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    search marketing

    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!

    9 ways to get the sitelinks you want (and deserve!)

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    Organic sitelinks are the sub-links that appear under your homepage URL in search queries specific to your company. Matt Cutts explaining how sitelinks are generated: A typical company listing has 4-6 sitelinks meant to help users navigate your site directly from the search engine results page, rather than having to click your primary URL to navigate. Some URLs may have up to 12 sitelinks below the primary search result! Organic sitelinks are great for users (and for you!) There are many key benefits to organic sitelinks: Users can quickly and easily gain access to a better-suited landing page than the homepage. This quick navigation option is great for the user and it reduces your organic bounce rate too. Sitelinks provide a large presence on the search results pages. PPC Hero did some research into sitelinks, and found that, why they’re not clicked as often as the primary link, they do provide additional CTR and conversions. Read more the PPC Hero study. Showing 64% increases in PPC ad Click-Through-Rate with sitelinks Having numerous – and well-crafted – sitelinks helps to make your brand look more popular. Big brand tends to have more, and better, sitelinks. 9 tips to get the sitelinks you want (and deserve!) Typical sitelinks include a Contact Us page, plus other pages that look important to Google. However, Google often misunderstands what the key pages are on your site! That’s why it’s crucial that companies watch over and adjust their sitelinks. While you can’t specify sitelinks directly to Google, and they don’t disclose exactly how they choose organic sitelinks, there are key tactics you can use to get the sitelinks you want (and deserve!): Be #1! You will typically only get sitelinks for branded searches, such as for your company name. Sometimes the #1 result will get sitelinks as well, but it’s typically branded queries. Submit a sitemap.xml in Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools). This appears to be a necessary step before sitelinks are “granted” by Google. Demote undesirable sitelinks in Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) if you find that any are showing up. To demote a sitelink URL: On the Search Console homepage, click the site you want. Under Search Appearance, click Sitelinks. In the For this search result box, complete the URL for which you don’t want a specific sitelink URL to appear. In the Demote this sitelink URL box, complete the URL of the sitelink you want to demote. You can demote up to 100 URLs, and demotions are effective for 90 days from your last visit to the demotion page (no need to resubmit – just revisit the page). Look at what you’re linking to sitewide (stop linking or do nofollow), especially in your main navigation elements. Googlebot seems to like lists of links, including H2 tags with links to sections or pages and bulleted lists of links. Learn more here: http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/get-organic-google-sitelinks-long-form-content/ Use rel=nofollow. Sometimes, privacy policies show up as sitelinks because they have a link on every page of the site. Use a rel=nofollow on pages that Google is incorrectly choosing as sitelinks. Optimize your pages. Ideally, your best pages should already be optimized, but make sure titles and meta-descriptions are in order. Inbound links look at where other sites are linking to (change your redirects or outreach to other sites and ask them to update their links). Googlebot prefers popular pages, including landing pages with volume in analytics. Organic sitelink takeaways While there is no direct formula for sitelinks, these tips can help you better communicate to Googlebot what you would like to show up for your brand. Since search results are often very personalized and based on Google’s algorithm, it may be that certain sitelinks appear for some users, but not for others. 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!

    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!

    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!

    Spam-Fighting Always Continues – December 2013 Summary of Search

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    Spam-Fighting Always Continues Google’s Matt Cutts promised a month free of major updates, but added that “spam-fighting always continues.” Indeed, there were some complaints from webmasters around the 17th and 19th that could have been Google taking out another link network. This month, Google made an example out of Rap Genius. The site was offering traffic for blog links. To participate, you had to link to their Justin Bieber page. And somehow feel good about yourself. Oh, and send them the link. Rap Genius would then tweet your link to their followers, sending traffic to your blog. Google caught wind of the link scheme, and severely punished Rap Genius in the rankings. The moral is that Google will always, usually, catch you! So how do you invest in search engine traffic for the long term? 1. Create Content Google wants compelling content: images, blog posts, videos, podcasts, surveys and more. Good content is long (1000 words plus for articles) and holds your visitor’s attention. Google does not want visitors leaving the site quickly (but will probably forgive if it’s an ad click!). 2. Tag Your Content Search engines are getting better at understanding what we humans create on the internet. But communication directly with “search engine bots” has never been easier. These technologies could be better implemented on almost every website: – Internal linking structures – Sitemap.xml – Title tags – Meta descriptions – Rich snippets   – Authorship 3. Get the Word Out Content outreach and marketing has never been more important. Content today is where websites were in 1998: Many build, and then are disappointed at the results. Good content competes against a dizzying array of distractions in an always-connected world, and must be actively marketed – even AGGRESSIVELY marketed – to make an impression. Content must be spread via social media (especially Google+), and marketed specifically for links. These are “earned links” and outreach for the purpose of links wonderful way to promote your content. As a bonus, this promotion of content will also promote rankings! Get a free link for your business: 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!

