http://thenextweb.com/google/2015/04/22/are-you-ready-for-googles-mobile-algorithm-change/

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NATHAN BARLING

Yesterday

Nathan Barling is Global VP of Product & Business Strategy at iProspect

Having a search engine at our fingertips has revolutionised the way we live our lives. It’s now possible to find new shops and restaurants while on the go, find and buy products, book holidays, theatre tickets, spa days – all while waiting for a train or a friend. And it’s getting hugely popular.

In 2014 our data revealed that 30 percent of all searches came from a mobile device, while in the year to date this has increased to over 60 percent. In response to this Google is changing its search algorithm to reward sites that are mobile optimised.

Great news for consumers, but what does it mean for businesses?

This is one of the biggest changes to the Google algorithm in years, so it’s one to take seriously. From yesterday, a site’s “mobile friendliness” will now play a key role in the way it is ranked, and sites that are not mobile optimised will appear lower down on Google’s search pages.

With mobile search growing at 10x the rate of desktop, businesses that don’t have mobile ready site stand to lose up to 1/3rd of their traffic. More than two thirds of Fortune 100 companies are not considered mobile friendly, according to research firm SumAll, so this is set to have a big impact.

How will Google test for “mobile friendliness”?

The algorithm will scan each page on the site, checking for load times, responsive design elements, and mobile best practice. For now searches on tablets won’t be affected, but this is likely to be in the pipeline – so it’s worth getting ahead of this change.

The main things to bear in mind are using text sizes that are readable without zooming, content that fits the screen so scrolling and zooming aren’t necessary, and spacing links so tapping the right one isn’t tough for users. Flash is going to be a big problem too, it’s not commonly supported on mobile devices and Google will be holding it against sites that use on it.

Get all of the above in line and check it against Google’s mobile friendly test to see if you’re ready to go.

If you’re not ready, what can you do?

While Google will be checking every page, it’s worth noting that the algorithm is applied page-by-page and not to the whole site. What this means is that as different pages become mobile friendly they can start to benefit from the SEO boost offered by this update. My advice would be to focus on your homepage and commonly used areas of the site if you’re not in the position for an overhaul.

Google will also be taking into account the usability of a site – so how many clicks it takes to perform a particular task – meaning that avoiding convoluted processes for making purchases or bookings should help boost mobile SEO.

In the long term, however, responsive web design and having a site that adapts easily to a mobile or tablet environment will be key.

What are the positives?

If you’re a business that works hard to optimise the mobile experience for customers you’ll benefit from improved mobile SEO over competitors that are lagging behind. On the other hand, if you are lagging behind on mobile but have a great desktop site, your ranking on the latter will remain unaffected.

However, it’s to the benefit of all businesses to be quick to get up to speed with mobile and make sure their sites deliver a positive consumer experience. All consumers have a propensity to abandon your brand if they are struggling to look at your products, make purchases or contact you when on your site.

If we consider the rate at which mobile search is exploding – especially in emerging markets that are mobile first – the mobile ecommerce opportunity being offered to businesses is huge. Google’s algorithm will make it more competitive so it’s worth making the changes before your profits see the hit.

Read Next: You can now download your Google history

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Strong brands have more power to retain customers and acquire new ones, and have more amplification power—leading to the brand bandwagon effect.

Build your Brand

“Build it and they will come.” This could be your branding mantra. Customers are looking for brands they can identify with. Customers stick with brands that share their beliefs and aspirations.

Give your brand a personality. Make sure that it has the right mixture of characteristics that appeal to your target customers. Jennifer Aaker, professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, summarized brand personality into five dimensions: sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness. This is known as the “Dimensions of Brand Personality”.

The value of a business is directly proportional to the value of the brand. If you want to grow your business, you need to build your brand. Building a brand is not just about having a nice catchy name, or using a clever sign, symbol or design to identify your products or services and to differentiate them from others. Building a brand means having a set of positive values or associations that resonate with your target customers. It is also about communicating these attributes to them.

Build your brand’s presence, relevance, performance, and advantage, until you have built a bond with your customers.

Why build your brand? Because research shows that 60% of your potential customers prefer to buy new products from familiar brands rather than switch to a new one.

Millard Brown’s brand pyramid shows how brand strength affects customers’ expenditure for that brand. The brand’s strength is inversely proportional to the “share of wallet,” or share of category expenditure. Brands at the initial phase of development (also known as “presence,”) eat up only 12% of spending for that category. On the other hand, those at the peak of the pyramid, or brands that have bonded with consumers, account for 40% of wallet share.

