The basics are the high-level SEO tactics that have been proven to have a positive impact on the algorithm in the not-so-distant past—and are predicted to work for the foreseeable future!

Some of these tactics include:

• Optimize title tags to incorporate what the content on the page is about—yes, sometimes it can be that easy!
• Write strong, descriptive header tags that guide users and search engines through a page’s content.
• Implement internal linking between related, helpful content.
• Make sure a page is indexable and targets the correct keywords.

A solid SEO foundation helps you connect the dots between different tactics and understand why things work, not just how to do them. Without this core knowledge, everything starts to feel disjointed, like a pile of information with no clear structure. But when you take the time to build a sturdy base, every new skill or tactic you learn will make more sense, add value, and drive real results.

The deeper you go into the SEO Matrix the higher the chance you neglect the basics. We find this happens more often when working with the same site or business for a long time.

So, what can I do to make sure I’m not missing out on low-hanging fruit?

• Refresh yourself on organic (and local, if relevant) ranking factors—reminding yourself what moves the needle, and what doesn’t, helps to better prioritize tactics.
• Get familiar—and stay familiar—with search engine result pages (SERPs). The SERPs are constantly evolving and changing on a whim, focusing on targeting intent can help you withstand the test of time. Being familiar with what opportunities and challenges lie within these pages will help you find new ways to stand out.
• Take a few free SEO courses or attend webinars to remind yourself of some basic tactics or strategies and make sure you’re not skipping over any obvious opportunities (we listen and we don’t judge). The Analytics Playbook hosts webinars with top SEO experts every month—subscribe to our newsletter to get updated on our next webinar.
• Don’t ignore technical SEO. We’re serious, remember, if a search engine can’t find or crawl it, neither can users. If you’re looking for a place to start, Dana DiTomaso has a great Technical SEO course on LinkedIn Learning.

What are some local SEO low-hanging fruit I can capitalize on right now?

If you’re a fellow local search professional, welcome! Here are a few low-hanging fruit SEO opportunities you can get started with:

1. Review and optimize your Google Business Profile.

If you want to be found in Google Maps or appear in the local map pack, you need a well-optimized Google Business Profile (GBP). Some quick opportunities to help optimize your business profile include:

• Select the right primary category!
• Link to your related location’s landing page.
• Include pre-defined and custom services.
• Add real images of your physical location, team members, and products and services.

A well-optimized business profile is one thing, it’s another to track your GBP’s performance, so don’t sleep on including UTM parameters to URLs on your website link, appointment links, and any post links.

2. Create landing pages for your important services, locations, and service areas.

Imagine you run a local lawn care business offering everything from mowing to fertilizing. If homeowners are searching for weeding services in your area but you don’t have a dedicated page for weeding, you’re going to miss out on those potential customers.

It’s an easy oversight, especially when adding new services during busy seasons. To maximize visibility, create a service page optimized with:

• A local, keyword-rich title tag
• Clear, structured header tags
• A strong call-to-action guiding visitors to book or contact you

Don’t leave business on the table—make sure every service you offer has a well-optimized page to match local search intent.

3. Embed your Google Business Profile map onto your website.

It’s one thing to add a Google Map to your website to help users easily get directions, but you should make sure you’re embedding your business profile map specifically as it can make it easier for users to click through and interact with your business profile—like leaving a review!

This map should be placed on related location pages (if you have more than one physical location).

4. Start asking for reviews!

Building trust with potential customers starts with strong, consistent reviews across multiple platforms—not just Google. Reviews not only reinforce credibility but can also improve your local search rankings.

A good benchmark is to look at the businesses outranking you in the local map pack and aim to match or exceed their review count. But quantity alone isn’t enough—regularly earning detailed, positive reviews is key.

To maintain a steady flow, develop a review management strategy and train your team to confidently ask for reviews. A proactive approach ensures a continuous stream of fresh feedback, strengthening your reputation and search visibility over time.

So, you have the basics down, now it’s time to prioritize what you’re putting into practice. Carelessly implementing SEO tactics without tying them to your business goals is a recipe for wasted effort. To make an impact, every SEO decision must serve a clear purpose.

Not every SEO trend or tactic will be relevant for you or your client’s business—and that’s okay! Focus on tactics that make sense for your specific goals, are ethical, and drive revenue growth. Trends and algorithm updates will come and go, but sticking to relevant, helpful strategies ensures long-term success.

Implementing the right SEO strategy will help you (or your client):

• Be more visible for search queries that matter.
• Reach the right audience—the one that converts!
• Secure buy-in for SEO work from stakeholders by demonstrating the direct impact on revenue and success metrics.
• Prioritize your SEO work and different tactics to better reach your goals.

What can I do to make sure I’m spending time on SEO work that moves the needle?

Start by confirming the goals. Goals aren’t static, they often grow as a business grows. We recommend creating a goal charter to guide budget and other decisions, and updating it quarterly or yearly.

A goal charter doesn’t just include the “why” behind your work, but exactly what you’ll do to achieve and measure the success of each goal. This sets a strong foundation of communication and trust between you and all key stakeholders.

A goal charter empowers you to:

• Communicate the whys and hows to everyone on the team.
• Build a successful SEO strategy.
• Prioritize tactics as they relate to specific goals.
• Measure the outcome of your strategic work.

Important Reminder: Everyone involved on a website project or ongoing SEO work should be aligned on the goals and overall direction and have participated in developing the goal charter.

In today’s competitive SEO landscape, especially with the rise of AI-driven search tools and shifts in how users search across different platforms, visibility has become more challenging, particularly in competitive industries and local markets. This makes it crucial to focus your efforts on driving qualified leads, rather than wasting time on just ranking number one or hitting a specific traffic number.

“Rankings don’t pay the bills — we need to focus on what matters to stakeholders and what drives their business forward.” — Claire Carlile, LinkedIn

Ranking hacks and trends that promise to boost visibility are often ineffective if they don’t target an audience that is more likely to convert.

With the introduction of AI Overviews and generative search, SEOs find themselves overwhelmed by learning how to rank in a new space. Some experts, like Matthew Brown, remind us not to waste our time trying to rank with copycat formats. Instead, we should prioritize providing high-quality, valuable content that directly speaks to your audience and addresses their needs.

By targeting the right audience instead of just aiming for the top-ranking spot, your SEO efforts will drive more qualified leads and build trust with your clients.

How can I lean into driving qualified leads if my boss (or client) gets upset if we don’t meet traffic goals?

When you start focusing less on rankings and traffic and more on conversions, you’ll often see a drop in traffic. That’s because you’ll no longer be writing content for the sake of getting people to the site even if they don’t convert. Removing irrelevant or outdated content that was driving the wrong kind of traffic will also lead to a drop.

If you’ve previously been reporting on rankings and traffic volume, it can be hard for executives or clients to understand why traffic going down is a good thing. This is your opportunity to educate on the changes we’ve seen in search and explain that Google wants us to focus on building an audience and providing quality content. It is part of your job to explain to your stakeholders why the changes you are making will lead to you reaching more of your target audience and improving conversions. Having reports and dashboards that highlight conversions as the key metric instead of traffic will help solidify this shift in thinking as the right move.

How can I get more qualified leads?

