Google My Business Profile, marketing best practices, Marketing Planning, strategic planning

Don’t Let This Common Mistake Get In The Way Of Effective Digital Marketing & Analytics

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As I’ve expressed to fellow marketing consultants, many of my blog post topic ideas stem from being asked the same question by existing or prospective clients over a short period of time, or my need to address the same challenge for numerous clients over a short period of time. Certainly the aforementioned is the driver behind this particular blog post.

How A Common Mistake That Impacts Digital Marketing & Analytics Is Discovered

When new or existing clients engage me for organic SEO work, i.e., for help being found on Google, organic SEO best practices I may initially complete include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Reviewing clients’ Google My Business Profile presence looking for answers to questions related to Google My Business best practices, such as the following:
    • Is the Profile posted to regularly by client staff in the same fashion that they post to social media?
    • Has the client added any appropriate primary and secondary business categories that are available for selection via the “Info.” section of Google My Business?
    • Did the client provide a 750-character-or-less description of what their business is all about?
    • Has the client been receiving positive Google reviews on their Profile?
    • Has the client filled in their hours of operation?
    • Are the clients’ various social media profiles linked to from their Profile?
  • Analyzing data available within a client’s Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts to assess the following:
    • On average, in what position on Google (in Google search-engine results), does a listing with a link back to the client’s site appear?
    • What is the average click-thru rate on listings that do appear on Google – therefore, what percentage of individuals to whom Google serves up a listing with a link to a website in its search-engine results, then, actually visit the organization in-question’s website by clicking on that link?
    • How many individuals visit the client’s website on a monthly basis due to a search-engine search (Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.)?
    • What percentage of all monthly website traffic does organic search/search-engine traffic represent?

Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

Unfortunately, I and my client often find ourselves in a situation where I can’t complete the above-mentioned reviews and analyses to inform other/future organic SEO work. Why? Because of one or several of the following:

  • While the client or an individual or agency engaged at one point by the firm set up one or all three of the above Google Accounts, i.e., Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google My Business, no-one has accessed them in quite some time and no-one knows what e-mail address and password are associated with the accounts. While I can easily share 3 distinct documents I’ve created with instructions on how to add me as a user to the 3 different types of Google Accounts (so I can complete my review and analysis), the instructions serve no purpose because the client doesn’t know how to access the accounts to add me as a user.
  • An internal individual (an employee) at the organization responsible for IT and/or marketing efforts, or an individual at an external organization, such as a marketing agency, has accessed the Google accounts in recent months, but they are no longer employed by the client organization or at the marketing agency, and no-one else at the organization knows what login or password was used to set up the various Google accounts.

An Ounce Of Password-Policy Prevention Is Worth A Pound Of Cure

I won’t use this blog post to talk about possible timely and cumbersome work-arounds should the above scenario exist. Instead, I want this blog post to serve as a warning and precaution for organizations that would benefit from ongoing use of, or reviews of data available in, the three types of Google accounts discussed above. Take measures now to avoid finding yourselves in the predicament described above! And, that’s where a proper login and password policy (known as a “password policy)” comes in – not just for large businesses/employers, but for any size for-profit or non-profit organization.

What Should A Password Policy Include?

We believe these five blog posts from different cybersecurity and corporate security organizations provide great food for thought on what an effective password policy should entail:

Get Started On Creating A Password Policy Today

Sure, there’s always something else that you can allow to get in the way, but creating a corporate policy today can prevent a lot of digital-marketing heartache tomorrow!

Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, digital marketing agency, Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google My Business Profile, keywords, marketing agency, marketing consultant, Marketing Planning, organic SEO, paid search, pull marketing, Search Engine Optimization, search terms, SEM, SEO, technical SEO, Uncategorized, website

Why Our Boston-Area Digital Marketing Agency Specializes In SEO

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As we were pleased and proud to share in a spring 2024 blog post about our Boston digital marketing agency’s and SEO company’s 10-year anniversary, Results Communications & Research has been serving for-profit and non-profit clients for more than 10 years!

After 30 years working in corporate roles, and many of them in marketing and marketing leadership, our Principal, Gail Snow Moraski, decided to launch a digital marketing agency that would allow small business owners and nonprofits the same breadth/depth of experience they’d get from a larger marketing or adverting agency, but at lower rates, and more personal attention.

