Juicy SEO – Monthly Online Marketing Report covering June 2016

Welcome to this month’s SEO and online marketing report covering June 2016.
Quite a bit has happened over the last month so we will dive straight in…

Juicy SEO Monthly SEO Report - Put the Paper down! — Put the Paper down!

Penguin 4.0

News on the Penguin 4.0 update, a quick reminder that this version of the algorithm will continuously update so it is the last ‘major’ Penguin update we should see. Google have said ‘it is not too long now!’. Hmm heard that before!

Mobile

In the past Google have ‘scored’ your websites speed for their mobile search results with the same results they use to help rank your desktop version of your website. This just doesn’t make sense and Google know this. They have said this month that a mobile version of their speed test is on its way. Please please make sure your website is not only mobile friendly but also usable on ALL mobile devices!

Tools

Google have created a new tool aimed at small businesses to help them fix slow websites both mobile and desktop versions and identify what they need to do to make their website mobile friendly.
Worth a look: https://testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com/

Page Titles

Google doesn’t care if you use Underscores ‘_’, Dashes ‘-‘ or Pipes ‘|’ in your page title tags, just pick the one you like the most! Tip: Commas are most like English sentences, therefore easier to read.

Page URL’s

Also this month Google confirmed that they don’t care which of the following you use in your URL, Underscores or Dashes. They seem to be in a non-caring mood at the moment!

TLD

If you are thinking of moving your website to a new industry version of a TLD (see glossary) like www.juicyseo.seo instead of www.juicyseo.co.uk it will not give you any advantage in their page ranking results. Phew because that is a lot of work to do that!!

Social Media

Google confirmed once again that Social Media is not used to decide their search ranking results. We do know that quantity of traffic to a page can help your website page perform better so Social Media can affect it indirectly.

Gossip

Some ‘old school’ SEO gossip raised it’s head again this month. It has in the past be thought by many SEO’s that if they see a large spike in their search ranking positions then a new Google algorithm was about to be rolled out, this is completely untrue and Google confirmed that once more this month.

Googler

An interesting conversation occurred this month with a Googler. Google’s quality algorithms might and most likely do not ‘judge’ your website right away but wait for a little while before penalising your site. This makes it very hard to see what new or changed content has affected the page ranking if affected by a penalty.

Authorship

Remember the ‘Authorship Markup‘?

A couple of years ago Google asked webmasters to create this markup on their website so they could use the data in their search results. Well, this month Google have confirmed that we all can remove them again as they are not using them anymore. Nothing like wasting a bit of time is there!?

Search Console

If you use Google Search Console (shame on you if you are not!) then you will know the maximum amount of data they hold for you to use is 90 days. Google this month have said that this will increase in the future. This is very good news!

AMP

AMP is a bit of a new buzz word, we have mentioned AMP a lot over the months but this month Google have said that it is an area for SEO’s to concentrate on. This is a BIG tip. If you are not aware of AMP here is a link to all the info you need! https://www.ampproject.org/

Rankbrain

Google have confirmed that their Rankbrain ‘algorithm’ doesn’t score websites so it is not possible to optimise for it. If your SEO says they are optimising for Rankbrain then simply say:

“Liar liar your pants are on fire!”.

Adwords

Google Adwords now offers buttons called ‘Click to Text‘. As the name suggest the customer-to-be just clicks the button in the Adwords advert and they can text directly to the seller.

Juicy SEO Tip

Our Tip for this month is to think about search results that have been created using Voice. Roughly about 30% of all Google searches are via voice and it will grow very quickly. Think about the way people say sentences instead of writing. There will be a lot of questions!

Glossary

Panda: The Google Panda update concentrates on the quality of the web page content, if the algorithm thinks the page is of low quality it might penalise it in Google’s search results.

Penguin: Google has an algorithm called Penguin which analyses links to web pages and identifies which ones are valuable or spam links. An example of a spam link would be a paid link to your site.

Pigeon: Google’s Pigeon algorithm concentrates on Local SEO, if you have a bricks and mortar business this is something you should take note of.

Phantom (Quality Update): This algorithm rewards website pages for good content.

TDL: A TLD means Top Level Domain like .com or .net or .co.uk.

Juicy SEO – Monthly Online Marketing Report for April 2016

Welcome to this month’s Juicy SEO Online Marketing report covering April 2016. As months go this month wasn’t the busiest in terms of search engine changes which will affect your websites. Of course, all the search engines conduct tests and cosmetic changes but this report is purely for useful facts on how to help your website perform better, and we try to keep down to a 2 minute read.

