Knowhow Marketing Lab

[00:00:00] Intro & Host Introduction

[00:01:00] AI and Its Impact on SEO and Marketing

[00:15:00] Tech Giants' Legal Battles: OpenAI vs. Musk, Apple's Antitrust Lawsuit

[00:27:30] The Future of Social Media: TikTok's US Challenges

[00:35:00] Advancements in Web Design Tools: Canva and WordPress Updates

[00:45:00] Closing Thoughts & Announcements

[00:00:00] Hello there. So it is Thursday and it is the end of the month, which means it is time again for geeks week. And today we are doing the world, this world and the, this month of the world of marketing. Totally tripped over my words right out of the gate. That's great. That's good. Yeah, startup strong. And of course, my name is Phelan.

[00:00:20] I'm with Seymour digital media. We were focused on search engine marketing. And I'm Greg with Original 72 Creative and we're full service website [00:00:30] graphic design, digital marketing firm in Vancouver. Awesome. And today we're missing Rina and Pip they're doing a peer mentorship program and so they're gonna be, they'll be done fairly soon, so it won't just be the two of us for forever.

[00:00:46] Good. 'cause they're the real show, right? Oh, I wouldn't go that far, but yes I think that this week or this month though, there's been a lot of change, a lot of tumult, especially with the AI [00:01:00] world even in relation to SEO because Google is being back. Has been cagey about it was going to do search generative experience And so they've been a little cagey about when they're releasing it how they're releasing it Apparently they've got a lot of pushback from beta testers That didn't like that.

[00:01:19] It didn't do any citations Which is that's ai's Raised on detras to basically obscure who actually produced it And so it's been interesting to get for them to get that kind of [00:01:30] pushback from people using the platform. And so I think that Google's been trying to find its own, find its way with, getting that much pushback from their own users of we don't actually like this experience.

[00:01:42] And I think that they've been spinning their wheels. I feel like I did get citations when I used Gemini last month for something. Now, I can't recall whether it was in Gemini or whether it was in [00:02:00] OpenAI because I used both as test cases to try to do the same thing to see which one produced me something that was better or how closely they were just to see, yeah. And maybe I thought one of them gave me citations and the other one didn't, thinking back now, I can't recall which one did. Which is even funnier as well, that they give you the same experience, but they are so blurred between them that you can't even tell which one was doing which [00:02:30] thing.

[00:02:30] And they, I think that it's also humorous on their platforms of You don't even know which one's actually telling you what you think you remember. Yeah, I know that apparently the search generative experience is not Gemini. Gemini is it's competitor to chat GPT.

[00:02:46] It's like a replacement for the, like the chat when you type into Google, best dog food recipe or something like that, it's just going to spit you back as like a chatbot response, similar to like how Bing was doing it with their with their AI. What was, [00:03:00] I forget what Bing's was called, but they yeah, that was the main idea that they were aiming for.

[00:03:05] And I don't think that they yeah, they haven't really rolled it out to everyone. Speaking of AI, I keep seeing in the bottom corner of my Windows computer the logo for Copilot. Which is going to be their AI in, in Windows. I assume I haven't done a lot of research on it, but it annoys me when I look down and I see this thing [00:03:30] staring at me in the face and knowing in the future is probably going to be something that, annoys the crap out of me and I just want to turn off.

[00:03:39] Yeah. It's like clippy 2. 0 basically. Exactly. Yeah. It's clippy with a couple of extra steps, basically, like it can do some things, but it also will still annoy you significantly. Just wait. It would be very funny if they just rebooted Clippy as the co pilot AI. And it's just Hey, it looks like you're trying to write a [00:04:00] document.

[00:04:00] Clip. Yeah, that clippy could be the mascot for ai. It's, and I'm sure that would do it wonders. That is definitely a system that would definitely give it nothing but good promotional material. Now it's making me think Clippy was ahead of its time and underappreciated when it came out.

[00:04:20] I'm it was like, what was it, 95 when that came out. That was part of Windows 95, like the clippy experience. So it's it's definitely. Fairly old school [00:04:30] system for it. It was really more guided tours of how to do things than it was like, it was not artificial intelligence, it wasn't a large language model or anything like that, where it was like doing like complicated, like rundowns of when this word said, this is the other word that usually follows it.

[00:04:49] It's more just Hey, it looks like you're writing a work document, but you want some help with that. But yeah, there's but going off that there's definitely been a lot more news with the open ai stuff of [00:05:00] elon musk has decided that he's suing sam altman and the open ai and so that's but that's related to like them changing from non profit to a for profit or Limited profit they like they were in some weird classification.

[00:05:14] That's like Just seems very made up. But basically was there to take on an investment And that one's going on. Also, Sam Altman got booed at South by Southwest, which is usually very pro tech, which is a big deal in that kind of those circles to [00:05:30] get that kind of exposure. And then as well, was there any context to why the booing of him, or is there something specific that people are unhappy with open AI at the moment?

[00:05:44] Or. It mostly because open AI has led to massive layoffs at pretty much every big tech company, right? So it's pertaining to what AI is doing in the job marketplace. Yeah. So basically when it was like [00:06:00] Uber and it was going after taxi drivers it didn't affect the tech people that were doing that, but now the AI has shrunk one ring further in, and now it's coming for the tech guys jobs.

[00:06:10] And so now they're realizing like they're getting left outside the wire as it more jobs try to get automated away. And so they're unhappy with that part is like coding jobs and stuff like that. Like some people are saying they're trying to get rid of like junior developer positions and stuff like that as well, because you can do it with chat, UBD, which is true up until [00:06:30] you realize that like eventually your senior people are going to retire and then you're not going to have a next generation, like the reason why you trade.

[00:06:37] Train people like that is because you need the next generation to step in and do those jobs and Yeah, you're just not gonna do it. But that's just me thinking like more than you know a quarter a quarterly profit report and so yeah, that's the big one that's been going on with it there's been a lot of pushback when it comes to How open ai is interacting with tech [00:07:00] jobs as it's taking up more and more bandwidth as well Not even getting into, it's also pissed off a lot of other people because it's eaten up a lot of the graphics cards as well that would have been going to Bitcoin and stuff like that.

[00:07:12] Now they're being redirected to OpenAI and those kind of guys that are eating up more server space as well and so it's increasing costs across the board because It turns out that AI is not like some magical thing. It turns out it's just a lot of computing power that requires like [00:07:30] big data servers to compute all this stuff.

[00:07:32] And it takes a lot of work to do. And so it's pushed out a lot of other people because they have the 10 billion from Microsoft to do that. So yeah, it's causing it. I think it's just, it's causing a lot more waves in the tech community than they were expecting. And so I think they're getting a lot more pushback now as people are realizing that it's coming for them.

[00:07:54] And Yeah, I know there's a lot of AI being built into a lot of the web [00:08:00] platforms that that are in use the the theme and services that I tend to gravitate to building my sites, I know AI is being built has been released and built into all of that stuff. Being able to generate content, relevant content to your industry on the fly and into your site is is in there.

[00:08:23] And that's very helpful for. For people to build a site and get like a base. If you don't know what [00:08:30] you're going to start with, or even a developer like myself, who hasn't maybe received content from the customer to create layouts with some type of relevant to their industry information to give them a preview of what.

[00:08:46] Their site could look like and layout. Because I've found in my time doing web development, it's always been the hardest thing for me to get content [00:09:00] from the customer because they know they need a website and I'm like, okay, we can build a website, give me what you want to put on your website and I'll start creating designs and layouts with that.

[00:09:14] Content, but they're like I don't know what I want to put on my website. I just know I need a website, creating designs and layouts from thin air with something you don't know, even what they want to put on there is always been like a a hindrance to [00:09:30] being able to do projects efficiently.

[00:09:34] So I agree with you that AI in a lot of ways has been super helpful for If like you're working and it extends what you're working, I think that's a good use case. And I definitely think that it that's where it should be going and putting its efforts into. I just get nervous when they say Oh, we can replace our entire like support team with chat GPT.

[00:09:57] And it's no, the reason why I'm getting ahold of a [00:10:00] person is because it's a complex situation that needs like a person to look at, to understand, like, All things coming in I just get nervous when there's like the company Klarna that does all the those Pay, monthly payments for e commerce fired 90 percent of their support staff at least with chat gpt as a cost saving measure and it's you're dealing with like money and complicated transactions.

[00:10:22] It's I don't, I get a little nervous when I think that they could just like, magic wand away, like all the [00:10:30] complexity and just like going back on a couple of weeks ago, how we had the Air Canada situation where they're. Chat gave a customer wrong information and now we'll probably get their, whatever refund for the ticket or so just situations like that are sure to come up in the future with these things.

[00:10:52] So when you're dealing with a payment processor and customers who are, getting their [00:11:00] information from these bots or AI. If it's not going to give it the right information, what kind of implications could there be from in that industry with if it gives out the wrong information?

[00:11:13] Yeah. And it's definitely one anytime you're dealing with like support and it's in, it's involves something about payments though. That's when people are going to be the most high tension when you need people. It's the easiest because like people are going to be upset when there's money changing hands and they got charged something they weren't supposed to or they [00:11:30] were supposed to keep in mind like that's like the highest tension or where people get the most actually which is understandable it's like your livelihood is getting affected by this company and if it's just some like Chattopadhyay response and it's like making stuff up which you can do like in the Air Canada situation Like that'd be very frustrating and you yeah, what are the safeguards?

[00:11:49] What are the responsibilities? I think that we still haven't figured that part out so I think that I think that there's a lot of Issues still on the table with the AI that are still [00:12:00] working themselves out but also speaking of Court cases one of the big ones that happened this week is going to be the Apple got sued by the federal or the U.

[00:12:10] S. government for monopoly practices. And what's interesting about it is that it's mostly focused around like banking and automobiles, which until I learned more about it which we've got an article by Matt Stoller who does a lot of the antitrust stuff. That's his beat as a reporter. And so he dove [00:12:30] into it.

[00:12:30] Apparently what had happened is if you use Apple Pay. What had happened is they had so many people using Apple Pay that then Apple turned around to the banks and said we actually want a percentage of the payments that you process. And because they've got such a lock on that segment of the market that they said we know that these people are going to be stuck using Apple Pay.

[00:12:52] We want to be paying them. compensated for from the banks, and so now they're making the banks pay them, as well as auto manufacturers [00:13:00] that like, I'm familiar with android auto, but i've never used like the apple version, but Also, I my car is like ancient so I don't really I think there is not a computer to be found on my car And so i'm not really the target market per se but like apparently the auto industry is like similar to the apple pay where they're like We know that like X number of people are using Apple, so we want you to route like even your sensors and everything are all going to go to the iPhone [00:13:30] and we're going to make your Auto OS.

[00:13:33] So like the operating system that they use is going to connect to the Apple system and that's how they wanted to set it up. And so they're being sued over monopoly practices, which. Yeah. I'm curious. I I don't know a lot about the the auto stuff because I don't have a vehicle that would integrate either with the, Apple or the Android.

[00:13:56] But my sister has a vehicle that she [00:14:00] hooks up with with her iPhone. So I don't know. I'm curious if her vehicle is specifically for. Apple or it has the same functionality if you were an Android user. Yeah. So the issue in question is I don't know the details, but apparently it's that the auto manufacturers ratted on Apple because it was going to be in the next year's.

[00:14:28] Cars, the likes of the [00:14:30] 2025 cars. So it was, they were getting ahead of it. And I guess that this had leaked to the U S state that this was going to happen. So it hasn't, they haven't actually implemented it yet. It's more of that. Apple has been strong arm in them. They've been, the auto manufacturers slow walk doing it.

[00:14:46] And so now they're at a crossroads where it's they're Apple's kind of been caught saying Hey, we're going to make you do this. And so that's where they went to the government and said, Hey could you get them to stop doing [00:15:00] this? And so it's more, yeah, it hasn't happened yet.

[00:15:03] It's more, everything's interoperable right now. It's more like this was Apple's plan in the future. Of course, like Apple's been trying to have their own car as well for last, I think, three years. 2010 is when they started wanting to have their own car. And they just, apparently they just can't make it work.

[00:15:20] I can't remember, but I did watch when whatever senator who was speaking in Congress [00:15:30] about the lawsuit being filed. He did list off a bunch of examples of the monopoly. Situations that they were being sued for. And to me, he was talking to and referring to a lot of things that have already happened or they've done already in the past.

[00:15:57] Oh yeah I absolutely, yeah, they've, [00:16:00] the, just looking at the app market, right? Like you only have two people that you can buy an app for your phone from. And you have no recourse if they decide that they're going to pull your app or if you violated some TOS, then you have no recourse. And Apple's already done a lot in that way.

[00:16:15] And also the so I get to use one of my favorite words cause it has an asphyxiated S. But they are also a monopsony. So they're not only a monopoly, like meaning that they're the only people that sell the product, but they're also the only buyer, [00:16:30] like one of the major buyers of a product as well.

[00:16:32] So they're also like, because they have such pull with like chip manufacturing with that they can redirect how companies interact with them as well. And they're not the only ones, obviously, like we have a lot of people that are like number one buyer But they're definitely in the hardware market are pretty big up there that they, because they command so much money that like you have to bend your to their will in a lot of ways.

[00:16:58] And so I it's done a lot of [00:17:00] distortions. I'm glad that. The government's looking at them to see what they can do to break it up and not have it so concentrated, because I don't think it's been very good for most end users. , oh. We should probably move on. We have we.

[00:17:16] I was going to do a segue for this one. Not enough. Speaking of senators listing off potential crimes of a a company. We also have the biggest news that we were talking about with social media, which was TikTok getting banned. [00:17:30] Sorry. I was like, That was where I was going, but you had a much better transition.

[00:17:34] Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I, as soon as you started talking about the senators in Congress, I was like, yeah, that's the transition. That's the turn point. Yes, thank you for loving that word. That, that is a great word that I like to use. But yeah, the TikTok ban. So that is a potential. Okay.

[00:17:51] Sorry, someone just mentioned TikTok getting banned. So there's, it's not a ban. It is a forced selling [00:18:00] of the company to American whole and a company that's hold in America. Yeah. So that's it's, it's easier to say TikTok getting banned in the U S is an easier headline to write than is being forced to get sold to an American company.

[00:18:14] But basically if that doesn't happen, the ban would, they would try to ban it's use in America. I just, what I understand it as. Yeah. Yeah. So what they would try to do [00:18:30] my understanding based on what I've read about it is that they're just basically, it's a Singaporean company currently that has a Chinese product.

[00:18:39] Parent company and what they're trying to do is force the sale to an american company that'd be more compliant with following You know anything that the u. s. Wants it to do And right now it's past the house and it's going to basically just sit there and probably die in the senate Which is most legislation in the u.

[00:18:56] s And yeah, so it's not it's [00:19:00] I wouldn't stress about it just yet. It's but yeah right now it I don't What they're trying to do is force the sale. And I think you and I were talking about what would be the mechanism to do that? And it's basically that they would make it that any sort of Tik TOK ads, which is how they generate money.

[00:19:17] It would just basically, they couldn't run it because the credit card payment processing would, the processor would be told by the U S government. If you process these payments, apparently it's a hundred thousand dollar fine per [00:19:30] transaction and visa and MasterCard payments. Do up to 10 million transactions a minute.

[00:19:37] So that you could see how fast, if you screw up by one minute, like you were on the hook for billions of dollars. So it would be, they're not like it's, and it's a serious one that like Visa and MasterCard pulled out of Russia, like back in 2022, when the Ukraine stuff went down, because they were like, They were potentially gonna get banned and so they just preemptively were like no we're not even gonna process it because if we [00:20:00] have a record that we had done that no We're just not even gonna come close.

[00:20:03] So And so it I don't know how it's going to shake out. My guess is that. So they're trying to, they're doing this to try to force the sale. And the other thing too, is that I heard that the TikTok CEO has flat out come out and said, they're not selling. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I had heard as well is that he said come and take it.

[00:20:27] Which, personally, I think is probably the right, [00:20:30] if I were the CEO, I would just say Pound Sand, come and see what you can do to take it, and really make them work for it, because I just don't, I don't see it happening. I see a lot of smoke, a lot of bluster it's gonna be all bark, no bite. As it pertains to Canada, do you see anything that's happening in the States impacting how TikTok is going to be used in Canada or are we on an island up here and have nothing [00:21:00] to do with if that were to happen in the States?

[00:21:04] I see it as if we did anything about TikTok where it's just. We're just not going to get the service. They're just going to IP block us like Facebook does with sharing news because they have to pay for it. And we can pass all the laws we want. And then there's such big companies that they can just they'll just refuse service to us.

[00:21:23] I just don't yeah. If we did anything like that, we would just, they would just ignore [00:21:30] us basically, or just do just say okay, fine, if you're going to do this, then we're going to pull out entirely. Nobody cares about Canadians anyway, do they? We're only like 40 million people, right?

[00:21:41] Compared to the U. S. We're 41 million now. Oh. Okay, fair enough. I always do 10 percent of the United States. We've almost tracked perfectly. We're 10 percent of the United States population. Yeah. And yeah, like we're basically nobody in as far as the country goes. So we're rounding error for most of these companies.[00:22:00]

[00:22:01] All right, I don't have any great transition into the next, but we should move on with only four minutes left. We have a bunch of other things. One relating to design that I thought was interesting. We don't really have a lot of design related news things that we bring up, but this is a quick one to go through everybody's favorite online tool.

[00:22:21] Canva. Acquired a platform called affinity. I don't know if a lot of people know what affinity is, but affinity basically is an [00:22:30] alternative to some of the Adobe products like Photoshop and InDesign and things like that. They acquired affinity and are thinking that will give them.

[00:22:44] Affinity, a little bit bigger of a boost in the AI push because Adobe has been putting out so many AI features in their design platform. And I guess Affinity has not been able to keep up. Because [00:23:00] Canva has AI already built into a lot of it. That acquisition by Canva, they feel that it'll be a good merger to bring AI quicker into the Affinity products to keep up with competition between Affinity and Adobe, or have that alternative that doesn't just fall by the wayside because they can't implement that quick enough.

[00:23:24] So that should be interesting to see over the next. Yeah, no. That's definitely interesting. Cause yeah, [00:23:30] Canva still, and Canva has pretty deep pockets as well. They're like a billion dollar tech company from Australia. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's definitely interesting to see them go into a bit of a race with Adobe, which is bound to happen.

[00:23:43] Cause Adobe is one of those weird companies that you don't realize that like Google analytics is a company. Big response to Adobe analytics. It's that's how old they've been around and how long they've been doing this kind of stuff at an enterprise level that they've been. So yeah, it's interesting to see [00:24:00] the rivalry come to the ground between Adobe and canvas or especially in the race.

[00:24:06] Cause I know that's an interesting one as well with the AI stuff that's circling back to like jobs and stuff that a lot of people say that the AI implementations on Adobe are some of the best. That have happened because they're like, they actually speed up doing a bunch of like weird finicky design work that would that used to be, like a mainstay of what people would do, but like with the AI stuff, it actually does a pretty good job at, extending a photo a little bit or [00:24:30] like erasing stuff from backgrounds.

[00:24:31] Like it actually does it pretty quick. Yeah, used in the right context and for, business purposes, like creating graphics for, whatever your design whatever kind of things you need for your site it's effective. But just in general, that's aside from being able to.

[00:24:49] The fact that you can manipulate images into things that maybe are questionable or not real. . Yeah, the downside. , yes, that's a [00:25:00] AI images. But yeah. And then our last bit of business sorry, I'm, we only have a couple minutes last Oh, yeah. No. I was gonna do the transition to the last bit of business of yeah.

[00:25:10] The biggest I guess would be the word for WordPress. We've got six. It was scheduled for release today, actually but they pushed that off for a week till April 2nd to do further testing and another release candidate. A couple of the [00:25:30] notable things coming out in the next WordPress is that it will have a fonts library.

[00:25:35] So it'll be integrated so you can get all of your Google fonts directly within WordPress now. And I know that's been something that's been built into a couple of themes, but it'll be available in WordPress. Custom field blocks is another interesting one that I'm looking forward to seeing what that's that's all about.

[00:25:57] There's also going to be plugin [00:26:00] dependency notifications. So when you look for your plugins, You'll see dependency checks if things are now, if other plugins are now required, or I don't know if it has anything to do with potential conflicts, but when you go into the plugin area, you'll actually see a plugin dependency section, and it'll give you some information on whether that plugin requires something else or what have you.

[00:26:29] So [00:26:30] that'll be useful. Yeah. And then sync patterns are going to get more powerful and there's a handful of block editor improvements coming with this release. Nice. And then also I want to touch on Astra theme and Rank Math both had major vulnerabilities. So if you are using either of those, make sure to get the updates once they fixed that issue.

[00:26:53] Yeah. I like how we saved that important stuff for last. That's all kind of important. This wasn't like [00:27:00] anything was like. Superfluous. People need their TikToks and people need to know if they're going to get laid off because of AI. But yeah, for sure. That was everything we identified for this month.

[00:27:13] So that's good. Yeah, that's pretty good. And it leaves us just to say thanks for watching and you'll, you will be seeing me next week on, I believe I'm going to be doing a live about what the special guests that's going to be talking about [00:27:30] sales as an agency or. Awesome. Is next week with Ashley or is she I thought it was frantically checking.

[00:27:40] I thought it was going to be. It's going to be with Oh, we need to update the banner, but I believe that mine next week with Oh, you're meeting with Darby. I think Darby. Yes that's correct. And we're going to be talking about agency sales. And yeah, we'll be keep your eyes peeled for that one.

[00:27:56] And in the meantime I'll post the Apple [00:28:00] monopoly right up as well in the comments in cyberpunk geeks, marketing mixer where you can join us and continue the conversation there and my name's Phelan and I'm Greg. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you. Bye for now.

0:00 - Introduction and Special Setup
0:34 - The Evolution of Networking in 2024
3:41 - Strategic Use of Landing Pages for Networking
10:27 - The Dos and Don'ts of Digital Business Cards
14:22 - Integrating Networking Efforts with CRM Systems
24:35 - Emphasizing Curiosity and Genuine Interactions

[00:00:00] So today we're not on a traditional setup because it is Pip's birthday. So we're out of town. Yeah, we're very excited about that. And but we still wanted to do the live today because we never want to miss it if we can help it.

[00:00:11] And especially today, cause we're so excited with the topic, which is going to be networking for freelancers. And so to do that, I brought in a help of our friend Aura McKay, who's a networking specialist. Hello. Thanks for having me. It's super exciting to get a chance to participate in front of the camera on GeeksBeak because I'm [00:00:30] so used to watching you guys live and sitting by with my pen and paper.

[00:00:34] But thanks for this opportunity. I'm excited. Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. I know when we were doing the prep, we were pretty got, we had, it was a lot of fun back and forth of just figuring out ways to like maximizing your network because I think in this world of 2024, though, in person events are becoming more the norm and they're, things are shifted.

[00:00:52] And so a lot of people are going for these in person meetings. So we thought we'd give some helpful tips for you guys to get the most out of it to make sure [00:01:00] that, you're. You've got so many avenues to do for sales and marketing. And so it's, if you're going to do that, that you're making sure you're getting the most out of it.

[00:01:08] One of the things that I really love about network marketing and networking is that it really leverages the whole zeitgeist we're having right now, which is relationships. And people want to know they're connecting with real people. People care about people in a different way. So building and nurturing relationships through networking and expanding.

[00:01:27] Expanding your network to take advantage [00:01:30] of things like referrals and word of mouth. I know that's one of the ways that Seymour digital has grown has been because you do such great work for your clients And then they tell two people and then they tell two people and so how can we? Leverage networking and be able to track what we're doing, be able to know whether it's working and not have it be just like I don't know.

[00:01:55] It's word of mouth. I don't know where the clients come from. So that's really what I'm excited [00:02:00] to talk to you about is cause I know how to get the network, but then how do I, how do we track it? How do we make sure that we're really. Gathering the data and understanding the conversion path of in person network.

[00:02:17] Yeah, exactly. Cause I think that another kind of refrain about this that kind of came up was like the quality over the quantity. Like you're trying to talk to the right person at the right time. And what does that look like? And so you're trying [00:02:30] not to look for a huge numbers game per say, because that's just not how the business operates because it's really one or two people.

[00:02:37] And you've been in that room where there's that one person that's got a stack of their business cards and they're like, you get a business card and you get a business card and you get, and they're just trying to collect names. And that's not ever been an effective way to network well. I don't know what ever, but it's not, in my opinion, it's not a very effective way to network.

[00:02:57] And it's like marketing online, the [00:03:00] more targeted your message, the more focused who you're trying to attract and connect with and build those relationships, the more successful your efforts going to be. So that's definitely the first thing is to be selective about who you connect with. But I really want to go into like, how can we.

[00:03:20] Track that. Like, how do we know we're connecting with people who are going to take action and come and engage with our content and who are going to take the [00:03:30] action after meeting us in person or even online? Like, how do we measure that or track it? Yeah. Yeah. Cause I think that when we talked about was having like a dedicated landing page for the event.

[00:03:41] So if you're going into an event and I've got, the, these type of people are going to be there. You can tailor a landing page to those people. So the messaging is going to be, say, I don't know, it's social media, but it's instead of sending them to a link tree, which is a very generic kind of like great [00:04:00] tool, but building instead on your own site, a specific landing page to welcome those people that you are networking with and saying, Hey, thanks for connecting with me at the conference.

[00:04:14] This is who I am. This is where we met or even just specific links that you want them to follow next or specific journeys that you want them to take. Cause we know that not everybody who lands on the landing page, it wants to go in the same [00:04:30] direction. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And, or you can also have like giveaways that on there as well, but say you had something that was targeted for Hey, I actually have a giveaway there.

[00:04:39] And so they, you put them into an email sequence. And all you had to do was just have it targeted to them. And it's based on the issue that they're having. And so it's Oh, actually I have something for this. And so how do we measure that? Because I can build the landing page and I can even do something like create a pretty link.

[00:04:58] And I know we've talked [00:05:00] about like tiny URLs or using pretty links to. When we're networking so that we're directing people to a specific kind of trackable page through a pretty link or on a landing page. And that's great. Cause then I can see how many people clicked that pretty link. But what I can't see is what happened subsequently, or even, what was the conversion path that got them there in the first place?

[00:05:28] So how can I set [00:05:30] that up to be able to then, like you were talking, in your knowledge labs about your J4 analytics and okay, you can gather the data, but then how do you leverage it? And so how do we do that? Like, how do we bring that into our analytics? So it becomes part of our conversion path information or our marketing data.

[00:05:52] Yeah, that's definitely a good one. Cause we were talking about, you could use the pretty link to basically make it, so it's a typable [00:06:00] URL. So it's like your domain slash, I don't know, 2024 conference, something that's easy that anyone could type in. And then that pretty link will. Get sent to the landing page.

[00:06:10] And then in the link that you would send them on the landing page, we'll have the UTM parameters. And so that's going to feed in information to Google analytics that it's going to be this user that came from the UTM parameters you get to set. And so now that they're set, Google analytics is going to say Oh, this person that was added.

[00:06:28] At conference [00:06:30] and the medium is like a pretty long, something like that. You could, you can make it whatever you'd like as long as it's legible to you. And you know that these are the people that clicked on this, that typed in this link. And then Google analytics will even store that information.

[00:06:42] And then it's like a step on the journey that it's automatically it'll store that information. Or do I have to UTM parameters myself? You set the UTM, if you're doing like a conference one that's going to be totally targeted for yourself. So maybe you're going to multiple conferences.

[00:06:56] You can have conference, like the source is this conference. And then the [00:07:00] medium is just conference. And so that way you could see not only categorize them by medium meeting conference. But you can also categorize them by like specific conferences and you could say Oh, these people, this conference, they actually spent a lot longer on, on the landing page.

[00:07:14] They were spending like five minutes, but there was no conversions. Whereas these other, this other conference, I only had two people, but those two people like did what I wanted to got my guide. And now I'm, I've got them into my CRM. And so that's a way that you can. [00:07:30] break all these parts out of how to slice the data to be able to look at like different conferences, of course, you've got to be super strategic and like have it planned out of like how you know I think that people forget sometimes that networking can be very strategic and planned out in advance.

[00:07:49] Obviously we don't have any real control over who we're going to meet, but you can make a list of people that you would want to meet, or make a list of the kind of [00:08:00] prospect you're wanting to engage with or the kind of person you're wanting to network with, just like you would with any other marketing tool, thinking about your audience, thinking about what the message is, thinking about what is the next step that they want to having that mapped out.

[00:08:13] And I think people forget that we can be as focused and intentional with our real life interactions as we can be online. Speaking of that, you did share with me something that I didn't know that [00:08:30] when we were doing the pre show chat. Because I'm a super trusting person. And if somebody, gives me their business card and I'm like, Oh, great.

[00:08:39] It's got a QR code. I'm going to scan that. Of course, I'm going to scan that. And then we also talked about okay, digital business cards, are they okay? Are they suspect? And I didn't know that was like a potential danger zone that I was going into there. Yeah. So QR codes, because what had happened is people, you don't really know when you [00:09:00] scan it, you don't know what's on the other side.

[00:09:01] So that's the thing. And so if you're at a conference, I would be more trusting of someone else that's at the conference there than I would be, someone on the street, someone's just put up a QR code somewhere. Just don't scan those ones because you don't know what's going to happen when you scan that one.

[00:09:17] They could be QR codes was like the 2024 risky behavior out there on the street. Kids scan the QR. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, you definitely, you don't want to be [00:09:30] just scanning anything willy nilly. Generally the NFC codes are much safer. So that's the digital business cards where they're they're the same as like any, A credit card where you tap anything like that.

[00:09:41] So they're very set in what information they transmit. Who programs that NFC? Is it the card? Like you have to send it out and then get like basically a bank card, but it's your business information. So my understanding is it works like it's a radio signal that sounds like a specific signal. And then [00:10:00] that signal gets tied by the company that issued that card where you can actually set up like where that redirects to.

[00:10:05] And so you get to like we were looking at Vista VistaPrint with theirs, and they had something called Vista profiles and you would set up a profile and have all this meta information about you. So when they click, they would actually just get a scan of your Vista profile. And so that's how that's how they connected those ones, but they're much more set because you can't hack into Vista's servers to like change where they gets redirected.

[00:10:27] Whereas it's it's [00:10:30] programmable. You can set where it goes. So you can actually set it to go to a special spot where it injects some code and then goes on to do the next thing. And it looks like everything is fine. Yeah. See, your dogs don't even want me to do it. They're like, don't do it. Danger. So I'm, I don't know whether I'm just like two gen X for the digital.

