Good morning, Marketers, let’s catch you up a bit on some of the latest rumblings around the unconfirmed Google search ranking updates. Yes, I know. Google is always updating but sometimes those updates are larger and more widespread than others.

It has been a while since we had a core update — the last one was the December core update — and we are now five months later and no new official core update has been announced by Google. We did have the product reviews update that finished rolling out April 22nd and we are awaiting the upcoming page experience update.  

That being said, there were some unconfirmed updates since April 22nd including rumbling around April 23rd and 24th and April 30th and May 1st. There is some suspicion that these updates were tweaks to the product reviews update that was released in April, but Google has not confirmed that. It does appear that those two updates were significant and many in the SEO industry noticed ranking changes on those two time frames — some specifically around recoveries for the product reviews update.

Barry Schwartz,
Google (bird) algorithm watcher

Google Local Service Ads bug changes your bid mode

Google has a bug with its Local Service Ads program where it may change your bid mode from “Maximize Leads” to “Max Per Lead.” Google is aware of this bug and said they are working on a fix.  

If you are using Local Service Ads, you will want to check your bid modes to ensure they are set properly and that this bug didn’t lead to them being changed without your knowledge.  

Len, an advertiser, said this “issue has impacted 100% of the law firms I work with.” David Kyle, another advertiser, said, “I had all of mine set to Max Per Lead already, and set them to the max bid that was allowed at the time. These bids were also dropped to the minimum.” This does not sound good, and if this impacted your client’s spend or budgets, reach out to Google for a remedy. 

Google’s advice on optimizing images with SEO in mind

With all this concern over making your pages faster these days, many are not thinking about what happens to your image search traffic if you just change your images. Many are changing their images from .png or .jpg formats to .svg for performance reasons. But that is a brand new image, and if your site gets traffic from Google Image Search, that traffic can disappear with those changes. Google Image Search is super slow when it comes to processing redirects and finding new or updated images =- so be careful when making these changes.

Google’s John Mueller posted a thread of advice on Twitter on how to optimize your images while keeping in mind image search traffic. The advice starts with trying not to change your file names and just optimize the image under the current format. There is a lot more advice on how to optimize your images and communicate any changes to Google in the most efficient manner. 

The hypothetical search engine named Steve and its ranking factors

Hypothetical search engine. Yesterday, Google published its hilarious Search Off the Record podcast and they talked about what ranking factors they would use in their hypothetical search engine named Steve. I think they dropped a lot of hints around the page experience update not being that significant of a weighted ranking update. Listen for yourself here. 

Scroll to text Search Console reporting. It looks like Google is removing the scroll-to-text fragments in the Google Search Console performance data reports, so you can no longer see if people are clicking on scroll-to-text featured snippets, images and so on.  

Google Analytics does not hurt your rankings. Google’s John Mueller often is asked if Google uses Google Analytics data as a ranking signal, the answer has always been no. But now he was asked if using Google Analytics would harm your site because of the page experience update. The answer there is also no but not because it is a Google service he said.

The post Google search rankings algorithm check-in; Friday’s daily brief appeared first on Go Web Solution.

Google claims to update its search algorithm several thousand times per year. In the absolute majority of cases, Google algorithm updates are too small to notice. But, every once in a while, Google introduces a change so fundamental, that it disrupts the way we do SEO forever.

In this post, we will be counting down eight of the most critical search algorithm changes. We will look into why these updates were introduced, how they work and what adjustments we had to make to our SEO strategies in response.

But before we start, let’s see if you’ve ever been impacted by an algorithm update. All you need to do is launch Rank Tracker, sync it with your Google Analytics account and switch to Organic Traffic.

Just hover your mouse over the dash lines on the graph to see if certain algo updates correspond with your site’s traffic changes.

1. Panda

Date: February 24, 2011

Hazards: Duplicate, plagiarized or thin content; user-generated spam; keyword stuffing.

How it works: The Panda algorithm update assigns a so-called “quality score” to web pages. This score is then used as a ranking factor. Initially, the effects of Panda were mild, but in January 2016 it was permanently incorporated into Google’s core algorithm. Since then, update rollouts have become more frequent, so both Panda penalties and recoveries now happen faster.

How to adjust: Run regular site checks for content duplication, thin content, and keyword stuffing. To do that, you’ll need a site crawler, like SEO PowerSuite’s Website Auditor.

With the WebSite Auditor’s new Content Editor module, you can also avoid a potential penalty and create pages without the risk of accidental keyword stuffing. Content Editor analyzes the pages of your top competitors and provides SEO recommendations based on the content that’s already successful in Google search.

And if you want to check whether your content is duplicated elsewhere on the web, use a plagiarism checker like Copyscape.

2. Penguin

Date: April 24, 2012

Hazards: Spammy or irrelevant links; links with over-optimized anchor text.

How it works: Google Penguin’s objective is to down-rank sites whose backlinks look unnatural. This update put an end to low-effort link building, like buying links from link farms and PBNs.

How to adjust: To stay safe from the effects of the Google Penguin update, monitor your link profile’s growth and run regular audits with a backlink checker like SEO SpyGlass. In the tool’s Summary dashboard, you’ll find a progress graph for your link profile’s growth. Look out for any unusual spikes: those might be the result of a negative SEO attack by your competitors.

The stats that we know Penguin takes into account are incorporated into SEO SpyGlass’s Penalty Risk formula. Navigate to the Penalty Risk tab and sort your backlink list from highest risk to lowest. Links with a risk above 50% should be investigated. If they turn out to be malicious, add them to the disavow file, download it, and submit it to Google’s Disavow Links Tool.

3. Hummingbird

Date: August 22, 2013

Hazards: Keyword stuffing; low-quality content.

How it works: The Hummingbird algorithm helps Google better interpret search queries and provide results that match searcher intent (as opposed to the individual terms within the query). While keywords continue to be important, the Hummingbird algorithm makes it possible for a page to rank for a query even if it doesn’t contain the exact words the searcher entered. This is achieved with the help of natural language processing that relies on latent semantic indexing, co-occurring terms and synonyms.

How to adjust: Expand your keyword research and focus on concepts behind the keywords. Carefully analyze related searches, synonyms and co-occurring terms. Great sources of such ideas are Google Related Searches and Google Related Questions, as well as Google Autocomplete suggestions. You’ll find all of them incorporated into Rank Tracker’s Keyword Research module.