A key step in shifting an organization’s focus from traffic to conversions is bringing in more qualified leads. To do this, it is necessary to evaluate your marketing funnel. Ask yourself:

• What content is driving traffic?
• Does this content align with my ideal audience?
• Am I addressing different stages of the customer journey (awareness, interest, desire, and action)?

If your low-level funnel content targeting users in the “action” stage—such as service or product pages—is already driving leads, but your overall online visibility is low, consider expanding into other stages of the marketing funnel. Optimize (or create) content that attracts users at the awareness stage and guides them through the rest of the journey. For example, prioritize content that educates, builds trust, and gently nudges users toward taking the next step.

How can I make sure those qualified leads convert?

Start by focusing on conversion rate optimization; look for opportunities to make it easier for people to do what you want them to do on your website. For example:

• Simplify forms to increase completions—don’t overcomplicate this process.
• Offer different conversion streams like online booking so you’re not just forcing users to call.
• Use clear calls to action so the path your audience should take is unmistakably clear.
• Optimize your content to make sure it answers important questions that help people make decisions.

Quality outweighs quantity—whether it’s writing new content, securing backlinks, or building citations. Ultimately, SEO isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing what matters most.

Don’t churn out countless blog posts.
Create unique, helpful, and well-researched content that resonates with your target audience.

Stop building as many citations as possible.
Build important citations and ones relevant to your location or industry.

Don’t try to build as many backlinks as possible.
Find backlinks that are likely to attract potential clients or customers to your site, build your brand awareness, or highlight your expertise.

By prioritizing quality over quantity, you’ll save time by focusing on what truly moves the needle while also building trust through more accurate, useful information about whatever you are offering.

How do I know if my content is high-quality?

To know whether or not your content is high-quality, start by auditing your content to find out:

• What content is directly converting users?
• What content catches potential leads’ attention while they are exploring related topics—eventually encouraging them to return and become a qualified lead in the future?

Utilize Looker Studio to view sessions, key events, clicks, and impressions of your landing pages by blending your GA4 and Google Search Console data. Prioritize pages that convert well but don’t get a lot of traffic (sessions), clicks, or impressions. These pages have an opportunity to bring in more converting traffic—you don’t have to overcomplicate this process!

The goal at this stage is to optimize current content and/or get rid of content that is no longer relevant, doesn’t help build on E-E-A-T principles, and doesn’t drive the right kind of traffic. We’re in a “copy-paste” culture where content often lacks originality. Simply pumping out as much content as possible to rank for every possible query no longer works. Instead, focus on creating content that not only ranks but also drives qualified leads and contributes to business growth.

How can I start creating better content in 2025?

While you might be tempted to let an AI tool do all of this work for you, you need to resist. Instead, employ AI tools to help you find gaps, build solid outlines, and generate ideas for adding additional relevant elements to your work.

To stand out, your content needs to provide unique value. Avoid simply rehashing what’s already out there. Instead, ask yourself:

• What part of my goal charter does this content address?
• Will my target audience be able to take action on this content?
• Does this content directly target my audience at a specific stage in my customer journey?
• What knowledge gap am I trying to fill?
• What makes my content different from competitors?
• How can I add a fresh perspective or valuable insights?
• Can I present this information in a better way (e.g. video, visuals, checklists, etc)?
• Is there an opportunity to provide a helpful resource as a takeaway?

This shift requires being intentional and creative. Look for opportunities to offer something truly unique—whether it’s exploring niche topics, providing in-depth how-tos, or sharing firsthand experiences.

How do I know what citations I should be building?

This will depend on whether or not this is for a local business, but you’ll want to continue prioritizing the main citation sites below:

• Google My Business (if the business is eligible)
• Bing Places For Business
• Apple Maps
• LinkedIn
• Yelp
• Any relevant social media profiles

If you’re a local business, focus on optimizing citations that are relevant to your industry and locality to boost your visibility. For non-local businesses, keep an eye on both your own and your competitors’ branded search engine result pages, aiming to be present on sites that build trust and attract real users. Regardless of your business type, prioritize visibility on sites where your audience is active, where your competitors are listed, and those that frequently appear in searches related to your business—like getting featured on Yelp if “best of” lists for your industry if they often appear for relevant search results.

How will I know if a backlink is worth the investment?

To determine whether a backlink is worth your time and effort, ask yourself:

• Is the site or content relevant to my industry? You want backlinks from sites that align with your niche.
• Is the page or site linking to me locally relevant? Since the content on local business sites can be extremely similar, it could be that links are a helpful differentiator to see which local business is more well-known.
• Does it help strengthen my expertise or authority on a particular topic that’s important to my business? You want to prioritize building links that reinforce your credibility in your field.
• Is it likely to drive real users to my site? Links that bring actual traffic, and even better, converting traffic, are always a win!

Prioritizing a lower number of high-quality, relevant backlinks over a large quantity of mid backlinks will yield better results. While backlinks remain an important signal for search engines like Google, their value lies in the credibility, relevance, and potential business they bring. Focus on links that enhance your authority and have the potential to get you in front of additional audiences that are relevant to your business.

AI isn’t just taking up space in search with the introduction of AI Overviews and generative search, it’s becoming an important part of the SEO’s toolbox, offering new ways to save time and streamline workflows.

While tools like ChatGPT and Claude are widely used to generate ideas, find creative solutions, or even draft a wide array of content, they’re just the beginning. A growing number of AI tools can assist with a plethora of tasks, making your work faster and more efficient.

When used responsibly, it can set you up for success by handling repetitive tasks and giving you a head start—without compromising the human touch that makes your work stand out.

When used irresponsibly, you risk implementing tactics against Google’s Guidelines. For example, Barry Schwartz shared an example of where a company was using AI to create web pages and blog posts to get backlinks.

AI responses aren’t always 100% accurate, so it’s essential to review and refine its outputs carefully. Having AI pump out blog content or analyze thousands of rows of data without any human intervention is a recipe for disaster. An experienced SEO, digital marketer, or analyst is necessary to make sure you’re getting valuable outputs that aren’t repetitive content or inaccurate nonsense.

How can I start using AI more responsibly in 2025?

Here are a few tips for the new year on how to utilize AI as a strategic tool:

• Craft better prompts: The quality of AI-generated content depends heavily on the prompts you provide. Frame your queries to focus on actionable insights and takeaways that align with your goals.
• Optimize your workload: List your current responsibilities to identify time-consuming or repetitive tasks that could benefit from AI assistance, such as data analysis, drafting outlines, or copywriting.
• Explore specialized tools: Beyond general-purpose tools like ChatGPT, explore other AI platforms tailored to your needs. For example, SEO tools that analyze keywords or suggest content gaps, writing assistants for creating content frameworks, and data tools that streamline reporting or data analysis.
• Double check AI results: Analyze AI-generated insights critically to confirm their accuracy and relevance.

Andy Crestodina has an abundance of helpful resources on utilizing AI for content, workflows, data analysis, and more—check it out if you want for even more specific how-tos.

What if my boss or client believes they no longer need SEO work because they can just use AI?

Have you ever asked “Why can’t AI just do my job for me?” Or, has a boss or client asked “Why do I need to hire an SEO if I have AI?” If you have, you’re not alone.

The simple answer is that AI isn’t perfect, there’s a lot of nuance and skill required to use it effectively. An experienced SEO will know what to use AI for, what prompts to ask, and how to get the most out of AI outputs without going against Google’s guidelines.

