Category: Google

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GMail and the Promotion Tab

Google has made some big changes in the last several weeks in GMail. One of the biggest changes is that they are now more aggressively showing advertising in your inbox that looks like actual messages. One of the other big changes that impacts those of us that do e-newsletters is that this type of correspondence will now appear in the default “promotions” tab.

In this video from the Social Media Examiner, you can see how you can help consumers to understand how to tag your emailings so that they will go to the main inbox versus the promotion tab. It is an interesting short video and well worth the look to see if you need to do any instruction in your next newsletter on how to tag your mailings.

So far the industry is reporting about a 10% drop in openings from GMail users now that Google has instituted this design change/filter in GMail accounts.

To watch this online, please visit this page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Elz_1KQnmA

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Matt Cutts from Google on Link Building

In a recent interview done for an article by Eric Enge at Stone Temple Consulting, Matt Cutts, the lead Web Spam engineer for Google,  tells the industry that “link building is not illegal.”

However, in the same interview Matt goes on to state that there is a link building tactic that Google now considers web spam.

Links from press releases that are really written just to build links are no longer valued by Google. However if links that are generated by a news resource  reading the press release and then contacting the business to write an article which then linking back to the businesses website would be a great way to build links. So press releases are not dead persay, just now more what they were intended to be; a way to let the press know of something newsworthy. Not a link building strategy unto itself as SEO’s have previously used them as.

Matt and Eric agree that one of the best Google-approved ways to build links is by having great sharable content that is followed, talked about, and cited on social media sites like Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. But, they both agree that just vomiting out links to your content on social media is not what they intend; rather audience engagement that  is built around content which is then shared throughout followers networks.

If you are looking for a new content strategy for your blog and social media, we invite you to visit our website to find out more about how we can help you.

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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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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.