Use these insights to better understand your audience’s language and diversify your content. By creating comprehensive content that satisfies searcher intent, you’ll win both in terms of engagement and SEO. 

4. Mobile

Date: April 21, 2015

Hazards: Lack of a mobile version of the page; poor mobile usability.

How it works: This, and subsequent mobile search updates (2018, 2020) have shifted the focus from a desktop to a mobile version of your website. Today, Google ranks all websites based on how fast and user-friendly their mobile versions are.

How to adjust: Optimize your pages for mobile search and focus on speed and usability. Google’s mobile-friendly and page speed tests will help you see which aspects of your page need to be improved. The tests are integrated into WebSite Auditor so you can check your pages’ mobile optimization as a part of your overall website audit. You’ll find it in Content Analysis > Page Audit:

5. RankBrain

Date: October 26, 2015

Hazards: Lack of query-specific relevance; shallow content; poor UX.

How it works: RankBrain is a part of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm. It is a machine learning system that helps Google understand the meaning behind queries and serve best-matching search results in response to those queries. Google calls RankBrain the third most important ranking factor.
While we don’t know the exact formula behind this major update, the consensus is that RankBrain is responsible for customizing a user’s Google search results. Basically, Google goes beyond a person’s search query and takes into account the larger context, like synonyms, implied words, and personal search history.

How to adjust: Optimize your pages for relevance and comprehensiveness with the help of competitive analysis. With the WebSite Auditor‘s TF-IDF tool, you can discover entire lists of relevant terms and concepts used by a large number of your top-ranking competitors. Find a way to add these terms to your content and you will see your search relevance increase dramatically.

6. Medic

Date: May 4, 2018

Hazards: Lack of authority on YMYL websites; weak E-A-T signals.

How it works: The Google Medic update seemed to disproportionately affect medical websites as well as other websites that have to do with potentially life-altering decisions (finance, law, education). Although not explicitly confirmed, Google representatives have hinted that the update implemented some of the E-A-T (expertise, authority, trust) signals from the Quality Rater Guidelines document.

How to adjust: To date, there is no proven recovery strategy for the Medic update. Some SEOs suggest hiring expert writers to lend credibility to your website, others claim the solution is in building entities for your brand. But, if we were to stick to the facts, the only reliable way to increase the authority of your website is by growing your backlink profile. An efficient approach would be to use a backlink research tool, like SEO SpyGlass, and borrow backlink ideas from your competitors.

SEO SpyGlass allows you to find the backlink gap between your website and your competitors’ websites. The best prospects are the high-authority websites that link to two or more of your competitors. This indicates that the websites are interested in your niche, but do not have an exclusive relationship with any one company.

For more tips, explore this SEO guide based on the Quality Rater Guidelines.

7. Bert

Date: October 22, 2019

Hazards: Poorly written content; lack of focus; lack of context.

How it works: This Google algorithm update uses natural language processing technology to better understand search queries, interpret text, identify entities and relationships between entities. We’ve seen Panda, Hummingbird and RankBrain updates move away from keywords, and the BERT update is the culmination of this effort — it allows Google to understand much more nuance in both queries and search results.

How to adjust: We’ve finally lived to see the day when Google is actually rewarding good writing. Like never before, it is important to strive for meaningful copy. It means you should go easy on fluff words and adopt an expository style of writing. It is also a good idea to do entity research when creating copy — including relevant entities helps create context for your content.

For more tips, check out this guide on using entities in SEO.

8. Core Updates

Date: 2017-present

How it works: As far back as 2017, Google has started to refer to bigger updates as Google core updates. Since then, there is even less transparency about what those updates are and which parts of search they are intended to improve. SEOs would often track post-update ranking shifts and try to figure out what exactly has changed, but there is rarely a conclusive observation. It is likely that Google core updates are just improvements on previous Google updates or perhaps bundles of smaller updates tied together.

How to adjust: Since the effects of Google core updates are often unknown, one thing you can do is track SERP history for the keywords you are targeting. Once the update happens, you can check which of your competitors have moved up or down in rankings and make an educated guess about the contributing factors.

To start tracking your SERP history, launch Rank Tracker, go to Target Keywords > Rank Tracking > SERP Analysis, and click Record SERP data. The tool will start tracking the top 30 SERP positions for each of your keywords.

The post 8 major Google algorithm updates, explained appeared first on Go Web Solution.

Google’s algorithms are a complex system used to retrieve data from its search index and instantly deliver the best possible results for a query. The search engine uses a combination of algorithms and numerous ranking factors to deliver webpages ranked by relevance on its search engine results pages (SERPs).

In its early years, Google only made a handful of updates to its algorithms. Now, Google makes thousands of changes every year.

Most of these updates are so slight that they go completely unnoticed. However, on occasion, the search engine rolls out major algorithmic updates that significantly impact the SERPs such as:

• Fred
• Intrusive Interstitials Update
• Mobilegeddon
• RankBrain
• Panda
• Penguin

• Hummingbird
• Pigeon
• Payday
• EMD (Exact Match Domain)
• Page Layout Algorithm

Below we have compiled a full list of Google algorithm launches, updates, and refreshes that have rolled out over the years, as well as links to resources for SEO professionals who want to understand each of these changes.

All Updates

February 10, 2021

Passage Ranking

Google’s Public Liaison for Search, Danny Sullivan, tweeted today that as of February 10th, 2021, Passage Ranking is live for English-language queries in the United States.

Google’s Martin Splitt discusses Google’s new ranking system and shares 16 key points you need to know about it in a virtual get-together with a trio of top SEO professionals – Cindy Krum, Bartosz Goralewicz, and Tomek Rudzki.

December 3, 2020

December 2020 Core Update

Google confirms a core algorithm update, the December 2020 Core Update, is rolled out on December 3, 2020. This is the third core algorithm update of the calendar year. A fair amount of time has passed since the last core update, compared to the average time between these types of updates.

May 4, 2020

May 2020 Core Update

Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan announced via Twitter that Google would be releasing a broad core algorithm update. About 90 minutes later, he announced the update was underway and would take 1-2 weeks to completely roll out.

January 22, 2020

Featured Snippet Deduplication

Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed via Twitter that webpages in a featured snippet position will no longer be repeated in regular Page 1 organic listing. This change affected 100% of all search listings, worldwide.

