Category Archives: Internet

The Google Mobile Penalty – Five Months On

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The Google mobile penalty for non-mobile optimized websites has now been in play for over five months and we’ve taken a look at what effects it has made in this time frame. As with any changes to Google’s algorithm, some online businesses have the chance to be absolutely destroyed by changes made by Google, but this time it’s something that businesses have active control over to avoid.

google mobile penalty review

What is the Google Mobile Penalty?

The Google mobile penalty is actually straight forward. Unlike other changes to Google’s search algorithm, this one is easy to understand and easy to adjust to.

Now that mobile has become such a prevalent area of online activity, Google are pushing for a more mobile friendly web experience. As a result, any websites with web pages that are not optimized for mobile viewing will be penalized in search results. On the other hand, websites that do have a good mobile optimized experience will get pushed past any results that don’t offer the same.

An important thing to realize, which a lot of website owners are unaware of, is that the Google mobile penalty will only apply to search results made from mobile devices. Desktop searches will remain the same.

fix mobile usability issues

The Effects of the Google Mobile Penalty Four Months on

The crazy thing about the Google mobile penalty is that it’s had a huge effect on websites across the entire globe. We’re not just talking small time websites either. A lot of top websites have had poor mobile website designs in the past and as a result this has caused them to fall off the Google search rankings.

There have been three main trends following the Google mobile penalty. Firstly, a large number of non-optimized websites have been effected quite severely. As a result, a lot of non-optimized mobile websites have lost out on lots of mobile traffic.

Following on from this, websites that have managed to create a mobile optimized experience have seen a slight boost in mobile traffic. The change isn’t huge, and it’s mostly dependant on how competitor’s in that niche are performing in terms of mobile optimization.

Finally, this update has pushed a lot of businesses to create mobile friendly experiences for their websites, which is exactly what Google wanted in the first place. It’s safe to say that the Google mobile penalty has mostly done good for the internet and mobile viewership.

google mobile penalty

 

The Google Mobile Penalty in the Near Future

The effects of the Google mobile penalty have pretty much already taken place. With that being said, any websites that now try to work on SEO will have drastically minimized results in terms of mobile site views if the website in question has poor mobile optimization.

We’re going to see a larger push for mobile websites now that the Google mobile penalty has been made active, but some businesses are still going to be reluctant to change, perhaps due to lack of SEO knowledge or budget issues. An SEO company can usually handle these problems for you.

google mobile algorithm

Hopefully in the future we’ll see more benefits for those that do implement mobile website optimization so that mobile experiences on the web can improve and businesses that support the mobile web can benefit from it.

Need help with your websites mobile website? Contact us today.

Here’s What Google is Looking for in 2015

Blog, Google Mobile Policy, Internet, ,

In this article we take a look at some of the trends Google are looking for in 2015. Sticking to these trends is bound to help your SEO efforts, and avoiding them may even have some negative consequences.

google mobile

We’ll be talking about the importance of mobile friendly websites, changes being made to support local businesses and also some details about the necessity for content.

Mobile friendly websites

If you’ve been keeping an eye on changes to Google over the last few months, you’ll already know that Google has added the mobile penalty – this is a form of search engine penalization that occurs to any websites that do not have mobile optimized web pages.

The penalty will only apply to searches made from mobile devices, but this is still a significant amount of searches and potential traffic. As a result, it’s incredibly important to create a mobile optimized website this year if you haven’t already and this is one of the biggest things that Google will be looking for in 2015.

Google Mobile Algorithm update

Once you have a mobile friendly website your chance of being seen in mobile search results will increase- you’ll jump up the search rankings, landing higher than any websites that do not have the same level of mobile optimization as you do.

Local Searches – Potential for Local Businesses

Google is making it much easier for users to search for businesses in their area. Whether they’re looking for a particular restaurant, an accounting firm, a bakery, or absolutely anything else, Google will be showing more local results than ever before.

As a result, it’s incredibly important to get your local business on Google maps so that when people perform a search in the area they’ll be able to find your business. Google has named their local business searches to My Business and understanding the workings of it can be quite difficult.

google my business

With My Business you can list details about your business, put yourself on Google Maps and provide information about opening times. This kind of information is all you’ll need to get more attention via local searches, and it’s certainly becoming a very powerful way to bring in new customers. Amazingly, it can all be completely free to set up a My Business account on Google.

More & More Content

It’s become more apparent over the last few years that creating content for your website is one of the best ways to market that website. Content marketing is becoming more popular and is in fact being seen as a first choice for marketers all over the world now that older SEO techniques are proving to be less successful.

If you want to remain relevant online, it’s important that you provide regular content about your niche. Content can be press releases, blog posts or basic details about your business and your industry. The most important thing about content marketing is that it’s unique and it’s regular.