We’ve put together some helpful responses for you to use next time you’re in this situation—we’re sure it will come up more and more as the year progresses:

Response Example 1: Why do I need an [agency/freelancer/strategist/etc] if I can just use AI?

AI is a powerful tool, but it can’t replace expertise—it can only enhance it. It can generate ideas, automate tasks, and speed up workflows, but it doesn’t know our business, our customers, or the unique challenges we face. That’s where digital marketers (whether at an agency or freelance) come in.

The right answers start with the right questions. AI is only as good as the prompts it’s given. Knowing what to ask, how to prioritize, and what actually matters is a skill that takes experience to develop. For example, while AI can generate helpful outputs, it won’t understand why something works or how to adapt a strategy when/if the market shifts—only a human can bridge that gap.

While AI can remix existing information, it can’t innovate. A strategist blends data, intuition, and experience to build a plan that moves your business forward.

Response Example 2: Why can’t I just have AI write all of the content?

AI shouldn’t write all of our content because AI isn’t always accurate. AI-generated content can pull from outdated or incorrect sources and confidently present misinformation—which can damage trust and credibility. While it can revamp existing information, it can’t provide unique insights or firsthand experience—the things that set brands apart.

Beyond that, search engines have made it clear that using automation primarily to manipulate rankings is considered spam and violates search policies. AI can assist in content creation, but human intervention is essential to keep things compliant for long-term SEO success.

Additionally, AI doesn’t know what content should be created—it just generates what it’s asked for. A real strategist analyzes user behavior and search data to determine what’s worth prioritizing and creating, so our content serves a purpose rather than just existing for the sake of it.

Finally, AI shouldn’t be making decisions alone. A computer isn’t accountable for the accuracy or impact of its content—humans are. That’s why AI should be treated as a tool, not a replacement for real people.

While non-branded queries are crucial for visibility and lead generation, monitoring your branded SERPs and strategically showcasing your expertise is key to establishing your brand as a trusted authority.

Branded SERPs are a direct reflection of your business’s reputation and authority. Optimizing them builds trust and reinforces your credibility. Showcase your industry expertise—both on and off your website—and be transparent about your services, knowledge, and unique value.

In 2025, take steps to improve your brand’s presence by:

• Sharing accurate and consistent information across different channels.
• Highlighting authoritative content that showcases your expertise and value.
• Addressing content gaps by adding material that reinforces your brand values or improves how you’re perceived.

Ignore these opportunities and you risk weakening your credibility and missing out on valuable engagement.

How can I identify where I need to improve my brand awareness?

To find areas you can build on your brand authority, start by asking yourself the following questions:

• Are you active on the right social platforms where your audience spends time? Take steps to build relevant, optimized social profiles that engage with your audience outside of Google.
• Does your website clearly communicate what you do (your product/service), how you do it (your process), and where you do it (your location)? Sometimes it’s as simple as optimizing your banner text to clearly describe what you do or creating webpages for missing services.

For example, there’s almost too much going on here. If you were looking for new windows, this site might be too distracting (see screenshot above).

This other website (see screenshot above) ranks higher than the example above and describes to the user what they do, builds trust, and guides the user to take action.

• Do you showcase whether or not you’re qualified in your field or if you provide a unique value to users? Include details about your business like how long you’ve been in the industry, share any relevant certifications, highlight real-world case studies, etc. Promote this information both on and off your website—anywhere your business is mentioned or listed online or offline.
• Are you leveraging awards, reviews, and testimonials to build credibility? A solid online reputation is the cornerstone of brand awareness. Regularly ask for reviews, actively engage with customers through different channels, and address feedback transparently to build trust.
• Is your brand aligned with your audience’s expectations across all touchpoints? Your content should meet the needs of your audience and answer their important questions at each stage of their customer journey (awareness, consideration, decision, retention, and advocacy). Start by identifying how much of your content is top-of-funnel, middle-of-funnel, and bottom-of-funnel and whether or not that content is actively driving users to the next stage.
• Are you sharing information about your brand through other channels (both online and offline)? You can say all you want about your brand on your website, but that’s not the only place users are searching for goods and services. It’s time to identify where your target audience is active (both online and offline) and take the necessary steps to meet them there.

By aligning your expertise with a strategic focus on brand awareness, you not only improve how search engines perceive your brand but also build stronger connections with your audience. This ensures that potential customers see your brand as trustworthy, helpful, and ready to meet their needs.

Google is not the only platform where people search for businesses, services, or products. To truly connect with your audience, you need to diversify your content distribution to be visible where your audience spends time.

While optimizing for Google remains important, don’t limit your strategy to just Google, meet your audience wherever they are searching. Your audience’s search behavior is evolving. Consider asking yourself the following questions:

• Are users finding my website using AI tools?
• Are they spending more time on social platforms like YouTube,
• TikTok, Instagram, or other social media platforms?
• Are they seeking more visual content to inform their decisions?
• Are they using forums, communities, or Q&A platforms to ask questions about your products or services?

By diversifying your content distribution while maintaining visibility in key areas, you’ll stay top of mind for your audience, ensuring they can find and engage with your brand wherever they are.

How do I find where my audience is searching?

Start by creating audience personas and gathering topics you want to focus on. Based on this information, utilize different audience research tools like SparkToro, Audiense, and/or BuzzSumo to gather more details on:

• Who your audience is
• What their interests are
• What content they consume
• Other account information based on who they follow

For example, SparkToro can show you the social networks most likely used by users who search for specific queries or topics (see screenshot below).

Pay attention to the specific platforms that your audience is currently on, and optimize your content for those platforms to be more visible.

How can I be more visible on these other platforms?

As your audience engages with a wider range of platforms and as their search intent shifts, relying solely on written content like blogs is no longer enough to reach them.

One of the biggest issues that we see time and time again in the industry is brands falling victim to this mentality and this idea that they can just create things, create content and the world will be theirs instead of focusing on the distribution of that content. What I’m saying is that we need to think like a modern media company. Modern media companies like the folks over at Masterclass, where when they create a product, it’s essentially a series of content assets, right? — Ross Simmonds

To stay visible across different channels, tailor your content to where your audience spends their time. For instance:

• If your audience frequently uses YouTube or other video-heavy social media platforms, invest in video content that raises brand awareness, builds trust, or guides users to your site.
• On image-heavy platforms like Instagram or Pinterest, focus on creating infographics, short-form videos, or engaging images that resonate with users and align with their search intent.

Different channels favor different formats, so understanding what works best on the places where your audience is active will maximize your visibility and impact.

How can I be more visible on AI-driven tools like ChatGPT?

It’s one thing to make sure your website can be crawled and important pages can be indexed, but in 2025, it’s important to know how to get your website visible on AI-driven tools as well. For example, having your website indexed and visible on alternative search engines like Bing, grants your site the ability to be shared on ChatGPT.

Double-check that you’re not blocking AI tools from crawling your site and use your content to provide accurate and relevant results.

Here are some additional tips from our recent webinar with Crystal Carter on SEO for Brand Visibility in Large Language Models (LLMs):

• Optimize your SEO for visibility on search engines—first. This lays the foundation for visibility in LLMs.
• Build on your branded entities. LLMs rely on sources like Wikipedia, schema, and backlinks.
• Continuously monitor branded queries on different LLMs and correct any misinformation you come across.

