Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Danielle Johnson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Danielle, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

My brand is very personal in that I share about myself, my life, my hobbies, and I often develop close friendships with my clients – so I wanted then name of my brand to feel relevant to me personally, as well. A big theme in my life ever since graduating from high school and starting my business has been “defiance:” in dropping out of college at 20 to run my business full-time, in leaving the religion I was brought up in (something I share about often with my audience), in defying the expectations I had for myself and that my family/parents/the people I knew had for me to instead be my own boss. Even in the way I run my business and the way I teach SEO, I defy a lot of the norms in the industry – I teach from a somewhat untraditional perspective looking at SEO holistically rather than completely strategically and formulaically, and I teach entrepreneurs SEO/blogging in a way that actually makes sense to THEM rather than teaching in a boring, confusing, overwhelming manner. “Defy” to me represents going against the grain, creating my own path, and defying the norms/expectations of society in both my personal life and my business.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a wedding photographer turned SEO & blogging expert for creative entrepreneurs. When I was a wedding photographer myself, I noticed a lack of people offering really high-quality blogging services – I enjoyed blogging for my business and learning about SEO, and I realized everybody else pretty much despised it! When COVID hit, I needed some extra income and started offering Virtual Assistant services, as I enjoyed doing a lot of that admin, backend work, and found that I was skilled at it. I took on multiple photographer clients and soon realized that most of them were having me blog for them more than anything else. I began to dive more into SEO education and learning about SEO blogging, and before I knew it I had niched down to solely offering blogging for wedding photographers. I wanted to offer a fully done-for-you, white-glove service that I had never seen offered before, where I would help photographers plan out their strategy, write their copy, do their SEO research, and fully publish their blogs to their websites for them – so it would be completely hands-off for them. I soon booked out my roster and ever since 2021, I’ve been fully booked out every single month!

I’ve been lucky enough to blog for some big names in the wedding industry and help each & every one of my clients create recurring revenue + generate quality leads behind the scenes while they focus on what they love most: serving their clients.

After working with more than 30 1:1 clients, writing over 500 SEO-optimized blog posts, and getting countless client blogs to reach page 1 of Google for their target terms, I’ve also started to offer SEO and blogging education in the form of easy to use, DIY templates, as well as a full blogging course and other digital products. I help business owners finally find their confidence when it comes to blogging for their creative business so that they can reach your ideal clients, generate new income, and build trust with every single person who lands on their website.

I aim to teach SEO in a digestible way for folks who have maybe tried learning about it in the past, but felt super overwhelmed. I break it down into more bite-sized parts, and encourage my clients + students to start slow, do the bare minimum, and make blogging work for them rather than forcing themselves to try and follow the crazy complex strategies some other educators teach.

At the core of what I offer, I’m big on helping my clients and students actually be able to actually live their life instead of living behind their computer. My clients are often tired of having to be constantly active on Instagram and putting a ton of energy into their marketing, and would rather a more passive form of organic marketing like blogging and SEO that can work for them behind the scenes. They’d much rather spend their time getting lost in their favorite books, petting their cats, saying yes to plans with friends, and being present in their lives!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

In the first couple years of running my business, I was very deep into hustle culture; that hustle mindset where you had to be working all the time in order to be productive, and more was always better. This worked for me at first, since I did need to work quite a bit in order to get my business off the ground and running, but as I continued to evolve, I realized I didn’t want my business to run my life – I wanted my business to SERVE my life and allow me to live the life I dreamed of. It sounds cliche, but it’s true. I didn’t want to be a 20 year old college dropout who worked all the time and hated her life, I wanted to have a profitable, successful, fulfilling business AND be able to travel, have free time, be with my loved ones, etc. It took a while to really get out of that hustle/grind mindset, and I think COVID forced a lot of us to re-think the way we wanted to live our lives!

Have you ever had to pivot?

My entire life, I had always planned on going to college and following the traditional 4-year path. I had planned to become a teacher like my parents; I was always the straight-A student, following all of the rules, working hard in school, the kind of student that teachers loved. My parents and everyone around me (myself included) thought I would thrive in college. However, when I moved to college, I had a really tough time; I developed a lot of anxiety and was depressed for the first time in my life. I dove headfirst into my photography hobby to distract myself and give me something to look forward to during that tough time, and as soon as I set up my first little styled bridal photoshoot, I fell in love and got my business license. A year later, I transferred to online school and moved back home so I could work more on my business – and later that year, I fully dropped out. It was a huge lesson in realizing that I could create my own path, that I could change my mind, and that I didn’t have to do what everybody else expected of me. For a while my loved ones were unsure about my decision and it created some tension in the family, but ultimately I’m really proud of myself for making that decision to completely pivot and change my plans! Never once in my life did I think I’d have the title “college dropout,” but here we are.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://defycreativeco.com
• Instagram: defycreativeco
• Other: TikTok: defycreativeco

Image Credits

@chelseaabrilphoto
@backcountrybohemians