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.

The post Why Most SEO Initiatives Fail and How to Get Marketing and Web Dev Teams on the Same Page appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

The Direct Marketing Association of Northern California (DMAnc) and Online Marketing Institute (OMI) are offering Three Live Online Digital Marketing Training Certification Workshops on Web Analytics, Web Usability and WordPress. The workshop schedule is as follows:

Web Analytics: Moving the ROI Meter

(Friday, November 17th, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Standard Time)

Marketers are being tasked to report on web activities and interpret the results to management. This session will help you go beyond taking the top line approach and help you take full advantage of Google Analytics and other tools. This two-hour, intensive training will help you identify reporting goals and how to use web analytics to track and measure your success effectively. Learn more.

Web Usability: Maximizing the Visitors to Your Site

(Friday, December 1st, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Standard Time)

Once you’ve driven the traffic to your site, are you maximizing the value of it for your visitors? Too many sites have been developed over the years without a good, clear plan that leads visitors to what they are looking for. Learn more.

WordPress: The Smart Marketer’s WordPress Workshop

(Friday, December 8th, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Standard Time)

In one session, get a better understanding of WordPress and what it can do for your business. Learn why over 74 million websites use the powerful WordPress CMS today, and the right or wrong reasons to use it for your business and marketing. This workshop skips technical jargon to share truths and myths about moving your site to WordPress. You’ll gain real-world insights, tips and warnings important for marketing decision makers. 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.

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.

For More Information, Contact:

Laurie Beasley
Chair, DMAnc
President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.
408-782-0046 x21
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

Want to learn more about Online Marketing? Read our White Papers here.

The post Three Live Online Digital Marketing Training Certification Workshops on Web Analytics, Web Usability and WordPress Offered November through December. appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

The Direct Marketing Association of Northern California (DMAnc) and Online Marketing Institute (OMI) are offering a Live Online WordPress Training Workshop on WordPress this coming December 8th.

WordPress Training Course: The Smart Marketer’s WordPress Workshop

(Friday, December 8th, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Standard Time)

In one session, get a better understanding of WordPress and what it can do for your business. Learn why over 74 million websites use the powerful WordPress CMS today, and the right or wrong reasons to use it for your business and marketing. This workshop skips technical jargon to share truths and myths about moving your site to WordPress. You’ll gain real-world insights, tips and warnings important for marketing decision makers. 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.

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.

For More Information, Contact:

Laurie Beasley
Chair, DMAnc
President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.
408-782-0046 x21
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

For free web design and optimization resources, click here.

The post Live Online WordPress Training Certification Workshop Offered in December by the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California and the Online Marketing Institute appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Whether it’s due to neglect or because something new (bad updates) or someone (hackers, malware) affects our site, the reality is, the longer your site operates, the higher the odds you will experience some sort of disruption to your site. Being proactive about an eventual problem with your site is prudent, saves you money, and might even save your business (or your job).

Avoiding temptation of ‘autopilot’ thinking, and using good site management discipline. Two ways to head off many WordPress Site Crashes

Let’s face it: site maintenance is not everyone’s bag. So the option to have plugins and themes update automatically is really tempting. Set it. Forget it, right? Wrong. Plugins come from a variety of sources, and sometimes an update can cause conflicts and crashes. You won’t know about the problem until you visit the site, try to use a function, or try to log into the WP (WordPress) dashboard and can’t. All leave a really sick feeling in your stomach, like walking out to see your car has a flat tire, or won’t start, or is just gone-stolen. Ugh!

So if automatic updates to plugins are not a good idea, NOT updating plugins is worse. Outdated plugins leave your site more open to hacking, cause conflicts with other plugins that you might add or update, or can be incompatible if you upgrade your WordPress to current versions to gain improved security and added features.

I don’t disagree with the opinion that a WordPress site that’s working well doesn’t need updating (not broke, don’t fix it). BUT, drilling down into details, I would add the caveat that while a site THEME doesn’t need updating to meet security threats that pop up, Plug-ins and the WP framework software should be kept up-to-date and monitored by a human who is taking a methodical approach to updating.

Adjust mindset. Adjust budget, too.

The task of maintenance is not something a lot of developers really want to try to focus their business on. Creating new things are more exciting. Also, many clients don’t want to pay for the stop and start time needed for making these updates as they come in, and paying per hour to have maintenance done.

Updates and improvements and upgrades follow no schedule, and days could go by with nothing, then a smattering of little touches will be needed. The only part of prevention that can be scheduled is backing up your site (more about that below).

Unfortunately for many smaller site owners, they don’t have someone in-house who will follow a methodical, efficient approach, done with human oversight and background in WP issues to avoid as many issues as possible, and quickly recover from them when the issues do come up. Some providers offer maintenance plans suited to smaller sites. Specialized firms offer services on a retainer basis for maintaining larger sites. The bottom line is that no matter who does the work, site maintenance is cheaper in the long run than having your site go down. Suck it up, and write a smaller check now instead of a larger one later.

What should you be doing BEFORE you have a WordPress Site Crash?

Establish a plan. Figure out what your strategy will be to deal with problems that threaten your site operation or compromise security of information. You can keep things simple using the “IF/FIRST/SECOND/THEN” format:

• “IF I discover my site is hacked, FIRST I will/Second I will/THEN I will…”

 

• “IF my site goes down after a plugin update, FIRST I will/Second I will/THEN I will…”

 

• “IF a function of my site is no longer working, FIRST I will/Second I will/THEN I will…”

By this point, you get the picture. You need to think ahead about each scenario you could be facing with your site. What’s important is that you work using a preplanned disciplined process. I didn’t share specifics, because there are hundreds of scenarios and every site is difference, and it’s why money is paid to set up a plan if you can’t or won’t do it yourself.

