Find out which web browsers and search engines are the market share leaders for December 2018. Changes from the previous update (September 2018) are marked with arrows. No arrow = no change.
 

Search Engine Market Share Leaders 2018

Google retains a commanding lead with increases (+2%) in desktop search and decreases (-3%) in mobile search.
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Mobile Devices

1. Google: 81% (84%)
2. Yahoo!: 0.9%
3. Bing: 0.8%
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Desktop Devices

1. Google: 74% (72%)
2. Bing: 8%
3. Yahoo! 4%
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Related News: Duck Duck Go Broke 9 Million Searches in 2018
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Web Browser Market Share Leaders 2018

Desktop browser market share shifted as the battle for second place between Internet Explorer and Firefox ensues while Chrome continues extending their lead. Mobile didn’t see nearly as much action.
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Mobile Web Browsers

1. Chrome: 63%
2. Safari: 27%
3. Opera Mini: 1% (2%)
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Desktop Web Browsers

1. Chrome: 64% (62%)
2. Internet Explorer: 11% (12%)
3. Firefox: 10% (11%)
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Related News: Microsoft Rebuilding Edge with Chromium Code Base
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Market Share Source: NET MarketShare

This Nov 24, we want to share Small Business Saturday with you! It’s a holiday shopping tradition that celebrates small businesses like ours. And it wouldn’t be a celebration without customers like you joining us.

So mark your calendar for Nov 24th — the Saturday after Thanksgiving — and get ready to #ShopSmall with us. Check-in with us on LinkedIn or Twitter during the big day. We’ve got something special planned!

You can help get the word out and celebrate Small Business Saturday by using #ShopSmall on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all your social networks.

Thank you for all your support, and we’ll see you Saturday, Nov 24th!

Here’s how to get started using Squoosh:

1. Visit the Squoosh website
2. Drag and drop or upload an image

I tried it with an 8 MB image that was reduced by 93% in size with what seemed like no reduction in image quality.

The screen capture below taken of Squoosh in action was reduced in size by 93% from 1.32 MB to 94.4 kB.

Squooshed Image – 94.4 kB – 93% file size reduction

Not Squooshed Image – 1.32 MB

Once again, I can’t visibly detect any loss of image quality. Imagine if your whole website had images that loaded 93% faster?

What this means is that images and static files can be served off Automattic’s ultra-fast servers instead of your own web host’s server. Not that we’re implying your web host is slow, it’s just that theirs is really really fast.

About half of the sites we manage that are powered by WP and have Jetpack installed received the below notification.

The other half did not. Meaning we had to go into Jetpack and manually turn on the new CDN for static files like JavaScript and CSS.

If your WordPress backend didn’t trigger a notification visit WP Admin/Jetpack/Settings/Writing and look for the Performance & Speed section.

Flip the toggle switch on and you are set!

You could stand in line like everyone else this Black Friday. Or, instead, you could choose to #OptOutside. Maybe soak your bones in a natural hot spring after bagging an epic hike and/or golden hour sunset. Or, yeah, you could spend the day standing in line. Decisions, decisions.

This Black Friday join us as we continue to support the #OptOutside movement started by REI.

Tools for Planning Your Black Friday Escape

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How-to Articles and Trail Finder
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REI Adventure Planner – learn or refresh an outdoor skill and find trails to hike near you.
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Adventure Search Map
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Track down a wide variety of outdoor adventures near you with Outdoor Project’s indispensable Adventure Search Map.
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Shoot for the Golden Hour
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Seek out your local Golden Hour – the first and last hour of sunlight during the day optimal for outdoor photography.
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Soak in a Natural Hot Springs
[/panel-header]
[panel-content]
Reconnect with nature by spending the day blissfully soaking in a natural hot springs in California, Idaho, Nevada or Oregon.
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Don’t forget to hashtag your Black Friday adventures: #OptOutside – Cya on the trail!

Nothing beats generating relevant – useful site optimization goodness on the fly. Especially when it can be quickly accessed with your long time trusted best buddy and pal – your web browser.

