Tag Archives: SEO Strategy

Mobile Site Design and SEO

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Every business that has more than 5-10% of their traffic coming through mobile search needs a mobile site. Budget constraints or website structure often preclude using a responsive design, which most online marketing consultants agree is the best solution. Using a mobile site is budget-friendly and an application that can be used by all industries, but there are potential SEO and User Experience concerns when it comes to using a mobile site. Here is a short checklist that will cover most of the major considerations to keep in mind when creating a mobile site for a local marketing company:

Mobile Site SEO

  1. Review your mobile site from a fresh perspective. Make sure that navigation is clear and easy, and make sure that you evaluate using different smartphones and tablets. Make sure that you view the sites using the primary devices that are listed in the mobile traffic section of Google Analytics for your site. Check the load speed of your responsive site using the Google Page Load Speed Tool. Finally, be certain that the design of your mobile site is consistent with the design of your website.
  2. Do redirects properly send mobile visitors to the mobile page and the remainder to the main website page? Do mobile visitors have an option to view the desktop site?
  3. Google Webmaster Tools will tell you if Google is having trouble crawling your mobile site. Just check Crawl-Crawl Errors and select the tab for “Smartphone.”
  4. All mobile pages should be submitted via an XML sitemap to Google using Google Webmaster Tools.
  5. Be certain that there is a mobile page for each desktop page and that mobile content is edited to avoid being too wordy. Unnecessary images and videos can be a distraction on mobile.

Bottom Line: A few basic checks when creating a mobile site can help to ensure that your mobile visitors will not be doing the quality control on your mobile site for you. It can also ensure that you do not see falling search engine rankings based on a lack of a proper mobile site set up.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, a Santa Rosa, California SEO, Website Development and Online Marketing Firm.

What’s New for September 10, 2013 – Google Keyword and Disavow Tools, Email Scanning

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Google Keyword Tool is Officially Out to Pasture

An SEO resource has changed, and not everyone is happy about it. The Google Keyword Tool has been replaced with Google’s new Keyword Planner, and the landscape for Keyword Research has changed. Users will be required to log into an AdWords account to use the tool, and will not be able to access match type data for search volume, device targeting data, or global versus local searches.

The bright side of the change is that users are able to retrieve keyword search volume data down to the city level; can upload up to 10,000 keywords to access performance data; and search volumes by ad group, landing page, and many other categories established by the user.

Time and Google slow for no one, and once the grumbling about having to learn a new system is over, users will be able to continue to conduct online advertising business as usual.

Google Keyword Tool

Google Argues For Email Scanning

Google is asking a judge to dismiss a class action lawsuit, filed in May, that says Google “unlawfully opens up, reads, and acquires the content of people’s private email messages” in violation of California’s privacy laws and federal wiretapping statutes. The lawsuit also alleges that Google scans messages sent to active Gmail users from non-Gmail users who never agreed to the company’s terms and conditions.

Google has openly admitted that it targets its advertising based on words that show up in Gmail messages, and defends its actions by stating that no humans read any of the email, and the process is 100% automated. Consumer Groups contend that email has an expectation of privacy that should be preserved.

Another piece in the ongoing saga of privacy versus online advertising efficiency.

Google’s Link Disavow Tool: More Harm Than Good?

Many Webmasters and SEO firms have used Google’s disavow tool that launched almost a year ago to overcome penalties brought on by the Google Penguin. Now Google itself has come out and unequivocally stated that use of this tool may actually harm search rankings.

Google’s Eric Kuan from the search quality team said:

“The disavow backlinks tool should be used with caution since it can potentially harm your site’s performance. However, if you see a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links point to your site, and you’re confident that the links are causing issues for your site, you can use the disavow tool to disavow those links. In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most normal or typical sites will not need to use this tool.”

Be judicious in how you employ the link disavow tool. You may inadvertently neutralize links that are helping your site to rank and do more harm than good.

Bottom Line: This has definitely been a Google Update. I applaud the fact that the search giant is making an effort to communicate more and help to access information in an orderly and helpful way. The privacy issues will be a source of controversy for years to come. The courts, The Federal Trade Commission, and even foreign governments have gotten involved. The factor that will cause any gigantic online entity to pay attention is decreased traffic or market share. Until that happens, I truly do not believe that significant change will occur in online privacy policies.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, a Santa Rosa, California based SEO, Online Marketing and Website Design and Development Firm.

Internal Planning Tips for Successful SEO

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According to allbusiness.com, marketing channels are defined as “avenues used by marketers to make products available to consumers. Wholesalers, distributors, sales agents, retailers, and all other sources used in getting the product to consumers are included in the category of marketing channels.”

Solid white hat SEO practices can improve the search engine placement of your website, but the marketing messages come from your website, social media accounts, blog posts and online ads. SEO can increase website traffic and awareness of your products and services, but cannot directly sell your products. Therefore, SEO is a traffic generation tool, and not a marketing channel.As a traffic generation tool, SEO is powerful, but to be successful, you need to integrate the traffic into the marketing channels that already exist for your firm. If every SEO client embraced this approach, they would increase the return on investment received from their SEO efforts. The following are some tips on how to accomplish this within your firm:

Get Input from Different Departments

The CEO of each firm needs to make company-wide input into the SEO process mandatory. Sales will know which products bring customers to the firm, Accounting will know which products or services are the most profitable, production or manufacturing will know which products lend themselves to increased production. Every department should have a say in the SEO strategy and keyword choices to ensure that the right customers are being reached to consider the correct products that will maximize profitability. Don’t be afraid to include input to SEO strategy into job descriptions.

Do the Small Stuff

Social Media has become so important as a tool to share valuable information, and social signals have become a significant factor in SEO. Do your signs and business cards carry the company website address or Twitter address? Do your sales presentations or brochures include website info, Facebook Fan Page, and the Twitter address and invite potential customers to follow? Find ways for your team to contribute to SEO and online marketing.

Motivate and Educate Your Team

Establish online goals and share the tracking of these goals with your team. Train those working closest with SEO in basic Local SEO Services, and include them in planning and discussions.

Putting education first creates ownership of the success of your SEO efforts and willn make conversations about SEO strategy more participatory and productive.

Let Your SEO Team in on “The Plan”

Your sales team knows what new product offerings are coming for weeks or months in advance. It takes time to plan, create marketing materials, and coordinate production schedules. The SEO Team should be planning SEO strategies, helping to create relevant content and implementing strategy during this time. Solid SEO decision making requires time to plan.

Bottom Line: Integrating your SEO team, whether internal or external, into your business planning is a solid business practice. Ensuring that your SEO team accepts input into planning from all departments of your company is a necessity. Organic SEO does not change and work as quickly as PPC and other methods of attracting online traffic. Organic SEO does, in the eyes of most web marketers, provide the best quality website traffic, so the planning and hard work necessary to improve Search Engine Positioning are worth the effort.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, A Santa Rosa, California based SEO, Online Marketing, and Website Development Firm.

 

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