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SASS vs. Custom Website Development: What Are The Pros And Cons?Owning vs renting a website is a major decision all businesses, whether small or large, have to make. The choice needs to be made early as it will shape your web marketing strategy and, ultimately, impact your balance sheet for years to come. Both come with viable options, including the chance to keep your investment to a minimum with the technical aspects covered by those handling the monthly maintenance. But this approach also leaves you with strict limits on what you own and what is in your control.
In this week’s episode, Dwight and Sales Manager Danielle Wisneski discuss the impact of SASS vs. Custom Website Development and how they stack up when deciding whether Owning vs Renting a website will be the best path for your business.
Read the full transcript from Episode 45: SASS vs. Custom Website Development below.Dwight:
301, The Redirect. That’s the key. I almost hate it, but it’s got such a bubbly feeling like it’s Oprah or something. And we’re back.
Danielle:
It’s got that upbeat kind of ’80s sound, but at the same time, modern enough.
Dwight:
Yeah. Yeah. I do see some type of wood floor stage set kind of a thing going on with false walls, a lot of lights, a lot of clapping, middle-aged women on cue with direction.
Danielle:
Single spotlight.
Dwight:
Yeah, exactly. Speaking of single spotlights, let’s talk about renting a website versus buying one.
Danielle:
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about using software as a service versus building a website purely from scratch and kind of what the pros and cons are with going with a Shopify or a Wix versus a website platform that’s actually going to let you build the website.
Dwight:
Yeah. So why don’t we first talk, let’s dissect a little bit. What is a rented website? What is that exactly going to be? For somebody that’s out there right now, they’re like, well, I just had someone in the office just put us together a website. What specifically are they getting?
Danielle:
When we’re talking about renting a website, it usually is going to involve using those platforms that are software as a service. So Shopify, Wix, Weebly, GoDaddy, Squarespace, all of those guys have different plans, monthly plans to have a website that’s simple. You can have updated themes, et cetera. But there are limitations that go along with those websites, which is why it’s considered to be renting. And for example, if Shopify gets bought out in the near future, then that site that you are renting can change price, it can change the limitations, the whole platform can change versus the sites that you actually own the code, you have a lot more control.
Dwight:
Yes, and you know what, I’m glad you brought up the fact of that company being bought out or changing hands or something like that happening. We’re in a time where this is a very real thing. We actually have a customer right now that was utilizing a connector between their website, software and QuickBooks. And QuickBooks actually bought the connector that allowed the data to be exchanged from their products and easily be shared between QuickBooks, and now it doesn’t work as well anymore.
And they’re basically, they’ll acquire companies like that because they want the customer base and they want to, vice versa, try to introduce them to QuickBooks, to that monthly fee to expose themself to a new customer while not really wanting to uphold the integrity of that connector or that transaction that’s happening. And then you come into a point of what do you do?
So you have to spend money on customizing or look for another potential solution. We ran into that with another customer with a plugin for sharing social media posts on their site, which is having issues in regards to that. And there’s other competitor parts out there, plugins that allow them to do the same functionality. But when you’re utilizing, let’s talk about Shopify, Wix, GoDaddy has their own platform. Squarespace, there’s going to be some others.
Danielle:
Weebly. I mean, the list goes on.
Dwight:
Weebly, Wix, I think I said. But essentially you’re buying that closed ecosystem. So yes, it allows you to log on and upload images and drag them around the screen and place them in different places. And you can choose a nice template to look at, excuse me, and produce and publish your website, but as soon as your credit card doesn’t renew that month, or for whatever reason it was updated or you had fraud charges or something happened, your website’s not going to be up and running anymore.
Or you utilize it, which we frequently get a lot of people asking about as they’re investing in Shopify, which is an awesome ecosystem that is made for anybody wanting to start and get into commerce. And they have a lot of functionality and features across the board that is made for businesses to do well with e-commerce. Connections, merchant processing, reminders, couponing, all type of marketing aspects. And each of those cost a fee.
So a lot of times I see on average it ends up being between four and $700 a month customers end up paying to have their website running. And then they’re like, well, I’ve gone so far. And well, the other aspect is rankings. I’ve gone so far and now I want to move my website. You can’t because it’s not yours. You’re renting it. So it’s like leasing a car. Why would you put a bunch of modifications onto your car and then you have to turn it back in. Or well, you want a car, you can buy it out at the end, but it’s going to be an escalated price, so that’s not even a good deal.
But with Shopify, you can’t. You can export out customers, you can export out orders, you can export out products, attributes, aspects like that. But everything else that you have, you’re not getting. It’s done and over with. So I guess there’s some pros to that as well. You’re working in an ecosystem that has a lot of integrity. There’s continuous development that’s going on it to be very secure, to integrate back and forth with others, other apps inside of that platform for other functionalities.
So seamlessly, a lot of those things just work because they have developers that are working on and continuously maintaining and enhancing those features. But all of those are going to come with a price. So you have to look at it how that’s going to work for your business. Now Shopify has opened up in the past year plus where they’re a lot more customized to an extent development to happen. Or you can get into one of their larger programs where you get your own project manager. I forget what the actual program name is, like Shopify Pro I think it is.
Danielle:
Yeah, Shopify Advanced.
Dwight:
Advanced. But you get $2,000 a month minimum, you’re going to get a contact person over there that’s going to help you to maintain and move forward with a lot of customizations and things you need with your website, which you’re essentially buying someone like one of us here.
Danielle:
I wouldn’t even go that far. You’re really just going to be a support ticket number and there’s going to be an account manager who’s assigned hundreds of you and then taking those in as they come. Not necessarily 100% priority or relationship based. Like if you were to work with an agency.
Dwight:
So you’ve all heard the stories of someone that starts a website and it gets popular and they might have a product. I am going to use, I’m going to try to anonymize a customer of ours that sells a particular type of covers for an outdoor piece of equipment. And they make them, and a lot of places, a lot of consumers need them, but also a lot of commercial places need them and especially with a lot of rentals. And so they sell these covers and they put together a site that allowed a lot of those things to transact, but it was on the free model, in a sense. They put together a WordPress template and they attached on the standardized WooCommerce and it was up and running and it was going.
But as that ecosystem starts to grow and evolve and the needs, well, I need to integrate shipping and I need to integrate orders to printing to connect with another plugin that allows you to immediately print out a shipping label and then take it out of your account and pay for it and add it and update the customer and all those automations that are happening. But I still need to be able to send email from the site, which that’s going to be a send mail plugin.
And so you start to having all these functions and features on more of a customized platform. Those all take maintenance and therein lies some of the challenges. If you don’t have the people aligned with you or you’re not set up with those individuals in your business or through an agency, chances of things going haywire or one of the periods or a semicolon space in a line of code is going to throw things off and it’s not going to allow commerce to happen. And I’m kind of jumping around there, I suppose.
Danielle:
I mean, I would say the same is true for any software as a service site, though. You have those limitations of what changes you can make or when those changes are going to be available to you, versus with your example of using something like WordPress where you have the ability to have more customizations, the sky’s kind of the limit in that way where you’re not pigeonholed into one specific plan with these specific limitations. Shopify even goes so far as to limit the number of staff accounts that you can have.
So people that are managing your website, managing your store. So as your team is continuing to expand, then once you meet that staff limit or seat limit, you have to either increase your plan, which is going to cost more money, or you have to find a platform that’s going to better support your new business or your now grown business and to help support to continue that growth.
So starting with the site that’s a Shopify or a Wix or Weebly, knowing that you are going to have those more larger customizations like connecting into QuickBooks or connecting into your custom ERP system, those things that are not really possible, or if they are possible within the software as a service, it’s going to be a heck of an endeavor trying to get their support to work with you, to give you the information, trying to understand what you are able to do and then finding someone to be able to actually do that for you.
Dwight:
Yeah, that’s true because you have to look at, for a company standpoint of view for their staff or their software, they have to limit liability. And so what do we uphold that our software will perform and do? And that’s where it’s going to kind of draw the line. So if it stays within their ecosystem, some of these hosted software as a service SaaS programs, they’re going to ensure that integrity, they’re going to hold the liability for it and the warranty for it. Now, when you get out of sight of that ecosystem, there’s a lot of pros to it, but there’s also the cons. You’re now in charge of maintaining and taking care of those things. So I mistakenly jumped into owning your own and doing customization. So let me keep back on that. So I talked about this vinyl cover place and they had their own WordPress and WooCommerce site and it took off and it started blowing up.
They also started doing digital marketing for it at different times of the year to work with the seasons to increase sales. And it became very, very lucrative. And therein started to come with a lot of new suggestions. As businesses grow, the needs change. There’s suggestions that come out of all of this new input that says, what if we could do that?
