Category Archives: Search Engine Optimization & Mobile Marketing

Google-Medic-Update

All About Google’s Latest Medic Update

Google released a core algorithm update in August. Some industries were hit harder than others. Basically, the health and medical industry, and “Your Money Your Life (YMYL)” sites were affected the most. Webmasters were quick to call it the “Medic update”. In case you don’t know about “Your Money Your Life (YMYL)” sites, Google defines them as sites that can potentially impact the future health, happiness and financial stability or safety of the users.

Google also released a statement after the update launch and gave a generic answer which was along the lines of — “There’s no specific fix for this update or any update. If you notice that your site has been affected, just work on providing the best possible user experience and you will start seeing improvements because ultimately, our every update is for the same purpose.”

Google did take the time to announce the algorithm update via Twitter:

google-core-update-twitter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Google has also updated the Search Quality Rater Guidelines and has put a lot of emphasis on Reputation. The guideline is rather comprehensive, and it’s worth the read. It tells you about how Google views the websites, pages, and content, so you can use this valuable information to your advantage.

Here are some highlights:

  • Build strong links with the influencers & experts of your industry. And then persuade them to write content for your site or write content promoting your business on a reputed website.
  • Find out how your brand looks like on the search engine result pages and is this how you want your business to appear? If not, then you can make changes.
  • It’s important that you have a well drawn out plan to promote your business.
  • Reputation is everything when it comes to business, be it online or offline. Getting positive reviews for your business is vital to managing your online reputation. Our dashboard helps you manage your reputation as well as get more positive reviews in Google and Yelp.
  • When it comes to content, quality beat quantity by a large margin. Don’t post content just for the sake of it. You are not fooling anyone.
  • Have you put efforts to define your brand? What your brands stand for?
  • Interview the business owners for ideas and insights into what makes their business unique over other businesses. We do this as a part of our SEO deliverables.
  • Your About Us page is very important. Use it to show your achievements, what makes you stand out and why people should consider your business over others. However, make sure that you don’t exaggerate, because Google double checks it with reliable independent sources. And if what you have to say about your company doesn’t match with independent sources, then Google will take words of the independent sources for obvious reasons.

Contact us For more information on all of Google’s latest updates.

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man-holding-iphone

How To Move Your M-DOT URLS To New Responsive Website – A Step By Step Guide

Google has released a 4 step tutorial on how to move your m-dot URL’s to your newly created
responsive websites in a “Googlebot friendly” way.

Below are the steps Google outlined (in green). Plus we have added our own steps in between
to give you a clear path to work on.


1. First Thing first, get your responsive site ready.seperating-mobile-URLs-diagram

2. Collect all the data from your M-dot website like conversion rate, traffic etc. So that you can compare it with the new responsive site & know how your new website is performing.

3. 301 redirect to the new responsive URLs from your old URLs. You will have to do it for each URL’s separately, it is daunting but necessary.

301-redirection-diagram

4. Sometimes, there are images or a white paper that is in use & ranking well. You will have to find them out and redirect them to your main site so that you don’t lose traffic.

5. Your site might have some Mobile-URL specific configuration like conditional redirects, make sure you remove it.

6. Setup rel=canonical on the responsive URLs pointing to themselves.

7. You can encourage the search engines spider to recrawl your M-URL by resubmitting your M.site Google search console & Bing Webmaster Tools Sitemaps. By doing so, they will reindex your site faster and become aware of the new 301 Redirects.

8. Keep an eye on the progress by monitoring the index status of the old M.site on Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

9. In about 3 months or more, Google will drop the M URLs out of the index. But only after they become aware of the 301 redirects.

10. Update the important links to the Old M.site & have them point to the new URLs.

11. Make sure you change the new old M.site to the new one on all your marketing and promotional materials.

google-ranking-factor

How Can Your Website Rank Better on Search Engines

Searchmetrics defined specific ranking factors in categories making it easier to understand and implement strategies to improve your search engine rankings.

  • Technical: It’s still and will be the most important factor in determining the website ranking along with some
    great content.
  • User Experience: If the website content is well structured and engaging, it will most likely receive a positive
    reaction from a user and also search engine bots, leading the website to achieve better rankings.
  • Content: The study conducted on the content of top 30 pages last year shows that the average text limit
    exceeded by 25%. Also, the quality and relevancy of the content on websites has escalated significantly.
  • Social Signals: Barring high correlations, there is an upward surge in average signal per URL and position.
  • Backlinks: Backlinks remains a requisite to achieve higher ranks. But in near future, the influence of backlinks in improving website rankings may fade away and will be replaced by other relevant factors.

How can your website rank better on search engines? Take advantage of free SEO tools such as the SEO Audit tool provided by SEO Solutions. You can request an audit of your website that will analyze the above factors here.

Here are some valuable tips to improve your website ranking from Searchmetrics.

  • User-friendly and Relevant content will work wonders. Don’t think about keywords; create useful content with impeccable quality. The content presented with solid facts and crafted around technical specifications will engage most of the audience. The copy and the design should complement each other and the whole structure should be well organized in order to provide the user a better experience. Assemble the topics as per their relevancy and decide whether you will list them on an individual page or on a landing page.

Understanding and Implementing the above tips and tactics can give your website and your business a much needed boost. But if you are not versed with the technical terms and like to invest your time and energy on something else, then we are here to help you. Contact us with your requirement and let our professionals do the work for you!

 

SEO Challenge For the Month! – Checking Your Website!

