Before publishing new onsite content or submitting offsite content for publication, many Nexus clients prefer to provide a quick review. Your copywriter will then incorporate your edits, follow up on any questions as needed, and move the content forward to start generating SEO power for your website.

What does the content review process look like? What kinds of edits are the most helpful for our team to refine our understanding of your company’s voice? We’ve rounded up everything you need to know about content review:

• What to Expect
• The Content Review Hub
• What’s Most Helpful for Us

What to Expect From Us

We primarily use Google Docs to create and share new content rather than Microsoft Word. Since Docs are saved in the cloud, they’re much easier for us to share and update. They also allow us to clearly see the edit history of a document.

If Google Docs are new for your team, please don’t hesitate to ask your account manager or copywriter any questions — we’ll be happy to help!

When new content is ready for your review, your Nexus copywriter will provide you with a link to a Google Doc that contains the content. If we’re sharing a draft of an onsite article or activity, we will also share a link to a preview of an unpublished draft on your website in most cases.

• When reviewing offsite content, you’ll only need to read the Google Doc and provide any edits or comments directly on the document.
• When reviewing onsite content, you can review the unpublished blog preview to see how the finished piece will appear once it’s live on your website, but the Google Doc version of the article will be the easiest place to leave specific line edits.

We’ll also provide you with a timeframe or “Review By” date for each new piece of content that requires your review. This helps ensure that we can keep a steady pace of content production and meet any deadlines set by our external publishing partners.

Extremely delayed content review can ultimately harm the productivity and ROI of your Nexus engagement. In some cases of extreme delays, we may give you the heads-up that we’ll move forward with the content in question by a specific date.

That said, we also understand that you’re busy with a variety of responsibilities. If you ever expect that you’ll be unable to review content by the requested date or have any questions, just let us know — we can make adjustments as necessary.

The Content Review Hub

For most engagements, we’ll share content for your review in your “Content Review Hub,” which is housed in your engagement’s “Master Account Spreadsheet.” We recommend creating a bookmark for this spreadsheet, but please reach out to your account manager or copywriter if you’re ever unable to find it.

The Content Review Hub looks like this:

How the Content Review Hub Works

1. Your copywriter will add new content to the review hub once it’s ready for your review by updating the date fields, activity type, title, link(s), and optional notes/context. We’ll set the status to “Ready for Review.”
2. You can then check the Review Hub at any time to see new content.
3. Your copywriter will also send a weekly email to update you on changes made to the hub in the past week. If there are no new pieces ready for your review, we’ll let you know what to expect from us next and when.
4. Once you’ve reviewed a piece of content, you’ll update the status column to either “Reviewed and Approved” or “Reviewed – Discuss Further” (if you want to discuss the content or would like to see a second draft).
5. You’ll then reply to your copywriter’s weekly update email to let them know that you’ve finished reviewing one or multiple pieces of content.

How “Review By” Timeframes Work

We’ll ask that new content added to your Review Hub be reviewed by the Friday of the following week. For instance, if a new offsite post is ready for review on a Wednesday, we’ll ask that you finish reviewing it by Friday of the following week.

This timeframe ensures that you’ll always have a feasible turnaround period to review content both before and after receiving our weekly update/reminder email. This will also give you the flexibility to better incorporate content review into your normal schedule, and it ensures that we’re not sharing content in a difficult-to-manage manner.

We encourage you to visit the Review Hub at any point during the week when you’re able to set aside time for reviewing content (not just after receiving our weekly reminder email).

Please let us know if you ever expect that you’ll be unable to meet a deadline so that we can make adjustments.

Alternative Review Processes

In some cases, we’ll opt to use a content review process different from the one outlined above:

• External project management platforms
  • If your business uses a platform like Trello or Asana to manage marketing tasks, we can use it, too. No need to reinvent the wheel if your team already has a process that works! We’ll just need login credentials and appropriate permissions to post and update tasks.
• Email-based review of individual articles
  • For non-standard Nexus engagements, it may make sense to manage the content review process solely via email. In this case, your copywriter will email you with new pieces for review along with a “review by” date and any notes. Questions and follow-up will occur on that thread as needed.

