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AMP is Google’s new standard for lightweight content distribution. Google, indexes sites with AMP content and serves the pages (and ads) from its servers. In some cases, Google even preloads the pages with AMP from its search results. AMP pages look basic, have no styling and use standard fonts, but make content access much faster. Here is a guide on getting AMP up and running on your WordPress installation: Plugin Getting AMP compatible pages on your WordPress installation is as simple as installing and activating the plugin from Automattic. Once you do, all posts will be AMP compatible. You can test the pages by adding /amp/ to the end of the URL of any post. Getting pages to work with AMP requires a separate plugin to install. Analytics The next step is to add your AMP pages to your analytics profile. Login to your Google Analytics dashboard and get the tracking ID from the “tracking info” section under account properties. The should begin with UA. Enter this tracking ID in the AMP plugin under analytics. Test Now that you have an operational AMP page setup, we need to test and make sure everything works correctly. The first tool you can use Is the Google Amp Rest. Go to the tool and enter your URL and hit “run test.” Another option is to use the developer tools in Chrome. Open the tools and go to the “Console” tab. Here you will if there are any validation errors for you AMP...
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One of the highlights of a new study on video ranking on both Google and YouTube was the difference between how each ranks the same videos. When comparing the same search query, the ranking between Google and YouTube was different 56% of the time. The outcome of the study is quite surprising, given that the search elements of both companies are run by the same backend. Even when the search result has only one video on Google, a different video was shown first on YouTube at least half of the time. The current theory is that the results illustrate the difference between the intentions of both services. Google exists to serve the most relevant information for the search query. The search engine’s algorithm most likely places emphasis on relevance above all else. YouTube, on the other hand, exists to entertain visitors. The end-goal is to keep a visitor on-site for as long as possible. The longer the visitor stays, the more ads they will see. These two vastly different goals probably explain the larger difference between the search results. It is also important for any organizations looking to expand their presence in video. Ranking in Google will require prioritizing relevance while ranking on YouTube will mean creating videos that are relevant and entertaining. A good video campaign should produce content for both, taking advantage of the very different audiences that visit each...
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Good organic backlinks are very difficult to get. Especially if your website is new to the space. Building up a backlink profile using social media takes time and requires a high level of constant engagement with your audience. Something that might not be suitable for all markets. There is however a way to get links, and that is by link prospecting. This involves some research and outreach. Here are some potential sources of links: Partnership pages: Relevant partner sites are likely to be willing to link to your site or relevant page in request. In some cases you won’t even need to link back. Industry resource lists: These are great for relevant links that both server and SEO purpose and also an online marketing resource for anyone looking for your services. Blog communities: Guest authors or commenters may have their own sites worth promoting to, although this should be limited in order to avoid getting penalized by Google for excessive article marketing. Backlink analysis: Sites that link to your competition can also be sources of links to you. In addition getting links that they have narrows any advantage they will get in the search rankings. Associations: View membership lists for potential prospects. Look at becoming part of these groups and you get linked back from their main site pages. Depending on the industry there are lots of groups. Social communities: Search social communities or forums for other potential link...
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As the returns from PPC campaigns surge thanks to increased Google Search traffic and Google’s traffic acquisition increases, it is becoming more important to hire a PPC consultant to handle your organization’s campaigns. However, unless you know the field well, it’s not easy to determine the right candidate when everyone throws the same buzzwords around. Here are some questions that you can ask for gauge their level of knowledge and if they are the right fit for your firm: Quality Score Keywords, Ad text, and landing page relevance are three components that make up the Google Quality Score. How do you improve the score? By using smaller Ad groups, that target few keywords, which are relevant to the landing page. A good PPC expert will know this, know how to improve yours, and know when the score is not important. Google Auction Knowing the Google Auction process is critical to getting the most of your campaign. Here are three stages of the process that a PPC expert should know: When a user enters a search, AdWords pulls all the ads whose keywords match that particular search. From the ads, any that aren’t eligible, such as ads that target a different country or have been disapproved, will be ignored. From the ads remaining, only those with a high enough Ad Rank will show results. Click-Thru-Rate Another simple question that stumps a lot of ‘experts’ is how Google calculated the click-through rate of an Ad. It is a basic question that everyone should know. The formula is simple: The total number of clicks divided by the total number of impressions = click-through...
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There are a lot of changes we can expect in 2018 with Google Search and as a result, in the world of SEO. Here are some of the main changes we can expect: Machine Learning The biggest change we can expect is more use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in Search. Google uses machine learning in RankBrain, Cloud Vision, etc. When Google first announced RainBrain, the technology only affected 15% of search queries. Today, RankBrain affects all search queries. We can expect that machine learning will take over more and more components of the search algorithm. Voice Search Google sold millions of Google Assistant enabled devices during the last holiday season. Today, one in five queries are from voice search. With so many new Google Assistant devices in the market, we can expect the majority of queries to slowly switch over to voice. Google will surely increase the proliferation of Featured Snippets, as they are the source of information for Assistant devices. Linkless Mentions Microsoft’s Bing search engine uses a method of tracking mentions that do not involve a backlink and provide credit for the attribution. Google looks to be doing the same, based on a recent patent filing. Once again, Google will use machine learning to find, identify, and track these linkless mentions. Fake News Google will activate Knowledge-Based Trust (KBT), its new system to evaluate the quality of the page based on the accuracy of the content. It will be difficult for anyone to measure the success of the system outside of Google, but it shows that accuracy and truthfulness will become a part of ranking...
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At a presentation by Marcus Tober on new ranking factors for 2017 and beyond, there were some noteworthy changes to how Google’s algorithm is changing. Here are some highlights from the presentation. There are three general trends according to the presentation: Page load times are dropping across the board. Both HTTPS and page load speed are new (and public) ranking signals that require little effort on the part of the site owners to implement. Google’s grasp of the meaning and intention behind the content is increasing, and the data shows that more and more pages that rank at the top do not have the keyword phrase in the title. Bigger is better by the looks it as higher ranking correlates quite highly with content length, with the top three positions as much as 45% longer than lower ranked content. Also, there seems to be a tendency to weigh ranking factors differently by industry: The study examined the difference between the weights of ranking factors from one industry to another. For example, Finance sites get a higher boost from HTTPS than a gaming site. On the other hand, larger and better images boost travel sites but show no difference for finance sites. The ranking factors also change for niche sites. Recipe sites get more of a boost when using schema than others. SEO is changing, and Google is getting better and better at identifying good content that matches both the site and the user’s intention. The changes are positive in that they encourage and promote the creation quality content that has value to the...
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Ask any digital marketer, and he or she will always say the most important thing is data. With enough data, you can identify where a campaign is failing and turn it around. Data can also take a successful Ad-spend and optimize it further. However, data is nothing without proper structure and visualization. Getting the right reports from your data is critical. Here are some tips for creating killer reports: Focus – Maintain focus when creating reports. Just because you have every variable from a specific campaign does not mean that all that information is useful. Focus on the metrics you want to measure. If a particular statistic or metric has no usefulness, don’t include it. Questions – Often, reports just show how data trends over time. The key to effective reporting is to identify key questions. For example: Is overall traffic increasing? Are sales of product X increasing? How is the average profit per sale trending? What is our share of the market?. Now build a report that answers those questions. Intention – Sometimes a client will hand over a list of metrics they want in a report. Before you commit to generating reports, sit down with the client and talk about the intention behind some of the metrics they requested. Make sure all the metrics are part of the overall goal. Customize – Do not try and create a single report for all situations. You will need different reports that answer different questions at various stages of the year. Understand the different times that you will need to track different metrics and build custom reports for those...
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