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    Search Engine Optimization

    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!

    Google Analytics Doesn’t Provide all of the Answers

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    Google analytics has become a great source of data about visitors to your website – assuming your configuration is correct. Sometimes configuration issues inadvertently block your view of what is really happening. Common issues can include… 1. Not having your analytics snippet in the correct place.   There are many legacy variations of the analytics snippets. In addition, what was the correct installation a couple of years ago may have dramatically changed, depending on if you have an asynchronous snippet, etc. We still run into snippets calling for urchin.js for their Google Analytics, which are quite a few years old. The best place  – currently – to have your analytics code is inside the <head> tag, and right before it ends with the </head> tag. This will prevent interference with other scripts, which we have seen mess with bounce rates, conversion tracking, ROI, sleep schedules, general happiness, and more 2. Filters Your filters could have been created years ago and for long forgotten purposes. In Google Analytics, check your Admin area (under view, on the right halfway down) to see if you are filtering traffic. Look at the filters – do you know who created them and why they are present? Some have complicated REGEX rules and it can be difficult to decipher. Everyone should have at least one profile with no filters. We usually name this profile with RAW in the name. This system allows anyone to easily see if a filter has “gone rogue” and is filtering out good traffic. There are also these problems with getting good data, and you did not even cause them: 1. Incomplete data / views Most businesses are using the free version of Google Analytics, and sometimes experience “sampling” in important reports. Sampling in Google Analytics (or in any analytics software) refers to the practice of selecting a subset of data from your traffic and reporting on the trends detected in that sample set. Sampling is widely used in statistical analysis because analyzing a subset of data gives similar results to an analysis of a complete data set, while returning these results to you more quickly due to reduced processing time. In Analytics, sampling can occur in your reports, during your data collection, or in both place. (Image of sampling) 2. Organic keywords Years back, Google Analytics allowed you to see the query typed in by visitors. It was so powerful! It allowed you to see quite a bit of information about your prospects – perhaps too much. It has now become standard that search engines, browsers, and analytics itself is restricting this information. If you are new to analytics, you probably have not missed what you do not have. However, if you have been doing this a while, take a second to reflect on what was lost. We are right there with you. Hmph. 3. Referral spam, organic keyword spam, language spam In addition to losing out on good data, there is often too much noise in otherwise good data. Using fake browsers – bots that can run analytics code, all sorts of things are being inserted into your analytics. Some of the offenders might put – “Vitally was here” in the list of languages your visitors use – or make it look like visitors are coming in droves from some site you’ve never heard of (which is either selling SEO or hosting malware). Spam is analytics has become a major nuisance and we constantly have to deal with it while compiling reports. We see the same offenders across multiple accounts, and create a custom analytics segment to filter them from reports. Want to try our segment? Click this link and scrub your own view of your account: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/template?uid=wd7C1dObSgCOSpEEQsiWXg (There are other great segments on the Internet too, but we have customized this one for our clients.)

    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!

    After Keyword Research – What do I do with these keywords?!

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    Getting a keyword research report is just the first step in enhancing your on site SEO. Once the research is complete, it is important to use those words to build out new pages – or improve tagging on existing pages. DomainsBuying a keyword rich domain name is not as lucrative as it once was, but there are still good opportunities. See last month’s article: Do Minisites still work? NamingSavvy business owners may use words and phrases found in their keyword research to name products, services, and even companies. There is no better way to show your audience that you have their solution than to name it (or the whole company!) appropriately. Social DestinationsSocial sites can rank for your keywords and act as informational channels. While your best prospects are not likely searching Pintrest or YouTube for solutions, certain keyword searches might be good content channels. Even in the long buying cycles of business to business sales, social media content will help inform and qualify prospects. Consider which of these channels might work well for your keywords:– Pintrest boards– YouTube channels– LinkedIn groups– SlideShare presentations Consider that a keyword-focused social destination may not be appropriate for your entire brand: You may want a brand focused YouTube channel and a campaign channel focused on a specific keyword phrase. Blogging TopicsRanking at the top of search engine results for any competitive keyword phrase requires you to be “all about that phrase.” To be relevant for the many topics and categories of your targeted phrase, you will need many different pieces of content around that phrase. Consider online tools such as HubSpot’s blog topic generator to help inspire your next article:http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator to generate “clickable” blogging ideas. Here is another nice post: https://www.authorityhacker.com/blog-post-ideas/ be sure to check that the blogging titles themselves have search volume. That’s a nice bonus you don’t want to pass up! Content FormatsSome key phrases give away hints as to what kind of content would be best to produce. “How to” searches may lend themselves to tutorials and videos. Other topics are worthy of any entire channel or perhaps a white paper. For any keyword phrase you may want to target, taking the searchers’ needs into account is always the best approach: Consider what content your audience is looking for with each query. A keyword research report is the beginning of any good SEO campaign. Depending on the site, audience and available resources any number of tactics could be deployed. For each of the above methods, however, focus should always come back to your target audience. 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!

