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    Speed is Everything

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    Page loading speed has great importance with Google these days. From mobile visitors to Googlebots, every visitor will appreciate a speedy experience. Here are some ideas to keep in mind: 1. Rise of mobile The importance of mobile can be seen in Google’s announcements the last few years. Mobile users are more impatient than ever, and Google provided stats last week regarding just how impatient mobile users are: – The average mobile page takes 22 seconds to load, but 53% of users leave after 3 seconds! – Even mobile landing pages in AdWords were found to take 10 seconds loading time. There are many easy changes available for sites to make, as the answer isn’t always in purchasing a faster web server. Google’s own analysis found that simply compressing images and text can be a “game changer”—30% of pages could save more than 250KB that way. 2. Ranking factor A few years back, Google made page speed a small ranking factor – or at least they were finally explicit about it being a ranking factor. Since page speed issues aren’t given the exposure of crawl errors and other items in Google Search Console, it can be easy to put them on the “long list” of items to fix. Its addition as a ranking factor is a great signal that this needs to be prioritized. 3. Bounce rate Nice try, loading up your site with images that take forever to load. Unfortunately, that doesn’t increase the duration of site visits. It just makes people angry. According to Google’s analysis, every second of loading time, from 1 to 7 seconds, increases the chance of a bounce by 113%! Many SEOs believe that “engagement metrics” such as bounce rate could also be a ranking factor. And it makes sense: When Google sees a rise in organic bounce rate, they know human visitors are judging the content. How could Google not take this data into account? 4. Crawl rate In one recent test, increasing page speed across a site dramatically increased the site’s crawl budget. Slower sites can be overwhelmed by crawl activity. But if you ever feel the need to put a crawl delay in your robots.txt, take that as a warning sign. After all, even reasonably fast sites can often need more crawl budget. Tools and Fixes Luckily there are remedies. Some can be quite easy, such as adding compression to your web server. Others might require a trip to Photoshop for your site’s images. However, some items will not be worth fixing. Try to concentrate on the easiest tasks first. Run an analysis of your site through these two tools and see what you need to fix: Google’s newest tool: Test how mobile-friendly your site is. GTmetrix.com features include a “waterfall” showing which page items load at which stage, history, monitoring, and more. Good luck and enjoy optimizing the speed of your site!

    Preparing For SEO in 2017

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      Every year brings new SEO challenges and surprises. The year 2017 won’t be any different, but we do expect these topics to be important considerations in the new year: Interstitials / Popups on Mobile DevicesWe’ve all seen mobile sites with a popup covering the content we were trying to read. These popups will be punished by Google in early 2017. Like ads above the fold, Google feels these popups harm the user experience – and they do not want to send visitors to such sites. Many survey and tool vendors such as ometrics and surveygizmo have been proactive to make sure their clients are not at risk, but some vendors may not be aware. SSL / HTTPSGoogle is really pushing SSL, and this is the year they accelerate their plan to make the web secure. Having your entire website served over HTTPS used to be rare, and only credit card or health privacy transactions were secured. And even that was spotty. But Google has begun a campaign since 2014 to secure everything. Two years ago, Google introduced a rankings boost for sites entirely on SSL. Last year they provided better features in Search Console. And we started to see SSL as “must have“. But progress has been voluntary in many regards, with other business objectives prioritized first. Next year, new developments will force your hand: Warnings will start appearing in Chrome. Come January 2017 the Chrome browser will show increasingly dire warnings for any site that hasn’t moved to HTTPS. Starting with pages that have credit card or password fields: Initially, users will be warned: With more dire warnings for insecure sites later in 2017: JavaScript-based sites There are many great reasons to use one of the new JavaScript frameworks in a web app or site: They tend to be mobile friendly and give a superior user experience in many cases. You’ve seen JavaScript search widgets on ebay and amazon providing “faceted search” – allowing users to easily refine their searches by clicking a few checkboxes. Frameworks needing some help include Angular, Backbone, Meteor, and many of their child/related frameworks. Some frameworks, such as Angular v2, are getting better about being search engine friendly. And Google is crawling ever more javascript, but not well from what we’ve seen. And often sites need help implementing technologies such as prerender.io. We are increasingly seeing more of this kind of work, and expect it to accelerate in 2017. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)AMP is the super-speedy loading of pages you’ve likely seen in some mobile results. After you setup AMP on your site, Googlebot places your content on it’s super-fast servers – but making it look like your URL. AMP was just for news sites, but now Google has opened AMP up to other sorts of sites – and 700k+ sites have been using it! If mobile traffic is important to your site, AMP will likely become vital over the next year. SchemaGoogle just loves schema. We’ve seen over this last year as schema has helped increase pages indexed, and expect it to play a greater role every year. As artificial intelligence is used more and more in the “Rank Brain” algorithm, sites that can be easily categorized by Google will received more visibility. I for one welcome our new overlords… subject to future review. BacklinksLinks are still an important part of Google’s algorithm. But sustainable, authentic link earning is always the best longterm approach in link building. So how can you get these links? 1. Content marketingProduce great content, and reach out to authority sites and influencers in your space. 2. Business Development Link BuildingAll of those traditional activities such as sponsoring a baseball team, joining the chamber, or participating in online communities/forums are actually great ways to get links. 3. PublicityPublicity is that powerful branch of public relations that provides links and visibility from media sites. These methods of earning links have the best longterm potential, and are quite powerful for building and keeping rankings. More effortThe shrinking organic traffic (more ads at the top), increased competition, and ever-changing nature of organic search require more effort than ever. Gone are the days of getting your site “SEO-ed” and expecting free traffic. All traffic is either earned, or easily taken away. May you experience a great new year with SEO!