Optimize your Brand

Why should you optimize your brand? Because strong brands become more valuable over time, a study of 6 years of stock market data has discovered. Strong brands have more power to retain customers and acquire new ones, and have more amplification power—leading to the brand bandwagon effect.

So “Build your brand and customers will come. OPTIMIZE it and MORE will come!”

Invest in your Brand Today

No wonder marketers (yes, including your toughest competitors) are now focusing AND spending on brand building and optimization. Research shows that 63% of marketers plan to increase brand advertising budgets. 1 in 5 of these businesses plans an increase of at least 20%!

Here’s what that means: your leading competitors are spending a great deal on their branding while you’re ignoring it! Don’t do this to your business!

Build and Optimize your Brand Today. We Can Help You. How?

Web Design

We will build your website and design or redesign your logo if needed. Our mobile-friendly, responsive web design service will ensure that your growing number of mobile customers can reach you.

• 67% of consumers are more likely to buy if the site is mobile friendly
• 62% of companies reported an increase in sales after designing a site for mobile users.

Social Media Optimization

We will perform Social media optimization to give your brand increased reach and engagement with prospects and customers. The more engaged your friends, fans, followers, and connections are, the higher the amplification factor to extend your reach and engagement further.

• 46% of online users count on social media when making a purchase decision

Create a buzz around your brand in your locality and niche with our local marketing services, which include publishing your promos. Promos get you the attention from leads and loyalty from existing customers!

• 78% of local searches using mobile devices ended in a purchase
• 59% for PC and laptop searches using PCs and laptops ended in a purchase
• 77% for tablet searchers using tablets ended in a purchase

Pay per Click Advertising and Remarketing

Target customers searching for products and services you offer on the major search engines, and drive them to your website instantly with our pay per click advertising service. Your brand’s visibility will increase while you only pay for clicks.

Online advertising, with record-breaking revenues of $42.8 billion in 2013, is now bigger than broadcast TV advertising, with $40.1 billion revenues. More people are searching online nowadays.

Bring it up a notch with PPC Remarketing. Ads will be displayed across the Google network of websites to your visitors who have not yet converted but have visited your website. Your banner ads will be all over the web, constantly reminding your visitors about your brand; enforcing brand awareness, recognition and recall, and again, while you only pay for clicks.

• Google’s Display Network reaches 90% of global Internet users

Online Reputation Management

We will manage your Online Reputation, address negative reviews, and make positive ones work for you. We will publish your positive reviews at the right places and bring down negative reviews on search results.

• 79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations

Brand Booster

We combine the power of video and written content in our Brand Booster service. This is great for promoting and strengthening your brand online.

• 90% of global online consumers want brands to share content online
• 96% of consumers surveyed found videos helpful for making online purchase decisions
• 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles
• 78% of consumers believe that companies that provide content are interested in building good
  relationships

These are just some of the services that build and optimize your brand. You can learn more about the rest of our other services by contacting us for free consultation.

Take Action Now!

So… are loyal and paying customers coming your way?

Build your brand and customers will come. Optimize it and more will come. Contact us now to see how we can help build and optimize your brand today.

A website audit report thoroughly checks your website so you’re certain that it’s SEO-friendly and gives visitors and potential customers a great user experience. Better SEO means your website is more visible to your prospects. It means they can find it faster and easier than your competitors’ websites. A great user experience means visitors will come back to your website and even share it with their friends and colleagues. This means you have the opportunity to convert online visitors into customers.

So what does it take to make and keep your website SEO and user-friendly? Focus on the following improvements. However, it’s important to understand that these 10 improvements can only be started after your website has undergone an audit. The surgery doesn’t come before the checkup, right? Always determine what you need to change first, and then change it. See what we mean below.

Improve User Experience & Online Conversions

First order of day is to always focus on converting your website visitors into loyal customers. You can accomplish this by making simple tweaks to your website so that it gives visitors a better user experience (UX). A website audit report will determine what UX issues are preventing your website from converting visitors into leads or sales. If your site is not user-friendly, you can expect a backlash from frustrated visitors. For instance, Forrester and Akamai found that 79% of online shoppers who experience a dissatisfying visit are less likely to buy from that site again.

Fix Page Errors

Page errors are both an SEO and usability issue. According to a study by Jupiter Research and Akamai, 28% of dissatisfied online shoppers blame their dissatisfaction on error messages. Error pages are usually caused by faulty URL structuring or outdated internal links. For example, if you moved or deleted a page, but other pages still link to it, your visitors will most likely encounter the HTTP error 404 (not found). Only an audit will allow you to track all these error pages.