From corporate roles, our Principal knew a decent amount about paid SEO (Google Ads) because of working with ad agencies (for whom she was a client) on various campaigns, but her knowledge of organic SEO (search engine optimization) was fairly limited. Since she’s always been a very technical and analytical person — characteristics that are required to really succeed at both paid SEO and organic SEO — needing to slice ‘n dice data and use technical skills really appealed to her. So she set out to better educate herself on both organic SEO (tactics that support ranking well in search engine results without paying for a media/advertising buy) and paid SEO (search engine marketing/SEM).

Gail’s first marketing job after completing her MBA with a marketing concentration at Boston University was at a market research firm where she oversaw market research studies for well-known consumer brands. She loves “peeling back the onion,” to see what the data reveals and that’s an exercise she does all day long related to all of the following activities (and many more!):

  • Conducting and analyzing keyword research using Google Ads keywords planner tool or Keywords Everywhere Chrome extension
  • Employing website diagnostic and SEO ranking audit tools to access whether or not an organization’s Google My Business Profiles and/or website are ranking well in Google search results for relevant terms in desired geographies
  • Making and/or recommending organic SEO revisions to websites and Google My Business Profiles, or revisions to Google Ads campaigns, and assessing how those revisions impacted results
  • Employing various digital marketing accounts like Google Analytics (GA4 Analytics), Google Search Console, and Google Analytics to obtain and analyze data to inform current and future marketing strategy and activities.

Plus, per our recent blog post, “Is Social Media Worth It?,” our Principal has always been a bit apprehensive about organizations relying too heavily on social media posts to move the marketing & sales needle. Based on years of analyzing Google Analytics website visitor data and behavior for a diverse mix of clients, our experience has been that social media posts, in most cases, do not generate sales, leads, or inquiries. There are exceptions to this, particularly when it comes to consumer goods and service organizations, but we’ve seen many an organization invest a very disproportionate amount of their marketing $$ and time in social media post creation and scheduling when very little, if any new business, is generated from it. Should all organizations maintain a social media presence of some sort? Sure. You want your organization to be viewed as “relevant,” and social media also creates awareness, the first step in the sales cycle, but don’t expect social media to move mountains.

Given the above, Our Principal wanted to focus our energy and time for clients on marketing activities that most move the sales needle and has always believed that, as long as your products, services, and solutions are ones that research shows individuals are searching to find, why not put a good chunk of your marketing $$ and time in being found by those individuals since they are “hot” leads?

And, quite honestly, our Principal also saw that offering Google Ads campaign set-up, monitoring, optimizing, reporting, and analysis, plus organic SEO services related to employing best practices to support websites and Google My Business Profiles ranking well in Google, separated her from a number of other marketing consultants and small marketing agencies who didn’t offer such services, or have such knowledge.

Let Us Bring Our Passion For SEO To Helping Your Organization Be Found On Google (and other search engines, of course!)

We can regularly be seen on LinkedIn responding to SEO conversations, and we read everything we can get our hands on about SEO. We also passed a number of Google Ads certification exams. Plus, as mentioned above, we constantly test and evaluate ideas for getting our own Google My Business Profile and website, and well as those of our clients, ranking higher in relevant search results. Let us bring that passion, knowledge, and expertise to your organization’s SEO efforts. Reach out today to schedule a complimentary discussion with us about your marketing challenges and opportunities!

Acceptance of Circumstances, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, Search Engine Optimization, search terms, SEM, SEO, website

What Your Google My Business Profile Can And Can’t Do For Your Organization

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As I’ve shared in a number of blog posts, I tend to get my ideas for new blog posts from encountering the same client questions or challenges over a short period of time. Recent questions about Google My Business and its impact on an organization being found for relevant searches in geographies non-local to the organization prompted this one.

Why Do You Need A Google My Business Profile?

  • You want your organization to be found on Google for relevant “near me” and “city” and “town” searches. When I say “relevant,” I mean searches that contain terms related to the products, services, and solutions you offer, such as property management services or roof installation services.
  • Even if, in addition to being found locally, you want to found and hired by individuals and businesses residing far outside of where your main physical address/headquarters is located, you still want and need a Google My Business Profile and you want to embed it on the “Contact page” of your website.
  • Creating/claiming a Google My Business Profile for your organization is just an SEO best practice and no-brainer, because, hey, if you can’t even rank locally, how are you going to rank regionally and nationally? I always say if you try to “rank everywhere, you’ll end up ranking nowhere (unless you’re a household brand like Pepsi, of course.)” And, I’ve always heard that ranking locally via a Google My Business Profile indirectly supports ranking more globally even if it doesn’t directly cause the aforementioned ranking.