What if we could enhance it in this way? Or people want it with a particular cover or a color, or they want a zipper on the side, and now you’re adding attributes and other components onto these things. How do you just do that? So each system, whether it’s SaaS or it’s going to be owned, you still have to figure out how that’s going to work. So there’s an educational aspect and then there’s going to be your comfort zone in, now I know how to do this now.
Oh, here’s the problem. I can tackle it this way or that way, and I know exactly how to jump in there and do this thing. Once you’re out of that SaaS system, you need to learn it a different way. So I like to say that’s going from old school when everybody had just regular computers and you’re using Microsoft Office and then Google, the whole Google business platform came along. And so I’m like, Docs, what do I need Docs for? I want to use Microsoft Word.
That’s what I’ve always used. And now I can’t even open a Microsoft Word document on my MacBook because I don’t even have a non-licensed version. I don’t even want to deal with it because Google’s product works really, really well. That transition was not as easy. It was a little bit tough and it was a little bit personal for me to overcome and do, but once I learned how to do it, man, this is simple. This is free and this is pretty easy.
Danielle:
That’s just moving from a rented house to an own. I mean now if the furnace goes out, that’s your responsibility. Or looking at it from the other side with limitations, if you’re renting a home and you want to build a garage in the backyard, you can’t do that because you don’t have the landlord permission and they’re likely not going to give it to you. It’s kind of the same way with trying to expand upon those sites that are using platforms that are software as a service. You’re only going to be able to do so much and there’s going to be a point where you outgrow that house.
You’re ready to own your own house, build upon it, make it a space that’s working for you and more your own. And that’s when you just have to make that jump. And like Dwight’s saying, there’s going to be some transitions and some growing pains that are going to come along with that. So are you better off just starting with that starter home and building upon it or starting with the rented space, learning how to coexist or live with it and then moving up?
Dwight:
You have to look at the psychological aspect of this too, is do you understand or are you a person that really wants to know, understand and feel comfortable with what’s being worked on where transactions are happening? So I know we’ve been talking a lot about e-commerce here, but let’s just talk about a regular website and the ability, do you want to feel confident? Like, I don’t need to hire, someone in my office can do this, or I did hire somebody and they’re multifaceted. They also do some social media marketing and they also do some web graphic design and they can make an image and post it on my website. Can they? So a lot of these tools on both sides, your owned customized website or your SaaS version allow you to upload and do those things, but now you come to the point of the businesses growing or I want to go to the next step.
You jumped out of your JCPenney suit and now you want to move up to Neiman Marcus, and that’s going to be a little more customized. It’s not off the rack. Getting things into either platform is going to have its pros and cons. It’s going to have its challenges there too. And one of the things I always try to coach customers about and make them aware of is what’s the long-term goal and short, long-term goal? Because technology moves very, very quickly.
It’s not unheard of that a lot of companies at least do a refresh, update the closet once a year, every 18 months. You need to update a look and a feel and freshen it up and upgrade to new restrictions or new platforms, or it might be a new iPhone model or new browser requirements. There’s a lot of different things that come out that you want to freshen things up.
And so all these things you’re producing to put on content that’s going on the website, there could be banners, there could be images, all these different aspects. Over that period of that time, you start to get some age and some authority and some relevancy for your website and those individualized pages. And now we talk about optimization. So long term of where Google is going to start to recognize who your business is, what are the individualized services and how important those are for a geo-specific area that you operate in, whether it be localized or national, and then also industry or silo segment that you’re going to be in. If it’s a very particular type of a part or you’re servicing a particular type of an industry, those are all going to start to be recognized and become relevant and you’re going to start to rely on some of that traffic that’s going to start to bring you business, which is why you did it in the first place.
You want to get business, you want the phone to ring, you want people to fill out contact forms. How are you going to transition those? If you are renting on a platform and you don’t own any of those things and how are you going to move the address from one site to another? And it’s very particular. So now you’re going to have costs involved in doing the pre-planning and the post-production, if you ever want to move from one to the other back and forth? That’s even going to be trickier. If you’re on a regular simple website and you go to a SaaS solution, the URL structure.
And I’m talking about addresses. So if you think of an apartment building, it has a physical address and then there’s individual unit numbers and you’re going to have to now remove that entire apartment building over to another system, whether it’s from SaaS to a customized WordPress or WordPress over to a SaaS system.
You still have to redirect all of that mail and make sure that Google can find all of those things. And that can become very challenging. And you’re just like, “I just wanted to build a website. I just wanted to get this up and running. I don’t want to deal with all of these things.” But when you neglect facts like that or those are the things you forget about or you didn’t know about, and then when it comes time to it, you’re like, “Oh, I launched this whole new website, it’s beautiful and this person worked on it and it’s great,” and then all of a sudden nobody can find you and it’s like you’re starting over again because you didn’t know that you needed to take some of these steps. So all that effort, all that time, all the late nights and all the money you paid to have all these beautiful things done are kind of forgotten. They’re kind of forgotten.
Danielle:
And this is where hiring professionals and working with individuals who know how to go about that process, what steps to take and as a part of that transition is going to be crucial. And it’s not the random freelancer who helped you with your original site and now you want to transition to a platform that they’re not familiar with, so unfortunately they can’t help you. Now you need to find another freelancer or individual to help with the move and then navigate from there. In terms of, like DC’s saying, what you don’t know. There’s going to be some surprises just like moving from a rented space to a house you own. There’s things you don’t even think are going to break that are going to break or things you don’t think you have to address that you need to. So having a partner who knows what to do in those situations is going to be key.
Dwight:
So let’s talk about what hosted system, let’s just talk commerce and Shopify. So you’ve got a very fast go-to signup and quick start you can design, they’ve got a wizard involved with it. They have a lot of integrated payment options. So if you’re going to be selling something, so let’s say you make really, really cute dog sweaters, okay? You can quickly add that to the website via the wizard, via the easy to use tools and you can now pull together Shopify actually a acquire to made their own merchant system Shopify payments, and you can now accept credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, very, very quickly. They’re already going to have apps available to do built-in shipping, shipping, label printing and documents. So push of a button, all that stuff’s going to get spit out, allow you to throw it in the bag and get it to that new wonderful dog lover that’s going to put that sweater on there for them.
Danielle:
But now, 10 years from now, your product line has advanced and you have to use a system-
Dwight:
10? That’s eons.
Danielle:
Well, five years, 10 years, whatever. In the future your product line is going to advance and now you have to use a custom inventory system or ERP system. And unfortunately there isn’t a natural Shopify integration with that. So again, you have to go a Zapier route, try to find the connection. You might not even be able to. It depends on the limitations of that third party software and if it connects to that software as a service.
Dwight:
I like this, so let’s keep going back and forth in regards to it. So I can quickly integrate with a bunch of ship vendors and I can do print on demand for all of those suppliers too. So let’s say I have my own homemade dog outfits, but I also found a couple vendors in Indiana, Maine and Puerto Rico that make dog outfits and I can go ahead and drop ship from them and do that stuff really quick.
Shopify lets you integrate all of those things. It also allowed me to take and start selling on Facebook Meta network and Instagram and it has marketing tools already built in. So if I’m really eager and I want to start to spend some money, I can start putting together ads and do it all inside of one platform and start advertising across Facebook and Instagram very, very quickly.
A lot of integrations and some of the other ones too is I got really, really good making these dog outfits, sweaters, weren’t they? And now I opened up a little mall center island store, right, because that’s the next step. I got to do that, the outlet store. It allows me to integrate with the POS system.
So from my website, controlling inventory to what I have in the mall island store, there’s a whole entire POS system. And if there’s a challenge with somebody that wants to buy some customized sweaters for their dog in the island store at four o’clock on a Sunday, I can get on with support. Not that support is going to be that helpful and that correct and it’s going to move me along, but it gives me a fact of the matter that I can call someone very quickly to get those things handled, supposedly. So what’s the throwback to that?
Danielle:
I think again, even in that instance, you’re going to be connected with whatever random support person is on call for that time. They have to get caught up with your website with what it is that you need and are requesting. And then if they can get you a solution right away or if they have to follow up with it versus again, working with an agency and you have dedicated team members who know your business, they know your site, they know that you were at that store on Sunday, testing out the new POS system and trying out your new stall at the mall or center island stall.
Dwight:
Stall at the mall.
Danielle:
I don’t know what they’re called. Then there’s just kind of those pros and cons. Do you want to, every time you have an issue, you have to explain everything about your site, what’s done and what you’re looking for to a new support rep every time you submit a new ticket? Or do you want to work with someone who you’re working with on a regular basis, they know what your goals are, what you’re working towards, and they can help you a lot quicker?
