Category: SEO

Track Calls With Google Tag Manager For CRO

SEO TIP: Using the Google Tag Manager to track mobile calls for a site personally is a great way to track CRO that you are doing for a client.

Why track calls with google tag manager

Using Google Analytics to the fullest potential can really let you see how people are acting on your site. One area that is not always used though is the simple clickable number with some tracking applied. When you have a service-based business that wants to know if your work is doing anything, and having call data to prove that yes it is can really assist in your efforts.

Basic Google Tag Manager Set Up For A Phone Number

1. Go to Google Tag Manager

2. Create an account

3. Fill the following out (account name, container name, and choose Web)

4. Install the 2 provided snippets of code

5. Set up the TRIGGER First (when you get to the RegEx part the value is .* not just *

6. When setting up the Tag Type for GA in the next step

7. Set up the Tag (name it accordingly)

8. Final Screen

9. Now let’s check Google Analytics to make sure it’s firing

10. A common mistake is people forget to publish the container after they make the tag which I did while writing this post so save yourself 30 minutes of searching and publish. This will also allow you to see if there are any errors in your set up.

How This Helps SEO

By using this as a tool for a business you can really show that if a call normally turns into a lead or any conversion placement of the number on various pages or areas of a site can drive that revenue. A big example of this is when working with a dentist’s office and the topic came up if the price was worth it. I could show that by having this one metric along with other basic traffic information I showed that my efforts not only brought more visitors but brought in more money to the practice. One of the fun parts that SEO brings is that you have to consistently keep testing out ideas and processes, but sometimes finding all the failures is what makes you a better marketer.

Conclusion

Post like this where we dive into the strategy to track calls with google tag manager, a city + keyword approach to drive traffic, or even SEO image optimization, all of these are things that I hope helps someone else like me. Stay tuned for another post coming up soon for Goals and how they help determine marketing ideas in Google Analytics.

Best SEO Strategy for Images

What Makes an Optimized Image?

Too many times when I get asked to check out a site and see the SEO health of a site there is never any good image optimization. To me personally, a well-optimized page is one that simply is in full sync across the page.

  • URL
  • Heading
  • Keywords in content
  • Title on the image
  • File size
  • And…….

These are all places that your focus of the page needs to represent so that in no way shape or form will a bot that is crawling will think it is nothing other than the main phrase, keyword, or focus you are going after.

Why Stop There!

I like to take it even a step further and include the keyword in my file name of the image as well. For example, if the first image on my page is going to be about Best SEO Strategy for Images then why not make that file name “best-seo-strategy-for-images.jpg” . With that said if there are multiple images on a page I may go through and name them all to have some relevance to the focus but really I just go after that first main image….Why you ask……I am lazy.

An argument for Usability and Alt tag

Yes, people that use the internet may be using a text reader, so you should name the alt tag on your image what it is representing. But what if your page that they are reading is representing that focus I keep talking about and not some person looking through a magnifying glass that you are using? I personally think that you should also use that key term/phrase in your alt tag as well personally because…..yea just do it.

Site Speed and Image Size

Site speed is huge and as many people build on top of WordPress, it is a factor to always consider when you are using images. For me, I think that if you do not have a huge header you are off to a good start, but from a developer, standpoint remember to always go in and resize the image in a photo editor before the upload. Phone pictures, stock photos, and other sources will normally give you giant images that will kill your bandwidth so just use realistic size images for your posts and pages.

Conclusion

Finding the best tools for SEO sometimes just comes down to knowing good tactics to implement when you are building your site or updating it. I like to think of a single page on a site as an opportunity to turn everything possible element into a billboard screaming what you are trying to get across. In this post, you will see that Best SEO Strategy for Images is the main focus. When you are developing a site and maybe a high order function is more important than worrying about the image aspects of a page but it is important and starts from the development start point.

SEO Tool Benefits From SemRush

Many of us I feel get what we need out of a product and do not always take the time to see all the bells that come with a product. I have been using SEMrush for a number of SEO clients but not like how you think. My approach to this work is normally a current SEO agency may reach out to have some assistance in knocking some work out, or a client may come to me for consultation and already have SEMrush. With this said I am normally just looking at the site health score and making the proper adjustments to get them back up to par. This is also not how SEO is done or how I recommend how someone goes about it but I just have been approached to do this many times.