So, What Can A Google My Business Profile Do For You?

The answer is quite simple. As indicated above, a Google My Business Profile can help you be found locally, but its primary purpose is not to cause your organization to be found regionally or nationally, even though, as also mentioned above, having such a Profile can support ranking (being found) regionally or nationally in search engine results for relevant search terms, known as “keywords”.

Again, Google My Business Profiles are all about helping organizations be found for local, relevant searches. That was the primary intention/purpose when Google first introduced such Profiles.

On The Flip Side, What Can’t A Google My Business Profile Do For You?

I’ve read that a Google My Business Profile is unlikely to be served up to anyone searching for an organization who offers the products, services, and solutions you do who is conducting such a search from a location more than a two-hour drive away from the physical address associated with your Google My Business Profile. And, as I always say to clients, “the further away the physical address associated with your Google My Business Profile is from the geography in which you hope to be found, the less likely Google is to serve up your Google My Business Profile, and the more likely it is to serve up a competitor’s Google My Business Profile that has a physical address associated with it that is closer to, or in, that specific geography.”

As alluded to above, your Google My Business Profile can’t cause you to be found for searches related to your products, services, and solutions, in cities, towns, states, regions, zip codes, and countries that are nowhere near your physical offices. It’s just not going to happen that having such a Profile is going to be the primary driver of your organization being found for geographies far outside your physical address.

Other Means For Your Organization To Rank Regionally/Nationally/Globally

Fortunately, there are other digital marketing tactics/activities that can help your organization be found by searchers who live or work far from your physical offices. That’s where your website and/or Google Search advertising or Bing advertising (paid search, SEM, search engine marketing, paid SEO) come in. Related to your website, there a number of best practices that our organization can help you to employ to support your organization being found in geographies that extend far beyond your local service area and physical office, and we also have more than 10 years experience in implementing search-engine advertising campaigns for organizations of all shapes and sizes including Google Nonprofit Ad Grant campaigns for nonprofits. Reach out today to learn more, or read more about our organic SEO services.

Uncategorized

Getting To Know MA’s Neighboring State Of Rhode Island: Part 2

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Since we’re all about not having any page of our website be too long to scroll thru, or have so many images that it’s slow to load (a huge SEO no-no), we’re picking up our story of visiting the beautiful and hidden-gem state of Rhode Island in this second in a series of blog posts about our quest to get to know Massachusetts’ neighboring state of Rhode Island better.

Read the first in our series of blog posts about visiting the less-touristy spots of Rhode Island.

Pawtucket/Warwick/Cranston

Last weekend, which was my husband Jay’s birthday weekend, we visited an old mill in Pawtucket that he had wanted to check out that we learned about from one of the ghost-hunting shows we like to watch. The mill, Slater Mill, is an old cotton thread mill owned and run by the National Parks Services. The employee or volunteer we met as we entered the mill was so kind, helpful, and welcoming! And, even though we were too late to attend an official tour, she played for us an 8-minute video about the mill that got us well educated about the mill and other buildings on the property. Definitely worth checking out if you’re a New England history buff!

Next we headed to Pawtuxet Village, a smaller village than Wickford Village (one we talked about in our previous post about RI), but still very quaint and worth visiting. The Village spans sections of both Warwick and Cranston. We loved how a local garden club did so much to make a small local park (Pawtuxet Park) look so beautiful because of the unique and beautiful flowers and plantings, and there was just beauty everywhere with the Village being on the water (It is located at the point where the Pawtuxet River flows into the Providence River and Narragansett Bay.) Loved how the bridges were decorated with flower boxes by volunteers!

We strolled around the Village’s waterfront areas, went into a gift shop with a lot of special items, and had a nice Irish dinner at O’Rourke’s. If it weren’t such a hot night, and one threatened by rain, we would have stayed for live music on the patio!

And, on the way home — for old time’s sake — Jay wanted to check out McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, the former home of the Red Sox minor-league team, the PawSox. One of our very first dates more than 25 years ago was at that park. Jay went out of his way to buy and surprise me with tickets since I had said I was a Red Sox fan and had always wanted to go to a PawSox game. We had many other nice times at games there with family members until the stadium sadly closed (last game played in September 2019)!

While it made me happy to see the stone mascot, Paws, who always welcomed visitors was still at the front entrance to McCoy stadium, it also made me sad to see his paint was peeling…good project for some historical society to take on!

