Search Marketing Blog - Beasley Direct & Online

Best Practices for Re-Launching Your Google Ads Account

Andy Hoover — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 17:58:24 +0000

When it comes to running successful online campaigns, re-launching your Google Ads account can be a game-changing opportunity to drive growth and improve results. Whether you’ve hit pause on your ads or are starting fresh with a revamped strategy, getting your re-launch right is critical. With the right approach, your ads can reach your target audience at the right time, ensuring maximum ROI. This guide will walk you through actionable best practices to help set your campaigns up for success as you revitalize your Google Ads strategy.

Why a Thoughtful Google Ads Relaunch Strategy Matters

Re-launching your Google Ads account isn’t as simple as flipping the switch back on. If you’ve previously paused your campaigns, user behaviors and market trends may have shifted in the meantime. By following a carefully planned re-launch strategy, you’ll optimize your ads for current trends, minimize wasted ad spend, and start seeing results more quickly.

Here are the Key Things to Focus on During your Re-launch:

1. Craft Engaging and Dynamic Ad Content

Leverage ChatGPT for Creative Ad Creation
If writing ad content feels overwhelming, artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT can help you generate highly tailored Google Ads copy. Here’s how to make the most of it:

Create specific prompts for each product page, including details about the product, desired tone, and ad requirements (like character limits).
Highlight the product’s features and benefits and be clear about search themes.
Rigorously proofread the outputs and refine prompts to improve outcomes.

Test Multiple Variations
Don’t stop at one version of your ad! Create variations of headlines, descriptions, and images to identify the most engaging combinations. Dynamic content ensures you keep reaching diverse audiences, while also gathering data on what works best.

Use Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max (pMax) campaigns automatically optimize ad placements across Google properties, increasing your reach. Leverage the combinations of assets (headlines, descriptions, images, and video) to make the most of automation powered by AI.

Align Content with Promotions
Keep your campaigns fresh by updating ad content to highlight seasonal events, holidays, or special discounts. Stale content is quickly overlooked; keep your ads as dynamic as your audience’s needs.

2. Stay Ahead with Industry Knowledge

The digital marketing landscape, especially Google Ads, is constantly evolving. To maintain an edge, you need to stay updated on trends and new features.

Follow Key Resources
Search Engine Land provides valuable insights into SEO, PPC, and Google Ads strategies. Google’s official blogs, such as Google Ads & Commerce and The Keyword, share the latest updates and tools available. Check community forums and ChatGPT developments for more automation and AI tips.
Adapt to Future Trends
With Google’s planned AI overhaul, the way users search and engage with ads is shifting. Consider exploring tools like Google’s new Gemini AI (once mature) to stay ahead as AI reshapes the search marketing landscape.

3. Optimize Bidding Strategies

Start Small
When launching your campaigns, begin with a low cost-per-click (CPC) bid (e.g., $0.03 to $0.05). This allows you to gather performance data while keeping costs manageable.

Allow Bid Strategy Learning
Google’s Bid Strategy Learning period requires up to two weeks to optimize campaigns properly. Be patient and avoid drastic changes during this time, as it will reset the learning process.

Monitor and Adjust
Once your campaign has stabilized, gradually increase your bids based on ROI and performance data. This will help you allocate budget effectively while maximizing returns.

4. Follow Campaign Launch Best Practices

Prepare with Lead Time
Allocate at least a month of preparation before running a new campaign. This gives you time to work through Google Ads’ learning period, optimize ad groups and assets, and gather valuable performance data to refine your campaign.

Daily Monitoring
When the campaign goes live, check its performance daily during the initial week to fix any setup issues or tracking errors promptly. Use the first month’s data to refine targeting, keywords, and ad copy to improve results.

Experiment with A/B Testing
Constant experimentation is key to uncovering new opportunities. Use A/B testing to compare different versions of your headlines, descriptions, and visuals. Even small adjustments can significantly improve click-through rates (CTR) or conversions.