[00:10:50] There's a piece of once you scan those cards at a conference or something and the person walks away, all of a sudden I've got their data and it gets just lost [00:11:00] in my phone. And then I don't know how to find them. And I don't know how to be able to make sure that like I get back to everybody who's digital card I scanned.

[00:11:10] So we were talking a little bit about how do you then move that information from a digital card. To a place that's really powerful. And my like cheap and cheerful old school hack for that is I'll just take a selfie with the person that I want to meet [00:11:30] and then I'll know, okay. I'll know who they are.

[00:11:33] I'll have a better sense of where we met. I will get them to enter their own data so that I don't spell it wrong. And we talked about if we can have a way of our own contact list. Maybe automatically connecting to our CRM. Yeah. That would be. So can you speak more to that one, Phelan? Yeah. Cause there's definitely, there's a lot of avenues that are opening up and [00:12:00] Zapier is most likely going to be your friend.

[00:12:01] And almost 90 percent of these situations is that you set up some sort of automatic like profile gets added that I've linked in my Vista. Like it's going to be dependent on your CRM and the digital business card tool that you're using. Zapier's pretty good when I was looking through that they have a lot of these automations that do automatic imports, and they import them to a specific sequence that you might have in your CRM.

[00:12:25] And then that metadata about them, from conference, blah, blah, blah. [00:12:30] We'll get automatically added as part of the zap. That's what I love about Zapier and things like that is you can actually set it up so it can add really helpful tags for you when it does auto import into your CRM. So then you can customize your automations to be any, anyone who was tagged with this specific conference, etc.

[00:12:50] Or anyone who was added between this and this date that can. Be helpful. Yeah, exactly. Cause then later on, yet, like you said, you can re engage people. Maybe they only made it to the first level. And [00:13:00] so it's like any person that was at the conference that made it to this level. I actually want to send them another follow up email.

[00:13:05] That's about, X, Y, Z thing that I'm now doing that might speak to them. And the more tags you put on users, the better experience you're going to have with this. I think that one other one that I really like that. The other thing that we're just quietly building out is the Google contacts.

[00:13:21] They're actually making a tip to a much closer to a CRM where it has custom fields. It has, and because it's Google, all of the APIs, [00:13:30] like the way they all speak to each other, all these services can talk to each other. So then all of a sudden you could then add, users get added to different lists or you can set them up into a drive or, different ways that you can connect it where these custom fields can really help you.

[00:13:44] Yeah, it actually blew my mind when we were sharing screens and you showed me like the Google contacts. I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's right there in Google now that you're doing that. And it works with your email as well, right? So your Gmail, you can have your contact list and then you can assign [00:14:00] let's tie all these things together of like how you can pull them in.

[00:14:03] It really makes for a pretty good CRM that way though. Streak as well is pretty good for that. Yeah. I'm not a Gmail or a Gmail user in that sense. I'm definitely active campaign and I have my own URLs and stuff that I use for my direct emails. I have a Gmail account to be able to.

[00:14:22] Some of the stuff. But one of the things that I think is really important to think if you get back to networking in real world or [00:14:30] online, is that like at the core, why are we there? Why are we at this networking event? Why are we there in the first place? And I think that a lot of people make the mistake of being at a networking event, trying to get clients.

[00:14:44] And it's not really understanding the buyer's journey. And it's like trying to. Market sort of marketing to someone you're trying to sell before you've done any of the marketing. And I think that's really important distinction to make. And one of the things that happens [00:15:00] is people get impatient with the process of nurturing relationships, which is why a CRM is important so that you can keep the engaging with people over the longterm and also so you can separate.

[00:15:14] One of the things that I find really powerful in networking opportunities is meeting other colleagues, people who are in the same business as I am that I might be able to collaborate with or network with or have a referral [00:15:30] relationship with. And so being able to identify. This is a person who is a network grower or a connector or a builder or a collaborator, versus this is someone who is a prospect.

[00:15:43] And being able to identify that either in your zap or being able to have a specific pretty link that you send people who are network versus prospects. Yeah. Anytime we can. give ourselves more information [00:16:00] so that when we follow up, we're following up from an informed position about who we're actually talking to.

[00:16:06] I think that's one of the goals. And that's really what you keep talking about failing is how to gather that information, how to organize it and how to read it effectively. Yeah, exactly. And it's, yeah, I would say that it reminds me of analogy is you want to have like your hopper filled. You're not going to have everyone at the very end of the process. You want to have people all throughout so that if there's ever a situation where it's oh, I need more [00:16:30] prospects at this point, like whatever that happens to be for your own funnel or your own sales process that you don't have, you don't have too many people coming at you, like ready to buy right away and you're overwhelmed and then you're just have too much work and you can't get it done.

[00:16:43] You also don't want to, so you want to have a nice and consistent. So this is also where the CRM really helps you where it lets you know where each of the funnel is. CRM and or database, because one of the things there's a couple of books that I have read recently on [00:17:00] networking and and it's absolutely extraordinary how businesses can be built just on word of mouth, referral, networking, connecting who, and not needing to be online at all.

[00:17:13] It is entirely possible to grow that kind of a business. And the important thing though, is that you see. You still need to be able to have that database or that CRM tracker to be able to say, Oh, I know an SEO person that would be great for that [00:17:30] business. So even doing that ability to connect people in your network to be that connector yourself is such a value add for all of your relationships.

[00:17:40] So I like a CRM, maybe it's a notion database, but being able to use those tools to be able to nurture those sort of farther outward networking relationships. Do you have any thoughts about like tools? Specifically that you would use to recommend that I [00:18:00] recommend. Yeah, definitely a notion.

[00:18:03] It would be really good air tables. Also really good as a very customizable table field. Yeah, it's a fun one that I always get a little overwhelmed, like like notion where it's just, so you have too many tools and it's a blank slate, I would find those to be a little I, your mind wanders a little too far of I can do this and this, and then you get nothing done.

[00:18:20] But yeah, it's definitely, you can, and it works. Both ways as well, right? That, like you said, if you build up a network of like potential [00:18:30] people that render services that aren't yours and you're helping other people, it could works the other way as well, ' cause you're gonna be well remembered by the person that you got the work for, that you're gonna come back to you and say, Hey I really appreciate that.

[00:18:41] I actually have someone that just reached out yesterday. They're not a good match for us, but you sent, you would be a really good match based on our conversations. Yeah. And so it's not necessarily direct. It's building out your network horizontally, not just like vertically of like new clients and leads and where they go, but it's also about people that are at [00:19:00] your level and you're helping each other out.

[00:19:02] Because you're not over, you don't overlap per se. And like different people that are doing different services, that it's always good to have for everybody. We don't have to live in this scarcity world of Oh, if I give you work then, Oh, maybe I, there won't be enough for me. Or I really love the book that I really love about this is the go giver, which is we can put that in the show notes later, but it's for sure.

[00:19:25] Yeah. Makes a big. We've been talking about in person networking and then [00:19:30] bringing that data into a tech world to be able to track it and leverage it and use it effectively. I want to just circle around a little bit to online networking, even though we've been doing, zoom rooms and Google meets for several years now, I still go into networking rooms and see people who are missing opportunities.

[00:19:54] For how they're showing up there. And one of them is just being really mindful about [00:20:00] your sign in name, your login name, when you're in a room that often your name is visible. And so I see some people in there that just have Or McKay, all one word, all lowercase. Cause that's just how I signed in and nobody can really read it.

[00:20:15] I often, in a zoom room, I really recommend that you go in and you change your name to be your name. And where do you want them to connect with you? So you can put I G at, and then your Instagram name, or you could [00:20:30] put L I for LinkedIn so that even if People never get to talk to you and they just see you in a room and you're being magnificent and you're helping other people and you're adding value and they think, Ooh, I want to connect with you.

[00:20:42] They have a really clear way to do that. Even if you're not allowed to share in the chat or do anything else still gives you that clear call to action that every time you're anywhere online, you want to have a clear call to action. So I recommend doing [00:21:00] that. What are your. Thoughts about putting links in the chat room.

[00:21:06] Is the, yeah, I definitely like your, yours is like a more subtle, like if someone wants to take that inbound step, I think that's a good way to do that. Part. I feel like people have abused it as well, like those chats and like posting the links and stuff like that, that I feel like it can get a little over, over tired.

[00:21:26] But I think that yeah, it also comes back to the number one rule [00:21:30] of being online, which is being helpful, right? Like as long as you're being helpful, like most people want to meet you, they want to work with you. That's the biggest takeaway I'd have. The other one that kind of came up is like an analogy in my head of when you're doing these in person or online, any sort of networking or meeting people, you should think of it more as like a survey.

[00:21:48] Then it is like you're trying to find out things about what's going on for you? What's hurting? Like, how can if you could fix one thing today, what would it be? Like you're, what you're doing is you're, you should be asking questions to figure [00:22:00] out where they are rather than try to push what you're doing because and you may find that because you may build like a product all by yourself or some solution, and then you find out like, Oh, that doesn't even solve the problem that they actually have.

[00:22:13] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're sitting there like tooting your horn. And they're like, I'm not even in the same I don't, like this isn't relevant to me. The other thing I love about that Phelan is that in psychology, the more that people talk about themselves, the more they like you.

[00:22:28] Yeah. So this is why I say [00:22:30] in networking, let the other person always go first. Be curious. It goes back to Stephen Covey's habits, Seek first to understand before you seek to be understood. And that idea of getting curious about people, you're right. There's so rare that we have opportunities to get in front of our potential target market or our prospects and actually ask the questions like to do primary market research and to say Hey, what is going on in your industry?

[00:22:59] [00:23:00] What are you excited about? What is your challenge? And that's super valuable. So go home and write the notes, because if you're anything like me, you'll hear a whole bunch of stuff and then you'll get home and you'll be like, yeah, that was so great. And the next thing you're like, Oh, what did they say?

[00:23:14] Yeah. So write notes, no habits for sure. Yeah. And it's also, I'd say as well about like mindset as well for you as well, to make sure you have the right mindset when you're coming into a situation. Because like you said at the start, not to get yourself discouraged because you thought, [00:23:30] Oh, I'm just going to come in here, sell a whole bunch and I'm going to make a bandit.

[00:23:34] And it's if you look at it, if you have the right mindset, then you're not going to feel disappointed. Cause you're like I went in this to do market research and I got a bunch of market research and then I also have some prospects. And you just get a little bit of insight. Those little bits of insight are the things that make the difference, which is why.

[00:23:54] Going back and looking at your data is so important. I work with a lot of creatives and a lot [00:24:00] of freelancers, and it seems to be that a lot of them, they just want to like, they just want to go forward. They don't want to go back and look at their archives and come up with a portfolio. They don't want to go back and look at the data.

[00:24:10] They just want to do the next thing. And I think, one of the things that we've, Hopefully shared with our listeners is that yes, the networking is important, but it's what you do after the networking, that's going to make the biggest difference is how you track that networking it's how how much you engage with people [00:24:30] and continue to invite them to what's appropriate for them based on the actions they've taken.

[00:24:36] Yeah, exactly. It's going to be some level of like qualification and quantification. Like you don't want to be overly on one side or the other like in the in quantifying It's only meant to help you figure out oh this like actually figure out the hard numbers about the interactions with the sorry, we're getting a call, I know all these kinds of things. We've got a Facebook user who's just commented that us journalists [00:25:00] absolutely prioritize our portfolios. Yeah, for sure. And I think that there is an opportunity, when you look at prioritizing your portfolio, sometimes some creatives, their portfolio can speak for them.

[00:25:13] Or sometimes depending on where you are in your marketing journey, a portfolio can actually work for you. Oh, Hey Glenna. But sometimes you need words to go with that portfolio, especially if you're wanting to drive people [00:25:30] to that portfolio and you want to invite people to see that portfolio, that's going to take the words.

[00:25:35] And a lot of times those words, can be scraped from the conversations you have in networking if you're going in with that attitude of curiosity. Yeah, as well as you can also tailor your portfolio to those, whatever the conference may be. So you may have somewhere, not all your work is appropriate, but you may have a couple of pieces that are going to really resonate with this type of person because you've known that in the [00:26:00] past.

[00:26:00] That would be a good thing to bring when you're talking to those people. So again, that specific landing page so that you have a specific portfolio that people at that conference would be interested in in seeing for sure. Yeah, exactly. And so I think that, yeah, just being more strategic about Hey, this type of conference or even like maybe there's an event inside of the conference itself that, Oh, I want to hit up I don't know, doing copywriting for SAS companies.

[00:26:26] And that you. Dude, I'm done a good job in the past. That's a really good place to [00:26:30] show up and just be like, Hey, I've got a part it's a way for you to get in front of those people in a hyper targeted event. And so I, it's interesting cause you're like, Hey, I got a portfolio.

[00:26:40] I think that having the portfolio or having that landing page is like your ace in your back pocket. You have it there. Hey, someone asks for it or needs it, but we don't want to be the, here's my portfolio and here's my portfolio. And like the spray and pray maybe you, yeah, I think it goes back to that, like being curious about them, right?

[00:26:59] [00:27:00] Because like you may show up and have a portfolio, but if you just talk to them and oh yeah, it totally makes sense. I've seen that with other people in your industry, you're being interested in them. That's going to get them because everyone is going to feel like they're being sold to.

[00:27:12] So the less you could make them. feel like that. And the more like you just learn and like research people, right? Because that's always a way to figure out where people are and whether you're right for them or they're right for you. That's the easiest way. It's like just learn a bunch more about people at these events.

[00:27:29] And as [00:27:30] long as you're being genuine, then yeah, I think that most people are pretty good about being open like that. So basically bottom line, we're saying like, just get curious And yeah, I love that. I started, okay. Mic drop, take it away. We're finished. And that is great timing because we have just reached the 30 minute mark.

[00:27:50] Yeah. And once again, my name is Phelan at Seymour digital media and I'm Aura McKay at business of creativity. Perfect. And if you have any other [00:28:00] questions, please leave them in the comments for cyberpunk marketing mixer. And we will be happy to answer them and we'll definitely post I think I have a UTM parameter builder and that I think, um, that I'm going to have a link to because it's super useful for you guys anywhere to just build a UTM parameter Yeah, and the code giver link as well.

[00:28:19] Okay, awesome. All right. Awesome. Bye for now. Bye for now.

[00:00:00] Introduction to the podcast and today’s topic: Error Messages.

[00:00:23] Host introductions: Phelan Lewis and Greg McKinnon.

[00:01:00] Explaining HTTP status codes and their categories.

[00:03:00] Common errors: 400s (client errors) and 500s (server errors).

[00:04:30] Tips on handling 403 and 404 errors.

[00:07:00] Discussing unique and lesser-known status codes like 418 "I am a teapot".

[00:10:30] Strategies for troubleshooting WordPress issues.

[00:15:00] The importance of keeping track of changes you make to your site.

[00:17:00] Exploring console logs for error messages and troubleshooting.

[00:20:30] Wrap-up and tease for next week’s episode featuring guest Aura on business coaching.

[00:00:00] Hello there. It's that time of the week again, that time for Geek Speak. And this week we are talking about what does that error really mean? So we're talking about error messages. Everyone's had them when you've worked on a website or done anything. If someone Programmed it. They've given you an error message you know how to fix the thing that didn't go how you help And we're going to be talking about that today.

[00:00:23] And of course, my name is Phelan lewis at seymour digital media And i'm greg mckinnon with original 72 [00:00:30] creative Welcome everyone. Yeah, I guess when I came up with this topic for my for my yearly series here, I Maybe I liked the topic, but at the same time, looking at it now, I'm like, it's maybe a little bit misleading because we're going to be talking about what I refer to as HTTP status codes and not all of them are errors.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Yeah. I also, I think when we were talking about it as well, like the console log, like inspect element and not getting afraid of what it tells you as well is going to be super important for people as well, that I think we'll go into like Things that I used to just do a quick even if not necessarily you're going to fix it, but at least like reaching out to other developers to be like, Hey, your app broke.

[00:01:21] This is the error message you gave me. At least there's like some way that you can give them information so that they can go fix it. Those ones are also super helpful as well as the HTTP [00:01:30] codes. Yeah, so we'll get into maybe the more common errors that we come across that are thrown on sites a little bit later, but just in general HTTP status codes are basically.

[00:01:46] Codes that will come in to play for what's going on when you make a request for a site and there's a status codes that are just purely [00:02:00] informational. Those are the 100 series status codes. And there's a 200 series status code, which is basically. Mostly success messages. And these happen all the time on your site.

[00:02:12] You never see them because everything's working fine, but they're the success status codes where you start seeing or interacting more with these potential codes is when you get to the 300. Most people have probably heard of redirects. And [00:02:30] obviously we've talked about it in the past on the shows about when it pertains to SEO and things like that, if you're moving URLs, you want to create 301 redirects and these types of things.

[00:02:41] So the 300 series is all redirect based codes. And then the errors really get into the 400s and the 500s. The 400s are client based and the 500s are server based. And later on, like you said, we can get into a little bit more detail about the [00:03:00] 400 and 500, because those are the ones that are actually causing errors that you, we could maybe go into a little bit deeper.

[00:03:09] Yeah, I think that yeah, the 400s and the different 400s as well tell you different things like I've had I had to check in, Like I had a 4403 error and it turns out my login had the token Expired so I just needed to sign back in so like even knowing oh you made a bad authorization code with 403 [00:03:30] Then I was like, oh, I just need to log back in.

[00:03:32] And then everything worked again. So like even knowing a little bit of what they're telling you can easily solve the problem for you. And also find it the, like a quick shorthand as well, that for 400 to five hundreds is 400 is you made a bad request. Like what you asked for was wrong the way you did it.

[00:03:49] 500 is they've got issues like the five hundreds are, they're having a bad day. Come back in a little bit and hopefully they'll be back up. That's there's nothing you can do. Yeah. [00:04:00] Yeah. The average person working on their website, if you come across a 500 error, it's typically not something you can take care of.

[00:04:09] It's a call your hosts or, call your web developer to, get to the bottom of why that's happening. Yeah. Yeah. There, that's definitely a call tech support. Kind of situation of whoever you're making the request of, if they're giving you a 500 either let them know and they'll get back to you or just give them a little [00:04:30] bit of time and they'll probably fix the issue because they're panicked and they're just like trying to figure out that server error that's going on for them.

[00:04:37] Yeah. The other thing too, when it comes to me and troubleshooting over the years is like because I so innately know. When I see something happening on a site instantly, whether it's like a problem with the site, or if it's a problem with the host is very it's very easy to tell the [00:05:00] client right away or give them some feedback.

[00:05:04] Immediately on, Oh, this is a host thing. I'll get in touch with them, find out what's going on. Not that it eases them that their website is offline at the moment, but I guess it almost absolves me of it's not a problem with the site. So leave me alone. A thing. Yeah, or it's one I've done it with clients as well, just doing the [00:05:30] I've reached out to them about this error I'm waiting to hear back, I've started a ticket with them because this is not a thing I can fix for you.

[00:05:37] Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely a lot of those of we've had it where, yeah, it's just been like, this is, something's gone terribly wrong and I have to start a ticket and reach out to their support and, but yeah, it's definitely one where the, Knowing the type of error that you're getting will definitely help narrow down who you should be reaching out to or who can actually fix the issue for [00:06:00] you.

[00:06:00] I'd say as well, for the 400s, I find those would be a bit more ambiguous on what they could mean. Cause a, so a 400, just a straight 400 is you made a bad request. Some something in your request in the URL was wrong. And it's not even file not found. It's just, it's a bad request. And it's called bad request 401 are.

[00:06:25] I'm trying to remember those ones. The, cause I know [00:06:30] 402 is, you didn't have the money. You didn't pay the amount, which isn't a real status code. No one's allowed to implement it for any reason. I'm surprised it hasn't become something yet. I know what you were saying about the banks getting on board. With that and stuff, but I can see that maybe at the time that it was suggested, but we're so far down the road and online banking is so common now that I'm surprised it [00:07:00] wasn't.

[00:07:00] Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And it's actually, it's specific to how they wanted to implement it. Is that the, so basically the internet's run on two money pipes, those Visa money pipe and the MasterCard money pipe. And how it works is that neither one, one of them wanted to get on board with doing the financing.

[00:07:19] And what happened is the way they wrote the protocol in the 402 error is that it was going to. Through the status codes do a ping to [00:07:30] visa or MasterCard server, find out if you had the money and then ping back the either 200 success or the 402 didn't have the money, but they didn't want to get hooked up at that level.

[00:07:40] So they're actually higher up in the stack. That's what's going on. They're not like all the way down at status code levels that are actually up on like API requests. And that's how it worked out is that they're just higher up in like the kind it's turtles all the way down. How all these internet.

[00:07:56] Like the computers all talk to each other. They're just higher up. And it was actually [00:08:00] more flexible for them to do it at the API level rather than the status code level. Yeah. So you mentioned the 400, which was the bad request. The 401 was unauthorized, which is something you might commonly see if there's incorrect directory rights on on your server and things like that so that's the 401.

[00:08:19] Yeah. Cause it's also like login. If you're not logged in and you try to make a request to a page, then you're going to get the 401. And. And then 402 is money, and then [00:08:30] 403 is Forbidden. Forbidden. Yeah, that's the Forbidden. Yeah, I knew it had to be. Yeah. So that's again, login usually is what it is.

[00:08:37] It's some sort of like you, like when you make a request, you're actually sending information about yourself as well, including like a cookie that may have been assigned by that website. And then I'll have information of I'm actually logged in as a user, but if you don't have that, then it's going to give you forbidden.

[00:08:54] And then the other most common 400 is the 404 not found, which [00:09:00] lots of people come across, and even if you've come across it, you may have come across a really fun page that is a 404. GitHub is my classic 404. If you ever go just go to github. com slash like some random letters. They have their logo as like a, it's their Cat cactopus, like it's a cat octopus.

[00:09:22] And if you move your mouse, he does he moves his arms and he says, this is not the page you're looking for. And he's dressed up as Obi Wan. It's a, if you're [00:09:30] going to do a 404, that's a pretty good one. I got to say I will also give it a shout out is Google. I think they stopped doing it cause it was quite resource intensive, but to show off how service workers work for JavaScript, they actually made that little dino, that runs along.

[00:09:45] Yeah, it actually was a game that you could play and it ran off a service workers to show people how much computing power you could put into the browser, just with a little snippet of JavaScript. And it was like a test case. Cause they wanted to show you how you could do [00:10:00] offline JavaScript. And so that was actually a fully functioning game that you could play until you couldn't jump over all the cacti, it would crash.

[00:10:07] Count your score and then input that back. And it was like a fully functioning game that they built just as a test case for yeah, offline JavaScript. That's neat. I don't think I ever came across it. It was very short lived. I remember hearing about that and I remember seeing the page and then I think that they realized like, Oh, us keeping track of all this stuff would be very resource intensive.

[00:10:29] We're going [00:10:30] to not do that. And then write a blog post about how we did do that.

[00:10:34] Yeah, I don't know the 400 ones, maybe as it ties back to to WordPress specifically, if you typically come across no, a 403.

[00:10:48] It most likely means that the directories on your site are most likely in, have the incorrect rights to [00:11:00] actually run. A specific part of WordPress or something like that. So that's what you would probably look for on your host server is making sure that the directory rights are properly set.

[00:11:17] So that WordPress can run properly. Yeah yeah, I would definitely reach out to the, whoever's the admin for that website, if you're not the full admin and let them know if you're running into a 403, [00:11:30] because it obviously means that you didn't, weren't given the right permission level for whatever it is that you were supposed to do.

[00:11:35] So the, yeah, definitely the website admin, whoever's like taking care of the database and the permissions that they would be the person to ask about that one. The 404 not found is pretty basic. It's basically a page on your site that doesn't exist. So the status code throws up, can't find what you were looking for, a thing, but it could also potentially [00:12:00] indicate that you have a potential permalink issue.

[00:12:04] So if you if you know you do have a page and it does exist, but it's not getting to it or being able to pull it up, it could be that you need to refresh your permalink structure because maybe there was an issue that arose from something you did there. Yeah. As well as if you did just change the permalink structure, there's like a 90.

[00:12:28] 99 percent chance [00:12:30] that you're gonna, it's going to throw you an error for the first like hour because all the internet is basically just updating to whatever your new addresses. And so it'll take time though. So if you do go into that general section and then change the URL structure, it's going to take it's very quick to break URL structures.

[00:12:49] It takes a long time for you to find out that you did it right and that you found it. Fixed everything that's been my experience, it's like, they'll let you know when you got it wrong, but finding out when you did it right, it will take a bit of time. [00:13:00] The other thing to do in, I found in that situation, is go to the page itself, try to like, view the page, and then double check the URL.

[00:13:10] You might've missed that you've subcategorized it. So now it says blog slash name of the blog post. And so if you have that and just double check how the URL structure is, and this is a good time for, if you do have that issue, this is where your 301 redirects are really helpful is as well, is that you can go in as well, [00:13:30] 302 underrepresented, but I still think it's, Kind of interesting of like temporarily changing URL structures, right?

[00:13:37] It's 301 is permanent. 302 is is temporary. I don't know if there's like a penalty for only using 302, but I've never come across the time that I've used a 302. I can't think of a use case for it. Like I, for the life of me could not think of other than, I think if you were going to Switch [00:14:00] around your hosting or something like that, but you're going to switch.

[00:14:03] But yeah, there's no I've never run into a situation. It's always been permanent. Or maybe you want to work on something new, but you want to have all traffic pointing to. Existing. Yeah. See, that's the thing is I can't really think of a use case for it of want to temporarily move all my traffic.

[00:14:24] It's neat to have it as like a tool in your in your arsenal to like pull out when you need it. But I can't really think of, [00:14:30] because any page that would be anything new I would be working on, I'd work on it on a, like a staging or something like that. Or a copied version. The page.

[00:14:36] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so yeah, it was just. I never understood that one for me. I'm going to try to look that up actually to see if anyone has good suggestions on how to use the 302 because like we're talking now, I don't know, and I've never come across the need to be like, you know what I really need right now, the 302 redirect.[00:15:00]

[00:15:00] Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. I could see in like a weird enterprise SEO where if like you have a million page website and you're like, okay, we're going to take these 10, 000 pages that are about this product, they're going offline and we're going to temporarily redirecting to this new, this like a new product line.

[00:15:18] I. I could see something like that. It's weird. When you're at scale and you're dealing with a million websites and you're automating most of your SEO with this kind of stuff, like maybe there's a use case in there, but to me like [00:15:30] it's one of those weird edge cases, like almost like crawl budget where you have to like assign pages that because you have so many pages on your website that you actually have to use crawl budget and say, I want these pages scanned first, these second and these thirds.

[00:15:43] Weird stuff like that, where it's it's just the fact of just being so big that like weird scale issues come out. I could see that as being like a weird temper, like a weird reason he was temporary, but yeah I'd say that's definitely if you're running into 404s, just, I guess I'd surmise it as like double [00:16:00] check in the backend on your pages or your blog posts, try to view the page to make sure that the URL.

[00:16:05] Is what you say it is so that people are linking to it correctly and if it's not then set up the 301 redirect so that it's You know, if you do make any changes, it's all automatically sent over to the new page and it's not Because Google hates broken links. That's what you're going to hear from me.

[00:16:23] Yeah. It's Google does not like it if it hits a 404 on your website. They're quite insistent about it. [00:16:30] Moving on to a couple of maybe notable for X. Errors that you might come across. One could be a request timeout which sometimes like I come across, it's a 403 request timeout, which typically you can't specifically say it's going to be server related or your site related, but basically it's a time out of you've made a request for a page.

[00:16:59] [00:17:00] And either the site or the server has taken too long to be able to process that request for you And throws you a 408 timeout Error. Yeah usually those If that was happening I would definitely be looking at something that's happening on the server. Cause it's usually like the data, basically what happens is the request gets sent, it's acknowledged, but then the return doesn't, the full request isn't returned.

[00:17:28] I came across [00:17:30] this issue before, and it was because of the site talking to the database for information. And it turned out. This client had their hosting their web files all hosted in a data center in one location, and the database was in a complete different data center somewhere else yeah, that's don't do that. Yeah. . So everything was taking [00:18:00] like forever to to process. Yeah, because like as fast as like the, being on the internet is like it is, it's conditional on the speed of light, like the speed of light is still has a limitation itself and as fast as we can get it like sending information to one server request from your house to a server and then into another server and then back again that's going to take a while like that's not, don't do that.

[00:18:25] And you you had an April Fool's. code that you [00:18:30] mentioned. Yeah. So there's one status code that's the best because and it's very British. It's very 70s Monty Python absurdist British humor, which is 418, which is I am a teapot because they were, very nerdy British people that wrote, mostly wrote these status codes.

[00:18:45] And so they just were. Wanted to put a weird one in just because they were bored. And as you can tell the rest of this, it can be fairly dry. So I'm assuming that they were wanting like a little bit of levity to break up the day. Okay. So I didn't know about this one until [00:19:00] you had mentioned it.

[00:19:01] How is it that. You see this or can't, is there something that you can do where it will trigger this honey Easter egg? Yeah. So basically the way it w it, it wasn't meant for modern browsers, right? Most of the status codes were written before that, like. When the internet was basically universities talking to each other and and sending like basically terminal codes, like it's like using your terminal [00:19:30] is the way that they interacted mostly with other computers.

[00:19:32] And it, how it worked is basically like on April fool's day, you would make a request of Hey, could you send me the files on like our Current case study and then they would jokingly send you back like status code 418. I am a teapot It was like a response basically of like rather than 200 or anything like that.

[00:19:50] They would just send that it's like a joke response Yeah, so it's meant for a very different time than the current time that we have Where there's full, [00:20:00] GUI browsers and you can actually interact with pages. That's why people have more detailed like 404 pages. It's the same thing of it's like a joke response, but it's just meant as a response, that you give out in a circumstance to just have fun but yeah, most of these because like We got to remember that yeah, when they, when this was first made the computers that were interacting, we're all like universities because they used to ship the paper to them, like in stacks.

[00:20:28] And then I thought this was [00:20:30] like wildly inefficient. If we have two computers that could talk to each other, why can't they just send the information over? And that's like where most of the status codes come from. It's just, they also realized that the first two computers, which were It's in Carlsbad just north of Sandy.