Dwight:
So let’s go back to Shopify now. So in order for me to get into that system, the pricing is going to be about $40, $105 or $399 a month depending on the business needs. If you’re going to use Shopify payments, you’re going to pay a 2%, 1% or a 0.5% depending on your monthly plan per sale to them to use the merchant services.
What’s nice about that though is you’re going to get your deposits every single night. They guarantee that. So if you’re brand new and you’re just starting up, other merchant providers, they might hold the money for a couple days for fraud and other types of considerations, but you have per transaction fees as well. So you’re going to be spending a couple points in order to take a credit card with Shopify.
Danielle:
With Shopify also though, once you get to that bigger plan, which isn’t advanced, it’s Shopify Plus, that’s starting at $2,000 a month. So your residual costs-
Dwight:
Yeah, I was just talking about the walk-in once there.
Danielle:
Right, right. So as you continue to grow, your residual costs will skyrocket and not just paying for-
Dwight:
Could be relative.
Danielle:
Relative as compared to a WordPress site. We’re only paying for hosting. Even if you were to be on your own dedicated server, that would only be a couple hundred bucks a month.
Dwight:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s one of the things is when you’re with Shopify, although they have the infrastructure for it, you’re hosting, it’s part of your monthly fee and it’s going to limit you. And as soon as you start getting more traffic and more, a lot more integrations happening at your site, it’s going to have more needs and more resources. And so they’re going to control different ways.
I know I talked about a lot of all these cool features in the beginning a couple minutes ago, but that’s some of the things there too, is you didn’t pay for those yet. So these are all Shopify apps. So you want to add all those things on. They’re going to add monthly costs in addition to it. And then the other thing too is people like to produce content. You have to produce content nowadays in order to remain relevant unless you have that element 15 or something that nobody else has.
That was always considered to be blogging, but it’s content production, so you need to be able to post and add stuff to your website on a regular basis. Shopify has a blog, but it’s very simplistic, and that doesn’t include your content creation, management display options. Those are all going to be very, very limited to how you put those things together.
So I think where we’re kind of bringing that back towards is WordPress is really geared towards a business wanting more versatility. And I don’t want to say necessarily in it to win it because I know a lot of Shopify store owners that are in it to win it, and they do very, very well, and they don’t have the complexities. But once you start gearing towards other types of integrations and specific customizations that match your business flow processes, the way orders are done, ordering on credit and other aspects like that, WordPress and WooCommerce is going to be kind of the better way to go.
Versatility is kind of what WordPress is known for. It is open source, it is free to get WordPress and it’s made as a content management system. Now, WooCommerce is going to be WordPress’s brother or sister, so to speak. Same deal, made to do commerce that integrates directly to WordPress.
And you can expand upon using a various amount of different plugins or features that have all different types of functionality, including e-commerce, as I said. But all of the shipping features, all of the marketing features, a lot of connectors to other types of third party softwares, like you were talking about Danielle, like SaaS, it might be an ERP system, it could be a other type of accounting system. It could be an inventory system. It’s going to have more placidity, did I say that right?
Danielle:
Placidity? Yeah.
Dwight:
Placidity in allowing you to use those connectors. And you need a developer, you need someone that’s going to have a little bit more experience to work with the other provider to make those connectors be there for you. But once you paid for it, you have it, that investment is going to yield you back a big amount of return.
Danielle:
And the ongoing maintenance isn’t going to be that standard, just $2,000 per month just to have your website up. The updating plugins and things like that, it’s not going to be as costly as compared to just their standard plan, or I’m sorry, plus plan for Shopify. And that always being the residual price you have to pay in addition to those other softwares or third party apps that you have to add on top of that.
It just gets extremely costly. Versus with WordPress, I’m paying a lot of friends to get my website developed, which you probably are with Shopify too, if you’re not doing it yourself and you want a more advanced theme, but that ongoing management is going to be a little bit more achievable or easier to swallow. And then as you grow and as your business continues to expand, yeah, your residual might go up if you have to add more softwares, even for a WordPress site, you’re having some more paid plug-ins, but the limitations aren’t really there and you’re not going to be paying astronomical amounts.
Dwight:
Yeah. And are you a marketer? Are you a web developer? Are you a graphic designer? Do you have time to do all those things? And I think that’s when you start to grow and evolve and you start to consider all of those facets of where’s your time best spent?
How am I a functionality of this organization, this business that’s making revenue, and where can I contribute? I’m a cog in the machine and I can’t be everywhere at all times and do all of these things because there’s only so many hours in the day. And you look at those costs as a function of doing business, but where they contribute also to revenue in the business. And I think that’s a real important point, and I kind of call that the come to Jesus point of a lot of people that are coming off of the SaaS platforms is they’ve done that factoring and they’ve looked at it and thought about the differences of those.
And maybe you’re going to use an agency or a freelancer, whoever it is to make that transition. And you have a better idea of, I need to take pictures, I need professional pictures, I need to masked backgrounds with no shadowing. I need to use those in a couple different sizes. So when they shoot them, I need high resolution, I need low resolution. I need them as JPEGs, I need them as PNG.
Start to understand all of that process efforts of what’s going to go into, and you understand paying someone a little bit more is actually, you’re getting what you’re paid for and you’re going to be able to utilize those in a lot of different ways. And so that is kind of the transitioning point. And you may realize, now I know if I’m going to hire somebody in my organization, I’m going to want them to be able to show that they can work on these aspects, or they can help create these features.
Or they can do the photography, or they can do the graphic design, or they can write the content, or they can optimize the content specifically and they understand the business aspects and how that’s going to function inside of the website with customers there. And you may not be spending that all just on a freelancer, could be someone that becomes on payroll and that’s going to allow you to facilitate those needs. But ultimately it’s exciting. People get into this because they see options.
They get their first order from Hawaii or Montana, it’s in the middle of nowhere. They never heard of the city. And they’re like, “How’d this person find me? And they want to buy my stuff?” And it’s great. It’s an exciting time. And with that awesomeness, little new things pop up and you start to realize that, man, this is a business. It requires a lot of other things. And so when you’re looking at that growth, it’s important to consider is what do you want to own and maintain versus what you want to be locked into and what restrictions you have.
Danielle:
Right. Trying to define what those goals are and realistically how fast you’re going to be able to achieve them.
Dwight:
And so that’s why working with an agency like us would help to walk you through, at least even from a consultative standpoint, helping you vet and determine what are going to be the requirements and what is potential costs, what are going to be needs you’re going to have, immediate and ongoing, and how to factor those in so you can make a more logical decision.
Danielle:
I think it’s just that. There’s probably a lot of businesses out there that they have a website, but now they don’t know necessarily what to do with it, how to optimize it, how to treat it as their 24/7 salesperson. That’s where agencies come into the fold. We can have those ideas, those structured discussions and give you suggestions that will just help to continue to propel you to your growth.
Dwight:
Propelling.
Danielle:
Propelling.
Dwight:
Propulsion.
Danielle:
There we go.
Dwight:
We’ll propel you if you just give us a call.
The post Owning vs Renting A Website: Podcast Episode & Script appeared first on Trademark Productions.
Migrating to Google Analytics 4 In 2023Soon, businesses will need to start preparing for the end of Google Analytics 3 and transitioning to GA4 before July 1, 2023. That is the date when the internet giant will be shutting down full support, and standard Universal Analytics properties will stop processing data.
It can seem daunting to learn a new platform, with GA4 providing a brand-new UI interface and different insights into how a user interacts and engages with your website. But May will be the perfect month to make the big move and learn how the new Google Analytics works and functions.
In this week’s episode, Dwight and Gary discuss the key elements that make Google’s new analytics tool and why businesses should focus less on bounce rates and more on engaged sessions.
Read the full transcript from Episode 44: Transitioning To GA4.Dwight:
Well, it is time, according to Mr. Google or Mrs. Google, I don’t know which gender Google is, but they have announced over a year ago that Universal Analytics, that everybody has grown and evolved with, is going to be sunsetting into their new Google Analytics Four. I don’t know what happened to number two or three, but we’re going to go right to GA4.
And essentially, that is going to be happening July 1st, 2023. What does that mean to you as a business? It means a lot of things. They are dramatically different. It’s going from a manual vehicle to an automatic vehicle with a lot of electrifying needs and know-hows.
A lot of things that you’re used to using and looking at in Universal Analytics have changed, although they’re a lot of the same. They’re a lot of the new in different places. But there’s a lot of great tools inside of there as well.
And I think the biggest problem, if you call it a problem, I guess it’s an opportunity, is you have to relearn a number of things and you’re going to have to start to look for your average reports in other places. Chances are, if you’re working with an agency or a developer, they already know that these things are happening and they’ve made some appropriations for it, but some people may have not.