The length and quality of your content can play a part in the success of content marketing as well, but creating content regularly is arguably the most important thing you can do in 2015 to keep your business climbing the Google rankings.

Hopefully these pieces of information will help you to keep on top of improving of your online presence in 2015.

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How a Call to Action Should be Delivered on a Mobile Website

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You might be an expert at grabbing the attention of your customers with a stylish desktop call to action, but a mobile website CTA is not the same. The way your customers browse from a mobile is a lot different to desktop browsing and for this reason you’ll need to think about how a call to action should be delivered on a mobile website successfully. This article gives some tips on how you can approach the mobile CTA problem.

mobile action

Colorful, but In-line with your Website Design

This should be common knowledge by now but a call to action on any platform should be made colorful and easy to spot. We’d suggest creating a button or banner that stands out from the rest of your website – your call to action should make everything else look tiny in comparison. Not only is this important for grabbing your visitor’s attention, but it’s also important for capturing those mobile users in a hurry that just want to make a quick buy online.

large mobile call to action

At the end of the day, you want to draw visitor’s eyes to the big button that brings them a step closer to making a purchase. However, there is a certain technique you can use so that you don’t technically have to get their attention at all, because you’ll already have it. More is explained below.

Put it Right in Front of Their Eyes

If you are creating a call to action on mobile, you should not place it in a sidebar or at the bottom of your product description. You should certainly not place a call to action at the footer of your page either. If you have something to sell, whether it be a service or a product, your call to action for this sale should be immediately available when a visitor loads up your web page.

mobile call to action

Studies show that wasting your mobile visitor’s time is going to result in a huge loss of sales. Whilst a lot of mobile users back out when a page is taking too long to load, some will also look elsewhere if they cannot find the page they need quickly. If they want to purchase a product, you should bet that your customers will want to find the call to action very quickly.

For this reason, we suggest placing a call to action as a major feature of your mobile page. If visitors are coming to your website for a certain reason, put easy access to it. Putting it as a large graphic of text banner will work, as long as it is the first thing they see when hitting your landing page.

It’s a little bit difficult if you sell multiple products or services like this because your users may be looking for different things when visiting your website. If you have your smarts about you, you could correlate data with your most popular products and place this as the first thing visitors will see when hitting your mobile website. Alternatively, if you have a sale then this could appear straight up at the front.

call to action button on mobile

A better option may be to include a parallax content slider on your website that automatically goes through a selection of your most popular products/services. Either way, it’s important that you can put your visitor’s eyes right on what you’re trying to sell as soon as they come in through the front door.

It’s not just about providing quick access to mobile users either. A study by Mobify shows that a lot of mobile sales are spontaneous – a potential customer may not come to your website to directly make a purchase, but if you can throw out your best product in front of them straight away, they may just make a quick purchase right on the spot.

Summary

In summary, it’s important to understand how to place your call to action correctly on your mobile website. Even if you go for a more traditional route that lists mobile CTAs similarly to how you would show them on your desktop website, you should still consider placing a large call to action on your front page.

Mobile users are quick to react, want instant access to products and services, and sometimes can be a little spontaneous as well. An eye-catching front page call to action can work wonders on a mobile website for this reason.

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Five Reasons Why 2015 Is The End of the Road for Non-Mobile Business Owners

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We wouldn’t say it’s entirely impossible to survive in 2015 without a mobile website, but if you run a business that relies on some form of online portal, you’re going to find 2015 is going to be a tricky year. Below, we have listed some of the main reasons why 2015 could be the end of the road for non-mobile ready business owners.

Mobile business owners

Google is Punishing Non-Optimized Websites

Perhaps the biggest and most immediate change to happen in 2015 is the Google search engine changes. Google has now made new tweaks to it’s search engine that will actively punish those website owners who do not provide a suitable and optimized experience for mobile users.

You will need a mobile or responsive website design in 2015 if you want to keep your search rankings. Otherwise, you can say goodbye to your hard earned SEO work. Businesses that are already using mobile websites are seeing success from the new Google changes because their less-prepared competitors are falling down ranks on Google.

non mobile optimized

Mobile Users are Starting to Outnumber Desktop Users

2015 will be the point where mobile users will outnumber desktop users for the first time in history. This is a pretty spectacular milestone, and whilst PC users still account for a large amount of traffic, mobile traffic is growing every single day.

The milestones made in global smartphone adoption rates this year just show that the mobile web is something you can’t ignore anymore. It may not be such an issue if mobile users didn’t rely so heavily on websites and services that provide quick-loading and easy to view mobile optimized content. However, creating a well optimized mobile website is one of the only ways to bring in mobile users.

mobile users increasing

Growth is Found Within Expanding to Mobile

More smartphone users are shopping online, browsing the internet and doing research about projects than ever before. As mobile usage grows, so does the chance to increase your profit. Owning a mobile website isn’t just about sticking to the latest trends. A mobile website can help you to increase your business’ success by a long shot, and there are plenty of methods to help grow your business and see it succeed far past your competitors by utilizing mobile traffic.

businessman using mobile phone shows internet

Support is Growing for Mobile Businesses

A few years ago, venturing into mobile technology was a scary proposition. Many analysts predicted a huge rise in mobile and smartphone usage, but it was still difficult for businesses, especially small to medium businesses to get involved with the mobile generation.