5. Track Performance Like a Pro

Use Google Ads Conversion Tracking
Set up Google Ads conversion tags via Google Tag Manager to track key performance actions, including purchases, form submissions, and sign-ups. Test these tags thoroughly to ensure accuracy.

Leverage Google Analytics
Link your Google Ads account to Google Analytics for enhanced insights into your audience’s behavior. Utilize imported conversions and set up goals in Analytics to mirror your campaign objectives.

Add UTM Parameters
Tag your URLs with UTM parameters like utm_source and utm_campaign to trace ad performance in Analytics.

Enable Enhanced Conversions
Enhanced conversions securely send hashed customer data (e.g., email or phone) when conversions occur, improving the accuracy of your tracking.

6. Stay Competitive with Competitor Insights

Use Google Ads Tools
Auction Insights Report gives you a breakdown of how your campaigns stack up against competitors. The Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool helps you analyze competitors’ ads for inspiration and insights.
Research Keywords
Third-party tools like SEMrush and SpyFu allow you to dig into the keywords your competitors are targeting and assess their ad spend.

7. Build a Data-Driven Feedback Loop

Routine Optimizations
Update ad content to reflect new trends, offers, or lessons learned from past campaigns. Refine targeting criteria and bidding strategies based on analytics.
Document Changes
Maintain a changelog for all edits and adjustments—this helps ensure consistency and enables better tracking over time.
Automate Reporting
Use tools like Looker Studio to create customized dashboards combining data from Google Ads and Analytics. Automate reports to keep key stakeholders informed without extra manual effort.

Nail Your Google Ads Relaunch Today

Re-launching your Google Ads account is more than restarting campaigns. It is about leveraging insights, refining strategies, and staying agile in an evolving digital landscape.

By focusing on dynamic ad content, tracking performance diligently, and staying informed about industry trends, you’ll amplify your campaign’s effectiveness while minimizing waste.

Are you ready to take your Google Ads to the next level? Follow these best practices and set yourself up for success in your re-launch. Or, if you need help, contact us for a Google Ads audit and start-up management kit.

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What is Google’s Page Experience Update and how will it Affect Your SEO Marketing in 2021?

Andy Hoover — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 15:00:54 +0000

What is Google’s 2021 Page Experience Update?

Google is releasing a major algorithm update in 2021 that will affect search engine rank for businesses. This update will complement Google’s Mobile First indexing switch in March 2021 that assigns page search results rank based on mobile-only ranking factors. Over 60% of US search is from mobile devices, and the share is expected to increase every year.

The focus of Page Experience will be measured by Core Web Vitals metrics found in your Google Search Console. They are defined as:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): “The amount of time to render the largest content element visible in the viewport, from when the user requests the URL. The largest element is typically an image or video, or perhaps a large block-level text element. This is important because it tells the reader that the URL is actually loading.” (Google Search Console Help)

First Input Delay (FID): “The time from when a user first interacts with your page (when they clicked a link, tapped on a button, and so on) to the time when the browser responds to that interaction. This measurement is taken from whatever interactive element that the user first clicks. This is important on pages where the user needs to do something, because this is when the page has become interactive.” (Google Search Console Help)

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): “The amount that the page layout shifts during the loading phase. The score is rated from 0–1, where zero means no shifting and 1 means the most shifting. This is important because having pages elements shift while a user is trying to interact with it is a bad user experience.” (Google Search Console Help)

How Can I Monitor My Website’s Page Experience Metrics?

The location to monitor your page’s Page Experience is Google Search Console. In the left-hand menu expand the Enhancements list, and at the top are Core Web Vitals. Click on Core Web Vitals and you will see two reports, one for mobile and the other for desktop:

Mobile (Core Web Vitals)
Desktop (Core Web Vitals)

Click on Open Report for either and you’ll see how your web pages are performing.

Keeping your Page Experience up-to-date will help with search rank, and along with the Mobile Usability report (just below Core Web Vitals in the menu) you’ll understand how to improve search rank by optimizing your pages for Mobile-first indexing.