And so you’re going to have to learn something kind of over again, which is going to be the challenge. So Mr. Gary, our SEO resident advisor, is on the call today to tell us a little bit more about what to be looking for and how to make this transition and how you can get some assistance in doing so. Gary, welcome to Monday.
Gary:
Hey. Yep. It is certainly Monday.
Dwight:
It is. So let’s go into GA. Tell us about it.
Gary:
Yeah. So like you were saying, July 1st is when data will stop flowing to GA3 or whatever you’re using right now, however you want to call it, is the effective cutoff point that we know of right now. There could be changes in the future. But as of right now, we’re just working with what we know and that is July 1st will be the cutoff point you’ll need to migrate to GA4.
And a lot of people are quite cautious and have been slow on the take-up of it. I think that makes sense as well because I think the current Google Analytics that we’re working with is fully fleshed out and has all of its features and things kind of molded around how we’re used to.
GA4 is a little newer and there are still areas in which I think there’s going to be additions made by Google.
But as of right now, what that means for a lot of people will be that they’ll need new tracking scripts added to their website. They will need to make sure that they’re all up to date with things like their Google Tag, if they’re using Google Tag Manager, making sure that’s all up to date and things like that. So when they do need to shift over, it’s all done and dusted.
And there are going to be a lot of changes when it comes to just practicing the things. And I thought it would be a great time to just highlight that if you haven’t started taking those steps, if you haven’t started preparing for GA4, I think May is going to be the month to do it because it gives you a good couple of months to really start. If you set it up now, then you can start learning it now. And I think there’s a lot of things to learn.
One of the big changes that I think a lot of people will notice is kind of the UI, the interfaces are different. And really the best way of learning them now is by doing it. Just by looking through and trying to find what the information you’re used to going through and doing that yourself.
You are going to want to check out the acquisitions reports, you’re going to want to check out the pages and screens reports, the e-commerce, all that kind of stuff. And just really start to ingratiate yourself with how that information looks and how that information stacks up on the page.
Dwight:
Sure.
Gary:
Things like bounce rate, bounce rate has kind of been demoted. It won’t be the thing that you are looking towards. And I think a lot of businesses have grown to really rely on that kind of statistic. Right?
Dwight:
Right.
Gary:
Would you say that’s correct?
Dwight:
Yeah, bounce has a big factor, that I’ve learned historically is essentially it’s, I think, a predominantly strong signal, although maybe not as much anymore, but how quick people are leaving your website and specifically coming from a search result. So when someone’s going to Google and typing in something and they click on your link and they come to your website and they immediately leave, that’s a bounce.
And that can affect, it’s a signal that has been disclosed that Google does look at. Is it that big of a factor anymore? I think again, there’s a complete new variation of SEO, which is really targeted to the user experience, and once they get to your website, should be just as important. I want to touch back on one of the things you brought up, was acquisitions and why you feel acquisitions in the new GA4 is a focal point along with devices.
Gary:
Sure. So I think that one of the big changes in GA4 is basically how Google is documenting how people use your website. So they’re moving away from page views and the bounce rate kind of factors, and they’re moving towards, like you were saying, the user experience. And that involves more towards things like events.
What are people doing whilst they’re on your website? Things like scroll deck, downloads. Page views are still a factor. I think they’re called just simply views now. But it’s really more about how people are engaging with your website during a session. So I think that all culminates in the changes that Google has made.
So when you look at new users come to your website, you’ll do that through the acquisition report, when you’re looking at just the monthly users, things like that. But also when you’re looking at what they’re doing, instead of looking at bounce rates, you might instead look at the engaged sessions tab, which basically rates, it tracks.
It’s a bit like bounce rate, but it basically tracks anyone who stays on your site for longer than 10 seconds, someone who clicks through multiple pages, someone who interacts or creates some of those events. That will be an engaged session on your website. And I think that will be something that people will look to kind of fill in the gaps around bounce rate.
And the nice thing as well is Google is allowing us to change a few things. So if you want to change those engage session times to 20 seconds or 30 seconds, if you think your real user experience only starts after 30 seconds of being on your website, then you can go into your options, into your settings and you can change it from 10 seconds to 30 seconds. Thus allowing you to share the information you want in the way you want to. Which I think is the right thing to do.
Dwight:
Yeah, cater it a little bit more to specifics of how users use your website rather than the generalization of everybody across the board as it being a benchmark.
Gary:
Yeah.
Dwight:
So it can kind of skew the data and you can modify and mold it to what is going to be important to you. So it’s still going to collect data, but then display it to you underneath those alterations or those modifications you have on the data to give you reporting that’s going to make more sense to how your business operates and runs.
Gary:
Yes.
Dwight:
Yeah, that’s good stuff.
Gary:
Yes. And I think there’s a few other things to point out as well. We were talking about user journey, them kind of updating it, there’s going to be better cross-platform tracking between say a website or an app. That’s another big thing that GA4 is changing. And also something that people may not know right now, but they’ll want to know, is that data retention is changing with GA4. So at the moment I think the default is something like two months of data retention.
When you set up your GA4, just as an example, you’ll find that under the settings, under, I think it’s data streams and then data retention. There’ll be an option where you can change it from a two-month data retention span to 14 months. But that is the limit. 14 months will be the data retention limit. And I think that will be a big change for a lot of people as well.
Dwight:
Of course.
Gary:
But knowing that is very important.
Dwight:
Yeah. So that’s one of the things that, there’s kind of like a checklist of when you go through this. We talked about installation. And hopefully, you made the move to using Google Tag Manager so you can kind of centralize and control all of the actions of all these individualized scripts that are running inside of your site for all these different third party networks. Could be a Meta, Facebook, Pixel tag. It could be for AdWords. There could be other types of tags that are being injected inside of there, but getting to Google Tag Manager is kind of huge to do.
So if you haven’t done that and you need to make this move, well, you have to make the move. Google’s going to push you to do it. Now is the time to get over to Tag Manager. And then going through a setup procedure of kind of mimicking the way and the reporting or what you like to see from Universal over to GA4 would be important to walk through and have someone set that up specifically for you.
Now there’s still automation and reporting. There can be different reports that can be ran through you. Everything’s going through Data Creative Studio, which is Google’s product as well. And I think the big push behind them in doing all of this is to centralize and really harness the data to utilize, of course to sell off from a number of different things in other products.
I see Ford in the Ford future, as you pointed out, where analytics is only stored as a default for two months. You definitely want that 14 month because you will go back historically and look over.
It’s pretty easy to sit down right now and say, “What happened in September?” What you don’t realize is that was nine months ago. And if you can’t look back and what trailed and went different because of things in your industry, the holiday season, the economy, so on and so forth, that’s going to be kind of a bummer. You’re not going to like that.
I know there was a lot of issues, and they seemed to have solidified, porting over GA information into GA4. That was going to be a cut one and done. I know that was the fear. And there was a lot of issues with that of old data going into the new platforms so you have comparison and historics. That was last summer and it seems like they’ve kind of went through that. Still a little bit of bugs inside of there.
One of the things you’ll notice if you’re already installed in Google Analytics right now is there’s a nice yellow banner at the top when you log in. And they will do some automation, or they try to at least. They’re definitely reinforcing the fact that it is sunsetting and you’re going to be going over and you can click a button and they can walk through a process to get you into GA4. But it’s not going to be all one and done. You’re essentially there.
So it’s kind of like the old school days of buying a new laptop. You get the Microsoft Office Pro and install it. And now you have Excel, go. Go do what you need to do. You don’t know about macros, you don’t know about writing formulas, all those other things, and you got to kind of tinker around and get it set up for you.
So I really think for a lot of businesses out there because of the integrations and back and forth, of course, especially with Google Ads, of how the data is merged together to give you some really good modified reporting to paint a really good picture of what’s going on, it’s best to sit down and to invest the money and take it seriously. Because if not, it’s an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Is that the saying?
I think that’s really going to hit at home at this point here because you’re going to be looking forward in the future where you can’t get data out that you want or you need to look at it. And usually, and unfortunately, a lot of people only do that, especially smaller business owners. You’re operating your business, you’re doing all these things, it’s never a issue or an urgency until it is. Right?
Gary:
Yeah.
Dwight:
And that’s unfortunate, but I think it’s something, it’s not going away. You’re definitely going to want to look at the data of what’s happening and why people are doing things to help guide you and make smart decisions of where you should be investing your time in product selection, in categories, in content on your website to get business. And this is definitely going to paint that picture for you.
Gary:
Definitely. Yeah. I think that with any kind of, it’s kind of annoying that it’s happening, but it’s also a huge opportunity for everyone to kind of get to know the new data tools. But also you might find things in GA4 that never really stood out to you in what you’re currently using.
