In this episode, I’m joined by one of our members from The Modern Marketing Collective and an Elevate Business Retreat alumni, Renee Mariette. And Renee runs the business called Make Words Work. In this episode, we discuss Renee’s move from corporate marketer to self -employed running her SEO copywriting business.

She takes us through how when she started her business as per so many of us, myself included, she went from offering all the things. 

And then over time, using what she learned were the real pain points for her clients, plus the area that she really enjoyed the most, she then went and specialised. 

Renee also shares how she’s built a network, and how she has learnt a lot from people who are a few steps ahead of her.

She also discusses how she has teamed up with someone who offers complimentary services to create packages that are there to serve their clients that really tick all the boxes when it comes to SEO in their business, along with her biggest learning since starting her business.

Renee is our guest expert inside The Modern Marketing Collective for the month of April and she’s going to be sharing her expertise when it comes to SEO and the growing world of AI. 

Renee will share how we can really tangibly execute on this in our business. 
To access this SEO & AI Masterclass, join The Modern Marketing Collective today.

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Emily Osmond (00:01.262)
Well, welcome Renee and thank you so much for joining me.

Renee Mariette (00:02.323)
Thank you for having me, I’m thrilled!

Emily Osmond (00:06.862)
I’m excited to chat with you because you’re someone that has been in business for how long now?

Renee Mariette (00:11.475)
Uh, three years all up, so not a long time.

Emily Osmond (00:15.534)
Yeah, yes, not a long, long time. And it’s so helpful, I think, for others to hear with the learnings and the insights and the changes and the realizations that happen, which happened all throughout business, but especially in those first few years, too, because where we start, and I know for myself, where I started in business, change and evolved over that time. And it was just such a period of massive learnings and also so much fun, too. So.

Renee Mariette (00:42.707)
Yes.

Emily Osmond (00:45.39)
I wonder if you’d start off by telling us who you are and what it is that your business offers.

Renee Mariette (00:49.299)
Yes, well my name is Brene. I run Make Words Work which is based on copywriting for websites but my forte is in SEO copywriting. So that’s what my business does and that encompasses quite a few things including…

content marketing for blogs, emails, lead magnets, and then obviously websites, web pages, whether it’s new or updated content strategies, audits of websites, and something that I’m bringing out quite soon, which I think is going to be quite helpful for people is…

when somebody writes their own content, I can go in and help them make sure it is ultra optimized for Google and other search engines. So that’s sort of what my little bizzo does.

Emily Osmond (01:46.19)
Mm, fantastic. And I wonder, it could be helpful as well to explain, let’s say you’ve optimized that blog post or you’re helping someone with their blogs or their web pages. What is the outcome that they’re working towards? What is it that SEO copywriting actually helps people achieve? If people haven’t had this before, they might be like, I don’t really understand what this is all about. So could you explain that?

Renee Mariette (02:04.403)
Yeah, so SEO stands for search engine optimization. So when you go and when I talk about search engines, I’ll probably just refer to Google because it’s the one that everyone knows the best.

Emily Osmond (02:16.43)
It’s funny, isn’t it? We say like search engine first, like really just Google, like let us know if you use any others. But.

Renee Mariette (02:18.099)
Yeah, well they’ve monopolized the search engine industry for gosh, probably two decades now. I think the latest chat GBT and all this sort of stuff that’s coming out are potentially going to knock them off their pedestal. We’ll have to see. But anyway, we’ll see. So yes, search engine optimization is about showing up.

at the top of a search or the search engine result pages. So when you Google something or Google it as we say, your website shows up the top and there’s two ways to get there. There’s one which is paid ads and you show up because you’re paying to be seen for a certain keyword or group of keywords or you optimize your website to show up the top for free. However, it’s much harder to get that. The results though are much better. So people see your website first, they

trust Google and they click on your website so you get higher traffic, higher visibility and normally that leads to higher conversions of your product or service.

Emily Osmond (03:23.79)
Excellent. Yes, thank you. And I’ve got, I’ve been working on my SEO a little bit and one of my pages ranks for, I think it ranks for business retreat. And so I see, and right now I’ve got the wait list happening because I’m about 12, 14 weeks or so off having a baby. So I’m not having a retreat until after the baby comes. But it’s great to see just from that SEO that I’m having people joining that wait list, pretty much one person every week at the moment, which is really cool. And…

Renee Mariette (03:50.227)
Amazing! Yeah.