So with the introduction over and done with let’s get on with it…

Juicy SEO Monthly SEO Report - Newspaper National Geographic — Even the National Geographic are interested!

Penguin Algorithm

It wouldn’t be one of monthly reports if we didn’t include something about the Penguin algorithm. If you need a recap what each of the algorithms do there is a Glossary at the bottom of this post.

At the start of April there were a lot of talk from SEO’s in America that Google were testing a Penguin update has there were a lot of movement which an update from Penguin could have made. However, it only lasted a few hours before everything went back to normal. Is this Google testing the Penguin update or something else, or maybe just a bug? Who knows?

Just a reminder that the next Penguin update will most likely be the last one as from then onwards it will run in real time. Great news for everyone but bad news for this monthly report. 🙁

Google have said that they will inform webmasters when they will roll out the latest Penguin algorithm update, which is nice of them. We will, of course report as soon as it has happened.

All the previous SEO reports can be found here!

HTTP2

Google have confirmed that if you upgrade your webserver to HTTP2 you will not get any ranking help from the search engine, however, your website should perform faster.

Outbound links

Google have sent out another set of messages to many webmasters via Search Console concerning outbound links. If Google thinks the links on your website to other site are ‘spammy’ they will send you a message asking you to add a rel=”nofollow” META tag to the link or remove them. If you haven’t checked already we recommend that you sign onto Search Console and check for a message.

If you are a Juicy SEO client, then don’t worry we have this all in hand! 🙂

The Title tag

Although Google say they do not use the Title tag on images to help the page rank, we know differently! Juicy SEO have been using image Title tags when optimising our clients images for years and have seen very quick positive results. This month however, a public test was conducted which also proved the same.

A good tip: If you are having trouble to rank well for a certain keyword try using an image to rank for it instead!

Click Jacking

Click Jacking websites are being penalised by Google. These are websites that display an advert but when you click on the advert a pop-up or a new window is created taking you to some other dimension, or possibly just another website. This is used for forcing the visitor onto a website that they didn’t want to go to.

Website Speed

As we reported a couple of weeks ago on our social media channels, Google have said that the speed of your website if slow will not negatively affect your ranking position unless you have been informed from Google themselves. However, it is highly recommended to try and make your page load as fast as possible for the visitor as a slow = bored visitor!

Pay Per Click – PPC

PPC news, this month Google rolled out a new Adwords tag that replaces the tag you add to your ‘Thank you’ page to record conversions. The reason for this is that the new tag will provide better results for your Adwords campaign. The problem with the old tag was if the user kept refreshing the ‘Thank you’ page the refreshes were being counted as new conversions.

That’s it for this month, of course, we are continuously adding posts to our Twitter and Facebook pages if you want to learn more or be informed of changes like the new Penguin update as soon as it happens. If you find our report useful and know of someone who would too please share!

Glossary

Panda: The Google Panda update concentrates on the quality of the web page content, if the algorithm thinks the page is of low quality it might penalise it in Google’s search results.

Pigeon: Google’s Pigeon algorithm concentrates on Local SEO, if you have a bricks and mortar business this is something you should take note of.

Phantom (Quality Update): This algorithm rewards website pages for good content.

TDL: A TLD means Top Level Domain like .com or .net or .co.uk.

Google Search Results: position 10 is now better than 8 or 9!

Lots of things are changing in the way Google display their search results, not long ago the paid PPC adverts that were on the right-hand side of the page moved into the left organic lists.

As a result, where your website is positioned in the organic listings has also changed. Google have confirmed (yes, confirmed!) that for most searches it is better to be placed in position 10 than 8 or 9.

The reason behind this is that it seems searchers do not like to click onto page 2 of the search results, therefore, when they scroll down Google’s search results they run out and end up with the website ranked at number 10. Google thinks that instead of clicking to the second page the searcher would prefer to click on the last entry.

So how can we benefit from this?

Well if you are having trouble ranking for a keyword in the top 5 then maybe aim for number 10 instead!

Google removes right hand side adverts in search results!

Search engines like Google are continuously making changes to their search engines, it could be an algorithm update, small changes to individual results or they have just changed their logo. However this month Google have made a big change and one that will affect every person who is promoting their website!

It doesn’t matter if you are just starting out with a small blog hoping to gradually increase the number of visitors to your website or you are huge e-commerce website with 100,000s of visitors every day, if you are using SEO or PPC this is an important change!

What has changed in Google’s search results?

So what has changed?

This month Google have started to roll out removing all the adverts which are on the right-hand side of their search results and increased the amount of adverts in the main left-hand side.

“Oh is that all?!”

At first that might not seem such a big deal but trust us it could turn out to be a very big deal and could cost you money!