We’ve been using a multitude of website optimization tools on a daily basis for over a decade and thought it was about time to share our favorites that can be easily utilized within your favorite web browser.

SEO Quake Website Optimization

An oldie but tremendous goodie – is your browser shaking or is it just another SEO Quake? Ha ha. This well crafted tool is best used for ultra fast checking of web pages against a ton of SEO parameters. Plus, on-page and link auditing along with domain/URL comparisons and exports – BOOM. All right here.

Lighthouse Website Improvement

Need to go deeper? How does a Chrome web browser tool designed for improving the quality of web pages endorsed by Google sound? One that can be run on any web page that returns audits on performance, progressive web apps, accessibility, best practices and yes – SEO. Lighthouse can be run in Chrome DevTools and as a Chrome Extension right here.

Built With Website Technology Profiler

Ever wanted to know more about a particular website? Like why is it so fast, who’s hosting it? Or, what font/CMS/feature is that? Built With has been around for years and scans websites in order to discern what technologies were utilized. You can install it on Chrome, Firefox, Edge and as a bookmarklet right here.
 

3 Additional Must Have Tools for Your Web Browser

ColorZilla – Color picker and eyedropper tool with additional color related tasks (Chrome/Firefox)
Google Analytics – See live visitors on your website along with access to analytic data (Chrome)
Google Publisher – Easy access to AdSense and DoubleClick data and ad selection tools (Chrome)

From site health and migrations to keyphrase intelligence and crawl testing, we offer a plethora of services for under $500. Here is a list of our most requested consulting services that cost less than $500.

• Test a website with our crawler and receive a listing of optimization issues that include recommendations.
• Optimize blog posts by reviewing content and providing guidance.
• Improve organic search engine positioning by auditing a key landing page.
• Provide an analysis featuring recommendations for speeding up a website.
• Give the best options for preserving and improving optimization for a new website, migration or redesign.
• Help with a new idea by providing an assessment of historical organic and paid search term volumes.
• Troubleshoot search engine issues like site indexation and Google Knowledge Panel website information.
• Monitor for site issues and provide weekly analytic reporting for three months.
• Make sure Google Ads, AdWords, AdSense, Alerts, My Business and/or Search Console are configured correctly.
• Assess the best options for monetizing a website.

Oftentimes it makes sense to have us assist your team with specific areas of interest. For companies that need to address all of the above issues and more we offer ongoing SEO and search engine advertising service.

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Related Links: Service Listing, FAQ, Blog Post Optimization Guide, Mobile Friendly Test

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions.

It’s that time of the year again… the time for singing loud for all to hear!

This year, we wanted to give a gift that gives back in the theme of the holiday spirit.

As a result, we teamed up with the Arbor Day Foundation in order to plant over 40 trees for our partners and clients.

Why? Aside from the fact that trees are awesome, there’s this:

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. – John Muir

Happy Holidays from your friends at Jtree SEO!

A fast loading website just isn’t enough these days unless it is mobile-friendly. The three tools below are provided by Google and were developed in order to test website speed and mobile-friendliness. The first tool is especially important, websites that don’t pass this test are not treated as mobile-friendly in the eyes of Google. The other tools have been included because they provide expanded insight about how to increase site speed and imporove mobile-friendliness.

1. Google Search Console Mobile-Friendly Test

Tests your website to see if it meets Google’s criteria for mobile-friendly and provides details about page loading issues and site-wide usability.

Why it’s important: Mobile-friendliness is a weighted organic search engine ranking signal. If your site doesn’t pass this test it will not be treated as mobile-friendly nor will it benefit from the added signal weight.

Launch Test

2. Google Developers PageSpeed Test

Tests page speed in order to provide relevant optimization suggestions and assigns a speed score out of 100 to both mobile and desktop versions of your website.

Why it’s important: Gives options about how to speed-up both mobile and desktop versions of your website.

Launch Test

3. Think with Google Mobile Speed Test

Tests the speed of your mobile website and plots the results on an industry comparison speed graph. Provides top fixes and an option to receive a report.