Emily Osmond (03:53.486)
Just getting to know those people, what they’re looking for, where they’re from. So yeah, that’s the power of just one example of when your website is ranking for those search terms, bringing in, like helping people that you can help, helping them find your work and your website.

Renee Mariette (03:58.611)
Yeah.

Renee Mariette (04:06.707)
Yeah.

Yeah, and there’s also quite a lot of research that shows that in the SEO world, we call it content clustering. So if one of your pages is ranking really well, and you’ve done some excellent internal linkings to relevant pages within your website, the cluster can elevate, which then elevates your website as well. So once you’ve got one page going, it’s really a great idea to build that out and continue that cluster to help your whole website go.

Emily Osmond (04:24.526)
Mmm.

Renee Mariette (04:37.525)
Thank you.

Emily Osmond (04:39.854)
Now, I said to you the podcast today, we’re going to talk about your business journey, but we should probably get you back to actually do an episode on SEO. So we’ll keep that one in mind. But I’d love to hear Renee, how has your business changed over these three years?

Renee Mariette (04:46.579)
Yes.

Renee Mariette (04:54.675)
Complete, I hate this word, but pivots. A complete 180. I started off my business actually, I was one of those jump off the end of the world people during COVID who just thought, you know what, I’m over this. I spent 20 years in corporate marketing.

Emily Osmond (05:03.086)
Mm. Mm.

Renee Mariette (05:16.755)
and brand marketing. And the last corporate role I had was quite big. I was CMO for an energy company in Australia and the pressure was a lot. And with COVID, I just think, I think a lot of us experienced quite a bit of burnout. So I started doing brand marketing under my brand name, RM Marketing. And…

Emily Osmond (05:29.454)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (05:36.366)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (05:45.55)
You laugh at it. I love how you laugh at it. Like, I can’t believe I used to call my business that. Exactly.

Renee Mariette (05:46.867)
Well, I just sort of thought I’m not going to waste time on trying to design up a brand.

and a logo and all the things that I spent 20 years harnessing my efforts on. I just thought, I’m just going to kick it off and see what happens. And I got quite a lot of local clients here in the Arab Valley, which was fantastic. Lots of small business, but very different businesses from retail to hospitality to wedding venues. And what I found was that it was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated to run full marketing

Emily Osmond (06:00.174)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Emily Osmond (06:08.174)
Yes.

Renee Mariette (06:23.637)
strategies for multiple different brands even though we’re talking about small business. So it wasn’t easy.

Emily Osmond (06:30.254)
Yes.

Renee Mariette (06:32.659)
But I’ve really, really enjoyed it. So I, you know, through my networking, I met a few people and realized that one of the things that people really struggle with is writing. It’s something that I’m good at. I’ve always been sort of the SEO writer of whatever business I’m working for. And so I thought perhaps this is something that I can do and help businesses understand this really complicated area of SEO. So that’s where I put more time and effort into creating my brand. And that’s where Make Words Work.

Emily Osmond (06:32.846)
Yes.

Renee Mariette (07:02.613)
work comes from.

Emily Osmond (07:06.606)
And this Renee, it’s exactly how I kind of had my business start and evolution too. And what I recommend to other people is at the start, take the pressure off yourself. You probably don’t know what your niche could or should be at that stage. So I say like, get out of there, like imagine you’re at a buffet, you’re just going to try all the different things, see what you like, see what works and see where the demand is. And then from there, you can use that real experience rather than.

hypothesis from behind your desk in terms of where to then follow and where to then perhaps niche down. So yeah, I love hearing that and that’s fantastic. So then you niched into the SEO side of things. And I’m sure over that time too, what you actually offer has evolved as well. What have you done there in terms of figuring out exactly how to package up what it is that you sell?

Renee Mariette (07:57.267)
Oh, yes. So, yes, I’ve been through quite a few iterations of services and offers. And as I started niching down in industry or type of clients, that’s changed a lot. So I started off with.

whatever you need in SEO, I’ve got some tools and some experience to help you out. And then I pulled that all the way back to just web page writing. So I wasn’t doing a lot of blogging. I wasn’t doing a lot of content marketing side of things either.

