Category: Digital Business

Business owners looking at their website as another piece of literature — like a Direct Mail piece — need to stop for a moment and pay attention to what Google is doing.

Like it or not all businesses are reliant on Google to some degree.

Some businesses operate ‘digitally’ on their own to directly generate leads and have ‘lapped’ the competition. Think of this as ‘white hat.’

Other businesses simply write a check for a ‘warm lead’ phone number, email or click. Think of this as ‘gray hat.’

Still others stick to traditional routes of leads — what they have always done — and that is working just fine. Think of this as ‘no hat.’

The reason I’m writing this post is to provide help to any of the above because Google is undergoing fundamental changes in how it manages data.

This has ramifications across all business because digital is integral to how business is done one way or another.

Take note:

• Apple updated OS14 a couple years ago
• Those reverberations are why Facebook’s stock price keeps dropping
• Facebook saw it coming

• Those reverberations have spurred years-long change at Google that will continue for another 18 or more months
• Including a recent algorithm change targeting gray hat advertisers
• And tighter control over ad content and click destination using manual checks on ads
• Also removing remarketing and ‘similar to’ audiences

• These Google changes provide all business owners risk and opportunity

I took a deeper dive in a recent post aimed toward ‘white hats’ who want to keep improving, so I won’t go into detail here.

Instead, here, I’m writing to those ‘gray’ and ‘no’ hat business owners.

For the Gray Hats 

What is happening to Facebook will happen to third-party lead generating agencies that operate online.

These are agencies or consultants who provide ‘lead generating’ services — email addresses or phone numbers — while not working on the business’ website at all. 

Removing data mining from Apple phones severely under cut Facebook’s ‘ad targeting’ ability.

They generated fewer leads.

Same with third party ‘lead generating’ businesses who use data collected by third-party sources (including Facebook) to run ‘sales funnels’ to develop warm leads that are turned around and sold.

Two problems arising:

• This model doesn’t help the customer in the long run … it’s a digital lease not a digital investment
• Google’s next major change is going to be the ‘final blow’ for Facebook and the third-party lead generating industry
• That change is Google dropping third-party cookies from Google’s Chrome browser

Just like Apple dominates the smartphone market in the U.S. Google dominates the browser market with Chrome.

Chrome allows ‘third-party cookies’ — including third-party cookies from Facebook and other gray hat targeting companies  — to track search and browser histories.

Those are key data feeds to targeting ads to get prospects ‘into the funnel’ that eventually turn into a saleable lead.

For The No Hats

This is the last in a long line of Google changes, and if you’ve read to the end here is the advice part:

• Modernize your website to WordPress Gutenberg editor and Astra Theme
• This ensures your website loads fast on phones … something Google loves

• Modernize your website tracking to Google Tag Manager and G4
• Even if you never look at the data this will help Google ‘index your site’ 
• Indexed sites regularly converting leads over time becomes a bookable asset you can sell as part of a business

• Identify ‘conversions’ on your website … a phone number click, form submit, directions request, etc.
• Feed that conversion data — who made the converting click — back to AdWords, even if you don’t advertise
• This tells Google’s index the type of website visitor that finds your website ‘helpful’

That is the minimum a business should have in place to come out of these Google changes in strong shape.

To get even stronger:

• Run a Paid Search campaign on your business name
• This ‘Brand Search’ is recognized by Google Ads and the clicks are cheaper
• Your competitors may be targeting your business name right now … try a search

• Consider a Display Ad campaign targeting the zip codes that make sense
• This ‘raises awareness’ of your business among your prospects which generating ‘qualified clicks’ to your site
• The person clicking wouldn’t click if they weren’t interested
• These clicks are a ‘good signal’ to Google while also helping generate your own leads

That’s enough for the moment, but there are certainly even more investments to ‘deepen Google’s indexing’ of your site.

That notion — getting your website ‘deeply indexed’ by Google — should be a business goal, to be honest.

Providing up-to-date ‘digital intelligence’ is something MPH Digital typically provides one-on-one with clients.

This blog post falls outside the typical as I want to make sure clients past and present understand that Google is currently undergoing a once-in-a-decade business pivot … disruptive changes to the digital marketplace that shouldn’t be ignored.

No matter the reason, the changes under way at Google are indicative of sweeping changes coming to the Internet which will likely end with a turning of the tables … from the Internet using you to you using the Internet.

