Until recently, Google has indexed sites according to the desktop experience and content in the desktop version. Google didn’t consider mobile versions of websites in its rankings. Toward the end of 2016, Google made an announcement that it is moving to a mobile-first index “in the coming months.” In March 2017 at SMX West, Gary Illyes was asked what was delaying the mobile-first index launch. He suggested Google wants to maintain a “quality neutral” transition, and Google did not want search results to have a large impact from this launch. In June 2017, Google suggested change would likely be coming in 2018. At the very end of 2017, Google began to roll out this change to a few websites. Recently, Google began rolling out the mobile-first index to more sites that follow best practices for the mobile-first index.

What’s changing?

So, what exactly is a mobile-first index? Let’s take a look.

Today more than ever, users are searching on Google with a mobile device. Historically, Google search results have been calculated using the desktop version of a page’s content when calculating rank. This presents a problem in cases where there were differences in content between the mobile and desktop versions of a page.

Image courtesy of: http://gs.statcounter.com/

How does mobile-first impact SEO?

This is clearly a big change by Google in its approach to calculating search ranking. How exactly is it going to impact search ranking for sites?

If you have a responsive or dynamic site already and your content and markup is the same for both mobile and desktop versions, not much will change for you. Google will simply start indexing the mobile version of your site first. Since your content and markup is the same, you should see very little change.

What could change is your SERP standings if there are currently content ranking above you that don’t have responsive sites. That’s right, you could see a bump as others take a hit. While this may not be a lasting impact, it is possible that some sites will see increased traffic through rankings as the mobile first approach shuffles existing content around the SERPs.

So, what does that mean for folks without a responsive site or who aren’t ready for mobile first? If you have a separate mobile site and it doesn’t have the same content and markup as the desktop version, it’s likely you will experience some changes in search rankings as a result of this announcement. Don’t freak out though. Google is far from finished with its rollout, and there are some straightforward changes that you can make to minimize the impact of this change.

How to prepare for a mobile-first index

Regardless of whether you have a responsive website or separate mobile and desktop site, you should head over to Google Search Console soon. Use the Fetch and Render tool and set the user-agent to “mobile:smartphone.” After the fetch and render is complete, take a look at the preview. What you see is likely what Google is seeing for its mobile indexing calculations. If you have a responsive website, you should notice very few, if any, differences in content. As previously mentioned, the rollout of mobile-first indexing will have minimal impact on responsive design sites.

If You Currently Have Separate Sites?

If you have separate desktop and mobile sites, you will probably notice some differences between the two. Google is making it clear that it wants you to accommodate mobile users. If you don’t already have a plan in place to move to a responsive design, it’s a good idea to start as soon as possible. This requires an investment of time and money and will not happen overnight. If you need assistance switching to a responsive design, let us know.

Content

The most important thing to do is to ensure that your primary content is on your mobile site. Google is being clear in it’s switch to looking at mobile first, and serving only a small portion of your content on a mobile site is detrimental to your site’s rank performance. This is specifically impactful for retailers who serve a separate mobile site that quickly load a lighter weight version of the thousands of product pages that they manage. Ensuring your primary content specifically, but all content as well, are on your site will minimize negative impacts.

Page Speed

We also know that mobile versions of sites are often slower than their desktop counterparts. Page speed is a long-standing consideration in Google rank calculations.

Don’t be caught with a site that can’t render content quickly – make sure your team is focused on delivering pages quickly. You can check the difference between mobile and desktop rendering using Google’s page speed analyzer. You can see mobile and desktop versions of page load distributions get page stats and see optimizations to improve your current score.

These tools from Google provide a free way to know where you stand now and where you need to be. If you get a low score, between 0-59, chances are you’re losing traffic and need to pay attention now.

Structured Data and Metadata

If you have separate URLs (or a m-dot URL for mobile), you want to check your structured data. Make sure your URLs in the structured data on the mobile site are updated to the mobile URLs. Google also suggests you make sure titles and meta descriptions are “equivalent” for both sites. It says “equivalent,” but making them identical works as well.

Robots.txt

Take a look at your robots.txt file. Make sure your robots.txt file works as intended for both versions of your site . In most cases, you’ll use the same robots.txt file for both mobile and desktop versions of your site.

Hreflang

If your site has an international component that uses rel=hreflang you need to ensure the hreflang annotations point to the mobile version of your country or language variants. (Desktop URLs should point to desktop versions.)

Social metadata

Your social metadata, including OpenGraphy tags and Twitter cards need to be included on the mobile version, as well as your desktop version.

Tabs and Accordion Menus

One interesting note about this change from desktop-first to mobile-first indexing revolves around tabs and accordion menus. Historically Google has been clear about not liking sites that “hide” content in tabs or accordion menus. Historically, for ranking purposes, it has not given full weight or ignored content it considers “hidden.” Because screen real estate is so precious on mobile sites, Google has been forced to backtrack on this practice. Moving forward, Google will consider content in tabs and accordion menus as content on page for ranking purposes. John Mueller has confirmed this change in approach.

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Community is everything when you’re in business. Why? Because the support of others to help your dreams manifest into reality, is crucial. GeoMarketing composed a blog post about 7 marketing strategies you can use within your community. Let’s review our top 3 out of the 7.