And I started just building out those web pages and mostly for people wanting new websites not a lot of edits So that’s sort of where I niched way way down into and then from there I have started branching out and

I was, one of the hardest things that I found in running my own business was going from nice monthly money coming in through the door to months going up and down all over the place. So I was for some time looking at building out retainer style packages, full blogs and things that you need to keep your SEO growing and bubbling away.

Emily Osmond (09:07.182)
Mmm, yep.

Renee Mariette (09:12.883)
But have since changed that again, based on a lot of the new things that are coming out of Google at the moment and trying to make sure that what my services offer are actually going to be what Google is looking for. Yeah, so that’s kind of that’s a big thing for me is that my services probably will change quite frequently based on what Google’s looking for. So then I could pass that on to my clients.

Emily Osmond (09:17.39)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (09:21.774)
year.

Emily Osmond (09:29.422)
Mmm… Mmm…

Emily Osmond (09:35.854)
Yes.

Emily Osmond (09:40.238)
Yeah, fantastic. Now, when it comes to your clients, you live in a beautiful local town, a smallish town, against similarities with how I started to and I think there’s such a benefit to that in terms of the word of mouth and the networking. So I’m assuming that is one big part of your marketing and how you attract clients. But I’d love you to step us through what you’ve learned has worked really well when it comes to marketing, your business, things perhaps you’re working on.

or, and or things you’ve tried that you’re like, you know what, that probably wasn’t the best use of my time.

Renee Mariette (10:12.819)
Yeah, yeah, sure. Well, networking has been the number one for me.

I do live in the Yarra Valley and so we have a wonderful community here, sort of boutique style shops and restaurants and venues and wine and all that sort of stuff. So there’s been a great deal of support locally for me. And I wanted to branch out. I didn’t just want to be restricted to the Yarra Valley. So I started networking through your marketing collective and that has been an amazing way to meet other small businesses.

as well and get some work through those sorts of people as well.

Um, and then marketing on, um, sorry, networking on, on other things as well, like, um, forums, uh, branching into, I’ve done some, some networking through Gold Coast forums and I’ve gotten a few clients through that as well, just to offer support really, and, and weigh in if there’s things that I can, I can provide value on. Um, there’s also a Facebook group called, what is it? Like -minded bitches drinking wine. Yeah.

Emily Osmond (11:14.958)
Hmm. Yeah.

Renee Mariette (11:25.045)
So there’s a lot of questions that are asked there and I try to provide support if I can.

Emily Osmond (11:25.326)
Oh yeah.

Emily Osmond (11:30.094)
Oh my gosh. Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s a great way to go. Go where people already are gathering and see how you can add value. And you’re kind of positioning yourself as a bit of an expert, but being generous there. And then people will at some point in time, if they need what you have to offer, click through onto your profile, take a bit of a look, maybe follow that, get in touch. So yeah, really smart.

Renee Mariette (11:35.443)
Yeah.

Renee Mariette (11:49.299)
Yeah, and I’ve gotten a few, I sort of got my international wings through that one as well. So I’ve gotten a client in Bali through there and have since not through that one, but have since branched out into other international echelons as well. So yeah, Vietnam and the UK now.

Emily Osmond (11:57.262)
Yes.

Emily Osmond (12:01.646)
Wow.

Emily Osmond (12:11.118)
So cool. Very exciting to be able to say that I work with clients internationally. Oh, I love it. And what role Rene does social media play and or are you, yeah, what are you doing on there? Because I know that I do remember something happening on there last year. I think it was at our retreat.

Renee Mariette (12:15.219)
International SEO.

Renee Mariette (12:32.787)
Yes, yes, yes. So social media has been a funny one for me. I lived my life in social media as a corporate marketer and it was such a huge part of…

Emily Osmond (12:43.662)
Hmm. Hmm.

Renee Mariette (12:47.475)
my marketing strategies for other businesses even now. I continually say if you’re going to create something on your website that you really want to optimize, promote it via your social media platform and email marketing etc. But it’s been one of the hardest things for me to set up for myself. It’s um…

Emily Osmond (12:52.174)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Renee Mariette (13:07.027)
I suppose giving away a little bit of privacy because it has to be so open. But I’m really trying and I’m getting better at it. But what I have noticed is that it’s more of an opportunity to educate and also have fun. I’ve got two forms of content that seem to work a bit better than self -promotion via social media, really.

