SEO Snack: Week of April 7th

Quick Week Summary

This past week was filled with a good amount of monthly meetings with clients to review Q1 (and March), which is always a good time to catch up with them but also makes the week a bit more hectic to get “actual” work done. A lot of my other work was looking at some page edits we’re working on, adding some 301s based on some Google Search Console “alerts”, and working on building SEO process docs/checklists for other to utilize (not internally).

Week Insights

1. What I struggled with: “Unlimited” 404s

We had a client working with another web team a handful of months back (out of the States due to the product/company having a lot of ties to the Latin community) and somehow her website was “hacked”. It eventually got turned around but part of what occurred was that thousands of pages were created to “sell” knockoff/cheap/not real? products. Anyway, those pages are now 404s (and there are 7000+) that I’m working to redirect because for some odd reason, some are still being indexed/show up. The struggle is I can only do 1000 at a time…

2. What was a bigger headache than it needed to be: GA4 Enhanced Measurements

These events that are set up through this enhanced measurement can be good and awful. Right now there is a client who has X amount of form submissions when in reality they have B amount. My other gripe with these is that sometimes they automatically set up as conversions, which throws a lot of what I already set up off. Not a massive deal and generally an easy fix, just not ideal.

3. What went well: Client Monthly Meetings

First, it’s always good to see clients! As I’m starting to take on a less client-facing role, I don’t get as much time with them (which can be a bummer and also nice to have some time back to get other things done). All in all though, a lot of clients had a really good Q1. I was happy with how our team performed, the analytics/data, and it seemed like many clients either hit/got close to their goals for Q1. Something to build on for Q2.

4. What to look out for or tune into: Site Reputation Abuse

This was a part of the March Google Core update but it looks like a majority of the “work” will be done potentially in May. Hopefully won’t impact many people (since it’s a black hat tactic in my book that should be done).

5. What weird things happened: Conversions or Key Events??

I know that GA4 conversions should have turned into “key events” but am I the only one still seeing conversions for 90% of our clients??

Key Takeaways

1. Client Analytics

So a few weeks back I had a friend who works within analytics (and has been for a while) send me a LinkedIn post about what questions to ask clients/stakeholders about analytics (What Junior Data Analysts vs. Senior Data Analysts ask) and it made me question how much of what we show is for us vs. for our clients.

I feel like I might have touched on this previously (my bad if I did) but I feel like it’s an important piece to touch on. Realistically, I feel like 80-90% of what we show the client should be for them, what they want to see, and what’s impacting their KPIs. The other percentage should be to showcase other improvements, that might not be as important but still have an impact on the client.

It’s an area I don’t think we have down yet if I’m being honest. We’re a bit cookie-cutter when it comes to this and those questions/the LinkedIn post made me think more about how we can adjust to better inform our clients about what’s going on.

2. Don’t Forget About You/Your Company

Being a smaller agency, at times it’s been extremely easy to forget about OUR marketing strategy, specifically from the SEO side. Social at times can be a quicker fix if needed because you’re a button away from just any type of post (not saying this is good because it could negatively impact you or not be part of an overarching strategy, it just “can be easier” if you want it to but you shouldn’t do this!) but SEO doesn’t have this quick button click to at least be active.

We’ve certainly had months where our strategy takes a backseat and we've been fortunate enough to be able to do that and still grow.

My big point out of this is that especially early on, it’s important to treat yourself like a client.

Resources To Look At

1. Google Search Console Beginner’s Guide

Since I mentioned it, I thought it might be helpful to have a bit of a GSC guide if you’re new to it.

Check it out here

2. Beginner’s Guide to SEO

Not sure if I ever plugged this but we have a SEO guide for folks looking to just get a background or start in SEO.

Check it out here