It’s 2018 and if your web page takes more than 10 seconds to load, then you are far behind! Nobody likes to wait for minutes just for your page to load — they will simply hit the back button. According to a study, 53% of the users will abandon the site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load! So it came as no surprise when Google announced that site speed will be a ranking factor within the mobile search results from July 2018.
However, Google assured that only a small percentage of the sites will be affected by it since the majority of the site loads faster than 10 seconds. Also, there will be exceptions to websites which provide relevant and high-quality content to users. Those websites can still rank well in the search engine result pages because the intent of the search query is still a strong factor.
If you are not sure about your site’s speed, you can use the Google’s “Test My Site” tool. This tool uses a standard 3G connection to replicate what most people are using to surf the web using mobiles. It not only tells you about your site speed but also gives suggestions on how you can improve.
What About AMP?
Google's announcement stated that it "applies the same standard to all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page”, which means AMP gets no special advantage except that by its very nature it will pass all of these speed standards with flying colors. However, that doesn't mean that you get an automatic pass if you're using AMP because you need to be sure that everything is set up properly. If you need any help with mobile optimization, we can assist. Just reach out to us and we will be able assist you further.
Posted by: Andrea Shepherd AT 02:03 pm
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CHRISTMAS IS THE BIGGEST HOLIDAY FOR CARD SENDING…
Christmas Greetings are sent each year to the tune of 1.5 billion cards, that’s more than any other holiday. Holiday cards account for 60 percent of card sales each year.
Aside from families and personal cards, businesses find it a great time to send out Annual Christmas Greetings saying Thank You for your business, to customers/clients, prospective clients and employees.
HERE ARE A FEW OTHER BENEFITS OF SENDING OUT CHRISTMAS GREETINGS…
You stay top of mind
Shows you appreciate your current clients
Business relationships are enhanced
Promotes Referrals and New customers
Retains your current customers
SOME OTHER TIPS TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN SENDING CHRISTMAS GREETINGS…
Be Sensitive to Traditions (seasons greetings or happy holidays)
Update Your List (organize throughout the year to save the last minute hassle)
Adding Personal Signatures
Mail to Home Address (for the biggest impact)
Use Titles (such as Mr. & Mrs. etc…)
Buy Quality Cards
Avoid the Mail Rush (mail on time for the Holiday)
Organizing your Holiday Card List & Preparing your Christmas Greetings or Holiday cards before Thanksgiving will help you to enjoy the Holiday Season and give you more time to celebrate.
If you find yourself to late for Christmas Greetings, don’t panic!
Simply send out a greetings that thank your customers/clients for their business for the past year and that you look forward to serving them in the New Year.
Also important, don’t forget these great reasons for sending greeting cards to enhance your business throughout the year, until the Holiday’s roll around again…
Birthdays
Thank You
Thanks for the Referral
Sorry to hear
Anniversary Date of Client Relationship
Share this post and leave me a comment below if you have a fun idea or reason to send your clients greeting cards!
I’m sending Christmas Greetings your way in hopes that you have a wonderful Holiday Season and may 2017 bring you much joy and prosperity…Happy Holidays take care Everyone
If you enjoyed this blog post today, feel free to like, comment, and share it. Much appreciated!
Google started rolling out Questions and Answers (Q&A) feature for local search in the
beginning of August. As with all the testing, it was initially available, exclusively for
Android users via the Google Maps App, but eventually, they made it available to
everyone searching from a mobile device using either Safari or Chrome browsers.
The main motto behind introducing the Q&A into local search is to get the most
updated and relevant data about businesses and places. Q&A has always been one of the
best sources to get fresh content. Amazon has already tested it and employing it the
way it should be.
Here’s what it looks like on mobile device.
However, the fear of spamming is real! The competitors, or even just a single angry employee can ruin the entire Q&A section. Also, if a business has the authority to edit it, then it’s going to be as genuine and real as the “testimonials and reviews” that they put on their own website.
Here's what Google says:
"To make sure “Questions & answers” contains the most accurate and useful local info possible, business owners can add frequently asked questions and answers as well. In addition, when you (a customer) ask a question about a place, we notify the business owner and other in-the-know users to see if they have knowledgeable answers to contribute. When your question is answered, we notify you too."
Let’s see how Google is going to tackle these issues. Meanwhile, you might want to start writing content for the Q&A section. Reason being, Google has just launched it and is hungry for content (data), they will hardly filter it out and will most likely accept just about anything you post. You can actually benefit from the desperation of Google and ignorance of your competitors.
Remember, the early bird gets the worm!
Posted by: Andrea Shepherd AT 04:19 pm
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YouTube, has introduced a “Breaking News” section on its homepage, it shows a collection of videos pertaining worldwide news and events. The feature appears on both mobile, as well as desktop.
Barcelona attack being the very recent major incident happened across the world, the Breaking News section was showing the videos related to it. The section shows region-specific videos displayed in horizontal scrollable format, the section includes options like ‘Recommended’, ‘Watch It Again’, and ‘Recently Uploaded’.
If users do not wish to see the Breaking News section, they can remove it from their homepage, by clicking on ‘X’ if using a desktop or ‘Not Interested’ if using mobile.
Still, it is not clear if the ‘Breaking News’ will appear daily or only when some major incident occurs. The feature is live on live on the iOS and Android YouTube apps, as well as the desktop site.
Posted by: Andrea Shepherd AT 10:58 am
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You can now add videos to local listings in the Google Maps using any Android device.
Google is rolling it out slowly, so you might or might not see it right away. This feature is not only good for the business owners but the users as well. Because pictures tell altogether different story while video remains close to reality. “Close” because of all those filters available for the videos.