You can take this a step further and monitor traffic from LLMs and other AI tools in GA4.

How can I maintain engagement across these different platforms?

The trick here is to go beyond just publishing re-purposed content. You’ll need to participate in discussions where your audience is active. This means:

• Addressing customer questions directly through your own channels, like social media comments or Q&A sections on your website.
• Responding to questions as a person from the business on forums or platforms like Reddit and Quora (if applicable to your industry).
• Sharing expertise in industry-specific groups or communities.

The goal is to be where your customers are—and stay there—this requires consistency. To be consistent, regularly evaluate where your audience is spending time, monitor shifts in user behaviour or preferences to adapt your strategy, and continuously expand your reach across new channels and platforms (as they emerge).

Success depends on context, intent, and how well tactics align with your business goals. SEO often involves a mix of opinions, case studies, and strategies that may not work the same way for every business so it’s crucial to be making data-informed decisions.

We say “inform” rather than words like “drive” or “guide” for a few different reasons:

1. Data isn’t always 100% accurate—something might not be tracked correctly, or some tracking may have broken during a period of time (or not existed at all), giving unreliable information.
2. You can’t track everything—whether it be government regulations on what you can track or more internet users utilizing ad blockers, you can’t always get the entire picture.
3. Data isn’t the only source of truth for your business—goals and other outside context are important when analyzing your data.

Imagine your business sells products that reduce pressure and moisture in sealed containers during shipping. Your website data shows that desiccant pack pages drive the most traffic, but your company is phasing out 50% of its desiccant line by year’s end. Meanwhile, the real goal is to increase sales of breather valves. Even if desiccant pages attract high traffic and conversions, prioritizing them in your SEO strategy wouldn’t align with your business objectives. Instead, focus on breather valves and other high-potential products that support long-term growth. SEO should work in tandem with business goals—not just chase traffic.

Remember, it’s far less costly to discover early that an idea doesn’t resonate with your audience than to spend years optimizing and marketing a campaign that ultimately fails.

How can I start making more informed marketing decisions with my data?

To make informed decisions, your first step is to get familiar with you or your client’s business goals, then confirm your analytics setup is correct. Goals help you build the right setup and choose the right key events to track.

When you’re confident you’re tracking what you need to, get clarity on:

• Your audience’s journey: Where are they coming from? What social media platforms or websites drive traffic to your site? If your data is inaccurate, identifying these trends becomes nearly impossible.
• Your content performance: What content is converting well? If your key events in GA4 (e.g. a button click) aren’t properly set up to reflect meaningful conversions, you may misinterpret performance.

Making data-informed decisions isn’t just about collecting information—it’s about ensuring your data is accurate, relevant, and actionable to help inform effective marketing strategies.

What if I don’t know how to use GA4?

If you struggle to access or interpret accurate data, focus on improving your reporting and data analysis.

At Full Stacks Playbook, our Practical GA4 or Analytics For Agencies courses will help you build a data-informed approach. Learn how to let the right numbers guide you and stop making risky assumptions with inaccurate data!

Every SEO has to start somewhere. Many of us began with no knowledge, slowly learning in an ever-changing field year-after-year. The constant updates, evolving best practices, and overwhelming volume of information can make it hard to know who to trust or where to find reliable advice—not all information is helpful and some tactics can even be deceitful or harmful.

As SEOs, we have a responsibility to uphold ethical practices and share knowledge that benefits both our clients and the industry as a whole. If you’ve tested and implemented a tactic that works and is ethical, share it!

By lifting others up, we build a stronger, more trusting and trusted SEO community. This isn’t just a passing trend; it’s a foundation for sustainable growth and success in 2025 and beyond.

How do I know I’m learning from a trustworthy source?

Here are a few tips to feel more confident about a brand, resource, or individual you’re taking advice from:

• They can admit to being wrong, or feel confident saying “I don’t know”—this type of person is less likely to lie or deceive just to feel smart or relevant.
• They back up their advice with logic or evidence—not everyone can put together large data studies or research, but there should always be some reasoning behind what someone is saying.
• They regularly cite high-quality research—some pieces of evidence are more reliable than others and you should take that into account.
• They change their mind—SEO is always evolving, it’s best to learn from someone who’s open-minded to making a change to commit to doing better.

How do I keep growing as an SEO?

To continue to build on your skills as an SEO professional and “keep [your] side of the street clean”:

• Stay curious and keep seeking out new strategies, updates, and techniques.
• Evaluate whether a tactic is realistic, ethical, and aligned with business goals.
• Test what works, learn from the results, and share those insights to help others avoid mistakes or harmful practices.

It’s time to prioritize quality SEO tactics so we build more valuable strategies that improve performance, create healthier working relationships, and strengthen trust between businesses and their clients and customers.

Header tags, also known as heading tags, are snippets of HTML code that organize your content into hierarchical sections.

Think of them as the outline of your content–similar to chapters and sections in a book. They range from <H1> to <H6>, with <H1> being the most important and <H6> the least.

• H1: The title of the book (main topic of the page).
• H2: Chapter titles (main sections).
• H3-H6: Subsections and supporting details.

Using proper header tags isn’t just about organization—it’s essential for accessibility. When headings are correctly nested by rank (H1 → H2 → H3), screen readers can navigate your content seamlessly, creating an inclusive experience for all users.

Using the correct order for your headings is like writing a clear and organized table of contents. It’s what helps people (and search engines) navigate your page without getting lost. Here’s why getting it right matters:

1. Clarity: The H1 introduces the main topic, and the H2-H6 are subheadings that break down the topic further into additional sections. Using headings makes your content easier for both people and search engines to follow.
2. Readability: Headings let your audience quickly scan and find the information they care about most.
3. Signals importance: Search engines see higher-level tags (like H1) as more critical than lower ones, so using the right tags helps them better understand your page’s structure.

Skipping levels or using headings out of order can confuse both your readers and search engines—so don’t do it.

Let’s put heading hierarchy into action with an example (Swifties, this one’s for you). Imagine your webpage is Taylor Swift’s album Red (Taylor’s Version). Here’s how you’d structure it:

• H1: The album title (main topic)
• H2: Song titles
• H3: Lyrics
• H4: Additional details (writers, composers, featured artists)
• H5: Producers
• H6: Additional credits (musicians, mixing, mastering, etc)

Your H1 is the most important heading and represents the entire page’s focus. This tells readers and search engines what the page is all about, so in this example the H1 is: Red (Taylor’s Version)

Each song is like a chapter in a book. These are your H2 headings because they are the major sections under the album.

For example:

• All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)
• 22 (Taylor’s Version)
• Nothing New (feat. Phoebe Bridgers) (Taylor’s Version)

These headings are equally important and sit directly beneath the H1. They tell users and search engines that these are the major elements of the album being discussed.

Within each song, you might want to add subsections. For example, lyrics would fall under their respective song as an H3 heading “Lyrics” that directly relates to its parent H2 heading (the song title).

Let’s say you want to include details about each song, like who wrote it, who composed it, or featured artists. These details would fall under H4 because they are more specific and belong to the “Lyrics” subsection:

• Written by Taylor Swift
• Composed by Taylor Swift & Liz Rose
• Featured Artists: Phoebe Bridgers

These H4 headings are linked to the H3 heading because they provide deeper information about the lyrics of a specific song.