Note these events in the last 18 or so months:

• Apple’s OS14 (then OS15) keeps reverberating, including on Facebook’s stock price
• Facebook saw it coming.
• Google announced it is replacing ‘UA’ analytics — what you use now — with ‘G4’
• G4 will be the only data source for website analytics starting in July

---

• Google announced its browser Chrome is dropping third-party cookies at the end of this year
• It has since delayed the move **twice** and now says July 2024 is the date
• Dropping those cookies is a power play against Facebook, Amazon and Madison Avenue
• Means ‘Remarketing’ is going way

---

• Google announced a ‘significant’ algorithm update dubbed the ‘Helpful Content Update‘
• Google notes the change favors ‘content written for humans not bots’
• I can say if we wrote content or worked on your site your content is written for humans

---

• Reiterated and widely publicized its existing policy for ‘manual actions’ in AdWords
• These are sanctions after a human review of the account, ad and landing page
• Main target is ‘buying traffic’ to a page to display disruptive, or ‘black hat’ ads

---

• In early November Google announced it was ending ‘similar to’ audiences in AdWords in May, grandfathering ends in August
• Google creates these targeting audiences for each advertiser based on the existing ‘tagged’ audiences for remarketing
• This is Google ‘prospecting’ for you … using web history of converting visitors to ID ‘most likely to convert’
• Now, Google will retain and use that visitor data *for the advertiser* instead of making it available *to the advertiser*

---

From the above I conclude:

• Google is preparing for an antitrust suit
• Google expects ‘internet privacy’ legislation
• Google waited on cookies announcement until they had a ‘remarketing’ replacement
• Delays result most certainly from corporate partner pushback

---

That pushback tells me that the disruption is coming.

These changes may seem ‘macro’ to you but it is a strategic mistake to think so.

You’ve heard the saying ‘all politics is local?’ 

Well, for digital marketing to get leads for your business all Google is local.

Now is the time to get ahead of these changes.

If you don’t your competitor will and you will be lapped.

If you’ve made it this far in the post you’re getting the advice.

---

The vitals:

• Make sure your website has Google Tag Manager fully installed
• Has G4 running alongside your current analytics
• Ensure all clicks on your site are being tracked

---

Better yet:

• Clicks on your site you want (phone call, forms, etc.) are ‘conversions’
• Feed ‘conversion’ data to AdWords, even if you aren’t advertising
• Run a ‘RESP Display’ campaign to ‘test market messaging’ you can use in emails on website

---

Lap your competition:

• Have newsletter at least quarterly even if there are no subscribers
• This forces creation of new content, the *thing Google loves the most*
• Ensure quality internal linking from all new posts

---

Best of the best:

• You have newest ‘generation’ of WordPress
• That is Gutenberg editor and **no pagebuilder**
• This generates **very fast** page loads and Google *really likes* indexing these pages

---

Very last thing:

• Consider getting VPS server on static IP address with only your website on it
• This is the ‘least risk’ option providing the most control over your website
• This also reflects well on Google and provides a ‘test site’ for website changes

Having written repeatedly that ‘digital ad inventory’ has grown beyond our ability to wrap our mind around, I need to pass along a second, related point.

More people on more phones more often is the main cause of this inventory explosion. Off-loading life to the cloud is another contributor, but smaller.

Focus on more people on more phones more often.

This is happening.

But what are more of us doing on more of our phones more often?

This is the point to relate.

I’m not talking about the Apps, Sites, Clouds being used to ‘take care of something.’ 

Or the Podcast, Video, connect Apps we engage with passively.

The related point is **what they aren’t doing** when more people on more phones more often.

Not reading a paper, watching or listening as much ‘over the air’ or, even, ‘basic cable’ — not going to the mall or the theater as much, either, I suspect.

This alone is certainly enough to have a smart business working on a digital strategy to get more business from its website.

The related point plays in this way:

— The more people on more phones more often cross all ages, but slant younger

— There are 78MM Baby Boomers 55 and older

— There are 92MM people between 7 and 38 — Millennials and Gen Z

— There are another 26MM children 6 years old and younger

A smart business is looking to grow with new customers … younger, long-term customers.

A ‘Digital Strategy’ can get customers. A ‘Digital Investment’ can build a business.

In our previous post we discussed how ‘white hat’ ‘digital’ investment is necessary to remain a vibrant business heading into 2025. 

But what does that mean?

Right now if you have budget line items formally or informally being spent on advertising or marketing — particularly digital versions — you are already investing in ‘digital’ … you just may not know it.