What Resources are Available to Keep Up-to-Date on Page Experience Developments?

There are five excellent resources to monitor development of Google’s 2021 Page Experience update:

Google’s Search Console Core Web Vitals Help (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9205520?hl=en)
Google Webmaster Blog (https://webmasters.googleblog.com/)
Search Engine Land (https://searchengineland.com/)
Search Engine Journal (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/)
Search Engine Roundtable (https://www.seroundtable.com/)

Google’s Page Experience update is coming and will impact your website’s page positions in search results. Now is the time to learn about the new update and begin changes to your website.

By Andy Hoover
Manager, Search Engine and Social Media Marketing
Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Need help preparing your business website for the Page Experience update? Contact us.

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New Book Review: Rockin’ ROI: How to Bootstrap eCommerce with Performance-Based Marketing

Laurie Beasley — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 18:06:20 +0000

A good friend of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing and darn good marketing consultant, Jan Carroza, has published a new book available on Amazon, titled Rockin’ ROI: How to Bootstrap eCommerce with Performance-Based Marketing. This book is the culmination of a lifetime of experience Jan has in working with large and small companies, launching new and old products—always with the same attitude that we share at Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.,—that marketing campaigns need to perform with a positive return on investment (ROI). Jan describes how to structure your campaigns with testing and optimization to get positive performance.

Jan believes no matter the budget, startups and seasoned corporations alike need to set themselves up for marketing success. The book starts with marketing goal setting and planning, moves onto the creation of a solid foundation of online and offline sites and materials and then addresses content generation to engage a target audience with built-in campaign management and measurement functionalities.

The upshot is an undertaking that progresses from marketing efforts that are free (or nearly free) through channels that are gradually more expensive. The chapter sequence matches the stages of a new eCommerce company by covering marketing channels that cost nothing, then moving to phases attractive to bootstrapping businesses with some, but minimal funds, and finally to methods that, while they cost more, can be managed to continue to drive ROI.

If you are planning on launching or re-launching an eCommerce company, we highly recommend Jan’s book. You can purchase it now on Amazon.

By Laurie B. Beasley
Co-Founder and President
Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Need help with your marketing campaigns? Contact Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. We have experience with helping small and large eCommerce businesses manage email and search marketing.

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How Can Your Web Pages Rank Well for Voice Search SEO?

Andy Hoover — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 18:31:47 +0000

How are Voice Search and Mobile-first Design Related?

One of the ranking factors of Mobile-first search engine optimization (SEO) are voice searches. Voice searches are unique as searchers usually ask a question, like, “Where can I get the nearest pizza?”, or “What should I include in my kit?”. Whether your company is B2C (business-to-consumer) or B2B (business-to-business) searchers can find your site by asking questions about products and services. How can you monetize voice search on your revenue generating pages? Read more.

Making Money from Voice Search Terms

Remember your FAQ page? What if instead of landing on your FAQs searchers went directly to a product or service page? Your web page would answer their question and offer a product or service, with a compelling call-to-action (CTA); this will help increase your leads, sales and ROI. How are questions added to pages? Keep reading….

There are several ways to add questions to pages. One is within content, as in the above paragraph. You can add questions to the META titles or description, the slug, headlines, at the bottom of the page, almost anywhere. But, you want the questions and answers to be conspicuous. Stick to headlines, or a cluster of Q&A’s at the bottom of the page. Now you know where to place your page-by-page Q&A’s, so how do you get the questions?

Three quick sources for questions:

Search on a keyword. Google and other search engines sometimes list the most popular questions just below the first search results.
SpyFu (the free version). Type a keyword into the Keyword Research box and check the Questions box on the right-hand-side.
If no questions are found in search or tools, ask your teams (sales, front-end, etc…). They’ll have great insight!

Keep the question answers to two or three keyword rich sentences. Use the keywords focused on your product of service page’s content. You should see an increase in traffic to your pages.

