Google’s Mobile First Becomes Your Top Priority

Nancy McCord
“Just Nancy” – My Point of View for Today.

Just this last week Google announced that it’s mobile search index would become its primary index and that it would be spinning off its tablet and desktop index into a separate index. Additionally Google stated that it would not be updating the desktop and tablet index with the same frequency as that of the mobile index.

For some, this statement did not register as important, but for those in my industry, this was very important news.

How so?

Business owners must take heed when Google makes statements like this. If your website is not mobile-friendly, you have an old website that looks like your desktop on the small screen of mobile devices, and you are not using a workaround like DudaMobile, you may be in trouble. What kind of trouble? You may drop placement organically, pages you add may not be indexed frequently, and Google may even not show your website in the mobile index. With mobile searches driving over 60% of the traffic on Google.com that’s a big drop for you.

Google is focused on speed for mobile, are you?

The next big hurdle if your site is mobile friendly is to try to speed up the delivery of your pages. Google is boosting the Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) initiatives to deliver AMP’ed up content to mobile devices nearly instantaneously. Be prepared for keeping an eye on this. Google has mentioned that it likes AMP pages and has tested even saying it may provide better placement for pages and sites that are AMP’ed.

For now the key is to assure that your site can be considered by Google as mobile-friendly and mobile-fast.

We have options when it comes to mobile, from a DudaMobile script “Bandaid” to a new mobile responsive site or WordPress site with mobile responsive theme. Just ask us for help!

Security, Security, Security – You Can Never Have Too Much

Make sure you know about your own site's security policy.
Make sure you know about your own site’s security policy.

Security, you never realize how much you really should be thinking about it until your site is hacked. For business owners, let me caution you to not leave this most important aspect out of protecting your online presence to staff without some oversight.

Here’s what you as the business owner need to know about security.

  1. You need a back up and redundancy plan.
  2. You need to know what your webmaster is doing on security.
  3. You need to routinely monitor the Google Search Console for messages.
  4. Sometimes the Bing Search Console will notify you faster of a hack, so monitor there too.
  5. Look for weird URLs and strange activity in Google Analytics.
  6. Make sure you do regular back ups of your website files and keep several archives not just one.
  7. Back up your back up!
  8. If you use WordPress as the backbone for your site see below.
  9. Remain vigilant. If you have security plugins monitor the messages.

If you have WordPress…

I like WordFence as my security plugin. I am getting nice results and actionable message about access, updates to do to stay secure, and not too many messages that I get “security fatigue”.

I do use other plugins as well for WordPress. Below are the ones I will typically install for clients.

Login Lockdown
Locks out brute force attacks and bad passwords.

WordPress File Monitor
This plugin monitors the core files for changes and uploads.

Sucuri or WordFence
I have used this program but found that the number of messages was too overwhelming so at this time I am using WordFence instead. Just make sure you use something AND make sure to actually read the alerts!

If you need help with your website please feel free to visit ours and check out our services.

 

WordPress Web Design

Solutions for your business that make sense.
Solutions for your business that make sense.

I started out my business in 2001 as a web designer and then over the years moved into AdWords and social media; doing less website design over the years.

But, now I have come full circle and am back doing web design for key clients who want a heavy focus on design for organic search placement.

Here is a link to one of the sites I am working on right now for Imagine Insurance Advisors. I am finding out just what clients like about WordPress. You can preview it while it is in work.

1. The ability to update their own content at any time, even though they may not do this frequently, is a very big plus. The business owner of my most recent project says that her team is excited that when they have an open house or event, that they can put it on their home page themselves without a paid webmaster’s intervention

2. The ability to change the look and feel in the theme settings as they use the site is another feature that many like. Tired of your site set to fill the screen? With one click you can set the site layout to 1200 pixels wide and add a background image. Don’t like it? You can undo with one click! Once your theme is set up, small changes like this do not impact content or other design features.

3. Not every website is a good match for WordPress, but the ability to add functionality via plugins allows a site to stay relevant as the times change. One thing I really like is the integration of Accelerate Mobile Pages (AMP). I consider this a huge growth area and one that over time Google will be using in the mobile search space for placement. Google loves AMP and so should you as the pages are super streamlined but load almost instantaneously. This is the future for mobile. And WordPress plugins make it easy to start with AMP. Although some of the plugins still generate errors, they are a good start.

If you are looking for great content, smart solutions and an update to your legacy website, it’s time to take a careful look at WordPress and consider our design services.

Quality Control When It Comes to Blogging is Job One

We take blog writing quality seriously. Do you?
We take blog writing quality seriously. Do you?

Even if you buy only one blog post a month from us, our quality control does not change.

Just what do we do when it comes to quality control with our blog writing services?

  1. I personally create each blog post title and select the background article/information for our team of over 10 professional writers to use to create your unique content.
  2. We have a professional editor with a Master’s Degree proofread each and every blog post before we accept them from our writers.
  3. We have a team of content specialists do your WordPress installation, select categories, tags, and select and install an image to match the content of your blog post.

But we don’t stop there…

4. The publishing day of your blog post, we click into your blog to assure that the post has published, looks good, the white space is correct and that the image is appropriate.

5. If there is a problem, we correct it before nearly anyone in your audience has had a chance to read the post. We publish our blogs at 3:00 am Eastern Time and review them before 7:00 am each morning.

That is some serious quality control! We mean business when we say we provide premium quality blog content. As the owner of McCord Web Services, I invite you to check out our blog writing services today and check prices.