[00:20:45] It's where the Munger Cube is. I know Carlsbad, I have a family there, but I don't know the university there. Yeah it's give me a sec, I'll think of it. But yeah there's one university there. You probably don't know what university is in [00:21:00] Carlsbad, but Yeah. Oh, it's one of the one.

[00:21:03] It's one of the University of California. , Davies. That's it. It's Davies and UCLA where it needed to talk to each other Because they were like literally shipping like an 18 wheeler full of paper and they were like This is not the best way to do this right And so yeah A lot of that stuff a lot of these status codes come out of that where they're just like hey Why don't we like?

[00:21:23] Send a message like I, I received what you got. Yeah. Um, I'd say also as well, we were talking about this [00:21:30] is like a weird catastrophic failure for WordPress that you can get. So you talk about, I remember you had mentioned the white screen of death. Yeah. White screen of death is common for a lot of people.

[00:21:43] Typically I would say that is Often a issue with plugin conflicts. If you've updated your plugin or something on your site and all of a sudden you're just not getting anything roll back any plugins that you [00:22:00] might've just updated. It could also signify that there's limited PHP resources on the server.

[00:22:07] There's a, is another one that you could look at if you do see the white screen of death as they call it. I wanted to just quickly go through the five hundreds. Cause there's not a lot of the five hundreds that people typically come across, but obviously the 500 itself internal server error would be one of the most common 502 bad [00:22:30] gateway.

[00:22:30] I see Yeah, that's that is the web server hosting. So it's like your your server engine having an issue like NGX. Usually you'll see that 502 NGX bad sir, gateway error. So it's that the thing that was going to build you a webpage is not going to make that request. Yeah. So 502 bag gateway are basically the most common.

[00:22:54] 503 sometimes service unavailable. I've had 503. Those ones [00:23:00] usually were a CDN issue so that their hookup to cloudflare was broken. And the request was the way they had set it up is I was going to request from CloudFlare and they were going to serve me the website, but the service wasn't available, so it just didn't spit anything back to me.

[00:23:16] Yeah. Yeah. So if you come across a 500 internal server error and you have a WordPress site, you're most likely looking at a programming issue. [00:23:30] With your site or something on your site can't run properly because the PHP, maybe you updated your PHP version or you updated something on your site.

[00:23:42] And it requires something that the older PHP version doesn't provide. That can cause you a server error. Yeah, that would be the most common, I think. I think for the 500, yeah, because it wouldn't be a [00:24:00] database error. Cause those would be 404, right? It was basically the request was successful.

[00:24:04] They went and looked for the page that you were looking for and it wasn't there. If you get a 500 error, it's yeah, it's all, I would almost guarantee it's something to do with the PHP is not happy with you. It, that it's the only solution I would see. Just cause we've got a few minutes I wanted to talk about as well.

[00:24:21] the console log. So anytime you like right click on something and something doesn't work the way you expect, what I usually do is I have I [00:24:30] inspect element and I open up the console log because that logs any errors because if they were a good programmer, they were going to spit back an error of something that didn't work correctly.

[00:24:38] And so say you click on a button, I've done this before, clicked on a button and waited for the console log to spit back an error saying like 404 unsuccessful request or something like that. And then at least. With those console logs, you can at least get an error message. And with that, you can actually either Google it, reach out to the web developer or whoever built the plugin and say, Hey, I'm getting this error [00:25:00] message.

[00:25:00] What do you think the problem is? And then they can help you out with getting to the bottom of it because error messages are super helpful for letting other people know, even if you don't have the technical skills, but it's a way to start a conversation with someone who does have those technical skills to be, Hey, I'm getting this message, what does this mean?

[00:25:17] How do I fix this? You wouldn't believe how many times I got client. Calls from clients saying, there's something going on with the site and they profess there [00:25:30] that they didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. The site's just not working, and I'm starting from scratch to figure out, okay, why is it Like what happened?

[00:25:40] How do I figure this out? but so many clients like if you could just Keep track of what you did on your site so that you can relay that to your developer Yeah It would go a long way To, being able to track down what might be going [00:26:00] on. But so many times people just call her like, I didn't do anything.

[00:26:04] And then later you find out, like they updated a bunch of plugins or do did whatever. Yeah. And just. Fess up it's not your fault, like things need to be updated, but please let me know. Don't just keeping track of Hey, I did X thing. And then afterwards it didn't work.

[00:26:22] Like that would be, letting people know just so they have a starting place to be like, Oh, okay. So it's this plugin that's causing a [00:26:30] conflict. Okay. Now you can isolate that as being the issue. Yeah, it's always. It's always good because most people just, if you can give them a hand like the technically minded people of Hey, this specific event, because then they can recreate that event.

[00:26:43] And then with that information, now they can go off and actually debug, like what specifically happened. Because typically the fastest way you could get a site working again if. If something happened is to just basically roll back the plugin that was updated to the previous [00:27:00] version of the sites back and then you can troubleshoot, like, why did that happen or wait for another version of that to be fixed and to be compatible where it won't break your site kind of a thing.

[00:27:13] But that's the, so if you don't have that idea of, you're like, okay, let me turn off this one. Does it do anything? Let me turn off this one. Does it do anything? So it, it'll get you Online faster if you can remember and before we wrap up, you mentioned console log. I [00:27:30] want to let people know If they want to see console log, the easiest way is to hit F12 on your keyboard when you're in your browser.

[00:27:38] And it should pop up the console log for you where you'll be able to click to see that information you were talking about. Yeah, exactly. And then, yeah, the the other. Big one is, yeah, or just right click on something because I usually do the sort of like right clicking on a specific button if I want to inspect that specific thing and then that'll also have the console log will show up as part of that [00:28:00] window.

[00:28:00] It's. It can be intimidating the first time, especially if you don't, aren't doing this intentionally. So don't be concerned when like a whole bunch of stuff pops up. It's, yeah, it's yeah, it's one that you have to get, be prepared for. And just, yeah, but it's all good. And if you're looking for errors, they will most likely be in red.

[00:28:18] There'll be like a red X. That shows that there are errors that you can click and then it'll show you that information. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They're provided that they coded it correctly. They're pretty good [00:28:30] about spitting back error messages. And your browser's really good at letting you know Hey this is something you should be paying attention to.

[00:28:35] Anyway, I, that does it for us this week. Yeah. And I know next week we have you and a guest, I think, is it Aura? It is Aura next week. That is we are going to let you know next week. Cause we're just updating it cause we're the changes. So it's going to be In the realm [00:29:00] of, business coaching and, these times and, it's going to be related to that topic, but the specifics of it, I will have probably early, the start of next week.

[00:29:08] Yeah, it'll be fun to have a new face on Geek Speak. Yeah. And I'll tune in and watch you guys. Yeah, for sure. Sounds good. And until then let us post in the comments if you have any error messages that you find confusing or want, or funny stories like that as well. Alright. Bye for now.

[00:29:27] Perfect. Bye everyone.

[00:00:00] Hi there! We are here today to talk about Google Analytics 4. If you don't know us, I'm Pip from Seymour Digital Media, and this is Phelan, also from Seymour Digital Media. Our powers combined, we help businesses make data driven decisions to get more leads and sales. So that's kind of our gig.

[00:00:23] And we come on here every Thursday to discuss the great of marketing. Today is all about Google Analytics [00:00:30] 4. And let me just bring up, because I got so excited about getting here. Yeah, the session today is all about, what are we talking about today, Phelan? We're talking about traffic acquisition conversion paths keeping tabs on some things some actionable advice, and audience building.

[00:00:48] So let's dive right in. Bam! So why are we talking about Google Analytics today, Phelan? You tell me, you tell me. Well, if you're, even if you're just running your own website and you're [00:01:00] doing your own marketing, you still want to be able to analyze and figure out, is it working? If it's not working, where, like, where are people coming to your website?

[00:01:08] Where are they dropping off? You're trying to figure out those things. So Google Analytics 4 is super powerful for anyone to be able to look at it and make decisions on, you know, is the Google Ads that I'm spending money on, is it working compared to Google Organic or social media if you're driving traffic to landing pages and they're Are they converting?

[00:01:29] Are they not [00:01:30] converting? What's the rate? These are all things that you want to be looking at because it's super important for you to be able to make money. I will say like a, an anecdote we have that I always use as a reference point is we were working with someone and they were selling jewelry and they were doing Spending a lot of money on Instagram ads and the Instagram ads were driving a lot of traffic, but no sales because they were e commerce and what was actually driving all the sales was the custom made products that were done through Google ads.[00:02:00]

[00:02:00] And these are data driven decisions that you can look at. By having it set up and having a conversion set up and making sure that you're tracking everything that's going through your system. It's gonna be super important. Right, so yeah, a lot of people have Google Analytics, a lot of people well now have just Google Analytics 4 because Universal has turned itself off, but A lot of people get really overwhelmed with analytics, right?

[00:02:23] So it's, it's great to have it. It's great that you have the plugin on your website that tells you a couple things, but that's supposed to be your [00:02:30] diving off point. That's supposed to get you to go into analytics and start digging around and learning some stuff. And all the terminology's kind of new because well, sorta new, not all of it.

[00:02:42] And it's because Google analytics has changed. So to Google analytics for, so I think what you. see often as people have Google Analytics, but they don't know really what to do with it after that. Besides look at some cursory numbers. Yeah. After [00:03:00] you set up conversions, I think that's going to be the most important one, which is going to be a topic for another day, how to set those up and what tool to use, which is tag manager.

[00:03:09] But generally like you, what you want to do is have your conversion set up. You've tested them, you know that they work. And so now what you're doing is, you're gonna first go over to the Traffic Acquisition. So if you're in Google Analytics, you'll see on the left hand side it'll say Reports, and then from Reports you're gonna go to Acquisition, [00:03:30] and then Traffic Acquisition.

[00:03:31] Okay, wait, wait, wait, you gotta Draw me a picture because I see it's so funny. I was going to share our screen today. I was going to make a share screen and do something with super uber cool. Hi. But I decided not to, because I want us to be able to direct people properly. Like if I were to close my eyes and I couldn't see where are you sending me?

[00:03:50] So I'm signing into Google analytics and this is the first place we would recommend you go and look in Google analytics for to start making data driven decisions. So feeling guide [00:04:00] me. Yeah, so you're going to have the left hand side, it's going to have a vertical menu and there's going to be four options and the, the second one is report.

[00:04:10] So click on report, it'll open up new windows based on, you can pick and choose which ones are visible, but almost always the, there's going to be one called acquisition will be the top. And that has, once you click on it, it'll say user acquisition and traffic acquisition. We're going for traffic acquisition.

[00:04:27] Okay. Traffic acquisition. And why are we going [00:04:30] there? User acquisition is more like, I want to know what type of people I'm bringing to my site so that I'll have like you know, mobile demographic data. Okay. Location, device type oh, operating system stuff that can be interesting but is generally not as useful as traffic.

[00:04:47] So what's the actual, what's the source that's driving people to my website? Because almost always you're making some sort of marketing effort, whether it's social media SEO, or paid ads. [00:05:00] Yeah, or just spending time online talking to people or like, no matter what kind of business you are, you're trying to drive business to you.

[00:05:09] And so what avenues are you utilizing to try to do that? And are you tracking what those avenues are doing? And that being said, can you really see like, Instagram traffic or Facebook traffic or TikTok traffic coming into Google Analytics. Yeah. So all these platforms do a really good job out of the box of putting UTM [00:05:30] parameters on there.

[00:05:30] So it makes it easy for Google analytics to capture this because Facebook want to tell you, Hey, we drove this traffic. So they're going to put their little UTM parameters on there. So it'll be, they do a really good job of this out of the box. Facebook ads is the, or meta ads, is the only one where you have to set up a special tracking URL.

[00:05:52] And that, yeah, they're, they're kind of bad about letting you know that it was a paid ad versus organic. Okay, [00:06:00] and can, you can do that with a UTM parameter though that There's a, isn't there a landing page you can go to and it can help you build the UTM parameters pretty easily and you just fill in the blanks?

[00:06:10] It's actually within the ads platform itself. So if you open up the Yeah. On, on Facebook. Yeah, they actually have a little spot, but they don't make it very obvious that that's what it is. So it's near the very end of when you're building your ads, it'll say tracking URL. And then if you click on that.

[00:06:26] You can even set up, like, I like to set it up with, like, dynamic [00:06:30] information that gets filled in, so I want to know the campaign name. I want to know I usually do the, the source as the placement, so was it Instagram? Was it, like, a marketplace? Was it Facebook? Desktop? Yeah, we should actually explain source and medium, because this is something that you'll see, and you want to see in, Google Analytics.

[00:06:48] There's all these terms you gotta learn and slowly but surely if you hear them over and over again, you'll get it. I got it. So if I can get it, you can. And so what is source? That's like Source [00:07:00] is gonna be the Google, Facebook Yeah, so like an example would be Google. Is they're going to be the source.

[00:07:08] Now the medium is going to either be organic, P CPC, so that's going to be paid. And then you can also do product syncs. If you're doing e commerce and you have a merchant center account, and that's telling you that it's coming from organic shopping. So all these things are kind of help, you know, that it's like, Google's sending you the traffic, but what is it under Google that's actually the medium in [00:07:30] which they found you.

[00:07:31] So if you're paying to get in front of people, are they in the display network so cross network and so, yeah, that'll definitely show up in your analytics that you'll have them split out. And it's important to have these separated out that way of, like, kind of subcategories of being the medium.

[00:07:47] Right, and so we're, oh, so go on. Alright, there's gonna be one other variant of this as well. Sorry, I just can't get you back to me, was your email marketing. So setting up UTM parameters on specific email campaigns, [00:08:00] and when people click on the links and go to specific pages from specific campaigns, that should also be tracked, and you should be tracking those because then you can find out, oh, this email was the one that actually got them to click and convert.

[00:08:12] Yeah, because we know a lot of people don't just go from an ad or from A facebook thing and fill out a form and buy a product I mean once in a while it can happen like somebody can type into google tree stuff and then hire a tree feller But yeah, right. That happened. It was actually just [00:08:30] anyway. It's really interesting.

[00:08:32] So we're in acquisition. That's where we're looking for where the business is coming in. So, but Facebook also has a pixel. So how does that, how does that work with Google Analytics? Tell me the things. They're, they're actually running in parallel to each other. So what's happening is that the, the Facebook pixel and the Google analytics are both tracking, they're both going to be off, off from each other.

[00:08:57] Just the nature of how they both collect information. [00:09:00] It's not going to be like a one to one. And so what happens is that with the Facebook pixel, it's actually, it's not sending data the same way. It's more focused on audience and then specific events that you've set up for your pixels. So a really good example is like e commerce.

[00:09:17] And so it could tell you that it's like, Oh, you did really well with I don't know, 35 to 45 year olds who completed the checkout, but like 45 to 55 year olds. Got to the Descartes, [00:09:30] but didn't actually come, go to check out. And so that can tell you, yeah, that, that's really interesting. Cause that can tell you things like, okay maybe I should be talking to an older audience or maybe the people on my website, you know, maybe the people coming there are different than the people walking in my door if you have like a, you know, brick and mortar. Brick and mortar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and as well that I wouldn't overly depend on the Facebook pixel, the Google Analytics. Because Facebook really restricted some of the [00:10:00] information just with since 2016.

[00:10:02] They've just been more hesitant to overly collect and share information about users, which I think is overall for the Betterment of their platform, but they're they are, Google analytics did a better job at striking that balance for the privacy concerns. And so it. It collects I would say a richer amount of information.

[00:10:23] Okay. Do you want both then? Like, because you can do retargeting with Facebook and a lot of people do Facebook retargeting [00:10:30] and Google retargeting, right? And so, would you want the Pixel for that and you want, well, you want the Google? Analytics tracking for the, for targeting too, right? Cause that's, Oh, we're going to dive into that, that a little later, the lists.

[00:10:45] Well, I was actually just going to front load that right now because we're talking about it was yeah. So basically it's, it's never a bad idea to have both of them going and to make sure that your conversions are set up [00:11:00] for the pixel as well. So events specifically named events. So like contact form fill.

[00:11:05] You know, if you can send that to the Facebook, okay, yeah, neat, because what it does is you say later on in Facebook, you can say, find me more, a lookalike audience for the people who completed this event. So if you already have a conversion type, and then it finds you the lookalike audiences, which Facebook does do better than Google analytics right now, or Google ads, right?

[00:11:26] But now you can make audiences [00:11:30] inside Google analytics and pull them into Google ads. And it's super easy to make audiences now with Google analytics, right? Yeah. And so moving over to Google analytics with the audiences, they do a much better. It used to be a lot more complicated because you had to set up, because it wasn't event based, so this way you can now do much more targeted event based marketing, so we can say, of all the people that made it to this landing page so getting to the landing page is one [00:12:00] event, but they didn't do the event of fill out form.

[00:12:02] Okay. So that makes a specific audience of did one event didn't do a second event. And so once you set that up and also the use event, these audiences are not retrospective. You can't go back and say, Hey, Set them up like 10 years from now. Yeah, exactly. So it's always better to, yeah, set these up as soon as you have the event tracking and just.

[00:12:24] start collecting as much of that information because they'll hold on to those audiences for [00:12:30] 540 days they say. Right, but even so just having the audience building there because you need what a thousand to work in Google Ads number one for targeting. Yeah, so YouTube's a hundred. Gmail's 500, Display's 1, 000.

[00:12:46] Oh, interesting. Okay, okay. Yeah, they're all weirdly split out at different levels. I don't know why, but they It's about the audience building, though. I think that's the most important part. So, okay, we're gonna jump back to audience building in a little bit, but so [00:13:00] For now, let's just go back to conversion.

[00:13:02] Let's go back to traffic acquisition. Right. So we talked about traffic acquisition and and how people are coming to you and where they're coming to you. And if you're doing any sort of marketing, you know, this is where you want to start to get comfortable in that area in Google Analytics for now, then, then we talked about the conversion path and the steps people take to convert because it's you haven't touched on that yet.

[00:13:24] No, okay. I just always Talk about that. So I guess it's top of mind. Yeah, we're always talking about it, but [00:13:30] we haven't actually brought it up specifically in how to use it. But it's like how we went to reports and then acquisition. This one is going to be advertising. It's the last one. Okay, wait. So let's go back.

[00:13:41] Close your eyes. Go all the way over to the left hand side. After you've gone into Google Analytics and you're on the home screen, you're going to go and there's going to be the vertical menu or on the left hand side. And so you're going to open up. It's going to say home and you're clicking into where to see advertising.

[00:13:59] [00:14:00] Ooh, Traffic Acquisition is the only one I actually read. Is it now? Well, you're gonna read more after today! Yeah, so the Traffic Acquisition is definitely one I probably spend the most time in because it's a really good jumping off point to look at other spots in the analytics. So it's not a bad thing that that's the one you, you do spend the most time with.

[00:14:21] The other one to really look at that I find very useful is the traf or the conversion path. So, once you have conversion set up, [00:14:30] it's showing you all the touch points that happen along the way that so before someone converted. So where that is, is in the left hand vertical menu. You're gonna go down all the way to the bottom, Advertising.

[00:14:44] From Advertising, that'll open up a bunch of new options. The last one on the list is Conversion Paths. And what that does is it shows, like, for example, like just off the top of my head, like, so, your event, your conversion is gonna be Contact Form Filled. [00:15:00] So, was it the ad? And then they saw you organically, they saw an organic social media post, and then they converted.

[00:15:08] Like, all these steps along the way they are ones that you can track out. You can also track how, how many touchpoints, as well as how many days. So, one interesting one that we saw was that it was a hi kind of high end private school. And Oh, yeah. Yeah, so what happened with them was that they were having [00:15:30] parents visit the website, like we could see the number of people, these were all unique users that were visiting the website.

[00:15:36] Up to 20 times over the course of two months before they're actually converting. Interesting. And yeah, they needed more prompts that what it's like, you know, that's interesting information because then we can look at where they're landing. Yeah, there's so much in that, right? There's where they're landing, if we took them 20 times to convert, maybe we [00:16:00] do a survey when, you know, when they come in, because it's a school, because it's expensive.

[00:16:04] Maybe we get feedback on the website, right? We noticed that they weren't doing a lot of things that they needed to be doing. It was hard to get things done, though, with that company. There is a question here that we're going to answer, and thank you for saying it's interesting information, but it's If you don't have conversion set up.

[00:16:19] So if you don't have conversion set up, can you see the conversion path? No, but you can see the path, right? Phelan? Like you can see a path, but if it's not set up, you can't know what [00:16:30] can't, you know, like a user, like we had a user that saw social media posts, saws organically, or just directly converted off of like a an ad.

[00:16:40] Well, and this is, yeah. And so there's also a little split here because in Google Analytics 4, what you're doing is you're actually, you'd use Tag Manager to send an event, and that event, once it's in the system, you can then convert it over to a conversion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. special type of event. So it's kind of [00:17:00] like everything in Google Analytics 4 is an event like page loading, scrolling to the bottom of the page, like these are all converting 25%.

[00:17:09] You can track anything you want. Everything is an event. So you just have to decide what's the most important events. that you want to track. And we have a free video to show you how to do this actually, which just message me after and I'll get that to you. If you want to try to set up conversions yourself, because you don't, without conversions, it's really hard to figure [00:17:30] out.

[00:17:30] Yeah. So, Oh, frozen screen. What? Yeah, that was me. My internet was. It's glitching out for a second there, but I am back now. Are you back? I am back. Yeah, I've been back. I made sure to close all the extra tabs that paused. I have a newer computer. Ooh, okay. It's Aura's here. Hey, Aura, it looks like you have to go like my Facebook business page so I can see your face in there.

[00:17:55] And hi, Dorothy. Great. Great to be with you guys. I can't see you, but I'd [00:18:00] love to. Bye. Okay, back to it. Yeah, it's very challenging. Analytics can be, but it's really fun when we stop being afraid. Right, Phelan? Yeah, we're getting frozen again. I mean, I am. I don't feel frozen. There you go. I'm good.

[00:18:19] How do you know? Yeah. No, I, okay. Thank you, Dorothy Phelan. Is that you or me? I'll close out some things, too. Weirdo McFeardo. Thank you for letting us [00:18:30] know. We'll get that sorted. Hopefully get it sorted. There. I got too excited about having things open, I think. Me, too. Bim bam. But let's go. Okay, so we're okay now.

[00:18:42] So one of the, the other big ones that I would, I wanted to touch on is because we also have to make an announcement at the end of this is that there's one other tab that I, or two tabs, two reports that, again, you go back to where there's the traffic acquisition. You'll also see two [00:19:00] other reports by default that are the landing page report and the pages and screens report.

[00:19:05] Yeah. What are those? That wasn't prepped at all. Okay, so inside, so I think, you know, whenever we get on here and talk analytic stuff we're also going to talk about definitions because they're super important. So we got landing pages and we have screens and pages. Define landing pages to me, according to Google Analytics.

[00:19:29] [00:19:30] So, landing page report is the entry point. So, it doesn't matter where they go after that, but it's the first touch point on your website that happens. So, this is really important for if you're driving your SEO and you're getting a lot of people to your website. They get to a blog post and then they make it over to your service pages and fill out the form.

[00:19:51] That's going to be important information for you to track because that landing page may be converting really well. And so you want to see where yeah, where are they laned [00:20:00] on your website? And so they get to see. Even if they go to another page and they convert on that page, we know that the landing page there was the, the entry point for the conversion.

[00:20:10] And then the, so the difference between that and the pages and screens is the actual, that's the actual, when they have the conversion column there in that report, that's specifically the page they converted on. So there's, sometimes it's going to be a difference, right? So they may land on a blog post and then make it over to your service page.

[00:20:27] But they convert on the service page. So [00:20:30] these are going to be important. Oh, that's really good to know. Yeah. So it's, it's an important little distinction that if you have a funnel or something like that, that is going to be super important for you to kind of keep track of that as well. Because, you know, you may have some pages that they don't convert, but they do drive a lot of traffic that does convert on your website.

[00:20:52] Interesting. Or is asking a really interesting question. She's asking, what if your conversions happen to be on a third party platform, like [00:21:00] say acuity or, you know, or something like that? What happens there? So say for example, with acuity, we've, we have this with a client that uses acuity for all of her bookings.

[00:21:12] And so we, what we did is we set up the Google analytics for on the acuity. And what happens is a lot of these platforms will. Kind of like how Shopify does, they'll, they'll speed the events to you Acuity does it through the purchase conversion, which is a default conversion that every Google [00:21:30] Inlets 4 account is set up with, and so they they've also done some weird things with it as well, so it actually, the conversion path's really good.

[00:21:39] It's beautiful, but it actually doesn't do as well with the trafficking acquisition because it doesn't send it as a conversion. I don't know how they do this. They send it as a conversion with the full path, but they don't send it as a conversion to the Like, as a number, a metric that you can go against.

[00:21:55] And this is where we sometimes get into mind numbing things in Google [00:22:00] Analytics 4. There's, it's really interesting though, I believe, because it's new. It's new for everybody. Right? And so we're all learning together. So I don't think anybody should feel dumb. Wait. Set up GA4 on Acuity like I would need to have a GA4 for Acuity?

[00:22:17] Interesting. I think you are set up. Because I think we might've helped with that, and we would've at the time set you up with GA4. So we should be in there, but And you should have the one code [00:22:30] for, you know, if you have a different, unless it's an entirely different website, I would have one data stream for all of, all of these ones.

[00:22:38] Because what happens All of these ones? All, like, Acuity and your website. I would have the same same data stream. Yeah, okay. It's a, I'm not, it's kind of pedantic to kind of get into what the data stream is. But what basically you need to know is like your website. And how it connects with Acuity should all be like the same G [00:23:00] code that goes for Google Analytics 4.

[00:23:03] And the reason for that is because you want to have the conversions tied with the rest of your traffic. So you can kind of track how people are interacting with all of your stuff. Systems you have set up it makes it easier to kind of see the whole path. And this is over time we want to see the path because we want to do things like, okay, if I'm doing marketing and most of my traffic is say coming from the phone, I [00:23:30] definitely want to check my Web pages or my landing pages or my pages and screens for how they look on a phone Maybe I'll try different phones like my different friends phones, right?

[00:23:41] Yeah, the the G code does make sense. Actually the G tag has All been replaced, right? Like the, there's, they're all one tag now. Kind of. They made it more confusing. I'll be honest. In the last like six months, they decided that that wasn't enough and they changed how it [00:24:00] interacts with a tag manager. It's not my favorite, but.

[00:24:05] I will tell you that we are constantly learning. There are lots of moving elements between Google Ads, Google Analytics tag managers. Search Console stays, Search Console stays pretty, well, it had big changes years ago. And still people don't talk about it enough. And that is your secret weapon, which we're doing a free class on in in March, I think.

[00:24:26] So, but J4, tell us if people are viewing on [00:24:30] dark mode. Ooh, that's interesting. I'm not sure. Yes, you can theoretically. Why would it matter? It would be, you can do it. It would be very complicated to set it up. Basically you would have to set up a listener that if someone clicks from light mode to dark mode that that gets sent as an event.

[00:24:53] That would be the way to do it. You can do it it would just be a lot of work to set that up. Unless [00:25:00] there's like an out of the box someone's already written. If you want to see your events in Google Analytics, you would go where, Phelan? You go to so you would go to, again, we're on left hand vertical menu, you're going to go to reports, under reports, you're going to go to engagement, engagement will have events and conversions.

[00:25:23] So we check events, and it'll show if they're turned on or off, and if they're turned on, they'll be moved over to the [00:25:30] conversion piles. If they're turned off I mean, you can delete them, you don't really want to delete events. So you just want to have the ones you value turned on. Yeah, yeah. It's very exciting, right?

[00:25:41] Google analytics, like this is, this is the future because when you can make data driven decisions, you make smarter decisions that. And helping you do things in less time overall, right? Because you start to see what people are doing, and so you cater to that, right? We see a lot of people where they're mo I mean, we [00:26:00] do sell Google Ads.

[00:26:01] But we see a lot of people, most of the traffic comes from Google Ads, or as they're, like Regular Google organic, right? Well, and there's another example that I had that I was we have a client that's another school and they had a specific targeted landing page that people were going to, and some people were filling it out, but we got it.

[00:26:19] We. Clued on our heads, like, hey, there's also an organic that anyone could go and fill out this form. We should be tracking that, and the reason why is because we now can report back to [00:26:30] them that they got an extra three applicants that went to the ad, didn't convert, googled them later. And then filled out that form organically so we could still attribute some of those conversions because the first touch point was the ad.

[00:26:42] It did get them to go to the landing page, read up on it, and then later on they converted so it's important for you guys to be able to look at the kind of the holistically, the website and how people are converting and how people are finding you. Yeah, it, yeah, we want to make analytics more fun and [00:27:00] more exciting.

[00:27:01] It is really cool. Google Analytics is really cool, and it is the best way to move, I think, yourself forward. Because if you're spending money on ads or spending a lot of time doing your marketing, like, to not know that you're having an effect kind of stinks. Like, imagine If you could write a blog post, and you could, and you picked a phrase that you wanted to show up for, and you wrote all about, you know, poured your heart into it, yeah?

[00:27:27] And imagine if you could see not only [00:27:30] somebody coming to your website, Typing in a keyword that you wrote about, right, the same theme, and then they actually took the action you wanted them to take. Like, it's pretty interesting to see, right? Every person that goes to your website is a person doing something, looking for something, right?

[00:27:47] And we have what? Less than two seconds to show them what they're looking for, but that is conversion rate optimization and another topic. What is the focus that free class you just briefly mentioned? Oh! [00:28:00] Good question. So every month On I think the third Tuesday, we are teaching and the next one I think Phelan's doing actually is a Google Analytics 4 one.

[00:28:12] So Phelan, what are you going to be teaching in that class? It's basically, it's going to be, I'm going to be sharing the screen and showing you where to go to, and that's going to be happening on our YouTube channel for KnowHow Marketing Lab. Which is the course. We'll have announcements in the, the group when it comes closer to that time.

[00:28:29] But [00:28:30] it'll be in two, it'll be in two weeks on Tuesday. We, go ahead. No, no, I'll say it after. Well I was going to say, you also have an announcement to make. I have several. Number one, our free course, we have moved it over to Kajabi to make it easier for people because Kajabi just looks better. So we do have our free course there.

[00:28:53] If you are an existing student, we were going to add you in there. So I was just, and I wanted to get your feedback. [00:29:00] I was just wondering like conversion tracking can be. Harder to set up with Tag Manager, but I can include that in the free course if people want it. There's also a video I did About showing the events and conversions.