East Greenwich

We drove thru East Greenwich RI on the way home to Braintree MA from one of our other day trips — I believe it was the one to Wickford Village and Jamestown. Even at night, it looked like it was bustling with activity, so I wanted to return, and chose it as a recommended place for a mid-July family reunion on the Moraski side of the family, i.e., my husband’s side of the family. I knew this quaint, seaside town would work well because of it being halfway between where one of my husband’s brothers lives on the CT shore and where Jay and his other brother live on Boston’s South Shore.

Despite it being another pretty hot and humid summer 2024 day, we had a great time meeting up and dining at Blu On The Water for lunch. They have free valet parking and we really enjoyed the “Yacht Music” band that serenaded all of us who sat on the beautiful outdoor deck facing the water. Water that was populated with a ton of beautiful boats to imagine yourself sailing or boating on!

Of course, we all had seafood — what else are you going to have at a restaurant on the water — and I had the chance to try a RI favorite, “stuffies,” something I had heard my brother-in-law rave about related to his former time living in RI. Deliciously seasoned breadcrumbs and various seafood, like clams, shrimp, and scallops are served together in a clam or scallop shell!

After lunch, despite the heat, we walked up a fairly steep incline from the restaurant to the main street (called Main Street, what else?) that boasts lots of shops and restaurants, and even a performance center, the “Odeum.” It was cool and fun to see the tour bus of one of the performing acts parked outside the performance center. Roseanne Cash was one of the names listed on the marquis, so I like to believe it was her bus, since my dad was a huge Johnny Cash fan. But getting back to walking up the hill — it gave us the opportunity to walk under a gorgeous brick arched bridge, and yell “hello” to experience that phrase echoed back to us!

After walking up and down both sides of xx, I had the pleasure of discovering a cupcake bakery, and in keeping with the “cupcake fetish” that I’ve been told by my twin sister I have, I, of course, bought a delicious cupcake with beautiful bright blue frosting from “Silver Spoon Bakery.” The indoors setting and furniture were so welcoming, I would have loved to spend some time just hanging out in this venue with a French feel (remember, one of my first RI day trips earlier this year also satisfied my Francophile needs), but I will return some day for sure, or should I say “bien sur!”

Our family members headed back home after our visit to Main Street, but Jay and I were not done checking out all that East Greenwich offers. We spent lots of time relaxing by the water at Goddard Memorial State Park, after checking out the quaint bridge, and carousel building (it does not currently house a carousel – but was another thing in East Greenwich that reminded me of my dad because of his love of carousels). It appears that the building is now used as a performing arts space.

I loved the fact that the Park was packed with individuals of all ages and there were tons of picnic tables, benches, gazebos, canopies, and other areas where extended families could grab their own spot to spend the day together. Plus, the fact that the sidewalk/boardwalk along the beach/water offered benches to sit in the shade, and there were also shady areas near the carousel where one could look down at fellow Park visitors enjoying the boardwalk and beach below.

Wanting to stop for Mediterranean food on our way home, while at the Park, I typed “Mediterranean food Pawtucket” into Safari on my i-phone, and discovered Shish Kabob. Its hours indicated it was open, so I entered the destination in Google Maps on my phone. But, when we arrived, we were disappointed to find it was closed. Fortunately, we used the same method to identify a place for similar food in Attleboro MA — a city just over the RI/MA border.

Attleboro, MA

We sat out on the terrace at Mediterranean Grill & Pizzeria and I loved how you felt like you were sitting in a garden even though the restaurant was on a busy street. The owner or manager was incredibly welcoming, kind, and friendly, and we experienced the identical with our waitress. We had a fun time chatting with her about how she got into the food business, and filling her in about a favorite Hulu series, “The Bear” (a fictional show that let’s you see the inner workings of running a restaurant and the challenges associated with it. And, the food was quite delicious. I loved the zucchini medley — lots of fresh summer vegetables — plus the vegetable messa platter I ordered, and Jay enjoyed his chicken gyro. I tried some of the chicken in his gyro and the grill and marinade were perfect. Definitely hope and plan to go back to the Attleboro or Seekonk location of this restaurant that makes you feel like family.

What’s Next On The Rhode Island Day Trip Agenda?

Jay and I haven’t decided about the above yet, but we do plan to make at least one more day trip to the Ocean State before summer is over, so stay tuned…