Digital Marketing Expert
John Wierenga
My name is John Wierenga and I work in digital marketing. Most of my experience has been with start up digital marketing companies. Helping put together search engine optimization (SEO), web design and development processes and procedures. Mostly concentrating on a client base of small businesses using WordPress and primarily but not exclusively located in the Grand Rapids MI area.
I’ve always loved sharing information about what I do. However, there are a lot of people out there that can share tips and tricks. But without structure then random bits of advice are useless. I want to be someone who is known for offering concrete processes and procedures for web development and search engine optimization problems.
Experiences in Digital Marketing:
I love tweaking procedures and finding better ways to do things. I have often worked at small start up web design/digital marketing firms. Some highlights:
Starting as a freelancer for a guy who worked from home with steady stream of 1099’s and ending up being the first full time employee in company history as moved into a real office and expanded team. Even after I left many of my tools and processes were used in their WordPress projects.
After that I did some more freelance work for a guy and his overseas developer and ended up working in project management and being there for a merger with another small firm.
Next I headed up my own startup going from couple of people doing web design and WordPress development on the side to actually being a real LLC with several freelancers contributing and even a couple of interns.
Eventually this startup experience lead to me being brought into an IT company that wanted to boost there web development and SEO services. They needed someone who could help put together a solid foundation for the way they marketed, estimated, sold, developed, managed, and supported website projects. A lot of the ways they did these tasks in the past had to be totally re-built. But in short order we were doing projects twice as good in less then half the time.
Professional Expertise in:
Project Management
I enjoy reading the PMBOK and studying project management. I also have an interest in web design, a degree in web development, and experience in SEO, plus a love for big picture thinking which all comes together to make me an especially good project manager for new website projects….
Search Engine Optimization
I started doing search engine optimization (SEO) many years ago, promoting my own websites. After being out of the game for awhile I had some highly successfully SEO projects for a few small business. I then took on a role with very little SEO for a few years before…
WordPress Development
At this point in my career I’m more focused on building teams that include designers, developers, search engine optimization specialists, and social media experts, and making sure that they all work together for a commo goal, then I am in getting hands on with website development. But with my experience…
My Writings:
- Enhancing Visibility: Ensuring Your Web Content is Search-Engine FriendlyThe Vital Role of Search Engine Visibility in Digital Marketing In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, the visibility of your web content on search engines can significantly impact the success of your online presence. It’s crucial to ensure that your content is not only valuable to your audience but also accessible to search engines.… Read more: Enhancing Visibility: Ensuring Your Web Content is Search-Engine Friendly
- The Best of Both Worlds: Offering PDFs and Text Versions of Your Content
We were managing a website for a company that specializes in planned giving resources. They were original a little thin on their content, one of those sites that you could visit and still not know why they did. They beefed up the content with some really nice pdfs which provided a lot of information on… Read more: The Best of Both Worlds: Offering PDFs and Text Versions of Your Content - How to Retrieve Access Log on WPMU Hosting
![[stock image] LOG](https://johnwierenga.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/log-file-stock-image-300x169.jpg)
Knowing Google Search Console (GSC) hasn’t been 100% accurate with crawl and indexing data lately. I wanted to use my access log to check crawl stats. But the WPMU access log has been unavailable, till I found a workaround. - Weathering the Seasons of SEO: Why Year-Over-Year View is Key for Your Website
This is a screenshot of the Google Search Console (GSC) for a seasonal website I work with… In SEO it seems to be pretty common for people to expect a linear improvement. You take a certain time period, 7 days, 28 days, 90 days (as in this case) and hope you have more visits from… Read more: Weathering the Seasons of SEO: Why Year-Over-Year View is Key for Your Website - Why Should you use WordPress?
I think the #1 reason to use WordPress is the plugins. Plugins are add ons that you can add to your website. For example if I took one of my old hand coded html websites and wanted to add a contact form, it would require me to create of find a code for sending email,… Read more: Why Should you use WordPress? - WordPress Web Development- Written by SEO AI service
Read on for some of the pros and cons of building a website with WordPress. In general, creating a website with WordPress is easy, especially if you can start designing using an existing theme. WordPress themes provide a great way to start designing, and many themes come with built-in features that can help you tackle… Read more: WordPress Web Development- Written by SEO AI service - From ‘Kind of Sort of’ to ‘Crystal Clear’: The Case for Thorough Task Documentation
There are many tasks that we think we know how to do, but end up getting stuck and wasting time because of some minor oversight. The solution is proper documentation. - Help your Employees Find What Works for THEM
I like to optimize, tweak, find ways to improve. My wife hates it when I cook because when she asks me how it turned out I will say something like: “Not bad, but next time I’ll do…” No matter how well it turns out I still want it to be a little better next time.… Read more: Help your Employees Find What Works for THEM - John Wierenga notes from “Leading Remote Projects and Virtual Teams” LinkedIn Learning Course
I decided to try the course “Leading Remote Projects and Virtual Teams” lead by Cyndi Snyder Dionisio. My first job in the digital marketing industry was as a remote web developer. One of my early project management positions was remote, company in one state, myself in another, and a developer overseas. Remote work is not… Read more: John Wierenga notes from “Leading Remote Projects and Virtual Teams” LinkedIn Learning Course - Why I Decided to Learn SEO?
A homework assignment for an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) class I am taking, is to write why I decided to learn SEO. This is something I have decided to do several times and could make for a long story. But an abbreviated version is below: I started making my own websites about 20 years ago.… Read more: Why I Decided to Learn SEO?