January 13, 2020

January 2020 Core Update

Google’s Danny Sullivan announced via a tweet that a broad core algorithm update was about to be released. Google again provided the same guidance as for all other recent broad core algorithm updates.

December 9, 2019

BERT (Worldwide)

Google’s Danny Sullivan tweeted that BERT was beginning its worldwide rollout, and included the following languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azeri, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified & Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian Malay (Brunei Darussalam & Malaysia), Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

October 25, 2019

BERT Update

Google announced the BERT Update, calling it the biggest change to Google search in the past 5 years. Google uses BERT models to better understand search queries. Google said this change impacted both search rankings and featured snippets and BERT (which stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) will be used on 10 percent of U.S. English searches.

September 24, 2019

Broad Core Algorithm Update

Google’s Danny Sullivan announced via a tweet that a broad core algorithm update would be released within a few hours and it would take a few days to complete rolling out. Google’s guidance was the same as it had been for all other recent core algorithm updates.

June 2, 2019

June 2019 Core Update

On June 2, Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan tweeted that Google would be releasing a new broad core algorithm update on June 3. The next day, Google confirmed the update was live and would be rolling out to its various data centers over the coming days. As is the case with any broad core algorithm update, Google tells us there is nothing specific to fix because a core update encompasses a broad range of factors.

March 12, 2019

March 2019 Core Update (a.k.a. Florida 2)

Google’s Search Liaison Danny Sullivan confirmed via Twitter the release of a global broad core algorithm update. SEJ confirmed this update is particularly important and one of the biggest Google updates in years. Sullivan once again recommended following the guidance it provided following the March 9, 2018 update.

February 13, 2019

Valentine’s Day Update

Algorithm trackers and industry chatter indicated some sort of unconfirmed update took place on and before this date. However, unlike other updates, mostly positive changes in rankings were being reported.

October 31, 2018

Unconfirmed Halloween Update

Some webmasters reported changes starting around Halloween, perhaps indicating an (unconfirmed) Google update. But there was little evidence of a significant update here. The more likely cause of the chatter was spillover from the August broad core algorithm update and Google ramping up its use of neural matching.

September 27, 2018

A “Small” Update

On September 27 (Google’s 20th birthday), many within the SEO community began noticing significant spikes and drops in traffic, indicating some sort of update was underway. Some of the sites impacted by the August broad core algorithm update reportedly made a recovery. Google’s Search Liaison Danny Sullivan confirmed via Twitter on September 29 that some sort of “smaller” update had taken place (but it wasn’t a broad core algorithm update).

August 1, 2018

Broad Core Algorithm Update

Google confirmed via Twitter for the third time this year the rollout of a broad core algorithm update. In doing so, Google’s Search Liaison Danny Sullivan recommended following the guidance it provided following the March 9, 2018 update. This update has been referred to as “Medic” by some in the industry, even though Google said it was a general ranking update and wasn’t specifically targeting medical sites.

April 16, 2018

Broad Core Algorithm Update

Google confirmed via Twitter the release of another broad core algorithm update and indicated it was similar to the March 9, 2018 update, which was about content relevance.

March 9, 2018

Broad Core Algorithm Update

On March 12, Google confirmed via Twitter that a “broad core algorithm update” had rolled out the prior week. While Google was light on details, Google said the changes were meant to “benefit pages that were previously under-rewarded,” and advised everyone to “continue building great content.”

December 12, 2017

Maccabees Update

Some in the search community reported their websites being hit by update between December 12 and 14. Google confirmed several minor changes to the core algorithm during the timeframe, but downplayed the significance of the period of flux.

September 8, 2017

Fall Flux

Industry chatter and SEO tracking tools indicated some sort of (still unconfirmed) Google update may have occurred on this date. Glenn Gabe, president of G-Squared Interactive, also detected several noteworthy Google changes impacting traffic and search visibility starting September 8. This was followed by additional volatility and fluctuations on September 18, 25, and 29, as well as October 4, 8, and 12.

August 19, 2017

Quality Update

Webmasters and SEO ranking tools detected some minor volatility on August 19-20, with signs indicating this may have been another (unconfirmed) Google quality update. Among the ranking casualties: category pages, pages with aggressive advertising, lower-quality/thin content, and other negative user experience elements, according to an analysis by Glenn Gabe, president of GSQi. There was some speculation that Google began testing this algorithm on August 14 because pages that were impacted (either positively or negatively) on this date were further impacted on August 19.

July 9, 2017

Quality Update

SEO ranking tools detected some minor volatility on July 9, potentially another (unconfirmed) Google quality update.

June 25, 2017

June 25 Update

Various SEO tracking tools detected a significant, though unconfirmed, Google update on this date. One analysis found that this update caused the biggest fluctuations for pages ranking in Positions 6-10. While it impacted most niches, the good and beverage industry was reportedly impacted the most.

May 17, 2017

Quality Update

Starting May 17 and lasting for about a week, SEO tracking tools reported lots of SERP volatility. While the impact seems limited, those sites impacted by this update tended to have issues with aggressive/deceptive advertising, UX issues, and thin/low-quality content.

March 7, 2017

Fred

Google’s Gary Illyes jokingly referred to this update as “Fred” and the name ended up sticking. But this algorithm was no laughing matter for those impacted. This major algorithm update seemed to mainly target low-value content. On March 24, Illyes officially confirmed the update. But Google has refused to share any more specifics, instead choosing to say that all the answers about Fred can be found in Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines.

February 7, 2017

February 7 Update

This unconfirmed major update resulted in massive rankings shifts in Google’s SERPs, which also meant major increases or decreases for some websites. Overall, it seems higher-quality and more relevant websites gained the most visibility.

February 1, 2017

February 1 Update

This was a minor and unconfirmed Google update. Although all information about this update is more speculation than fact, it seemed to target private blog networks or those doing spammy link building.

January 10, 2017

Intrusive Interstitials Update

On August 23, 2016, Google announced an upcoming change that would target intrusive interstitials and pop-ups that hurt the search experience on mobile devices. As promised, this update rolled out January 10, 2017. The impact of this update on rankings was minimal.

November 10, 2016

Unnamed Update

Search industry chatter and data from SEO tracking tools indicated some sort of unconfirmed Google update happened on November 10.