The Old Google Search Results

So first off let’s quickly explain what we are all used to seeing, just so you can compare and understand what has changed and how it will affect you and your websites traffic.

When you use Google to search for your favourite pizza takeaway or to find a handbag to match a dress, you would enter your search phrase and Google would display on the left-hand side their organic search results. Typically at the top and bottom of this list would be 2 or 3 adverts from Google’s AdWords service.

On the right-hand side of the page you would see another list of results which are all adverts which business pay for your click to take you to their website.

We are all used to this, organic search results on the left PPC paid adverts on the right.

Google Search Results - Old — Google Search Results – Old

The New Google Search Results

From now on you will see a new page layout when using Google’s search engine. There now isn’t a list on the right-hand side of adverts, these have been replaced (sometimes) with what Google call their Knowledge graph. You have probably seen these already, they are a more details answer to your search query in a box often with an image.

So if you were searching for Barack Obama Google would display a little bio about Barack and a photo. They get this information normally from the top ranking website for that term.

So no more right-hand adverts.

This will most likely not surprise you but Google have not decided to stop showing adverts!

Instead they have increased the amount of AdWords PPC adverts at the top of the search results to 4 and also increased the amount at the bottom too!

Google Search Results - New — Google Search Results – New

Why have Google made this change?

A very good question!

Well this question will have many different answers depending on who you ask, some might say by moving the adverts from the right to the left would increase the amount of clicks for paid adverts as people would think they are organic search results. (not us of course, we believe whatever Google says! 😉 ).

Google’s official reason is that the search results for paid and organic will look better on mobile devices after this change.

We don’t doubt that they will, in fact they do to be honest.

How will it affect SEO and PPC?

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – Organic

For SEO we expect to see confusion for the searcher, apart from the small AD icon it is hard to see which results are adverts and which are organic. The searcher likes Organic results because they know they are ranking well on credit and must have good quality content.

As far as we can tell there will still be 10 organic search results, well certainly from the tests we have tried anyway so being on the first page of Google will still be very important.

Here are some of the things we think this change will affect SEO:

It is very important for all websites to display their ‘Sales Pitch’ above the fold (the part of your website visitors can see without having to scroll down the page). With more adverts above the organic results it will push the all important top 3 positions further down the screen.
As mentioned above it will be a while until people have realised that there are now 4 adverts at the top of the search results and they will need to look further down to get to the organic listings. If you share this post to your friends then they will all know!
The Google AD icons are very small and in yellow, which doesn’t display well on a lot of screens (hmm, funny that!).

PPC – Pay Per Click – Adverts

It’s not all doom and gloom though, PPC is a fantastic way to get your website in front of a lot of people very quickly and completely scalable so you can increase your budget as your business increases its sales.

This new change will obviously help PPC AdWords adverts which are in the top 4 results as now they are the first thing people will see after entering search results, especially on mobile devices (as reported by Juicy SEO at the start of the Year there are more people searching on mobile devices than desktop computers).

Previously it was very important to make sure your advert was in the top 3 adverts, the worse was the 4th position as it was located at the top right of the screen which people didn’t pay attention too. Now the 4th position is going to see a huge increase of CTR.

The downside for PPC managers is that you might get an increased amount of visitors who are not actually looking for your product and increase your bounce rate for your adverts. This is not good as this will affect how much you pay per click and so therefore will cost you money!

Let me explain that a little more. There is a large percentage of searchers who are really just interested in finding out about things, it could be a product or service, or just want to learn more about an industry. They are not looking to buy anything as they are not in their ‘shopping mode’.

So they use the organic results more as they know the content on websites ranking well organically should be the best place for them to find what they are looking for. Later on once they know what they want they will put on their ‘Shopping Hat’ and include using Google’s Adverts.

These ‘information’ gathers will most likely start clicking on your adverts, once they see the page is not what they were looking for they will simply bounce back to Google and click on another link, therefore costing the advertiser money for zero return.

Managing PPC campaigns has just got that bit harder!

Juicy SEO reduces PPC AdWords budgets and increases quality visitors! – Click to find out more

Conclusion

So what have we learnt from this and what should we do?

SEO

For your SEO campaign understanding what competition you are up against has always been important, now you really need to include PPC adverts as competition!
Look for keywords which have less interest from PPC advertisers.
Getting the top two spots has just got a little more important!

PPC

For the PPC advertiser manage your negative keywords.
Stay on top of your PPC campaign, every day, not once a month!
Make sure your adverts are in the top 3!

Google ranking factor found!

You may already know that Google uses around 200 different signals to help rank websites for keyword phrases. These signals are a closely guarded secret, in fact only 4 people in the World know them all (anyone of those 4 can have a job here at Juicy SEO if they like!).