Backup Early, Backup Often. Backup Regularly. Memory space is cheap. And there are some great premium backup plugins for WP websites to help you restore your site files and site database if you have a WordPress Site Crash. But they don’t work their best unless you are being diligent about establishing a regular backup routine.

Whether you backup daily, weekly, monthly or longer, you should be storing the backups offsite to protect them. And make and download a backup before any major update or multiple plugin updates.

11 things to do: the WordPress site crash equivalent of having a spare tire and tools

Here are things I recommend that every WordPress site owner have ready or take steps to do, whether part of a large organization, or a small one-person operation. Just like tools to deal with a flat tire or breakdown, you want these things in place when things go wrong.

Before you write off all this as too much to do, use a little imagination. Whether your organization is large or small, you’ll find that all the items on this list of tips are scalable and can be assigned to yourself or others on your team:

1. A site manager with adequate WP knowledge should be in charge of 3 coordinated functions: Regular backups, Monitoring alerts and warnings, and implementing plug-in updates.
2. Site backups and backup file transfers to an offline drive should be done and verified on a regular schedule. Weekly, Monthly at the least on a busy site.
3. All WordPress, WordFence and other security plugins should be directed to send alert emails to that site manager (and maybe a backup person)
4. When warnings and alerts are received, the site manager should allow 24 hours to pass before starting action. With the large number of WP sites in the world, and because you are already using WordFence, the odds of a hack happening to a site in the first 24 hours of a threat alert are extremely low. ONE EXCEPTION is if a warning is received that your site may already have malware. WordFence file scrubbing measures should start immediately.
5. When warnings and alerts for needed updates are received, and BEFORE any updates are done, the site manager should
   • Confirm what the change(s) are in the update by reading the WordFence alert and notice within the site dashboard,
   • Scan the plugin developer’s FAQ and change log pages and support/comments pages for any hints of problems with the new update
   • Search on the Web with the plugin name and version and ‘problems’ to see if any reports of issues are coming up for others
6. Before a session of one or more plugin updates are done, a backup should be manually run of the site and database
7. Updates to plugins should be done one by one manually (not automatically) and the dashboard and site checked for function related to the plugin is operating correctly, and to be able to identify early if a particular plugin update might be causing a conflict with another existing plugin.
8. If an update does cause a plugin, the plugin should be restored to previous version or disabled and removed, and the issue reported to the developer. If needed, the plugin should then be replaced with a similar plugin that doesn’t cause the conflict.
9. Plugins and WordPress updates should be handled in separate steps
10. Before any WordPress update and after all plugins are updated, a backup of site and database should be made and downloaded. Then proceed with the WordPress update
11. Once WordPress is updated, a check of site functions should be made via visit to the site after log-off

Security deserves a complete article unto itself. There is not a one-size-fits all solution, so you need to find the tools that work with your site needs. But I’ll state that I’m an advocate of at least two levels of security. At the bare minimum, be sure you are using a product like WordFence, and not just running it in the background, but taking time to monitor and respond to messages it is sending to you.

Another layer of security comes from something a lot of people overlook—Hardened access. Create obscure usernames and passwords. Block directory browsing, and monitor and restrict file access, to block intruders early on and know where they’ve been if they do get in.

Don’t be scared, but be prepared

While a hack can happen any time of the day or night, realize when you are most vulnerable to a site crash. It is a triggered event.

Most crashes (the dreaded blank white screen instead of site or dashboard) happen right after an update. That is when your site troubleshooter can be called in to access files via FTP and extract the problem file (plug-in usually) and free up the site, before continuing on with a way of replacing or suspending use of the guilty plugin until the developers who authored it can create a new version. Depending on the quality of support, this could take just a few hours, to days, or even never. So always be ready to replace a plugin, and before you use plugins, carefully check who created them, and what the service history has been.

My RULE OF THUMB for approaching updates:

1. Update Plugins 24-48 hours from availability, but not before.
2. Update WordPress 3 days to 1 week, but not sooner than 24 hours.
3. Update THEMES only if there is a NEW feature you are sure you want to add, but no sooner than 3 weeks from when an update is published. Old themes run fine on newer WordPress, and with updated plugins. All you miss is any new WordPress Dashboard functionality. Nothing is lost for the visitor.

The bottom line to avoiding a WordPress Site Crash, or recovering from one is, set up a plan, work confidently following a process, and turn away from fear or denial. Like preparing for so many other unknowns in life, this works.

What do you have in place now to recover from a website crash? Please let me know in the comments below.

This article first appeared on the PerezWorks blog.

Carlos Perez, Creative Director, Beasley Direct & Online Marketing, Inc.

Carlos Perez has 28 year’s experience as an advertising art and creative director, with more than a decade concentrating on direct marketing and branding. Carlos Perez enjoys working on both general and direct creative projects, and he frequently acts as a consultant on the marketing strategy development team. His clients have ranged from automotive and financial to hi-tech, including American Isuzu Motors, Bank of America, CitiFinancial, Diners Club, eHealthInsurance.com, Intuit, Microsoft, Network Associates, Pacific Bell, Southern California Edison, 3Com, United Airlines, and CBS Television. Carlos has worked for major general and direct response advertising agencies including Grey Advertising, Brierley & Partners, Bates Worldwide Advertising and J. Walter Thompson Recruitment Advertising.

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