September 23, 2016

Penguin Update 4.0 & Core Algorithm Integration

The final update to the Penguin algorithm saw it integrated into Google’s core algorithm, meaning Penguin was now evaluating websites and links in real-time. Another big change was Penguin devalued links, rather than downgrading the rankings of pages.

June 1, 2016

Quality Update

Though unconfirmed by Google, data indicates that another content-related Quality Update to Google’s algorithm began rolling out around June 1, with additional search ranking volatility seen on June 8, 21, and 26.

May 12, 2016

Mobile-Friendly Update (#2)

The second Mobile-Friendly Update (or “Mobilegeddon 2”) was an update to Google’s first mobile-friendly update, meant to “increases the effect of the ranking signal.”

January 11, 2016

Panda Core Algorithm Incorporation

Google confirmed that Panda had been incorporated into the core Google algorithm, evidently as part of the slow Panda 4.2 rollout. In other words, Panda was no longer a filter applied to the Google algorithm after it does its work, but is incorporated as another of its core ranking signals. It has been clarified, however, that this doesn’t mean the Panda classifier acts in real time.

October 26, 2015

RankBrain

Though it had been in testing since April 2015, Google officially introduced RankBrain on this date. RankBrain is a machine learning algorithm that filters search results to help give users a best answer to their query. Initially, RankBrain was used for about 15 percent of queries (mainly new queries Google had never seen before), but now it is involved in almost every query entered into Google. RankBrain has been called the third most important ranking signal.

July 17, 2015

Panda Update 4.2 (#28)

Google announced a Panda refresh that would take months to roll out and impact 2 to 3 percent of English queries. Due to the slow nature of the rollout, it’s unclear how substantial the impact was or precisely when it occurred. It was the final confirmed Panda update.

May 3, 2015

Quality Update

The Quality Update (or the Phantom Update) was a confirmed change to Google’s core ranking algorithm – specifically, how Google assesses quality signals. Websites with content quality issues, as well as too many ads, seemed to be impacted the most by this update.

April 21, 2015

Mobile-Friendly Update

The Mobile-Friendly Update (or “Mobilegeddon”) was an update meant to reward mobile-friendly websites with better search rankings and provide better results to searchers on mobile devices. This update impacted all languages globally

October 17, 2014

Penguin Update 3.0

Though named like a major update, this was actually another data refresh of Google’s Penguin algorithm. Penguin 3.0 allowed those impacted by previous updates to emerge and recover, while many others who had continued to utilize spammy link practices, and had escaped the radar of the previous updates, saw an impact. The update took about three days to fully rollout and impacted less than 1 percent of English search queries.

September 23, 2014

Panda Update 4.1 (#27)

Google’s Pierre Far announced that this update to the Panda algorithm added “a few more signals to help Panda identify low-quality content more precisely.” It impacted 3 to 5 percent of queries.

July 24, 2014

Pigeon Update

Pigeon was a significant local search update that saw Google start using more traditional website ranking signals to influence local search results. It also improved Google’s distance and location ranking parameters

June 12, 2014

Payday Loan Update 3.0

Google’s Payday Loan update 3.0, which largely was focused on targeting spammy queries, also included better protection against negative SEO attacks.

May 20, 2014

Panda Update 4.0 (#26)

Google’s Matt Cutts announced Panda 4.0, a major update to the algorithm impacting 7.5 percent of English queries.

May 16, 2014

Payday Loan Update 2.0

This was the “next generation” of Google’s Payday Loans algorithm, updated to better target spammy websites.

February 6, 2014

Page Layout Refresh

Google’s Matt Cutts announced a refresh of the page layout algorithm. No changes to the algorithm were mentioned – it appeared Google simply reran the algorithm and updated its index.

October 4, 2013

Penguin Update 2.1

Google’s Matt Cutts announced the first (and only) Penguin 2.0 algorithm data refresh, impacting ~1 percent of searches.

September 26, 2013

Hummingbird Update

The Hummingbird update was a major overhaul to Google’s core search technology. Google needed a way to better understand and return the most relevant results to more complex queries as a result of the growth of conversational search (i.e., voice search). Google said the new algorithm affected about 90 percent of searches worldwide. Although this update was announced on this date, it actually started rolling out in August 2013.

June 11, 2013

Payday Loan Update

Google Payday Loans algorithm update targeted spammy queries mostly associated with shady industries (including super high interest loans and payday loans, porn, casinos, debt consolidation, and pharmaceuticals). It took about 1-2 months to fully rollout and impacted about 0.3 percent of U.S. queries.

May 22, 2013

Penguin Update 2.0

This was a “next generation” of the Penguin algorithm, as Google’s Matt Cutts explained in a blog post. This version looked deeper than the website homepage and top-level category pages for evidence of link spam being directed to the website. Penguin 2.0 impacted around 2.3 percent of English queries.

March 14, 2013

Panda Update (#25)

This update was not confirmed by Google though tools suggest it occurred on roughly this day.  Google’s Matt Cutts seemed to suggest that this would be the final update before Panda would be incorporated directly into the core Google algorithm. Instead, however, Panda data refreshes started rolling out monthly over a 10-day period, without any further confirmation from Google.

January 22, 2013

Panda Update (#24)

Google announced a Panda data refresh affecting 1.2 percent of English queries.

December 21, 2012

Panda Update (#23)

Google announced a Panda data refresh impacting ~1.3% of English queries.

November 21, 2012

Panda Update (#22)

Google confirmed a Panda data refresh impacting 0.8 percent of English queries.

November 5, 2012

Panda Update (#21)

Google confirmed a Panda data refresh impacting ~0.4 percent of worldwide queries worldwide and ~1.1 percent of U.S. queries.

October 9, 2012

Page Layout Update #2

Google’s Matt Cutts announced that the page layout algorithm had been updated, impacting 0.7 percent of English queries. This update gave an opportunity to websites hit by the first Google algorithm rollout to potentially recover.

October 5, 2012

Penguin Update 1.2

Google’s Matt Cutts announced the second Penguin algorithm data refresh. It impacted 0.3 percent of English queries.

September 28, 2012

Exact Match Domain Update

Google’s Exact Match Domain (or EMD) algorithm update focused on ridding the SERPs of spammy or low-quality exact match domains.

September 27, 2012

Panda Update (#20)

This was a significant update of the Panda algorithm that took more than a week to completely rollout and impacted 2.4 percent of English search queries.

