What Google AMP Means & How You As A Content Marketer Can Adapt

If you’re a web marketer, chances are you’ve heard about Google’s recent AMP project. If not, here’s the rundown: AMP stands for “accelerated mobile pages,” and it’s Google’s most recent attempt to streamline mobile content for marketers and users everywhere. While most marketers are greeting AMP with enthusiasm, there’s no doubt that it will change web marketing in a big way. Here’s what you need to know about the major Google shift, and what it means for your web content. First, I’ll go more into defining, and then give you a how-to of sorts.

What is AMP?

According to industry experts analysing the launch like Search Engine Journal and Smart Insights, AMP is Google’s response to the launch of Facebook Instant Articles – an innovative feature that went live in 2014 and allowed users to access a selection of…

New mobile ranking factors report from Searchmetrics shows the key differences

The summer of 2015 is when Google searches on Mobile Devices exceeded that of personal computers world-wide for the very first time. A landmark in the world of Search, and something not only Google are looking to capitalize on, but something all business owners and marketer should (at the very least) be aware of. “So what does this mean for me?” I hear you cry. Looking at it from the perspective of a Webmaster, Business Owner, SEOs and content marketers, it raises the question of strategy. Do we follow a ‘One size fits all’ strategy addressing both Desktop and Mobile under one roof, or do we begin to use a separate strategy to tackle mobile search as a separate entity? In short, I think it’s time we look to use two strategies which we'll discuss. Using the ranking factors below, should certainly aid…

Who are the winners and losers since Google's mobile update?

If you're involved in using SEO to drive traffic, you’ll no doubt know the hype of the build up to Google’s mobile friendly algorithm update since it was initially announced in the autumn of 2014 and finally rolled out a month ago today on April 21st, 2015.  Many predicted major changes as a result of the update, with Google’s Zineb Ait Bahajji saying at SMX Munich that the upcoming mobile-friendly algorithm update would 'impact more sites than their Panda or Penguin algorithms'. Even the mainstream media picked up on it, dubbing it 'Mobilegeddon'... So one month on what has the impact been? Has it impact been like that of a zombie apocalypse, or is it more a case of Business as Usual for most? In this post I'll look at insights from different studies which show the impact of effected websites. I'll also look at how you…

How to use Custom Segments in Google Analytics to check the impact of Google's mobile-friendly algorithm changes live since April 21 2015

Well, the mainstream media have been calling it 'Mobilegeddon', which maybe overstating it, but it's going to increase the questions by colleagues about 'have we been affected by this Mobilegeddon update?'. So, we definitely recommend checking in your analytics, now it's live to see what the impact is on you or your clients. To help businesses prepare, we featured Google's guidance on mobile-friendly when it was first announced in November and more recently, Gavin Llewellyn explained 5 tools to help check your site is Google mobile-friendly. I've been anxious to check the impact on SmartInsights.com too, so I thought I'd share the approach I've used and share what we found.

3 steps for using Google Analytics to check the impact of Mobilegeddon

The analysis used involves isolating the organic traffic from Google which arrives at a…

A visual checklist of how to review whether you're prepared for this month's Google's mobile algorithm update

This April, all responsible in any way for SEO are anxiously awaiting Google's SEO mobile update, with D-day on 21st April. To help give readers some practical actions and tools to review in his post Smart Insights columnist Gavin Llewellyn explained how businesses can ready themselves for the Mobile-Friendly algorithm update. To supplement this, we thought this infographic from Instantshift.com gives a great visual summary of issues to be aware of including common mobile mistakes and how to overcome them, for example... Like using 'meta name="viewpoint" tag which tells the browser how to adjust content and using "Rel=Canonical" to prevent confusion of duplicate content, consolidating indexing and ranking signals. View the full Infographic at www.instantshift.com  …

Are you ready for the Google Mobile-friendly algorithm change which could be 'bigger than Panda or Penguin'?

Back in November 2014,  Google gave its first guidance about the impending algorithm changes to affect mobile SEO which were summarised in this Smart Insights alert. More recently, Google has been unusually specific and has revealed on its blog that there will be an algorithm update on the 21st April 2015, that will expand their use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.

How much difference will the mobile-friendly update make?

The indications are that this will be a major change with Google describing it as 'significant' in their alerts. Then, in this alarming quote, Google's Zineb Ait Bahajji  said at SMX Munich that the upcoming mobile-friendly algorithm update will impact more sites than their Panda or Penguin algorithms. Although this sounds alarming it is to be expected since…

12 key issues you must consider for Mobile SEO

Mobile SEO refers to the search engine optimization of websites combined with flawless viewing on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Thanks to the increasing boom of portable devices, webmasters should be highly concerned with their mobile SEO plan. After all, more than 50% of Internet users now report surfing websites through their mobile devices daily. Google is already favouring mobile friendly sites. Based on my experience of different mobile SEO projects,  I have created this detailed guide on mobile SEO. I hope it will help newcomers to mobile SEO missing some of the key issues. Below I will spend time offering my recommendations to boost your understanding on how to properly optimize your website for optimal user experiences across all mobile devices. First and foremost, according to Google mobile websites typically run on one out of three different configurations: 1. Responsive Web Design 2.…

7 things marketers need to know about the impact of Google’s latest change on SEO

Importance: [rating=5] Recommended link: Google announcement - Helping users find mobile-friendly pages 1. Google will now give more prominence to mobile sites in the search results (SERPs). More prominence will occur thanks to a ‘mobile-friendly’ label: 2. This label will only appear in mobile search results. Which is what we would expect. 3. The change has been rolled out. We didn’t see this yesterday, but it is now visible, e.g. for a brand search for this site: 4. This isn’t a ranking factor change. Google has previously stated that mobile sites with errors may lose ranking, but this announcement just relates to the label. However, we can expect that this change will increase clickthrough rates on sites that have this label and decrease…

Using Google's 'Fetch as Google Render" feature to assess mobile SEO suitability

63% of today's mobile phone users use their cell phone to go online and 34% of mobile phone Internet users only go online with their cell phone rather than any other device, according to the latest Pew Internet Mobile Technology Fact Sheet. Numbers like these demonstrate the power and importance of the mobile experience, and some big names have taken notice - including Google. Google research has shown that 61% of users would not be likely to return to a mobile site if they had problems accessing the site on their mobile phone the first time. Because Google is committed to ensuring the best possible experience for its users across the web, these lackluster mobile experiences may have an effect on SEO and where a website ranks in search engine results pages. Google has also stated that…

Is mobile marketing getting enough investment?

SEMPO's 9th report on the State of Search Marketing highlighted that mobile marketing is a priority for respondents. As a result, SEMPO created a separate Mobile Search Trends infographic to showcase the findings which we feature here. Agencies and clients who took part in this survey shared their views on mobile marketing: 8 out of 10 respondents plan to include mobile marketing in their plans though have only allocated 3% of their overall budget goes into to this. The main objective of mobile search is unsurprisingly to generate leads through mobile marketing. Agencies ranked 'geotargeting' as the top technique to help with mobile marketing, compared to insight from Google's Universal Analytics support for cross-device tracking according to  companies.

 Additional resources on mobile marketing on Smart Insights

Mobile Marketing Strategy Guide Mobile statistics summary …