This 11-plus-minute video by Google’s Maile Ohye explains what questions to ask and what to look for during that hiring process of an SEO consulting firm, including useful insights, red flags and more. Read more
We just had some Google algorithm update a week ago potentially targeting spammy links I believe. And now a week later, around February 7th, yesterday, it seems there was another algorithm update. This update doesn’t seem specific to links or spam but rather just a normal unconfirmed Google update where ranking changes shift based on something changing at Google.
I do not believe it is related to the mobile bug because most of the automated tracking tools only track desktop search.
There is some chatter, the chatter in the SEO community is not YET that hot but it might heat up throughout the day as people check their analytics and tools.
An ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has these posts:
SERPs movements again in our vertical. We’re seeing some recoveries from previous penguin casualties and some domain crowding. Spam STILL having a huge positive impact.
Yesterday (Tue 7th) I saw a huge spike in organic traffic, ~30% over avg, and 18% increase from previous record day in November. It’s a Canadian financial-related site. Increases from both Google.ca as well as other search engines/
Here is a post on Twitter that even caught Gary Illyes attention:
And here are the tracking tools showing changes on the 7th, note Mozcast is well behind in terms of tracking so this might be related to the link spam update we covered last week?
Have you noticed any changes over the past 24 hours?
Oriented toward small businesses, the company wants to offer new features that build on the customer and product data stored in its email platform. Read more
The option to show extensions during store hours or time-sensitive promotions is available in all markets. Read more
The past few days saw the digital marketing world awaken from its post-holiday slumber and really put out some eye-opening stats.
Having a strong online presence has become a necessity for businesses of all sizes.
You just launched a startup and need to get your brand in front of as many eyes as possible. The problem is you are not just competing in your industry, you are competing with the millions of other marketing messages that consumers are bombarded with every day. What’s an entrepreneur to do?
Statistics show that more than half of consumers turn to the internet for information before making purchases:
Fortunately, there are a few digital marketing tips for startups we wanted to share:
To start, it is important to set up a website for your startup if you haven’t already. Whether you hire someone to design and create your website or choose to build your own is up to you. However, it is often more cost-effective for a startup owner, especially one with a low budget, to build a website. From smaller websites for start-up to multi-language sites across the globe, Onimod Global has a perfect website for every budget.
Once you have your website set up, you’re ready to take the next steps to develop your digital marketing strategy:
Onimod Global are here for you every step of the way as you build your company. We are Digital Marketing gurus with expertise in multipl-digital channels.
Contact us today and find out why we’re the best choice for launching your new business to where it needs to b this 2017.
This past year has been an intense one, to say the least. But we’re finally nearing the end, and we’re ready to set our sights on 2017! Of course, in order to make appropriate assumptions about what will occur next year, we have to look back at some of the notable digital marketing predictions that came true this year.
Throughout 2016, we saw a rise in voice search queries, Google’s Penguin algorithm began updating in real-time, mobile-friendly sites continued to be rewarded, and so much more. Social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram expanded their arsenals, and AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology was such a favorite this year that Amazon was sold out of its Echo and Echo Dot devices at one point.
Since many of these popular trends are still pretty new, we can only expect them to continue to grow in the new year.
Mobile search has always been an important component of SEO — and of digital marketing in general — so it’s no surprise that its role continues to grow as years pass. In 2015, Google released a mobile-friendly update to their search algorithm. Since this update, mobile-friendly websites have had the advantage over others when it comes to mobile rankings.
Today, many businesses are receiving more traffic from mobile search over desktop. In fact, Moz performed a study that showed 20 out of 24 industry niches note mobile as their primary source of web traffic. As technology progresses and Google continues to reward those with mobile-friendly sites over others, we have no doubt that the mobile-first trend will continue to rise and most likely overcome our desktop-first mentality.
If the mobile-first shift comes to pass, it’s possible that the move towards PWAs will as well. Just as AMP (a code that optimizes mobile websites) took precedence in 2015 and 2016, PWAs, or Progressive Web Apps, may take center stage in 2017. Users are becoming less and less patient with page load speeds, and even a highly optimized site has trouble loading within 3 seconds. Enter: Progressive Web Apps.
They’re defined as user experiences that have the same capabilities as a web page, and are reliable, fast, and engaging. In other words, they allow a website/website page to work as if it were an app, without actually being an app. Although PWAs may not be suitable for every type of business, there are plenty that could benefit from them, such as content-heavy or real-time data sites, chat-related platforms, news outlets, and blogs.
As consumers yearn for safer, faster, and easier-to-use mobile-friendly websites, we can expect to see a greater prominence of Progressive Web Apps in 2017. They may even replace the use of separate mobile sites or apps entirely — but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Consumers have become accustomed to carrying around mobile devices and having practically anything they need right at their fingertips. Now, both brands and individuals have begun using livestreaming as a way to be more in-the-moment with their followers (capitalizing on that whole #FOMO trend of the last couple years).
