SEO Snack: Week of February 11th
Quick Week Summary
What I worked on this past week
This past week had a few different projects taking up a good amount of my workload. First was putting the final touches on the website revamp, getting that live, and making edits after it was live. Some other pieces of the week were reviewing a lot of new pages we’re getting ready for client approval and starting to make edits on the large website that a new client has.
Week Insights
What I struggled with
Time Spent vs. Impact
With this large website we’re working on, one of the main pieces we “fix” in the beginning are the meta titles/descriptions as well as figuring out keywords for each page. Normally with medium size websites, this doesn’t take long but with going through a website with many pages, this work was a long haul.
What was a bigger headache than it needed to be
GTM (but fixed)
No massive headaches this past week. I had a few issues with Google Tag Manager and having certain events firing correctly but was able to find the missing piece that was causing the disconnect.
What went well
WEBSITE REVAMP DONE AND LIVE!
As I mentioned, we finally got the website revamp live which was a “great success”. In around two-three weeks, we mapped out all the new pages, crafted copy, and put it all together into a working website. With everything else we have going on, this was a quick and successful turnaround that a good amount of our team had a hand in (appreciate all of them)!
What to look out for or tune into
Google Search Updates (that are actually confirmed)
Google update since it seems like there is even more noise out there since I wrote last week’s SEO SNACK. Also piggy backing off of that, Google did introduce/work on a few new ways to utilize search this past month I didn't mention. You can read more about it HERE but it’ll certainly have a larger impact down the road, if not sooner rather than later.
What weird things happened
GA4 Testing
One “weird” thing I think I’ve mentioned previously is how GA4 has been “off” for some of our clients. When onboarding new clients, a lot of them already had someone set up GA4 and those are some of the ones we’re seeing issues with. So we’re going to set up “copy” accounts for those sites and see if the analytics match or if something was off during the original set up. Stay tuned.
Key Takeaways
1. Keyword Optimization vs. Company Mission/Brand
Having great communication and collaboration between SEO and web design is important (not the same as what I hit on last time). Coming from someone who can picture how something “should” be and thinking that’s how it will come out, being able to have good conversations and working time with out web team has been a great learning piece for me. There needs to be balance between SEO and user experience, and in a perfect world, they work together seamlessly.
2. CTA Optimization
One thing we’ve seen some success with is making sure that the CTAs on websites are clear and maybe more abundant than we normally would have. Although it can sometimes seem obnoxious or “too much”, we’ve continually seen the amount of conversions increase when we optimize the wording and locations of buttons/forms/links of CTAs.
3. Give Google Some Time
If you work in SEO, you likely know how delayed Google can be when learning your website. Now the tough part at times is communicating this to clients. As great as it would be that the changes we all make for clients would have immediate impact, the reality is this doesn’t happen too often.
This is another reason why when working with an agency or someone for SEO it’s important to know it’s a long term play that you need to have faith in and not continually change up your strategy month to month. Two things I know are not always easy to have/do (another reason to truly VET who you’re working with).
Resources To Look At
1. SEOquake
A tool I use to get metrics and information on pages that I’m currently viewing. A simple plugin that can save you a ton of time and give you some great information.
2. Beginners Guide to SEO
I don’t think I’ve plugged this before but we have a guide for those who are looking to understand SEO a bit more. This is something that I recommend a lot of people, especially if we won’t be partnering with them to work on SEO for any reason. Just some good background and information to get more familiar with SEO.