1. Listing Your Business

In the article, GeoMarketing spoke about how listing a business in the Yellow Pages and local newspapers were sufficient resources for consumers. Since the digital age has drastically changed our way of life, consumers are now taking their curiosities and questions to the internet. Search engines like Bing, Google, and Yahoo are the top internet resources which not only provides information about the business, but it also shares website, contact information, social handles, and reviews from other consumers experiences.

2. Digital Outreach

This is also known as social media marketing. As we previously mentioned, we are all accustomed to the digital world. Though many social networking sites (FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) started off as websites for common folk to gather and connect based off their respective interests, somewhere along the way, small businesses took advantage and created opportunities to reach out to consumers. This strategy organically assists building the bridge of trust of consumers. If you follow some businesses, you’ll see they will share posts like project developments, behind the scenes footage of a new campaign, bring your child/pet to work day, or winning awards at an industry conference. Practicing this technique establishes a connection with the consumer. It provokes engagement, which later leads to trust and investment. It also serves as a source of information before and after business hours.

3. Give Back

Show your loyal consumers that you appreciate them with a special promotional event, a contest, or sponsoring students. This method will solidify your relationship with existing supporters, but as a bonus, you may attract new ones as well. The golden rule has as always been, “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.” Meaning, if you share the support and give back to your community, they will support you in return.

Once you’ve built momentum for your business within the community and have their support, your business will begin to expand to other areas outside of your city, state, and possibly region. Every start you have in life will be small. As long as you’re consistent with your marketing efforts, your business will have no choice but to grow.

Read the full article: http://www.geomarketing.com/7-local-marketing-strategies-you-can-use-today

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Digital marketing expenditures between 2015-2020 are expected to rise at a compound growth rate of 12.8 percent. At the same time, traditional advertising revenues will remain flat.

Overall local ad dollars will hit $172.2 billion by 2020 for a decent annual gain of 4.2 percent — an improvement over BIA/Kelsey’s November 2015 call for 3.7 percent yearly increases. As it has for the past decade, local online/interactive/digital marketing dollars will be $71.6 billion, representing 41.6 percent of total local media advertising revenues, up from 28.0 percent in 2015.

The primary spending drivers over digital across the board has been the acceleration of mobile marketing — largely due to Facebook’s and Google’s respectively aggressive efforts in that area — and social media. And the efficacy of mobile and social media spending is itself a product of the rise of location technology, which ensures a greater ability to reach people on-the-go and on their favorite media channels.

Read The Full Article

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Online shoppers outnumbered those that went to retail stores for the first time since Black Friday began. Here are a few other interesting stats to note:

• 74 million shoppers went to a retail store to shop
• Retail sales were down more than 10% year over year
• 151 million people shopped in store & online this year
• The average shopper spent $299.60

The National Retail Federation recently released other statistics that shed light on Black Friday trends this year:

• More than half (51.6%) of gift purchasers said they bought clothing items, and 32.8 percent bought toys. Another 31.9 percent bought books, DVDs and videos/video games, and 32.8 percent bought consumer electronics.
• Nearly one-third (32.5%) said all of their purchases over the weekend were specifically driven by sales and promotions.
• Seven in 10 (72.6%) gave retailers either an “A” or a “B” in terms of how they felt about the promotions over the weekend.
• Two in five (42.9%) said they think retailers’ promotions from now until Christmas Day will be better than those offered over Thanksgiving weekend
• Half of those polled (50.4%) said they shopped in stores over the weekend because the deals were too good to pass up; 31.2 percent said they shopped because it is a tradition, and 25.5 percent said it provides them with something to do over the holiday weekend.

At Vette Marketing, we pride ourselves on providing innovative solutions to companies who want to genuinely engage in online marketing that will drive positive business results. If you are in need of an agency to completely manage and ramp up your online marketing efforts, give us a call!

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Consumers are shifting to mobile usage even more day by day. It is essential that your website run perfectly when being viewed on any device. A poorly optimized website will have people running away, not towards your business or product.

The statistics paint a clear picture of the fact that mobile is here to stay:

• Consumers today spend 60% of their Internet browsing time on their mobile devices as opposed to a desktop computer.
• Growth in mobile data traffic will increase ten fold from 2013-2019.
• 70% of mobile device searches lead to action on a website within one hour of when a search was conducted.

If you are in need of a website redesign, our firm can assist you! We have created countless custom, mobile friendly, and responsive sites. Our commitment to clean, minimalist website design is one of the reasons that many businesses decide to work with us. Let Vette Marketing recharge your online presence!

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Think of Photo Magic as face recognition that comes directly from your camera. Once you take a picture via the Messenger app, Facebook will suggest people for you to share it with. The head of Facebook Messenger had this to say about the new feature:

This feature can be turned on or off at will. It will initially be rolled out in Australia, and hopefully other countries in the near future. Josh Constine of Tech Crunch wrote a great article on Photo Magic. Read it to learn even more! We will be sure to keep you looped in to any other social media developments. If you are in need of effective social media management, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send an email!

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The Vette Marketing website will server as the central communication hub for the company and has several places on the website to correspond to VM by phone, live chat, or through emailing information directly through a web form. Users can get a great idea of the services VM offers, in addition to having the ability to view new featured projects that the company is working on. Some of the most commonly used pages of the VM website include: The Client Results Page, The Free Consultation Page, The VM Blog, and the Contact VM Page.

If you are someone you know is interested in getting more information about how Vette Marketing can help improve your digital marketing strategy please call the office directly at 470-355-1616 or signup for a free detailed consultation: Get Started.

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