Dwight:
Sure.
Gary:
Or maybe you’ve just stopped, you’ve fallen into bad habits, maybe you’ve stopped checking your Google Analytics and maybe this will kickstart it again and help you kind of look through it a bit more and kind of get back up to date with things that are going on in your digital landscape.
Dwight:
Of course. Of course. And as always, I mean, while you’re making this switch over, it’s a good time to sit down and understand how it can become part of everything you do in business and be a new guiding factor to help you make decisions moving forward, as I already said. We have other articles and how-tos and guides on our website. And if not, you can reach out to us directly and we would love to help you out or answer any questions that you do have in regards to getting you moved over to Google Analytics Four. Isn’t that right, Gary?
Gary:
Sure thing.
Image Credit Source: Unsplash
The post Transitioning To GA4: Podcast Episode & Script appeared first on Trademark Productions.
Why Marketing Plans Are Vital to Your BusinessHaving a marketing plan is crucial and serves as the foundation for your whole business. With it, you define who your target market and customers are, how your business stands in the industry and against competitors, and set goals and outline the strategies to achieve them. Having this in-depth knowledge of your business ensures that your whole team is well-aligned and can guide your operation in the right direction.
In this week’s episode, Marketing Manager Jailyn and Digital Marketing Specialist Allie share the key elements that make a marketing plan and the benefits of its key elements, including SMART goals, KPIs, brand personas, and more — perfect for those who have or haven’t started a marketing plan yet.
Read the full transcript from Episode 42 : Started a Marketing Plan – Now What? Jailyn:
Welcome back to the 301: The Redirect Podcast. I’m Jailyn.
Allie:
And I’m Allie.
Jailyn:
And we are here today to talk about marketing plans. Um, so essentially when you are creating digital marketing for your business, for your organization, um, a marketing plan helps you to understand what are you actually, um, going to market to your audience base and who you are. So you’re messaging is consistent, um, your tone is consistent, and that the entire team in your, um, organization does know, you know, who you are and what you represent online. So going into marketing plans, we’ll talk about how you even start one. So Allie, you can go ahead and talk about that.
Allie:
Yeah. So we have a lot of clients that come to us and they’re like, “Hey, we need help with marketing,” but they really don’t know where to start. So we’re just going to go over a few different pieces that we pull together for them to really round up a comprehensive marketing plan for them. So the first thing that we’re going to talk about is setting goals. Jailyn, are you familiar with SMART goals?
Jailyn:
Yes. But if you can tell me what they actually stand for, because I know the T is like time bound, M is measurable, but what are the other letters, um, in SMART goals?
Allie:
Yeah. So S stands for specific. M stands for measurable. A is for attainable. R is for realistic. And T stands for time-bound, as you had already mentioned. So we really like to utilize SMART goals because this really helps us ensure accountability for our team, but also making sure that the goals that we’re setting, you know, are attainable, they’re realistic.
Jailyn:
Mm-hmm.
Allie:
And, you know, we have a foundation of how we’re able to actually measure them and be able to present them back to a client and, you know, either come up strategies to, you know, make sure we’re reaching that goal or, you know, make it even a bit more challenging for us.
Jailyn:
Yeah. Because even too, like, achievable, like is super important, because sometimes we can just throw a number out there and it’s like, okay. But is that realistic?
Allie:
Mm-hmm.
Jailyn:
Is that even relevant to what your business should be doing? Or even if that’s an average of what your, you know, data has been in the past. So like, making sure that you are making or setting achievable goals so then that way when you meet that goal, then you can, you know, set another goal. Because the thing is, they don’t have to be like these high numbers and I think that’s what sometimes we think about. Like, okay. Like, I want to get to like 50% conversion rate. And it’s like, um, depending, depending on businesses. I won’t say like it’s not achievable, but just depending on certain businesses. So it’s like, it’s good to start, I won’t say small, but start at a more achievable amount, versus trying to reach for the stars and then not being able to meet that.
Allie:
Exactly. Like, you can have that idea of what you want to reach for in the stars, but you- you constantly need to be working at something to stay motivated.
Jailyn:
Mm-hmm.
Allie:
Because at the end of the day, you’re not just going to set one goal and never return to goals again after, you know, you reach that 50% conversion rate you want. You’re always going to want to keep growing and scaling your business.
Jailyn:
Correct, yep. So with those SMART goals, so after you create those … I mean, how many would you say, you know, organizations and businesses need to create at a certain time?
Allie:
I would say at a minimum creating three or four and I suggest doing it on a quarterly basis, just so that way you’re able to, you know, have enough amount of time to be able to measure growth and make tweaks as necessary if things aren’t going the way that you had anticipated. And then, still be able to continue to create more or work on them throughout the year.
Jailyn:
Mm-hmm. And even setting those goals quarterly, like after we set goals, we have to understand what key performance indicators, so metrics we want to, you know, actually achieve. So is it that conversion rate? Is it engagement rate on social? Is it just more traffic in, you know, users to the website? So like, getting more specific in those metrics that you want to increase are, you know, super important to have down.
Allie:
Exactly.
Jailyn:
So even with … After you, um, you pick those metrics. So if you’re looking at the data quarterly, like where do you go from there? So like, I got numbers down for users, for bounce rate. I have it down for conversion rate, because we’ll keep using that. So at that point, I have three months worth of data. Like, now- now what? Now what should I do?
Allie:
Yeah. So from there, I like to take averages of that and compare it to the last quarter and see whether there was an increase or a decrease in overall performance of that, so that way you’re able to actually pinpoint, you know, if you need to make those tweaks to that plan, or, you know, go back to the client and, you know, figure out a solution to be able to make sure that you can reach that goal.
Jailyn:
Mm-hmm. So with those metrics that you are calculating, um, how often are you looking at those?
Allie:
So every single month we’re, you know, pulling together, um, a digital marketing performance report for our clients. So every single month we’re deep, doing a deep dive into all of those different metrics. So with that, I like to make sure that we’re keeping track every single month of those KPIs as well, since a lot of what we are presenting to our clients has to deal with those KPIs, just on a larger scale.
Jailyn:
Mm-hmm. Yep. So two, based off your SMART goals, based off of your KPIs, um, there’s benchmarks that should be set, like we talked about. Um, but then also even if you don’t meet that benchmark, or that specific goal for that quarter, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad goal, doesn’t mean that you didn’t reach the goal. It just means that you have to keep working towards the goal and like pivoting your strategy and like making sure that you’re tweaking it, because it’s not just a one and done thing. Technology changes. You know, users and their behavior changes. So just making sure that you are, you know, following up with trends, following up with customer journeys and making sure that you are involved enough to know how the customer is moving throughout, you know, the journey. That’s super important to making sure that you factor into your goals, into your marketing plan as well.
Allie:
Exactly. Like, I don’t see it as a failure if you don’t reach your goals in the original timeframe that you had established. I see it as an opportunity, because you have that chance to be able to identify, you know, why you weren’t able to reach that goal and be able to share that back with a client. But also, have that opportunity to be able to explain, you know, how you’re going to be able to work at that and changes that you need to make to be able to pivot.
Jailyn:
Mm-hmm. Yep. So after you set your goals, you set your KPIs, um, now the real work begins where you’re laying out kind of what’s that strategy that you want to have within that marketing plan. And even before you get to that strategy, buyer personas are so important. Um, making sure that you have your audience listed, making sure that you have those demographics, um, goals and metrics for those individual, um, personas as well and any kind of communication methods and personality traits, um, that help out with them. Because again, audience segmentation goals [inaudible 00:08:21] buyer personas, so making sure that you are speaking to, you know, your audience the way that they need to be spoken to, to end up having them convert is super important.
Allie:
Exactly.
Jailyn:
So what else, um, would we consider super important to have in the marketing plan? So we covered, um, SMART goals, we covered KPIs, we covered buyer personas. But what else, um, do we think that is like supercritical?
Allie:
I think for your marketing plan, you really need to have a strong sense of brand identity. Um, I really like to think of this quote, you know, “You need to brand yourself before others brand you.”
Jailyn:
Mm, mm-hmm.
Allie:
So you always need to be able to, you know, say who you are, why you’re there, what you have to offer to your clients, and really, how you’re standing out against competition.
Jailyn:
Mm-hmm. Super important. And that goes to like elevator pitches in a sense. Like, making sure like you have that information so even if somebody is just walking down the street and then they’re like, you know, you see somebody you know and they’re like, “Oh, what do you do for a living?” You have that elevator pitch to say like, “This is my company. This is what we do.” And if that is of, you know, appeal to them, then of course they’ll latch you on their plan. Figure out the website and it’ll be more so word of mouth, or like direct marketing more so than digital marketing. But that is a part of that brand messaging, like making sure the core messaging and messaging is just consistent, um, and that it is able to be known, you know, from outside of the website.