September 18, 2012

Panda Update 3.9.2 (#19)

Google announced the rollout of a Panda data refresh impacting less than 0.7 percent of queries, adding “expect some flux over the next few days.”

August 20, 2012

Panda Update 3.9.1 (#18)

Google confirmed a Panda data refresh impacting ~1 percent of queries.

July 24, 2012

Panda Update 3.9 (#17)

Google announced a Panda refresh impacting ~1 percent of search results

June 25, 2012

Panda Update 3.8 (#16)

Google announced a Panda data refresh impacting ~1 percent of queries worldwide.

June 8, 2012

Panda update 3.7 (#15)

Google confirmed a refresh of the Panda algorithm started rolling out on this date, impacting less than 1 percent of U.S. queries and ~1 percent of worldwide queries. Ranking tools suggested it was bigger than more recent Panda updates.

May 26, 2012

Penguin Update 1.1

Google’s Matt Cutts announced a data refresh of the Penguin algorithm, impacting less than 0.1 percent of English searches. Websites that saw their rankings downgraded by the initial Penguin launch, and had been proactive in clearing up their link profiles, saw some recovery. Other websites that hadn’t been caught by Penguin the first time around took a hit.

April 27, 2012

Panda Update 3.6 (#14)

Google confirmed a refresh of the Panda algorithm occurred on this date.

April 24, 2012

Penguin Update

A long-anticipated “over-optimization” penalty finally arrived on this day. Google announced the launch of a (then unnamed) algorithm change meant to downrank websites engaging in aggressive webspam (e.g., keyword stuffing, unnatural linking) that violated Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Google said this update would impact 3.1 percent of English queries. Just two days later, we learned the name of the algorithm: Penguin.

April 19, 2012

Panda Update 3.5 (#13)

Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed a Panda data refresh happened on this date.

March 23, 2012

Panda Update 3.4 (#12)

Googled announced a Panda refresh, impacting ~1.6 percent of queries.

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February 27, 2012

Panda Update 3.3 (#11)

Google announced a data refresh of Panda that made it more “accurate and sensitive” to recent changes on the web.

February 27, 2012

Venice Update

After the Venice Update, Google began including search results based either on the searcher’s physical location or IP address. Also, Google could better detect whether a query or webpage had local intent or relevance.

January 19, 2012

Page Layout Update

Google’s page layout algorithm update (or Above the Fold) targeted websites with too many ads above the fold. In other words, a user would have to scroll down the page to see any actual content. Google said this algorithm impacted less than 1 percent of websites.

January 18, 2012

Panda Update 3.2 (#10)

Google confirmed a data refresh of Panda took place on this date.

November 18, 2011

Panda Update 3.1 (#9)

Google announced a minor Panda refresh, impacting less than 1 percent of searches.

November 3, 2011

Freshness Update

With this update, Google altered its ranking algorithm to better determine when to deliver search results that are fresher (e.g., current events, hot topics, recurring events) to be more relevant to searchers. This update impacted 35 percent of searches.

October 19, 2011

Panda Update 3.0 (#8)

Google added some new signals into the Panda algorithm and also recalculated how the algorithm impacted websites.

September 28, 2011

Panda Update 2.5 (#7)

Another iteration of the Google Panda algorithm. Then, on October 5, 2011, Google’s Matt Cutts announced to “expect some Panda-related flux in the next few weeks.” Confirmed flux dates were October 3 and October 13.

August 12, 2011

Panda Update 2.4 (#6)

Google’s Panda algorithm update was rolled out internationally for all English-speaking countries and non-English speaking countries (except for Japan, China, and Korea).

July 23, 2011

Panda Update 2.3 (#5)

Another update to the Google Panda algorithm.

June 21, 2011

Panda Update 2.2 (#4)

Another update to the Google Panda algorithm.

May 9, 2011

Panda Update 2.1 (#3)

The industry first called this update Panda 3.0, but Google clarified that it was just a data refresh, as would be true of the 2.x updates to come.

April 11, 2011

Panda Update 2.0 (#2)

The first update to the core Panda algorithm. This update incorporated additional signals, such as sites that Google users had blocked.

February 23, 2011

Panda Update

The first iteration of a then unnamed Google algorithm update was introduced (12 percent of queries were impacted), shocking the SEO industry and many big players, as well as effectively ending the “content farm” business model as it existed at the time. Initially dubbed Farmer within the industry, Google revealed soon after launch that the update’s was called Panda, named after the engineer who came up with the primary algorithm breakthrough.

April 28, 2010

MayDay Update

The MayDay update was an algorithmic change to how Google assessed which sites were the best match for long-tail queries. This update rolled out between April 28 and May 3.

August 10, 2009

Caffeine Update

Google’s Caffeine update was a new web indexing system that allowed Google to crawl and store data more efficiently, resulting in 50 percent fresher results. Developers were given early access starting in August 2009 before the update officially rolled out June 8, 2010.

January 18, 2009

Vince Update

Google’s Vince update was a quick, noticeable change in broad-level, competitive keyword terms to favor first page rankings for big brand domains vs. previously ranking sites (typically less authoritative sites, affiliate sites, and sites that had won this coveted visibility purely through SEO efforts).

December 15, 2005

Big Daddy Update

Big Daddy (or Bigdaddy) was a gradual update to Google’s infrastructure that began rolling out in December 2005 and was completed in March 2006. This update changed how Google handled technical issues such as URL canonicalization and redirects. Some websites didn’t make it into the new Big Daddy data centers, typically due to unnatural linking (e.g., excessive reciprocal linking, linking to spammy neighborhoods, paid links).

September 1, 2005

Jagger Update

Jagger was an update in three phases (Jagger 1, Jagger 2, and Jagger 3) that began with a number of backlink-focused updates in early September meant to crack down on unnatural link building, paid links, and other types of spam. The second phase of Jagger had the most noticable impact in October. The final phase was completed near the end of November.

November 16, 2003

Florida Update

Google’s Florida Update signaled a new era of SEO. Websites (including retailers who relied on affiliates to drive traffic) using spammy tactics of the previous decade (e.g., keyword stuffing, using multiple sites under the same brand, invisible text, and hidden links) to rank for high-commercial keywords saw their rankings wiped out right before the lucrative holiday season.

