Google Rich Results: A short primer

Aug 03, 18 Google Rich Results: A short primer

Posted by in Social Media

Google combined the naming structure for the rich snippets, rich cards, and enriched results and will now call all such results “Rich Results.”  Here is a short primer on everything an SEO should know about these Rich Snippets: How does Google obtain rich results? If you want the data from your site in the rich results, you will need to enable some form of structured data to the search engine spiders. There is no guarantee that the data from your site will show as a rich result, although doing so increases the likelihood. WordPress users only need to install a plugin to enable schema.org structures for their site data. What is the preferred format? The reason sites like Google insist on using structured data for displaying these results is because they allow a site to provide structure to spiders while keeping the display of the data the same for users. Google supports JSON-LD, Microdata, and RDFa, but prefers JSON-LD. Will I rank better? The markup or even appearing in the rich results will not change your ranking for other terms or even the term that appears on the page. Google shows relevant rich results for the search from any of the top 10 results on the page. How do I know if it will work? Any webmaster can use the testing tool by Google to check if the structured markup is correct. Here is an excerpt from the Google Webmaster blog: “The new tool provides a more accurate reflection of the page’s appearance on Search and includes improved handling for Structured Data found on dynamically loaded content. The tests for Recipes, Jobs, Movies, and Courses are currently supported — but this is just a first step, we plan on expanding over...

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Setting up AMP for WordPress

May 03, 18 Setting up AMP for WordPress

Posted by in SEO

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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Google and YouTube rank videos differently 56% of the time

Apr 06, 18 Google and YouTube rank videos differently 56% of the time

Posted by in Social Media

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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SEO Changes we can expect for 2018

Jan 11, 18 SEO Changes we can expect for 2018

Posted by in Featured, SEO

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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What does Google want in a website

Sep 25, 16 What does Google want in a website

Posted by in Social Media

Article Written by : WM SEO How do you build and run the perfect website the way Google sees it? This has always been a tough question to answer. Until now. Thanks in large part to the various announcements that Google makes about changes to search, we can now build an image of what type of site will rank well in Google. Here is what they have said in the recent past: From the announcement post for Google Penguin, we get: “focus on creating amazing, compelling web sites”. Then from the link schemes page: “The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.”. Finally, from the webmaster guidelines, we get: “Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field.” The message here is loud and clear. Google wants Quality in every aspect of the website. From the design to the content, it demands quality. This is not limited to the website itself. It wants you to get quality links, from quality websites to your quality content. The problem is most websites are built backward. People go looking for links before they have anything of quality. The message here is to build a site full of great content and then do your outreach. There are sites that update once every month or two but still rank high because they have hundreds of links. This is the type of quality Google is looking...

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