When your content is easy to read, navigate, and understand, everyone benefits—users, search engines, and even accessibility tools. Here’s why header tags are such a big deal:

For Users

• Improved readability: Clear headings help users scan content and find relevant information quickly.
• Guided navigation: Properly structured tags create a logical flow, making it easier to follow your content.
• Promotes accessibility: Screen readers use header tags to navigate through content, making them essential for creating an inclusive experience. Properly nested headers ensure users can find the information they need without frustration.

For SEO

• Improved crawling: Search engines use header tags to understand the main topics of your page. Clear structure improves their ability to index your content accurately.
• Keyword placement: Strategic use of keywords like “SEO header tags” or “heading hierarchy” in your headers can boost relevance.
• Ranking potential: Well-organized content has a better chance of appearing in search results because it signals quality and relevance.

Now that you understand what header tags are, how to use them, and why they are important for SEO. Here’s how to best use header tags to improve your SEO and user experience:

1. Use only one H1 header tag. This makes it as clear as possible to users and search engines what the topic of that page’s content is about. Remember, your H1 doesn’t have to be the largest header tag on the page.
2. Follow the hierarchy. After your H1 break your content into sections with H2s, H3s and so on. Don’t skip heading levels or mix them up. The goal is to keep everything neat, organized, and easy to follow.
3. Don’t overthink the header tag number. Don’t worry about using multiple H2s or H3s, what really matters is the structure not the header tag number. As long as it makes sense based on your content.
4. Start all content with an outline. This will help you organize your headings by your primary topic and related sub-topics.
5. Perform keyword research. Keep your keyword research close by and perform additional keyword research as needed so that your headings are keyword rich.
6. Review Google’s SERP (search engine result page) for high ranking pages on your topic/search query. Make note of how they structure their content and what keyword topics they include in their headings—following a similar structure can help you rank as well!
7. Keep the user journey in mind based on the user intent. Consider the user journey based on your page’s purpose. What action do you want users to take? What information will help them take that next step? Let these insights shape your content outline to align with user intent.
8. Be interesting and write for people first. Of course you want your keyword in a heading, but incorporate it in a way that speaks to your audience.
9. Be consistent. Whether you use title case or sentence case, you want to follow suit across all of your header tags.

Remember, always prioritize your audience—write for humans first and let the structure guide them through your page. If your headings are clear, logical, and helpful to your readers, they’ll naturally make sense to search engines too. Use these tips to create content that performs well in search results while helping your audience!

Having a prize to give away isn’t enough of a reason to have a contest. Ensure you get the most out of your online contest by answering the question, “what do you hope to accomplish?”

Are you looking to raise awareness of your brand, increase the number of followers to your page, get newsletter subscriptions, or gain exposure for certain products?

Knowing what your goals are will help guide the process (and will help determine if the contest was successful when all is said and done).

Once the goals have been outlined, it’s time to set up the contest. This is the most time consuming step, but taking the time to set up the contest properly will help avoid problems down the road. Here are a few things to think about:

Choose Your Platform

Determine whether the contest will run on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Choose one platform and stick to it, while using your other social networks to cross-promote the contest. Hosting your contest on one platform helps avoid confusion and eliminates having to tailor the contest to fit the different rules on each platform. It also makes it easier to select a winner and analyze the results.

Using a third party app can help you execute a contest, and many have free trial plans or versions that are free up to a certain amount of entries. Popular options include Woobox, Wishpond, Shortstack, and Rafflecopter.

Decide the Type of Contest You Want to Have

How will contestants enter the contest? Do they have to like your page, share a photo, tag some friends, use a #hashtag? There are many different types of contests (most popular include Sweepstakes, Photo/Video Creation, Share, Like, Vote), and each one comes with its own pros and cons. For example — a sweepstakes contest, one that asks users to provide their name and email to enter, is the easiest for users to enter but has a low engagement rate. A photo or video contest has the most potential to go viral but requires a lot of effort from contestants.

The easier your contest it is to enter, the more likely it is that people will enter! Making the contest too complicated (ie. too many steps, having a long form to fill out, etc.) will deter people from entering.

When collecting contestant information, only collect information you really need. Asking for more fields than necessary leads to lower participation. When asking for email addresses be sure to include CASL information.

Know the Rules

Every social media platform has their own rules for running a contest. Make sure you know the rules. You don’t want to get banned from the site you are trying to use!

Quick Links

• Facebook Promotional Guidelines
• Facebook Page Guidelines
• Twitter Promotion Guidelines
• Instagram Promotional Guidelines
• Pinterest Advertising Guidelines

Determine the Prize

What will the winners receive? The contests that work best have a prize that is directly related to your company. You want to market your brand and attract people who are genuinely interested in what your business has to offer, not “contest hunters” who only want to win something.

Prize Ideas

• Use your own products
• Gift card/voucher
• A unique experience that can’t be purchased (a great example of this is Dove’s “Real Beauty Should Be Shared” contest, where the winners became the next faces of Dove)

Ensure that your prize is worth the effort it takes to win! If it takes a long time to enter the contest and the prize is small, like a water bottle, don’t expect a lot of entries.

Contest Length

Don’t miss out on contest entries by running your contest for too short of a time. On the flip side, don’t have people lose interest by running your contest too long. Keep in mind what contestants will have to do to enter the contest. If more effort is required, you want to ensure that people have enough time to enter. Also keep in mind if your prize needs to be used by a certain day (such as event tickets), you want to make sure your winner has enough time to pick up the prize and use it.

Clarify Any Rules

Make your contest very clear and easy to understand. Include dates for entry, the steps contestants need to take, and outline how the winner will be chosen and contacted. Be sure to specify any other conditions or “fine print”. Give your followers the total picture up-front.

Create Graphics for Your Contest

Add an eye-catching graphic to support your contest! This could include changing your cover or profile photo, landing page imagery, or creative for promoted posts. Ensure your design team has the specific dimensions for each image. For Facebook contests, it’s important to remember Facebook’s 20% rule when creating graphics.

Here’s a tool that you can use to test your image to see if it will pass Facebook’s 20% rule.

Just because you build it doesn’t necessarily mean they will come. Make sure your followers know all about the contest. Use all the free resources you have: cross-promote the contest on all your social media channels and on your website. If you have a newsletter or a store-front, include the contest information there. Paid options for promoting could include Facebook ads or promoted posts, Twitter’s promoted tweets, or ad opportunities on Instagram.

Ask your followers to share the contest with their social network. You can reward them with extra entries if they share or encourage friends to enter. Using a third party app can make executing and tracking these extra entries easy. Contestants are given a link to share with friends after they submit their entry. Without this platform, users with private profiles may not receive credit when they share the contest.

Once the contest is up and running, check regularly to make sure everything is going according to plan. Conduct daily test entries and answer any posts or messages your followers may have about the contest.

Once the winner has been selected, publicize it! Seeing is believing, and showing off your winner proves the prize was won and the contest was real. Profile the winner on your social media channels, on your website, or in your newsletter.

Your contest is over, the winner has been selected… but was it worth it? Did you accomplish the goals you outlined before launching the contest? Review what worked and what you want to do different next time. How can you make your next contest even better? Depending on the tools you use, metrics that can be reviewed include entry and share rate, new followers gained, social media referral traffic to your website, and click-through rate on links.

Those are our tips for running a social media contest! What are yours? Do you have any contest success stories (or failures) you’d like to share? Please share below in the comments!