    Conversion is King

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    Content is helpful, but conversion is everything. The point of content – and usability in general – is to meet business objectives. Any business objective can be a conversion of sorts: bookmarking, social sharing/liking, video views, time on site, lead generation, add to cart, and hopefully even completing the sale! By measuring each step, brands can understand where their site can improve it’s usability and contribute more to the bottom line. 1. It can be easier to increase conversion than to increase traffic Increasing conversion also increases revenue, and can be easier than increasing traffic – up to a point. 2. Even mobile apps can easily conduct conversion optimization tests Mobile testing platforms now allow conversion and usability testing without rolling out new versions of your app. Solutions exist from Optimizely ,Visual Website Optimizer (VWO), Liquid, and Artisan Optimize Mobile App. 3. You should test EVERYTHING User Experience professionals agree: Take their advice, but “always keep testing”. Conversion case studies show all sorts of factors can influence conversion: Logos and headers Design style of the the site Product page designs Product descriptions and overall copy writing The text of your call to action buttons Images Use of video (usually boosts conversion, but not always!) Purchasing path through the site 4. Website redesigns should use, not reset your data Now if the site is just awful, start with a redesign. But a website redesign that starts over can sometimes be a horrible waste: Another shot in the dark, with hope and prayer. Consider instead a redesign process based on evolving the website with small changes, continually tested for improvement. But definitely start from having your website in a “good place”! Not sure of next steps for your site? Time to start testing – or maybe a redesign from that “good place”. Need a good interactive agency or website design firm? We’ve worked with agencies and designers. And we partner with the best! Talk to us about your needs, and we’ll introduce you to the right match. PSST! Need a Free Link? Get a free link for your agency: Would you like our monthly take on the changing world of SEO delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to the Hyper Dog Media SEO Newsletter HERE! When you subscribe, each newsletter will contain a link idea for your business! See you at SearchCon 2015! SearchCon! Are you interested in learning about the latest in search from the experts? Join us at SearchCon 2015 – The Digital Marketing and SEO Conference! SearchCon is April 9th and 10th and will be held at Beaver Run Resort in beautiful Breckenridge, Colorado. Register before March 2nd and take advantage of early bird pricing! http://searchcon.events/

    Doing the Pigeon (Update)

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    Last month, Google rolled out one of their largest local search updates in quite some time. Since Google didn’t name the update, Search Engine Land named this one the Google Pigeon Update. It’s seemingly unrelated to Google’s Pigeon Rank, an April Fools joke from back when Google did good and funny things. This update does not penalize sites, but does change how local results are shown: – Fewer queries are generating a map listing / “local pack” – More traditional SEO signals are used, such as title tags and quality inbound links. Some interesting things are happening with this update: – When a query includes the word “yelp”, those listings on yelp.com are back at the top. This fixes a recent bug. – Web design and SEO companies are getting shown in local queries again! If you depend on local traffic, hopefully your results weren’t negatively impacted by the update. The best approach for local visibility includes these tasks: – make sure to update and creat local directory listings on authority sites such as yelp. – Use the highest quality photo on your Google+ business profile, and get more reviews. You might make it into the Carousel listings at the top of Google for some queries. – Make sure your business Name, Address and Phone(NAP) are consistent on your site, google+ business page, and local directories. – Be sure your city/state is in site’s title tags And now for something good, and funny: PSST! Need a Free Link? We’d like to help you promote your own business, hoping more work for you brings more work our way! Subscribe to the Hyper Dog Media SEO Newsletter HERE!  Their site also provides an excellent backlink. You may even get human visitors, website projects and new partners. Now THAT’s business development link building!

