There are many challenges to achieving a client’s goals. Often these challenges can be worked through by the agency and client. Identifying possible roadblocks prior to signing a contract will help ease the navigation through the initial months of the relationship. One sign of possible difficulty is a history of successive agencies for the client.…
Author: steve
Digital marketer with deep experience in paid and organic search engine marketing driven by website analytics.
Managing Change in SEO
SEO is dynamic. That’s no secret to anyone familiar with the field. We see a lot of changes in our metrics that result from Google adapting or changing algorithms. Sometimes, Google changes how it processes information through Google Search Console. And other changes are the result of something in the market (or related to it).…
Our favorite 9 Google Analytics Reporting Features
Google Analytics has a lot of great reporting capabilities and features. Too many people don’t use them because they may not be obvious, or may take some time to set up, or their inputs may not be properly set up. Whatever the reason, it is worth overcoming it to benefit from these Google Analytics capabilities.…
21 On-site SEO Areas to Improve Your Rankings
The recommendations for on-site SEO, or on-page SEO, over years, have often been “flavors of the day”. Because Google is opaque, there are no direct answers about what specifically improves rankings. In our view, placing too much emphasis on a single aspect (or a couple) of SEO elements will lead to disappointment. We’ve sat in…
Better Reporting for Better Decisions
Yes, it’s that time of year when we start thinking about what we’ll do differently next year. Among the many challenges we all deal with is managing information, and more specifically how we consume information. Often we are not faced with too little information, but far too much. To make well-informed decisions, we need to…
What your SEO agency doesn’t know can hurt you
No, this isn’t about the competency of your SEO agency. My guess is they’re good; you’ve hired them. This is about communication. The people in your SEO agency are there to help you increase your business by improving the search results among important topic searches. As such, much of the conversation with the agency is…
Why do we need server-side tracking for Google Analytics?
Before we jump into server-side tracking for analytics it is important to understand the state of website tracking up to this point. For simplicity, we are going to use Google Analytics as the tracking tool for this discussion. But, the same ideas apply to virtually every analytics and user tracking tool out there. How site…
Website Analytics and Reporting
I’ve been asked what we use for analytics and tracking. The short answer is Google Analytics (like most everyone.) But, I think a better way to think about it is “how do you use your analytics platform?”, whatever it is. We find that we are creating different implementations for our clients, but every implementation has…
Google Ads: Another AI/ML Move To More Data-Driven Automation
As Google continues down the path of AI/ML-driven “everything”, advertisers are left with blind spots. The latest push came when Google announced that last-click attribution will be replaced by data-driven as the default for Google Ads. This, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad. What it means to you depends on your program. …
Google Ads Match Types Lack Meaning
As Google continues to push its belief that the Google Ads AI is better at aligning search queries to advertisers’ needs than are advertisers, the Google Ads Match type becomes less meaningful. From phrase match to exact match, Google increasingly serves ads for queries that are not aligned with the goals of the advertisers. This…