The Web Authority – Page 67 – Smart Digital Marketing, Real Business Results

March 5, 2018March 2, 2018

Mobile Page Speed Now Becomes a Crucial Consideration

Mobile Page Speed Matters to Google and Your Customers

Google sent me an interesting tool this past week and I wanted to share it with you. You can view and use the mobile impact tool online https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/mobile/. This tool allows you to measure the speed and monetary impact from the speed of your clocked website with just a few additional insights about your average sale, website traffic, and conversion rate online.

Not only is Google getting serious about letting website owners know that page speed on mobile device impacts sales, but they provide the tool to help you understand that even improving your site by a second can improve your sales results; and now you can see that in monetary terms.

Add to this information the announcement that in July 2018 Google will use mobile page speed as a ranking indicator for organic placement and the push to make your site speedy becomes crucial to success. Read the article by Search Engine Land on Google’s announcement.

This focus on mobile impacts not just e-commerce stores, but informational websites. Although the key focus and significant impact is to those that make their living selling products on the web.

Don’t tear your hair out, although Google says speed is important, the do provide additional details.

“Google today announced a new ranking algorithm designed for mobile search. The company is calling it the “Speed Update,” and it will only impact a small percentage of queries, Google reiterated to us. Only pages that “deliver the slowest experience to users” will be impacted by this update, the company says.”

My recommendation is that if you are selling online – start your focus on speed. And if you are really in the service or consulting business, know that speed is important and should be a strong focus when you do a website redesign.

February 28, 2018February 23, 2018

What Are Your Customer Friction Points?

Nancy McCord is a Google and Bing Partner

Friction points, it’s all about finding where customers have trouble completing during the buying process with you and fixing the issues.

Here are some examples of friction points:

Buyers have trouble downloading completed video files for a drone photography agency. What can be done? Maybe using Drop Box with easy to follow instructions and photos on what to do next for a file download.

Prospects have trouble understanding what is included in a blog post sale. How can that be clarified? Maybe posting samples of content with the right word count and number of links to help a prospect understand the type and quality they will receive on your website to prequalify prospects before they even call.

Buyers have trouble getting contract documents to sign and return. How can the process be easier? Maybe using a digital signing service and online document archive would work to speed the return process.

Each business has their own unique set of friction points. Making things easier for people to buy from you is not all e-commerce focused. Friction points exist even for transactions with consultants and business to business sales, and for people who do not even sell items on their website.

My own company’s friction points have previously been: blog writing samples and writing expectations, prospects not having the proper technology to send or receive a contract, and buyers needing an online self-serve credit card payment center.

Are you hearing the same issues over and over from clients and prospects? That is a friction point. Now’s the time to identify what yours are and do something specific to address them to make buying from you and your company frictionless.

February 26, 2018February 23, 2018

Organic Search Results Have Shrunk

We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing, Mobile, and Display. — We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing,, Mobile, and Display.

Yes, organic search results have shrunk in your traffic reports due to a change in how people are now using search engines. Here’s why.

Search Advertising
By search engines boosting search ads on the results page, getting rid of ads on the right sidebar on many devices, and by making the ads larger with site links and other helpful extensions, readers are clicking ads versus scrolling down the page to find organic results.

Smaller Screens
As more viewers are searching on tablets and smartphones, the organic placements are increasingly difficult to find and require too much effort to scroll to. Viewers are instead staying on the first screen they are shown that typically have location specific results which appear to be very relevant to their search – even though these are typically paid listings.

Competition
Businesses are finding that to be highly competitive in their marketplace, they simply must be in pay per click and need to have top positioning on the page. Because organic results have slipped so far below ads and Google My Business organic listings, businesses are having to pay for advertising to be seen.

If you need exposure and need AdWords to help drive it, I encourage you to review our AdWords Manager services page. Pricing will be increasing soon, so now’s a good time to start a program at lower set up fees.

February 21, 2018February 15, 2018

Not Sure AdWords is Working? Stop and Find Out!

If you are not sure that AdWords is working for you, I encourage you to stop your advertising and find out.

Here’s what happened for two of our clients…

Both are doctors and both decided that AdWords clicks were too expensive and both stopped AdWords. Within a week, both medical practices were back up and running in Google AdWords again.

The comments from the two doctors were eerily similar – our phones stopped ringing and we had no new patients. Now that’s a real testimony to the power of AdWords for lead generation!

If you are advertising on AdWords and don’t feel it is working for you, I do recommend that you consider stopping your advertising for several weeks to 30 days. As these two clients found out, one week was long enough for them to know that AdWords was not all about clicks, it was about the phone calls and new patients that it brought in to their practices.

Need Help Putting AdWords to Work for You?

If you need help putting AdWords to work for you, I encourage you to review our AdWords Quick Start Services. We’ll help you get running fast and work to get the results you need for your business. Set up and the first four weeks of account management starts at $899. Don’t wait to sign up as we expect to raise our prices in the next month.