[00:29:15] I can share that but Phelan's gonna go into that in two weeks We'll make sure it's plastered in the Facebook group on the weekend promotions When we're gonna do it and what we're gonna talk about. So yes, and then so there's the free course [00:29:30] the free training And I'm going to be away for eight weeks.

[00:29:37] And Phelan is going to be taking over and we're going to be doing some interview series with some amazing people. So stay tuned for that so that we're not leaving you. I'm not leaving you. I'm just Letting fail and take over for eight minutes and eight minutes seven episodes. And and you're going to talk to some people I would love to be interviewing, but that's a story for another day.

[00:29:57] We are over time. Come join us next [00:30:00] week, next Thursday, 11 a. m. Same bad time, same bad place. And what are we talking about? Dun, dun, dun! It is in the top of the Facebook group, if you're wondering. Which is I What are we talking about, Phelan? I think it was email marketing. Error messages with Greg and I.

[00:30:19] Oh, super fun about websites. It's a WordPress thing, is it? No, no, it's just error message. I mean, I'm sure it's Error messages sound rather [00:30:30] boring, I must say. What is this about? They're important. We can't all just close down the screen when we get an error message. Where are we seeing these error messages?

[00:30:38] That's what we're going to be going over. Ah, okay. So, join us next week for weird error messages that you want to know about. And I will share the video links in the description of this after. So come back in like 20 minutes to the Facebook group feed. The video will be pinned to the top of the group and I will have those links there for you.

[00:30:58] Okay, have a great [00:31:00] day. Lovely to connect, guys. Have a great day. Bye.

[00:00:00] And we are live. It's that time again, and it's time for Geeks Week. This week we are talking about email marketing platforms, the long awaited sequel to email marketing. I think it was 101, I forget the exact title, but we talked about, the, what to do with email marketing, and now we're going into how to pick your platform.

[00:00:19] What are the things to consider What are the ways to plan it out? Because you do want to plan it out a little bit before you actually jump into any platform and start sending out emails. Yeah. And should we introduce [00:00:30] ourselves? Yeah, I think so. So my name is Phelan Lewis. I'm at Seymour Digital Media where we focus on search engine marketing.

[00:00:38] I am Rina little from little works indie media agency. And we are in Vancouver. All right. You're right. I was actually on session one. I put it in the Greek speak the cyberpunk marketing mixer. Facebook group. I put it out of a few places. I put it at the bottom of the it'll go also on the bottom of this [00:01:00] linked back on this on this episode, once we're done but the topics we did cover were things like what should go in an email, what makes an email castle compliant how to, organize your list and basically basics on how to, or we could actually do a whole another.

[00:01:15] On how to organize your list, we talked about what content goes where all of that sort of fun stuff. And you're right. So now we're going to and the thing that came up from the questions that came out from that episode where which platform, and it's true because you get into one [00:01:30] the way platforms all work.

[00:01:32] Doesn't matter if it's email marketing or whatever, you have to start by signing up and signing in. There's not enough information to tell what's happening on a platform until you actually get in there and then you figure out, then you get all invested in it and then you figure out that it doesn't function in the way that you want.

[00:01:49] or it doesn't have a feature that you want, or it costs too much money to have the feature that you want, or something happens like that. So that's why Phelan was talking about knowing where you're going is always the [00:02:00] best way to get there. You need a plan. And so what we were talking about the other day is there's not going to be a one size fits All for platform.

[00:02:10] There's not one platform that either of us could agree that we loved best for all clients or even for just ourselves, I think. And you're always going to make some little compromise on something and figuring out what that's going to be is where is your superpower. And planning that out first.

[00:02:27] So what are the criteria? Cause it feels [00:02:30] like I'm doing a lot of talking. I'm doing a lot of rage talking. I just had a meeting. But what are the criteria Phelan in your mind? To how, when you're assessing a platform, do you want to kick us off on one or two points? Yeah. So the kind of the way, and I think when we talked about this when we were preparing for this, is that we thought of it like a flow chart where basically you're doing basically, are you e commerce yes or no because that'll be immediately out of the gate because and then how well does that ecom Email marketing platform integrate with the e commerce right because there's a bunch [00:03:00] of dynamic. Thank You know follow up like getting reviews because that's huge for email marketing and so I think that's gonna be a huge one like right off the bat are you e commerce or not because that'll it's almost Kind of the fundamental one, because from there you, that really decides a lot of where you're looking, which platforms you're looking at, and how well they perform with the web service.

[00:03:23] And then secondly off of that is, do they integrate with your website platform? So and how [00:03:30] you're doing, so it could be if you're focused on courses and you're on an external course platform, then you might want to consider that. So you need to first consider what are your goals, what are you doing and and what are your future plans?

[00:03:42] Because you want to build your future into your present so that when you decide to make that shift into the future, you don't have to. Make massive changes. You just want to add a module or add a plugin or add a something or upgrade to something else. You don't want to have to [00:04:00] abandon ship and move everything over because that's that comes with quite a cost.

[00:04:04] Usually if you're not doing it yourself and if you are doing it with yourself yourself, then you need to know the tech well enough to understand how to do it so that you're not. You're creating problems and you have all of your castle compliance due diligence done. So that's the thing that's really the most, one of the most important things.

[00:04:24] And I would also say off of that as well, if you get to a point where you do have to move platforms, and [00:04:30] you haven't future proofed yourself of realizing oh, it won't be able to scale with me, I'd say the biggest issue you're going to run into is the cost of time, right? Of rebuilding all these Systems that you've set up and moving the actual emails isn't going to be difficult, but it's the setting up email campaigns, such automations that if they sign up, what's the email sequences, those can be, those aren't easily migratable between systems.

[00:04:53] And so I think that you have to really be cautious of that as well. That is correct. That is correct. [00:05:00] Yeah. And then also you want to look at things like how long has your platform been around? How fully developed is it? Does it have a good backing? Is the team behind it going to stick around? Or is this going to be sunsetted or bought out by somebody else?

[00:05:14] That's also really important to think about if you're getting into it, but the more important things are, what are you doing right now that needs integrating or organizing? So usually there are two different three different kinds of campaigns that you would be running. You would be running maybe a newsletter, an e blast that's [00:05:30] one off things to let people know about promos.

[00:05:34] Specials, new features, all that sort of stuff. Oh my gosh. You're hilarious, Pip. Okay. And then go see number, scroll back when you get a chance. And okay. So the first thing is that, that, that sort of e blast slash newsletter. Send that's usually where people are starting in their business anyway.

[00:05:56] So they pretty much usually have that organized. And when you're thinking [00:06:00] about those things, you're thinking about how many people can I have on my list for free? How much does it cost for me to add a list members? Are they counting just the people that are subscribed and receiving the email?

[00:06:12] Are they counting the all the contacts that are unsubscribed? That have unsubscribed over the time. So that's one of the things. And that was one of the big exoduses off of MailChimp. In fact, was they used to not charge you for your unsubscribed contacts. They would only charge you for the [00:06:30] contacts that received the email.

[00:06:32] there was a big exodus a few years ago. And then the other thing that you might want to consider are segmentations and how you your list organization is. Is it lists or is it segments of a main list? So there are two ways of organizing. I personally like to have all one list and segment. From that list, but some people like to have very separate lists and what you want to make sure is if you're going to the one thing about having very separated lists is you want to make [00:07:00] sure that when people opt out of one list that they mean to opt out of the other list.

[00:07:05] So you're signed up. Your signup letter or your opt out letter might have just those, they have each list listed so that they can see that still opted in on another list so that they don't mistakenly get or, rightly get an. An email from another list, but think in their head that they actually opted out.

[00:07:24] So you want to make sure that is a very clear, or I know [00:07:30] constant contact. If you opt out of one list, you opt out of the whole thing in which actually sounds weird now that I say it out loud, but that's what the support told me. Yeah, it does. It does make sense to have it. If you unsubscribe, like you're basically unsubscribing from the whole.

[00:07:45] I don't want to hear from you. I don't care which list I'm on, but generally if someone's doing that they mean the whole thing, not Oh, I don't want to hear about this specific list. I want, uh, most people, when they're thinking of I'm unsubscribing. Yes, [00:08:00] but I, yes, it's true.

[00:08:01] But I like the prompt. So you need the prompt if you have multi lists and you're unsubscribing from each list independently, you need that prompt. So when you hit the unsubscribe, you go to that prompt and you have that. Selection to make that's good. What's not good is having just a one sign up and then, Oh you unsubscribe, it says you're unsubscribed and then you receive an email from another list.

[00:08:25] So that's bad. Okay. So that's one, one consideration. And [00:08:30] then so that's the list. Then when you want to get a little bit more fancy, you have other kinds of campaigns. So you would have maybe a drip campaign for leads that don't buy on the first go. So you might've done an opt in offer. So like a downloadable or some a contest or any of those kinds of list building techniques that are out there, they might opt in to get that one thing that, that contest entry or that.

[00:08:56] Downloadable or whatever it is. And and then and [00:09:00] then if they don't opt out right away, like I do, then you might want to send them through a series of info emails that will prompt them to do business with you in a different way or join you on a different list. So that's. Always possible. So you want to know the things that you want to know about your platform for those again is there a limit to how many sends I have?

[00:09:21] Is there a limit to how many opt ins sorry, campaigns I can run on my platform? Is there a limit to how many, um, [00:09:30] messages that are on that sequence? Do you get three? Do you get six? Can you do as many as you like? All of those things. And then the trigger, like what triggers it.

[00:09:40] So is it first day, three days later, five days after the first one, that type of thing, or is it done by date or is it done by action? So those are important. So an action one would be more if you have a product or if you're signing up for something like a course. That type of thing.

[00:09:59] You [00:10:00] can sometimes and the course is sold on your website. You can actually organize your automation on some platforms according to the date that the sale was made. I'd say also building off of that is making sure going back to the trial thing that how they build these automations and workflows is something that you can easily understand.

[00:10:21] Like it's not like super complex. There's some ones where I'm forgetting the big one. It starts with an I, I just hate it so much that I've, I just blot it out [00:10:30] from my brain, but it was like one of the And it was, yeah, one of the enterprise ones that like you needed to hire someone like setting up a sales force.

[00:10:37] Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And yeah, good job. Cause that was one where we had an issue with Amy Porterfield where they didn't, they had, we had signed up to a couple of lists and then it would fire the same email sequence. And so we were getting like the same emails and it was just like, it was a mess that they should have definitely figured out.

[00:10:56] And so I think that's another one as well is. [00:11:00] When we talked about email marketing platforms and thing, things to consider as well as try not to go for one that's trying to like MailChimp is trying to be like an all in one doing everything, but it's you wind up not doing. All of them well, and so you'll be, you'll build it out to a plot, like a certain extent, but because you have so many other things on the go, you're, you don't really finish, close the loop to really nail down what's going on with the, all of these platforms and, or all these components to your all in one.

[00:11:29] And so [00:11:30] it feels incomplete or it's a limitation that it's why didn't you fix this? Expensive. Here's the other thing that just recently happened to me. They also bundle these things into buckets that might not work for your business. So for example, if you're using, if you're using a store and the commerce store to sell a course and not the course section of their platform to sell the courses, because you're not running the courses online, which happens, it's actually quite common [00:12:00] then.

[00:12:00] You might need to buy the you might be buying the autumn email automation for your product, but then you can only organize the automation in it only triggers from the actual purchase. So if your course has a date and you need to send the reminder email two days before that date, that's going backwards.

[00:12:20] The only way you can do it is when they buy it, you can set up an email 10 days after. They buy it. But if people buy two months in advance and then they buy two days in advance, then that [00:12:30] email is not going to work. That automation is not going to work for all of them. So then there's more manual stuff involved because you haven't got the package that you're supposed to have.

[00:12:40] So you either have are forced to buy a second package that you're not working. So you use one piece of this package and one piece of that package and then it just, the cost goes up. Hacking your website Squarespace, I think is the worst for it. So people will get onto Squarespace and they'll choose the thing that suits them because it's the cheapest.[00:13:00]

[00:13:00] And then they'll try and do the next phase of marketing. And then they can't do it because there are these limitations. And and as a Purdue provider, this is the one thing that I cannot make clear enough. We don't know what the limitations are until we get in there. We have to pay for the module and get in there and figure it out.

[00:13:18] There's no complete how to that answers all of our questions before we get in there. And even my experience, the support staff also can't help to the [00:13:30] degree that we really need to know before we. So it's really good to go in and test all these things and then pull out if you don't need them. But the expectation that you can buy one module and have three things, three disparate things organized with one module is pretty, pretty low.

[00:13:48] And then. We're sorry. I know. I know. I keep doing this to you failing. I'll stay one more sentence and I'm gonna stop. It's even worse if you buy one platform that does one thing and then another platform that does another thing. And the sinking between [00:14:00] those two platforms is also another sticky spot that providers cannot always help you with an out of box solution.

[00:14:08] So quite often I get pulled in and what we do is we build code to sink different platforms together. We build the thing together. From scratch for you because they might sink in one direction because they don't play nice together. They might not sink at all because they've had a fight. What was that fight?

[00:14:27] They were telling me about. Bailin that. [00:14:30] So it was with Shopify and MailChimp. So a few years ago, they basically MailChimp made a deal with square. And they were going to be an email marketing provider for Square and Shopify hate each other because they're both going after the POS market and so they don't like each other at all and the CEO of Shopify decided to pull them from the, just take them off that it wasn't, they weren't delisted, but they were unranked.

[00:14:57] Basically, you couldn't find Mailchimp in the app [00:15:00] store. There was still an active app if you had it, but you couldn't find it and add it to a new one. And so they got into a huge argument about this and they just pulled it off the platform, which is, left a big wake because MailChimp was actually fairly deeply integrated with Shopify to do all of this Oh, bummer.

[00:15:15] Yeah and but, it was good for Klaviyo and OmniSend, who were the next two, and they took over since then. And I think they've built a better a better deeply integrated platform with Shopify than MailChimp was, because MailChimp always had its foot in the door of being with [00:15:30] the WordPress people as well, because it's, Oh, when I looked it up, it was the most popular, the MailChimp to WordPress plugin is one of the most popular email marketing.

[00:15:40] Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. Okay. So there are three things now there are like, besides price. So there are what apps, where are you going? What do you need? There are, how does it integrate with your other pieces? So if you're, especially if you're using a CRM, so check with about. website, check with your website [00:16:00] integrations, check with your CRM integrations and make sure that they're that those are functioning or even available.

[00:16:06] And make sure that things sink in both directions or if they don't sink in both directions, what is your manual plan to make them sink so that You're not doing that awful thing that happens where somebody is working the contacts in the office, and then they're just sending an email list to their marketing person.

[00:16:25] And the marketing person is just simply uploading that and sending an, up uploading [00:16:30] list into the current. MailChimp list or constant contact list and just doing an e blast because that doesn't work that well. That doesn't work that well for tagging, for segmentation, for castle compliance.

[00:16:45] Things get, there are problems that arise in that situation. And then the worst problem is when nobody's sending you. Emails to update the constant contacts. So you're taking in a whole plethora of new leads and clients into your CRM and [00:17:00] they are not getting any newsletters from your e blasts or information at all because those contacts are not being sent over.

[00:17:07] So that's even worse. Yeah, I would say also that just coming off of integrations and putting into your larger marketing is that also using that email list into your ads and for Facebook and Google ads, especially people who purchased from you making for Google, they have a specific one is called customer match list [00:17:30] and they've opened it up to everyone now it's super important, especially as things get more automated to give signals that say, Hey, This person converted or find me more people like this.

[00:17:42] That really helps with the automations. Yeah. And the same on Facebook, it's not quite as specific that like that, or at least they don't tell me it is, but you can definitely put up your email list into, and this is really good. I just want to flag this for people who have opted out, if you [00:18:00] want to retarget the people who have opted out.

[00:18:02] Especially if you have something, a service that begins and ends. So I'm working with an education company at the moment. And so what ends up happening is people will get on their email list. And then when they graduate from the course and they're certified, they will opt out of the list and then we lose them.

[00:18:19] So what we want to make sure everyone is doing is actually, if you had something that you wanted to target that particular graduate with upgrade courses or maintain your certification courses or [00:18:30] whatever it is or anything that's an addition, then you would want to be able to reach those people if they've opted out, the best way to do it is on a MailChimp sorry, is on a Facebook.

[00:18:41] Ad campaign that is organized for those opt outs and your opt ins and you can send them that message and get to them. And it's not against CASA compliance to use our opt out list in this case because you're not sending an email. Yeah, because you're not sending an email and you didn't, you're not targeting them.[00:19:00]

[00:19:00] In that way, you're not sending the email, like you said, and you acquired the email through the compliant means, right? They handed you the email. So it wasn't well when they opt out. Yeah, when they opt out, it doesn't matter But you can yeah, you don't there is no as far as I know, there's no castle regulations around advertising using emails Do you know how many?

[00:19:19] No, I read I skimmed over I gotta do another deeper dive on the because google does have a little warning That says like hey, you did get these emails or phone numbers in [00:19:30] Yeah yes, and so it's Even if it's like technically yeah, it's bad. It's bad etiquette to to scrape the internet and send ads, but it's not, I don't think it's okay.

[00:19:41] Just a second. I gotta look that up now. Now you're making, but I would also,

[00:19:48] uh, so I would also say the reverse is also very useful as well, taking your email list and then making exclusionary lists out of those people because you can also save your Facebook [00:20:00] dollars and your Google ad spend by not having this ad shown to these people because they've already been through your program, so why waste money on sending them the ad sending them the ad.

[00:20:10] Scoop those people out because they are technically the right audience, but I don't want this specific person. Just find me more people like them. So you could say, don't find me this person, but find me more people like them, which is another tactic you can use as well with your email marketing.

[00:20:25] Exactly. Okay, I'm actually just pulling it up here [00:20:30] and, and, baited breath. Yeah, it's not actually totally clear, actually. They've adjusted this since the last time I looked. I will get back to you on that. Let's just say that. Yeah. But definitely make it compliant with the platform's regulations as well. But generally, just don't scrape emails and you should be fine.

[00:20:49] You know provided that you're not being malicious with it then. Yeah, you should be okay. Oh, here we go. Oh Do we find the [00:21:00] no, that's just regular social posts, which is hilarious because how can you, uh, yes, I know that social media was first organized because when you send messages on LinkedIn, it goes into people's inboxes and same with messages on a messenger, they go into people's inboxes but it really depends on how people have their Facebook account.

[00:21:23] Accounts organized as to what notifications they actually get through regular means, but they definitely don't [00:21:30] get ads sent to your inbox There would be no notification for that. So i'm pretty sure it's okay Yeah, though gmail technically does have you can do ads to gmail So I wonder if that would how that regulation would go.

[00:21:45] Oh interesting But I guess it clearly identifies that this is an advertisement. It's not like a traditional email. It says all that stuff so it's not like a like they're not trying to fool you and pretend that it's an email like they don't use like the gmail They just [00:22:00] have it show up in the inbox.

[00:22:01] So I think that would Get around the any sort of castle Policies that you would have to worry about i'm sure that the google and facebook, ads people are being as compliant as they need to be with these regulations because They're yeah, they're motivated not to upset it too much Okay Great.

[00:22:24] Yes. All right. So I'll, I'm going to check with my lawyer and get back to you. That's what I'm going to do. Cool. [00:22:30] Yeah. Okay. Cause they are always updating castle legislation anyways to keep up with technology. So things do change. It's absolutely true. Yeah, for sure. And yeah, but I'm confident that as long as you get it through I'm, yeah, I'd be 90 percent sure that as long as you've got the email through legitimate means that you would be able to use it for advertising purposes, because people had opted in for that part and as long as you're not sending emails to those people after they unsubscribe I don't, you should be able to use it in this means.[00:23:00]

[00:23:00] Yeah Okay. So, all so we've covered platform syncing lists. All so we probably just want to do a little overview of some of the top platforms that we know about. We just have a few more minutes left. I guess for e commerce, what are your go to ones? I like using MailerLite, Klaviyo, those have been pretty useful for us that are do a lot of like pretty well integrated with Shopify.

[00:23:27] So I like them. I know [00:23:30] that MailerLite has a pretty good integration with WordPress as well. So if you wanted to do WooCommerce, it's a pretty good one for that. And it's got a pretty generous free tier, which I like for getting started and learning how to do email marketing. Oh, that's good. I didn't know that.

[00:23:43] Okay. So I just used MailChimp with WooCommerce and also Clavio with WooCom with Shopify and I liked both. I don't really find that there's that much difference between platforms. I feel like for me, my clients, it really just comes down [00:24:00] to budget and and what I do like about MailChimp, cause they really got.

[00:24:05] They were the bad guy for a while there because there were so many free accounts, right? And then they just need to reel that in. But what I like about them is that you can pause your account. So if you do like a few months of really good Marketing and then you get overwhelmed and you just can't do it for whatever reason.

[00:24:23] You don't have to keep paying that monthly payment. Once you get above the 2000, I think, is it 1200 or 2000? I don't, I forgot what the [00:24:30] number of free contacts is. So you can pause and you can pause for an infinite, like an, You don't have to say how many months and and then you can set it up to go again and then you can pause it again.

[00:24:41] There's no, there doesn't seem to be any restriction on pausing your account. And they also have a pay as you go plan where you buy, it's a lot like stock photos where you buy a whole bunch of credits and then those credits cover a certain amount of So there's a little, in their pricing, I guess they realized they must have lost a lot of people when the free ones went [00:25:00] away, but I guess you don't really want free ones.

[00:25:02] A lot of free ones hanging on and never growing their business or never growing their contact list to get to that place. Your free stuff should be really a conversion spot, not a. Hang on spot. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean you do. It's good to have a little bit of a free tier I think that's always a good way to go just get people's feet wet and learn how to use the platform before you start trusting them Yeah, and but yeah, so going back there.

[00:25:27] So we also you mentioned constant contact active [00:25:30] Campaign monitor is another one. I've heard of I never i've used active campaign and constant contact. I haven't done campaign monitor Yeah Really all the same. Sorry. They've even changed to be more like Facebook in providing a really good drag and drop editor system.

[00:25:50] So you don't really need to have any coding or you don't go through and get somebody to code you a free, a template like you used to in constant contact, [00:26:00] for example, all of that's gone and you can easily manage your own. Space if you want to. Yeah. And and then if you want to bounce up and you're have you have these really complicated emails, just like campaigns that you're going to be launching that go into like big product launches and stuff like that.

[00:26:19] There's like entreport and fusion soft, but you basically need to hire someone of one point on entreport. And it's absolutely a nightmare to like, just to. Behold everything that goes [00:26:30] on with it Yeah, so usually crms come with representatives when you sign up for a crm That's a decent one. They come with a representative that helps you set things up and get things going it is good to have a marketing person on there and They work through it's like a referral based payment.

[00:26:46] So the person that reps you will it will get kick back on whatever you're paying on your monthly fees. And so generally they're pretty good and they're they're really super knowledgeable about the tech stuff. And if they can't figure it out, they can find [00:27:00] somebody to figure out. So you don't have to figure it out.

[00:27:02] But having a marketing person in there in the mix is really good. Cause they'll, the one thing that the CRM support people won't do is give you the advice of when you should do what you should do, how you should do it. They'll just tell you the technical ways of how to do it. And so you want those two pieces, the tech support and the, and I think that's one of the things that I like about the about the paid MailChimp one accounts is that there's tech chat support.

[00:27:26] I love chat support. [00:27:30] Squarespace has its own sort of e commerce platform in there that does some automations for certain things. It seems pretty good if you actually set your site up correctly to be organizing your products and your. Your offerings according to their rigid structures. So if you have an online course, then use the online course section and use this course space marketing that goes with that.

[00:27:54] The automations that go with that. That's really great. If you have an a product that is actually a [00:28:00] product, then use the product section, but they don't have a very good integration for in person ticket sales is what it would actually be. There's ticket sales. So that figured out that doesn't work that well.

[00:28:12] And and they have an excellent support. So I always go for who I look at price. I look at what do I need? And then I look at how available is the support and how untech is their support service? Will they be able to speak to someone like me and get me to understand what needs to happen? Yeah, exactly.

[00:28:29] I [00:28:30] think those are all good things to consider when you're picking your email marketing platform. And so that is time for us. Time? I didn't even notice. So yeah once again thanks for joining us. If you want to continue the conversation, come and meet us in Cyber Marketing Mixer Facebook group.

[00:28:47] And we'll be happy to answer any comments you guys have. Anyway, that's all the time from us. And my name is Phelan. And I'm Reena. See you next week.

0:00:00 - Introduction: Meet the Geekspeak Team
0:00:22 - Current Trends in Social and Website Sectors
0:01:47 - The Closing of CDAP Grants for Canadians
0:06:22 - Grow Your Business Online Grant Overview
0:07:00 - Discussing PHP Issues and Website Security
0:10:30 - Updating PHP Versions and Plugin Advice
0:13:30 - The Shift in Hotel Bidding Strategies and Google Ads
0:14:00 - Dealing with Fake Accounts in Local Service Ads
0:15:39 - Recent Algorithm Updates and Their Impact
0:16:00 - TikTok's New Video Format Preferences
0:19:51 - Snapchat's New Partnership and Digital Measurement Tools
0:22:12 - Introduction to Blue Sky as a Twitter Competitor
0:23:51 - The Quirks of AI in Video Creation with Sora
0:25:00 - Cautionary Tales of AI Misinformation

[00:00:00] There we go. Oh, did y'all See that? It's so organized. We are here today. It is Geek Speak this month in the world of marketing. Search social and websites. Oh, and AI. You know me. I'm Pip. Over there's Phelan. There's Rina. Everybody wave. And Greg. And their little business names are there. We'll work out introducing ourselves at the end better.

[00:00:22] We'll do a sign off. But I wanted to get right into it and start the discussion about all the great things happening out there. How do [00:00:30] y'all feel about what's going on in the social sectors and the website sectors? Do you want to know how I feel or are we getting into our content?

[00:00:38] I'm confused. First let's talk about how we feel and then let's talk about content. Alright I feel okay! I don't really know what to say other than that it's I'm not particularly optimistic about things, but there are some fun things that have happened, and And it's social.

[00:00:55] That's interesting. Interesting. Yeah. It's a [00:01:00] lot. So search social websites and AI is a lot right now. I think everything's really changing. Greg, are you finding you're really busy right now? I'm fairly busy maybe more because of this new Contact is calling me constantly with emergency things, but yeah, for the most part, I'm still staying level and it's up and down, but it's never very down.

[00:01:28] And it's never I never [00:01:30] take too much work. Yeah. You're really smart about that. I know that I know Phelan and I have been. Busy. Rina's been busy, but there are some people out there that aren't busy. And I think that leads us right into the first topic, which is weird because it's for Canadians.

[00:01:47] And it's not website search or social, but it has to do with marketing, which is the CDAP, which Rina, I'll get you to mention before I drag Phelan into something, has closed for Canadians, hasn't it, Rina? What's that about? It [00:02:00] sure has. So and with quite it's always the same with these grants, though, is that they close quickly.

[00:02:06] We ask business owners to get on things quickly because because of this fact, especially between January and the fiscal fiscal year, which is April. Things tend to shift during that time. And so the CDAP grant, which there are two of them actually, but only one of them got closed. That is the one for the companies over 500, [00:02:30] 000.

[00:02:30] It created quite the spear. It's really interesting cause the PR. Company that I follow the PR woman that I follow on TikTok saying the government does this particularly where they announce bad news or news that they think isn't going to play very well on Fridays at the end of day, because people aren't paying attention.

[00:02:50] And that's exactly what they did. They announced the CDAP. Grant was going to be closing over the next few days. And this is another tactic that they do. It's not really a tactic in the sense [00:03:00] that they do it purposefully, but they certainly don't choose to do it a different way. But because the grant runs out when it runs out of money, they don't really know when the cutoff end date is.

[00:03:10] So everybody gets upset. They're like, I didn't know the deadline. Nobody told us the deadline. It's that's because they do it until the money runs out. So if there's a surge, which happened on the weekend, when they announced it on Friday, a lot of people were contacting their clients to move their applications through faster.

[00:03:28] And that meant that there was a whole [00:03:30] lot of New applicants happening over the weekend and it got closed. I can't remember though, if it was Sunday at noon or Monday at noon, it was a long weekend. So I get the Monday and Sunday mixed up, but it did close on the weekend. And there's some pretty unhappy people out there, especially there's some pretty unhappy people out there.

[00:03:48] That is for sure. And that's disappointing because it came with a good package. It did. And that was the reason we bring that up is that was for companies to spend money on marketing [00:04:00] and up their game. I thought it was mostly not necessarily. So it was a booster technology grant. So it could be any technology within your business.

[00:04:08] So for example, one of my clients, we did do some marketing And it's no. Okay, let me rewind that. The grant portion was to cover strategy only. So there was no money, grant money to implement the strategy just to get the strategy. The implementation came from this grant portion. Bye. The 0 percent loan that you could [00:04:30] also apply for, but you didn't have to.

[00:04:31] So you could just walk away with a strategy piece. There were also some employee employment grants to cover workers who were going to be doing the technology if you were going to be implementing, but it's a technology that was way bigger than just the marketing. It was to include any kind of technology CRM.

[00:04:49] If you are. Like one of my clients was getting using the strategy and funding for x ray machines to find tanks in the ground. So that also [00:05:00] counts too. So it was well beyond marketing to be honest. So that's the, that's the gist of that grant. I can't hear you shine.

[00:05:10] How, Oh, Pip, I don't know. You call me shine. That's nice. You better love him. Like you like me. China is traveling to Germany today. So I think he's on my mind. I'm like, Ooh, what's he doing in Germany? Yeah, that is exciting. And okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take it [00:05:30] out of your hands now. And we're going to talk websites cause that's more fun than grants.

[00:05:34] Who doesn't like a grant? I like free money, but I don't like going after the grants. And I don't know, Greg, do you go after grants? Phelan, would you? No, you haven't. No, we generally don't. But that's because we've had bad experiences with clients who get the grant money. So I did just finish a site that was for a client that Got the grant but [00:06:00] it was through a third party.

[00:06:01] I did the work for someone else. Oh, so that would be the booster. That would be the grow your business online, correct? Probably. That grant. Yeah, most likely. I don't think I know which one they got. I just got a call saying, hey. I need you to build a site for a client that got a grant.

[00:06:18] We got a hey beautiful and handsome man. Yay.