SEO Solutions is challenging all small and medium sized businesses to do their own internal website check for 2 things! These two things, if corrected, can help improve your websites keyword rankings substantially (as long as other aspects of your websites SEO structure is healthy).

1. Use Google Webmaster Tools for your website http://www.examplesite.com to download a complete link profile for your website. Go through this list of links and make a list of all of the links that are from “sketchy” looking websites, completely unrelated websites and broken links. Then disavow this list of links using the Google Disavow Tool. Learn more on how to do this in our previous blog post – https://seosolutions.us/blog/how-why-to-disavow-broken-spammy-and-irrelevant-links-to-your-website/.

2. Go through your website and check your site with a duplicate content tool to make sure that your websites organic rankings hurt by having duplicate content on the web. Copyscape is a great tool – http://www.copyscape.com/. Once you have identified the duplicate content, make sure that you delete the content if possible or change the content if necessary.

SEO DoctorFree SEO Audit Report ($200 Value) – http://seosolutions.us/seo-website-audit.php

Local Listings

Scan your website across 50+ business listings and review sites – http://seosolutions.us/local-listings-scan.php

SEO SOLUTIONS  🙂

GOOGLE RECOMMENDS HAVING A RESPONSIVE DESIGN STRUCTURED WEBSITE

We have repeated this numerous times and here it is again. Choosing a Responsive Website design structure over a Mobile-only design. This time, we have decided to share the latest video from Google’s, Matt Cutts himself.

Matt explains that a Responsive design is nothing but good for your website in the eyes of Google. We believe responsive websites are given more preference in the SERPs. And unlike a Mobile-only template, responsive designed websites are not as prone to technical errors. They also allow you to keep all of your domain’s authority factors (link juice, URL structure, on-site SEO implementations and content) in one place, rather than having to optimize both your mobile website and your full website. This keeps your SEO more simplistic as you will have to optimize only one site instead of focusing on two different websites.

Simply said, Responsive web design is the BEST choice you can opt for from a long term perspective.

Mobile Marketing is Here to Stay!

 

                Mobile marketing delivers results, period. 85% of consumers are searching for local businesses online; however, 63% of small businesses still do not have a mobile website.  Keep in mind that smartphones are always on, always with us and always connected (the typical mobile user spends an average of 2 hours each and every day using their mobile device).

Smartphones are transforming are consumer shopping habits. They are creating smarter consumers, 79% of consumers use a smartphone to help them with their shopping needs. 54% of consumers use smartphones to actually find their retailers; on top of that, nearly 50% of consumers use their smartphones to compare prices. We use are smartphones to find everything from the nearest restaurant, movie show times or to find the nearest store that carries the item we are looking for. Astoundingly, 88% of us use this information to make a purchase within the same day!

Google claims that 95% of mobile users look up local information daily on their mobile devices. Considering 87% of the world has a mobile device, by not having a mobile website, your small business is missing out on large numbers of potential clients. If your website is not able to be found on a mobile device within the next year, don’t plan on beating out your competition for any new business.

Another mobile trend that is on the rise is spending through mobile devices. In 2011, 86.1 billion dollars was moved around the world from mobile devices and this number is expected to rise. What does this mean? Companies that begin to offer a way to pay from a mobile device will experience an increase in their revenue stream.

Search Engine Marketing & Mobile Websites: IMPACTFUL!

In 2011, Search Engine Marketing’s ROI increased over 18% quarter on quarter. This statistic simply means that marketing through search engines continues to bring in more and more dollars, per dollar spent on the advertisement you displayed (and at an increasing rate).

Today, Google has increased its share of advertising on the internet to over 45%. Search Engines are where modern businesses, potential customers, clients or whoever; goes to find what to do, what to buy, where and what to eat and how to get there to make the final purchase. Google it! You can literally get prices, pictures, virtual tours, dimensions, ingredients and much more, all from going to a website! The key for small business owners is being that website that stands out and gets found.

Realizing the impact of such a powerful, speedy and reliable form of marketing is just the beginning for many small business owners. Taking advantage of this concept is when small business owners truly see an impact on their own profits. Let’s keep in mind that word of mouth and having a Facebook page is very impactful marketing, however, if you want to see a true trending growth in your business, keeping your businesses website presence substantial and up to date is an absolute must. That is as long as you’re also willing and able to keep up with the sure to be incoming business yourself.

This means that part of staying on the top of people’s minds when they want to make a purchase is keeping up with how the internet is accessed. Mobile websites are fast becoming the new, and they reach 86% of the global population! Why go to a computer downstairs and leave the comfort of your couch or bed to check your Facebook page or look up a good restaurant to eat at tonight when you can do it right from your phone, and just as fast if not faster. Or when you’re out and about, a desktop computer is not even an option for finding services or products. It is fast becoming the norm for people to pull out their phones and quickly check the closest needed product or service with a few quick finger strokes.

Keeping your website available on desktop and mobile devices, fast loading and full of correct and up to date information is crucial to growing your small business. You’re an entrepreneur and your expertise might be selling clothing or selling household items such as vases and lamps so staying on the first page of Google might seem like a difficult task. However, the right SEO company can provide you with weekly reports of your Google rankings and keep your site active so that Google views it as a site that is healthy and viable for the first few pages of Google.

If you’re not on the internet and your next potential customer is, well then they are just that, a potential client. To make sure that they become a customer you need to make sure they find you on the internet can access your website and view your products in a fast, clean and efficient manner. But you don’t specialize in uploading content to the internet, so what do you do, you hire somebody to do it for you.