Meanwhile, if you are a local guide and willing to earn some extra points, while helping the folks out here, start uploading videos of the business and local places. It is available only for local guides and Android users but can be seen and searched by any one. You can take a 10-second video from the Google Maps app or can upload a 30-second video.
You can add videos:
• From a place’s page
• From “your contributions”
• Via Google photos and Gallery app
How to upload a video you’ve already shot:
• Search and select a place on Google Maps
• Scroll down and tap “Add a photo”
• Tap “Folder” and select a video. Only the first 30 seconds of a video can be added.
Visit the Help Center to learn more about sharing videos.
Posted by: Andrea Shepherd AT 06:06 am
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You can now add quick links to your local results, thanks to Google My Business’s latest update! They have recently announced that local business owners will now be able to add quick links to their local listings. Currently, it is visible only to select categories of business.
But those who will be able to enjoy it can add the quick links using their Google My Business account. It can prove to be a boon to those who directly serve the customers. From the limited categories that will be able to avail this new feature, the restaurant owners will reap the maximum benefits from it, since they can add direct links to online ordering menu, reviews and much more.
Google posted the news about it on their release notes page saying:
Add links to specific actions like online orders or reservations. Make it easier for customers to take action directly from your listing.
This new update is to make it easier for the users to take actions. By cutting short the process from Google —> Website —> Action to Google —> Action.
The help center article has been updated to explain the steps for businesses to take to add these URLs. Some of the actions include:
• booking an appointment
• placing an order
• reserving a table
• searching for items
• viewing the menu
Here’s a screenshot
Posted by: Andrea Shepherd AT 11:09 am
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Google is testing more ad opportunities in local knowledge panels. Although they have been testing ads on knowledge graphs for quite some time now.
Here’s the ad spotted in the Knowledge Graph:
Google spokesperson said that the paramount goal of Google is to provide the users with most updated, useful and relevant information. So we are searching out for new ways to surface useful local information. If this new feature adds to the user's experience, only then we will fully launch it.
We will keep a close eye on this as usual and keep updating you with more information in this topic.
Posted by: Andrea Shepherd AT 06:02 am
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When it comes to ads, relevance plays a vital role. Google has provided many tools that help advertisers ensure that they are targeting the right people. They just have to evaluate the quality score & it’s components. Recently Google has launched seven new quality score reporting columns.
The biggest highlight is that advertisers will now be able to access the historical quality score data. This data will be available via 4 new columns “Qual. Score (hist.),” “Landing page exper. (hist.),” “Ad relevance (hist.)” and “Exp. CTR (hist.)
Keep in mind that they only reflect the last known score for the selected date range.
Also, you can segment data by day and see how end of day quality score changed over time.
Also, the new columns will display breakouts for:
Expected Click-through Rate
Ad Relevance
Landing Page Experience
Posted by: Andrea Shepherd AT 10:33 am
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When it comes to traveling, pre-planning can make all the difference. Most important of them all is booking a good hotel. It really takes a lot of efforts to find a good hotel within your budget. Google is planning to make it a bit easy.
Google is planning to roll out a new Hotel Review Interface. The new interface provides more detailed information about the hotel including cartoon like graphics that will show how other guests have rated their specific amenities. Also, there will be a collection of third party reviews to increase the credibility. Google will also provide an option to easily filter the hotels based on their reviews.
Here's a screenshot of the new interface.
Posted by: Andrea Shepherd AT 05:27 am
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Google has recently published a blog stating that those who are leveraging guest post as a link building technique should reconsider their strategy. They are specifically focusing on the spammy links, that are tagged as guest post, contributor post, partner post, etc.
Below is the list of things that you should avoid according to Google:
Stuffing keyword-rich links to your site in your articles.
Having the articles published across many different sites; alternatively, having a large number of articles on a few large, different sites.
Using or hiring article writers that aren’t knowledgeable about the topics they’re writing on.
Using the same or similar content across these articles; alternatively, duplicating the full content of articles found on your own site (in which case use of rel=”canonical”, in addition to rel=”nofollow”, is advised).
As of now, Google has just warned those who are using these techniques, and they are not taking any actions. But as we all know, all the warnings are followed by a mass initiative to counter it. So in case you are employing these techniques, then you might want to reconsider it. Review all the posts, links and remove those who might cause problems in the near future.
How to future proof your websites
Link Diversification – Sites performing well in Google have good link diversity. Build backlinks / citations from diversified sources such as:
Local and niche business search engines, directories and review sites
Informational content sites
Guest blogs
Press releases
Videos
Infographics
Coupons
Image sharing sites
Social profiles
Q&A sites and more.
Since Google prefers a diversified link profile, we recommend getting links from these sources.
Different Class C IPs – Having different Class C IP address for your backlink sources definitely helps with SEO rankings.
Maximum Uptime - Since our network of sites are hosted with premium hosting plans, there are minimum chances of website downtime. Again, we are notified immediately of such instances which helps us get the sites back on track.
Different Domain Registration – Not only Class C IPs, having different registration details also helps.
Different Registrant Details – Google itself being a Registrant, it has access to the Whois information of domains at a global level.
Penalty Detection – All the sites within our network are included and verified in Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools). We constantly monitor all websites and make sure they are free from any Google Penalties.
Fresh Content – Google loves fresh content. Since the content is updated on almost a daily basis, this ensures that the websites are indexed frequently and pages are latest pages are included in the Google database.
Posted by: Andrea Shepherd AT 10:11 am
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