By Andy Hoover, Manager, Search Engine and Social Media Marketing for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Andy has over 20-years’ experience with SEO and paid digital advertising, successfully creating, implementing and managing campaigns for SMBs to Fortune 500’s.

Is your business website meeting goals? It’s time for an SEO audit. Contact us and we’ll give a free audit with consultation.

The post How Can Your Web Pages Rank Well for Voice Search SEO? appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., is Selected by RebelMind Communications to Provide Search Marketing Services

Andy Hoover — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 15:00:45 +0000

RebelMind Communications Selects Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., for Search Marketing Services

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., a full service direct and online marketing agency, is selected by RebelMind Communications to provide search marketing services. The initial work will involve a full search engine optimization (SEO) audit which will analyze the website for technical and content factors affecting Google organic search ranking. We will do detailed keyword research and then re-write meta descriptions and on-page content on the website to optimize inbound organic search traffic.

About Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley provides services in inbound and outbound marketing including: content creation, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), print advertising, social media advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), website design, media planning/public relations, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing and is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb of Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com.

About RebelMind Communications

RebelMind Communications transforms product stories into big purpose, actionable narratives and then supports people in sharing their stories to inspire and motivate audiences. Their wins include established companies such as Adobe, Autodesk, Google, Logitech, MARs, Stitch Fix, and Walmart Labs, and emerging industry leaders Breathometer (the first Shark Tank pitch to win investments from all the Sharks), Demandbase, Dropcam (sold to Nest), and Planet (a SpaceX partner). RebelMind has deep experience collaborating with and distilling visions for global company leaders, emerging entrepreneurs, and company founders. Offerings include customized one-on-one programs, workshops, narrative building, and MediaLabs(TM). Clients include companies like Adobe, Autodesk, DropCam (now Nest), eBay, Facebook, Google, InVision, MARs, Mythic, Planet, PLOS, Stitch Fix, and Walmart Labs.

Need an SEO or PPC audit? Contact us for free consultations:

Free SEO Audit

Free PPC Audit

Read about our PPC and SEO services:

PPC Services

SEO Services

By Laurie B. Beasley

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Laurie Beasley, President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., Will be an Opening Speaker at B2B Marketing Expo in Los Angeles, October 2, 2019

Laurie Beasley — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 15:00:22 +0000

Laurie Beasley an Opening Speaker at B2B Marketing Expo

Laurie Beasley, president of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., will be an opening speaker at B2B Expo in Los Angeles, October 2, 2019. The topic will be “Meeting Maker Marketing Campaigns: How to Connect Sales with Anyone”. In this session, Ms. Beasley is going to discuss an approach to Account Based Marketing (ABM) that can land your sales team appointments with virtually any key decision maker. She’ll share how to incentivize prospects into WANTING to get on the phone for a demo or sales appointment. And walk you through a marketing campaign that integrates dimensional direct mail, tele-prospecting, email, and social touches to deliver record numbers of demo appointments for a major software company. Her session will be right after the first keynotes at 10:15 on Wednesday, October 2, 2019.

For free tickets and event info for B2B Marketing Expo go here.

About Laurie Beasley

LAURIE B. BEASLEY is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., which provides services in inbound and outbound marketing including: content creation, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), website design, media planning/public relations, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, marketing automation management, and database management for both B2B and B2C companies. Ms. Beasley serves as president and online marketing certification instructor for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. She also speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for several marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, and AMA.

Is your email marketing nurture campaign failing? Our email marketing team can help. Contact us now.

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How to Get Your SEO Initiative to Work. Podcast with Laurie Beasley as Heard on WVU Marketing Communications Today.

Laurie Beasley — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 15:00:27 +0000

Is Your Organic Search Traffic Falling? Learn How to Get Marketing and Web Dev Teams on the Same Page.