[00:06:22] Yes, that's fun. Grow your business grant online. Grow your business online grant is [00:06:30] still available to Canadians across the country. 2, 400 towards marketing and website upgrades. Nice. If you haven't gone for that and you're Canadian. Go for it. And this is Karen saying hi, Karen. Yay. Glad you're here.

[00:06:44] And okay, let's move into all the other fun marketing topics. Cause I don't know about you guys, but I've been doing a lot of SEO and Google ads and using some AI stuff. But there's a lot of marketing news. Let's start out with websites and there's some PHP [00:07:00] issue failing. Did you tell us about that?

[00:07:02] Tell me. Yeah, so there was a, one of the block builders really popular, supposedly, I'd never heard of it. It's funny how there's all these they're like really popular and I've never heard of it myself. It's called RCE Block Builder. I don't know. I haven't heard of that either. I've not heard of that one either.

[00:07:20] That didn't make it on our top popular list. Greg did it. Oh, is that interesting. I wonder where. I only mentioned [00:07:30] two or three maybe. Yeah. Or four, I don't remember. But the four most popular ones. Ooh, what are they? What are they? You'll have to go back. Rattle the, yeah. Damn. We're staying focused on topic here.

[00:07:44] Okay. Okay. We're staying focused on topic. Okay. And so the PHP issue means what? What does that mean? So what it does is it's doing cross site scripting, meaning like it's sending the code. I'm not gonna get into the technicals, but basically it sends the code and in [00:08:00] transit someone could then put in their own code while it's in transit.

[00:08:04] It's a gross oversimplification, but I'm. Yeah so basically yeah, basically it's a way that someone can hijack your website. And which is definitely not good for a block builder. And that would probably be really painful, actually. So it's not good. So there I'm going to assume that they're working diligently on finding a a solution for this problem and look for an update pretty soon.

[00:08:29] [00:08:30] Definitely. Keep an eye on your website and make sure that if you are using that block builder that you protect yourself. Now, let me ask you this. If Gutenberg was the only block builder, there would be less of, for WordPress, less of a degree of the ability to infiltrate the PHP that way, because it's a plugin?

[00:08:51] I would, so Gutenberg is the native WordPress block builder. Builder, right? That comes out of the box. The [00:09:00] building experience is Gutenberg, which is a block builder. These additional block builder plugins that you can install just give you a lot more block options, like a more fancy, image gallery block than the default one, or so basically you're just extending the amount of.

[00:09:24] block options that you have to create layouts and things by installing [00:09:30] another block builder. So, the plugin the block layer block plugins don't have any real bearing on this issue. Really this issue is because they Poorly coded their plugin offering and have this PHP exploit and anyone that is using that one went with someone who has built this in and now needs to [00:10:00] fix it.

[00:10:01] Yeah. I would just say that you can owe it any, even the core systems, everything has the potential to have a security issue, especially if you're using PHP, which is notoriously easy to get set up, but also notoriously easy to very vulnerable to a lot of security issues that if you're not super diligent, you can easily screw up and leave yourself very vulnerable.

[00:10:24] Update your plugins, folks. Update your plugins. Update your PHP version as well. [00:10:30] Oh yeah. Is that a new update right now? I know a lot of sites are still running PHP 7. 4 and we're already at end of life of PHP 8. 0 or Possibly even 8. 1 by the end of the year. so how do people update that?

[00:10:48] Cause I don't know. Tell me, like, how would I update? Do I, besides calling you, don't be like, Hey, you would do that on your host server. That will give you a method, whether you're using [00:11:00] cPanel hosting or. It's a server related thing. So you'd go with your, go to your host and see which PHP version they're running on the server that you're being hosted on and request that be upgraded.

[00:11:15] And many of them give you the option to be able to upgrade it in your hosting admin somewhere. Okay. So call Greg Phelan Arena. That's what I heard. Call your hosting support. Call your hosting support. [00:11:30] Word for word. Word for word. Okay, and so is there any other website news? is what's a pretty common thing in the world of WordPress since the last update.

[00:11:44] Things have been going fine. There are in development for their next release. I haven't really been on top of anything special coming out of the. Next release, I did see I heard about an issue and I [00:12:00] don't remember if it was with WooCommerce or a plugin that's used for WooCommerce that had a vulnerability in it.

[00:12:09] If I can find that information, I'll drop it in the comments later. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Cause I saw, I got an email. I don't know if y'all got this email, but it said I, a client forwarded me an email that said that Google Sites is going away, right? You're used to be able to, but so I told the client, I was like, this is nothing to worry about.

[00:12:29] Don't worry. You [00:12:30] don't have. Like a site with Google Sites, so I don't know why you're getting this, but then I went to the bottom of the email and I saw the sites that they were recommending hey, go to WordPress There was an S1 I'd never heard of. Oh, and they did mention Drupal. There was an S1 I didn't hear of, and they also had Google Sites in there.

[00:12:52] So I was like You mean something starting with an S? Yeah, it was a weird site builder thing. I'll [00:13:00] send it to you. 'cause I took a note of it. I was like, what is this site origin? Site origin? No, I don't know. I'll send it to you guys to see WordPress theme, I think. Yeah. The point, my other point was they had the Google site's still in there, so I didn't understand.

[00:13:14] That is so weird. They're like, it's going away. Yeah. Yeah. That is so weird. Why would they recommend something they're sunsetting in the email that they're telling you that sunsetting. And right, and I know you guys get a lot of the Search Console emails that clients stress out about. Yeah.

[00:13:29] We should talk about [00:13:30] that one day, about how to deal with that. That was my news for search and websites, but, Let's do this. That isn't actually a problem, right? It's so funny. So we have some search news. We got, Ooh not very interesting in that. Hotel bidding strategies are changing, but I don't work in hotel Google ads.

[00:13:48] And then AI Google ads is not up to scratch yet. That's the news. Oh, and Phelan, you had some news about LSA and fake accounts or who whose news was that? Yeah. LSA, which is local [00:14:00] service ad, so if you're a lawyer, a real estate agent tree service. A treacher? It's like a tree service teacher.

[00:14:08] Yeah or a garage door repair. Those are the big ones. They found that apparently there are a bunch of fake accounts that are showing up. And so That Intel, which is ironic because this is the one where you get like background checks and you're supposed to submit your ID and it's like a super intensive process where they're super invasive and it turns out they still were getting fake accounts and [00:14:30] so it's somewhat ironic considering they tried to do this And they still couldn't even prevent fake accounts with others, like all this documentation is supposed to be filled out.

[00:14:38] And we struggle with LSA ads, like honestly, making them work, getting, I don't know. So I don't know what's going on there, but we have a company that's Another marketing company has told them that they can get them LSA ads or like for 200 bucks a month and do remarketing for something uber cheap.

[00:14:57] So I got to check them out and see what they're doing. Cause [00:15:00] I don't know. Do you guys work with LSA ads? Anybody? No? Oh, okay. And Pam's here. Hi, Pam. Lucky you. Yes. So we'll move on from LSA ads. Don't use them if you don't have to. I think that's the outcome there. And yeah, and then Rina, I don't know if there's any other search news. There's been an algorithm update around February 14th that I'm just learning about the outcome. And it looks like what is it? Know when you eat food and you get a recipe? Recipe site [00:15:30] carousels are, a lot of people have lost their ranking and so there's a lot of people up in arms with that latest update.

[00:15:39] So that's pretty interesting. Anybody work with people that write recipes? Oh, Glenna does! Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, we should let her know that. That's really important. Cause that's, that's going to drop your traffic. Know super way. I'm going to go do some recipe searches today, but I think that's it for search.[00:16:00]

[00:16:00] What do you got, Rena? You got some news on social. I do. One of the things that's come up is that TikTok is has put out information to all the creator creators that they are going to start privileging video in this direction. You don't, you, what they want is it shows in this direction and then they want you to only take up this much space.

[00:16:24] with your video. So you're not just flipping the camera, you're keeping the camera [00:16:30] up but you're putting your I've seen that! Yeah. And we think that's to do with Add space that they want. Add space. But they're also organizing. Did I say this last? No, you said you know, in our chat on I did say it to someone.

[00:16:45] So basically they think that it has to do with with add space. So if you actually filled the. Blank spots at the bottom or the blank spots at the top with text or anything else. That's not video Then you it's not going to count they want blank space. [00:17:00] I feel like they're going to put advertising.

[00:17:01] It's been suggested I didn't make that up myself, but I pretty much agree with that Analysis, and then the other thing about that is that they want long form video So it seems like they're trying to give youtube a run for their money. I'm not sure how that's going to work out It really annoys me that all the platforms Try and do what each other is doing and then they become not unique at all and it's boring.

[00:17:24] I don't like it. So i'm not sure how long i'm gonna be on tiktok because I was watching a move a [00:17:30] video the other day and i'm like Wow, this is going on forever I thought the same thing And it's oh my god, get away from me. I want the 10 minute and one minute, one minute. I love, honestly, I do love one minute content.

[00:17:45] It's so succinct. Do you know I have, this is going to sound so silly, but not only am I reading one of the best books I have ever read because of a 30 second video, but I also have a new coffee maker that I, where [00:18:00] the coffee is the best coffee I've ever had. And that was a real and they weren't selling me anything.

[00:18:05] It was just three things about this book. I love the coffee maker and bam, so it doesn't, you don't need, I think you don't need 30 minute videos to sell something. I don't think I want how to videos on showing up on Tik Tok. That's going to annoy me. Like just a little clips are great.

[00:18:21] And then go find them somewhere else if you need more in depth thing, but a lot of kids search. And it's a great video search engine. [00:18:30] So we're, we all go to YouTube to learn things, right? I think that's YouTube's big one, right? That's true. But you're right. The kids are using the search and I keep forgetting about that fact.

[00:18:38] So maybe that is our crew that's not going to like it. Yeah, so Pam saying they're pushing us to make longer videos. Yeah. And we know that. So of course, the creators are going to follow that trend because they're going to get prioritized if they make longer content. Yeah, the algorithm is quite substantive.

[00:18:57] The algorithmic push for those videos is [00:19:00] quite substantial. Like I, there were a couple of content creators that have tested it, put the same content up in two different versions and the two different aspect ratios. And one got significantly long better, better views. I don't know, tens of thousands of better views.

[00:19:16] Was that just one test or is it several people doing the same test? one test. We'd have to look at other aspects other points. Yeah, cause that's a case study. So we'd have to look into that. But that, it sounds, the, who's going to know about the trends [00:19:30] before they're actually well known, the people doing the work.

[00:19:33] Exactly. Exactly. So that's that. The other thing that I had is that where is it here? The Snapchat is, has implemented a new partnership. They're using a third party digital measurement platform tool so that they can verify your campaign results. So that'll make it interesting.

[00:19:51] Um, This will help marketers measure the impact of and the effectiveness of their campaigns. And their emphasis is on [00:20:00] cross marketing, R O A S. ROAS. Okay, interesting. Yeah, ROAS. And So I think that's going to be quite interesting to watch. What happens there. I don't know, I'm not actually doing any advertising on Snapchat.

[00:20:13] No one else is here though, right? No. Yeah, that's an area that I've never really looked into. I'm not sure it's on, on target for most of the brands that I'm helping. But What's for kids to socialize? I haven't even, I haven't even had an account. Pam's got some [00:20:30] kids. I think we should ask her what she knows.

[00:20:32] Yeah. So yes, exactly. So we need to really look at I'd love to look at that and see what the target market is like on there. I haven't looked in a long time and I'm sure that it's changed as they all do. This brings up a really valid point though, about social media marketing and depending on what you sell is going to really depend on where you're going to be.

[00:20:53] And it doesn't mean be everywhere. That's it. That's it. So sometimes you can just find one spot. But at the same time, I also [00:21:00] don't, I believe very much in the don't put all your eggs in one basket because when an algorithmic shift happens that doesn't suit the content that you're producing, then all of a sudden you're hooped.

[00:21:12] So you have to that's exactly what happened in 2012 when Facebook did it big, this big algorithm, there were people that were operating. Full businesses on Facebook that weren't advertising anywhere and did not have a website. They could just do direct sales. I remember that. And they didn't have to pay any advertising money as [00:21:30] long as they were engaging the people correctly.

[00:21:31] They were getting like, really good percentages of their users were finding they were served up their content, which is now the problem. We're down to I don't know, like less than 5 percent of our. audience actually being served up our content to begin with. So you don't really want to put all your eggs in one basket because those businesses were freaking out in 2012.

[00:21:54] I remember that quite distinctly. Yeah, it's strange. Yeah. And and then the last thing that I [00:22:00] wanted to bring up is again, this wait before you bring this up. Cause this is funny. Wasn't there, Greg, did you mention a Twitter competitor? Who mentioned the Twitter? What was I did? Yeah, that's that.

[00:22:12] Oh yeah. I guess we're in social, we're talking about Blue Sky, which I've been on for quite a while, but I love it. You've been on it like, I hope so many Twitter people. Go to blue sky and people just continue on blue sky like it just got opened [00:22:30] up the news about it Is that it got opened up to because it was invite only and so now it's not invite only Which is the big news regarding blue sky so There is a train of thought against why people should go to blue sky, but they're not suggesting stay at Twitter either.

[00:22:47] So I'm going to drop a really interesting read that a pal of mine from Bellingham sent me over on social yesterday when I was talking about blue sky on my social site, my social account, and [00:23:00] he sent me these really great this really great sort of argument for why we don't want to, go from one billionaire.

[00:23:08] thing to the next billionaires thing. And it was quite interesting if you're interested in the politics of all that. , okay. One billionaire thing to another billionaire thing. That's really interesting. I, cause, cause I trust you, Greg. I want to check it out. I, the last note about the blue sky thing that's really interesting is the new AI that they're not letting people use.

[00:23:28] That's actually called blue [00:23:30] sky in, in, in Japanese, isn't it? And this thing can make a video. Out of a sentence. Yeah, Sora is the name of it. Sora. Of course, if you spend any it's the, yeah, it's a Japanese name for that's what I had heard. Blue Sky, yeah. But, okay, now Rina's funny news. Oh, and Les Phelan, you wanted to end it off with the Blue Sky thing?

[00:23:51] No, the Sora, because while it does make certain videos, it does not understand proportions. And has made these really horrifying videos of monkeys with four legs [00:24:00] and no arms. And huge, yeah. Sort videos and find out a whole bunch of I've seen a bunch of them. They're fairly terrifying in how far they go into the uncanny valley.

[00:24:11] Like they're not even at the uncanny valley. Uncanny's my favorite. What is your favorite? Uncanny. The uncanny is brilliant. Okay, but for more complex stuff, it's just not there yet. It's like when the AI image stuff first came out. Nice. It's [00:24:30] still, it's so bad.

[00:24:33] I can't get English and in some of my images. And I will say there's a yelling meme about make it without the fork. And then there's four forks and then there's six forks and then it's all forks and you're like, you're losing it, I think that's pretty funny. Okay. So that's interesting.

[00:24:50] We all need to keep a pulse on that. And last but not least Rina, tell us about an AI experience that you thought was funny. Yes. So [00:25:00] basically we, I'm still doing the Watch out with your use for, with AI. Don't use it indiscriminately. Pay attention to what you're doing. And this is perfect because it is a perfect example.

[00:25:12] So Air Canada was recently ordered by a tribunal to compensate a man because its chatbot bot gave poor information. I guess this man had asked the chatbot how to organize your bereavement. Discount so that's for when people need to [00:25:30] attend funerals. There is usually a discount on some airlines excuse me and Apparently the chatbot gave him incorrect information.

[00:25:39] It sounded like fine information. So from a user's perspective, you wouldn't question It was you know, send in Your information any time up to three months and get your get your get a reimbursement check and apparently Air Canada did not honor that because it was not correct. It was not the correct procedure [00:26:00] and they were ordered and they their argument that they made in court is Was that they shouldn't be responsible for what the chat bot says.

[00:26:10] But which is ironic and I think I believe that some of it was because the information on the procedure was clearly Written on the website. So that's one thing but sometimes you think you want a person to verify what you're reading You know, but if you don't realize it's not a person what are you to do?

[00:26:29] [00:26:30] Yeah, that interesting and they're responsible for it. Are they not legally? Yeah they are now. They have been. They have been made responsible. Yeah, the idea is that you would you would teach the chatbot that, Hey, don't say these things. Read our procedure manual to make sure that you're aware of limitations.

[00:26:46] They're figuring that you would have done some training of the chatbot in order to tell it what not to do so that it doesn't put you in these positions. And we are out of time. Play with AI in the next month, guys. And let's all talk about it again. [00:27:00] And I'm so glad you're here.

[00:27:01] Shailen and Pam and Carrie. And next week is anybody, it is, Email marketing web platform is right for you with real AI. I need to watch that because I'm so frustrated. And there's been a, it's with you. No, I know it's with me. Who's with me? Oh, good. Hold on. You're doing email marketing, Greg.

[00:27:24] No. This is a follow up to previous lives. We [00:27:30] did a part one. I'm going to have to go find that. It was a huge topic. And okay. I'm going to go get that. Yeah, we needed to expand on it. So we'll do that next time. So if you haven't watched part one We'll drop that in the comments below so that you can be prepped and up to speed for part two I'll put it in the event too.

[00:27:53] So and if you're joining us on any other channel We are streaming in YouTube Facebook on our business pages [00:28:00] and we're communicating inside Cyberpunk Geeks Marketing Mixer a Facebook group Today. We got to have a good day y'all and we will see you guys next time.

00:00 - Introduction to Video SEO and Optimization

01:00 - Success Stories in YouTube Optimization

02:00 - Exploring Video Platforms: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok

03:00 - The Challenge of YouTube Organization

04:00 - Using YouTube for Podcasting

05:00 - Content Strategy and Audience Engagement

06:00 - Keyword Research and Optimization

09:00 - The Power of Detailed Research

18:00 - Tags vs Hashtags

20:00 - The Importance of Chapters and SRT Files

22:00 - Analyzing Data and Adjusting Strategies

23:00 - Setting Goals and Understanding KPIs

25:00 - Enhancing Channel and Content Visibility

27:00 - Final Thoughts and Next Steps

____

[00:00:00] So we are here today and we are talking about video SEO and YouTube optimization. I'm Pip and this is Rina Liddell from Little Work's Indie Media Agency that we just sorted out momentarily ago, right? And our powers combined, agencies working together as a group, yeah.

[00:00:19] To help each other learn what to do. And what works. And so there's been a lot of change and kerfuffle in the world of things, and we're gonna get right into it. Yeah. But before we do, the reason we're talking about this today is because both you and I have had some extreme success over on YouTube doing some stuff.

[00:00:41] As I recall, extreme success. I love that. You've just that makes me a little nervous. Yeah, we've had some success. I'd say we'd had, we've had some success. Extreme, I don't know about that, but yes. And and tell me about your success. We've a lot. Yeah. We've been working a lot on it recently we've been really working at the algorithm and trying to figure out [00:01:00] the what the best way to optimize is one of the things that we found. See, you put the extreme in and someone's already, I love it. I can't keep telling your story. It's good. So what has hap what we, what i, what has happened for my agents?

[00:01:13] See is that we became really interested in video. We've been working with video on Instagram for a while, and we pulled in some TikTok clients recently at one in particular. And and we were trying to figure out the YouTube piece of it because YouTube is not a space that I use very often as a user, so I don't know it as well.

[00:01:31] And what I found the most frustrating about YouTube organizing. For YouTube is that when you try and find out the information on how to organize for YouTube, you get a lot of blog articles, and the answer is buying a tool that does it all for you. And I forgot what the tool is called. Is it called there's a couple.

[00:01:50] Yeah, there's one in particular that seems to have dominated in the affiliates space. Yeah. TubeBuddy. Exactly. Yeah. That one seems to have dominated the space. And what I wanna [00:02:00] know is what are we actually doing? I don't want TubeBuddy doing it for me. I wanna actually do it because as soon as the algorithm shifts you can't, you don't know where to start or how to test and tweak for better results.

[00:02:11] So that's been my, or is saying she uses TubeBuddy. Cool. We wanna know all about that actually. And she's excited about our extreme success. And there's, yeah, exactly. I'm excited about it too. To the Greg's giving you some love, buddy. My God. Okay. Yes. So yes, I am back. Thank you for waiting.

[00:02:30] I've been on a course. Oh, we should have talked about that. Yeah I must say we, before we get really into it, I love the squiggly thing coming off the ceiling right there. I feel like, yeah, there I feel are a few of them actually. Oops. They're, it's not, the camera's not, I'm at I'm house sitting and and I asked them to keep the, the New Year's party decorations up because I just found them so festive and I like that. So they'll probably pull them down when they get back. But for now, that's why this Google is are there. So back to YouTube. YouTube. So [00:03:00] basically I we're and I think in Geek speak too, we've been trying to work on how to actually organize YouTube as a Podcasting platform.

[00:03:06] And that's one of the things that I'm mostly interested in is how to grow that. We have one client. Who's looking for sponsorship on podcasting, and therefore we need to organize so that we can demonstrate viewership. That's what we need to do. Yeah, so we're using YouTube as a secondary podcasting platform, and we're putting the live not live, but we're putting up the podcasts on the long format, on YouTube.

[00:03:31] And then the question always is because and it's hard to talk about YouTube without talking about Instagram and tick tock in my mind because what's been happening is. YouTube took on short format a while back and they've been pushing that algorithm. So the short format gets really good traction.

[00:03:50] And then TikTok has just announced last week that they're encouraging their creators to do long format. Long form, yeah. And horizontal. Idea. [00:04:00] Oh, I got holds, I got told to turn my camera, my, my phone and an ad for the hurricane movie. So that was interesting. So the reason why they want to do that, I think, and they haven't been explicit about this yet, but I'm sure it's gonna come up.

[00:04:15] I haven't seen any yet, but I'll let you know. 'cause I'm on TikTaka every night. Doom scrolling. Apparently the bottom piece, you're, you can't put any information on the bottom piece and you can't put any information on the top piece that doesn't count as a horizontal. If they catch that, then they don't give you the horizontal algorithm benefits, and we think that they wanna put ads.

[00:04:36] There, that's where the creator, what the creators are saying. So the more that TikTok takes up YouTube, and YouTube takes up TikTok formats, then it just starts to get a little bit, you gotta really know, check this out, the distinctions. What's that? Yeah. Look at that Google podcast app from.

[00:04:53] For Android is moving to YouTube pockets. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting because we're using it [00:05:00] as a, we're using YouTube as a primary for one person. Yeah. And our, and I'm gonna convince them I want longer form content. 'cause we started a strategy with shorts. And mind you, I will tell you although, like the, and the success is phenomenal I will say, like out of the box, like we're adding, a lot of success for us. So we're adding like 10 to 20 new subscribers a day. And we're at 700 now. And because this has happened, and it happened with her email too, but that was a bit of a cheeky thing because really I think she had all the bones. Yeah. And she just needed it set up. So what did we do?

[00:05:39] We just took a bit of credit and tried to and helped her get it organized. Yeah. But she had. There was some good bones there. And with the YouTube though, whoa. Like it just happened and it's like just going and going and we're just like. So I have to Okay. What's your topic on, what's your topic on that one?

[00:05:57] Ah, isn't that interesting? Because I think because that makes a really [00:06:00] big difference in my mind, huge difference. I'm taking everyone to the kitchen because I'm so out of practice for these that I put something in the oven and then forgot. Okay. So I've been asked, Ooh, adding new subscribers by doing what?

[00:06:14] Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Okay. The strategy, so let's talk about the topic first because the topic is, hard and it's emotional. And so that's a lot of the reason. Yeah, I think so. It's, the client deals with emotional abuse and she's written a book and she's Oh I know this client.

[00:06:31] Yeah. And she's just well spoken and creates trust on the screen, which is really cool. And she's just trying to help people get out of that situation. Yeah, we totally do. That's actually really. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That is absolutely true. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. Fair.

[00:06:48] Is that Greg? No, but Greg was the podcast guy. He's got Oh, it was Greg Bastard. It was Greg. Okay. I thought so. And that's actually curious because the same thing for us. [00:07:00] We had one video, we've got a podcasting company that or. Organization that is doing the intersection of sleep and mental health and we put out a video on what does it mean to be triggered.

[00:07:12] Of course you put that word triggered into anything and it's actually runs beautiful. This is the first step in, don't you know, do really good keyword research on your videos forehead. Isn't that interesting? And adjust your titles accordingly. So did you have do keyword research?

[00:07:30] Yeah, totally. Okay. Interesting. So we did. Yeah, totally. So what we do is we do it's ended up working a bit weird because, and we have another client that does a podcast for business coaches and and they, they're responsible for putting up on Spotify and we're responsible for getting up on YouTube and we shift the titles.

[00:07:47] Be depending on whether it's a interesting, do you get approval from your clients? We don't exact. We've asked to do it and we've, we do put it forward. We don't, we're not doing anything too drastically [00:08:00] different. We're definitely not changing the meaning, so that the meaning is. Consistent and and appropriate.

[00:08:05] We're not, keyword stuffing or anything like that. I don't recommend any of that, but but yeah there's a bunch of different tools we use for testing our titles and one of them is keyword research. I. How do marketers get, sorry, request Is that Greg? No. Okay. No, but that's great.

[00:08:24] That's great. No comment. Thank you. No comment. No comment. I, it's on a different channel. Just if you know the bring, we're pulling in comments. So this is the greatest comment ever. That's hilarious. That's called out of scope and it's called yeah. There's some taxes that happen there, oh yeah.

[00:08:42] There are some taxes. Yes. We'll talk about that. We should do that in a whole other, another. We'll do that. We promise to put that's really good. So basically that's where we wanna start, is we wanna make sure that we're doing keyword research and understanding our demographic really well.

[00:08:55] Who are we trying to attract? So I learned the most about keywords and [00:09:00] choosing the right. Content and all of that. When I had actually an event go viral, and this sounds like it's not gonna be relevant, but it actually is. I had an event go viral in, I can't even remember how long ago it was maybe seven years ago.

[00:09:14] And there were 2000 people that showed up for this opening night at this tiny little gallery in Burnaby. And they the artists were all like retirees, so it was a really bizarre thing to happen. It ended up in the papers. Everything like that. There was, and there were people coming out from Vancouver to go to Burnaby.

[00:09:31] That never happens. We know what Vancouver's anyways, so it was 2000 people for the opening night and then they had like a significant number of people during the day. I forgot what the stats are compared to their usual five to 10 people that would show up daily. They were getting tons and we had to get crowd control and the fire department showed up and.

[00:09:49] All this fun stuff and the reason why it worked so well and why it went viral. Because it did. I thought the plate, the page was hacked because I kept notification after notification and people were tagging [00:10:00] their friends in it. And and it turned. So I had to call the client and say, I have no idea if this is real or if I've been hacked, but we might wanna consider, getting organizing for a lot of people I can't guarantee.

[00:10:14] And, anyways, the point was is that it had been, this one guy on this art show had done one of those infinite infinity mirrors rooms, right? He did a little tiny room and he hung up his little mirrors everywhere. And so you would go in and they had a giant, it coincided with the giant exhibition in Seattle, and it also coincided with.

[00:10:37] Selfie culture, like selfie culture was just really becoming a huge thing. So what do people look for? Especially young people. They were looking for really cool places to take selfies and this infinity. Room was one of those places. So when you have the right, and we used his image and his project as the headline and the title, and it just went viral.

[00:10:59] So when [00:11:00] we think about what we want to do in the world, it's always the same thing. We're not thinking about what we're doing and what we're putting out there. From a creator's producer per perspective, we are thinking about what do the people want? What does our target market want? Now it turned out that I pulled in a whole lot of people, and none of them were the right target market because they showed up, they took their selfies, but no one bought any art.

[00:11:24] So it wasn't. The huge success that I was hoping for them. But it was a weirdo success nonetheless, because they had never gotten on the map in the mark. Nobody had even knew about this collective that was doing art. So there was some wins, but not the wins that I was hoping for.

[00:11:40] So we wanna always position ourselves in as what's the benefit? What is it that I'm talking about? So you have to actually talking the world. Yeah. Yeah. What I. And what are those people talking about? So you have to be in the world. So when I usually look at something, I'm actually going, so I've got this client with the, that does [00:12:00] education for coaches.

[00:12:01] I go into coaching spaces and find out what are they talking about, what is interesting them, what is happening in that space? And then I think you on, what are those words? Yeah, what are their buzzwords? What are they using? And then you verify that what are the searches that are happening in Google and how do you verify that?

[00:12:17] Oh, you search in YouTube? Yeah, I search in YouTube. I don't always go with what YouTube search comes up with because sometimes. The search isn't sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. But yeah, so I compare like what I, the research that I've done in the world, because that's the part that nobody really does that well.

[00:12:35] And then the part is the checking to see what people are searching for in the search bar. And that's just a matter of typing in the first part of your search and then seeing what other combination. Yeah. That's it. Do you know what else you can do with that? Okay. So take your cursor and put it on the other side.

[00:12:51] Yes. On the beginning. Yes. Yes. And then, and do a space. And it does the same. But it takes, it doesn't just take the first part of your sentence. It'll add [00:13:00] to the first part of your sentence sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. That's actually good strategy. I found that the win is in the details. And that's what we see.

[00:13:08] Yeah. And I actually just listened to an optimizer podcast and it was about content and landing pages. 'cause that's part of what I do. And the funniest, most interesting thing is that's what they were saying, that the, it's all in the research and Yeah, and it's all in the details.

[00:13:26] And that's what people aren't doing. They're not doing the details. And if you like topically when you search, like for this one SEO video, SEO and YouTube optimization what is that? What does that mean? You could do the cursory things and I can go to chat GPT and I can be like, what should we talk about?

[00:13:43] And I did. And you know what? Our conversation's completely different than that. And the other thing is to do things like, for, here's a funky fun tip. Go to chat GPT. Not, yeah. Not Gemini. 'cause I don't think Gemini is that great yet? And go and do a search [00:14:00] for. What are the secret things that people do to optimize a YouTube video?

[00:14:08] That's right. That's right. That pulls it up. You'll get some really interesting stuff and it won't be the top 10. It won't be like, just pick a good title and it goes, there's some strategy in there, and that's one of the things that I was embarrassed about when I started my business early on was charging for.

[00:14:29] Or research. And the thing is, you have to, because half the plan comes from the research. Yeah, right? Yeah. There was one, yeah. There was one person who I was doing all this amazing research for on LinkedIn hashtags, and they would go in and delete the whole thing. And it's like that's the sauce.

