Last week, Google published updated guidelines for Mobile SEO, essentially that if your mobile site is configured incorrectly then you won’t rank in mobile search results. In the wake of this announcement, SEO blogs have rushed to claim that if you don’t have a mobile friendly site then you won’t rank in mobile search results. Notice the difference?
How did they jump to this conclusion? Is it based on fact or fiction? In this post I’m going to take a look at how an SEO rumour gets started, and hopefully show that even respected industry bloggers can get things wrong sometimes.
By its very nature, SEO relies on the sharing of industry information. Those new to SEO or those without the time to test themselves rely on bloggers and industry experts to share their findings so they know what to spend their time on.
This word of mouth sharing is what makes things so interesting – you hear a titbit here and give it try, read an article there and experiment on your own site.
The problem is, this industry has a serious case of the Chinese Whispers.
What often begins as a harmless experiment or some words of advice can soon become “the next big thing” or a “shocking revelation”.
And in an industry that, let’s face it, has its fair share of navel gazers, when a rumour enters the mill, it gets ground up (or whatever it is mills do) for days and weeks on each and every SEO site, from the very best to the very worst.
Our SEO Workshop is based on facts, not rumours – we will teach you the latest trends but we’ll also give you advice on sorting the truth from the guesswork.
These are pretty simple really: if you have a dedicated mobile site then make sure it is technically set up for mobile crawlers. If your site redirects mobile users to the wrong stuff (i.e. goes to the mobile site homepage instead of the article they want) you’ll be devalued. If you serve up 404s instead of redirecting to a mobile friendly page, you’ll be devalued.
Every new statistic confirms that Mobile search is on the rise, overtaking desktop search in some locations and niches. If you’re not already looking into mobile search then you should be, especially as mobile search intent is usually very different to desktop intent – and this has strong implications for your search strategy.
Use the tips in this post to dive into your mobile search analytics to discover your existing mobile search traffic and begin to look for new opportunities moving forward. If you need help with SEO or Google Analtyics then take a look at our SEO courses which include Google Analytics training.
1/ Are Your Visitors Using Mobile Search?
The very first thing you should do is check what percentage of your visitors are using mobile, this should give you an indication of how much time you should put aside for mobile. However, don’t forget that mobile is still on an upwards trend so your niche might be just about to explode onto mobile. You might also be providing a horrible mobile experience which will make returning visitors unlikely.
We set up a Mobile Search filter that allows us to dig into our data and find out more about our mobile searchers. Click the link to add the filter to your profile or set a new filter up as below. This Advanced Segment is your go-to for any mobile search related data.
One of the most common reasons that small businesses attend our SEO Courses is that they’ve had a Google link penalty - manual or algorithm – which have become part and parcel of SEO since the Panda update first reared its head.
With the increase in penalties has come an increase in link removals, but it’s not always easy to know when to remove links, or even which links to remove. After all if you remove all your links then you’re not going to rank for anything at all!
We decided to clear up the confusion surrounding link removal by creating a downloadable guide to removing links. Simply work your way through the guide to decide if and when to remove bad links, and how to go about doing it.
It’s important to remember that links are no longer the be all and end all of SEO anymore. Personalised results based on location, preferences and search history now mean that no searcher has the same results. This is even more true for mobile searches, which is why we’ve just launched our one-of-a-kind Mobile SEO course that focused specifically on the mobile side of search.
Have You Had a Manual Link Notification?
Check your Webmaster Tools account for unnatural link penalty notifications, which mean that Google have taken manual action against your site.
In 2013, most businesses realise the importance of content. That’s why so many SEO agencies are repositioning themselves as content agencies, or at least offering it as a primary product. Our Content Marketing courses used to attract mainly bloggers, but since the Panda and Penguin Google updates we have seen a large increase in SEOs wanting to learn about content.
Yet this mass conversion to content brings up some issues – there is too much noise. Most businesses are still stuck in an outdated content strategy – regular, mediocre quality blog posts with little intent. The content is happening, but is it working?
With content at the forefront of so many marketing strategies, it seems at first glance that big businesses have a massive advantage. Whole in-house marketing teams as well as high profile agencies on hand to craft incredible content. How does a small business compete against this with a 1-3 person marketing team?
Big Evergreen Content
The idea for this post was sparked by Hannah Smith‘s talk at BrightonSEO ‘Go Big or Go Home’ (excellent write up on State of Search), which prompted me to revisit Dr. Pete’s SEOmoz post at the end of last year ‘Why Big Content Is Worth the Risk’. Both Hannah and Dr. Pete explain why big content is necessary and how it can help your business stand out in a very crowded world of below par blog posts:
“We all want the low-hanging fruit, but let’s be honest – the low-hanging fruit is rotten, bruised, and covered with the grubby fingerprints of all the other spoiled brats pawing at it.”