Emily Osmond (13:23.95)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (13:31.374)
Mm. Mm. Yeah, brilliant. And it is a challenge, I think, when we go from working in corporate or for another company, even as marketers, to then go out and it’s like, oh, hang on a minute. I’m kind of like the product now. Do I have to put myself out there? Do I have to talk and share a photo? But it can be so, so, so powerful when we do that.

Renee Mariette (13:47.027)
Yeah, you’ve come a face, Grace.

Renee Mariette (13:53.299)
Yeah, it’s hard.

Renee Mariette (13:57.747)
It is, it is. And look, I’ve seen other people do it exceptionally well and I’m in awe of anyone who can just say, you know what, I’m just going to get out there and do it. I think my perfectionism has a bit of an issue. I can spend four hours just editing a reel to make it effect and then it’s still not good enough. So. Yes. Yeah, I think so. I have gotten it down to about three hours.

Emily Osmond (14:15.246)
Yeah. I promise you it gets quicker though. I feel like you have to put in that time upfront to then be able to make it quicker. Yeah. Nice. Getting there, getting there. Oh, so good. So we’ve had a bit of a look at your marketing. I would love to hear how does your business really work for your life? Because I know that for so many of us, we have our businesses to…

Renee Mariette (14:27.443)
and…

Emily Osmond (14:45.486)
not completely take over our life. And we don’t necessarily want to grow a massive company, but we love the idea of it being something that is nimble and flexible to really serve us. So what does that look like for you, Renee?

Renee Mariette (14:54.835)
I’m still, I have a really good think about this question. I think I’m still developing my answer on it. It’s since I’ve left corporate world, I’ve become highly protective of work -life balance. But in saying that, I think I’ve just sort of naturally built this business to suit my lifestyle and it is quite easy for me to work.

Emily Osmond (15:03.022)
Mm. Mm.

Emily Osmond (15:11.566)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (15:21.582)
Yeah.

Renee Mariette (15:23.187)
Monday to Friday and have maybe a networking day or a co -working day with local colleagues here in the Valley on one of those days so I can move around and be flexible with where I work and with who I work.

Emily Osmond (15:29.806)
Yeah.

Renee Mariette (15:35.859)
and that’s really, really important for me. But that sort of, yeah, I’ve been quite protective of weekends and times where I get to spend with my family. That sort of has to come first. So I’ve gotten really good at managing my calendar.

Emily Osmond (15:36.046)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (15:48.142)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (15:55.566)
Yeah, yeah. And it’s nice to have a little bit more control over that one too, to say, right, these times or these days, I’m gonna be doing this, sorry.

Renee Mariette (16:02.515)
Yeah, yeah exactly and even you know if you know that there’s certain times of the day that don’t work or the month that don’t work then you can sort of plan to work on things that perhaps aren’t as creative when you know that you’re going to be feeling a little bit less than creative.

Emily Osmond (16:19.886)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It’s, yeah, it’s so good to be able to do that to channel the creativity when you have it and then to just take, you know, be kind to yourself when it’s not quite there and you need to, yeah, just focus on some other things for a little bit. So that’s good. Yeah. So, Renee, what have you found to be perhaps surprising or challenging over these past three years that maybe you didn’t expect?

Renee Mariette (16:29.555)
Yeah.

Renee Mariette (16:34.003)
Yeah. Exactly.

Renee Mariette (16:48.819)
Well, as I mentioned before, getting used to the instability of finance was a big one for me. And it was a real relearning because I think financial stability was a bit of a conductor for anxiety. So that was a big relearning. And I’m very lucky that we’re in the position where my husband can support me growing this business. And that’s wonderful. But I think…

Emily Osmond (16:56.366)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (17:02.894)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (17:06.894)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (17:14.83)
Yeah.

Renee Mariette (17:18.451)
Really the other stuff is probably the tech side of things, building all of my systems and my management of what I do together. And I’ve got, I know the tools that I can use to perfect what I do, but then all the other things that I had just, I guess, the businesses I worked for in the past to put all this stuff together, then now I have to figure out how to do it.