[00:14:44] That's the sauce. That's the, and the, and it's often what I find clients don't. It's the parts that they don't know that, that they don't use. And they move and they shift and they adjust and they don't realize that, ah, that's actually what they're, [00:15:00] that's the beauty of, that's the beautiful thing that they're paying for, that they don't know that they need and they delete it.

[00:15:05] And it's I've had that happen. And the reality is that when it comes right down to it, we are talking to humans and robots, like if we're, yeah. Quite since. Seer about the topic and some, yeah. In the end, the client gets to choose. They're paying me. Sure. Yeah. And it is heartbreaking.

[00:15:22] Yeah. It can be because you do a lot and and you explain things and I, it's hard to figure out what to explain and what not to explain. Like where do I get approvals and permissions? What's the most I, yes. I guess it, it also depends on the client, right?

[00:15:36] For sure. For sure. But so the hottest. Tip, I think was that, 'cause I did that to chat GPT. Oh my gosh. I love that dog. I know. And I, so I did that in chat, GPT and I got some good things. So I'm going to actually change Yeah. A bit of my strategy. But yeah, as I said the outcome of the strategy is.

[00:15:54] The devil's in the details, right? Totally. And the devil isn't checking back. So [00:16:00] some people just optimize and walk away. But you, there's nothing to say that you can't go back to old content and Reoptimize and checked, did this actually help? Is it mo, has it moved? Is it getting shown? And then, and if it's not adjusting and redistributing it.

[00:16:18] And consistency. So it's the two rules when you get online, there's two major rules that you have to, that you should play by. Oh, I don't know these, I should know these. Tell me what these are. Yeah. Yeah. Be nice. Oh yeah. Be helpful. Oh yeah. And as soon as you do that for a number of years, you will, somebody will notice you get ready.

[00:16:38] But there are people who are not very nice, who are super viral, actually, if you think about it. Yeah. If you really wanna go viral. So fear based things work and we know that people are more likely to buy out a fear than they are likely to buy out of fun and happy and, I know I need this, right?

[00:16:56] It's more about, oh my God, if I don't have this, but I, the channels that do the [00:17:00] best, like on TikTok especially are the negative for sure. Over the positive, like the I, but I am a big fan of I get my daily dose of top 10 dogs a week and the channels say hi to tell your dog I say hi.

[00:17:15] And Oh, that's a good one. I love that. So I do, I am not a news junkie and I tried to share news in Facebook recently, and it was like denied. Yeah, you're not allowed to Canadian. Yeah. But, so let's Oh, sorry. Take it back. Take it back. Go. Let's go, let's get back. So we've covered titles and some research on how tactics to do titles, and then the next part.

[00:17:40] So I actually think that one's the most important because it's gonna resonate with your audience or not. But the rest of it. Is more testing and tweaking. So tag, you have to optimize by doing the tags, they'll prompt, YouTube will prompt you through all of the things that it wants.

[00:17:55] But I wanna talk about tags versus hashtags. Okay. Because [00:18:00] those two things are completely different, even though they feel the same. And hashtags are more like that works for this Google search in a particular way. The tags that are in inside, they need to actually. Be fairly narrow. So sometimes they need to be, we have to think about our tags and our hashtags.

[00:18:21] Hashtags not so much but tags more are more narrow to come up in searches. So things like I. I had I had a real estate agent I looked peeked in his in his tags. And someone had been adding best real estate agent Canada. And it's you can't, if you can't sell real estate in all of Canada and your market is not in all of Canada, don't use that as a hashtag.

[00:18:45] Canada, yeah, don't use that as a tag. So the tags have to make sense. So we're not gonna put just real estate because that's just way too broad. It's not gonna be helpful. But if you have, if your particular video is a vacation property on [00:19:00] the Sunshine Coast, then hashtags around that location and that type of property is gonna be super helpful.

[00:19:07] And you wanna maximize those, hash, those tags. So while we don't wanna do a huge amount of hashtags, because that just looks busy and desperate. And doesn't always work anyways, the tags on the inside, you wanna max out. Like those should be, use them all. Okay. That's a really good thought. Oh, there's 5,000 characters in there.

[00:19:26] Isn't there something crazy? Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot. Yeah. So you can actually use a lot. And then just make as many narrow ones as you can. Narrow to your topic, narrow to your market, narrow to your region. If you're regional and you can only sell things regionally, then don't. Do just don't do the thing that you do.

[00:19:45] Do the thing with the region. That's super important. And then, okay, let's talk about let's talk about Chap. Oh yeah. Go. Oh, chapters. You want chapters? I love chapters. Yeah, because. I find people miss that all the time. Yes. And I love the chapters and there's [00:20:00] strategy on how you do them, and it's a little bit of fun and hard work.

[00:20:03] Okay. Share your something else. I wanna hear about that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because we have different strategies. Okay. Yes. And so the SRT file is huge for us. Yeah, that is, that you have to do that. I've tried doing chapters on shorts, so that didn't necessarily work well, but on long form I think it works really well and I appreciate it as a user.

[00:20:27] Yes. And yeah, so that's really good. The SRT file that's huge for us. What you were saying before about the going in and rejigging. Yeah. Is really important and something we're trying. But you do have to track it then, right? Yes, you do. And that takes us to, what we all should be focusing on is learning the data.

[00:20:47] Learning the data. Because what is important to Google, right? Yes. Shorts take precedent. But then you have to look at so if I watch 30 seconds or a one minute video, 'cause it has to be one minute as a short. [00:21:00] Or I watch five minutes of an hour video. What gets me more credits? One minute. Yes. Whole video.

[00:21:05] Five minutes actually is more so the length of time is something that is judged right. For algorithms. 'cause the longer you stay on any channel. YouTube, Facebook LinkedIn, the more they want you to stay. So they give you kind of points, let's say, for creating engagement, for keeping people on platform and things like that.

[00:21:26] YouTube similar. So I'm learning now because we're very analytics focused, data studio, search console, but. I don't know enough about the YouTube numbers, that's where I am diving into to do better. 'cause that's what I think will make it work. So I actually heard some interesting numbers just the other day from a podcast expert whom am Mike, am I back?

[00:21:49] I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Oh, there we go. Somebody rude, recalled they didn't know we were doing this. Every every week. Okay. I'm hoping to do an interview with this podcast expert in the next little [00:22:00] while here. And and but in the meantime she gave me some really great stats.

[00:22:05] So it really depends on what your, what happened goal is, and that's the other thing. Can you still hear me? I can hear you, yes. Okay. Gosh, I feel like the wifi might not be the best here, but but basically what I wanna say is that you have to actually understand the goal. Is your goal to be an influencer and therefore you need all of the views and you need things to go viral.

[00:22:26] Is that your goal? Do you need new clients? Do you want new clients? And you have a only a. Particular capacity for clients that you can handle and you're not interested in scaling, then you need to keep that in mind. Are you looking for sponsorship? If you're looking for sponsorship, it's slightly different criteria and KPIs.

[00:22:47] So all those things have different KPIs and you need to actually understand what it is that you're doing and come up with the KPIs that you want, first of all. Because there's no point in taking video viral if you can't manage the [00:23:00] outcome and or if it doesn't bring you the outcome that you're looking for either.

[00:23:04] Because viral things don't always work the way that you think they're going to. So we have a client that goes viral and it's for the wrong group of people. For the right group of people, but. Further distance, like she's actually targeting parents, not the kids. Anyway, go on. Yeah, so my point is that if you're looking for a podcasting sponsorship and and making money off monetizing your podcasting, then it's actually better for you to have a smaller number.

[00:23:33] Of engaged users. Rather than a huge number. And it can actually be, and what I mean by that is small, a small number of views. So sometimes 800 views is perfect in a month. Not for everybody, but that can be the point for some people. So you just have to also. Figure out what your goals are.

[00:23:55] Figure out what KPIs you need to monitor, and then mo make sure you're monitoring [00:24:00] them and adjusting your content with those KPIs in mind. So it might be the number of people who watch, it might be the number of subscribers. It might be how long they watch. If you're doing long format.

[00:24:11] Podcasting then you don't want 5 million people who only watch three minutes. That's gonna tell you something about your content or your targeting.

[00:24:21] What there's a comment I'm not gonna put up 'cause I think it says any woman inbox, SMS. Now I send free video. Free. Free. Okay. That won't go up. But thank you very much for your comment. We appreciate it. Yeah so let's get back to the that's interesting. I, that's sure I understand, but Okay.

[00:24:38] I didn't understand, but it it's really interesting that we're talking about YouTube SEO and video because the reality is that, five years ago. They did say that, video is gonna be like a huge thing. Video's a huge thing. It's huge. Yeah. And it, oh, it needs to be part of a strategy now, even if it's [00:25:00] simplistic.

[00:25:00] But to get started today is good. And just think that it's a career move. And it can be, it doesn't. And a commitment. And a commitment. Yeah. It's a commitment. But it is a commitment. But, and then the other thing that we have to really talk about is the, I went through my is how your channel is.

[00:25:18] So we've been focusing mostly on our That's true. On the videos in particular, but we wanna optimize for more viewers. So that includes organizing your playlist so that your content comes more, they'll watch more of your content rather than moving out to what. YouTube recommends. So that's also really important.

[00:25:38] And then also, where do you want those people to go? Do you want them to visit your site? Do you want them to take action in a particular way? Then all of that has to happen. All of that has to be clear. So as soon as you can do cards and put links in and subscribe buttons, you wanna be doing all of those things that are relevant for your goals and, and you also wanna make sure that your [00:26:00] description on your channel is full. Like they give you a very large space. So don't put two sentences, make sure you're utilizing it. I for the optimization and putting, yeah, writing it for all of your keywords that all of the, if you're trying to find clients, what all the things you're doing are your service.

[00:26:16] Yeah, exactly. So not just digital marketing. You wanna actually add Facebook ads, you wanna add email templates, right? You wanna add whatever it is that you do the whole thing. We need to recap quickly 'cause we're running outta time and we talked about some Oh goodness. Amazing stuff. Did you have any more, do you have any Java's sweet secret last thing you do?

[00:26:38] Oh yeah. The last thing that we've been playing with I, the numbers went way up on the shorts. We've stopped putting those pretty Thumbnails up thumbnails look things. Yeah, I know, and you shouldn't, at one point they said do on the big longer format ones, we still do, but on the short form we don't.

[00:26:57] And on Instagram and Tik Tok, we don't.[00:27:00] And in fact, we actually look for the most awkward spaces because we have got one guy. And whenever he's, into his information, he looks like he's frowning. So he looks like he's saying something angry when he is and that's the one we stop on because people wanna know why is that person angry?

[00:27:17] Why is that person laughing? Why is that person, and they'll actually check it out. And if it's the right, if the keywords have gotten to the right person and then they get interested and they check it out then that can work for you. So I recommend that. Yeah. Yeah. So actually.

[00:27:32] The right people are looking for your stuff. I think that's the importance. So research, we got research and then we had what is it? All the details. So research details, strategy and then knowing your market. And the last one was your market. Finding you, Ooh, I'm glad you made it today, two.

[00:27:53] It was really fun. Next week is our group. So what's up in the world of marketing? We'll be talking about [00:28:00] search, social and websites, and we'll even throw in some email marking and some ai. So if you are interested to know what's going on in these industries or something that we don't, we'd love for you to join us because there's so much now and opinions always matter.

[00:28:15] So join us next week, Thursday 11. A.M. Pacific. Time for geek Speak. And if you're watching this we are in the Facebook group cyberpunk marketing mixer. Yeah. And you can also catch this on whatever platform you are seeing it. We always stream in the same spaces. Yeah. All. So thanks so much guys.

[00:28:36] All right. Bye bye. Thanks for coming.

0:00 - Introduction: Introduction to the episode's focus on WordPress, including themes, plugins, and how they interact with WordPress core.

1:00 - Understanding WordPress as a CMS: Explanation of WordPress as a content management system and its basic functionalities.

3:00 - WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com: Discussing the differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com, including their uses and limitations.

5:00 - Themes in WordPress: Deep dive into WordPress themes, including selecting the right theme, the importance of regular updates, and free vs. paid themes.

10:00 - Customizing WordPress Themes: The concept of building custom themes and the implications for website maintenance and updates.

14:00 - Plugins for Extending WordPress Functionality: Introduction to plugins, their role in adding functionalities to WordPress sites, and how to choose the right plugins.

18:00 - Security and Maintenance of WordPress Sites: Discussing the security aspects of WordPress, the importance of keeping themes and plugins updated, and maintenance tips.

22:00 - Performance and Optimization: Tips on ensuring your WordPress site remains fast and efficient, including minimizing the number of plugins.

25:00 - Choosing and Managing Plugins Wisely: Further advice on selecting plugins for functionality without compromising site performance.

28:00 - Conclusion and Next Episode Preview: Wrapping up the discussion on WordPress and teasing the next episode's focus on SEO and YouTube optimization.

[00:00:00] Hello there it is that time of the month once again, or the time of the week once again where we get on and talk about GeekSpeak. And today we are talking about under getting a deeper understanding of WordPress. That's how themes and plugins they all interact, how they interact with the core, what's the distinction between them and how to pick the right one for the right situation.Hey, Phelan, did you already introduce yourself and no, I hadn't. My

[00:00:30] yeah go for it. Go for it. Yeah. My name is Phelan. I work at Seymour Digital Media, where we do search engine marketing. And I'm Greg McKinnon with OriginalSeventyTwoCreative, and we're a full-service website, graphic design and digital marketing firm in Vancouver. Yeah, I as everybody knows, I've changed my year for GeekSpeak. I'm only on once a month. The wrap-up as well on the third month. And each, each second week I'm releasing a blog and doing the

[00:01:00] topic. So today's topic was giving a better understanding of WordPress themes and plugins and what each of them do and how each of them work together.Like what are the differences of each, and just a more broad overall understanding of using WordPress and. Customizing and how everything works together. So basically, the first thing I wanted to go about

[00:01:30] was that WordPress is a content management system. It will allow you to, um, build your site.On top of, so that it gives you the functionality of maintaining your content, images, a blog and any features related to being able to put in that content, put in the images, build out the pages um, and things like that. So people don't I don't know if people think of

[00:02:00] WordPress as more than that.Or if they just think, if they think of WordPress as everything. But in a nutshell, that's all WordPress is. It's a content management system that allows you to maintain your pages, add your content, add your images, and have an interface to go in and create all of that stuff, or maintain all of that stuff within your work, your website.I think the dogs agree. Yeah. They're very

00:02:30] upset with your description. Yeah. They're like, you're completely wrong. They're like, what about WooCommerce? Yeah. There's e-commerce functionality. They're um, and so they're yeah. I think that yeah, it's a, ultimately it's a CMS where basically it has a backend that.It is graphically represented. And so with that, it means that someone doesn't have to write like raw code to put out a blog post. Yeah. They can have some sort of interface. And then that's the core functionality of

[00:03:00] WordPress. The smart part about WordPress is that it was during the aughts and the open source wars of the lamp stacks, which is like the PHP based backends, your Drupal's, your Juma's. There's a fourth one that I'm forgetting, but like with Yanto Magento magenta kicking around too. It's. Yeah. Magento's still around? Yep. I think they're all still around. Drupal and Joomla have been deprecated.

[00:03:30] Oh, have they? Yeah. Yeah. 'cause I did work on a a Drupal website. No. A Joomla website and boy, howdy.Has it not been updated since twenty-ten? Oh boy. It was limited features of Galore. And yeah but it comes outta that world where everyone was doing open source every, and because of that, it meant that also it meant that people could build off of WordPress and add some additional functionality or even different.Ways of having the website looks like your

[00:04:00] themes and your plugins. So it opened up and built a community, which the added benefit of having open source as well is that you have, you're not just whatever the team is that say you work at Apple and you're fixing an Apple product, it's all the people on the internet who are adding to the.Code base and finding fixes and finding errors. So it meant that you're not limited to the people in a specific company. You have all the power of people on the internet who want to contribute to it. So it it improves the overall product because you have so many new minds

[00:04:30] working on it, looking at it in different ways, adding new features that you wouldn't even have thought of necessarily.And so that's the big power behind WordPress. Yeah. The, a little backstory of WordPress it was basically a blogging platform that matt Mullenweg picked up and forked and. Created it started working on what he was calling WordPress. But it was an original blogging platform that he he picked up

[00:05:00] and forked off of. Do you remember, I'm trying to think of what the original blogging platform might have been called. Do you recall, should look that? Yeah, I know, like I think it. I can't even remember the name of it. And I know some pretty esoteric names of the original companies, but that's one I don't even know. And actually WordPress just recently within the last year turned 20, like it was, it's been around for 20. 20 plus years

[00:05:30] now, but it was, there was a milestone twenty-year thing I remember just not far back. So it's been around a long time. But essentially, WordPress itself does that basic stuff for you. It allows you to create pages in an interface without having to know HTML or CSS and stuff like that. And within WordPress you get. The themes and plugins that you can select. So WordPress on its own is a CMS. Within WordPress.

[00:06:00] Then you have obviously the themes where you would there's a default theme and there's been a default, a new default theme with WordPress every year.Going back from its beginning. They're typically always called whatever the year is. So like the 2024 theme. The 2023 theme not very exciting. That's what you get when you get web developers naming things is that they're like gonna, uh, they're gonna name it, but boy, how do you say, not gonna be creative, which is why there's 20 million SEO or real

[00:06:30] function apps that are all like redirect.But every release of Wordpress is named after a jazz something jazz related. If it's a Ja, I don't remember if it's specifically jazz singers or just jazz, something Jazz. In general, they could always. This? Yeah, with whichever, jazz related theme this release is they might be able to do something like that, but they do multiple releases.

[00:07:00]Per year. So that might not exactly work, but they could be more creative. Yes. I mean that, that's basically like every product manager at any software company is guys, you could have been a bit more creative in your naming here would've been a big thing that they circle of yeah, but they're famously like coders like.

Get a really creative streak on one specific thing, and then don't think to apply to anything else in their main conventions. Very common you'll find that across the board. It's funnier

[00:07:30] when they actually do get like a proper theme like a. Not to go on a tangent, but like Homebrew, it's like a terminal system for Mac and everything is like related to brewing. So you get a cask or a keg and that's like a module that you install and like actually kept like a proper theme and naming conventions based around like brewing. So it's fun when they actually do get that. But yeah. Anyway yes, WordPress is I think also one of the other parts that's interesting about WordPress is because it's from like basically the.

[00:08:00] The earliest period of the internet where like mass internet culture came from. It also has some inherent issues that just can't get resolved out of just the way it's situated and it's one of those ones where they could fix it, but basically by, if they make a mistake, they could break a third of the internet.And so they have to very cautiously move with it and find new ways to adapt with a system that isn't really built for. A lot of big changes because there's so many people use it that you can

[00:08:30] make one too many changes and break everything. Yeah. Yeah, the o The other thing before moving on more with themes and eventually plugins with WordPress I'd wanted to reiterate that there is WordPress.org and there's WordPress.com.The WordPress.org is the free open source version of WordPress that anybody can download. It's free, you can install it on most any

[00:09:00] hosting provider. And everything's completely free. The default theme is in there for you as well. Which, so you could build a completely free website with just getting hosting and a domain name With WordPress, the free theme and any free plugins versus WordPress.com is a subscription service where there's a little bit more handholding and support.With WordPress.

[00:09:30] So you can sign up for WordPress.com account and then do the exact same thing you can with the .org. But they do have that support. So you have, they, you can chat with someone or you can call 'em and ask questions, but it's also completely do-it-yourself if you want to do it. But you do have that behind you because the free version, you're on your own, right?Like you can take it, you can do whatever you want. For free, but if you need help, you're either going

[00:10:00] to a free WordPress community on Facebook or something like that to try to get information on something that might've gone wrong. Or have a guy like you yourselves, or myself who know WordPress people can come to a web developer and be like, oh, I have this site.I need help. Sure, no problem. And do it that way, or the WordPress.com is a paid service. You pay, you get your hosting, you can build your site, and

[00:10:30] they also have support to give you a hand with whatever it is that you might need. And they have tiered levels. Obviously. If you want a basic blogging site, it's.robably pretty cheap. And then if you want to do like e-commerce or more advanced business sites they have levels that you could go up to, which give you. A little bit more functionality, features and functionality. So I wanted to make sure people knew that distinction between WordPress.org and

[00:11:00] WordPress.com Yeah and I'm just gonna say for the record, avoid WordPress.com like the plague. Yes. I agree. Just like I, it is torture. It is because you cannot access all the plugins that are on WordPress.org. On WordPress.com. That's right. It's a more strict thing. Yeah. Which, looking at it could be good because as I'll mention later on when we get to plugins, there are.Plugins that are really bad, so yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. They give you

[00:11:30] access in there to limited number of plugins that they've deemed to be, reputable and good and serve, very specific functionality and stuff like that. But it's not the type of thing where you have your own ho your self-hosted WordPress, and you can just install whatever you feel like.Yeah. No. I'm just saying for the record, just to let people know, like the, my, I'm not speaking for you, Greg. I'm just speaking for myself. My official stamp is Void. WordPress.com because you will pull your hair out at

[00:12:00] one point you will get to something and go, what do you mean I can't do that thing?And it's just gonna be a weird, arbitrary part where they're just like, no, actually we decided that you can't do that. I completely agree. I think it's a better obviously, this would be a plug for, coming up. Have me help you with your site, but I would definitely recommend having a go-to guy who you can trust and knows.WordPress that if you have an issue, you have them to fall back and say, oh, hey Greg, can you

[00:12:30] I'm having trouble with this, or this is wrong with my site. Just knowing, having someone in the community or having a developer who's been doing it for a long time, behind you to give you a hand when you're trying to do it yourself, but then get stuck is really good.And there's tons of WordPress people out there yeah. It's, it is not hard to find a person who knows WordPress. Yeah. Yeah, and that's another thing I'd also say is just like a quick vote of building off of that before we jump in of like I talked about it earlier,

[00:13:00] having a system that's popular is a good thing because it means that if you have to fire your guy or something happens to them and they disappear off the face of their, you can get a new person in and they will ostensibly have some way of not only fixing it, but being able to reach out to more people.So it's actually having a community that. A large community of using a specific piece of software is good for hiring people is good for knowing how to search for problems. Like it just makes your life easier the

[00:13:30] more popular Yeah, system is. Okay, so a little more on themes then. We touched on the free in default theme that is always available in WordPress, which you can use.

It's a block-based theme now because they're moving towards the block-based builders. But there's a really big repository of. Free themes that are in there to choose from. It's about choosing the right one choosing the one that, uh, is

[00:14:00] at most up to date. Yeah, because themes are built like a theme that was built even two or three years ago.Might not have some of the things that are, designed and built more in the last year. So my suggestion for people when looking for themes is try to find themes that are being updated regularly. For one. And have a lot of downloads, just like

[00:14:30] WordPress. If a theme is widely, the more widely used it is, the more.Easily, you might be able to find someone who knows the specific intricacies of that theme if you needed help. So there's the free theme auction or as well, there's paid themes, paid pro themes from a lot of developers where you can find 'em on places like ThemeForest or other theme shops. But again, when

[00:15:00] you're looking through those, check when they were made.Check how often they're updated to make sure you're choosing a theme that works for you and will work for you in the future. And then in the repository there's also what I refer to as highly customizable framework themes. Which again, they're free, but they might have a paid tier to them for a pro version of it. But they have they typically have a free version with a lot

[00:15:30] of the basic stuff that you would need, and they're very customizable. Again, I can't reiterate enough, always check how often they're updated that they're being maintained actively and that they have a pretty good, download volume to indicate how well or how popular the theme might be.Above all of that, you can just customize and build your own theme from scratch,

[00:16:00] and that typically would be done if you went to a company or a person like myself, and you really wanted a theme that was custom built. To the exact thing that you need for your business. But for that scenario, you're really talking about a much larger budget of three to five or more thousand dollars initially to get something designed and built out for that.And it's becoming more and more, I

[00:16:30] feel something that. Massive businesses are doing because of the popularity of these free theme frameworks and how customizable they are, people can really go in and make pretty amazing sites for a much better value than doing something for for custom. Not to mention the fact that a custom site, once it's done Me too.

[00:17:00] And it doesn't change if something needs to be upgraded, you have to go back to the developer, have them, fix the theme or do whatever you want. Build something back into that theme that that wasn't there last year. That is a new thing in WordPress, for instance. Whereas these highly customizable three theme frameworks. They're actively being updated by the developers. So when you get those updates to that theme, you're getting the new things that are available within

[00:17:30] WordPress or the new trends in design or web design or things like that. Yeah. As well as another one I'd like to touch on why it's important to make sure it's up-to-date is security. PHP is notoriously one of the most insecure coding languages. Like it. You ask it anything, it'll try to give you a sequel injection and tell everyone the database of passwords. Like it will It just so keep that in mind as well. Anytime you do any customizations that are like

[00:18:00] specialty we're dealing with this right now with another. One website that they had it customized and it's just been a pain to get it to talk to plugins, which I know we're gonna touch on because the interactions now are like customized. And so the plugin got updated, but that update meant that how it responded didn't work with the customization, so then they had to go back. And maintenance is definitely gonna be a difficult one. So keep, bear that in mind that you will, you have, how maintainable is it in the long term? I always

[00:18:30] recommend for just kind of future proofing, leave as few customizations as you need because the more that you use within what they gave you with a theme or a plugin, the easier it's gonna be in the future because someone else is hopefully maintaining those two things and keeping it up to date with the core.And so it's just gonna be, you can flow along with what's already existing within it. Rather than try to build something specialty and then it just over time, it'll just be this weird little sore in your website of having to maintain it and keeping

[00:19:00] it working regularly. Yeah, definitely.And the, that gets tricky sometimes when people have themes and they start customizing them a little bit too much, and then the theme has an update and you do the update. If you didn't do those customizations in a certain way, when you update that theme, it's possible you can lose the customizations that you did.Again, depending on how you made those customizations. I'll touch on that maybe a little bit when we talk about plugins, but essentially the theme,

[00:19:30] think of it only as what styles your site, how you set up your navigation, the look of where your logo is, your colors, your fonts. Your overall layout, your footer, that kind of a thing is really what you're achieving with your with your theme.The theme itself does have certain functionality related to styling and and design. But don't think of the theme as something you need

[00:20:00] to add functionality. Oh, I wanna add, a way for my customers to be able to do this. Don't build functionalities of whatever feature you think you need into the theme.And let's move into plugins. And the reason why plugins are there is exactly for what I was just describing. Was to add the functionality and features that you might be missing from what you get in WordPress core functionality,

[00:20:30] like being able to send through contact forms being able to uh, perform SEO on your pages.Being able to add e-commerce to your website to sell product. These are all accomplished through plugins and there's a massive, just like there's a big repository for themes, there's an even bigger repository for full of plugins that are all features that you can [00:21:00] add to your site should you have that need to add. Some type of functionality that you've defined. Yeah it goes back to that open sourceness where someone in the audience finds like, Hey, there's one that I use all the time. Contact form seven while that's being built, other people built connectors for the contact form seven. So it's oh, I want it to reach out to the Google Sheets and I want it to store, when someone fills up my form, it goes there as well. So it's like

[00:21:30] people building off of even what other people are thinking. And so it adds a lot and it's usually, yeah, like you said, it's more functionality, right? It's a lot more, the PHP coding of a specific thing is gonna happen and then it does some logical programming where it like does, say a person comes to a website and then five seconds later I wanna pop up to show up and it's gonna say X, Y, and Z. If they fill it out, sends it to my email marketing platform.Like that kind of stuff where it's not core of the styling, like

[00:22:00] you said, or the layout. It's more just I need my website to do an extra thing. And and again you also wanna make sure, same as the themes as well, make sure it's popular. They have now a compatibility feature as well, which is nice that isn't compatible with my version of WordPress, which is, it's a nice thing to, a little touch for security because I think a lot of us have been seeing that we've had a lot of day one issues, or they call 'em day one bugs. So it's something that they didn't even know was necessarily a security issue

[00:22:30] and they've there's been a couple of those. And so that definitely, you wanna make sure it's maintained and up to date and works with your website because I Even more so than a theme. Anything that's involving the PHP is more directly than like style, which is more like CSS and HTML, which does like layout and styling. That makes it more dangerous basically for the, your security of your website. Yeah. So now that we know a little bit more about what.

[00:23:00] You do with your theme and what you would do to by adding plugins to extend functionality. One of the things I wanted to get across to people is the reason why you wanna make these, keep these distinctions to keeping your theme as. What it looks like only without functionality being added to the site and why plugins are important to add that functionality versus actually building it into the theme is for the upgrade path

[00:23:30] Like we already touched on earlier, I. If you have a theme and it gets updated and you've built things into the theme, then you might lose those customizations, whether it's visual or feature related. So keeping the features within plugins only gives you an easier upgrade to when you, a couple years down the road, you're like, I don't really the look at my site anymore. I'm gonna switch themes. Switching themes now becomes much

[00:24:00] easier because when you choose a new theme, you just have to deal with the new styling and set it up. You're not gonna lose any functionality of your site because all of that is driven from the plugins that you've chosen. And I've seen many times people build certain things into their theme.

And then when that theme gets switched out for something, they're like, oh, I don't have the ability to do this anymore. It's yeah, because it was built into the theme and you've changed it for something else,

[00:24:30] so now you lost that on your site. So that's the important reason why you wanna know the distinctions between each and make sure that you use each for what its core purpose is so that you don't possibly run into that type of a situation in the future.Yeah, definitely. I know that like I've run into it many times where I had to tell someone, did we need to code this? Is there another way we could have done this with the tools that have already been built? Because

[00:25:00] A, like you said, it's easier migrating, it's also like easier if someone needs to change it, and if you wrote it all in code and then someone who doesn't know code has to come along and change it like all of a sudden.It just opens up so many new avenues for things to go wrong for people. That is just not, it's just not beneficial long term for this for anyone who's maintaining the website. There's also, like whoever wrote the code may have wrote like a little snippet in there and you don't understand why they picked those things.

[00:25:30] So then new web developer comes along and has to figure out like. That's a weird way they did that. And they may have chosen a reason, but they left no notation. Like no way to identify it. And so it's gonna be one where you're gonna run into those issues. One other thing I wanted to say as well, don't I know, Greg, you're big on this one as well, for performance of your WordPress website.

