more customers through that organic search so they can grow their business. So Maggie, thanks for joining me.

Maggie McTavish 03:31

Thanks for having me, Jeremy. And as you said, like, yeah, like every time someone is searching for some sort of business help, you will most likely will go to Google as a first step to try to find what’s out there. So yeah, that’s definitely where the SEO kicks in.

Jeremy Weisz 03:47

Just start us off, and there is a video piece. I’m going to share the Mango Media website for a second, but just talk about Mango Media and give us a quick overview of what you do.

Maggie McTavish 03:58

For sure, I’d be happy to. So essentially, as you mentioned, throughout my whole digital marketing career over the last 12 years, I would see all the different facets of digital marketing. And one of the things that stood out all the time is that many times, website designers will create a very beautiful website, but then the SEO might be lacking and it’s not ranking properly. And it was a struggle for lots of people and business owners that just launched this beautiful creation. And then on the flip side, typically when there would be the websites within the first search results, they were not the most appealing to look at. Maybe they lacked a lot of visual interest, but they were ranking within the top positions of Google.

So I find that yes, for small to medium sized businesses, the Google ecosystem, and having them rank on search results is key, because that is going to be free leads for them to come through. They don’t have to spend money on paid advertising as long as they’re ranking, they’re being discovered. So that’s what sparked Mango Media to really bridge that gap between the two web and SEO, Google friendly side of things so more local businesses can get discovered.

Jeremy Weisz 05:25

You know, people can see if they’re watching this, we’re on the MangoMedia.ca page. There’s the SEO piece. I’m curious, what are the biggest mistakes you see people make with SEO? And we can see there’s a proven process here.

So, you know, when you’re going to a company, you’re probably evaluating. You know, you’re looking at advanced key research, keyword research, technical and SEO content optimizing technical performance. Number four is optimizing existing content. And then you create the new SEO driven content and then acquire high quality backlinks and then obviously support it with the different reports. So what are the biggest mistakes you see people make?

Maggie McTavish 06:06

So yeah, so sometimes SEO can be an afterthought for a lot of new website builds, or especially when I find that someone has engaged a new web designer or web developer and they have to migrate or create a completely brand new website, that’s a very sensitive time. Because if you’re already ranking pretty well and you completely replace that with a new build and don’t have a proper SEO strategy in place, you are going to unfortunately, you might lose on a lot of the rankings that you already had if you’re not migrating things the right way.

Jeremy Weisz 06:45

Yeah, totally. I mean, I have a friend there, like I need a new website, we’re going to revamp it and I know enough to be dangerous. I’m like, just be careful, right. Because I’ve heard you and other people say, okay, you redo your website and then you just lose whatever links are out there because they’re broken. Then you’re up the creek. Like all that work you did for a decade.

Maggie McTavish 07:09

That’s right. So yes, I find that, yeah, it can be sometimes a bit of an afterthought. So having that implemented from day one and part of the web design process is key to make sure that, yeah, you keep your current rankings and do everything you can to improve what already exists.

Jeremy Weisz 07:25

What about for a company that comes to you? They have the website like I like our website. I’m not going to do a new website, but what are some of the biggest problem areas or low hanging fruit you find when you start looking under the hood? And they’re like, yeah, Maggie, I’m not sure what’s going on here. We need to increase our traffic.

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