In 2015 it has become very easy to get online. There are plenty of services that can help you to develop the perfect mobile website, and thousands of other companies and individuals that are working together to make transitioning to the mobile space as a business easier.

Whether you want to create a new mobile website, develop an app or start mobile web marketing, resources on the web have never been so abundant.

mobile business support

Desktop Websites Can’t Deliver the Same User Experience

Desktop websites are great for PCs and laptops, but they just don’t cut it for mobiles and tablets. One of the best ways to provide the best user experience is to develop a responsive website design. Responsive websites can automatically adjust to different display sizes and devices, which means one website will look nice on a PC, laptop, tablet and smartphone.

Mobile websites are also useful for providing a better user experience for mobile users, and we’d even go as far as saying mobile users care more about user experience than desktop users do. You’ve probably heard studies about how a large portion of mobile users will straight up abandon your website if it isn’t well optimized, and this is very true. By not providing a great user experience for all users, you’re missing out on a lot of sales.

user experience on mobile

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The Google Mobile Penalty – What to Expect On April 21, 2015

Blog, Google Mobile Policy, Internet, , , , ,

There’s no real way of knowing exactly what will happen with search rankings after a new Google update, but the upcoming Google mobile penalty is clearly going to have some drastic effects on non-mobile optimized web pages.

google mobile penalty

What is the Google Mobile Penalty?

Firstly, Google is set to make changes to the way it’s search engine ranks mobile optimized and non-mobile optimized websites on April 21st. At this point the whole internet could be a messy war zone. Fortunately, those who are keeping up with the times should not be affected. In fact, if you already have a mobile website you may even be affected positively by the upcoming Google update.

Here’s what Google has to say about their upcoming changes.

“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

This basically means that having a well optimized website for mobile devices is going to increase your search rankings. It’s no longer going to be all about content in 2015 – having a well performing website that runs on a multitude of devices is key to having your site rank higher in Google search results.

mobile search change

What to Expect

We should expect that the new Google mobile penalty will penalize those websites that still don’t support mobile devices properly. We aren’t just talking about owning a mobile version of your site. You will need to meet a certain set of criteria to ensure your website is as mobile friendly as possible and won’t be penalized as a result.

Information provided by Google themselves lists details about what Google will be looking for. While Google doesn’t blatantly say what Google Spider will be crawling for, it’s clear that they are looking for websites that offer certain features. Your mobile website should include readable text without any need to zoom. Your page should be resized to fit the device, so responsive web design would work wonders here.

Google has provided a guide listing some of the things you should take into consideration when designing a mobile website. They have also created a mobile-friendly test that can help you to determine whether your websites are mobile friendly or not.

mobile friendly test

If you do not have a mobile friendly website or a mobile website at all, you should expect to see a drastic change in your search engine ranking. We are not sure how much of an impact it will make, but when Google suggest that not having a mobile website will have a “significant impact” you should be prepared for the absolute destruction of your hard SEO work if you don’t own a mobile friendly website.

Our Suggestion

We really suggest looking at getting a mobile website done before the changes take place to avoid any penalties. We provide a mobile development service that can create you an optimized website that fits into the criteria needed to avoid the Google mobile penalty. You can learn more about our services and what Boost One Mobile is about here.

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Is Mobile Web Important in 2015? – A Look at the Stats

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After the huge hype surrounding the recent explosion of smartphone usage over the last few years, it’s natural to be skeptical of whether the mobile web is still relevant or not. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at the current health of the mobile web, and comparing it to more traditional desktop-based internet.

mobile search stats

By taking a look at search data from some of the biggest search engines, we can have an accurate representation of what devices are being used often.

Mobile Search Results

If we take a look at Google’s traffic in the second half of 2014, we can find that on average over 16 billion monthly hits were made to the website in the US across both desktop and PC. Interestingly, the divide between platforms was split quite evenly, with roughly 8.5 billion hits coming from the desktop, and 8 billion coming from mobile devices.

When we take a look at Bing’s search results, things are a little less stable, but there is a fairly similar story to tell, although the gap was larger. In most cases, around twice as many users connected to Bing via desktop. In November 2014, for example, 400 million connected via mobile, whilst 800 million connected via desktop.

mobile search

Bing’s traffic did fluctuate a lot, but for the most part mobile traffic accounted for enough traffic to match up against ~50% of desktop traffic each month.