Your Nexus account manager will work with you during the onboarding process to determine the content review process that will work best for your engagement. For existing Nexus clients, we can also make adjustments over time if you strongly prefer one process over another — just let us know so that your account manager can discuss it with you soon.

What’s Most Helpful for Us

Feedback on content is most helpful for Nexus copywriters when it’s specific, actionable, and gives us a clearer idea of your preferences that we can carry forward into new content. For instance, rather than highlighting a sentence and asking that it be rewritten, leave a brief comment explaining why it’s not hitting the mark or effectively representing your voice.

For more straightforward diction or stylistic changes, direct line edits in the Google Doc will be most helpful.

We also ask that clients avoid heavily reworking links in content, especially in offsite articles (since the primary goal of these activities is to build authority to specific pages on your website using particular types of anchor text). In onsite content, we have greater flexibility with linking. However, if you strongly prefer that something about a link be changed, please let us know so that we can adjust our strategy as needed.

In onsite content, we use heading tags, image alt text, links, and keyword mentions to signal its relevance to Google. In general, please avoid heavily reworking these technical elements and mentions of relevant keywords. This will ensure the content can perform according to the keyword optimization strategy developed by your copywriter for that article.

If you have bigger-picture feedback on a piece of content or have trouble describing your desired changes, please let us know so that we can discuss and offer potential solutions.

What’s Most Helpful for You?

Our goal is for the content review process to be a collaborative one that helps us effectively capture your brand voice while delivering SEO results. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your account manager and/or copywriter if you:

• Have questions about the content review process or would like to request a process adjustment
• Have big-picture feedback to discuss that will help your copywriter better represent your brand
• Want to share new business priorities, preferences, or resources so that they can be incorporated into your content
• Have any questions about your overall SEO strategy, our content creation process, or anything else

We’ll be happy to answer your questions and chat about your strategy — just let us know!

What’s Happening

Google has announced that Google Analytics 4 is completely replacing Universal Analytics. Universal Analytics properties (Google Analytics 3) will stop collecting data on July 1, 2023.

If your account manager sent you this resource, this means you’re likely on Universal Analytics (GA3), but if you need to confirm, this Google resource can help you determine which one you’re operating on.

Google Analytics 4 is a big change for how/which metrics are being tracked, the way data is collected, and the interface of the tool. While any big switch like this will involve hiccups, this move is an exciting evolution for the world of web analytics. It enables code-free event tracking, helps fill gaps caused by privacy compliance, and more.

For more information about the differences between Google Analytics 4 and the current Universal Analytics, here are a few helpful resources:

• Search Engine Journal: Google Analytics 4 FAQs
• Google: Prepare for the Future with Google Analytics 4
• Skillshop: Training on Google Analytics 4

Nexus is here to support the success of your SEO strategy over time, which relies on trustworthy data. So, while we can’t make this migration on your behalf, we’ve put together some resources on what this change means and what next steps are needed.

What Does This Change Mean For My Website Today?

When

While end of life for Google Analytics 3 / Universal Analytics is still far away, starting to track data in a Google Analytics 4 property as soon as possible will be imperative to minimizing gaps in year over year data.

Because Universal Analytics will stop collecting new data on July 1, 2023, you should set up Google Analytics 4 by July 1, 2022 in order to have the fullest data possible.

Who

You may be able to complete these next steps yourself if you have experience setting up GA or working in the back end of your website.

However, you may need support from your web development resource in order to complete the changes outlined in the next section. To make this request simple, we’ve created an email template you can access below that covers what is needed.

What

1) Start Tracking in a Google Analytics 4 Property

You’ll need to use the Google Analytics 4 Setup Assistant to create a new GA4 property that collects data in parallel with your existing Universal Analytics property. There are no changes to your Universal Analytics property, and it will continue to collect data until July 2023.

The setup wizard should make the basic setup a very quick/low-effort task.

