SEO Snack: Week of May 12th
Quick Week Summary
What I worked on this past week
This past week had a good amount of meetings (some monthly meetings with clients and other internal meetings recapping client meetings or internal process pieces). I also worked on getting focus keywords put in place for the upcoming month’s work (which I’ll chat about below) and doing some research on Google’s AI Overview and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, which I’ll also hit on below.
Week Insights
What I struggled with
Internal GA4 Traffic Filters
I feel like I’ve hit on this a lot… and I still don’t have it 100% solved. While working on a friends website, I created a filter using my IP4 address and it doesn’t seem to have worked. I’ve seen issues with some clients and our traffic interfering with true data. I’ve done a ton of research to make sure I’m setting filters up correctly and that I’m not just missing something, I must still be just missing something. If you have similar issues or have some resolutions, PLEASE REACH OUT!
What was a bigger headache than it needed to be
Archive Page Meta Data
I feel like I mentioned this previously but I again struggled with getting archive page meta data to populate (and also just find it in WordPress). Instead of wasting time (like I did a bit), I just reached out to our web team and had them show me/help me get the right meta data in place for these pages.
What went well
Onboarding Client Research
I know last week I talked about our “new” onboarding process but this week I got to do the research portion of this process for a new client we have. This is one of my favorite pieces. I get to learn about them as a company, the industry they are in, note any questions I have, think about website edits I’d recommend, do competitor research (from a content and SEO perspective), and just learn where we’ll start with them as a client. It’s fun to be able to learn about so many different industries and clients, it’s something that won’t get old.
What to look out for or tune into
AI Impact Of SEO
This is nothing new. It just seems to be heating up a bit right now. A lot of you probably know my stance on this but it’s still worth doing a lot of your own research and planning/strategizing.
What weird things happened
Web Chat Key Event
I set up a key event for one of our clients for a web chat plugin they have. I tested in a few times, everything was firing correctly, then over the week, no events happened. I tested it again, it worked, and still nothing is firing. I know messages have been submitted (by talking to the client) but for some reason it won’t fire then but it will when I test it.
Key Takeaways
1. Monthly Focus Keywords
This is something that I’ve always done but just never had much structure to it. With how we’re growing and having more “specialized” roles, I’ve had to put more of a structure around this.
The reason I’m bringing it up is because I feel like it’s not hit on enough.
Overall we always have “priority” keywords for clients that we see as important to rank well for that we track. In a monthly perspective though, with content being laid out (what we’ll be working on that month), it’s important to have focus keywords for that content.
It’s easy at times to just create content because you think it’ll help bring in traffic or be a great informational piece for users but if you’re not taking time to research, think, and ultimately choose keywords for the content you’re producing on a monthly basis, you’re not strategically adding to your website, you’re just hoping.
2. Google AI Overview
I’ll be honest, I haven’t done enough research around this yet.
What I do know is that a big reason it’s a thing now is to compete with the other AI competition (search competition) out there (like the one below). I do think it’ll add a change to the search environment but based off on the very brief research I’ve done so far, I’m not sold it’s as revolutionary people think it is.
To me, it just continues to add on the fact that you should have great, mainly human written/created, content in your strategy. I see this as piece that is more for informational content and if you’re creating helpful, useful, and honest content, you shouldn’t see too much of an impact yet (as many people believe it’ll change the whole internet again) but I could be wrong (although I’m seeing a lot of “resources” on how to turn it off…).
3. GPT-4o
I’ll also be honest here, I haven’t done a ton of research but still want to hit on it.
To be frank, I’m not too much of a fan or see it as a true competitor yet.
From what I tested, I noticed that a lot of the web pieces it grabs for a question I have come from Bing, directories, “review” sites, and paid for “review” sites.
I did a few searches just asking for marketing agencies in Milwaukee and what I was given was a mix of the sources above. Knowing the companies around here, I wasn’t too impressed with the information that was given to me. A lot was based off paid positions on a “review” site and to me, that’s just not honest.
I get that it’s a piece of this business but I feel like if that’s the answers given to folks, it’s going to do more harm then good. I am curious about how this will expand but to me, it’s still nowhere close to being a competitor in search. Will people go here for a lot of reasons, absolutely, but not for what a lot of us are “worried” about.
Resources To Look At
1. GPT-4o Information
Here is OpenAI’s information on GPT-4o to help you get an understanding about the new features/capabilities.
2. Google AI Overview Information
Similar to above, here is just Google’s information on AI Overview.