Listen to the Podcast here:

Excerpt

Cindy Greenglass
Host, WVU Marketing Communications Today

“You’ve been involved in auditing and correcting websites’ search engine optimization issues for some time. You’re a real expert in it, and you shared with me that what almost always spurs a call to you for an SEO or a website audit project is a dramatic drop in website traffic or leads. Why would you think that is happening?”

Laurie Beasley
Co-Founder and President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

“Well, that goes back to sort of neglecting the site. Well, it can happen for two reasons. Google does do updates in their search algorithms, and there have been, over the last few years, some pretty major updates. If anybody’s been following them, they have had some funny code names, Hummingbird and things like that, Penguin, and with each of those updates, if people were not paying attention to them, there have been some pretty disastrous falling off the cliff of search results for companies. They were scrambling to catch up and make changes to their sites to catch up with those updates. But beyond that, folks are letting their SEO fall by the wayside by not focusing on keeping their sites optimized for Google’s top search ranking factors. This lack of maintenance comes from a lack of marketing commitment and understanding. And often the web development group just doesn’t understand Google and doesn’t maintain the site so Google can index it. So let’s talk more about this.” ”

About Laurie Beasley

Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., which provides services in inbound and outbound marketing including: content creation, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), website design, media planning/public relations, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, marketing automation management, and database management for both B2B and B2C companies. Ms. Beasley serves as president and online marketing certification instructor for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. She also speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for several marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, and AMA.

Is your SEO initiative failing? Beasley’s professional SEO team can help. Start with a free SEO audit of your company’s website. Sign up here.

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Join Andreas Ramos, Vice President, Digital Marketing for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., in a Live Online Workshop on “Google Ads Fundamentals”

Laurie Beasley — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 15:00:29 +0000

Learn the Fundamentals of Google Ads (AdWords) in One 2-hour Workshop.

Andreas Ramos, Vice President, Digital Marketing for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., will be teaching a live online Google Ads fundamentals PPC workshop for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California.

Andreas is the author of 14 books on SEO, social media and content marketing, including #TwitterBook, How to Write a Book!, The Big Book of Content Marketing, Search Engine Marketing (McGraw-Hill), and technical reviewer of Search Engine Marketing, Inc., by Mike Moran (IBM Press). Andreas co-founded two digital marketing agencies. He also led the digital marketing team at Acxiom and was Manager of Global SEO at Cisco. His clients include Stanford, Harvard, and MIT. He graduated from Universität Heidelberg, the top German university. He and his wife live in Palo Alto. Visit him at andreas.com.

What You’ll Learn

You’ll see how a Google Ads account is structured and we’ll do a live walk-through of an Ads account

You’ll see how to quickly find 10,000 keywords, including your competitors’ keywords, and how to test those keywords to find the best keywords

Key Takeaways

How to use the best keywords in your Ads account

Understand how to set up large accounts

Understand how to test ads to find ads with high conversion rates

Bonus Material

You can listen to the complete presentation with audio as often as you like

Spreadsheet to collect and manage thousands of keywords

Spreadsheet tool to translate your keywords into 44 languages

Three-Part Course on Google Ads

This is the introduction course of the three-part course for Google Ads. You can continue to Google Ads Advanced, which covers methods and tools that agencies use to write and test ads in Google Ads.

Who is the course for?

Anyone who wants to work with Google Ads and SEM

Senior staff, managers, and directors who are responsible for Google Ads and SEM

You will be able to understand SEO so you can manage Google Ads and SEM agencies or contractors

Agencies can improve their Google Ads and SEM services

To enroll go here.

About the DMAnc (www.DMAnc.org)

The DMA of Northern California was formed to educate, inform and provide networking opportunities for Direct and Online Marketing professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We hold monthly luncheon meetings, workshops, periodic half-day seminars, and provide opportunity for the best in learning and job networking in the Northern California marketing community.

About Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. We provide services in inbound and outbound marketing including: content creation, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), print advertising, social media advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), website design, media planning/public relations, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. We help clients in both B2B and B2C marketing and are privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb of Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go here.