The post History of Google Algorithm  Updates appeared first on Go Web Solution.

In order to build a strong online presence, you must consider the full range of services a professional web design company has to offer. A top-notch web design company will take care of the hassle and complications involved in building a user-friendly, high-traffic web page.

There are website builders that offer a platform for people to build their own site, however, it doesn’t offer the full range of services like a professional web design company. You would have to seek a separate platform just to get access to professionals in graphic design, SEO writing, content marketing, and networking.  Don’t make the mistake of cutting corners to save money when it could end up costing you more in the long run.

A Website Ties Together Your Digital Campaign

You can market on the internet using many channels like social media, e-commerce platforms, and Apps. All these platforms allow you to reach digital consumers from all corners of the globe. Social media networks such as Facebook and Instagram boast millions of users whom you can easily market to. E-commerce sites such as Shopify and Big Commerce give you a ready-made platform on which you can launch your business. Mobile and desktop Apps have been proven to streamline the customers shopping experiences as well.

However, none of these options will strengthen your online presence without an eye-catching website to tie it all together. The reasoning is simple, a website is like the starting point of any digital marketing strategy. It’s the converging point of all online marketing efforts. Without a website, your overall strategy would have no point of reference. Having a physical web address that customers find informative and user-friendly should be a priority before branching out to other channels.

Website Builders Will Have Limited Options

Although site builders are a good place to explore and learn a thing or two about websites, they are not the best place to fully develop your company’s website. With site builders, you are limited to what the platform can support. This means images, documents, or media files you want to upload may not be feasible.

Secondly, you can’t move your site to a different platform. If you want to recreate the website using a different web builder you would have to start at the beginning. Additionally, website builders are known to have SEO and content marketing limitations. Lastly, website builders may have security shortcomings that could expose your site to hacking or viruses. All these limitations mean you could significantly increase your overall expenses.

Gain access to professionals in online graphic design, SEO and content marketing strategy by utilizing a web design company. With their expertise, you could easily avoid the issues and limitations that were previously mentioned.

Professionals Ensure A Stress-free, Accessible Site

Developing a website is one thing, making it work the way you want it to is another. It isn’t uncommon, for instance, to find images that don’t load properly when using certain browsers. Avoid these frustrations by hiring a staff that knows what to do.

They will know what to do when it comes to uploading images whether the pictures are in .jpeg, .docx, .doc, .img, .pdf, or other file formats. They understand the contrast in resolutions and pixels when changing the size of an image. Such details are not commonly known and without the right experts to assist you, the website could be a bit disappointing. It’s important to note, improper image and documents uploads could results in bugs in the website. This means people that visit the page may not have access to the images, media files, or other documents. In fact, it may not even load properly when they attempt to browse the website.

Reaching as many potential clients and loyal customers as possible is a top priority for many websites. In order to reach a large audience, always ensure that your site loads smoothly on all browsers. This means working out all the bugs. Websites can, from time to time, get infected with viruses or malware. It may not have started out that way, but there are many reasons why technical issues could arise. A professional web design company would make sure that there are zero technical glitches with the site. They will also perform the necessary tests to ensure that your site is working perfectly on all browsers.

Get High-Quality Work 

Another benefit of using a professional web design company is the higher quality work. These companies retain talented staff members who have developed the necessary skills to create a successful website. For example, an e-commerce website is meant to create loyal customers. The site has to be bug-free, user-friendly, and easily accessible via their smartphones, computers, or other mobile media device. This will ensure people keep coming back to the site in order to browse, shop or share your website. This is precisely what you get when you choose to work with a professional web design company.

Owing to their experience, the designers will know everything you need to make an impression on your target audience. They will be able to help you set up on-site content and show you how to navigate through the online world of marketing for your website. Even the images on your site and their placement on the site will be carefully thought out to ensure that you’re not leaving money on the table. Getting optimal performance from a website is what a web design company aims to do. You will not get that kind of high-quality work from a non-professional web designer or limited website builder.

Benefit From Greater Creativity

In addition to delivering high-quality work, professional web design companies also have the edge over non-professionals. They can customize your websites thanks to their creativity and the skills they’ve developed throughout their academic and professional experience. For instance, beginners and amateurs may not be aware of the many features that websites can now have. Convenient payment buttons, engaging emoticons, and well-placed hyperlinks are just a few of these features.

A professional web design company knows where to place features like a shopping cart, payment buttons, social media icons and more, without compromising the website’s overall design. They also understand what it takes to increase traffic while keeping your website unique. There is a lot of creativity involved in designing a web page that will stand out and gain attention. Investing in the technical and creative expertise of a web design company will help increase online traffic to the site.

Make A Lasting First Impression

Recent studies show just how important first impressions are when it comes to business websites. According to a report by one of the country’s leading SEO companies;

It takes a mere 50 milliseconds for a web visitor to form an opinion about your site,

38% of visitors will leave if the layout of your site is unattractive,

85% of consumers get the feel of a website before making a purchase decision, and

94% of consumer’s first impressions are web design related.

If the website is poorly designed most visitors will leave with a bad impression of the page. With these stats in mind, it’s important to consider making an excellent first impression. This means hiring the right web design company to create a website your business can be proud of.

Professionals Stay Up-To-Date On The Latest Trends

Web design trends are always changing to meet customer demand. For instance, one of the current trends most designers are going with is the flat design. This design refers to a clean and simple format absent of multiple images. A website that is too heavy on images will slow down site speed. This has been found to frustrate mobile users and could drive away potentially loyal clients.

Another trend that has become quite popular is expressive typography to create a unique website. This type of design adds customized font size and color to everything. Each one is selected to create a distinctive theme. Additional trends include animated logos for scrolling icons. These are scroll-triggered animations that disappear and reappear whenever you adjust the position of the cursor.

Customized Websites Are Unique

Customization is a term used to differentiate professional websites from sites built using pre-designed templates. With templates, you choose a pre-designed skeleton of a website from a list, fill in the content, add a couple of features, and you’re ready to go. This is what free website builders offer to set up a quick and easy page. This may be more convenient, but it leaves a lot to be desired. For instance, ask yourself how many other people have a similar site? The pre-designed templates could make it difficult to create a truly unique website that can stand out from the rest. A quality web design company can help customize your web page.

