Tag: Google

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Google Starts to Warn Website Owners on Mobile Viewing Issues

Google Notice on Mobile
You do not want to get this email from Google!

You do not want to get email from Google – really!  Just this week Google started posting in the Webmaster Control Panel and emailing website owners notifications like this one.

“Google systems have tested 25 pages from your site and found that 96% of them have critical mobile usability errors. The errors on these 24 pages severely affect how mobile users are able to experience your website. These pages will not be seen as mobile-friendly by Google Search, and will therefore be displayed and ranked appropriately for smartphone users.”

Seeing as this site has only 25 pages, that means that Google is in essence saying “you’ve got big problems!”

Earlier in the year, Google warned that they would be evaluating websites for mobile friendliness and they also stated that this notification such as this one in this blog post would be the first step. The second step, Google stated,  would be to mark the site in the Google mobile search index as not viewable on a mobile phone.  Yikes, that sounds like a soft penalty.

Google also alluded to a third step which to many webmasters such as myself appears to be a organic penalty. Although Google may be slow to take this last action, they are clearly working their plan starting just this past week.

Many legacy websites are simply not responsive designed and are not mobile friendly. The site that received this notification is over 8 years old. If your site was not built in the last two years, expect to be getting notification of problems too.

I invite you to review our prices and programs to help you move your legacy website to a responsive site that Google will love. Find out more today.

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My Predictions for the Web for 2015

New-York-New-Year-2014[1]
Nancy McCord’s 2015 Predictions
It’s getting close to the end of the year and I’m getting the jump on the rest with my predictions for what we will see in 2015 on the Web. Here’s what I see as important for my industry and for business owners to take notice of.

1. The Mobile Web and Google
This whole next year expect to see more activity from Google in regards to refining how websites are ranked based on mobile friendliness. If you at the minimum do not have a DudaMobile website to turn you not so friendly mobile site into one that Google will like, now’s the time to make that move. Better yet is to invest in rebuilding your website using a responsive design which will serve you better in the long run.

2. Mobile Pay Will Be Hot
As all merchants will need to upgrade their swipe terminals to accept the new SIM card personal identifier in credit cards, Brian Shea of Seven Sages and I predict that nearly all merchants will move to the contactless pay terminals allowing greater use of mobile payments with Apple Pay and Softcard. I really like Mobile Pay and predict that this will really change our world in 2015 and 2016. Thanks Brian for the tip on terminals.

3. Organic Listings Will be Pushed Below the Fold on Google.com
Google is continuing to try to keep visitors on their site even longer with the Knowledge Graph and the Carousel. I expect to see Google continue to add even more location specific content on the Google.com page pushing true organic listings even lower on the page and these may actually be pushed below the fold. This will drive more businesses into Google AdWords for visibility. As the lines are blurred even further between paid ads and unpaid listings I expect to see strong growth in Google’s income as more businesses vie for the limited ad spaces.

4. Facebook Will Be in Direct Search Competition With Google
I don’t expect to see this in early 2015, but I would expect to see Facebook launch its own search engine by the end of 2015. I expect to see it branded with personal reviews and friend’s activity, making it a powerful competitor to Google. I am expecting to see developments in this area by late 2015 and early 2016. I feel that Facebook is looking to be more than a social news site and looking to go head to head with Google AdWords but in a unique creative way that will cause huge issues for Google’s market share.

5. Twitter Will Try to Become “Facebook”
In 2015 I expect Twitter to continue to try to attract more readers onto their home page and may actually drop the ability for so many third party apps to post content. I expect to see Twitter try to control scheduling of posts by either creating their own posting scheduling app or selecting only approved vendors. Twitter is looking to innovate and to stay vital, it will need to work to re-invent itself new technology in 2015 or start to lose market share.

Those are my top five predictions for 2015. Do you have any of your own you want to share, just leave them in comments.

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AdWords Conversions Move to the Mobile Space

Beautiful young woman talking on mobile phone
Smartphones are no longer a luxury but a necessity.

I manage a large number of AdWords accounts for clients in a wide and diverse sector of businesses. In the last two months I have seen very marked trend – that is the importance of mobile for lead conversions.

Of specific note is that for some clients, mobile has become their sole avenue for lead generation. For some, no longer do people take time to complete the contact form on their website, it is all click to call and with nearly all leads coming in via mobile activity.

Specifically, I see this activity on accounts that have a very strong location specificity; such as accounts for doctors, dentists, lawyers, and heating and air conditioning service providers. If the product you sell is relatively expensive, typically the desktop and tablet arena is still where most of your leads will come from, but for many mobile is REALLY ramping up.

What I’ve found is by installing website call tracking from AdWords on a website, we are getting a fuller view of how clients are using AdWords and how the client is getting lead conversions. I am finding that AdWords is driving a huge amount of call traffic for clients that we previously could not track. With this information, we are also finding out that a call versus an email conversion is now your consumers action preference.

I find that the way people use AdWords, perform research, and how leads are now generated has changed, and significantly so. Make sure that your website and your AdWords account is set up properly to take advantage of this strong emerging trend that is mobile driven. This is the future for AdWords not just a short term trend.

If you need a savvy AdWords account manager, who just also happens to be a Google Partner to help you ramp up your conversion activity, you’ll want to look over our service offerings today.

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How Does Your Website Stack Up in the Mobile Space – Test It!

Screen Shot Showing the Results of the Google Mobile Friendly Testing Tool
Screen Shot Showing the Results of the Google Mobile Friendly Testing Tool

Google continues to push and refine its message as to the importance all websites having a mobile friendly website. Just this past week on the mobile version of Google I started to see tags in front of search listings as to if the site was mobile friendly or not.

Truthfully, I believe the next step is for Google to filter out and not supply sites at all in the mobile search results that have not stepped up to create the proper mobile experience. I expect to see this happen within the next six months.

Google is serious about having a great experience for mobile users on their mobile search platform. If they do not, then users will migrate to other providers who show more relevant results. If they move, Google will lose big in the ad arena. So for Google showing the right mobile friendly results in mobile search directly equates with its own bottom-line. Miscalculate on how Google feels about mobile and you’ll be out of their index.

The great things is that Google moves slowly to make big changes like this, letting users know that they feel is important and provides tools to help site owners. Here is just one of the tools that Google has recently released: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/. It is an online tool to test just how friendly your website is.

Take the tool for a test drive to see just how your website stacks up. For now you have time to fix these problems, but you will not be able to wait forever. If you are using a legacy site, one that is not built with a responsive design and are not using a mobile rendering plugin or application to turn your old website into a mobile friendly one, you’ve just got to take action within the next six months to get there. We can help you get there. I invite you to review our responsive design options today to start on evaluating your options.