Don't just add plugins 'cause they look nice. Keep keep the number of plugins you have at exactly the amount you need. Don't have duplicates. And the,

[00:26:00] this one WordPress website that I'm dealing with is has this issue where there's 30 or 40 plugins and a bunch of 'em are doing the same thing and they're migrating to a new WordPress website.

But it's just the performance is, it's. Being very negatively impacted because it has so many things that it's doing duplicates of and it's just a nightmare. And there are ways, yeah, the more plugins you have, the more resources that your site might be loading, if it's got CSS or JavaScript or whatever it

[00:26:30] is that plug-in needs to function.All of those things need to be Additionally loaded. So it weighs down your page load speed. As far as, performance, though you theoretically could have a lot of plugins with a site that runs just as fast as one with, one or two. It's really more based on how well the plugin has been coded

[00:27:00] Because that's really what that's really what weighs it down. The additional resources do play a little bit of a role, but if there's a call to the database or something's not programmed right, if it's just like a weighted down plugin that would be what would more substantially.

Cause your site to become slow. So for that reason, you always want to make sure that you're looking for plugins again, that have a lot of downloads that have,

[00:27:30] that are being actively updated. And that have a really good star rating. And you should be pretty good to go. Again, like you say, the more you install, the more possibility that there is of, you having that issue.

So try not to install things for a little, the smallest of functionalities when there's probably other solutions of being able to to get that in the site.

[00:28:00] Exactly. And so with that, I think we are gonna have to call it there today. I think we've learned a bit more about how all the WordPress works together and of course we know what next week is gonna be.

Is Rena back with us next week? Yes. I believe that she is. And so I think we are doing. Quickly looks over at Banner. Oh, it's SEO and YouTube

[00:28:30] optimization with Pip and I. Yeah. And yeah, so that should be that should be a lot of fun and I'll see it next week with that. And I think we mentioned it over the weekend, but we are also doing a live teaching on our Knowhow Marketing Lab YouTube channel.

About Google Business profile. Pip's gonna teach you all the ins and outs of that Fun. Yeah. Yeah. So it should be good. I have to go to make sure that we are ready for that though. All. Bye. Oh, is that happening like now?

[00:29:00] Next in an hour or so? I need to make sure everything works. I might have to try to tune in a little bit for that.

Yeah, for sure. And we'll post a link to that as well when we go live. All right. Bye. Alright, thanks Phelan Thanks everybody for watching.

:00 - Introduction and Banter: Pip and Phelan kick off the episode with a light-hearted start and introduce the day's topic: Local SEO in 2024.

0:13 - Diving Into Local SEO: The hosts discuss the significance of Local SEO for local businesses and the impact of AI on content marketing strategies.

1:07 - Understanding Local SEO: Exploring what Local SEO entails and its evolution over the years, including Google's role in its development.

1:57 - Google My Business and Its Evolution: Discussion on Google My Business (now Google Business Profile) and its importance for local businesses.

2:38 - The Importance of Bing in Local SEO: Highlighting Bing Places as a critical platform for local SEO alongside Google.

3:55 - Where Local Businesses Should Focus: Identifying the main platforms where local businesses should have a presence to optimize for local SEO.

4:22 - Key Components of Local SEO: The conversation shifts to the importance of address and location in local search queries.

5:02 - Proximity and Local SEO Strategies: Discussing proximity as a crucial factor in local SEO and strategies for businesses to enhance their local search visibility.

6:09 - The Impact of Local Searches on Business: Analyzing the percentage of local searches and their conversion rates for businesses.

7:27 - Optimizing Google Business Profile: Tips on regularly updating and optimizing Google Business Profile for better local SEO results.

9:46 - The Role of Reviews in Local SEO: Discussing the importance of reviews for local businesses and strategies to encourage customers to leave reviews.

11:13 - Navigating Google's Guidelines for Reviews: Advice on how to solicit reviews ethically according to Google's policies.

13:43 - Utilizing Features of Google Business Profile: Tips on using all available features in Google Business Profile to enhance local SEO.

16:37 - Upcoming Training on Google Business Profile: Announcement of a live training session on how to use Google Business Profile effectively.

17:27 - Analyzing Website Traffic for Local SEO: Discussion on how to use Google Analytics to determine if a business is attracting local website visitors.

19:56 - Connecting Google Business Profile with E-commerce: Insights into integrating e-commerce platforms with Google Business Profile for product visibility.

22:04 - Future of Local SEO and Google Business Profile: Speculation on the future integration of shopping features directly into Google Business Profile.

24:07 - Final Thoughts and Next Week's Topic: Wrapping up the discussion on local SEO and teasing the next episode's focus on WordPress themes and plugins.

This structure provides a clear roadmap for viewers, making it easier to jump to specific discussions within the podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters for "Geekspeak - Local SEO in 2024 - Season 8 Episode 5"

0:00 - Introduction: Start of the podcast where hosts introduce the topic of Local SEO in 2024 and what listeners can expect from the episode.

2:30 - Why Local SEO Matters in 2024: Discussion on the importance of Local SEO for businesses, especially in the current year.

5:00 - Emerging Trends in Local SEO: Insights into the latest trends and changes in Local SEO strategies for 2024.

10:00 - Key Strategies for Enhancing Local SEO: Practical advice on how to improve Local SEO, including optimization tips for Google My Business, local keywords, and more.

15:00 - Overcoming Common Local SEO Challenges: The hosts and guests discuss common challenges businesses face with Local SEO and offer solutions.

20:00 - Expert Insights: Interview segment with SEO experts sharing their predictions and strategies for succeeding in Local SEO.

25:00 - Real-World Success Stories: Sharing success stories from businesses that have effectively implemented Local SEO strategies.

30:00 - Q&A with Listeners: The hosts answer questions from listeners about Local SEO.

35:00 - Conclusion and Key Takeaways: Wrapping up the episode with a summary of key points discussed and final thoughts on Local SEO in 2024.

YouTube Video Chapters for "Geekspeak - Local SEO in 2024 - Season 8 Episode 5"

0:00 - Introduction: Start of the podcast where hosts introduce the topic of Local SEO in 2024 and what listeners can expect from the episode.

2:30 - Why Local SEO Matters in 2024: Discussion on the importance of Local SEO for businesses, especially in the current year.

5:00 - Emerging Trends in Local SEO: Insights into the latest trends and changes in Local SEO strategies for 2024.

10:00 - Key Strategies for Enhancing Local SEO: Practical advice on how to improve Local SEO, including optimization tips for Google My Business, local keywords, and more.

15:00 - Overcoming Common Local SEO Challenges: The hosts and guests discuss common challenges businesses face with Local SEO and offer solutions.

20:00 - Expert Insights: Interview segment with SEO experts sharing their predictions and strategies for succeeding in Local SEO.

25:00 - Real-World Success Stories: Sharing success stories from businesses that have effectively implemented Local SEO strategies.

30:00 - Q&A with Listeners: The hosts answer questions from listeners about Local SEO.

35:00 - Conclusion and Key Takeaways: Wrapping up the episode with a summary of key points discussed and final thoughts on Local SEO in 2024.

Remember, these are estimated timestamps and suggested chapter titles based on a typical structure. You'll need to adjust them to fit the actual content and length of your episode. This structure is designed to help viewers navigate to specific parts of the video that interest them most, enhancing the overall viewing experience.

 
Geekspeak - Local SEO in 2024 - Season 8 Episode 5 2024-02-01 - Transcript
===

[00:00:00] Pip: The blame falls squarely on you. We are here. We are live. Can you tell, did you see Yes. Oh yeah,

[00:00:08] Phelan: that's gonna make a great still. While I was making that wacky face I'm imagining it's just,

[00:00:13] Pip: I always love when there's funny things after for the video. Today. Today we are talking about local SEO. If you're joining us we're gonna get right into it so that we don't waste any time.

[00:00:26] Pip: If you're joining us, pipe in. Say hi if you're catching the replay pipe in, say hi and let's talk about SEO local. SEO. So fun. Yeah. What you got for me, babe?

[00:00:40] Phelan: Yeah. We want felt we should cover local SEO because there's a lot of local businesses. It's big, one. And what you do for a local business is gonna be different than what you do for if you're doing content marketing or any type of SEO like that.

[00:00:56] Phelan: And so we're looking at what's changed because I know that the AI [00:01:00] has really changed how people do the content marketing. But has, how has that trickled into local SEO? Ooh,

[00:01:07] Pip: that's a good question. That is a good question because that's why we're here now. So how let's, how would we describe local SEO?

[00:01:16] Pip: Is it an add-on to SEO? So you're doing all the regular SEO things and then you got this local component. And Google kind of started local SEO. I don't even know when local SEO started, but a few years back Anyway. We got, local SEO to help local businesses. And that's a lot of the maps and search, right?

[00:01:40] Pip: All the maps is local. No, kinda. Yeah. Local first. Local first.

[00:01:46] Phelan: Yeah. So I think what happened is sequentially, like they created Google Maps and they had mapped everything out and then they have these businesses, now they have to have a way that they can show up at businesses. And I know that they tried like a bunch of different ways.

[00:01:57] Phelan: 'cause there was something called Google Local. [00:02:00] It was really old and that just didn't take off. And they've been trying in like various ways to get businesses to optimize a listing of some kind with a location. And so I think, and then they stumbled on Google My. My business, which is now Google Business Profile.

[00:02:16] Pip: And that's like a combination of kind of, they're trying to add in, remember, do you remember Google? Was it Google Circles? Google Hang, no, I don't know. Anyway there's Google Plus that had the circles. Yeah. And you'll see Bing is so nice. Just a side note, when you go over to Bing and you go to sign it, it'll be like Google Plus or like Facebook.

[00:02:38] Pip: You're like, yeah, you're like you guys. You guys like really? 10 years later you haven't updated the name. Is that to give a shot to Google being like, oh yeah, you remember Google Plus and how it sucked?

[00:02:48] Phelan: Yeah. I think it's like Google Plus. It's the logo they you use for your Google sign in.

[00:02:53] Phelan: So it's like they didn't even bother updating it. They just did it once and they were like, yeah, this is good enough. All right, fine. [00:03:00] And they just

[00:03:00] Pip: walked away. Okay. So why we mentioned Bing is because Bing has Bing pages, Bing plus Bing places. So we do that is the second most.

[00:03:15] Pip: Citation, it's an easy citation to create. So as local business, local SEO, where do you wanna show up first and foremost? It does depend on the type of business you are, but let's say just for the general population, when you search on Google for a business, what shows up in the search engine results pages?

[00:03:35] Pip: I think Facebook, Instagram. Just the, businesses, what else we got? We got where are you searching local maps, so Google Maps. Apple Maps is a big one. And Google big places, right?

[00:03:55] Phelan: Yeah. Those are generally the big three. And then what constitutes [00:04:00] like your local SEO is, because we talked about address, that's a big component is your, it's all location dependent.

[00:04:06] Phelan: So it's when you're typing in plumber near me. You're looking to find all the plumbers that are within an hour distance of you. Yeah. And that's what Google's gonna show you because that you're saying near me and they know your location, so they're gonna show other people that are around you.

[00:04:21] Phelan: So

[00:04:22] Pip: do you know what I've started doing A secret little hack of mine. It's, maybe kind of silly relates to Google ads. So side note and a quick tip for anybody. You can do a keyword location insertion in Google Ads. And so if you have a bunch of locations and you can actually put in like the text that shows up if like Oak Bay, like the location is too long and can't fit in the 30 characters.

[00:04:47] Pip: So you do location keyword insertion and you use near me,

[00:04:53] Phelan: right? Yeah. It's

[00:04:54] Pip: like a default. So just in case As the default. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is awesome.

[00:04:59] Phelan: Yeah, it's a [00:05:00] good way to do that. And thanks

[00:05:02] Pip: not about Google Ads. So I know we jump around a little bit in here, but it's valuable information, so I thought I'd share, right?

[00:05:10] Pip: Yeah,

[00:05:10] Phelan: exactly. So I think that one, one thing that did come up that we were looking at is what are the big changes? What are the big things that are different? Fortunately a lot of things are actually staying quite consistent. For local SEO, like things that were happening last year didn't, so the AI thing hasn't affected it as much because of that location targeting.

[00:05:30] Phelan: That's why we talked about it so much is Yeah, because you can't really fake where there's Google Bit profile

[00:05:37] Pip: is, yeah. I get all excited about this. So just so you know, if you're joining us. We are doing a free live training on YouTube on February 8th at noon about Google Business Profile.

[00:05:48] Pip: And we're we'll teach you how to use it, how to do it, and what's important. And proximity is huge when it comes to local SEO. And it's the one thing you can't control, [00:06:00] right? You can't control how close someone else is to you. And your business. Yeah. And that's the search results. 'cause every search result is different.

[00:06:09] Pip: That's the search result that person will see when they do their search if they're looking for something local. And most people are looking for something local. I don't know the exact stat from last year, but I do know like over the years, 30 to 40% of all searches are local.

[00:06:28] Pip: And they say it takes between a local search and a person visiting the location or buying something is about 48 hours, 72 hours. And there's a high percentage of people that buy. So local SEO is huge for businesses. Yeah, we love it. Yeah, it,

[00:06:47] Phelan: it's. And it's, yeah, it's definitely huge.

[00:06:51] Phelan: One other thing. So we talked about like they're making sure you have a Google business profile, making sure it's optimized, Ooh, Optimized you on your keywords. You have all your [00:07:00] services built out. You have your hours put in, you have the areas that you service. Make sure you do all that.

[00:07:05] Pip: Oh, you got your products.

[00:07:06] Pip: Do you know, I saw something interesting in there recently. So one thing I don't think people realize is nothing online. Your website, your Google business profile is stagnant. So after you launch it, you'll be updating it right after you've made like, so you should be checking your Google business profile monthly because new settings will show up.

[00:07:27] Pip: Now you can add all your social links those coveted social links at the bottom of your, knowledge panel, which is your business name and everything. At the very bottom, you can have YouTube and LinkedIn and Facebook now, and it, there's. It's just like a little setting that you can add them all in easily now.

[00:07:45] Pip: So that's nice. That's a new thing. And we had a client who has language, they have language options. So like how many languages do you speak? Do you, can you serve people in basically and I thought that was pretty exciting. I've only seen it on one [00:08:00] American account.

[00:08:02] Phelan: Yeah. It's definitely good to have and I appreciate they're adding these like new kind of attributes about how you would interact with the business.

[00:08:09] Phelan: And yeah, you definitely want to stay up to date. It's not just a one and done. You want to be checking on it monthly to make sure that, is there a new feature, is there new things, like they have attributes like women led, veteran led.

[00:08:22] Pip: Turn on and off your hours too. That's a big one. Yeah.

[00:08:25] Pip: Be, and I say that because you have the opportunity to update on if you're open or closed. Now, how many of us have gone to a business that's been closed because they didn't update their hours or their hours on their website? Like where do we all look for business hours now? We just go to Google generally.

[00:08:42] Pip: And you check. Yeah. And so if that's not updated, you're doing your clients a diff service and it actually shows you in the fine print. The like little fine print that says owner updated, or somebody updated like 24, 48 hours ago. So you know as a user that's been updated and you [00:09:00] feel good. A lot of the times it'll say, o hours may depend on holiday

[00:09:07] Phelan: holidays which means they weren't for statutory holidays or, yeah. And it's definitely one that, yeah, keep them up to date, keep it fresh. Freshness is always a, big ranking vector with Google. Yeah.

[00:09:20] Pip: I like pictures, especially for real estate agents

[00:09:24] Phelan: of if you do anything of Hey, we're having a sale this month.

[00:09:28] Phelan: Yeah. And then that way it's an easy one for people to see oh, in February they're doing a sale on blah, blah, blah.

[00:09:33] Pip: I think there was somebody that, the strategy for posting on Google business profile is pretty interesting. 'cause yes, you can do the cut and paste from Instagram or from Facebook, but hey y'all, I see you here.

[00:09:46] Pip: You better pop in and say hello. I got things I wanna put on the screen. Oh. Maybe you don't. Ha maybe you're already saying hi. Hi. So we were just talking about posting and strategy. The [00:10:00] strategy for posting is to post, your reviews. So make a pretty post on Canva and you don't have to worry about the size of it.

[00:10:08] Pip: Try to make it square 'cause it's. Fits in Google. So do posts on with your reviews, do posts on kind of case studies. Not your big case study, but if you see something, if you're a marketer and you see something in the stats, man snapshot that, put it, put your colors on it and post it. Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt, right?

[00:10:29] Pip: That stuff is golden. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just gonna go get the comments while you talk about Google business profile. Failing for a sec. 'cause I just think I just went off. Crazy about it.

[00:10:42] Phelan: Yeah, the Google business profile, like to using all the features, getting you and making sure you're using as much of them as possible is definitely worthwhile.

[00:10:50] Phelan: Reviews are always a difficult one for people to get, but super important,

[00:10:56] Pip: or is here. Sorry. Woohoo. Happy New. Year. Yay. I found you [00:11:00] guys. Ah,

[00:11:02] Phelan: sorry. Google. Yeah. With your reviews, make sure that if you're a brick and mortar location, that you don't get someone to leave the review at the location.

[00:11:13] Phelan: You want 'em to go home and do

[00:11:15] Pip: it. That's a big one. Yeah. Yeah. And there are companies that sell, leave a review, like you've seen it at your dentist office or whatever that is. Bad news bears because Google looks at that, like you've convinced people. To leave you a review or bribe

[00:11:32] Phelan: them in some way, right?

[00:11:33] Phelan: Yeah. They, figure, and it's mostly because some people did do that and so they have to take, yeah, it has nothing to do with any of the other businesses, but there's some that were acting bad and so now they

[00:11:43] Pip: Have to do, but they also, yeah, they also say you can solicit reviews. Which is interesting 'cause in the actual documentation they have said, ask for reviews from your clients. That's why we do it all the time. So if you know us and we've helped you in someone give us a [00:12:00] review five Star would be preferable. We'll share the link. I actually, and you guys tell me what you think of this. I actually wanted to do something in the group where every week I do a post or we do a post that says.

[00:12:14] Pip: Leave a review for somebody you've worked with. Just a reminder for people to leave reviews for other businesses and people because it really does help. So I was gonna do a post. Oh. Oh yeah. So send an hour after you leave the location. Yeah, I would do that. Yeah, I think that's a good way to do it.

[00:12:35] Pip: Put your review link on your invoices. Put it at the bottom of your email. Those are some of the things we tell our clients to do, which is really helpful and be unapologetic about asking for a review. You gotta toot your own horn if nobody's gonna toot your horn, right?

[00:12:53] Phelan: Yeah, exactly. And it's, it is a bit of a grind to get them, but you if you don't put in that effort, just like anything [00:13:00] in business you're not gonna get ahead.

[00:13:02] Phelan: And so you've gotta put in that effort.

[00:13:04] Pip: If you help someone, the whole idea is if you help someone, you can ask them for a review because you've helped them. And that's in the documentation from Google? I do believe. I do believe,

[00:13:16] Phelan: yeah. What they say is they say that you've had any interaction where you've been helpful.

[00:13:21] Phelan: It doesn't specify that someone had to get paid. So if you just happen to help someone, a great thing to do is, and you're just like, I don't even want to charge them like it was so quick. Then just send them a review link and then that's enough to because you did, you would genuinely help the person, and so if they found it helpful, then they could leave a review for that.

[00:13:40] Phelan: Yeah. And so that's perfectly. Good.

[00:13:43] Pip: We're set. Ooh, does it matter if you send the review link as a pretty link? Ah, that's really interesting. I don't know, to be honest, I've had reviews go missing. I have a friend who I've left a review for who did some work for us, and I can see I've written the review, but she can't.

[00:13:59] Pip: [00:14:00] Now, maybe that's because I work in SEO and I think I set up. Some of her tracking. So I'm not sure if Google associates my business and my personal with her some way, and that's why she's not getting the review. I haven't tried pretty Links. I would try that. I'm gonna ask Jodie, who's here? Jodie, I see your beautiful face in the comments, but I do not see your beautiful face.

[00:14:21] Pip: It's a Facebook thing and I wanna know if I can change that. And if you have to like my, facebook business page to get your beautiful face like aura's face in there. I like

[00:14:32] Phelan: it. It's so the, reason is because Jodie's watching it from the group and because the group is closed, Facebook doesn't know who isn't able to send that.

[00:14:41] Phelan: Whereas Aura is on our Seymour digital media Facebook page, and that's why she's got the

[00:14:46] Pip: information. Rockstars, I'm glad you guys are here.

[00:14:49] Phelan: To answer the pretty link question, it shouldn't affect the pretty link because it's pretty link just doesn't redirect. So it won't affect them actually leaving a review because once they get there and they actually go in and type it, it [00:15:00] shouldn't, they're there and they're already posting it.

[00:15:03] Phelan: So shouldn't try.

[00:15:04] Pip: Give it to me. Have I given you a review? Send me your link. I'll give yeah. I might have to try it from a different. Profile so I don't screw it up. 'cause I know I might have helped you with your measure setup too. Yeah. And

[00:15:17] Phelan: doesn't matter if you do a presentation, 10 people go review.

[00:15:20] Phelan: Will Google think it's meant? Yes. So you don't like 10 people? I think you'd probably be okay with what Google doesn't find It's weird is when you have like big jumps in the number of if you've got like nothing review bombing. Yeah. Yeah. And any sort of, if there's 10 people, I would, I think it'd be okay.

[00:15:41] Phelan: Just have it staggered out as much as you,

[00:15:45] Pip: That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Jody. You, I guess you proved what I needed to know. I'm working my, I'm working on my cam game guys E cam. Honestly, it's so great. Yeah. Yeah. Did you like that? Yeah, [00:16:00] it does. Okay, let's go back. So what's really important for Google Business profile and local SEO?

[00:16:09] Pip: Google business profile is super important for local SEO. I think it counts for yeah, thirty-six percent of your local SEO. So then you wanna do other SEO, like regular SEO and your technical SEO. Oh, yay. Hi Jody. You are, and I love it. So local SEO I, oh, I wanted to say before we dig deeper we are doing a live on local SEO training on February 8th.

[00:16:37] Pip: I mentioned it before and yes, I am promoting it here 'cause it's for you guys so you can do your, Google Business profile yourself and so you can feel really confident doing it. Yeah. So we're doing that on the eighth, but we're digging in here to talk about it a little bit too, to help people understand that it is really a really important aspect of your business.

[00:16:59] Pip: Did you know that? [00:17:00] 90 okay, maybe not 90. Feeling How many websites have, how many websites have, local SEO characterized by pages and things like that, and like on page SEO, like when you go to a website. I guess what I'm trying to ask is, when you go to a website, can you tell if somebody's doing less local SEO?

[00:17:27] Pip: And if you can tell, do you think that most of that person's traffic in analytics could show where their traffic is coming from? So there's two questions there. Yeah. One website,

[00:17:40] Phelan: one. So first question. Yeah. First question, can you tell if someone's doing local SEO? Yeah, you'd probably be able to show see it pretty quickly, mostly because they'd have like areas that we serve, something like that.

[00:17:55] Phelan: That'd probably be a good indication that, because they're trying to identify that [00:18:00] here's where I work. And so because of that'll let you know a lot about probably where they're located.

[00:18:07] Pip: I think local SEOs are the best or well local businesses for when they're doing their local, it's very evident on their website, right?

[00:18:15] Pip: They're geo targeting with a keyword yeah. Location. So they'll have location pages and local businesses are really great for, they really do conversion rate optimization. So CRO a little bit better than a lot of other businesses because they have one thing they want, or two things they want from people.

[00:18:35] Pip: They want you to go to the website, they want you to fill out a form call or visit depending on the business. Yeah,

[00:18:42] Phelan: and mostly that's if you're going to a local business what you're doing, I need a plumber. I wanna get my carpets cleaned. Yeah. You know what you want to do.

[00:18:52] Phelan: It's very like the intent is there, so it's still very effective. Compared to any sort of content marketing, which is, [00:19:00] it's just, it's a tougher game right now in 2024.

[00:19:03] Pip: Yeah. I'm gonna, oh, go ahead. I got excited.

[00:19:07] Phelan: I was gonna ask, there was a second part of your question that I forgot.

[00:19:10] Pip: Oh yeah, I was gonna get to that.

[00:19:12] Pip: So I'm just gonna say Aura, I see you're asking for the link. Yay. We'll I'll make sure that's in the comments. So if anybody wants to come to the live on February 8th to learn how to do their own Google business profile, let us know. And the second question was, Phil, can I go into my Google Analytics and can I find out?

[00:19:32] Pip: If I'm getting local business, if I, or if I'm getting local visitors to my website from Google Business Profile?

[00:19:41] Phelan: Yes. So what we generally do is when you add your link to your website to add a UTM parameter, that's the UTM source is Google and the medium is GBP. So Google business profile.

[00:19:55] Pip: Ooh.

[00:19:56] Pip: So we should teach

[00:19:56] Phelan: people this so that. Y yes, [00:20:00] we probably should teach people this part as well. And so it's a simple, when you add the URL, it's just question mark. And then UTM underscore source equals Google.

[00:20:10] Pip: We'll write this out too if you wanna add it. One of the interesting things that comes up is if you have a Google Business profile and you wanna use Bing Places, there is a click of a button where you can update.

[00:20:20] Pip: Bing places, and this is where you really learn the ease of use of UTM parameters. Because when you update your Bing places with that one click button it'll update the UTM parameter to Bing or to Google Business profile place. So you won't, in your analytics, it won't be giving the right source information.

[00:20:42] Pip: So you would have to update that. So that's why fail. And I think that and other reasons is why you've memorized the UTM parameters.

[00:20:51] Phelan: Yeah. And yeah, it's just seeing them all the time. It's just stuck in my head. And yeah, you definitely wanna make sure that when you, yeah, don't [00:21:00] just automatically update your Bing places.

[00:21:02] Phelan: You probably wanna log in there and man. Manually check things as well. Because I think that's gonna

[00:21:08] Pip: be just a smarter every month. Yeah. Yeah. It can be really fun. I actually think you can make, no, this used to be true. I have to check my Facebook business page, but you can actually make your, like on your Facebook business page, you can have products.

[00:21:22] Pip: Yeah. And with little pictures and info and you can you guys correct me if I'm wrong 'cause I am not the Facebook specialist, but you can have little products on your Facebook business page and they can. You can match them on your Google Business Pay profile so that you have your products there too with their, the branding and so you can make them both look really nice.

[00:21:43] Pip: And they, the idea behind Google Business Profile is to connect to your website. We know that Google is let's say Google's trying to make a click-less Future. And what that means is that you get, okay, our dogs are gonna bark any second now. [00:22:00] So I might mute myself, but, that.

[00:22:04] Phelan: Okay. So yeah as the dogs decide to bark and cause consternation, I'm gonna take over with this part. And yeah, it's definitely one where you can do also stuff with connecting your Facebook page. You can also have the ratings there if people are rating you really well, that can also show up on your Google business profile.

[00:22:26] Phelan: I would say in the. Current set of what you would be. Another thing you want to be focusing on as well is like citations. They still matter. Your name, address, phone number across the web, making sure it's consistent. It's been slowly. People have been saying it's been decreasing in importance, but it still is a really good thing to have for your business is to make sure that Google consistently, you reinforce the right name, address, and phone number for your business.

[00:22:55] Pip: It's true, its true. I'm gonna cut you off 'cause Yeah, that's [00:23:00] true. It's true. It's a, I wanted to say failing for most of the websites we see. Yeah. And when we go and we look in analytics, where's most of the traffic come from?

[00:23:13] Phelan: Google Organic.

[00:23:14] Pip: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Still, from what we can see in Google Analytics, most traffic comes from Google for all websites.

[00:23:24] Pip: I know people sell, like a lot of coaches sell better on Facebook and stuff like that. But the reality is everybody's going to your website to figure out who you are. Yeah. And

[00:23:36] Phelan: And, I think that the biggest factor is how much of a known quantity, what you're selling is.

[00:23:43] Pip: And if you can sell to your neighbor, but go on.

[00:23:45] Pip: Yeah go on, But

[00:23:47] Phelan: If you're a coach, that's a little more complicated because I need to know more about you as a person. And so that's why you have to have a content strategy and like maybe on YouTube and [00:24:00] like you, you need people to get to know you before they're ready to buy from you.

[00:24:03] Phelan: Whereas if I'm hiring like a plumber I just, I know what a plumber is, I know what they're doing, and I know which situation I'm gonna be like reaching out to them and what, and then basically it's down to like reviews or if someone recommends a certain person, that's really gonna be the factor that'll push it over the edge, who I pick.

[00:24:25] Phelan: But for the most part, the a local business is gonna be a known quantity of what they are. Oh, this, like local businesses. They sell this, and then you know, and then that's why you go and search for them. You're muted. Honey.

[00:24:46] Pip: I am muted.

[00:24:48] Pip: Sorry I, noticed that there are some things that. I still, I don't know how y'all are, but I still wanna buy some stuff in person. Like I thought I'd never buy shoes online, but I am buying shoes [00:25:00] online. But makeup I find really hard to buy if I'm buying makeup. I find it hard to buy online.

[00:25:07] Pip: I don't know what you all find hard to buy online, but there are some things you wanna do in person still. Maybe that's our age. Maybe that's. What we're used to, or maybe that'll change over time, but I know supporting local businesses is a big deal, and I know if I think even if you're not a local business, but you're, probably based locally somewhere, and that means you'll still show up in local search results, right?

[00:25:37] Phelan: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, I would also say that there could be ones of the e-commerce, while it's not at the height of it was a few years ago, it's still a lot of the tools are still around and really helpful for local businesses to connect, like their Shopify or their WooCommerce to their Google business profile.

[00:25:56] Phelan: So you can like even show what's in the listings in your listing [00:26:00] for products that you have.

[00:26:04] Pip: Ooh, what is that one we saw? What is that one we saw? So it was a company who had. They the, bike shop, what was that? Yes. Special thing called Pro Mark

[00:26:13] Phelan: Kelly Bike Shop. And they had, and what did Pointy connected to her.

[00:26:17] Phelan: So they had live so as they bought something, the inventory was updated in real time and then updated to their Google business profile. I haven't seen too many other businesses. Really apply that, do

[00:26:27] Pip: that. But yeah, now you can buy right in the shop, in shopping in Google. So I am assuming that one day you'll be able to buy right in Google business.

[00:26:38] Pip: And it, it's a great way to as we click less for our clickless future. When you're searching for something, it's really good if I can just click on your product and go right to that product page in your website. Or if you have a post, maybe I can click on it and go right to your [00:27:00] blog from the post on Google business profile.

