Author: Nancy McCord

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What Does Google Say About Page Load Speed?

Just how fast your website pages load may be just one of the newest factors in regards to where Google ranks you in the search results. In fact Google considers PageSpeed so important that it has released a new tool for you to test your mobile and desktop versions so as to give you concrete areas of improvement.

Here’s the tool’s URL: http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

Google considers page load time or PageSpeed (as Google has coined the term) an important factor in supplying relevant content in its search results. Since 2010 Google has been clocking websites but just recently really started pushing sites to improve PageSpeed.

Here’s a quote from 2010 as posted on the Google Webmaster Blog letting you know that Google has felt PageSpeed is an important issue for over three years:

“You may have heard that here at Google we’re obsessed with speed, in our products and on the web. As part of that effort, today we’re including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to web requests.” Full article.

Now experts say that you’ll lose about 7% of your potential site traffic for every second it takes your page to load. Factor into that, that more users have faster Internet connections and a lower tolerance for a slow loading page and you start to see that changing technology and demographics are all a part of why Google is now laser- focused on PageSpeed.

In fact, in 2013 Google even has created a special team called “Make the Web Fast” headed by engineer Ilya Grigorik. You can watch his Google viewpoint in this interesting top level video. As Ilya notes, the speed problem for most website lies in un-optimized images. Ilya states that a one second threshold is the new web standard. So pushing the speed envelop to serve pages in under one second is their new goal.

In a recent case study done by Google and Bing slow loading pages 2,000 millisecond delays cause a 4.3% drop in traffic and lower customer satisfaction. You can see more details on this study in the video noted above.

Whatever Google decides is crucial for their search engine’s performance, you as a site owner should make important for your site and webmaster in order to place now on Google.com.

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You Love a Keyword but Your AdWords Quality Score Stinks – What to Do

So you love a keyword in your AdWords account, it is right on target with what you sell, but AdWords has given it a very low Quality Score, what can you do?

1. First make sure that this keyword phrase is reflected specifically back on your website and on the landing page you use. You’d be surprised to find that in many cases the word you like is nowhere to be found.

2. If the word you like is only one word, pause that single word and come up with two word and three word phrases that are still a good match. You may find that Google has simply considered a single keyword simply too general and so the CTR on the single word is simply not high enough to warrant a good to excellent quality score.

Here’s an example. If you are a dentist and one of your keywords in your AdWords account about general dentistry keywords is dentist (all by itself), you may very well overtime get a low Quality Score on the word dentist. Typically a single word like this will get many impressions and relatively few clicks; negatively impacting Quality Score over time. A better phrase to use would be Auburn Hills Dentist – adding a location descriptor may very possible raise the Quality Score on this term. If you really want to use the term dentist or another single keyword in your account exact match it like [dentist].

3. If the Quality Score is poor on really on target two or three keyword phrases, try to improve the Quality Score by using dynamic text insertion in your ad text.

4. If the score does not improve in 30 days and you really need this keywords phrase, pause the phrase in the existing ad group, move the phrase and other variations of the keyword into its own ad group and use dynamic text insertion in the ad text and at the end of the display URL to see if you can improve the Quality Score. But if you take this approach, make absolutely sure that the landing page you are using also has this very specific use of the phrase in the content.

5. If the Quality Score is still bad on the phrase you like, start digging deeper to identify the problem. Consider is this phrase really pertinent to what you offer or sell? Do you have enough content back on your website to help Google to understand that this is important to your needs? Are you bidding enough to get enough exposure to even get a high enough position to improve your CTR?

If you need help with your AdWords problems, I invite you to check out the pricing and details on our AdWords account management programs. In many cases a Google AdWords Certified Partner, such as McCord Web Services, is able to unlock the performance you need to boost sales using AdWords.

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The AdWords Quality Score – What Helps, What Hurts

Quality Score in AdWords determines how much you will pay for each click as well as where Google AdWords will show your ads on the page. It behooves every account manager and website owner to strive for the best Quality Score possible to control costs and improve exposure.

So what can you do to improve your own Quality Score?

1. First you need to find it and know what the number is. You can mouse over each keyword to bring up a speech bubble to see your quality score or you can add the Quality Score to your columns when on the keyword tab. You’ll find the Quality Score in the Attributes Section 3 choices down.