Address Title and Meta Issues

Another crucial factor is the population of page titles and meta descriptions with correct keywords. This may well be giving your website SEO problems as meta data is used to communicate with search engines. Sadly, not many business owners are aware of this fact. The SMB DigitalScape report and BIA Kelsey found that 56% of small and medium-sized business (SMB) websites do not use meta descriptions. This is both a problem and an opportunity for you. Fix your title and meta issues today, while your competitors have yet to resolve theirs.

Check for Navigation & Usability Issues

According to Forrester, 49% of websites do not even comply with basic usability principles. It’s no wonder that 50% of online sales are also lost because visitors can’t find content they are looking for. It becomes even more complicated when mobile traffic comes into the picture. According to Keynote, 44% of mobile users have encountered navigation problems. So, when you get an audit, make sure it includes a navigation and usability check, and for all devices, including smartphones and tablets.

Determine Web Design Mobile Responsiveness

As mentioned above, your website needs to be easily navigated through and usable regardless of the device the visitor is using. Otherwise, you risk losing that potential customer. A survey by Sterling Research and SmithGeiger for Google found that 96% of users have come across a website that’s not designed for mobile. Separate research by BIA Kelsey showed that 93.3% of websites are not optimized for mobile. Now, how can you definitely determine if your mobile-responsive and mobile-friendly? An audit report will test the “responsiveness” of your site. You will know if it automatically adjusts based on the screen size and device being used to view it, and if it is mobile-friendly.

Uncover Issues Slowing Page Load Speed

Also a major usability issue is slow page load time. Forrester and Akamai found that 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. Can your site meet this expectation? Hopefully! Some 33% online shoppers are dissatisfied with a retail website that loads slow, Jupiter Research and Akamai found. Some 42% of users, who have two or more years of Internet experience, cite “quick page loading” as important factor to their loyalty. Don’t lose these prospects and customers.

Ensure Content Converts Visitors to Leads, Sales

Content may also prevent visitors from converting into customers. If visitors do not find your content informational, engaging, and useful, they will leave. A new set of eyes is great when evaluating content as business owners tend to appraise their existing content based on their perspective, not on the customer’s point of view. No wonder, users can’t find the content they need 60% of the time, according to research by User Interface Engineering. That’s too bad as 90% of consumers find custom content useful, according to the Custom Content Council.

Make it Easy for Prospects to Contact You

If there’s any takeaway from this article, this is it: make sure your website contains your contact details! The SMB DigitalScape report found that 60% of SMB websites are missing either a toll-free or local telephone number on the home page. Some 65.7% had no form-fill option to allow consumers to request information while 74.7% were missing an email contact link on the home page. A website audit report will check all your pages for contact information and recommend where you need to put it to ensure it’s visible to your visitors.

Identify Elements That Increase Bounce Rates

Bounce rates also matter. A high bounce rate means your users leave without going to another page., which could generally mean that what they saw at a page they landed on did not interest them. They “bounce” when they exit without taking a positive action on-site (such as signing up to your newsletter or reading the next post in your blog). Content websites typically have a 40%-60% bounce rate, according to Google Analytics. If yours has a much higher bounce rate, then there’s obviously a problem you need to address immediately.

Be Up-to-speed with Google Algorithm Updates

The final item on this infographic was saved for last for a good reason. It’s perhaps the No. 1 reason why you should give your website a good audit. According to marketing software developer Moz, Google changes its search algorithm around 500 to 600 times a year. Most of these changes are very minimal and will not affect your website. Some updates, however, can hurt your rankings on Google if the site does not comply with that update. An SEO forum found that Google’s Penguin update negatively impacted 65.71% of members’ websites when it was launched in 2012. A year before that, the Panda algorithm update hurt 40% of websites, members polled by the forum said. With at least two in three people using Google over any other search engine, you simply should pay attention to these algorithm updates and ranking on Google.

Get Free Consulting on Website Audit

The 10 website improvements mentioned here will not only make your website friendlier to search engines, they will also give your users a better experience on-site. Being SEO and user-friendly helps your website convert more visitors into leads and sales. All this starts with finding out what issues your site is facing; this can be done through a website audit report.

We’ll give you a free consultation on website audit report to ensure you understand exactly how this service can benefit your business today. Call us now or send us a message so we can schedule your free consultation.

Hello everyone.  I’m sorry that I missed you last week…..  actually I’m not too sorry.  I was away on vacation on a beach with very limited phone and internet.  It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.  Never the less, I’m here again and completing my Quick Start Challenge assignment.