Get A User-Friendly Website

A professional web design company can help you create a website that users can easily peruse through and visit on any media platform. Skilled web page designers already have a good grasp on the average web user’s journey. They know at what point users start their browsing, where they want the menu to be, and how they want to navigate. By tapping into this knowledge, they can provide users with short, simple, and rewarding browsing experiences.

Faster Load Times

You’ve probably heard this a million times and for a good reason. Website load time is critical to the success of your online business presence. According to HubSpot, load times play a major factor in driving online traffic to your website. Here are some statistics that show just how crucial it is to have a site that loads within microseconds.

47% of internet users expect a website to load within two seconds,

64% of mobile users expect a site to load in four seconds,

A one second delay in load times leads to an 11% loss in page views,

A one second delay in load speeds leads to a 7% reduction in conversions, and

If your site makes $100,000 daily, improving your load times by just 1% can improve your sales by $7,000 daily.

These are only some of the figures that HubSpot has been studying when it comes to successful and popular websites. Poorly designed websites are usually the primary cause of slow load times.

Professional Design Guarantees Superior SEO Performance

For the website to do well and get more attention, you need excellent SEO performance. If you’re not familiar with SEO (search engine optimization), it means priming your site for crawling and ranking high on multiple search engines. In other words, your website will slowly gain rank until it pops up on the first page when searched on Google, Yahoo, Bing or other search engines. When a website is friendly to search engines, indexing your pages becomes easy. In return, search engines will reward you by ranking your site favorably in search results. On the other hand, if your site is ranking poorly, it could mean poor SEO performance. Ranking high in search engines will increase traffic to your website.

SEO begins with good design. Excessive use of CSS and JavaScript, for instance, can kill SEO. Flash elements, HTML frames, and improper error pages can negatively impact your website’s SEO. All these mistakes are often associated with website design issues that could have been avoided by hiring the right web design company.

Benefit From Responsive Design

Many consumers are moving towards using their mobile devices when placing orders or searching online. The convenience of a computer in ones’ cellphone means more mobile users. Consider working with a professional web design company so that you can benefit from responsive design. Put simply, responsive design makes your website accessible across all types of media devices.

For instance, a T-shirt company can feature all their graphics online. However, the images are fully accessible and upload properly when using a computer. The problem is that some PC elements don’t render well on mobile. For instance, your cool shirts may not even be displayed on the mobile screen. Or, the images may get hidden because your web pages are too large for the mobile screen. To avoid these issues and improve the customer experience, you need to invest in responsive design.

Save Time

Using a professional web design company will save you time in several ways. First, professional designers can complete the job more efficiently. They understand the intricacies of creating a strong online presence. In most cases, you’ll have your website completed in a timely manner with everything ready to go. Most amateur developers need weeks just to come up with a framework for the site.

Secondly, a web design company will save you time by keeping maintenance needs to a minimum. Since the site is thoroughly tested before being published, you can rest assured that it won’t crash, have technical issues or major down times. Website failure can cause you to lose online sales and traffic, create bad first impressions, and potentially drop good customers. This is especially important for e-commerce websites that rely on great shopping experiences to improve their sales.

It’s Worth The Value

The problem with most small business owners is that when budgeting for a site, they tend to focus solely on the initial investment without looking at the big picture. Novice web designers and web builders don’t have access to SEO, content marketing, and professional graphic designers.

Every website needs regular maintenance to ensure optimal performance. With a poorly designed website, simple technical issues could happen more often. For instance, a slight increase in online traffic could cause some websites to freeze. Additionally, with site builders, you need to purchase themes and plug-ins to make the site more unique and usable. These costs can add up quickly in the end which why it’s important to consider all your web design options from the beginning.

Get User Support

When you have unrestricted access to technical support, which is what you get with professional web design, you can rest easy knowing that even if something went wrong, you’d have a professional on the other end waiting to help. Whether it’s a few technical bugs that need fixing or you need to add some new features, they are equipped to get the job done.

Increase Your Credibility

The online space can be difficult to navigate. Most consumers of today like to be informed on who they are doing business with. It won’t be difficult for them to note the difference between a poorly designed website and professionally prepared one.

Get More Positive Reviews

Consumers discuss their browsing experiences all the time. After visiting a website for the first time, you’ll find people talking about how great the site is, how easy it is to get around, and how they enjoyed the entire experience. This is the kind of positive vibe you want to generate for your business because it can help strengthen the loyalty of your current customers while gaining more. A web design company can help elicit those positive reviews for your website because they focus on efficiency, creativity, and reliability.

Increase Your Online Traffic

Professional web design can also help you get more traffic. It increases positive customer experiences and credibility which helps drive traffic.

Another way a web design company can drive traffic to your site is through its SEO impact. We’ve seen that professionally designed sites rank better in search engines. This higher ranking can significantly boost your traffic. According to a study by HubSpot, more than 60% of Google users click on the first three links in search engine results. Only about 10% actually go past the first page of results. An excellent web design company can help you get to the top positions in search results using SEO to improve online traffic.

Convert More Leads

Professional web design also plays a key role in lead conversion. A great site naturally increases the length of time people stay on a website. Time spent on a website, in turn, is directly related to lead conversion.

When a website is user-friendly, with accessible buttons, and well-placed menus, customers will browse longer. There will be less of what marketers call “bounce rate.” Bounce rate refers to the proportion of visitors who leave a website without taking action. One of the main causes of high bounce rates is poor design and clutter. A web design company understands the logistics involved in creating a strong online presence.

A Great Site Keeps Clients Coming Back

In business, there is nothing more important than repeat customers. They are the cornerstone of even the biggest corporations. To keep costs down, you need to satisfy your current customers and keep them coming back. A professionally designed website is one way to delight your loyal customers and meet their expectations. When you have a website they love, those customers will keep coming back.

Stay Ahead Of The Competition

In business, anything that can help you stay ahead is desirable. There are two main factors that play a role. First, consumers prefer to associate with technologically advanced companies. If people are made aware that flash content is bad for their security, they will try to avoid sites with flash content. This means if your website uses flash content and pop-ups, it could drive down traffic. People will recognize your web address and avoid going there.

Secondly, staying ahead of the pack can help you win over some of your competitors’ customers. Responsive design plays a huge role in this because mobile accessibility has become a popular trend. Non-mobile friendly websites are losing traffic consistently because Google suppresses those sites when returning search results to the mobile devices. Your website can easily stay ahead of the competition if it’s created to be mobile friendly and work seamlessly with any Wi-Fi platform.