Allie:
Exactly. That really just helps, you know, build trust with, you know, leads or your current customer base. And it really just starts to attract other people that align, you know, with whatever your brand is putting off in its messaging.
Jailyn:
Mm-hmm. Totally makes sense. Okay. So that is, um, our marketing plan podcast episode. So if you do not have a marketing plan, we do have a download available, so you will be able to download that template to be able to fill in some of those areas that we talked about and a little bit more that we did not necessarily cover. Um, but it’s super important to have a marketing plan to look at quarterly, yearly and make sure that you’re updating it and referencing it, um, often just so you know what directions you’re going in, if you need to change certain things, it’s all documented in that one place.
The post Started a Marketing Plan – Now What? Podcast Episode & Script appeared first on Trademark Productions.
Understanding Google Core Updates In 2023March’s Google Core Update was released halfway through the month, creating some large ripples for those eagerly monitoring for changes to the company’s all-important search algorithm. And while the rollout was completed on March 28, it will take weeks to analyze and work out the full effects of what has been adjusted and changed.
Based on recent chatter, the latest Core update has been impactful, with a broad realignment of keyword rankings and traffic dips across many of the biggest business niches. SEO experts say that now is an excellent time to start looking through your data to see how your website has been affected.
In this week’s episode, Dwight and Gary discuss the impact of Google Core Updates and what they mean for those planning their website growth strategy in 2023.
What Are Google Core Updates?A Google Core Update is a significant update to the company’s search algorithm that affects many websites. These updates are designed to improve the quality and relevance of search results and significantly impact a website’s visibility and traffic. Google typically releases several core updates per year, and each update can have a different focus or objective. For example, some updates prioritize mobile-friendly websites, while others focus on improving search results’ accuracy for specific topics.
It is important to note that the impact of the March 2023 Google Core Update will vary depending on various factors, including the specific niche or industry that a website operates in and the quality and relevance of its content. Every core update provides new opportunities and a good time to take a step back and review your online presence and strategy. If you find yourself dealing with a dip in traffic, take the time to look through your own Google Analytics and Search Console information and try to spot an emerging pattern.
Is one set of pages doing better than another? Does your website need to catch up regarding quality content output or design? April 2023 will be the month to start reviewing your pages and see if there are any improvements you want to make before the next core update arrives. Want to learn more about Google and its SEO practices? Hiring an agency that can help build a winning strategy may be your right choice! For more information about our SEO services, social media maintenance, and development maintenance programs, contact TM online or call us at (248) 582-9210 to get started.
Read the full transcript from Episode 41: Google Core Updates & What Comes Next, below.Dwight Zahringer:
Oh, it’s such a happy sound. I think we’re in springtime now too. Ironically, just so happens it’s spring, and Google does its first big core update of the year. What does that mean to your business? If you’ve been following chatter online and if you’re wading all of your way through all of the ChatGPT and Bard and all these other aspects of AI generation of everything, that means Google does these updates, some large ones, on a regular basis. They announce them.
This is one of the big ones. It’s going to take a little time for it to play out. But today we wanted to talk about what this core update is and what’s going to be coming next and how to look at things and how to sort through it all. We were able to just get some time together from the busy person, Mr. Gary Jones, who manages the SEO department for us here. Gary, are you there? Are you snowed in?
Gary Jones:
I am. Yeah. Pleasure. Pleasure to be here. For once, not snowed in. No.
Dwight Zahringer:
Well, pretty soon it’s all going to melt and be nice and sloppy and muddy for you, as it is going to be here in the land of Detroit. This March update has kind of been a shaker and I think I want to start off… We’re going to go into a little bit, what it’s about and what we’re seeing and what it means. But I think the important part for everybody here is, it was released on the 15th. Stay calm because it does take at least a good two weeks, as we’ve seen historically, for the rankings to shuffle and truffle around.
Meaning, I like to say water, sediment water, maybe like in a fish tank. It gets all muckied up and it takes a little time for all that sediment to fall through. Then you can actually see what the results are, so to speak. On my end I’m seeing a lot of doom and gloom. A lot of people are having a lot of changes over, but I think we’re going to walk a little bit through about different things, of how to view doom and gloom and what really to get realigned with your goals.
So Gary, why don’t you spit out some of the things I was listening to you talk about the other day?
Gary Jones:
Yeah. I think this has been kind of a brutal realignment for a lot of industries. It’s hard to say how many, to make a list of those industries that have been affected, but I think it’s a broad sense. I don’t think it’s really been-
Dwight Zahringer:
Not industry specific, as has happened in the past.
Gary Jones:
Yeah. I think this is very broad. It’s very expansive. I think for me, from what I’ve seen, from the information I’m gathering from it, it’s an update that is looking to… I don’t know if it’s looking to keep people in their places, but I think this is going to be an update that really affects companies that focus in on a lot of different items. So, I think if you’re-
Dwight Zahringer:
Define items. What are items? Parcels of land?
Gary Jones:
I think if you’re a company that offers lots of different services, say. So, if you’re a company that offers a lot of different items or if you… Say, a great example would be-
Dwight Zahringer:
Starbucks.
Gary Jones:
Yeah. I mean, this is an example, but say you’re a media outlet and you cover lots of different subjects. I think you’re going to see, just as an example, you may be up on your breaking news section, but be you might go down on your film or your movie review section because Google doesn’t want such broadness. It wants you to rank for a collection, like a cluster of keywords. These changes started, I think years ago. This latest update is just the next thing in line to streamlining that, if that makes sense.
I think a lot of people have seen some brutal realignments connected to their keywords, simply just being cut out of some keywords, but being boosted on others that are more core to their main business.
Dwight Zahringer:
Okay. Well, I think there’s a number of ways to really view this in a lot of ways. As I started off in saying that I believe you need to just take a chill pill and that’s hard to do for some people. We have clients that were used to getting more sales or more lead generation. Some of that has dumped and dropped off. So, I think it’s important to know that, A, you’re not alone. Misery loves company or happiness loves applause.
But also to know that you need to have a strategy that’s ongoing. Everything is tactical beyond that point. Strategy really amasses to goals. What are my goals? What do I want to do? I have a website up because I want to rank number one and I want to get a ton of business because we sell the best product at the lowest prices and have the best customer service. Hence, that’s everybody out there.
I think you need to keep in mind data points that you want to be measuring. Look at analytics. Of course, you’ve already made that transition over to Google Analytics 4 because UA sunsets July 1st, as we’re told. I think it’s going to be held off a little bit too, but get used to GA4 and setting up your dashboard in there. So analytics, what is that telling you? Historically you can look over month over month, year over year and then over the past…
I like to go six to eight weeks, to look at some of the trends that are happening there. Then I like to overlap that in a third-party tool. Our agency prefer to work with Semrush. They collect a lot of data, as a good dataset for third party to have some comparisons with. They also track and annotate all the different updates that are happening. So, when you look at that data over your competitors in keywords that you are trying to rank for, it’s going to start to make a lot more sense to you.
So, you have that initial shock and awe reaction. Let’s say it’s positive for you, because I have talked to one or two people that they’ve had positive results from this, but positive means a number of different things. That’s subjective too. Is that just better ranking, more traffic that’s coming in?
I go deeper and say, “Are you getting conversions? Are you getting calls? Are you handling those calls or those sales? Are you meeting the desires of the outcome here to make it very positive for you financially, obviously?” That’s a whole entire business aspect that people need to wean and cull through. And then from there, I guess overlap that and look in Search Console. What is the health of the site? What has been the amount of impressions that you’ve been found for? What type of clicks are showing up? How’s those varied and changed?
You’re going to want to do this for a couple more weeks. So I would go that four, eight weeks in front of this update and then proceeding as many weeks as you can following it, to see where that’s shuffling and what’s making a difference there. Then that talks a little bit more about site health condition. So you have your overall code makeup of your site. What is that user experience that’s going on there? Mobile user experience, where are your users coming from? How do they interact with your site?
Are you playing into that, the speed of it, in which it’s being served to them? What am I missing, Gary? I keep talking here. You have ceased to interrupt me. Are you here?
Gary Jones:
I think this is like you were saying. I think it’s a really good time to assess or reassess where you are in terms of content quality, in terms of, like you’re saying, your user experience, your core user experience. We all know that Google’s really, really hot on how fast it takes a page to load. I think if you’re just a user yourself though, there’s just simple things that you need to make sure that you’re doing right and you’re doing in a quality way as well.