The consensus of both the talk and the post is that big content takes around 40 hours to produce. Hannah compared this to an average 12 hours for ‘small content’ but I think that’s a huge overestimation for the majority of businesses. James Carson recently alerted Twitter to the existence of a job ad for an agency looking for a Marketing Executive who for £18,000 a year had to write 25 blog posts a day. That’s well over 6,000 articles a year on a range of topics, written by somebody with little knowledge about the subject and obviously no research.
With that much noise, it’s important to be different to break through, and that’s where big content comes in. But I’m going to go a step further and ask you to consider another element - sustainability. Another popular topic at BrightonSEO, and a common phrase in marketing blogs at the moment is Evergreen Content.
In the rest of this post I’m going to try and convince you why your content should be both big and evergreen for the holy grail of content marketing.
Mobile search is big business. In fact, it’s set to overtake desktop search by the end of this year.
Whether it’s finding your nearest pub or finding out what’s on TV, mobile search is increasingly becoming a ubiquitous feature in our lives. It’s essential then for SEOs to work with mobile in mind, which requires added considerations.
Regardless of whether you opt for a mobile or responsive site, two of those considerations that do have an impact on your SEO efforts are the loading speed of the site and how easy it is to navigate, both of which we emphasise on our 1-day Mobile SEO Training.
These factors are essential as a means to providing the sort of quality experience your users expect. According to a Google Study, 81% of mobile searches are driven by speed and convenience. In that sense, if your site isn’t quick and easy for the user, then you’re not providing what they want and they’ll move on.
On the other hand, if the site is fast to load and simple to use, you’ll be keeping your users happy. And if your users are happy, you’re (generally) going to be keeping Google happy.
So what can you do to help speed up your site and improve the way users access it?
Make It Accessible
This first tip is less about the technical minutiae of your site than it is about good customer service.
Most devices these days have a touchscreen interface, so having a text-heavy site with tiny buttons that are suited to a mouse-click rather than a tap is probably not the best idea. This goes for responsive and mobile-only sites.
So BrightonSEO has come and gone. This year was the biggest event yet with events and talks running in a multitrack format. Kelvin Newman organised everything, as he has done in the past, so a big thank you goes to him.
Unfortunately, the multitrack format meant choosing between presentations and rooms so I decided to stick with the main hall for the day. Because I’m particularly hip and happening, I thought I’d keep a diary and note down all the cool stuff that happened throughout the day.
This is that diary (in case you didn’t work that out).
BrightonSEO is a great event for learning new things and keeping up-to-date with a constantly developing industry. Of course to be totally up-to-date, you need to know about how mobile search is affecting SEO efforts, in which case you need our brand new Mobile SEO Course.
So anyway, join me on my voyage of discovery through the wonderful world of BrightonSEO:
BrightonSEO 12/04/13
9:00 – Arrived at the Brighton Dome, lots of people already here. Park myself as close to the main hall doors as possible and read all the pre-emptive tweets circulating on the #BrightonSEO hashtag… because I’m that cool.
9:30 – Notice more and more people are positioning themselves close to the hall doors. Preparing to get sprinting when they open to get a front seat.
9:50 – Doors open, no need to sprint as it seems no one else is too bothered about being at the front. #amitookeen?
In this first session of the brilliant Brighton SEO, we were lucky enough to get the opportunity to hear some ex-Google employees answer questions posed by the audience.
Hearing details about Google’s processes straight from the horse’s mouth is like gold-dust to SEOs but for an up-to-date understanding of the direction that the industry is headed, you can’t beat our Mobile SEO Course!
Google Team Structure
First up they were asked about the structure of the teams at Google.
The teams are split into algorithmic and manualsearch engineers. The algorithmic side take a big-picture approach while the manual side (in which our ex-Googlers were working) take a more detailed and case-specific approach.
Google has recently begun rolling out its proposed Google Places for Businesses update.
The new version will seek to implement a sleeker and easier-to-use design as well as better social integration with G+ and other Google products.
If you haven’t yet, as Eric Schmidt has said (although the meaning of his words has been disputed) verifying your business page is essential and only becomes more important with this update, something we emphasise on our SEO Course here at Silicon Beach.
It also clearly ties in with the growing importance placed on local and mobile search, something you’ll learn on our brand-new Mobile SEO Training Course.
So let’s see what’s new:
1/ New Design
The new look design fits with the branding of most other Google products and you can see it is clearly influenced by the Google + layout.
The intention is that it makes things both easier to use and better to look at.
Everything is geared towards simple and intuitive actions, with a widget to guide you through updating your page and a less cluttered layout.
The navigation bar is on the left (which makes sense considering Google’s other products) with tabs for managing listing information, AdWords Express ads, Offers and your Google+ Local page.
Every new statistic confirms that Mobile search is on the rise, overtaking desktop search in some locations and niches. If you’re not already looking into mobile search then you should be, especially as mobile search intent is usually very different to desktop intent – and this has strong implications for your search strategy.
Mobile search is big business. In fact, it’s set to overtake desktop search by the end of this year.
Google has recently begun rolling out its proposed Google Places for Businesses update.