    Summary of Search, September 2013

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    Google announced that it rewrote pretty much it’s entire algorithm last month in that “unnamed update.” It’s the biggest change since 2001. Seventy percent of the Search Engine Results Pages were affected! Compare that to Penguin, in which something like 3 percent of SERPs were affected. The new Google algorithm is code-named “Hummingbird.” Many of the basics are the same: 1. Content should be accessible / easy to navigate for search engines. 2. Keywords should be properly tagged, with special boost to those using: a. Semantic markup b. Rich snippets c. Google authorship 3. Authoritative links According to one expert, “Quick SEO” is firmly in the past. We couldn’t agree more: Google has been strongly advocating this direction for some time. And the Panda/Penguin updates began steering the industry more than 2 years ago. Panda & Penguin aren’t going away: They are parts of the new algorithm and are likely to get additional updates in the future. Across our clients, we saw very little change. Certain keywords had light movement up or down on August 20, but not by much. If you follow Google’s rules, you don’t get hit.   WHAT’S NEW IN HUMMINGBIRD? 1. Mobile/Voice/Location queries Google expanded it’s ability to deal with mobile/voice & location based queries like: “What’s the closest place to buy the iPhone 5s?” They also have more comparisons showing via the “knowledge graph” for queries like: “space needle versus empire state building” 2. “Entity search” In keyword based queries of yesteryear (and even “yestermonth”), google sometimes couldn’t figure out queries like “windows replacement” and “windows 7 replacement”: Is it a PC user or a homeowner asking? Google is using a database of facts about specific, unique entities (people, places, businesses, events, etc) to figure out how to return the best results. Think about the broad keywords you are targeting, and consider how you can “talk around” these topics. 3. Hashtag search The only posts that will show up on Google searches are those that were shared publicly, or shared with you (if you’re a Google+ user). Clicking on one of the Google+ posts leads you to Google+ where the search is reproduced. There are also links at the bottom of the sidebar to perform the hashtag search over at twitter or facebook, but these are bumped below the fold in less than 2 seconds – as new Google+ posts fill the sidebar.   MOVING FORWARD: 1. Create content around your “entities” Engaging, shareable, linkable content is now more important than ever. Do you have every kind of content about your subject? Consider videos, images, lists, podcasts, infographics, and articles regarding the entities you want to be found for. These are likely your broad keywords, but don’t go too broad. 2. Tag content with semantic markup & rich snippets Google is smart, indeed. But semantic markup & rich snippets make it easy for Google to understand the correct answers for their users questions. Rich snippets have grown in importance, and are now “must have” for search engine visibility. While Google is still working out the kinks in authorship for brands, it’s becoming increasingly important that authorship be implemented. 3. Content Marketing Link Building & Social Media Marketing Having great content was never enough, and it still isn’t. There are more ways than ever to get the word out. Some will even help you win authority links.   Would you like our monthly take on the changing world of SEO delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to the Hyper Dog Media SEO Newsletter HERE!

    The month in Search

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    There haven’t been any Penguin updates this last month, but Google Panda 3.9.1 happened on August 20, 2012. We didn’t see any impact to most client rankings. Penguin v1.2 update is still expected to happen any day now, and (Google Spokesperson) Matt Cutts says to expect a bumpy ride. The early revisions of Panda were wild and somewhat “wooly”. Is page 1 top 7 now?! Around mid-month, Google started showing only 7 results, and from fewer sites, for a good chunk of queries(Estimated: 18%). Page 1 now means “top 7” for many searches. The percentage of users clicking through from positions 8-10 has been negligible in most studies, but this is a major change in how results are displayed and another clear departure from the 10 blue links of yesteryear. Change is the rule Rankings are more volatile than ever. One SEO shared: “Something like 80% of the Top 10 SERPs we measure change every night, to some degree.” On August 10, Google posted 86 changes they made in June and July. Many were small, but those of interest to us involve the boosting of “trusted sites” (usually means large brands) as well as changes to sitelinks. The new clustering and boosting of trusted sites is often creating monopolies for larger brands. Google used to only show 2-3 links maximum from the same website. Now it is possible for larger brands to dominate the top 7 or 8 results. “Transition Rank” Patent Application Google has a new patent application regarding “transition rank.” It’s aimed at punishing Black Hat SEO techniques through random ranking changes: “Some of the techniques used by rank-modifying spammers include keyword stuffing, invisible text, tiny text, page redirects, META tags stuffing, and link-based manipulation.” Many SEOs are speculating this has been part of the algorithm for some time.