As I said in the video, for those who watched, I am working on two processes to drive traffic to my local blog.  This first is caled the Signature Traffic process and the second is called the Blog Hop porcess.  They are very similar because they require me to get involved with either Forums or other Blogs.  If done correctly, I will contribute to discussions and therefore have people want to know more or at least check out who I am and thus bring traffic to my blog.  If done incorrectly, I could get banned by the fourms or blogs.  I prefer to work a little harder and do things the correct way.

Take care and I’ll see you next time.

With the influx of so many avenues of marketing, many business owners are asking themselves where do I begin?  They are paralyzed by indecision. It runs true in every business, including my own.  Google made over 500 changes to their algorithms in 2013 alone.  I am constantly searching for new and better ways to get my clients more clients. As a result, I neglect my business.  I decided to join a coaching program to help me help others.  Last evening was the first in a series of coaching calls from Dean Holland and “The Quick Start Challenge” program.  I was skeptical at first, but soon found that he had encountered some of the same problems that I have and overcame them.  He is honest and straightforward.  I feel positive about the first call and am looking forward to the next.  I will keep you updated as to the progress I make in this personal journey for my business.  The big lesson from last night was: pick a project and get it going!  It doesn’t have to be perfect.  You can fix it after it is finished.  The journey to climbing a mountain begins with the first step!  If any of you would like to “Challenge” yourselves for your business, I will be happy to help.  Please add your comments!

Online advertising has become the key for any successful business owner. There are many options to choose.  Which should you be spending your advertising dollars on?  I could not agree more with Josh Nadeau of Genuineseo.net about the next 4 ideas, but the 5th idea is so often overlooked and the least expensive.

1. Google Adwords – Not the cheapest alternative to print advertising, it is by far the most efficient way to spread the word about your small business. Google is the number one source for most people looking for what they need.  Google’s Keyword Planner can help you find common keywords and phrases that will fine tune your advertisement and get you targeted traffic to your business website.

2. Bing or Microsoft Advertising – Second best to Google is Bing, which is run by Microsoft.  Bing has been fighting strong to catch up to Google. They have teamed up with Facebook to be their search engine and they have mounted an advertising campaign to boost their presense.  You can utilize this push by getting a great amount of advertising for a little less money than what you would pay with Google Adwords.  The traffic is a bit more limited, but you can still get good results.

3. BuySellAds – While advertising on search engines will no doubt give your sales a boost, you may be surprised to know that there are other more direct advertising methods that can give you great results on a much tighter budget. BuySellAds allows you to purchase ad space on popular blogs and websites in the form of banners and icons spread throughout the site. This provides a suprisingly big bang for you buck as you can arrange to pay a set fee per month as opposed to pay per click.

4. Facebook Ads – Facebook offers a pay per click advertisement program which engages Facebook users based on the credentials you specify. One of the best reasons to use Facebook Ads is the ability to target specific age groups, categories and similar likes. This ensures you always receive targeted traffic and maximize your conversions.

5. Word of Mouth /Referral and Repeat Customer marketing is The BEST and least expensive form of advertising.  The cost of acquiring a new customer is 6 to 7 times more than keeing and existing client.  By providing a wonderful experience for your clients, not only will they come back, they will tell their friends, family, and anyone they see.  

More advertising opportunities will become available in time.  Some will be real game changers in the advertising world. Until then, these advertisement ideas should be on the top of your list for establishing a presence in today’s market.

The Google Hummingbird algorithm is being touted as the most comprehensive algorithm change ever made by Google since 2001.  Not only in the Greater Cincinnati marketing arena, but everywhere, the implications of this new algorithm are huge! Here’s why…

The English language, by its very nature, tends to be a little bit ambiguous. As humans, we find it easy to navigate this ambiguity by analyzing the context in which the words or phrases were used. Unfortunately, this ability to contextualize search phrases has not been the main stay of the algorithms used by the top search engines. However, with the introduction of the Hummingbird algorithm, Google expects this change.

The primary claim which Google has made, with respect to the Hummingbird algorithm, is that it will display pages which are much more relevant to the search being performed. This is huge! Instead of merely generating pages based on the literal terms within the search phrase, Hummingbird will instead try to infer the meaning of the phrase and in so doing generate pages which are specific to that meaning.

Let’s look at an example. We saw her duck is a sentence which is commonly used to demonstrate ambiguity. It could mean that the girl had a duck and we saw the animal and it could also mean we watched as the girl bent her head to avoid something that was thrown. Let’s examine the following search results given by both Bing and Google with respect to this search criterion.

Bing Search

As illustrate by the screenshot, Bing has eliminated the common words such as her, saw and we and has focused on the word duck, which it has inferred to be the key term. As a result, the pages at the top of the search result are all related to the animal. Let’s now see how the Hummingbird will address the same criterion.