Before you start writing, you need to ask yourself, “what do I want the main outcome of this piece to be?” With a goal in mind, you can tailor your content to obtain that goal. Content without a goal becomes convoluted and incoherent, as it tries to do too many things at once.

So before you put that pen to paper (or hand to keyboard), set a goal! Do you want people to contact you about a service? Do you want to sell a product? Or do you want to increase brand awareness? These are just a few examples—whatever your goal is, note it down and keep it in mind as you write.

Note: The goal of this post is to get small-medium sized business owners and non-profit organizations excited about the potential content has when you follow these steps.

You have a goal for the content, but who is the content going to speak to? Hint: there is a wrong answer. If you said ‘everyone’, think again! Your message won’t resonate with every single person—you want to choose an audience (or a persona) that you want to target, and speak to them specifically.

Once you’ve established who you want to speak to, writing will be a lot easier because you’ll know their motivations, pain points, needs, and interests.

Whether you have a marketing team that writes content, or frontline staff that are interested in contributing their knowledge and expertise, it’s important that everyone who writes content for your business sounds like your brand. Even if only one person on your team creates content, it’s important to establish a brand voice so each piece sounds consistent, and also because your brand voice may differ from how they normally sound when they write.

Writing in a consistent brand voice also establishes familiarity and trust with your readers—if they feel like they know you, you’re one step closer to earning their business.

Imagine reading one section of company’s website that was written in a fun and energetic voice, and then reading another section sounds corporate and cold. This will confuse visitors and make them second guess who you are as a company.

To establish a brand voice, think about who you are. What are your brand values? Who are your customers? What does your company strive to be? This can help you answer whether you brand voice should be fun and informal, or smart and professional, for example. It’s also important to think about how you don’t want to sound.

MailChimp has a great example of this on their Content Style Guide. They’re helpful but not overbearing, and confident but not cocky—identifying how you don’t want to sound further defines what you should sound like.

Brand voice is often ignored by many businesses! Having a consistent brand voice can separate you from your competition—do not skip this step.

Creating original and thoughtful content is important. Don’t take shortcuts when creating content—remember, great content takes time.

When creating content:

• Don’t copy/paste content from other sites or sources. (But you can link out to other sources!)
• Don’t look at your competitors websites and think, “I need to do that.” Instead, think, “I need to do better than that.”
• Don’t talk down to your audience.
• Don’t use stock photos that look staged and disingenuous.

Instead, do:

• Highlight what separates you from the competition—do so without saying “we’re unique” or “we’re different because…”.
• Collaborate with experts on your team, or have them write for you.
• Conduct your own original research to create unique content if you have the time and resources.
• Create your own illustrations or take your own photos.

Anticipating your audience’s questions will show that you understand their needs and pain points. By providing answers before they have to ask, you’re removing a barrier that is preventing them from taking action on your site.

The most obvious example of when you’ll answer your audience’s questions is on an FAQ page. FAQ pages are developed to answer repeat questions that come up time and time again, and because they’re common, people look for them. That doesn’t mean your business has to have an FAQ page—you may be able to answer their questions succinctly elsewhere on your site.

Other common places where you’ll answer your audience’s questions are on your about page, in case studies, and on individual product or service pages. Below are a few examples of how these types of pages can answer your audience’s questions:

• About Page — How long has the company been in business? What are their core values? Where is the company based? What’s their story?
• Case Studies — Does the company have proven results for their clients? What types of companies have they worked with?
• Product Pages — How much does it cost? What’s the quality like? How do I use the product? How will the product fit? What do other people have to say about this product?
• Service Pages — What is the service? How can the service help me? How much does the service cost? How are you better than the competition?

Understanding your audience’s needs and pain points is crucial—if you don’t know your audience (as discussed in point two), you won’t be able to anticipate their questions.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will help get your content in front of people searching on Google or Bing. For example, someone searching for “signs you need to call an electrician” will come across multiple posts on the topic written by electrical service companies.

Rand Fishkin’s Whiteboard Friday outlines how to write for SEO in 2018. To do so:

1. Solve the searcher’s query.
2. Include multiple keywords that have the same intent.
3. Include the keywords in the title tag and the body content.
   • Bonus: Use heading tags (h1, h2), include the keyword in the URL field, write a compelling meta description, and include image alt attributes.
4. Use words, phrases, and concepts that are commonly associated with your query.

Keep these points in mind, and you’ll be well on your way to writing content for SEO. (But don’t forget to put your audience first when writing!) Rand’s last point is something you don’t have complete control over—engagement. By answering your audience’s question and keeping them engaged with your site, you’ll show Google that your content has fulfilled the user’s query. If they hit the back button right away, Google will think that you haven’t answered their question, and may change how they rank your page on the topic.

Medium conducted a study which showed that 7 minutes is the average read time for their blog posts. (Medium estimates read time using the average reading speed of 275 words per minute, meaning that a 7 minute blog post is about 1,925 words long.) Does that mean every blog post you write should only take 7 minutes to read? No! Medium concluded their study by saying,

“What it does mean is that it’s worth writing however much you really need. Don’t feel constrained by presumed short attention spans. If you put in the effort, so will your audience.”

The main takeaway here is: there is no optimal length for content. Whether it’s content on your about page, a service page, or a blog post, write until your point is made! It’s important to get your main point across while also being clear and concise. Which brings us to our next point…

You can put a ton of time and effort into great content, but if it isn’t easy for your audience to read, you’ve wasted your time. Here are a few examples of things you can do to make your content look good:

• Add images to provide visual interest and break up large sections of text.
  • Tip: If you can’t take your own photographs or make your own illustrations, check out Pexels or Unsplash for free stock photos. Choose photos that don’t look too staged!
• Use subheadings to separate your content into sections—this makes it easier for your audience to pick out what they want to read.
• Use an appropriate font size and line length, to make your content easy to read.
• Make use of different formatting, such as bullet points for lists and bold text or block quotes to highlight key points.

Make your content look attractive! Visitors to your website won’t read your content if there is no visual interest, it’s hard to read, or it’s formatted poorly.

Most of the content you create will be actionable, so be sure to include a call-to-action. Steer your audience in the right direction. Do you want people to:

• Contact you?
• Sign up for your newsletter?
• Buy your product?
• Book an appointment?
• Sign up for a free trial?

Avoid using ‘submit’ as your call-to-action—be clear about the action you want your audience to take. Examples of clear call-to-actions include:

• Get in Touch
• Subscribe
• Buy Now
• Book Your Appointment
• Get My Free Trial
• Download our “Email Newsletter” Whitepaper (sometimes long buttons work great!)

For more information about creating effective CTAs, we recommend reading Joanna Wiebe’s blog.

Are you ready to improve the content on your website? Get organized! Create a content calendar to keep track of your content creation efforts—use it to assign responsibilities and set deadlines so content doesn’t get put on the back burner.

Once you have created great content that you want to get in front of your audience (blog posts, articles, infographics, etc.), promote it! You can have the best content in the world, but if you don’t distribute your content, no one will see it.

Sometimes less is more. Sometimes more is more! Research about who your audience is and an analysis of how people interact with your website can be very helpful in guiding your content process.

