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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!

    Kick-Start Your SEO in 2015

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    The search engine optimization (SEO) industry has certainly evolved these last few years. The many Google updates – and their sometimes heavy-handed penalties – in addition to an explosion of mobile traffic have shaped the rules for SEO and online marketing. When we look at what’s working at the end of 2014, we see just how much everything has changed. Big changes in SEO will certainly continue for 2015 and beyond. Here are six things to focus your efforts on in 2015: 1. Mobile If you haven’t already, it’s time to take a mobile-first approach with responsive website design. As mentioned in last month’s blog all about mobile, Google has a new tool (and new expectations) around mobile friendliness. Test your site here:https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ 2. Rich SnippetsThese underlying webpage code elements help Google and other sites understand when to show review stars, customized descriptions, and more. All of which are vital to your site ranking and click through rate. Consider: A study last year showed an average rankings increase of 4 positions when rich snippets were implemented. In one case study, 30% more visitors clicked through from search results to a site with rich snippets. John Mueller of Google recently requested that examples of rich snippet “spam” in Google be sent directly to him. It must be working, and it must be valuable, if Google is looking for spam! There are many examples of different rich snippets at http://schema.org, a site and format created by Google, Yahoo and Bing. Some types include recipes, products, events, locations, people, ratings, etc. And other formats are also being provided by social media sites: Facebook open graph tags, LinkedIn cards, Twitter cards, and even Pinterest pincards. Consider how this tweet of a site using twitter cards looks better than the standard tweet: When twitter is given data in a twitter card format, they provide a much richer experience for viewers of that tweet. And there are many different types of twitter cards too: Galleries, large images, video players, etc. 3. Universal Analytics Google analytics is finally getting an upgrade. In the past, data about site visitors was lost if they visited several of a brand’s website properties, switched devices, or had an extended period of time between visits. Universal Analytics fixes that and even allows custom dimensions, as well as extreme customization. The system came out of beta testing in 2014, and will be a requirement at some point. Is it on your radar to transition? If not, better get to it! Google will not be providing new features to regular analytics and will eventually force webmasters to make the switch. 4. Link Disavowal Google’s Penguin penalty has made this a necessity. Do you know where your site has links? Most webmasters do not. And many links that were key in the past must now be disavowed in Google’s Webmaster Tools. That is the price we pay for Google’s ever-changing formula! Here are some possible sources of problematic links: “Site wide” footer linksAre other sites linking to you from every page or in their footer? Google no longer sees this as a positive thing. Links from 2004-2012If your SEO plan included creating links during this period, you should get a link analysis performed. Even if Google’s guidelines were being followed, it’s vital to make sure these links are still the kind Google wants to see. Low quality linksYou know these when you see them. Would you visit the site a link is on? Does Google still see any authority there? These are important considerations for your links! Links from penalized sitesSites that were once in Google’s good graces might now have switched hands or been penalized. Negative SEOSEOs used to debate whether any site’s rankings could be hurt from the outside. Now, it’s commonly accepted that negative SEO is possible and happening throughout the web. Some sites are building low quality links, links on penalized sites, etc. pointing to competitors’ websites! 5. Migrate Your Site to HTTPS Are you planning to migrate your entire site to HTTPS? Recent thoughts from Google are making this a more important consideration! A member of the Google Chrome browser team recently commented that anything less than HTTPS is like leaving the front door unlocked. On the search side, HTTPS has been identified as a minor ranking signal – and migrating your site should be considered. Be sure you don’t create duplicate content by accident though! 6. Use Content Marketing for Link Authority Content marketing is  the new link building. It’s authentic marketing that can also boost your site’s rankings (but it must be done with an emphasis on quality outreach). When done correctly, content marketing brings: social sharing brand visibility inbound links (with authority) referral traffic Search Engine Optimization will always be ever-changing: Technology is moving at breakneck speeds and search engines have ever-changing criteria and expectations. Having these six items on your radar will help carry you nicely into the new year. And then some. The year 2016 may be completely different, but these are good solid investments of time and money. Need a good interactive agency or website design firm? We’ve worked with many and partnered 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!

    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!

    4 reasons to 301 redirect old subpages ASAP

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    After a major website redesign, it’s not uncommon for page locations and even page extensions to change. Maybe you’ve switched web development languages, or changed your website’s structure into a SEO friendly themed set of silos. Whatever the reason page locations have changed, it’s vital that the old page locations are 301 redirected to the appropriate new pages. It’s time sensitive for the developers to make the change, as: 1. Pages will start dropping out of the index (Google hates sending visitors to bad pages, and can see the bounce rate skyrocket). When Googlebot comes to visit your site, it will probably receive a “404 Error Page” as well as a 404 HTTP error code. A 404 error code is the surefire way to get a page out of Google’s index. 2. Humans that have bookmarked the old page will be stranded. Depending on the 404 error page (Your server’s default is simply awful), your loyal return visitor may think the entire site is down. 3. Search engines will stop counting the power of the links coming into broken pages, and rankings will drop. Search engines do not count links to missing pages. The wonderfully diverse link profile you’ve built over the years can disappear as links to subpages are no longer counted. 4. Webmasters linking into subpages might notice the 404 and remove their links. Some webmasters routinely monitor where they are linking to, and remove links to broken destinations. Don’t make the most common of 301 redirect errors: Sending everything to the home page. to preserve a diverse link profile, you’ll want to keep those links spread naturally across your site’s homepage AND subpages. Happy 301 redirecting!

    7 untimely ways for a SEO to die

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    In ancient Rome, the ghosts of the ancestors were appeased during Lemuria on May 9. Not many people know that, and even fewer care. But in the spirit of Lemuria, we offer seven untimely ways a SEO can die(It’s a dangerous world out there, and also I’m low on blog posting ideas): – Bitten by search engine crawlers. – Trampled by googlebots(This is actually the best way to go, if you have to). – Trip over a HTML tag someone forgot to close. (This was funnier last night when I thought of it – go figure) – You get (google)whacked while visiting a bad link neighborhood. – You’re doing the googledance, slip on a banana peel and hit your head. Certainly I’m not the only one who knows the googledance? Please submit your videos if you know it: googledance@hyperdogmedia.com. – You receive a suspicious package in the mail, and it turns out to be a googlebomb. – Setting linkbait traps and you get an arm caught. Please submit any other ideas you might have via email: lemuria@hyperdogmedia.com. So strike up that pun machine, it’s Friday! Update: Debra just suggested you could “overdose on link juice” – if only!