In the past, brands chalked up their entire video marketing strategy to the hope that one of their videos would go viral. However, as video (live video, in particular) becomes a larger part of users’ everyday lives, brands are going to have to work on continuously creating quality video content.
Joe Pulizzi remarks on how video will become an important part of content marketing strategies in 2017 in an article for the Content Marketing Institute:
“It doesn’t take “Chewbacca Mom” to show us how big and important using video and having a visual storytelling strategy are…most brands [should begin] building a process and organization around the ongoing delivery of valuable information through video.”
As top platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat are incorporating live video, we can be sure we’ll see it grow in 2017.
Back in the good ol’ days, online advertising was defined by intrusive pop-up ads and annoying flashing sidebar ads. And it’s important to remember that most of those ads were irrelevant and spammy.
While there are still plenty of ads like this, native advertising has helped online ads become more user-friendly. And to ensure that users don’t click on unwanted ads, brands are required to clearly label these ads as such. Websites like BuzzFeed, Mashable, and even The New York Times offer sponsored content that relate the ads to content users are already interested in viewing.
Brands are also taking advantage of the native advertising potential on social media sites like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. With Facebook pushing their Promoted posts and ads and Instagram releasing it’s “Shop Now” button, we’re sure to see more online native advertising in the coming year.
Data is key to knowing the who’s, what’s, when’s, why’s, and how’s of your marketing strategy. However, that doesn’t mean analyzing data is easy. In all honesty, it can be boring and immensely time-consuming when done properly. Even if you analyze data every day, digesting all those numbers can be tricky.
Thankfully, there are plenty of data visualization tools that can help. As technology evolves, so are visuals; and as more data visualization tools become available, the more businesses are going to start using them. In addition, as narrative content grows in popularity, the need for visual storytelling grows.
Keeping these technological and content marketing trends in mind, 2017 is probably just the beginning of the data visualization revolution.
While we don’t have a crystal ball to know exactly what 2017 will hold, we feel it’s safe to say there is a lot to look forward to. What are your digital marketing predictions for the upcoming year? Leave your thoughts in the comments — we’d love to hear ‘em!
Security has always been critical to the web, but challenges involved in site migration have inhibited HTTPS adoption for several years. In the interest of a safer web for all, Google have worked alongside many others across the online ecosystem to better understand and address these challenges, resulting in real change. A web with ubiquitous HTTPS is not the distant future. It’s happening now, with secure browsing becoming standard for users of Chrome.
Today, they’re adding a new section to the HTTPS Report Card in our Transparency Report that includes data about how HTTPS usage has been increasing over time. More than half of pages loaded and two-thirds of total time spent by Chrome desktop users occur via HTTPS, and we expect these metrics to continue their strong upward trajectory.
Percentage of pages loaded over HTTPS in Chrome
As the remainder of the web transitions to HTTPS, Google will continue working to ensure that migrating to HTTPS is a no-brainer, providing business benefit beyond increased security. HTTPS currently enables the bestperformance the web offers and powerful features that benefit site conversions, including both new features such as service workers for offline support and web push notifications, and existing features such as credit card autofill and the HTML5 geolocation API that are too powerful to be used over non-secure HTTP. As with all major site migrations, there are certain steps webmasters should take to ensure that search ranking transitions are smooth when moving to HTTPS. To help with this, they’ve posted two FAQs to help sites transition correctly, and will continue to improve thei web fundamentals guidance.
We’ve seen many sites successfully transition with negligible effect on their search ranking and traffic. Brian Wood, Director of Marketing SEO at Wayfair, a large retail site, commented: “We were able to migrate Wayfair.com to HTTPS with no meaningful impact to Google rankings or Google organic search traffic. We are very pleased to say that all Wayfair sites are now fully HTTPS.” CNET, a large tech news site, had a similar experience: “We successfully completed our move of CNET.com to HTTPS last month,” said John Sherwood, Vice President of Engineering & Technology at CNET. “Since then, there has been no change in our Google rankings or Google organic search traffic.”
Webmasters that include ads on their sites also should carefully monitor ad performance and revenue during large site migrations. The portion of Google ad traffic served over HTTPS has increased dramatically over the past 3 years. All ads that come from any Google source always support HTTPS, including AdWords, AdSense, or DoubleClick Ad Exchange; ads sold directly, such as those through DoubleClick for Publishers, still need to be designed to be HTTPS-friendly. This means there will be no change to the Google-sourced ads that appear on a site after migrating to HTTPS. Many publishing partners have seen this in practice after a successful HTTPS transition. Jason Tollestrup, Director of Programmatic Advertising for the Washington Post, “saw no material impact to AdX revenue with the transition to SSL.”
As migrating to HTTPS becomes even easier, Google will continue working towards a web that’s secure by default. Don’t hesitate to start planning your HTTPS migration today!
For more information on this topic or to answer any questions you may have, contact an Onimod Global digital marketing expert today.