Things like if you’re a company and you’re appearing first on Google Search, but you don’t have that meta description under your link, is that going to affect people’s trust for that link? Because if everyone else has a meta description and you don’t, then you stand out. That’s not the way you want to be standing out. So, I think it’s a really good time to look at everything and like I say, reassess where you are and you’ll always be-
Dwight Zahringer:
If that’s a flag to you as well, you have to sit there and think, oh, I’m actually getting some really good benefit to this. There’s a aspect here that’s blatantly missing. How much longer am I going to hold that position because this is a mark against me, with a missing meta description showing up in a serp.
Gary Jones:
Yeah. It’s a super simple thing to fix. It’s just an example. It’s a super simple fix, that you can have it done in a day. But it’s just little things like that, they add up. They might not be connected to your SEO strategy themselves, but they might just be things that maybe have flown under the radar for a little while.
This would be a great opportunity for you, like you were saying, to check all your data so that you know what’s going on, how you’re impacted in terms of GA4, Google Search Console. I mean, there is a lot of data to be swimming through as well. But say your impressions, they’re supposed to tell you how many times people are seeing your links and everything like that. I mean, that could be a really simple way over the next six to eight weeks, to see, have my impressions been affected badly by what’s happened in March with Google’s latest update?
Dwight Zahringer:
Yeah. There’s a lot of facets that are going to play into that, things a lot of businesses don’t necessarily take in consideration.
Let’s use a metaphor. Let’s use a parallel. Let’s talk about accounting and business health. You have a bookkeeper or you have a trusted financial source that manages your payables and your receivables. All right? If you are doing any type of loans or any other type of financial management, you’re obviously going to be working with a trusted advisor, probably someone third party. You might have people inside your office that are helping with that, but you have a third party you’re hiring to look over those things.
Then, possibly on a yearly basis, you do some auditing and you do some reconciliation of how well those things are being handled and where you’re missing opportunities or tax advantages or where you could be changing the books around or where you could be billing different or where you could be adding charges here and there.
What is the financial health, and what are tactics to the overall strategy of making you more money? So, it’s a good time to probably think about doing an audit, even though you might have people internally that you trust. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re questioning their judgment or their capabilities or their knowledge base on doing so.
Maybe they need to work with a partner or they need to do some more training, to look a little bit deeper and again, point things out that, sometimes it’s hard to see the trees through the forest. Is that the saying? It’s something like that. But even as going into the aspect of, you might have lost some of the rankings of things that… some of the happiness you’ve been accustomed to, but maybe your crawl budget’s off. Maybe you don’t have a good page experience on mobile, where Google can see inside of the Search Console that you’re getting a lot more users that are coming in via mobile and they’re bouncing.
They have a different type of behavior on your site specifically. Maybe it’s time to get that considerations of that third party, that maybe it’s time to rebuild the site or modify it or clean it up and make it faster so that Google can index it better. Maybe you have a bunch of product pages that are continuously being indexed that are just very, very low margin. They don’t get enough orders. They don’t really add a bunch of apples to the barrel. You might want to trim and modify some of that and sculpt your indexing so that you can crawl some of the more happier pages or ones you’d like to be found a little bit more for.
That might tickle Google’s algorithm a different way to give you some positive outlook on things.
Gary Jones:
Sure. I mean, spring cleaning is something that apparently happens in this time of the year. I think it’s a good time to think about that for your website as well, because when you use a third-party tool and they’re calling your site and they’re seeing things like, basically you might’ve gone through the year and you’re picking up one or two errors, this page has a H1 tag when it shouldn’t or there’s a few images being uploaded without the alt text or the correct information.
It adds up and it adds up, and then one of these updates comes out. Maybe it’s a good time, if you have been impacted, to look at that information from an audit and see how many errors you’ve built up. Because it’s kind of inevitable that you will need to have a spring clean at some point for your site. Just rearrange the furniture and make sure it’s all pointing in the right direction and doing what it’s supposed to be doing.
Dwight Zahringer:
Now Gary, well, a lot of people do have websites. That is a thing now, where a decade plus ago, 15, 20 years ago, it was kind of a luxury and a thing people wanted to have. A lot of people have a site. They’re wondering what they should do now. Do they jump right into ads? Obviously Google does this, public-facing. Alphabet will say, “We do this to ensure the integrity,” because as technology changes and new websites are added and new pages, millions upon billions of pages daily of new content is being added to Google Crawl. So, how do they sort through it all, and then how do you hold the test of time?
For someone that’s just a smaller business… maybe they’re doing a couple million dollars a year, that’s still a small business and they have a web presence but they got knocked off. So Google would probably suggest or a lot of agencies, we would suggest as well, digital marketing and looking to compensate with some type of paid ad campaign to start focusing on driving some more targeted customers or interest that comes from Google Search over to your site.
That also can happen inside of Meta, which is going to be Facebook and Instagram. You could even go further into other third parties as well.
Gary Jones:
Yeah. From my standpoint, I’m always going to be biased to, you’re going to want your best foot forward. I think spending on an ad budget makes sense, especially with Google because a lot of the time you’ll see that a lot of searches these days come with one or two, maybe three ads before the organic stuff pops up. But the thing is, you can never tell what’s going to happen next. You can never know what’s going to be the next step in Google strategy or things like how things will be redeveloped on a UI system or anything like that.
So, I think it’s always worth making sure that your website looks the best it can, is focused on the keywords that really matter and has quality content that is useful, because Google doesn’t provide a lot of feedback on all of its updates. But what it always says is, it wants your content to be useful and reliable. For me personally, I’m always going to say, make sure your website is useful and reliable. I think you can use all kinds of strategies as a band-aid, but you’re always going to want a core strength to your website.
Dwight Zahringer:
So build content that your users actually want to read. If you’re, let’s say as an example, in the financial sector and it’s about commodities and changes that are happening with different currencies or weather with particular commodities, say like soybeans and buying futures and stuff on that. You’re going to want to probably read more detailed reports. There may not be a lot of volume for those things, but the type of user that you’re targeting, that’s going to be a better conversion because they’re really searching for that type of information. That might be a more higher ticket conversion item for you or someone that’s part of your newsletter, that you would be selling products to and whatnot.
So, you have to continuously put out the right produce for the season, for the time of year and the time of day that people want to come in and buy, that they’re looking for. Don’t make them dig for it. If you’re going to have a bunch of old fruit or old product on the shelves, obviously the people that are putting out the newer stuff, it’s going to have more attention. That is the way Google historically wants to show content to the world. They’re going to play for that.
We talked about digital marketing and advertising and buying placements. As Gary mentioned, you’re going to see in a lot of search results one, two, three. I’ve seen as many of four and then some on the bottom of the page, when it wasn’t limited with scrolling, that are encompassing organic results but then also the knowledge base.
So, you have questions that are being answered. You have map and local-based businesses. You might even have a shopping fee that’s inside of there with the merchant center. That’s a lot of decisions for people to make. Now turn that into a vertical screen as someone is scrolling along. What’s going to make yours stand out? So that title tag, that quick meta description that’s specific, that’s going to hook people on to stay over. Again, go back to your analytics. I think it’s time to do a deep dive. You can get deep into the ditches with it, but an overview on it’s going to probably be really big.
Look at where you’re getting in regards to organic, direct and then look at social referral email and so on and so forth. What type of engagement is that traffic doing on your site? Use a lot of your different sorters in there, like the channel group sorters. What are those referred to in analytics, Gary? I forget with GA4.
Gary Jones:
Yeah. You can use things like channel groups and stuff. Right?
Dwight Zahringer:
Yeah.
Gary Jones:
That’s what I would use, is page titles and screen class.
Dwight Zahringer:
Yes. I also encourage you to also look in Analytics at pages and screens and then landing pages and then also the types of devices. That’s going to give you a good idea of some different user personas or customers that are coming to the site and how each of them are interacting. I would imagine you’re going to see a lot of similarities, but some very distinctive differences on how each of those shop. Now you’re going to have to take that data and do something with it. But it should all be starting from the fact of, what am I publishing that is good and relevant and not over-optimized, that this type of customer base wants? That should help you win the race. So, continuous publishing of that really good, helpful content.
Gary Jones:
Something that Google points out as well is that different pages can be affected in different ways, say when you’re looking to review your own performance. They also talk about, look at the pages that are performing the best on your site. That can be, the engaged sessions are higher for that page, the bounce rate, things like that.
Dwight Zahringer:
Bounce rate.
Gary Jones:
Yeah. I mean, it depends what metrics are most important to you. But it also says, look at pages. Are some of your pages doing better than others and if so, why? Basically try and replicate that. If you have a couple of different pages and some seem to be performing at a worse rate and there’s no reason for it, then you need to try and bring them all up to speed. But I think it’s interesting advice that they’re pointing out there, because obviously you would think that all your pages would run at a similar speed and everything in terms of quality. But it’s still worth checking to see, if one’s doing better than the other, how can you replicate that success for the rest of those pages as well?