Emily Osmond (17:26.093)
Mmm.

Emily Osmond (17:30.573)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (17:34.477)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (17:39.31)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (17:43.63)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Renee Mariette (17:47.091)
It was a little bit of a shock just how much admin there is when you’re running your business from sort of accounting all the way up to the IT and the tech and just everything around that.

Emily Osmond (17:55.15)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (17:59.118)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, it can be something that you don’t even really consider beforehand. Yeah.

Renee Mariette (18:03.603)
No, no, not until you realize that you need it and you think, oh well I’ll just tap that on and it’s just another thing to add to the pile.

Emily Osmond (18:11.31)
Do you have any favorites, Renee, or any that are kind of essentials that you’re using at the moment when it comes to the tools and the platforms?

Renee Mariette (18:16.563)
Yeah, so I’m terrible when it comes to accounting. I outsource as much of that as I possibly can. But Xero for me is a tool that I found really easy and customizable. That’s a really great one.

Emily Osmond (18:24.43)
Mm.

Yeah.

Renee Mariette (18:34.931)
Yeah, I know. And then I guess for me, for what I do, investing in the best technology that I can and constantly testing different things. So when it comes to creating SEO strategies at the moment, I’m using SEMrush, which is really expensive actually, but for what I do, absolutely worth it. So yeah, and then just making sure that that’s, you know.

Emily Osmond (18:35.726)
Yeah, I love that too.

Emily Osmond (18:45.838)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (18:54.798)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (18:59.758)
Yeah.

Renee Mariette (19:03.155)
still the best version based on new technology and updates coming from Google.

Emily Osmond (19:04.814)
Hmm. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that for our businesses, if we’re a service provider, there’s often going to be something that you might invest in like that, that technology, that tool, that is kind of essential to help you deliver that really high quality of work that, that your clients just aren’t going to have access to. And it kind of gives you that edge. And then the same with my business, I would see Kajabi and I know a lot of people kind of consider it to be quite pricey, but

I guess I see it that it’s the investment that I make to be able to then bring in the revenue into my business. So yeah, it’s an interesting kind of way to look at it that it then allows you to deliver the services or the programs or whatever it is that you deliver by kind of having that one or two probably more premium tools that you invest in.

Renee Mariette (19:44.083)
Yeah.

Renee Mariette (19:56.915)
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. And it’s also, I guess there’s sort of levels, there’s things that you don’t mind spending money on that help you deliver the best of what you do. But then there’s things, for example, that I have yet to really invest in. And I haven’t even done full research on what those tools are, but…

Emily Osmond (20:06.862)
Hmm… Yeah.

Renee Mariette (20:17.075)
tools to help me automate my processes of onboarding at the moment. It’s all manual because I’m still learning the best way to onboard and I don’t want to pay for tools without knowing exactly what I want that tool to do. Um, but I have colleagues that work in and around my business who have spent that money to invest in upgraded their business and connect all the dots and it’s all automated and it looks amazing. And I’m still here.

Emily Osmond (20:17.358)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (20:22.798)
Yes, yes, yes.

Mm. Mm.

Emily Osmond (20:36.11)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (20:43.31)
Yes.

Renee Mariette (20:45.619)
Starting along.

Emily Osmond (20:46.286)
But it’s good that you have the awareness that yes, in the future, that’s something that you will no doubt do once it’s a good time to do that. And then the other side is I think that I try and be wary of in my business is to also go through and do a bit of an audit of, okay, what am I paying for here in terms of the subscriptions and the tools? What can I downgrade that I’m not using as much? What can I pause for a while? What can I cancel?

Renee Mariette (20:53.427)
Yes.

Yeah.

Emily Osmond (21:12.43)
Because they can add up as well once you got a few happening. It’s, yeah.

Renee Mariette (21:13.555)
Oh man, especially if you’re going through a phase of testing, I test multiple products at a time to test the same piece of content, for example, on various products and see what happens. So I can have months where my expenditure is quite high and then I sort of remove the ones that I don’t want and go forward that way. But it’s, yeah, there’s, that for me is…

Emily Osmond (21:19.598)
Yes.

Emily Osmond (21:23.502)
Mm… yes.

Renee Mariette (21:37.491)
quite common with SEO tools and things I need to conduct my business. More so than admin -y type tools.