So it is nice when we find out from the horses mouth one of these signals, or not a signal as the case maybe.

This week Google confirmed that links from your website to another is NOT a ranking factor. In the past there was talk that linking to other sites with a higher authority in your sector could help your page rank. So now we know that isn’t true.

Just to be completely clear here, links TO your website are still a ranking factor so keep chasing those links!

Smartphones are now more popular than desktop computers

Some interesting news came out of Google this week which if you have been reading our SEO blogs and social media posts you won’t be too shocked to hear. Google have confirmed that they are now serving more searches on smartphones than on desktop computers. I guess this also coincides with the reduction in desktop computer sales over the last few years too.
Although they only say the stats are for 10 countries however they do include USA and Japan, as the UK often follows the US a few months later expect (if it isn’t already) this to be the same here.

What is also interesting is that when Google record these stats they bundle up users of Tablet users with those of Desktop users, therefore this means at least half of all searches (in the tested countries) are now using a smartphone.
This is an huge increase even from the stats of 2014 which could be as much a double the amount of smartphone users.

Google are and will continue (we suspect) to change their user interface of their products to be aimed at smartphone users. They are currently rolling out smartphone optimised advert formats via their Adwords network, this will increase the number of smartphone clicks on adverts.

This news is very important for website owners, with the recent Google Mobile algorithm update it is very important to have a mobile friendly website as Google will be “recommending” mobile friendly websites more.

If you would like to read the statement from Google about their Adwords change for mobile users here is the link.

Juicy SEO monthly report for January 2015

Welcome to another edition of our monthly SEO report where we quickly run through what has happened in the world of SEO and online marketing. If you missed our first post here it is: Juicy SEO Monthly Search Engine Report for December 2014

Mobile SEO:

Over the last couple of weeks Google has sent out a mass email/notification informing webmasters of sites which currently do not have a mobile friendly websites. Knowing Google as we do they tend not to do this type of thing unless something is planned for the future. Take this notification seriously, if your site is not currently mobile friendly we recommend discussing with your web designers to make the changes needed to make it mobile friendly.

Adsense:

If you are a user of Googles Adsense you may have been approached by ‘agents’ offering to pay you a set amount each month similar to what you currently earn from Adsense and in return they will take the income from the advert. Basically they want to buy your advert space.
We recommend not agreeing to these offers as although you don’t lose control of anything you don’t know what they are doing to increase their sales, this could include sending bad links to your site which will affect your organic ranking results.

…and finally:

We haven’t had a major Google algorithm update since December 2014 and there is currently a lot of talk that one is on its way. We think it has just about started so the next week or so ranking positions will most likely be quite volatile.

This month’s SEO tip:

You may or may not have thought about this but many people use the image search results instead of the main Google web search results to find what they are looking for. If your website is image friendly this is an area which you can get some easy wins. To help with these rankings we suggest the following:

Add detail to the name of the image. IE not: wow-what-a-car.jpg but instead: Ferrari-250-GT.jpg

If you have time also include these details in the META of the images if you have the copyright. Also don’t forget to use the ALT and TITLE tags on your site when displaying the images.

Juicy SEO monthly report for December 2014

Each month we provide useful information about the world of SEO to our clients, this information is normally sent directly to them.

We got thinking and thought “Why not let read our monthly reports!”

So here we are, each month we will share all the major important things that have happened in the world of SEO and online marketing that might affect your own website. We will not be going into too much detail but more of a bite sized run down. If you do want more info then just ask via Twitter or Facebook and we will do our best to answer.

So onto this months report.

Mobile SEO

Google has said that having a mobile friendly website will help your site perform better (SEO wise) in their search results. From this month you will now see Mobile-Friendly written just under the Title and URL in search results. How this will affect people clicking on your site on a mobile device we will find out.

Google

Google are testing the user experience of websites, we expect in 2015 websites with a good user experience (as decided by Google) will get a little help in the rankings. Our tip: ask someone who has never been on your site to perform a couple of tasks set by you, how many clicks did it take and did they enjoy the experience?

Website Design

A popular way to present content to readers on websites is to use Tabs and only show the text on the page when the person clicks on the tab. This is also a good way to include more text on a page but not clutter the page up. However it looks like Google doesn’t like this any more and will only value (SEO wise) the displayed content on page load. Our Tip: Make sure your most important keyword terms are on the displayed tab.

Algorithm’s

Google are still rolling out changes to some of their algorithms, it is taking a lot longer than we all expected which makes the SEO community think there is a lot going on behind the scenes! More on this soon!