Google Search

The difference between the results generated by Google and those generated by Bing are striking. Google has examined the same search phrase and has inferred that the user wants to know more about sentence ambiguity. In light of this, Google has generated results which provide information on ambiguities in English instead of results which feature the duck animal.

As mentioned earlier in this article, this is huge!

The implications for content writers and content owners are significant. No longer can you just throw a few keywords into your articles, host a large number of these articles on your site and think that Google will send you to the top of the page ranking. This simply will not do! Those who create quality content – which properly addresses the concerns of the target market – are more likely to find themselves positioned at the top of the search results. This is what the Hummingbird brings to the table.

Google’s strategy with respect to its search algorithms is clear. The search engine giant is intent on doing what is required to ensure that its users are afforded with the most relevant search results based on the questions being asked. The focus is on generating quality content to the users. Accordingly, sites which have tried to trick the search engine by simply littering keywords on their pages are being penalized. And those sites which actually provide useful content are being rewarded.

The Panda and Penguin updates which have impacted more than a couple sites recently were simply the tip of the iceberg. It is my opinion that the Hummingbird and other similar algorithms are here to stay.

So what are your thoughts? Please drop a line and let me know if you have obtained some value from this article. In addition, please share it with those who you think may benefit from the information provided. Finally, please peruse my website and contact me if you think my services can assist you in anyway. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Facebook Removing Option To Be Unsearchable By Name, Highlighting Lack Of Universal Privacy Controls

By: Josh Constine

“Who can look up your Timeline by name?” Anyone you haven’t blocked. Facebook is removing this privacy setting, notifying those who had hidden themselves that they’ll be searchable. It deleted the option from those who hadn’t used it in December, and is starting to push everyone to use privacy controls on each type of content they share. But there’s no one-click opt out of Facebook search.

To be fair, the “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” feature was likely misunderstood by lots of people. At first glance, you might assume it means that strangers can’t find your profile. But that’s incorrect. There have been lots of ways to navigate to your profile, like clicking your name on a photo you’re tagged in, finding your name in a friend’s friend list, or combing through Likes on a mutual friend’s News Feed post.

With the roll out of Graph Search, the avenues for sniffing out someone’s profile grew exponentially. Basically every piece of personal information (and soon the content you post about) could bring you up in a search. If you publicly list that you live in San Francisco, a Graph Search for “People who live in San Francisco” could lead someone to your profile.

It also led people to think search was broken in some cases. If I met someone through a Facebook Group and wanted to friend them, I might search for them and not be able to find them if they had used this privacy setting. But what’s more important are the safety implications.

Keeping this privacy option around gave people a false sense of security. For that reason, it’s wise for Facebook to remove it. But it should have provided an ever stronger universal privacy control for opting out of search, not a slew of weaker ones.

Over the new few months, users who’ve employed the privacy setting to avoid being searched by name will see a big announcement at the top of their Facebook homepage explaining what’s happening. They’ll have to confirm they understand the change before they’re put back into name search and the privacy setting disappears from their options.

After that, the way people can stay hidden is to manually restrict the visibility of each piece of their profile. And that is a bit of a chore. You’d have to go through every piece of personal information in your About section and set its visibility to ‘Friends’ or ‘Only me’. At least Facebook provides a quick way to restrict the visibility of all your old News Feed posts.

Serious privacy aficionados should remember that your current profile picture and cover image are always public, so you’d have to leave those blank if you didn’t want anyone to any idea of who you are beyond your name.

For people with stalkers, though, Facebook may have just gotten a bit more dangerous. Facebook tells me the way to keep a specific person from finding your profile or viewing any of your content is to block them. But what if your stalker just signs up for a fake profile with a new name? Then they could search and find you.

One solution is to use a fake name. Though that violates Facebook’s terms of service, it’s a popular solution for job seekers and privacy buffs to avoid bosses and ex-lovers.

This is where there’s friction, as Facebook’s mission to connect the world, responsibility to make money for its investors, and its duty to keep people’s privacy safe come into conflict. Designing easy privacy controls is no simple task, but I feel like Facebook could do more.

The social network could surely offer an option to lock down all your personal information the same way it does for your old posts, but it doesn’t. It could offer a way to opt out of appearing in any type of search results, not just searches for your name, but it doesn’t. It wants your friends to be able to find you. It wants Graph Search to be a comprehensive utility. It wants the engagement and ad views your friendship and News Feed posts generate. But it’s protecting its access to these things by sacrificing your right to choose just how much your identity is indexed.

reprinted from TechCrunch.com: link to the article.