Emily Osmond (21:45.262)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (21:50.478)
Yeah, yeah. Now there’s something, Renee, that you have established in your business that I just adore and I think is like such a secret kind of way of bringing so much connection and fun and lessening the overwhelm in your business that I think so many other people could do but perhaps haven’t considered.

And that is your relationship, your friendship with Rachel, who’s been on the podcast, Rachel Clark. And I think you might call each other your work wives, but could you explain like, how did that come about? What do you do? I think it’s just such a fantastic idea. And I think I can just see how beneficial it is to both of you and other people can replicate this as well.

Renee Mariette (22:24.755)
What was that?

Renee Mariette (22:37.491)
Yeah, so it’s, I mean, we, how our Wifedom started a few years ago. We met on a glorious afternoon at a winery as we do here in the Aero Valley. And we just bonded instantly. And I had just launched my first business, I think it was around then. And Rach was a couple of years into it. So she was sort of a guiding North star for me of where I wanted to be or get to.

Emily Osmond (22:44.206)
Take us back.

Renee Mariette (23:05.267)
And being a couple of years ahead of her business journey than me, she also had lots of ways to help me set myself up and set the business up, the business side of things. So what we found is that she is a web developer and graphic designer turned web designer.

Emily Osmond (23:15.054)
Hmm.

Renee Mariette (23:27.155)
But her forte is technical SEO and SEO when building in SEO when she’s building the websites and mine’s on the content side. And if you have a look at, they call it the SEO periodic table, there’s 44 different parts of building SEO into your website. And for all the ones that I look after, she look after the rest. So we kind of bonded quite well on our

combined knowledge of SEO and also our ability to serve clients an entire package of content design development. And then you get a website which is rankable, findable and sort of designed to your brand while considering things like, you know, how do we get people through the process? What’s the funnel of the website? How do we convert and make money basically?

Emily Osmond (24:03.854)
Mm. Mm.

Emily Osmond (24:19.278)
Mmm… Yeah.

Renee Mariette (24:22.387)
So yeah, her and I have, we have weekly catch ups where we do co -working and we go to the local country club down here, which is very fancy. And we work all day. Sometimes we work on things that we’re both doing at the same time. Other times we’re just doing our own separate work. And then at about four o ‘clock it’s time to stop dropping champagne.

Emily Osmond (24:37.198)
Hehehehehe!

Emily Osmond (24:49.134)
Love it. It’s the reward that you work all day for.

Renee Mariette (24:51.283)
It is. And we do have quite a few websites now under our belt. We’ve just launched a four -seater hidden restaurant here on the Arabelli website. Yeah, and they’ve been picked up by the age and by broadsheet. It’s called Emerald City. So if anyone’s out here, it’s behind a very funky sort of prohibition whiskey bar.

Emily Osmond (25:05.518)
What? Oh my.

Emily Osmond (25:14.062)
gonna write that one down.

Emily Osmond (25:19.214)
Wow.

Renee Mariette (25:19.251)
and it’s behind a velvet curtain up back. So that’s a fun one.

Emily Osmond (25:25.07)
And this is the thing when you work in a local town, you get all the all the like new things that are opening. You can’t you kind of know them before most people do. And when you’re working with the businesses, it’s very, very cool. But.

Renee Mariette (25:30.163)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. It makes me sort of help me become a lot better at marketing myself as well. So she’s really good at throwing it out there that what she does, oh yeah, I’m a website developer and it’s just very natural. And I was finding that difficult and she sort of helped me to, has helped me to sort of be more confident in throwing that into conversations. So if somebody happens to be looking for it, then they know where to go.

Emily Osmond (25:48.078)
Yeah. Yes.

Emily Osmond (25:53.934)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (26:03.278)
Yeah, oh, so good. Because it can be pretty isolating and lonely and yeah, and difficult when you work for yourself and you work at home and you’re kind of looking around the walls and you’re like, I’ve got no one to bounce these ideas off or just have those discussions and run things by people. So to find someone in your local area or it might be for other people, someone that they’ve met online that they can then have those chats with. I’ve got a couple of…

chats that I’m in with people that we can bounce ideas, support each other. And it’s just so helpful. So if anyone listening doesn’t have that, how did you meet Rachel, by the way?