Personas have undeservedly gotten a bad rap from some parts of the digital marketing world, because of poor implementation. Let’s be clear—personas must be based on fact, not fiction. If you use real data to determine your audience segments and then narrow down to a persona from there, you will end up with strong, impactful personas. These data-backed personas empower you and your team to measure the actual impact each of your personas has on your marketing budget.

If you didn’t create personas correctly, you’ll end up arguing over whether or not your persona is male or female, or which stock photo best sums up the happy-go-lucky millennial that you’re trying to capture. You will be guessing and assuming, and you know what happens when you assume!

Personas are a tool informed by data and research that define a specific segment of your market.

When developed properly, personas are not:

• Characters for your next great novel.
• Your buddy Gord who really likes your products.
• Difficult to measure.

When you have a good persona, your boss will start nodding their head in agreement when you begin describing the persona. They know this persona! They can picture several of your current clients who match this persona perfectly.

The second important piece is that the persona must be findable and measurable. By findable, we mean that there is a way to target that persona specifically; by measurable, we mean that there is a plan on to segment and track that persona

If you are guessing you will end up failing. Put that on a poster with a rainbow and hang it up in every marketing and advertising agency in the world.

Empathy. Empathy. Empathy. How many times have you heard or read that word this week? It gets thrown around a lot, in the same way that eye-roll worthy words like “authentic” and “unique” and “passionate” often do. But what is empathy?

Empathy is a key characteristic of a successful marketer, and it’s also what separates an okay persona from a good one. Empathy is what lets you become one of your personas and discover what real world things actually affect that part of your audience.

Don’t make assumptions about empathy—do research to discover what empathy actually means for the people you want to connect with. Collecting demographic statistics about age, gender, and income doesn’t produce empathy. Relying on this type of data alone leads to assumptions and “personas” like this:

You need to go beyond this. Ask questions that educate you about who your audience is beyond just simple demographics (that your competitors likely have the exact same access to).

The Canadian magazine Chatelaine does a special feature called “This is 40ish”, where they interview Canadian women between 35 and 45. The questions cover a wide range of topics, including “are you a feminist?” and “do you look good naked?”.

Here are some answers to the question “what makes you unique?”:

Even these tiny story snippets build empathy. You know these 40ish women a little bit better now. Empathy changes people on your website from just numbers on a screen to real people who are affected by your marketing decisions.

You will get pushback when you suggest developing specific personas for your company—especially from people who are used to the idea that you buy a billboard, 80,000 cars drive past every day and then maybe a couple of people will be interested and visit your website or pick up the phone.

If you can narrow down your audience to 1,000 people who reflect who your best client is, and then talk directly to those people in the method that works best for them instead of putting up a billboard and hoping for the best… well, it’s easy to see how that could potentially affect your marketing budgets and results.

When you engage in persona marketing, you end up spending less money on spray and pray marketing techniques.

Your budget is then available to invest in the channels and messages that your personas are actually paying attention to. To put this another way, if your website conversion rate is only 3%, that means that you’re failing 97% of your visitors.

Only in marketing are we allowed to have a 97% fail rate and call it a success.

Put together a list of your best clients. What do these clients have in common? If you are a new business and don’t have current clients to lean on, talk to the clients of your competitors. Please email us if you want to discuss how to effectively make these people feel valued and willing to assist you.

Investigate social media

What do these clients share and where do they hang out? If you don’t already know their social media profiles, you can use FullContact to get their profile information using their email address. You don’t need to be a programmer to get this data, either—they have an Excel spreadsheet you can use. All you need to is sign up for an API key.

If your clients are on Twitter, use BuzzSumo to learn what they tweet about. Use their Influencer search and search for their Twitter @username—for example, if you wanted to view my information, you would search for @danaditomaso, and this is what you would see:

Click the View Links Shared button and you can see all the links Dana recently shared on Twitter. There is even a useful pie chart, which shows that Dana reads The Verge a lot:

You can draw a lot of conclusions about Dana and her online behaviour by seeing these sites that she shares regularly. What do your best clients share?

Pick up the phone

Have casual conversations with your best clients on the phone, and don’t use a script. You rarely gain insight from reading interview questions from a template. Start with some basic questions to get the ball rolling, but then take cues from their answers to build follow up questions. As soon as you go the templated interview route, you open yourself up to perfunctory, bland answers that will do nothing to advance your knowledge.

Embrace the art of conversation and let each discussion flow freely.

For example, if you start by asking why they chose to work with you, and their answer is that they liked your approach, move on to questions that focus on what your client understands about your approach.

“Was it always clear that we would approach X that way?”

“During Phase 2, we shifted our approach based on Y conversation—and we felt that impacted how quickly your team was to respond to Z. What are your thoughts on that?”

We conducted phone interviews on behalf of a client who wanted to find out if their audience was on social media—and if so, what they used it for. Our conversations started off with “what social networks do you use”, and then we would dive into why they joined, who they follow, and what compels them to share something.

Asking something like “would you describe yourself as a Twitter expert” doesn’t work well, but you can ask “how many people do you follow on Twitter?”. If they know the answer, they’re on there enough to be paying attention and that indicates to you that they are a more advanced user.

Ask sales and support

These are the people who know your clients the best. They see your clients at their worst and at their best, and deal with them every day. Start attending sales meetings and listen in on support calls.

• What are the common themes that keep coming up?
• What questions are asked the most?
• What is the number one thing that clients do or say that frustrates your sales and support teams?

Don’t use focus groups

Read this great piece by Erika Hall. If you don’t have time, We’ll sum up—people are really bad at knowing what they want and focus groups are a totally artificial construct. In our experience, one additional problem that comes up is that the loudest person in the room ends up running the show. Avoid.

Tie it together

Through this research, what are the commonalities that you’ve found? How does that fit into your different client segments? One of the tests we use is whether or not we can answer this question for a persona:

I am a (blank)
Who wants to do (blank)
So I can (blank)

When you’re able to come up with several iterations of this formula, you are ready to start developing personas. Remember: this isn’t a creative writing opportunity—these are real people and the attributes you assign to them must be grounded in facts. Empathy first, creativity second.

When it comes to writing out the persona itself, please check out this post by Brittany—it includes a real-life example.

How many personas is too many?

Cap your personas at three to five, at least to start. You may find a brilliant sixth persona down the road and we don’t want to limit you. However, once you start to get towards seven and up, you’ll find that you’re really splitting hairs as to what actually differentiates these personas from each other. Remember— don’t focus on comparatively small details such as gender (unless you work in say, feminine products). That isn’t enough to differentiate a persona.

Now what?

It’s time to turn to data to segment your personas. One of the easiest ways to track personas is via website visits, especially if you have specific landing pages for each persona. If they visit page X, they must be a part of this persona X—very simple. However, you may have a large website, or a complex buying process, which means that it will probably take more than one pageview to determine if a visitor is a specific persona.

In either case, you can create a custom segment in Google Analytics of anyone who has visited those specific pages.

Here is an example of how we did this for a client. Each persona is a custom segment in Google Analytics, based on their visitor behaviour.

• Persona A’s focus is Goal 5.
• Persona B’s focus is overall conversions—there are many different ways they convert.
• Persona C’s focus is Goal 4.
• Persona D is a negative persona—they will visit an informational part of this site regularly, but we don’t actually expect them to convert.

We used letters for the personas in this example—but you should use real names to keep track of your personas!

