Tag: SEO

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Google States Mobile Page Speed Will be a Ranking Indicator

We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing, Mobile, and Display.
We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing,, Mobile, and Display.

Well that cat is finally out of the bag! Google has stated that in July they will now be using the mobile page speed of your website as a mobile index ranking indicator.

This is very important news. Google had already moved to using just the mobile index for determining the organic ranking for all platforms and no longer had a separately ranked desktop index. The announcement released on Wednesday January 17th goes even further.

Today we’re announcing that starting in July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches.

The “Speed Update,” as we’re calling it, will only affect pages that deliver the slowest experience to users and will only affect a small percentage of queries. It applies the same standard to all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.

The key takeaway on this announcement is that page speed is important to Google and should be an important factor in the selection of any new WordPress theme or website design or web design platform.

Page speed will not be going away and site owners need to really start a review and efforts to address their slow loading websites.

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Not All Errors Are Real Errors

What to Know About Site Errors
What to Know About Site Errors

Errors, they may your heart beat faster and stomach clench especially when they impact your website. But, not all errors that are reported in plugins such as Yoast or even WordFence are real errors.

For example, today the Yoast SEO plugin flagged my site as not having a home page that was visible to search engines. But on additional testing and review of files; both the robots.txt and .htaccess file there was not issue. Additionally, on testing in the Google fetch feature in the Google Search Console – no errors were triggered. The Google bot was fully allowed even though Yoast said it was not.

Sometimes errors you see are false positives. But, that does not mean you can simply mark them as ignored or disregard them all together.

All website errors should be reviewed and corrected if found to be true. Don’t guess, make sure that you do not have a problem each time one is brought to your attention.

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Citations and Local Ranking

Get More Business When You Place Locally
Get More Business When You Place Locally on Google.com

What’s the connection between citations and local ranking? Well, first Google uses citations which include your phone number and address for location specific ranking in the organic index.

Because citations are important to place for local searches here are some of my tips to assure that you do everything in your power on your website pages to try to place for location specific searches in your local area.

  1. Make sure you have your full address and phone number in your footer.
  2. Make sure to spell out your state and not use the abbreviation.
  3. Format your phone number either as 540-693-0385 or (540) 693-0385 and do not use . as separators. Google’s preferred use in AdWords is (540) 693-0385 for all instances that they call in phone numbers.
  4. If possible get local links that feature your website URL, business address and phone. I like the Chamber of Commerce for links like this.
  5. Make sure to claim your Google My Business and Bing My Business pages. These are great ways to also add your address and phone number.
  6. Make sure that you review online what your address and location shows. If it is incorrect, make attempts to correct the data.

Most businesses want local placement. Assuring that you are reference properly in citations around the web starts first with assuring that you have the information posted clearly on your own website.

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Build It – Right, and They WILL Come

The Web is a very competitive place, but I would like to share with you a case study of a recent customer that highlights if a service is trending, the price is right, and the website is optimized, you can get clients via organic search.

I have client who was just starting a business. He had very little capital,  was selling local drone photography services, and was getting into a market that I felt was just starting to trend up.

My firm built him a website to showcase video and photos of projects and recent photo shoots. We optimized the site architecture, site content, page URLs and mentored him on keywords to use in his self-written content.

We used location specific keywords to help him place organically by county and state name using a smart use in his content and footer information.

On his side, he priced his services a tad below market average, and worked to offer more value than any other competitors.

As a result of our efforts combined with the client, business is growing and the phone is ringing, all without additional advertising.

The point I would like to make is that if the product is “right”, pricing is “right”, there is a need, then the smart use of keywords, content and location specificity can give free exposure that turns into sales and helps a brand new business get a footing from which to build.

To find out more about our services and how we can help you too, we invite you to visit our website to learn more.