Dwight Zahringer:
Yeah, there’s going to be bias. It could be a team page and people are looking up at the CEO or they’re looking at the visually appealing office person, that is younger and has a lot of LinkedIn views and other things or is out there, very active and doing things.
It’s important to understand those sources that are inbound and why. If you’re looking to placate off of those, look at some type of a tactic to replicate that in a lot of different ways.
So again, it’s going to take a little time to figure out if you’re a winner or a loser in this scenario, but by all means, a lot of people are considering what’s going on. Another thing I would still advise to be aware of and look into a little bit more is AI generation of content.
You probably want to dip your fingers into that a little bit. We did a podcast a couple weeks ago in regards to that and kind of explained out the differences and how that’s being utilized in a number of different ways. You’re going to want to probably go back and listen to that a couple episodes ago, to get some better understanding on it.
We are participating in utilizing of that in a number of different ways, carefully and slowly, selectively. You don’t just want to be a college student, a freshman and just have the AI rewrite or write your entire 1,800-word story that you have to turn into your physics class about some type of a topic because there’s generators out there that are actually going to rate those to determine whether or not it’s AI, yes or no.
So, that’s not going to be the entire solution to publishing content, but I think it can be a helpful tool for you. I guess that it all in, be all too, if you’re at that point and you’re having more questions that are not being drawn into answers, then you may want to engage with an agency or a individual that’s out there, that can do an audit and point out a lot of these things to you and regurgitate it back to you with points that would be important for you to take in consideration, that are going to listen to the concerns that you do have, your wants and your needs and explain a little bit more back to you in a way that’s going to make sense, that are going to give you some actual items to jump into.
The post Google Core Updates & What Comes Next: Podcast Episode & Script appeared first on Trademark Productions.
Learn the Differences of Facebook Creator Studio vs. Business SuiteAs businesses rely more on social media to reach their customers, platforms have been fulfilling this need by offering creator resources, like Facebook’s Creator Studio, to make it easier for these businesses. Since the rebranding of Facebook to Meta and the changing needs of business resources, Creator Studio will be sunset and replaced with the revamped Meta Business Suite.
In this week’s episode, Marketing Manager Jailyn Glass and Digital Marketing Specialist Allie Ciak discuss the differences between the two in-platform creator resources and the improvements that creators can expect.
Read the full transcript from Episode 40: Facebook Creator Studio vs. Business Suite below.Jailyn:
All righty. Welcome to the 301: tThe Redirect podcast. I am Jailyn. It has been a while since you guys have heard me. But I am here with Allie, our Digital Marketing Specialist – hi.
Allie:
Hi!
Jailyn:
How are you doing today?
Allie:
I’m good. How are you?
Jailyn:
Good. So today we are talking about all things Facebook. So [we’re] mostly talking about the Facebook Creator Studio and how that is dying off and how we are going to be using the Business Suite that Facebook has been pushing a little bit more now.
So if Allie, you can give us a background into what’s the difference between the two and then kind of like what sets Business Suite apart from Creator Studio.
Allie:
Yeah, so Creator Studio was launched in 2020, and it was really just video focused, and that was when Facebook really wanted to dip their toes into, you know, the competition with TikTok. And from that, I feel like it really isolated a lot of creators, even though it’s called Creator Studio, because so many people still weren’t ready yet to be so video-focused.
So with that, they ended up revamping the Business Suite because they rebranded as Meta rather than just Facebook Business Suite. And from that, they made it, so it just incorporates everything, so people are going to spend more time, you know, scheduling everything in that platform, looking at their analytics, responding to messages rather than it just being like uploading video content and looking at its results.
Jailyn:
Gotcha. So when you say Creator Studio was more video focused, did they move those aspects or analytics into Business Suite? Because I mean, all of the platforms between Facebook and Instagram are pushing videos, so it’s like, is that still in there, or it’s like, do you have to just figure out the information on your own?
Allie:
Yeah, so they do still have some of the analytic reporting on there, but it’s not as robust as it was.
Jailyn:
I mean, and that’s interesting too ‘cause like I just say it like they have been pushing a lot more videos and we know Instagram is trying to be more so like TikTok and they’re like, okay, let’s reel it back because we are not TikTok–like it shouldn’t just all be videos, we should be like photos, which is where we started. So I think even probably overall for Meta, they thought where they’re going with this. Because even Facebook, like Facebook’s, not a big video platform either, but – or at least it didn’t start off that way. But they came back after a while, and they’re just like, let’s do videos because that’s what became more popular. So, I mean, that’s an interesting thing, I think to just pay attention to.
Allie:
Yeah, I agree.
Jailyn:
All righty. So with Facebook Business Suite, like what can business owners, no matter what size they are, what can they expect when they are looking into the tool for business?
Allie:
Yeah, so the main goal of this revamped tool is for them, [business owners], to unify all communication, interactions as well as ads and analytics for that. So you can just expect a comprehensive overview rather than having to use various tools and platforms to get all of the reporting information that you need.
Jailyn:
Gotcha. And for our like reporting purposes, what would you say is like the top three metrics that you know, business owners should be paying attention to when they are looking into business?
Allie:
So for that, I definitely think engagement, rate, reach, and then if you’re doing ads, you know you want to see the cost per result, you wanna see your link clicks, you wanna make sure that the content that you’re posting is resonating, whether it’s organic or paid.
Jailyn:
Mm-hmm… And can you go a little bit too into like engagement rate? So, what does that engagement rate consist of?
Allie:
Your engagement rate consists of interactions, and that’s compared to your overall amount of followers. So you can do a generalized engagement rate, including all of your followers, or you can do it compared to the people that you’re actually reaching to get a better idea of, you know, how your content is performing against the algorithm.
Jailyn:
Gotcha. And too, we see that they are going to have competitor benchmarking. So would that be useful, and how would that play into what they’re seeing for their own organic or paid results for their business?
Allie:
Yeah, I think it’ll be a really great asset to have that rather than having, you know, pulling metrics and calculating it by hand and going to each individual competitor and looking at their performance and calculating all of that, so just being able to have all of your competitors in one place to easily, you know, benchmark yourself against them. And then to also have your comprehensive overview of your own insights there. And the really great thing that they implemented in there is goals. So you can go in and set your goals. You can set a timeframe. And just watch your goals as they grow within that.
Jailyn:
That’s awesome because we have goals and not just we as an agency, but just all marketers I feel like have goals, but then we have them in every single place. So no matter where they are, at least you can set those in this platform and still be able to look at them while you’re doing your work, so I think that would be really useful.
Is there anything else you want to add about just Business Suite in general or anything related to like Facebook before we wrap up?
Allie:
I think for so long we’ve all been focused on Creator Studio, whether we’re using it from a video-focused perspective or you know, we were just making it work with the content that we were publishing that was a static [post], or whether it were carousels. But I think now that we have Meta Business Suite, we can, you know, no matter your business size, what content you’re posting, you’re really just able to get a better grasp of it and use all the tools that they have to offer rather than just picking and choosing the things that work for you.
Jailyn:
That makes sense.
Well, thank you so much Allie, for coming on and talking about Meta and Business Suite versus Creator Studio. Hopefully, you guys listening did get something out of it from there. We will talk to you next time.
The post Facebook Creator Studio vs. Business Suite: Podcast Episode & Script appeared first on Trademark Productions.
Being A Better Partner We are returning from pandemic with optimism and I wanted to send a direct message to current and future clients. There is a lot of uncertainty going into the summer and the “new normal” and everyone is a little confused as to how to act or conduct business. After some thought, […]
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Bluestar Detroit Catering in COVID-19 Today’s episode is with Barry Winfree of Bluestar Detroit. An established 20-year business that has been through brick and mortar and found a sweet spot in corporate catering. With the pandemic shutting down Michigan as a whole Barry’s business came to a screeching halt. Many of his business clients were […]
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Neil Patel Podcast with TM Productions As we search our archives, we have come across a trove of 10-year old podcasts. The set-up was not great and the audio at a time, eh, let’s say it was not as suburb either. But we made it work and had great feedback on the guest variety. This […]
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Darakjian Podcast – Jeweler Uses Social Media During COVID19 Today, I decided to start-up (again) the TM 301 Redirect podcast. Local businessman and friend, Armen Darakjian, was the inspiration to get this up and rolling again. On March 17th, 2020 the COVID19 pandemic closed up shop for 98% of us in our state of Michigan. […]
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Google BERT Update Previous Podcast Last week, Google announced one of its largest updates to date: the Google BERT Update. No, this has nothing to do with Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street – BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. Sounds complicated, but essentially this update puts emphasis on search query context that […]
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