Resources

• Google Analytics Help: Add a Google Analytics 4 property (to a site that already has Analytics)

2) Configure Conversions in Google Analytics 4

In Universal Analytics, “goal completions” are how the Nexus team (and likely yourself and other members of your team!) understand the value of marketing efforts that pass through your website. Today, goals on your site may include things like contact us form submissions, demo requests, or webinar signups, and they may be configured either as destination or event goals.

In Google Analytics 4, these are more simply called “conversions,” and they’re measured with an event-based data model, which typically enables a more straightforward, code-free setup process compared to UA.

Option 1 (Simplest)

Use the UA → GA4 Goals Migration Tool to quickly recreate goals from your connected Universal Analytics property as conversions in Google Analytics.

Destination and Event Goals (the most common for Nexus engagements) are eligible for migration using this tool.

Option 2 (Backup)

In some cases, or if you have trouble with the tool, you may need to recreate corresponding versions of your goals manually as conversions in Google Analytics 4. If needed, you can use the following resources.

• Step 1: Take Stock of Current Goal Tracking (Goal Completions in Google Analytics)
  • If helpful, fill out this  Google Analytics 4: Conversion Setup Worksheet. If you’re not able to fill this out yourself, your Nexus account manager can provide support.
  • A couple of notes on auditing your current setup…
    • You’ll want to ensure any goals being used by Nexus, your marketing team, your website team, or anyone else at your business are brought over to Google Analytics.
    • However, as noted by Google, “Google Analytics 4 adoption provides a great opportunity to confirm which KPIs are important to your stakeholders.” You won’t want to move over goals that are out of date such as “Holiday Purchase 2017”.
    • When in doubt, go ahead and reconfigure a corresponding goal in Google Analytics 4. You can always turn off data collection later, but you won’t have data retroactively.
• Step 2: Configure Conversions in GA4
  • For each individual conversion, you’ll create/switch on the appropriate conversion event in Google Analytics 4.
    In some cases, you may need to set up a custom event.

Additional Resources

• Google Analytics: UA -> GA4 Conversions in Google Analytics 4
• Google Analytics: UA → GA Goals migration tool

3) Grant Access to Nexus

Finally, please grant edit-level access to analytics@nexusmarketing.com and notify your account manager when this has been completed.

What Will This Change Mean Later?

Between now and July 2023, your account manager will transition reporting on traffic and conversions for your account to Google Analytics 4. But for now, reporting will remain consistent and we’ll continue to rely on information from Universal Analytics.

How Nexus Can Help

Where Can Nexus Support Your Team?

• Providing high-level guidance to your web developer about what is needed for the switch to Google Analytics 4
• Advising on current goal setup and how that translates into conversions in Google Analytics 4
• Troubleshooting on code-free conversion setup in Google Analytics 4
• Development of traffic and conversion reports in Google Analytics 4 to support our SEO engagement

Where Will Nexus Need Additional Support?

• Setup of the Google Analytics 4 instance
• Troubleshooting with data collection in Google Analytics 4
• Setup of any custom event conversions in Google Analytics 4 that require working with code

Additional Resources

Template to Send to Web Resource

[Contact Name],

As you may know, Google is replacing Universal Analytics with the new Google Analytics 4 tool.

The full replacement won’t happen until next summer, but in order to minimize any gaps in data collection, we’d like to complete the setup one year before Universal Analytics is discontinued. But we need your help in order to make sure transition can occur as seamlessly as possible.

Could you please complete the following by July 1st, 2022?

• Set up a new Google Analytics 4 property. Use the setup assistant to create a new GA4 property that collects data alongside our existing property.
• Set up conversions in Google Analytics 4. Use the goal migration tool to import our existing goals as conversions in GA4. You may have to troubleshoot on this one to make sure all goals are migrated correctly.
• Provide access to the Nexus team. Please grant edit level access to analytics@nexusmarketing.com.

The team at Nexus Marketing (who we work with for SEO) put together this resource with a few more details and considerations for this, which may be helpful. Let me know if you have any questions about what is needed.

Best,
[Your name]