This information shows that desktop is still being used more for searches, but mobile is not far behind at all.

Engagement Stats

Traffic isn’t enough to tell the whole story. Next, we’ll be looking at engagement stats for both Google and Bing. Interestingly, engagement for Google was much higher on desktop than it was on mobile. Desktop traffic ended up viewing pages for three times longer, and the bounce rate was also two times lower than mobile bounce rate.

With Bing, a larger percentage of mobile users are engaging for longer than Google, but desktop is still seeing slightly higher engagement rates, with an incremental improvement on visit duration and bounce rate.

mobile engagement

What we can gather from this information is that mobile users are typically already aware of what they are searching for – once they have completed the task they had at hand, they will switch off their displays. Desktop users on the other hand may spend more time browsing as they may feel less pressured for time whilst sitting at home.

Shopping

What both the search results and engagement rates are telling us so far is that mobile is still important, but desktop is equally, or even more important than mobile so far. However, one area where mobile is taking the lead is in shopping, perhaps the most important part for most businesses.

mobile commerce shopping

While mobile isn’t quite there yet, it is slowly becoming the shopping king. In 2014, the average monthly visits for Amazon was at 634 million for mobile devices and 658.5 million for desktop. Engagement rate for Amazon on desktop was interesting – time spent on desktop was around twice as long, but pages visited and bounce rate were similar.

Mobile Google Algorithm Update

In April 2015, it is expected that Google will roll out it’s latest algorithm update. On the 21st of April, this Google update is expected to have a serious affect on the mobile search results. Google is warning that websites that are not prepared for the update will drop in rankings in the mobile search results. This means that if your site is not optimized for mobile devices, you need to fix this and fast.If your site doesn’t look good on a mobile browser (as determined by the Google crawler), expect your mobile results to drop significantly.

mobile google algorithm update

The good news is that Google has a tool to allow you to quickly see if your site is displaying properly on mobile devices. You can check that out at: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

Summary

For other areas of the internet, it seems to be the same story – desktop still accounts for the majority of internet traffic, however mobile is close behind. Adoption rates for mobile is slowing down as more people become connected, but there seems to be a very healthy 50/50 split occurring between mobile and PC traffic.

So, is mobile web important in 2015? We’d definitely say so, but don’t get too carried away – desktop is just as important, if not more so than mobile, so it’s clear that your business should cater for both platforms.

We’d suggest checking out responsive website design if you are looking for the best method of entertaining both desktop and mobile users.

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Here’s How Businesses Benefit From the Internet of Things

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Do businesses benefit from the internet of things? It’s a question that seems to be thrown around a lot recently, and not many people seem to have a solid answer for it. The internet of things, or the IoT for short, is a term used to explain the recent shift towards an internet-connected world where everything from your TV to your car can connect to the internet. In a sense, it’s a consumer driven approach that gives individuals quick access to tools, services and information.

We think it works both ways, and there should be plenty of ways your business can benefit from the IoT.

Internet of Things

More Efficient for Both Customers and Employees

If it gets to the point where individuals are given access to a constantly connected internet, it can only mean more efficiency on both sides of the fence. Firstly, customers can be more widely aware of any new activities in your business. Customers could opt-in to receive promotions from you that could be sent to their smart watch or smartphone. You can also advertise to potential clients in your area with various SEO & other online marketing efforts. Location based technology and NFC could be used to provide more relevant information to any locals that either walk past or enter your place of business.

Providing a constant connection to the internet to all of your customers will also give them the opportunity to see updates from your business in real time. They no longer have to wait to get home or reach a mobile hotspot. Wearable technology could give your customers an even faster look at notifications or promotions – for example, individuals would see content sent to their smart watch almost immediately.

internet business

Your business could also benefit from the internet of things. A near constant connection to your employees will allow you to communicate and collaborate with one another effectively without any interference. Thanks to SMS and IM messaging, things are already pretty convenient for businesses in the 21st century, but going the extra step towards a connected internet will allow you and your business partners to use online web apps and software that you can use to better collaborate with one another, no matter where you are.

New Business and Startup Potential

The shift towards the internet of things and a constant connectivity also opens up a lot of opportunities for new businesses and startups. There are many new gadgets and pieces of tech out there that are currently being designed to merge certain technology with internet connectivity. Those with a smart idea and a good knowledge of the industry could stand a good chance at making something special within the next few years.

As the concept behind the internet of things starts to mature, unique designs for technology will potentially help shape future trends. Current top manufacturers are finding it hard to put across their new innovations, and many smaller businesses are now getting exposure for showing off exciting new ideas for the internet industry.

business web marketing

Summary

Businesses will be able to benefit from the internet of things by using the connected internet to increase productivity and boost customer engagement. On another level, the shift towards a more connected world will help new businesses emerge, and give lots of potential towards startups and new businesses with innovative, unique ideas.

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