The Google Analytics screengrab below shows how this happens on the website:

You need to set up each customer segment—this is Persona D, for example:

You can also use the Sequences option to build more complex personas. For example, let’s say you have a tracking URL that you use in bus ads. When someone visits that URL, it will redirect to your landing page using UTM codes, and the source/medium is OOH/bus. This is what that URL would look like, after the redirect:

http://yourwebsite.com/landing-page/?utm_source=OOH&utm_medium=bus&utm_campaign=amazing-bus-ad&utm_content=v2

In the URL, you will notice that we used the campaign name: Amazing Bus Ad, and named the content: v2—it’s important to include a content variable so that you can differentiate between ads.

What we are looking for is a persona who has come to the site via that bus ad, and then looked for more information on a specific topic after viewing the landing page.

This is what that would look like in your custom segment:

Once you have your personas ready to go, use our custom Google Analytics report to create your own report. You will need to edit this report and add in your own goals.

The report also breaks down the sessions by channel for an even deeper analysis. For example, did one persona’s conversion rate improve after you tried new ad copy, and what happened when you tested a new layout for your landing page?

With this data, you will be able to make smarter marketing decisions. You will save time and budget, and avoid missed opportunities. Perhaps Persona A has a 40% higher conversion rate than the rest of your site visitors—well, then you should then invest more budget on this specific persona.

Or, maybe Persona B looked like a great source of new business for your company, but it turns out that they’re a total nightmare for your support team.

Or, a local publication has approached you about an advertising opportunity, but you know based on your research that your personas don’t even read that magazine.

Decisions that have been difficult are now far easier because you have persona-driven data to guide you.

The answers to your marketing questions are out there, living in the hearts and minds of your current and potential clients and customers—you just need to ask the right questions. Getting these answers builds empathy for you and your marketing team, teaches you to build personas that you can actually use and track, and ultimately, these answers will make your customer and client relationships stronger.

Remember: don’t just hope for the best with guesswork and assumptions—ask questions and perform thorough research and you will actually be able to do your best!

If you’ve been signing people up based on implied consent, newsflash, those people do not care about you. They are pieces of paper caught in the whirlwind of your enthusiasm for numbers and metrics, not sales prospects. This is the email equivalent of a cold call, and if implied consent sales conversions constitute a sizeable chunk of your sales then I bow to the master. (Hint: They never do.)

People who are actually interested in you and your product will opt-in. Period.

During the blitz of emails I’ve been getting that say some version of “hey you have to opt-in now so we can share our exciting widgets!”, I’ve learned some valuable things about who has been abusing my email address.

If I gave you my email address to get an email receipt, I did not consent to receive three-times-daily emails about your endless 40% off sales. Every time I see your name I silently wish you ill. Plus I know I don’t have to rush in because apparently you’re on some sort of permanent clearance; I need only wait 12 hours for your next “big sale.”

Yeah, you are getting attention from your customers, these implied consenters. They’re cursing you for spamming them. Not exactly what you were hoping for in terms of brand associations, right?

Your new subscriber list, the one you curated by asking people to join up again, is going to be bursting at the seams with clickers. Metrics nerds, prepare for record-smashing click-through rates.

People who click-through and are interested enough in your product to do so are the holy grail of marketing. These people are your real sales leads.

I receive over 40 marketing emails daily. Most people receive about 416 marketing emails in an average month. But with the introduction of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, that onslaught is going to slow considerably.

People are passively unsubscribing to boring or irrelevant content, and it is a glorious new age. Inboxes are going to be cleaner than ever. So instead of drowning in a sea of daily deals, you stand a better chance of getting eyes on your subject line. Now would be a good time to learn how to write a good one.

Your new job is to convince people they can’t live without receiving your emails. You’re going to have to work harder. You’re going to have to learn more about what makes your customers tick. You can’t rely on mining email addresses from your customer files anymore, you have to create fans.

Admit it, you’re mad because you’ve gotten complacent. You thought the gravy train of email addresses was going to keep going, pouring thousands of unwitting subscribers into your lap.

TL;DR: We all have to up our game. In the meantime, excuse me, I have to resubscribe to the DQ Blizzard Fan Club.

Nine years ago, Yellow Pages reps were still trying to talk people into print ads—for the past several years they’ve switched to pushing them towards what we view as terrible online advertising options and even more terrible Yellow Pages websites.

The Yellow Pages reps continue to tell people the same old BS stories, but they’re getting more insistent as they become more and more desperate. Their FUD runs along these lines:

1. We are the only authorized Google Ads reseller in Canada.

There are two parts to this. First, it implies that being a Google Ads reseller is better than a Google Ads Partner. That’s absolutely not true. You do not receive better rates by working with a reseller — if anything, it costs more and they provide you with less reporting. Secondly, they are not the only authorized Google Ads reseller in Canada.

2. Having a paid listing on the Yellow Pages will improve your rank on Google.

No, not true. But a lie the reps seem to tell a lot, based on what we hear. Check out a Yellow Pages listing. You’ll see that the link to the website is actually something like http://www.yellowpages.ca/gourl/http://www.yourcompany.com— that means that the link actually is a redirect from the Yellow Pages site, not a true link to your site. It may pass along some link value, but it’s of very low quality.

Having a free listing provides you with a small boost for local SEO, but the paid packages at Yellow Pages won’t impact your visibility on Google.

3. The Yellow Pages website gets more traffic than Google!

Absolutely not. The below chart of monthly visitors in Canada will paint the real picture. This data is provided by Amazon’s Alexa Internet, a well-regarded provider of competitive website statistics.

4. We have special ways of making your site show up on Google — no one else can do that.

They’re talking about pay-per-click advertising here. They’re just using the local business options available to any Google Ads advertiser. Nothing secret there, just knowing what boxes to click.

And the worst one of all…

5. If you cancel your ad with us, your ranking will go down on Google.

An absolute lie. Ask them for proof — how will this happen? Ask for specific examples. In our experience, we have not seen any detrimental ranking effects when a client has canceled or downgraded their Yellow Pages listing. If anything, they can improve their reach because of the money they saved and reallocated on better advertising options!

We discussed this issue on Twitter back in 2010, and if the folks at Yellow Pages even noticed, they never said anything. If Yellow Pages was as web-savvy as they claim, they would have picked up on the Twitter mentions by now and gotten in touch.

Updated 2019:

1) Check your contract

We were able to get our hands on a recent Yellow Pages contract, and the terms and conditions mirrored the comments we’ve received here. They put in an auto-renew clause that states that you need to give 3 months notice before your annual contract ends.

2) Call this number: 1-877-909-9356

In many of the comments we’ve received, people have struggled with actually getting a hold of someone to submit their cancellation.

Thanks to Mel for sharing this phone number where she had some success.

3) File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau

If you’re being charged for something you never agreed to, can’t get in touch with anyone at Yellow Pages in order to cancel, or are being hounded by credit collectors, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. It looks like Yellow Pages is actually responding to most of these complaints, but it’s not clear if they’re truly rectifying each issue.

Help stop Yellow Pages

Frustrated by the FUD business practices of Yellow Pages? Here are some suggestions we’ve received from users on how you can draw attention to their tactics:

• Share your story with CBC Marketplace.
• Report an incident with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
• Warn your friends, family, and business colleagues.
• Post about your experience on social media and tag Yellow Pages.

Updated May 16, 2019.