SemRush Features

Like I already said there is a health check to see if you are following all the major areas of SEO, and depending on your score you can easly see what needs to be changed. Then I found out about all the neat features below which I then decided to check out.

First thing first is when a client approaches me and says “hey can you assist me with some SEO services?” I am like well it normally does not work that way but let me see how I can help. The Domain Analytics is right where to start, you can simply add a URL and from there you get details of their domain at your finger tips that can help you gauge the next steps. Or if they are just not sure where to start just simply ask who is your biggest competitor and boom put there domain in there and see what is working for them.

  • organic search
  • paid search
  • backlink profile
  • and more

The point is that you can easily see what is going on and from there dive even deeper. There is an organic research section that will let you see ranking keywords, competitors to that domain, or even position changes that have happened over time. Way more than the just basic SEO dashboard I was using before.

How To Learn

I am not a documentation nerd which if I was there would probably be more success in my development carrer ….just saying. They have a wonderful set of courses that are on the house once you sign up. Using this product for years never thought I needed what they offered. I was wrong went through the main one along and literally feel like I leveled up my SEO for all my clients.

One of the bigger takeaways was that each section had videos of people that use that portion of the tool and why it really points out to you how to also utilize it which I like. The point is that if they take the time to create courses to help you maximize the value do not pass it up.

Ideas For Your Next SEO Project

Like I said at the beginning of this start at the top and work your way down, but if you have not had the chance to check out the SEMrush tools all the way start with that first toolkit course to make sure you are getting the most out of it.

Start with Competitor Research

Begin by looking at the competitors of your clients and see where they are spending ad money at, how there traffic is looking, where they are getting back links from, and what words they are ranking for.

Put the client in the SemRush Eco-system

Build that profile out and connect your Google Analytics account along with your webmaster console. You will start to the see the data roll in, and make sure you do the site audit. This will show you the low level SEO errors that can be fixed quick.

Build the Plan Based on the Data

If you have not quoted the client yet this is the time to see what work is truly in front of you and build out a plan. You can see your baseline so easy from here, get aware of seasonal drops, or even better the sensor score will let you see how the business is doing in the Serps. So if that category is taking a hit you may find out why, or be able to let the client know for expectation reasons.

Use The Reports

Nothing like having that weekly, monthly call with a client and having to explain everything, but instead there is an amazing PDF reporting area that you can customize based on your clients needs. If you have the right plan you can even have it branded.

Conclusion

This did not even touch the surface of all the assistance that SEMrush can provide. The main reason for even writing this was to state that it is important to really see what tools are out there when you buy a product and you may find out that your job can get a whole lot easier if you check stuff out. I do recommend that if you are interested in SEMrush to look at the other tools out there and this is not a selling focused article but from my recent experience it has helped me out a lot, but more so and the most important is allowing me to better serve SEO clients.

City + Keyword SEO Approach To Drive Traffic

It has been a long time tactic to find some strong keywords that relate to a client and have them support the outreach buy attaching those keywords to the cities they want to target. I have recently have had great success with a company that did not do any local SEO other than citations and left their content to just be either not optimized at all or just more of a national approach with no geo centric approach.

The Strategy

I knew they had about 4 main services that they offered in the IT / Cybersecurity space and wanted to have much more exposure to the surrounding cities they serve. Though there are many good tools out there I love to use Google Trends to help me start my search and then from there I move over to WordTracker. This allows me to see the area where the words may be stronger and then checking the normal volume, KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index), ect. From there I started with the most top level topic or service and built out a page that could act almost like a landing page for all the services for each city. With in one week we already started seeing some traction. Now the goal is to build out each Service + City to drive the rest of the traffic.

Reality Of The Outcome

There is so much to SEO in terms of properly optimizing a page with (linking, solid call to action, internal linking, and meta-data). What I saw from this particular client is that with the basics and a solid strategy you can get search success without any fancy tricks. I have used this time and time again but it still amazes me how well it works.