    Notes on the Yahoo / Bing Transition

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    Yahoo advertisers received an email outlining a few more terms regarding the upcoming transition to the Microsoft Advertising adCenter platform. Some quick points: 1. A Tab will show up in “YSM later this month”, so be sure to login and look around. 2. Yours ads can server in adCenter right away when you transition. 3. Silverlight will continue being used. I still need to test and see what functionality might be missing when I login from my iPhone or an older mac. I hope whatever missing features degrade well! 4. The upcoming changes to organic search are later this month. We anticipate a rocky ride, as Microsoft will likely need to make ongoing tweaks. Dear Advertiser, As your transition to the Microsoft Advertising adCenter platform approaches, we have more details to share to help you prepare for the changes to come. Considerations for your upcoming transition adCenter account Soon, you’ll need to either create a new adCenter account, or link an existing adCenter account to your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. Later this month, you’ll see an “adCenter” tab within your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. Clicking there will take you to the beginning of the account transition process, where we’ll walk you through the simple steps to create or link accounts. Budgeting Once you create your adCenter account, it will be active and your ads will be eligible to serve on Bing right away. As a result, you’ll be managing both your new adCenter account and your existing Yahoo! Search Marketing account in parallel until ad serving for Yahoo! traffic transitions to adCenter, so plan to budget accordingly. Microsoft Silverlight With Silverlight installed, you’ll be able to see and address key differences between your Yahoo! and adCenter accounts as you transition. Download Silverlight now. Organic search transition Yahoo! organic search results will be powered by Bing as early as late August. If organic search results are an important source of referrals to your website, you’ll want to make sure that you’re prepared for this change. For more details, check out this blog post. As we’ve stated previously, our primary goal is to provide a quality transition experience for advertisers in the U.S. and Canada in 2010, while protecting the holiday season. However, please remember that as we continue to go through our series of checkpoints, if we conclude that it would improve the overall experience, we may choose to defer the transition to 2011. We are committed to making this transition as seamless and beneficial for you as possible. We appreciate your business, and look forward to bringing you the benefits of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance. Sincerely, Your Partners in the Search Alliance, Yahoo! and Microsoft

    13 Reasons Why Google Loves Blogs

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    Google loves blogs. What is it about blogs that Google loves so very much? We’ve pinpointed 13 reasons why Google may give – or appear to give – sites with blogs a little extra boost in rankings. Of course, the list is broken down into our framework of looking at good quality sites as being accessible, relevant, and popular. Accessibility: Search Engine robots must be able to find your content. These reasons help the bots find your postings without a lot of muss or fuss. 1. Pinging Most blog software sends out a “ping” when there is a new post. Instead of waiting for a search engine crawler to come across your site’s new content – either via a routine crawling or via a link – a notification is sent out to sites like pingomatic, technorati, and even google blog search. This notification tells the search engine robots to come and fetch some fresh (crunchy) content. 2. RSS feeds provide deep links to content RSS Feeds are useful for so many, many things. They contain links to your latest postings, but also consider that they contain links right to the postings themselves. Even crawlers that aren’t that smart (you know who you are, little bots!) can figure out how to find a link in a list. That’s essentially all an RSS Feed is: A list of links in a predictable format. Hint: You subscribed to your feed in iGoogle, didn’t you? 3. Standard sitemap.xml provide deep links to content If an RSS feed isn’t enough, use a sitemap.xml file to notify search engines about your site, including any new posts. A great thing about sitemap.xml files is that they can communicate additional information about a link, like how often a search engine robot should visit and what priority the page has in relation to your site. 4. Based on modern HTML design standards Most blogging software was created or updated very recently, and doesn’t use outdated HTML methods like nested tables, frames, or other HTML methods that can cause a bot to pause. Relevance: Once found, search engines must be able to see the importance of your content to your desired audience. 5. Fresh content, updated often Nothing quite gets the attention of a search engine robot like fresh content. It encourages frequent repeat visits from both humans and robots alike! 6. Fresh comments, updated often Of course, the blogosphere is a very social place. Googlebot is likely to come back often to posts that are evolving over time, with fresh new comments being added constantly. 7. Keyword Rich Categories, Tags, URLs Invariably, some of your best keywords are likely to be used in the tags and categories on your blog. If you aren’t using keyword rich categories and tags, you really should be. Popular: Google looks at what other sites link to your site, how important they are, and what anchortext is used. 8. RSS Feeds provide syndication RSS Feeds can help your content and links get spread all around the internet. Provide an easy path to syndication for the possibility of links and, of course, human traffic. 9. Extra links from blog & RSS Feed directories The first blog I ever started was for the possibility of a link from a blog directory. But RSS Feed directories exist too! Be sure to maximize the link possibilities by submitting to both. 10. Linking between bloggers / related sites Blog rolls are links that blogger recommend to their audience. sometimes they have nice, descriptive text and even use XFN to explain relationships between bloggers. Some of your best human traffic can be attained through blogrolls. 11. Social bookmarking technologies built in Blog posts are usually created with links directly to social bookmarking services like delicious.com, stumbleupon, and other social bookmarking sites. You’ve never made it easier for your audience to share your posting and give you a link! 12. Tagging / Categories with relevant words Tags can create links to your blog by relevant pages on technorati and other blog search engines. These tag pages sometimes even have pagerank! They deliver keyword rich links and quality traffic. 13. Trackbacks (Conversations) Trackbacks are conversations spanning several blogs. They are an excellent way to gain links (although often nofollowed these days), and traffic. Other blogs can be part of the conversation, thanks to the trackback system!

