Weekly Call w/ Ben — Client Maintenance Workflows (2026-01-29)

Attendees: Ben San Fratello, Mark Hope
Source: Fathom Recording

Overview

Internal operations call reviewing active client work across ^[1], ^[2], and ^[3]. The session covered three main areas: fixing a broken HubSpot MQL→SQL automation for Citrus, correcting Looker Studio report delivery for Exterior, and live Ahrefs site audits for both Exterior and Reynolds. The call also established a recurring weekly maintenance workflow using Ahrefs.

Key Decisions

1. HubSpot Automation Logic Fix (Citrus)

The MQL→SQL automation was misconfigured with is equal to all of on single-select fields, which would require a contact to check multiple boxes simultaneously — an impossible condition in practice.

• Fix: Change trigger logic to is equal to so a lead qualifies when a single correct option is selected.
• Future improvement: Convert the relevant fields to single-select radio buttons in HubSpot to prevent multi-selection at the form level entirely.
• Status: Ben to complete; coordinating with Miriam. Not blocking Citrus's current sales process.

2. Looker Studio Report Delivery (Exterior)

Automated reports to client Natalie had been sending with a fixed date range anchored to January 2020 — effectively useless data. Natalie had requested a year-over-year comparison view.

• Fix: Set the report's default date range to Last 30 Days. The built-in comparison feature already surfaces the delta vs. the prior 30 days (e.g., "−43.8% impressions"), which satisfies Natalie's request without a custom date range.
• Delivery workflow: Send the report to Ben on Mondays for internal review; send to Natalie monthly (e.g., Thursdays). This gives Ben a week to spot red numbers and brief Natalie proactively before she sees the data.
• Rationale: It is always worse for a client to see a bad number before you do. If clicks or conversions are down, send a note explaining why and what's being done — before the report lands in their inbox.

3. Weekly Ahrefs Maintenance Routine (All Clients)

Established a standing workflow: 30 minutes per week reviewing each client site in Ahrefs for errors.

• Review the Ahrefs health score and error list.
• For each error: investigate, fix directly in WordPress if straightforward, or create a ClickUp task for Melissa / Eshock if more complex.
• After fixing, trigger a new crawl in Ahrefs to confirm the error clears.
• Ben currently has two clients (Exterior, Reynolds), making this very manageable.

4. Reynolds Site Rebuild

The Reynolds site has pervasive structural and design problems across its services pages — fragmented layout, poor copy, and heading issues throughout. Patching individual pages is not a sustainable path.

• Decision: Ben to raise a full site rebuild proposal with Melissa.

Action Items

Site Fixes Completed During Call

Exterior — Broken Image (Blog Post)

• Ahrefs error: Broken image on the blog post "How to Tell When Your Siding Needs Replacing"
• Root cause: Image block present in WordPress editor but the underlying image file was missing/corrupt (woodpecker photo under the "Pest Damage" section).
• Fix: Deleted the broken image block, located the original woodpecker image in the media library, re-inserted it at full size, and published.
• Cache: Flushed the WP Engine cache after publishing to clear stale versions from all CDN locations.
• Follow-up: Triggered a new Ahrefs crawl; error expected to clear within the day.

Note on WP Engine + CDN caching: When you fix something on a WordPress site and it still looks wrong on reload, you are likely seeing a cached version. Always flush the WP Engine cache after a content fix. CDN nodes (distributed across the US and globally) each hold a copy of the site; flushing forces them all to rebuild from the updated source. Re-indexing typically takes only a few minutes.

Note on WP Engine slowness: If the site appears slow while logged into WP Engine, this is expected — the browser is loading the WordPress admin backend and the public frontend simultaneously. Always test public-facing performance in an incognito window to get an accurate read.

Reynolds — Multiple H1s (Careers Page)

• Ahrefs error: "Multiple title tags" on the Careers page (the actual issue was multiple H1 tags, not <title> tags — Ahrefs labeling was slightly misleading).
• Root cause: The page had five H1 tags where it should have had one H1 and subordinate H2s.
• Fix: Mark used an internal automation agent to log into the site, audit heading structure across all pages, analyze the Careers page content, and rewrite the heading hierarchy to: 1× H1, 4× H2. Cache was cleared automatically by the agent.
• Follow-up: Triggered a new Ahrefs crawl; error expected to clear.
• Broader issue: The heading problem is symptomatic of site-wide structural issues. Reynolds's services pages are fragmented and poorly designed. A full rebuild is the recommended path — see decision above.

Supporting Notes

Google Ads — Exterior & Reynolds

Exterior's ad performance has declined year-over-year (clicks and conversions down, though conversion rate and cost-per-conversion have improved). Context matters when reading these comparisons: budget levels, campaign structure, keywords, and seasonal factors (e.g., holiday periods) all affect the numbers. Ben to schedule a dedicated review with Gilbert to diagnose and determine if bid adjustments or campaign changes are needed.

Ahrefs + X-Ray for SEO Analysis

Mark walked through using X-Ray's organic tab to surface:
- Search performance trends (clicks, impressions, CTR, average position)
- Keyword intent breakdown (transactional/commercial vs. informational/navigational)
- Top-performing pages by traffic
- Opportunity types: Competitive Blindspots (competitor ranking organically but not bidding — ad opportunity), Content Voids (search demand with no current coverage), Conversion Levers (high-traffic pages with low conversion rates)

This is the recommended starting point for weekly SEO review before moving to Google Search Console or Google Ads.

Related

• ^[4]
• ^[5]
• ^[6]
• ^[7]
• ^[8]
• ^[9]
• ^[10]