[00:27:02] Pip: Maybe that's the intention behind the posting. I'm not sure. I think it's for to tout, How great you are and maybe to direct people to your inside, your website instead of just going to your home page.

[00:27:17] Phelan: Yeah. Yeah, that's generally referred to as deep linking where it's like you're not just linking to the homepage, but you're linking deep into the website into a product page or a blog post that you want someone to just jump straight to this point.

[00:27:30] Pip: Now, would that be considered an external link going? Would that be like a external, it'd be a link going to your website. So does that count

[00:27:40] Phelan: as it'd be just a nofollow link? That would

[00:27:43] Pip: it be nofollow, would it?

[00:27:46] Phelan: Yeah. Google's links are all no-follow interesting. Same as like their YouTube.

[00:27:51] Phelan: Because you could spam them, right? And so they would be doing these complicated things of, that if they didn't do that, people would just be abusing the hell [00:28:00] out of it. And you'd be like, linking to. Every page like 20 times with a post that would be coming out every 10 seconds kind of thing, like it would someone would be really bad about it. So generally, I, they they go with a no follow for any of the links from Google Business Profile.

[00:28:17] Pip: Interesting. Now, oh, today is February 1st. All day. Okay. All day. We're gonna finish up our chat here talking about local SEO. If you want to know more, we are teaching Google Business Profile on YouTube February 8th.

[00:28:36] Pip: I know beating a dead horse here. But let's talk about quickly failing before we go. What is happening next week? Because the banner has yet to be updated. Dun Oh, tell you dun. Okay, so next week I'm here. But I'm seeing February 1st. February. Oh, it's a lie. I am not [00:29:00] here. Huh? It's Greg and

[00:29:02] Phelan: Phelan.

[00:29:04] Phelan: Greg and I are gonna be talking about understanding WordPress themes and plugins. Ooh,

[00:29:08] Pip: that sounds fun. And so that's what we're talking about next week. I love that you guys have joined us. We got a minute left. If you have any questions, we'd love to answer them. And if not, we're just gonna ramble away here about how crazy this week has been.

[00:29:26] Pip: Has this week been crazy for you? It is. It has been a lot. I know. Many industries are busy and I know many industries are suffering. So where are you at? And like, how can we help you? Because I bet we could, let's hang out. I am like, yeah. So that's all I got. What do you got Phelan? You got, seven seconds left.

[00:29:49] Pip: Seven.

[00:29:50] Phelan: Okay. I've got seven seconds. I think that yeah, I think it's been a crazy month for us so far on our end and. We're definitely interested to hear more about what other [00:30:00] people are going through and what's up with other

[00:30:01] Pip: people. Yeah. If you are seeing this live, we do socialize in our Facebook group.

[00:30:07] Pip: It's a free marketing Facebook group called Cyberpunk, or Cyberpunk Geeks Marketing Mixer. Every Thursday we do a live, every Friday there's a happy hour after work where you can meet people on Zoom, talk about marketing and what's going on in your life. If you wanna join us there, Rena hosts that. And, yeah, you can find us in the group or on YouTube or our business pages and we'll hope to see you next week. We'll be doing a live and it'll be great. Okay. Bye bye. Bye. Have a great weekend. Yeah.

     See on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GZBxy7O_r2s?si=tnFdYsTmiBw3RFkn 

GeekSpeak - This month in the work of marketing - 2024-01-25 at 11.03.13 Season 8 Episode 4

Chapters: 

[00:00:00] Greg Mckinnon : It's you and Phelan holding down the fort.

[00:00:02] Pip: Uh, it is, it is me and Phelan holding down the fort Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative for next week. But this week we are talking about all things marketing and this is. This month in the world of marketing and look how good the graphics are. You liking it? I'm loving it. Yeah.

[00:00:40] Greg Mckinnon : I'm not watching the live and it's not, I only see you in restream or in the cam.

[00:00:46] Pip: Aren't you feeling fortunate?

[00:00:47] Greg Mckinnon : Like I said, I complimented you. You look great today.

[00:00:53] Pip: I know, and it's the camera, as I showed you. Ha ha ha ha.

[00:00:57] Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, hey everybody. Welcome. We're missing [00:01:00] two of us, uh, this week for the monthly wrap up. But, um, I'm Greg with Original72 Creative, and we're a full service website, graphic design, and digital marketing firm in Vancouver. And, of course, you know, pick me.

[00:01:14] Pip: Hello. I am back. Bam.

[00:01:16] Pip: Thank you. Bam. And, uh, today is good. We're going to have a really fun chat because we're talking about all the things that have happened in the last month for search, social and websites, which is what we focus on because really search social and websites does cover like this space of digital marketing except for email marketing.

[00:01:35] Pip: Right, Greg? You think? But we include email marketing. It's kind of like one of the things and it just doesn't fit in search social or websites. Does it?

[00:01:45] Greg Mckinnon : Uh, I mean, it's, it's in the realm of digital marketing.

[00:01:51] Pip: Right, right. It's true. So, well, well, but okay. So the first things first, go change your passwords.

[00:01:57] Pip: Everyone, um, [00:02:00] huge breach. I think, I don't know, Greg, do you know who the breach was from? Was it from Facebook or like, but millions of people's information.

[00:02:07] Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, I, I've only like read headlines about it. I've not read any articles to, uh, see exactly who and where everything was, uh, where it was breached from, but I just know from what everybody's been reporting, it's massive and it's usernames and passwords for across like tons of.

[00:02:30] Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, uh, platforms. Um, I think this is really something that you want to make sure that if you are, uh, the type of person who uses the same password for everything, this is where you. Leave yourself open to be much more vulnerable because if your password gets exposed Then people can just try that password if they know, you know other [00:03:00] places that you might be especially like banking things and You know all that really important stuff.

[00:03:10] Greg Mckinnon : You want to It'll make sure you have a secure password and a different password for each of them just to protect yourself as much as you

[00:03:16] Pip: can. Yeah, I think we'll uh start posting something in the group about hey Don't forget to update your passwords because I think it's really important especially as we get deeper into into this.

[00:03:27] Pip: I think uh, You know deeper into the digital space. I think there's going to be a lot more security. I always said the best businesses to get in for like in digital space is security would be a number one spot if you're interested, right? Because you will in the future, future us need are going to have to have it super locked down.

[00:03:47] Pip: So, but I think that's the biggest news of the month that, that we, we wanted to talk about, right?

[00:03:55] Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, that was, that was definitely the, the biggest [00:04:00] thing that's come out, um, in the, in the recent, uh, couple of weeks here. Alright, so we'll play a game with that. Actually, we have a ton of stuff in this, uh, in this game.

[00:04:12] Greg Mckinnon : Card, who, who did you put all this

[00:04:13] Pip: stuff in? Phelan and myself, we all went looking for it. Um, cause it

[00:04:19] Greg Mckinnon : was good. And I was like, is this old, an old card? There's a lot in here.

[00:04:23] Pip: Yeah. The bottom stuff is. I hadn't

[00:04:26] Greg Mckinnon : even heard of, um, and I feel, sometimes I feel bad about coming on these wrap ups because I'm so focused on and busy doing my client stuff that a lot of the time I don't have.

[00:04:41] Greg Mckinnon : Uh, the time to go and, and like, see news or like even see what's happening in the past couple of weeks, right? And so when we come on for our Little prep meetings. I'm like, uh, I don't really know what's going on this month.

[00:04:58] Pip: Well, it's really funny because [00:05:00] like each month it's so different. And I mean, I have my resources.

[00:05:03] Pip: I go to for sure for stuff like I follow Rusty Brick for SEO stuff. Cause he covers search. Um, and I find it really interesting, but, uh, and then, you know what, I started doing research on TikTok, uh, to find some news, nothing. I couldn't find anything, which was really interesting because it's a good search engine.

[00:05:23] Pip: And then I also, um, like, well, you know, a month is a long time. That's the thing. So I've started to. Grab pieces here and there because a lot after a month, I mean, you're doing websites. So a lot of the, the topics are, you know, you know, big updates, but like plugins, there've been some plugin breaches, I think, uh, in the last month, but the rule is just,

[00:05:46] Greg Mckinnon : we have, uh, two in the, in our, our card here.

[00:05:49] Greg Mckinnon : Phelan must've, uh, found out about these ones. So why don't we get right into it? So, yeah. For web stuff, um, going on the [00:06:00] theme of things getting hacked. There's been some critical vulnerabilities identified in, um, better search and replace for WordPress, which is a plugin that gives you, um, more functionality around being able to search things on your website.

[00:06:22] Greg Mckinnon : Um. Above what the basic way that, um, WordPress's search function

[00:06:31] Pip: works. So does Word, does WordPress's search function work well? Cause I thought that was one of the hardest things to get working well on your website. Well,

[00:06:41] Greg Mckinnon : it, it works, but it doesn't, it works and it will find what you've, what you've typed in.

[00:06:50] Greg Mckinnon : It'll find it in pages and posts and titles. What it doesn't do a great job of is, um, like separating pages from [00:07:00] posts or specifying, I only want to search through titles, or I only want to search through content. Um, and also it doesn't do any, like, it needs to be exact. Right. So. Um, if you, if you're searching for something and if you, if you don't type it in, like exactly how it is on the site, like you're only going to get exact, um, results of, of what you type in.

[00:07:33] Greg Mckinnon : So it's not, it's not, it's very. Basic, right? So, so better search and replace is a plugin that will extend your ability to customize how you can do searching on your site. Yeah. Hadn't identified a vulnerability and suggest to, uh, update that right away to protect yourself. A [00:08:00] second plugin, um, ACF, which is quite common, uh, ACF stands for Advanced Custom Fields.

[00:08:09] Greg Mckinnon : Um, so this plugin is used when you want to have, uh, so for a post page, as a, for instance, you have a title, you have a featured image, you have the page content. You have categories that, that kind of stuff, advanced custom fields. When you install that, you can create additional fields that you can assign to your pages or posts that you can then collect that data.

[00:08:39] Greg Mckinnon : So if you want to put in like a sub heading or like a phone number or like. Any, any additional information that you want to collect, uh, or store separately in, in a post, additional [00:09:00] fields. And then when you go to, uh, that, um, to create a post, you'll see those additional fields that you can type in that information and then you can display it how you want.

[00:09:11] Greg Mckinnon : On the page, um, because you've collected that data. Yeah.

[00:09:17] Pip: So who would that, would a, a business owner be doing that or would like your developer be doing that? That's,

[00:09:23] Greg Mckinnon : that's more a developer thing. Like, so it's commonly used. For like doing team bios, right? So you'll use the post functionality to do your team bios, right?

[00:09:35] Greg Mckinnon : So you have, you have the title, which is usually the name of the person. You have their featured image, you have their content, but maybe you want to display somewhere under their photo, their name, their email, their Twitter. Uh, or social handle, like, you know, that kind of stuff. You can set up advanced custom fields and say, you know, give me a, give me a [00:10:00] field to put in their email, give me a field to put in their phone number, give me a field to put in their social handles.

[00:10:06] Greg Mckinnon : And then when you attach that to the post, um, then you can, when you're creating that post, there'll be separate fields that you can fill in. Okay, this is their phone number, this is their email, and then you can decide where you want that to be put on. Uh, on the page,

[00:10:23] Pip: I like that. Um, uh, but as it says advanced in the, in the name, so it's

[00:10:29] Greg Mckinnon : advancing it.

[00:10:30] Greg Mckinnon : And you want to, you want to use it more when, um, I guess when you want things to look specific. So if the client, if you want everybody's bio to have a consistent look to it, and you just want the customer to fill in the data in the post. Um, then filling in that phone email in a certain spot, you know, you've specified where you want it to come out on the front end and they don't have to worry about how it looks.

[00:10:59] Greg Mckinnon : They just fill in [00:11:00] the

[00:11:00] Pip: information. Ah, okay. Okay. Okay. So that makes sense. So the developer would set it up and then the person would, could add their own info. So that's interesting. Lots of updates in the website space. I

[00:11:13] Greg Mckinnon : guess we, we're, we're getting into explanations of these things, but really what we're trying to do is report on that they've both had some critical vulnerabilities and they both, if they are being used on someone's site, need to be updated right away to keep yourself safe.

[00:11:28] Pip: Well, I think you should update plugins every two weeks, right? That's what do you do? What do you do, Greg? Is that what you do? Uh, monthly. Okay.

[00:11:37] Greg Mckinnon : Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Or if I'm in a site that I maintain. If I'm in the site anyway, doing something, I'll just, I'll just do it. But at least I go into all of my sites on a monthly basis and do whatever updates need to be done.

[00:11:53] Greg Mckinnon : If there is something that I know is critical, then I take care of it right away. Um, [00:12:00] but otherwise I, I do it

[00:12:02] Pip: monthly. Right. So it sounds like the theme this week generally is, uh, uh, security issues, update stuff. I mean, even Apple had a security update. If you look at your computer, Greg and I were getting into a little tiff about Apple cause he don't like it.

[00:12:17] Pip: And I do, but that's story for another day. Anyway, update security, big topics for this month, overall huge breach. We just talked about if you're just joining us and if you are just joining us, say hello. In the comments and I'll try to put them up on a screen and in the right way. We are going into search now.

[00:12:35] Pip: I

[00:12:35] Greg Mckinnon : was gonna, before we move on to search, we have some other web stuff, um, other than critical things that, um, I had mentioned in my, in our prep meeting, there was something new coming to WordPress, which, uh, has a little bit of buzz around it with the WordPress community and, and it. Potentially being something that will start getting a lot more people to use the block [00:13:00] editor, um, instead of a page, installing a page builder, um, and it's called partially synced patterns.

[00:13:08] Greg Mckinnon : And I think everybody probably knows, uh, or maybe, maybe do, maybe don't, if you've used the block editor, um, they, WordPress has, you, you, you can build sections of a site. Using the blocks that are available, and then you can, um, select a grouping of blocks and make it a pattern. And so when you store that, when you take that pattern that you've built and you like, you're like, I want to use this all over the place.

[00:13:39] Greg Mckinnon : Um, maybe it's a mailing list signup. Kind of a thing and you want that mailing list sign up on a bunch of pages looking the same But you don't want to have to build it over and over again on every page you build it You save it as a pattern and then when you're on a different page You can just [00:14:00] insert that pattern that you created.

[00:14:02] Greg Mckinnon : And it's the identical look of what you built on a previous page, just on this new page. And these patterns can either be synced, or they can't. Not be synced. And so, um, essentially what that allows you to do is you, you have a design and, and something that looks a certain way and you can put it on multiple pages and they're all synced.

[00:14:29] Greg Mckinnon : So if you make a change to one and save it, it'll change across all of them. You don't have to change, uh, them in every page it is because they're all synced. If you want to sync one of them, then that one won't be synced anymore. At all, right? If you changed, if you change the one that all of the ones that are synced, if you change the one and you saved it, it would change across all of the ones that were synced, except for that one that you unsynced.

[00:14:58] Greg Mckinnon : So that's been the functionality up till [00:15:00] now, but partially synced patterns are going to give us the opportunity to have a, um, a block that we've designed and can be. Parts of it can be synced. So what this will allow designers and, and, uh, people that have WordPress sites to do is to create sections. And so in this case, maybe the, uh, email signup is not a great one because you kind of want that one to be the same everywhere.

[00:15:32] Greg Mckinnon : But maybe you just want like a layout of someone's bio. And you create a pattern based on that so that the client can use it over and over again. But the information, like the, the image needs to change. The, the, uh, name of the person has to change. So you can create a pattern and partially sync the information, um, that doesn't need to be, or that needs to [00:16:00] change so that the synced part is just the design aspect.

[00:16:05] Greg Mckinnon : Um, and if you change the design, the design will change across everywhere, but the content won't because you don't want the names and the, you know, they're If they have designations or email showing or their picture, you don't want those things to change, but the design behind it, you might, um, want to change.

[00:16:27] Greg Mckinnon : And so you can partially sync those patterns with specific things you want to stay the same, but allow the customer to be able to change the other stuff.

[00:16:38] Pip: Interesting. Now, is this native? Uh, WordPress

[00:16:43] Greg Mckinnon : native, uh, WordPress. Yes,

[00:16:46] Pip: that's exciting. So we're, so that means is that the Gutenberg stuff? Like, is that the, okay.

[00:16:53] Pip: Wow. So do you think, I mean, over time people will stop [00:17:00] using themes as much because of this change?

[00:17:04] Greg Mckinnon : Well, this isn't a theme thing. This is basically creating your, uh, you're building your content on. Um, on the page. Mm hmm. Um, so, yeah, it has nothing to do with the theme. It has to do with building out your content within your pages.

[00:17:24] Pip: Okay. So you would, okay. That's interesting. Right? Uh, website pages. Who builds them? Not me. Uh, not anymore. Actually, that's not true. I do build the content. In pages for SEO. So, um, that sounds pretty interesting. It'll just

[00:17:40] Greg Mckinnon : be really great because designers or people who build sites for customers can create sections that can be reused and the client could be like, Oh, I have a new page and I want that section that looks like this.

[00:17:54] Greg Mckinnon : I'll drop that pattern in here, but then I can change the [00:18:00] content in it. Um, but the pattern itself, the, the, the look of it is, is still synced. So in the future, if you were to make a change to it, it would actually change across all those patterns, but the content that the client put in wouldn't, wouldn't change because of the content itself, the image or the text within that layout, um, isn't synced.

[00:18:24] Greg Mckinnon : It's the structure and the, uh, and the, the layout of the pattern.

[00:18:31] Pip: Interesting. Um, when is that due to launch?

[00:18:35] Greg Mckinnon : I don't believe it's in the next release, but I. Think maybe the one after that I could be wrong. I can I can check and throw that in the Yeah, that'd

[00:18:47] Pip: be awesome. I'm also gonna throw rusty bricks video in the comments because some of the information I got Today was from him.

[00:18:56] Pip: So we're gonna dive into search. So Google Ads SEO [00:19:00] AI Facebook, uh, we have some things. There's a couple of things about Bing, uh, some information about Google search console. Ah, pretty interesting. Okay. Um, so we talked about critical vulnerabilities and, um, website changes with patterns. That's super cool.

[00:19:15] Pip: Google ads, Greg, you do do Google ads still for some of your clients, right? Yeah, I do do. I do. I do do. I do do. So Google's launched this new thing called Gemini Power Campaign Creation Tool, and I think I have a link. Uh, do I? Yes. So it's inside of Google Ads. Now, so I was adding I think last week trying to add images to a Google ads campaign.

[00:19:42] Pip: Cause you, we all know search engine results pages. There's a lot more action pictures things now. Um, so I was trying to add some images and I was like, where's, where's the link to add images and I couldn't find it like for the life of me. But if I went to the top menu, you know, the wrench icon and [00:20:00] it had.

[00:20:00] Pip: Um, it now has a place where we can do creative stuff. Yeah, but it gives you your images and so it'll show you the layout of what your ads will look like. It's pretty interesting. So this, I think this is part of the Gemini powered creation tool. Um, because it's just giving us more. It's AI inside Google ads.

[00:20:23] Pip: There's some really cool stuff going on. Um, so although one might think AI is going to take over Google ad stuff, I don't think it is because I think you need the human eye to make it make sense to. Like just change it a little, but there's a, there's a lot of change inside Google ads right now. There's, um, hotel ads have changed in the SERPs.

[00:20:45] Pip: There's big comparisons. If you're, if you do hotel advertising, um, you're in a little bubble of your own. Right. They, they have different things on Google. You can book right from the, [00:21:00] the, uh, knowledge panel, right. Or the Google business profile panel. And so, yeah, so hotel ads are changing. I don't know what's going on there.

[00:21:08] Pip: I try not to pay attention. And if I ever Get a hotel client. I pass it on, like to the people that deal with hotels. So, but there's been some interesting news there. And then this will interest you, Greg, AI powered. We were talking the other day about what are third party cookies and third party cookies are like Google Analytics, which is quite funny because if you're using Chrome, Chrome is from Google, but, uh, Google analytics is also from Google, but it's considered a third party cookie.

[00:21:46] Pip: So Chrome can still get out, like has all your data. Um, but in order to let Google analytics use it or share it or whatever, like, I guess there's going to have, [00:22:00] you're going to have to have that function on your website of like saying you're having cookies and things like that. So there's some weird stuff going on with the cookies.

[00:22:10] Greg Mckinnon : Yeah. The third party cookies thing. I know Phelan brought that up. I wish he was here to give us more detail because I don't know a ton about it other than what he said. But. I can explain what third party cookies are for, for people, and so Um, a cookie is stored on your computer from, from a site. Um, and typically if it's your site, if you've created a cookie to store someone's, um, session data, uh, things that they were doing on your site, that's fine, that's you dropping a cookie for your site, that's first.

[00:22:46] Greg Mckinnon : Um, so third party cookies are external services that you're using. So Google analytics, um. And anything else that you might have for [00:23:00] data or functionality on your site that is not yours, but you're using as a service and they need to drop something to store, that would be a third party cookie. And that's what they're looking to, um,

[00:23:15] Pip: restrict.

[00:23:17] Pip: Yeah. So what does restrict mean? Uh, yeah, right. It's pretty interesting. Well, we'll see what it means right now. Phelan and I are learning how to, uh, you know how, when you go to websites and you click on the little button that says accept all cookies, you can actually. Put that, I think piece of JavaScript, if I'm correct, inside Tag Manager and, and it's because it's a yes or no statement, right?

[00:23:44] Pip: Tracker don't track. So if you do it there, or you can get a plugin to do it. So, um, we'll see what all these new rules mean. Um, but I, I do like that they're cracking down on themselves.[00:24:00]

[00:24:01] Greg Mckinnon : We're cracking down on others and they are just doing it differently now.

[00:24:05] Pip: Right, exactly. So, I mean, we'll see. We should all know that Visa sells your information on everything you buy and we should all be well aware that when we talk about, you know, those new Nike shoes I want or the new Adidas or whatever, that the next time it rolls around, there's some algorithm that did something and now I'm going to get those ads.

[00:24:28] Pip: You bet your bottom dollar. Uh, but needless to say, maybe I need those things. So, um, we could have a whole talk on, um, the Google privacy and the things we get to do as consumers and what we get to turn off and shut, like, turn on, on our own, if anybody's been to their Google profiles, it's pretty interesting, but let's go, we're going to AI now, Greg, cause we're, we're, we got three minutes.

[00:24:51] Pip: AI is crazy. Uh, crazy. Let's go a little bit long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Um, AI, [00:25:00] so Weirdest thing that happened AI has started working with the US military This is not a political statement or a political this we're in marketing man all we know is that the rules of AI some rules got re released and When people read through those rules, the only thing that had changed was that it said that AI can work with the military.

[00:25:26] Pip: That was one of the clauses, right? So if, if you're reading the contracts in jargon, I mean, Oh, thank you. Somebody said, this is such a great episode. Yes. Yeah. That's lovely. Uh, I'm going to go find out who you are and virtually high five and kiss you. Um, but the AI stuff is crazy. So the two big things are the military thing with AI and also, um, chatbots got lazy.

[00:25:55] Pip: Uh, so, giving excuses, like you'd give your excuse to your boss. [00:26:00] Uh, things like that, like, you don't have enough information to proceed with the task, or it's used that kind of language, you know, it's more you do it yourself.

[00:26:10] Greg Mckinnon : This one was interesting when Phelan mentioned it, because I hadn't heard of this, but I mean, yeah, it's It's, it's like, like he said, or he said, AI is getting lazy.

[00:26:23] Greg Mckinnon : Like people apparently, um, are asking it to do tasks and it's being lazy about providing them the information or more like telling them how they can do it on their own instead of actually doing it for them. Um, I don't know if this is a purposeful change that OpenAI has. Um, put in, I wouldn't be surprised if they've changed how, uh, you know, how, how it works to possibly do that kind of stuff.

[00:26:59] Greg Mckinnon : [00:27:00] Um, because our, do we think it would learn on its own and just become lazy? I don't know.

[00:27:07] Pip: Oh, no, no. Yeah. I'm not sure. So that was Aura who said that. And we have a Dorothy that she likes her math, Greg, just so you know, but on the other side of what you were talking about, um. I haven't seen, I have a lot of fun with AI, but then I get trapped in, who else gets trapped in this cycle?

[00:27:26] Pip: Right? Where you're in AI and you're like, Oh, I'll make a picture. And then yeah, you're there for 20 minutes later being like, Oh, I'll try this and it's useless and you should just move on quickly. So I don't think it's where it's going to be. But on that note, Google, I don't, if you use Google ads and you've called Google in the last year, the service is.

[00:27:50] Pip: Like it's almost worse than Facebook ads if not worse like you can't get ahold of anybody you we've actually we have a trick For getting a hold of the people but [00:28:00] like you're not getting callbacks people aren't getting the help They need like accounts get frozen and we just learned that Google let go of a huge number of their sales reps Now if you don't know their sales reps are those people that call you and tell you oh go broad match Up your budget, you know,

[00:28:17] Greg Mckinnon : I Still get tons of calls from the people who are taking care of, um, or are assigned to the accounts that I manage.

[00:28:28] Greg Mckinnon : I, I find them relentless in calling to set up times to talk. Well, do you

[00:28:37] Pip: know why? Why? Because they have a quota to fill. So they have a certain number of accounts that they hold and of those number of accounts, there's a budget. There's the current budget and then the budget they have to hit, like a sales rep, right?

[00:28:54] Pip: So if they don't hit that budget, like, and the new people, like, those are the people we're getting called to. So if you have a [00:29:00] really small Google Ads account, that's the call. You're getting the newbies. So good question to always ask. How long have you been working there? Cause you might know more than them if you're working in Google ads,

[00:29:09] Greg Mckinnon : right?

[00:29:09] Greg Mckinnon : So I'm getting the calls because I typically only deal with smaller ad. Yeah, accounts for customers. If we're doing, if someone wants to do like a big thing, it would go to, it would go to you. Well,

[00:29:21] Pip: no, not even, it would go to somebody. But I've only dealt with a couple of the high reps because of some accounts I've been on.

[00:29:29] Pip: Because the amount of money they spent. Like

[00:29:31] Greg Mckinnon : the, the accounts that I, the clients that I have as AdWords, um, clients are, are small budget, only single or two. Campaigns, a couple of them. They're, they're small fish. Right, like if I don't Get into larger campaigns and, you know, like thousands of, of dollars a month.

[00:29:56] Greg Mckinnon : I would, I would farm that off to, to you who is more of an [00:30:00] expert on this, obviously. Yeah, yeah, it's

[00:30:01] Pip: super fun. But

[00:30:03] Greg Mckinnon : so I'm probably getting inundated with all these. Reps that are assigned to my clients because they're all small and, you know, doing, you know, their budgets are tiny and we're only doing a couple of campaigns and they're like, we can boost these guys and get them to spend way more.

[00:30:19] Pip: I will tell you, we, I had to, I, you know, I, I had to be apologetic to a client. This last month because around Christmas, Google, like the campaigns were running so well and Google was like, Ooh, increase your budget and you'll get this many more conversions. And I was like, Oh, and this client's very particular about their budgets, of course, right?

[00:30:42] Pip: It's money. And, but because I guess Christmas was such a rush, I was like, Oh, great idea. I want to make the, get the more leads. It did not do its job. And I had to like, be like, Hmm. Yeah, we, and we spent a little extra money and I, you can actually inside Google ads, you can see the version history. [00:31:00] So you can see who did what.

[00:31:01] Pip: So I went and checked it. And yes, it was me. Ooh, ooh, hot flash. Look at that. Think I'm embarrassed. Um, anyway, anyway, uh, needless to say, don't trust those Google ads reps. That's, that's, that's the goal. And they've all lost their jobs to AI. That's where I was going there or not all lots of people. So maybe service will get better.

[00:31:24] Pip: You know, it'll be worse, but a lot of people at Google have lost their jobs recently. So, um, you know, those people are probably pretty smart when it comes to Google though, because they know the inside. So maybe,

[00:31:35] Greg Mckinnon : yeah. Anything, anytime I talk to one of those, uh, people, my, my reps, I always basically just ask them a ton of questions.

[00:31:46] Greg Mckinnon : Because I do basic stuff with AdWords. So when they're going through things, I use it as, okay, they know what they're doing, so I'm just going to like ask them a bunch of questions and learn more about all [00:32:00] of these things that they're trying to get me to do, what

[00:32:04] Pip: it all is. Well, and I think that's really smart because then you, you, you, uh, you start to learn the cutting edge things that they're trying to implement, because if they're saying, you know, like broad match, for instance, you know, I might try it on something because maybe the algorithm, like, cause AI is going to get better over time.

[00:32:21] Pip: And so doing things that can benefit you or your client is, is something to think about. You can't stick in your old ways, but yet you proceed with caution. And so try it on a small thing and say, yeah, we've done it. It completely changed how we do Google ads in the last year. So which is really interesting.

[00:32:39] Pip: So anybody interested in getting into Google ads now is a good time because, you know, a lot of the old information is stale and outdated. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Anyway, we are out of time, but before we go, um, just so you know, Bing's got some updates. What else? Like, let's travel through this quickly.

[00:32:57] Pip: Ooh, big tour. Um, I've [00:33:00] lost my information. So nothing else happened last month. I like,

[00:33:05] Greg Mckinnon : there's, there's one, there's one comment, Bing market share, not growing.

[00:33:12] Pip: Yes. Bing, Bing has launched, um, like chat GPT. They have their own, that is. Exactly. And you can pay and get faster service and things like that. So if you want to try a different AI or a similar AI to chat GPT, I would look over there.

[00:33:34] Pip: Other than that, uh, next week we'll be here, but there is no topic. So if you'd like us to talk about something in particular. listed below because, uh, Reena's off for one more week and then she's coming back and, uh, there's a lot happening that we're going to talk about next week. Anyway, uh, so join us next week.

[00:33:53] Pip: Same bat time, same bat place with the Marketing Gig Mixer group. Woo! And I'm [00:34:00] so glad you're here. Ora, thank you for joining us. Dorothy, thank you for jumping in. And if anybody has any comments or anything about this episode that they want to know more about, just message us. Uh, in the comments anywhere, and we'll

[00:34:11] Greg Mckinnon : be back to all four of us next month,

[00:34:14] Pip: next month.

[00:34:15] Pip: Woo. Woo. Uh, chat soon guys. Bye everyone. Bye.

See the podcast on video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/fGKFHI8-AaI?si=BHk2xeetUiEogQs7