How to Use AMP on Your Blog for Google Part One

Man having an idea!
Mobile has shaken the world of search.

Use AMP or Accelerated Mobile Page for Google on your WordPress blog or WordPress website and you may just see your organic placement improve.

In the world of Google content is King and pagespeed is Queen. Google is really pushing implementation of AMP pages as they will cache them and deliver them to mobile devices instantly.

So how can you get in on this action and AMP up your site?

I use two plugins to create AMP pages for my blog and I manually hard code AMP pages for my PHP website.

For WordPress use these two together to get the best results.

Yoast SEO
Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP

I’ve found that validation of AMP is still quirky and questionable even with these plugins, meaning you will still see errors in the Google Search Console when you implement this, but the technology is getting better over time.

AMP pages will be striped down versions and nearly only text or in some cases, typically when you hard code them, use images that are responsive based on device.

Google is even testing AdWords and AMP as a beta right now and taking names for early implementation.

Check back on Wednesday for more information about AMP and your website.

SEO Consultant or SEO Therapist

Looking for capable and competent help with SEO?
Looking for capable and competent help with SEO?

I am an SEO consultant NOT an SEO therapist! What a statement you might think, but more often than not, I am called by prospective clients that think that all they really need is an SEO therapist or SEO answer-man. They think that by getting their questions answered they can continue to do what they are doing and achieve placement in Google.

SEO is a craft and an art. What I would do as part of a program to improve visibility is not something that a do-it-yourselfer would routinely do or for that matter do well.

Want to Improve Organic Placement? Here’s What to Do

  1. Hire a qualified person.
  2. Make sure you have a reporting program to verify strategy.
  3. Don’t go on the cheap.
  4. Make sure you have a content strategy for your blog.
  5. Know your target keywords for your website content.
  6. Nail your keywords in your blog and website content.
  7. Don’t fragment your business into mini 1-3 page websites.
  8. Do regularly build out targeted content.
  9. Don’t go crazy with keyword stuffing, be readable!
  10. Do use AdWords to boost website traffic.

More often then not, I see successful lawyers, entrepreneurs, and successful business people feel that they can easily do their own SEO work. The truth is that a professional with the knowledge to help you garner placement over time and to be honest with you and accountable is worth their weight in gold.

If you are looking for a capable consultant to get you pointed in the right direction, I invite you to visit our website to learn more about our SEO and web visibility services.

Do You Have a Content Production Schedule?

Do you need a content production strategy?
Do you need a content production schedule? Yes you do!

A content production schedule, what’s that? Even if you do not blog and pay a service to blog for you, or if you don’t blog at all, a content production schedule is key to improving your organic search placement over time.

Start first by evaluating your important traffic generating keywords
You can typically identify the top keywords for your website by reviewing what generates the most leads for you in Google AdWords or by pouring over your Google Analytics statistics.

Take time to build website or blog content that speaks to these important topics
If you convert on a particular keyword phrase, make sure you are using it in your content or build out new website content to specifically address these phrases.  If you blog, consider using those important keywords in your blog posts.

Monitor your organic placement on your target terms
To see if you are moving up organically on your chosen terms focus for a full 30 days on building 12 blog posts or three website pages over 1,000 words each that speak to the phrase you are evaluating.

Make sure to measure placement before and at the 30 day mark. You may need another 30 to 90 days of hitting those same terms before you will start to see movement.

Plan your content ahead 30 days out
After you have evaluated your placement. Start a spreadsheet and create your page content or blog post titles that are keyword dense and then schedule time or have your writer create interesting informational articles that speak to these topics.

If you need help with a blog writing strategy for your website to boost your organic placement, make sure to visit our website to find out how we can help you with  a content strategy that works.

The Top Three Errors for Website Placement

Get a roadmap on how to improve your website visibility.
Get a roadmap on how to improve your website placement.

Want to move up in organic (unpaid) website placement? Want to drop your ad spend in AdWords? You can if you stop doing these three things.

Taking no action on website reporting and analytics
It is great to evaluate your website, and every business owner should have an eye on Google Analytics and an organic placement reporting program, but you kill your ability to move up if you don’t take action from the data.

Not regularly blogging or building website content
You cannot move forward and improve your website placement if you are not building keyword effective content. If you are tired of your current placement, think you spend too much on AdWords, it is important to be doing something about the issue and the resolution would be content building.

Not getting the expert or consulting help you need
There is no reason to say, I cannot understand the reports, I cannot improve my organic placement. Paid consultants are expert help to plan a roadmap for your strategy and in many cases can even enact and monitor the plan. Many consultants like myself allow you to decide the hours of time you want to invest in services. If you ask me to help and you have candidly expressed your budget needs or issues, I am happy to create a plan that allows you to focus on things that really help move your site forward first and prioritize what you should do when you have the time or money.

Don’t just gripe or think things cannot change, get busy with a plan and professional help to turn things around and work towards the long term goal of organic placement improvement.

I invite you to visit my website to find out more about the web visibility services we provide at McCord Web Services. I think you will find us easy to work with and extremely knowledgeable.

How Do You Get the Word Out About a New Service?

We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing
We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing

I had a colleague contact me about a prospect the other day. They said their long time client wanted to promote a new service but they did not want to do pay per click, maybe remarketing or social media instead.

The prospective customer told me he had a new seasonal repair program for his business and wanted to get the word out and get his phone to ring for bookings – like now!

In my honest opinion as a internet marketing and web visibility expert pay per click using Google AdWords is the best way to promote a new service of this nature. Here’s why…

When you have a short time period to get results, AdWords delivers immediately. Social media promotion will depend on the size of your fan base. There’s no purpose posting a promo to Facebook and hoping to get results if you have 10 followers! Now Facebook pay per click may be an option and a good one for some prospects, but never drive traffic to your Facebook page – rather drive traffic to your website.

When you need to get the word out fast, AdWords delivers. Blog posting, social media postings are great but build slow organic momentum. I do not consider either strong and immediate lead generators.

Remarketing is great for most businesses, but not for immediate returns. But, remarketing IS an AdWords product and USES a pay per click model. It may take some prospects a week to build the 100 cookie list that is needed to show ads and for others it may take more than 30 days.

If you have less traffic you will not get an immediate response in fact ads won’t even show until you have the right number of cookies. Also remember even remarketing competes in the AdWords auction, your bid has to be high enough to get Display Network placement with Google.

For the majority of prospective customers, AdWords is the best fit for immediate lead generation. If you want to chat about your needs, I encourage you to visit our website to review our pricing and program and then give me a call to chat about your needs.

Site Prominence and Local Organic Placement

Mobile exposure in AdWords is key.
Does your website show up prominently in mobile searches for your location?

Organic placement in the local results is important for many businesses, but the big question is how can you get there other than paying your way onto the page with Google AdWords?

If you are a service provider that looks to sell your services in your hometown, placing with your location is key to growing your business.

Here are my top tips to getting local placement for smartphone and desktop searches.

  1. Make sure that your phone number is in text at the top of your website page and not in an image.

2. Make sure that you have your full address and phone number in the footer of all of your pages.

3. Put your phone number and city location in the meta title tag of your home page.

4. Make sure that you have your city location in your h1 and h2 tags on your page.

5. Start working on great customer service and start building reviews. If you have reviews on your website, make sure they are coded for Google using Rich Snippets.

6. When you blog, blog with purpose and cater to your local market with city or state names positioned prominently.

7. Hire a savvy expert who will assist you in crafting a content strategy to boost local positioning. At McCord Web Services we provide consulting to help you position your website to place in your geographic location.

Don’t flounder around anymore, get the help you need to start placing locally in your city and state.