    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

    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

    Denver SEMPO Meetup / Denver SEO Meetup

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    Why travel outside of Denver for great SEO and Search Engine Marketing events? Last week saw great attendance at the new Denver SEMPO Meetup (Created by the members of SEMPO’s Colorado Working Group). This week’s Denver SEMPO meetup was an excellent educational program provided by Jim Brown, Online Marketing guru for Quark (of QuarkXPress fame). The presentation focused on opportunities in Social Media. Jim provided great information regarding Twitter, Facebook, and Facebook ads. While his presentation was friendly to all audiences, even seasoned Denver SEO professionals left with a new trick or two. And most valuable were the brand ambassador experiences Jim relayed to the group. The Denver SEO Meetup followed, just a few blocks away. Many members attended both meetup groups. The Denver SEO Meetup is not an educational program, but a social function – founded our our President Jim Kreinbrink. Many notable SEO professionals regularly attend, but Search Marketing, Advertising, and Affiliate marketing professionals are also frequenting the meetup. Several SEOs noticed glitches in running Google ranking reports for clients that week, and it was nice to exchange what was working and not working in small informal conversations. Of course, don’t come to the Denver SEO Meetup hoping to learn all about SEO: It’s a more relaxing networking function, not an educational opportunity. With SEO / SEM knowledge and professional networking available in here in Colorado, why travel to search marketing and ad industry conferences every weekend?

    Fortifying External Links and Laundering Link Juice

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    This is a guest post by Everett Sizemore. I had an interesting discussion with a friend before publishing this about what the title of the article should be, and how I should present the tactic. Should I present it the way I use it personally (fortifying external links) or what it could be used for (laundering link juice)? In the end I decided to do a bit of both since it is essentially the same tactic with different implementations and intentions. Fortifying External Links: The process of second-degree link building by which an SEO builds links into sites that already link to them for the purpose of increasing the page rank of those sites, thus indirectly increasing their own page rank. The first step in fortifying external links is to find those links. This is the easiest part. Use Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer or your favorite linkbuilding tool to find out who is linking to you. I’ve found the best way to go about this is by doing the link:yourdomain.com command in Google Blog Search or using a tool like SEO Spyglass to uncover blogs that have linked to you that are in danger of going supplemental (i.e. no-to-low PR, way back in the archives…) or that link to you with your favorite anchor-text. Once you have decided which pages you want to drive links into, the second step is to devise a plan for getting those links. There are several dozens of ways to build links into someone’s domain, but that’s not the topic of this article. Regardless of your means, the end result is that you are driving more links – thus page rank – into the pages that already link to you, thus increasing your own page rank and ensuring that those pages don’t go supplemental. I wouldn’t do this to dozens or hundreds of pages at once. Instead, use Google Alerts and/or Yahoo Alerts to subscribe to link:yourdomain.com so you know whenever someone links to you naturally. If you think the post/page isn’t going to get any page-rank on its own, give it a little help by linking to it from a distributed article, a thoughtful dofollow comment on another site, a social bookmarking profile or any number of linking opportunities. Laundering Link Juice: Creating a degree of separation between your site and less-than-white-hat link building tactics by driving those links into pages that already link to you naturally instead of sending them to your own site. Google makes it a point to say they “try” very hard not to let people harm other domains by using link sabotage. Nevertheless, you should be respectful of sites that link to you. If someone gives you a bit of link love from their unknown blog, please don’t do anything that you know could get their site banned. I have found this tactic to be most effective when used along with white-to-gray linkbuilding techniques like manually submitted blog comments and article distributions. Abuse this and Google – if they don’t already – WILL eventually learn to find the common denominator (a link to your site) among all of these relatively unknown, otherwise clean blogs that you’re laundering link juice through. Call it “fortifying external links”, “laundering link juice” or just common-sense SEO, but it is one of the few optimization tactics that I use as much today as I did three years ago. Socialize with Everett Sizemore: eCommerce SEO http://www.twitter.com/balibones http://www.digg.com/balibones http://www.plurk.com/user/balibones http://www.mixx.com/users/balibones http://balibones.stumbleupon.com/