    Why Flash is still a problem in 2009

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    Flash is less of a problem for search engines, but there are still caveats. Flash’s problems can be easily mitigated by offering footer links, and regular html text content on any pages with flash. It’s only an issue when no alternative content or navigation is offered. Here’s the longer story: Flash’s problems depend on the implementation: If developers do not implement Flash detection, pages can appear broken to visitors. They leave the site and/or do not convert to prospects/leads/sales. If flash detection is done poorly, it can be seen as cloaking to search engines – which is returning different content for search engines than for visitors. This is rare, but possible. If flash is the sole navigation for search engines and human visitors to follow, search engines cannot spider the site. This is the kiss of death you’ve probably heard about. Some claim it isn’t a problem any more because: Adobe has implemented better accessibility in the last few versions. But these links are still hard to follow and rarely rank well in the engines. MSN/LIVE has enough problems with HTML links, and probably will not find the content. Also, the landing page where visitors would land sometimes doesn’t show properly – it could be a part of a flash animation that doesn’t load, etc. Google made a deal with flash that allows flash to be crawled more easily. But again, these links are still hard to follow and rarely rank well in the engines. Google seems to be looking more for hidden redirects and other black hat techniques with their Adobe API deal. So what can you do to make sure your content is accessible to search engines, and seen as a valuable landing page for organic search visitors? Nothing beats good old fashioned HTML: Links that can be followed, and relevant keywords marking the content from it’s anchor text and title tags down to it’s keyword density.

    Denver SEMPO: InHouse vs. Agency – Search Engine Marketing Insights Panel

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    Denver SEMPO is hosting an excellent panel discussion The Denver SEMPO Meetup is hosting a panel discussion of In-House Search Marketing vs. Search Marketing Agencies this month. For all you interested in SEO / SEM, this program will have some valuable information and experiences shared. The panelists are among some of the best SEOs from both sides of the isle. As a top Denver SEO Agency, Hyper Dog Media is also a sponsor of the program. It’s going to be at the Tivoli Center on the Auraria campus. You can see details below and on our Denver SEMPO Meet Up page. There is also a charge of $25 for the program. It will be a good very informative meeting. We’d love to see you there. Date: October 23 — 5:30-7:30 Go to Denver SEMPO Meet Up page: Denver SEMPO Meetup Group InHouse vs. Agency – Search Engine Marketing Insights Panel > Is there a difference between an internet marketing campaign created by an In-House Marketer vs. an Agency Marketer? > Are the challenges different? > Which is more likely to be successful? Learn the perspectives from both sides of the fence! Instead of the normal Denver SEMPO Meet Up we are going to have a panel discussion concerning the difference between in-house search marketers and those from agencies. Your paid RSVP gives you access to an evening of great networking opportunities with likeminded SEM’ers, light refreshments and the chance to “pick the brains” of some of the top people in our profession. The following search marketing professionals will be taking questions from attendees and sharing their professional knowledge and experience in establishing, growing and maintaining their search marketing campaigns: In-House Search Engine Marketers: * Everett Sizemore – Gaiam * Jim Brown – Quark (SEMPO) * Joe Gira – Regis University Agency Search Engine Marketers: * Steve Riegel – Faction Media Digital Marketing Agency (SEMPO) * Jason Lehman – Hyper Dog Media (SEMPO) * Nicholas Yorchak – Lee Ready (SEMPO) The evening is certain to be worth your while. Save the date and spread the word. To Register: Denver SEMPO Panel Discussion Registration