Meet Ray, your organic search and analytics data nerd
If you’ve come this far, perhaps we’ve not met in person, or you’re looking to get to know me on a deeper level.
My name’s Ray Pastoors, and I’m based in Brunswick, Victoria.
With over 20 years of digital marketing experience across small businesses and corporations, I enjoy understanding how things work.
My interest in websites and analytics came from working for Origin Energy as a social media marketer. I was intrigued by Facebook’s ad results and wanted to know the full user journey.
Yes, Facebook was telling us we got X amount of clicks. But what did these people do when they got to our website? Did they leave? Or did they explore other pages?
And what about the website made someone want to click or leave?
When investing in marketing dollars, you want to ensure you get the best return. So, it made sense to also tap into the website experience and analytics to find this all out.
My values are core to my work ethic
Open book
I believe that we should be transparent about things. So I'm always one to point out things that don't work and to let you know of any roadblocks.
Solution focused
No use crying over spilt milk, I prefer to find a solution to issues. My optimistic and curious mind make the perfect combo to deliver for your project.
Planet giver
Every time you work with me, I donate 1% to environmental causes, including the Solar for Schools project in Pacific Islands.
My experience starts with lucky 7
My first-ever business venture was selling stickers for the Australian Koala Foundation. We still support the charity today.
As a teenager, I would get up early on the weekend to get my old metal trolley and stack it up with newspapers. As a paperboy for the local newsagent, it meant meeting people from different parts of the community. After a good paper run, I counted up the sales and, from my commission, loved treating myself to Harry Potter chocolate frogs.
I would import products from overseas, engage in dropshipping and run an online store from my bedroom. This later turned into a physical bedroom store, where I should have picked up that I did not need a cash register for a store that had barely any visits.
If you steer away from entrepreneurial ventures, my first paying job was at Red Rooster. It was here I became what some might call a ‘checkout chick’ and later climbed the ranks to be an Assistant Store Manager. I still love Red Rooster today; those cheesy nuggets are golden (just like good data).
After working as a call centre rep and studying marketing, I wanted to learn more about Origin Energy from a brand and social media perspective. So, when the job opportunity came up, it was a no-brainer.
As a social media marketer, I was curious about what users were doing beyond our Facebook ads.
I quickly learned about website analytics tools like Adobe & Google Analytics. I began to understand how to create reports, what metrics (indicators of data performance) meant, and how to use them to interpret what was happening.
From there, I also started to navigate how the website and campaign landing page played a role in the users likelihood to sign up or leave the page.
I admired Kate Toon for a long time. Most of all, I fully agreed with her no-BS approach to marketing and topics. She was also highly transparent and a good egg.
So when the chance to become an endorsed expert came up, it was the perfect chance for me to demonstrate my knowledge by breaking down complex topics into terms everyday business owners could understand.
As a result, I provide Google Analytics resources and training in Kate’s Recipe for SEO Success course and Digital Marketing Collective membership.
Throughout my corporate experience in energy, financial services, healthcare, and not-for-profits, I’ve come to terms with what key parts of the user journey matter and which ones are less so based on an organisation’s goals.
Understanding the metrics (what to track) and how to set them up is a key part of delivering value in the analytic tools and improving your marketing performance.
As a hot tip, Google Analytics is not the only tool we should use. The best analysis comes from putting together different sources to determine what the data tells us. For example, asking your customers, using your Facebook data and tools like Hotjar for screen recordings.
The introduction of GA4 was a challenge in itself. Alike other people, the tool was entirely new. So I had to quickly rummage through the Google help centre, read articles, watch tutorials and play with my Google Analytics properties to understand what was happening.
Google did not make it easy and still does not.
By learning GA4 and the intricate details, I was able to simplify it and partner up with some amazing people. That included groups like The Elevatory and Wise Up Marketing.
After setting up over 120 Google Analytics properties, I decided to close the chapter of my digital marketing agency, LYF Solutions and focus my energy on my brand, Ray Pastoors, to make Google Analytics and Organic Search easier for more people.
And that’s where we land today, a new brand with a better offering tailored to make your goals more achievable.
Back in 1997, people were surprised to learn that Yahoo and Ask Jeeves were the go-to places for finding things online.
In the early 2000’s Google started to dominate and has held the market share for organic searches ever since.
My interest in search engine optimisation began when I was a teenager creating a website on the interwebs. Back then, it was all about keywords and lots of them.
This game started to change as Google launched several updates with names ranging from Penguin to Panda.
My time with organic search has included:
- Keyword research for small businesses and to support larger client projects and agencies.
- Running technical audits for existing websites to identify crawl and foundational issues.
- Fixing technical issues on websites to improve organic traffic.
- Mapping keywords to the marketing funnel and website user experience, including its navigation (think main menu).
- Developing strategies for content to attract people online.
- Running organic traffic search experiments.
- Optimising content by learning and empowering teams to apply the balance of SEO foundations with human needs for blogs and pages.
- Empowering businesses to understand how to apply SEO foundations to their website or practices, including running workshops for local councils.
- Leading large-scale projects for website rebuilds across financial services and healthcare clients. All whilst ensuring we met Google’s needs.