Renee Mariette (26:38.355)
I used it through COVID. I set up a local community group myself and she came along to one of them. But there’s other copywriters and developers and a couple of marketing, solpreneur marketing agencies, a little bit like you, who we’ve developed, not wiped in material, but we’ve got really great.

Emily Osmond (26:43.566)
Yes!

Emily Osmond (26:52.846)
Yes.

Emily Osmond (26:57.582)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (27:02.094)
Hehehehe

Renee Mariette (27:03.763)
feedback channel so they can send stuff to me or vice versa and we can give each other feedback. So online is a good way to start those relationships.

Emily Osmond (27:06.734)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (27:13.838)
Absolutely. Well, Renee, last question. I’d love to hear what are you working on now? What’s kind of your your current thing that you’re working on for your for your business? For your business, for you, your business.

Renee Mariette (27:20.659)
Oh yes. For the business or for my clients?

Renee Mariette (27:28.019)
For my business, well, at the moment, I’m looking at expanding out my website and doing some changes. There’s been a recent announcement from Google in March about some really quite severe changes that they’re going to be making to their algorithms. So I’m starting to do the testing via my own website.

Emily Osmond (27:51.214)
Mm.

Renee Mariette (27:51.891)
So those, that part’s happening. And then at the same time, I’m looking at changing up and adding in a few services. Mainly also to help a lot of the Google update is about AI created content and how they’re going to be penalizing or not penalizing it and how they’re going to find it, all that sort of stuff. So, um,

Emily Osmond (28:09.614)
Hmm.

Yes.

Renee Mariette (28:15.123)
Some of the services I’m looking at is around how do you use AI content and what can I do to sort of support because it’s such a great, easy, cheap, quick way to create content, but potentially not so great with SEO. So how can I support things as they change? Because it’s here to stay.

Emily Osmond (28:26.254)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Emily Osmond (28:35.406)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (28:39.502)
Yeah, and you got to be playing by Google’s rules as well. Yeah, yeah. And we have you scheduled for the end of April as our guest expert in the Modern Marketing Collective to take us through these changes and let us know what we need to know. So if anyone wants to make sure they’re part of that workshop, come and join us at emilyosman .com forward slash collective. And we have the wonderful Renee running that one for us. It’s so good to have.

Renee Mariette (28:40.403)
Absolutely, yeah.

Emily Osmond (29:05.358)
different people’s expertise to come in and share, right, this is what I’m learning, this is what’s happening, this is what you need to know. So that’d be a fantastic one.

Renee Mariette (29:09.235)
Yeah, so I guess this is really relevant to so many people now because it’s, I mean, we’re all using these tools and we all have websites that we want to help us make money. So we just have to make sure that they are geared to do that for us.

Emily Osmond (29:20.686)
Yes. Yes.

Emily Osmond (29:27.31)
Absolutely. Well, Renee, on that note, where can everyone go to find you and follow you and connect with you?

Renee Mariette (29:30.899)
I am on the Insta webs so make words work at make words work and my website is www .makewordswork .com .au it’s a real tongue twister make words work.

Emily Osmond (29:35.95)
You

Emily Osmond (29:45.646)
Make words work. I love it though. So good. And now is there anything that I haven’t asked you by the way that you would like to add in? Fantastic. And like I said, we should definitely get you back to actually go into the depths of SEO. So we’ll keep that one in mind. Well, this is the thing. Yeah. You would have to stay on top of it and make sure you’re communicating that to people as well. So yeah.

Renee Mariette (29:52.979)
No, I think we’ve covered everything.

Renee Mariette (30:01.715)
Yeah, yeah there’s lots of juicy stuff in there it’s changing all the time at the moment so…

Yes. Yeah, yeah. And it’s difficult because it’s not, they’re not very clear about what those changes are going to be. They’re a little bit sort of cryptic. So yeah, it’s a lot about interpreting and testing.

Emily Osmond (30:16.046)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (30:21.102)
Yes.

Emily Osmond (30:26.222)
Yeah, yeah. Well, such value that you’re able to bring people. So, yeah, brilliant. Yeah. Well, thank you, Renée, for joining me.

Renee Mariette (30:28.115)
I hope so. That’s the whole point.

Renee Mariette (30:34.835)
Thank you so much for having me.