    Do Minisites still work?

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    Minisites used to be a good technique, but is getting harder to make them work. Here are 3 challenges for the “Minisite Approach”: Google doesn’t value new websites. Google doesn’t value 2-3 page websites. It’s rare for small sites to have the depth of content that Google values. If this site cannot go into depth on a topic, it might not be seen as valuable – to Google bot, or to human visitors. You can overcome that with link authority, but it’s tough. Google doesn’t have a powerful “exact match bonus.” Google used to give easy rankings to “exact match domains,” but lessened that 2-3 years ago. If someone was typing “iPhone ringtones” into Google, it was simple for iphoneringtones.com to rank at the top. In the newer version of Google’s algorithm, exact match domains do not necessarily mean top rankings for little effort – although it is still helpful: Keywords will be bolded in the URL in some search engines. That can be very tempting to prospective visitors. Inbound links that use the domain as anchor text will experience a bonus for that keyword targeting. Anchor text is still powerful in Google’s algorithm. Here are some tips to make the most of your Minisite: – The content must be unique Minisites are often created to be a tangential offering of a brand, but shouldn’t just be a copy/paste of the existing content from a site. Instead, the content should be created especially for the Minisite, with some thought given for how this audience might be unique. – The URLs need to not look spammy to your audience. So many keyword rich URLs can look that way these days. Test with PPC and see if your prospects want to click. No more than a single dash in the URL, only use .com, and two word phrases. For example, this is not a clickable URL: http://solve-your-sales-problems.biz But this is: http://salesmanship.com – The keyword phrase should have good search volume. Keyword phrases that do not show search volume in Google’s Keyword Planner may not be worth investing in. One of the main advantages of a minisite on a custom domain is the “exact match domain” that should exactly match your prospects’ query. Without search volume, that’s one less compelling reason to do a minisite. – Don’t rely on type in traffic. Prospects using Internet explorer when it was the dominant browser would type in “sales management” and be taken to salesmanagement.com. A few years ago, 12% of search traffic could arrive like that. Chrome is now dominant and it searches Google for what you type in. So that type in traffic isn’t as prevalent as it was. – Buy keyword focused domains if there is good search volume. Test them with PPC (for both click through rate and conversion), and then build out larger sites of 20 pages, blog weekly on the site, have videos, get some good links etc. But this technique is not the easy road it once was. There are many fewer shortcuts in today’s Google. 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!

    Can Google read JavaScript? Yes, but can it really?

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    Google will eventually crawl all JavaScript, but they haven’t been indexing JavaScript pages very  successfully. Every year, we hear the same story: Google says it’s  getting better at crawling and indexing Javascript. Except crawling JavaScript, and crawling ALL JavaScript are clearly two different accomplishments. Google can crawl it, render it, but just doesn’t seem to use it in the same way as optimized content. JavaScript pages can’t seem to rank as well in search engines, from what we’ve seen. Title tags come through here and there, but not consistently. Although, with the ease of development that JavaScript frameworks offer, it can be difficult to justify optimization with plain text and images. Here are some important questions to consider: 1. Fail gracefully For visitors without JavaScript – either bot or human – offering some sort of page content has always been important. Showing plain text and image content when JavaScript is off embraces the best practice of “failing gracefully.” 2. How quickly do you want results? For many sites, faster rankings means a faster path to revenue. Where pure JavaScript offers a compelling business case, it could be prioritized over “search engine friendliness.” For most sites, the extra visibility is worth extra work optimizing in the most search-friendly ways possible.  3. Is Google responding correctly to a test The entire site doesn’t have to be converted to JavaScript. Instead, use simple one page tests and check Google’s ‘crawlability.” Is Google understanding the DOM, and extracting titles, images and content correctly? 4. What other Google bots need to access your content? There are actually a variety of bots across Google’s many services. Google employs specific bots for their image search, ad services, product listing feeds, etc. Try accessing these with your test. Also, definitely keep your schema/rich snippet code easily accessible: Google has specifically warned that it cannot be found inside of javascript objects.  5. Test with all of Google’s tools: Speaking of Google’s bots, try using Google’s many tools for understanding and analyzing webpages. Seeing any problems here is a serious red flag for your JavaScript. But even if these render JavaScript, Google may not be ranking your pages as well as they would “search friendly” pages. Fetch and render https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/googlebot-fetch (must be verified and logged into Google Search Console) Page speed Insights https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ Mobile friendly https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ Keyword planner: https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home (Ask Google to fetch the keywords from your landing page) Bing is rising Google isn’t the only search engine in town. Even without Yahoo and AOL numbers, Bing’s market share has been increasing steadily year over year. Bing had 21.4 percent market share last year, not counting partnerships with Apple, Yahoo or AOL. That’s getting to be a huge chunk of users. Bing especially has trouble with images inside javascript objects. Bing’s version of the fetch and render tool may display a rendered page, but bing isn’t going to show images in its image results, and the regular results will be inconsistent. Social Media Plain text and image content is also ideal for social media sharing. When a page is shared, most social media sites and can parse the simple text description and image right out – unless there is JavaScript. For most social networks, rich snippets such as open graph and twitter cards could help for the established social networks – but with new social networks (WhatsApp, Snapchat, etc) popping up every year, it would be best to expose the page content as plain text. Google’s JavaScript support is constantly improving. Having a Javascript app on the landing page is often needlessly complex. As of this writing, having an optimized version does appear to still be necessary. Maybe next year’s announcement that Google is crawling JavaScript will be followed by a more robust crawl, but there are plenty of other sites embracing “search engine friendliness”; Your site should too, in order to be competitive.   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! use Link: https://mailchi.mp/3542d97c2fbd/hyper-dog-media-seo-ppc-tips