For help with your PPC campaign implementation and marketing, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., can help! Get a free consultation.

Find case studies and white papers at https://beasleydirect.com/resources/white-papers.

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Why Most SEO Initiatives Fail and How to Get Marketing and Web Dev Teams on the Same Page

Laurie Beasley — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 03:44:04 +0000

Falling Organic Search Traffic Is the Symptom of Systemic Failures Across Marketing and Web Development

We’ve been involved in auditing and correcting website search engine optimization (SEO) issues for over fifteen years. What almost always spurs the call to us for a website SEO audit project is a dramatic drop in website traffic (or product sales or leads that inevitably came as a result of the traffic drop). Many times these drops have come in waves as Google has made major updates to the search algorithm and websites didn’t keep up. Google has slowed major updates, so recently the problems are coming from poorly maintained websites that are being updated in a rush with little discipline and cooperation between marketing and the web dev team. Or websites that are not being refreshed at all and going stale with little new content for Google to index.

When we start to look under the website hoods of clients we’re auditing, we will most often see issues in all three of the areas for which Google evaluates a site when thinking about offering it as a solution for a search: Technically not well maintained, not keyword rich with well-developed searchable content, and few other sites linking to it signifying few others finding it to be authoritative. You would think that in this day and age of better education and awareness of Google search ranking factors, companies would do a better job. However we find companies are simply not keeping up. Why is this? We offer three possible reasons below that touch on lack of marketing management commitment, staff training, and lack of web dev group understanding of how Google search ranks your revenue earning pages.

Lack of Marketing Management Commitment, Direction and Understanding

Most often we see companies kick off an SEO initiative for some temporary improvement in search rank, but eventually fall back into bad habits causing the same old problems to drag down results. When we’re called in to do SEO training in a company, the directors and C-level staff often sit in. Good for them! Without them understanding and committing to what it takes for their team to effectively execute an SEO strategy, they will not allocate the resources, time or budget to make it happen consistently in the future. Let’s talk about each of those aspects for a minute.

Resources: SEO requires resources. You need to have staff whose job it is to make sure that keyword research is done, updated, and the keywords are implemented across copy, social media and content creation. Who is going to do that? Put someone in charge of that. And make sure it’s updated every time a new product or service is launched.

Time: In order to do the keyword research and optimize for keywords, you need to allow time for copy to be written and maybe re-written or tweaked to make sure keywords are implemented properly. This often adds two to three days to the copy cycle.

Budget: Remember that great, engaging copy makes a sale, but keyword rich copy will get them to the website in the first place. Who is going to write this keyword rich copy? Is your staff the best writing resource? Do you have a copy writing budget? Are the copywriters being given the keywords by page to use as a guideline? Who is assigned to review their work? We often find the weakest websites are written by internal resources and suffer from lack of objective review, convincing copy or keyword integration.

Marketing senior management can only effect an improvement in their web traffic, sales and leads by having a consistent, long-term, and disciplined view of search marketing.

They will staff appropriately for the tasks.

They will do keyword research and update it continuously as new products roll out.

They will train their staff on how to write the meta content and the on-page content to be keyword rich.

They will train their social media staff to incorporate keywords in posts and hashtags.

And they will evaluate staff skills objectively and budget for copywriting or outsource SEO skills to augment where their current team is lacking.

The Web Development Group Often Doesn’t “Get” Google

The other area where SEO initiatives fail is a disconnection between marketing and the web development group. We often find web developers don’t understand Google ranking factors and don’t take them into consideration in web maintenance projects. In almost every SEO audit we do, we find these common problems: dozens if not hundreds of duplicate title tags, internal and external 404 errors, redirect chains & loops, poorly written meta titles and descriptions. These are signs of a poorly maintained site that Google will dock search rank and move onto another site that may offer the same keywords but is better maintained. Combine that with a slow page speed or oversized graphics and Google could possibly pass right over you, never getting around to looking at your content. We even find brand new sites launched with these problems and wonder how much our clients paid the design and web team to build it. Furthermore, website designers sometimes don’t design for mobile. Google indexes websites based on mobile design. On July 1, 2019, Google now requires all newly registered domains to have Mobile-first designed pages when launched. This new standard also focuses on the use of structured data and rich snippets.