2. If your quality score is below 4, typically your cost per click will be impacted as well as your first page bid. Lower than that and Google may start to minimally serve your program. Get to 2 and 3 or lower and your keyword may get the “shown rarely due to Quality Score” notice – which means you may want to pause or delete that keyword.

3. I’ve seen situations where a on-target keyword gets a bad quality score and Google stops serving ads on that keyword. The steps to remediating this type of problem I’ll cover on Thursday so please check back. There are things you can do to try to get Google to show ads again, but it takes more time to solve those types of issues.

4. Here are a few of the relatively unknown facts about Quality Score.

  • Keyword stuffing on your landing page will not help you improve your quality score. Google determines Quality Score based on scoring of your entire website at one domain, not just based on one site page. So transparency and a privacy policy help your landing page/domain Quality Score.
  • Only the exact match variation of your keyword impacts the actual Quality Score. Broad Match and Phrase Match performance do not factor in to the ranking.
  • Keywords with zero impressions will not affect your quality score. Now, keywords with impressions and no clicks and therefore a low CTR will definitely impact your Quality Score.
  • Quality Score is not updated every day. Although your ability to participate in the AdWords auction is calculated with every search that matches phrases and words in your keyword list, be aware that landing page Quality Score and the first page bid are not recalculated. In fact landing page may only be update every month or so.

In conclusion, AdWords Quality Score is a very important factor of success on AdWords. I recommend keeping your keyword list small, don’t include any single words, and select the very best landing page for each keyword in your ad group.

Check back Thursday to find out how to fix a thorny Quality Score problem on a keyword you really like!

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Why You Are Losing Placement to a Lower Quality Website on Google

I found this article last week that answers the top questions of:

  • How can I get organic placement. Someone has to be #1 on Google, why not me?
  • Why are other low quality sites placed ahead of mine in the search results?
  • I am doing everything right and still cannot place in the top 10 on Google.com

This article from Search MOZ is definitely worth your read and for those that learn visually there’s even a video.

Here are some of the better points from the video in a quick synopsis with my comments:

1. Just because you have more links, great keyword targeting, and terrific content does not assure that you will place higher than a competitor. The competitor may have more citations to their content, may have an authoritative domain (built over time), a better page experience, have a more compelling search snippet and therefore a higher click through rate garnering better Google search placement.

2. Look for your own weaknesses where the other site has strength. Do you have a poor snippet? (That is the meta description tag and meta title tag.) Is the title written in a way to encourage a search click? Does your page experience help of hinder your message?

3. Look at your brand and domain. Is your website ugly, brand indistinct? Brand bias and domain name maybe biasing your click potential. Start first by building or rebuilding your brand and improving your user page experience. Remember Google is watching your click through rate and the time spent  on your page as part of your site delivering value for a search query. Low numbers may mean that Google simply stops delivering your address in the search results based on past user experience.

4. Citations meaning not only links, but mentions, social shares are a key factor in Google placement. Are people talking about you positively? Are more people talking about you than someone else? Is there a variety of types of websites linking and talking about you? If Google is seeing negative comments, it may stop showing your results as users “vote” on your site by their own activity.

5. Acceleration rate of link growth may be important. If what you are talking about is timely and pertinent to your marketplace, you will grow links quicker. This is a great study for creation of free downloads, white papers and creation of timely content of great value. The key is to create memorable and sharable content.

6. Informational content may be an excellent way to garner more traffic. Just remember your content must have unique value that is different than others in order to place.

7. Local results that are delivered based on your reader’s location will be important. Keep in mind that Google may deliver a higher placement for your site for a search based in your own geographic area but not place your site well nationally. With geographic bias you’ll want to work to own your local market and then expand out.

8. Make sure you are addressing mobile device design. Google wants to return results for websites that load quickly and have a responsive design that caters to mobile, tablets as well as desktops. Remember, Google is looking to deliver the most relevant site that will deliver what the reader is looking for and is watching click-ins to your site. If someone clicks back to the search results page quickly (albeit bounce rate) after visiting your site, Google is thinking that your site may not be relevant for that query.

I definitely recommend watching the full video. The information is excellent and very instructive.