Why it’s important: Shows gain/loss mobile speed estimates and top fixes.

Launch Test

Jtree is based in Boise and Portland and has assisted companies throughout the nation with increasing site speed and maintaining mobile-friendliness. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions.

SEO is so much more than just digital marketing. It requires a fundamental understanding of the technology that powers the web.

Awesome SEOs Know How to Optimize Beyond the Website

The most effective SEO companies possess in-depth knowledge of website development, design, hosting and domain names and can optimize almost any website, regardless of platform or programming language. They not only are capable of acquiring valuable organic search engine exposure but maintaining it by strictly adhering to search engine guidelines and protocols.

A good SEO will try to prioritize what ideas can bring your business the most improvement for the least investment, and what improvements may take more time, but help growth in the long term. –Maile Ohye, Google

Research Digital Footprints, Clients and Social Media

The difficulty is, how do you hire an SEO that is up to the task? Like any other type of business, researching the basics is a good place to start.

Checklist: Research Tips for Hiring an SEO Company

• Since the web is their mainstay, Google them. A little searching should give you a decent first impression.
• Visit their website and take a look at their portfolio. Does it look like they service your type of business? Do they have actual, verifiable clients listed?
• How many years have they been in business?
• How much experience does the consultant or SEO company staff have?
• Do they use/update their own website?
• Do they have a social media presence? Are they active?
• Do they suffer from “jack of all trades master of none” syndrome AKA offer too many services?
• Do they have website design and development skillsets? A solid SEO should be able to optimize nearly any website platform, CMS or custom build.
• How robust is their optimization? In addition to on-site, off-site and technical SEO, they need to be able to optimize website hosting, domains and analytics.

Organic and Paid Search

SEO consultants, agencies and companies that specifically provide SEO usually offer paid search (Google Ads) and auxiliary services like auditing and website migration management. Which makes sense, as SEO and PPC are the primary methods for reaching audiences on search engines.

Stand-Alone and Ongoing Services

Most reputable SEO organizations offer a mix of stand-alone services like auditing and consulting as well as ongoing service options.

What to Look for When Hiring an SEO Company

Ideally, hiring an SEO company that meets the following standards is a great place to begin. You’ll want to talk with them at least once before they prepare a proposal for service in order to provide them with the relevant information they need to conduct market and competitive research.

Checklist: General SEO Company Hiring Standards

• Has been in business a few years (at least 2-3).
• Has experience in your industry.
• Has experience optimizing your website platform/CMS type.
• Has a public portfolio with links to actual clients.
• Provides local and national SEO.
• Provides customized weekly and monthly reporting with ongoing service.
• Provides daily critical issue monitoring with ongoing service.
• Clearly distinguishes between implementation and recommendation service types.

SEO Hiring Process Expectations

Requesting a proposal for service is typically the next phase initiated after narrowing the field of potential SEO organizations or consultants you are interested in hiring.

SEO Proposals

Once you have connected with a prospective SEO company they will most likely respond with a few simple questions that will assist with conducting research. To create an effective proposal, the SEO will need to know about your services and products, competition and most importantly – your expectations.

SEO proposals come in many flavors, the most common are for ongoing service, project management/consulting and conducting website auditing. Some SEOs will require contracts, while others will not.

Jtree Insight: We generally take the approach of not wanting to force anyone to conduct business with us if they don’t want to. This just means we utilize a monthly agreement for providing ongoing service instead of a multi-month contract.

Hiring the SEO Company

After reviewing the proposal and asking the SEO any relevant questions it’s time to make your decision. You can usually expect to be signing either a contract or agreement of some type which will entail deliverables, timing and costs before service launches.

Search engine optimization organizations are just like other businesses in that if they look sketchy, they probably are. Paying close attention to tips and basic standards when hiring an SEO should greatly increase the likelihood that you will be hiring a pro.

Guide Information

Jtree is a Portland and Boise based SEO company that has managed SEO for organizations throughout the US since 2009. Our intent with this guide is to assist and educate those that might be interested in hiring an SEO company for their business. Please contact us with any questions.