The problem is Google search rank factors for revenue earning keywords and pages are not taught in design or website development schools. Further, clients don’t ask whether the team has expertise in it before they hire them. We haven’t hired a web developer at our agency yet that we haven’t had to train ourselves.

The best solution is to pair the web development team with your SEO person in marketing and make sure the web dev team knows they need to meet marketing’s expectations. Or hire an outsourced SEO team to audit the site on a monthly or quarterly basis and provide a list of updates the web team needs to make. Sometimes having a technical SEO person talking to a web dev person is the best pairing. There should be a service level agreement from the web dev group to perform to marketing’s expectations. If not, then marketing should have full liberty to make wholesale changes that it needs.

Proactive Training Is the Best Medicine

It’s never too late to get your marketing and web dev team headed in the right direction. Training courses abound through Udemy, LinkedIn, local university extensions, and exceptional live online courses in a program I run through the www.DMAnc.org. However, I think the best training solution is a custom training program for your company that blends some of the best content from the course work like we offer at the www.DMAnc.org with examples from your own website. For example recently we did a one day training class for the marketing content writers at the California Chamber of Commerce. In the morning, we discussed the general principles of keyword research, how to structure meta descriptions, and on-page content. In the afternoon they gave us five sections of their website and we did a live exercise showing them how to put those principles into practice as a demonstration. To me that is the best type of instruction. If we had the luxury of adding a second day of instruction, we would have had them tackle a section on their own and checked their work. Different training can be devised for the web dev team and provided in the same way in the form of instruction and live exercises.

Be Introspective

Ask yourself and your team: How much money are we losing annually because of poor SEO? $10,000’s? $100,000’s? $1,000,000 or more per year? If you’re not getting many well-targeted organic leads and sales from your website, you need to improve your SEO.

Marketing management needs to commit the right resources and set the right direction for a long term SEO strategy. Your company can dramatically improve revenue earning keyword organic search rank results, gaining more leads and sales. This takes the right resources, time and budget—and the right training.

Need help with your SEO or training? We offer free SEO and PPC audits and full search engine optimization programs and custom training. Contact Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., at www.BeasleyDirect.com.

By Laurie Beasley, Co-Founder and President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

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Join John Thyfault, Vice President, Search Engine and Social Media Marketing for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., in a Live Online “Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO)” Workshop

Laurie Beasley — Tue, 23 Oct 2018 02:46:00 +0000

Advanced Search Engine Optimization: Taking It to the Next Level

Get the recorded online workshop here.

You need advanced SEO training because the landscape for search engine marketing (SEM) is constantly changing. SEM requires sophisticated techniques to beat your competitors and achieve your marketing goals. As search engine marketing moves away from the old keyword centric paradigm, new approaches need to be laid out to aid in your site’s visibility.

What you’ll learn:

SEO in the time of RankBrain, Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, etc:

How to insulate your site from Google’s constant updates

Understanding the new ways in which Google tracks search quality

Optimizing your domain for the best search visibility

Optimizing your servers for the best search performance

Structured data markup and why you need it on your site

Advanced Link building and offsite factors:

Going the extra mile to find the right link targets in the right “neighborhoods” without violating Google’s rules

Learn more.

About the DMAnc (www.DMAnc.org)

The DMA of Northern California was formed to educate, inform and provide networking opportunities for Direct and Online Marketing professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area.

About Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. We provide services in inbound and outbound marketing including: content creation, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), print advertising, social media advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), website design, media planning/public relations, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. We help clients in both B2B and B2C marketing and are privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb of Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go here.

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The post Join John Thyfault, Vice President, Search Engine and Social Media Marketing for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc., in a Live Online “Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO)” Workshop appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.