How? 

Spending $100 on a digital ad campaign leaves a ‘footprint’ as it highlights your site to Google and other search engines, apps and businesses who cookie and track browsers online.

While that may seem a line-item — 5 leads for $100 — it *also is* an investment.

Why?

If you invest A/B testing the campaign’s landing page and that same $100 yields 6 leads.

If you invest in site SEO to create more, larger honeypots that $100 could yield two leads a month for five years.

If you continue creating optimized Honeypot pages, and provide ongoing useful content on your site that links to your site’s Honeypot pages you will have achieved ‘white hat’ ‘digital investment.’

Really.

That database on your website is an asset. Don’t think otherwise.

If you are a business you can think of ‘digital’ as a sales team.

But, instead of beating the bushes, persisting with the calls or barking at a trade show this sales team is sedentary and responsive to inquiry.

It is your website.

Your website is a sales team that pulls prospects to your business in the same way a honeypot draws flies. It should also prove ‘sticky’ … ‘trapping’ flies who land on it.

Our previous post identified how your prospects use their phones for solutions. 

You want to be that solution when you have what they need.

You want to be found when that person is searching their phone for what you have but don’t know who you are.

That is ‘digital.’

It also doesn’t materialize like a pigeon underneath a magician’s scarf, which is the bad news.

The good news is that approaching digital as ‘an investment’ rather than a ‘line item’ solves the problem.

Most of you probably are tracking with these posts and thinking, ‘Well, there’s really nothing new in what you are saying.’

True.

But, this may be new: The ‘white hat’ ‘digital systems’ you set up today will pay dividends in the foreseeable future.

Create ‘honeypots’ with a ‘white hat’ instead of a ‘gray’ or ‘black’ hat and the investment will bear fruit going forward.

What exactly is ‘white hat’ digital investment is the toic of our next blog post

Forward-thinking businesses of any size seeking to stay vibrant in coming years need to understand the direction of the ‘mobile market’ to stay relevant heading toward 2025.

It’s true.

As I often write, just think about yourself. Think about how you use your ‘phone.’ 

The best description I’ve got at the moment is that your phone is an extension of you … instead of reaching to a library book, or to your bookshelf, you swipe, look, touch or type to ‘unlock’ your device and then ask or direct.

In the last few years it’s not even the phone *itself* you use, it’s the icons you tap that become personal to you.

Change your phone and the ‘desktop’ stays unchanged … you develop shortcuts through those icons to get what you need when you need it.

That is your phone … a desktop of icons to do things.

You do many things with your mobiletop, right? Buy movie tickets? Preview menus? Should that red spot be worrisome? How much does something cost? Seen that trailer? Best color for a sofa? And so on …

This is where ‘digital’ *has to come into play* for a business growing toward 2025.

If ‘digital’ is just another lead-generating line item to you today you have been lapped.

Instead of thinking of ‘digital’ like a line item, think of it as a sales team where prospects come find your business because they seek what you have without knowing who you are.

More on how to leverage a digital strategy into the equivalent of a new sales team in my next post.

In our previous blog post we discussed how Cell Carriers/Google/Facebook can combine information learned through your phone’s location to segment the phone’s owner into ‘audiences’ that can be targeted.

By any business with a Google account.

Know that Google combines your phone’s location data with your search history to identify your ‘interests’ and segment you into groups for advertisers to reach.

In our previous post we discussed how cell carriers, Google, Facebook and others seem to know things by using your phone’s location.

All of this seemingly stops when you ‘turn off location,’ but who does that? And your phone still pings a cell tower every so often, so is it really off?

On the other hand, you do actually, literally need the driving directions spoken to you. 

You do really want your search to automatically be ‘near me.’ 

Now, the last layer … because your phone goes with you everywhere, and likely has the location on, your phone knows where you go, too.

Ever wonder how Google Maps knows how fast traffic is going? Or how you see an ad for takeout pizza?

Believe it or not, they are related and there is a way you can leverage this same ability.

Your phone knows where it is and passes that information along to your carrier (Verizon? Sprint? T-Mobile?) and also to any app to which you’ve given permission to track your location (Facebook? Google? Instagram? Gmail? Angry Birds? That photo app you use?).

Back to the traffic … Google Maps tracks where your phone is at all times, so it knows how fast your phone is traveling. Google Maps overlays the speed limit on I-494, tracks phones and sees where persistent slowdowns occur.

Complex but simple.

That is the Macro example.