    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/

    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!

    Google, The Internet Police Force, Aims At Mobile

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    Google is quickly becoming the self-appointed internet police force. To be fair, it sure is nice to have Google warn us when a website may be compromised and spreading malware. Google recently gave some false positives, but otherwise does a good job of keeping the internet a safe and happy place. Now Google is going a step further and is targeting mobile experience. With dramatic increases in mobile search over the last several years (and decreasing desktop search), Google is on a mission to identify mobile-friendly design and usability. Google is again changing the face of the web by mandating these features for sites that wish to rank highly in search results. Text vs Images In the early days of the web, browsers did not support multiple typefaces / fonts. Designers used jpg and gif images to create buttons for their menus and navigation, but search engines couldn’t read the words – missing an important signal about the URLs being linked to. A compromise had to be made, and for designers it felt less than ideal. The advent of web fonts have breathed life back into web design, but it was a difficult transition for many. Site Speed Slow website loading times are repulsive to Google in a couple of different ways: Not only are Googlebot’s crawlers tied up, but user experience suffers as well. Google can see bounce rates increase and knows they didn’t deliver the “right result” in those ten blue links. Ads Above the Fold Google’s own advertising system helped create a world of sites filled with ads. Users developed ad blindness and ad blockers, but usability still suffered. Having ads at the top of the page became a signal of poor quality to Google, and they rolled out an algorithm update specifically targeting these designs. Moving the ads meant a reduction in revenue for many sites, but changes were made to preserve the sweet flow of Google traffic. Mobile Google’s latest improvement for the web is happening in mobile. Last fall, they started testing labeling which results were mobile friendly, showing tags next to sites on mobile devices. Google has announced a big change is coming in April for their mobile search results: sites will be severely penalized for a lack of mobile usability. Labels will be given to mobile friendly sites, too. It’s likely that many sites will see a drop in ranking when this goes into effect. Google and Bing both understand mobile is their most important battleground for marketshare, and Google assures us the change means “users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.” For businesses, it will be vital that all pages pass Google’s Mobile friendly test, check Mobile Error Reports in Webmaster Tools and watch for common mistakes on mobile. 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!

    Google: All about that mobile

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    Having a good mobile experience is increasingly important for websites. Advances in technology have made it possible for many more sites to be viewed on mobile devices, but the experience is usually much less pleasurable than viewing via desktop. Google wants to change that, and is again trying to move website design in the correct direction. Google and Bing are currently locked in a battle to be the best search engine for mobile. They know users will judge them by the sites suggested during a search. When searchers encounter unusable sites from their query, they change search engines. Wouldn’t you rather have ten good sites given to you from a search than a hit-and-miss list? Mobile is growing fast: Comscore estimates that mobile usage will outpace desktop usage this year! Google has already started showing “Mobile Friendly” icons in search results – and has even tested “NOT Mobile Friendly” icons recently! So what to do? Here are some quick tips:1. View your site in mobileTry using this free testing tool from Google:https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ Google tells you if fonts are too small, there are missing “viewport” metatags, and other mobile usability errors. 2. Easy URLsKeyword rich URLs have lost much of their power in the last few years, but are likely to lose much more: They aren’t as easy to type into a smartphone. 3. Responsive designA responsive design is usable at any size. Previous efforts to provide different sites to different kinds of devices have failed as the many types of devices have exploded and crossed over into other categories, such as 2-in-1s and giant phones. Having several versions of your website might have also meant a nightmare in keeping all of them updated, and in sync. Googlebot in all it’s wisdom couldn’t figure out which version was canonical, either – and which to return a certain user to, based on their device. Google’s new Mobile Usability reports (in Webmaster Tools) show the following issues:– Flash content,– missing viewport (a critical meta-tag for mobile pages),– tiny fonts,– fixed-width viewports,– content not sized to viewport,– clickable links/buttons too close to each other. 4. Access to site resourcesGooglebot and Bingbot both want to see into your JavaScript and CSS files. It used to be a best practice to block access, and many have. But as time has passed, bots have missed important information about user experience: Are there ads above the fold? Is the user being redirected, or shown irrelevant content? Bots need to know, all with the framework of ranking “better” sites higher. And you cannot be “better” on mobile if the experience is bad. 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!