Get More Projects Completed

Businesses, especially SMBs, have a lot to deal with and designing their own website could increase that workload tenfold. If you’re just getting started, for example, you’ll need to wear multiple professional hats because you will be working with a graphic designer, SEO writer, content marketer, and tech-savvy consultant. While it may be a way to cut costs, in the beginning, these expenses could eventually add up. Ensure that you’re doing everything to make the business a success because too much work can bog you down, compromise your productivity, and negatively affect the profitability of your business.

Hiring a web design company will take some of the weight off your shoulders. You’ll have more time to concentrate on running your business.

Creating A Strong Perception Will Strengthen Your Brand

Professional web development is also important for the overall perception of your business. This is a little different from credibility or trust. With credibility, consumers are trying to find out if they can rely on you.

Perception, meanwhile, is more about building your brand image and earning respect. It’s about getting people to see you as a force in the industry. Consumers may even choose to dissociate themselves from your brand if they perceive your website as sub-par or less. Professional web design can help you improve your status in the industry and invite more consumers as well as competitors to take you seriously.

Professionally Designed Websites Increase User Satisfaction

Marketing and business mean taking into account customer satisfaction. Understanding the wants, needs, and trends of users will help create a lasting impression. Additionally, you could win over visitors who “accidentally” stumble upon your site. Those customers could potentially buy from you or seek your business services in the future. As the visitor leaves, they need to feel that the time spent on your site was worthwhile. A web design company accounts for user satisfaction when creating a unique online strategy for your business.

Add An Air Of Professionalism

Starting a business and/or running one means upholding a certain standard of professionalism in all corners of the market. In today’s Wi-Fi world, online access adds to your business’s credibility and sophistication. Many customers of today like to be informed on where they are getting their products and services from. Before even stepping into a business building, many people will “google it” first. If your website is poorly designed or you don’t have one, you could be losing more potential business than you think. Add another layer of professionalism to your business’s repertoire by investing in a web design company to create your website.

We Can Help

Clear Mind Graphics is a premier web design company, located in Hailey, Idaho. We have a long history of helping local businesses get noticed on the global stage through our web page design services. We have the skill, experience, and professional experts to create unique, functional, and responsive websites that will fit your budget.

If you have any questions or would like more information on the process of professional web development, don’t hesitate please contact us.

The post 25 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD HIRE A PROFESSIONAL WEB DESIGN AGENCY FOR YOUR BUSINESS IN 2019 appeared first on Go Web Solution.

You can improve your business’s local ranking by using Google My Business to claim and update your business information.

Can’t find your business? Improve your info.

You may find that your business doesn’t appear for relevant searches in your area. To maximize how often your customers see your business in local search results, complete the following tasks in Google My Business. Providing and updating business information in Google My Business can help your business’s local ranking on Google and enhance your presence in Search and Maps.

Tip: To edit business information for 10 or more locations at once, you can create a bulk upload spreadsheet.

Enter complete data

Local results favor the most relevant results for each search, and businesses with complete and accurate information are easier to match with the right searches. Make sure that you’ve entered all of your business information in Google My Business, so customers know more about what you do, where you are, and when they can visit you. Provide information like (but not limited to) your physical address, phone number, category, and attributes. Make sure to keep this information updated as your business changes. Learn how to edit your business information

Verify your location(s)

Verify your business locations to give them the best opportunity to appear for users across Google products, like Maps and Search. Learn more about verification

Keep your hours accurate

Entering and updating your opening hours, including special hours for holidays and special events, lets potential customers know when you’re available and gives them confidence that when they travel to your location, it will be open. Learn how to edit your hours

Manage and respond to reviews

Interact with customers by responding to reviews that they leave about your business. Responding to reviews shows that you value your customers and the feedback that they leave about your business. High-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location. Encourage customers to leave feedback by creating a link they can click to write reviews. Learn more

Add photos

Adding photos to your listings shows people your goods and services, and can help you tell the story of your business. Accurate and appealing pictures may also show potential customers that your business offers what they’re searching for. Learn more

How Google determines local ranking

Local results are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence. These factors are combined to help find the best match for your search. For example, Google algorithms might decide that a business that’s farther away from your location is more likely to have what you’re looking for than a business that’s closer, and therefore rank it higher in local results.

Relevance

Relevance refers to how well a local listing matches what someone is searching for. Adding complete and detailed business information can help Google better understand your business and match your listing to relevant searches.

Distance

Just like it sounds–how far is each potential search result from the location term used in a search? If a user doesn’t specify a location in their search, Google will calculate distance based on what’s known about their location.

Prominence

Prominence refers to how well-known a business is. Some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local ranking. For example, famous museums, landmark hotels, or well-known store brands that are familiar to many people are also likely to be prominent in local search results.

Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business from across the web (like links, articles, and directories). Google review count and score are factored into local search ranking: more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business’s local ranking. Your position in web results is also a factor, so SEO best practices also apply to local search optimization.

There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google. We do our best to keep the details of the search algorithm confidential to make the ranking system as fair as possible for everyone.

The post Improve your local ranking on Google appeared first on Go Web Solution.

Planning for a website redesign is exciting but can also be equally overwhelming. The complexities of website design, development, marketing and strategy require specialized competencies, so selecting the right agency for your business can often make or break your initiative. With so many factors to take into consideration, it’s important to go into the process with a defined list of criteria and expectations. Explore these twelve tips for selecting a digital agency for your next website design project.

1. Think Beyond Web Design Services
There are thousands of website design choices out there — from freelance designers to large agencies and everything in between. When planning for a site design or redesign, it’s important to look for an agency that offers a suite of integrated services — including design — to support your full digital needs. Having a single agency provide strategy, design, development and marketing services offers the convenience of “one-stop shopping” and avoid a seemingly endless game of “telephone” between partners. Additionally, it allows you to establish a more comprehensive, effective digital presence as the agency fully understands your goals and can develop a cohesive, integrated strategy to achieve them.

2. Appreciate The Value of Strategic Guidance
You are designing or redesigning your website because you have specific goals. A website redesign is simply a tactic to help reach your overall objective. A worthwhile agency will see beyond your initial request, helping you to define a short- and long-term digital strategy that aligns with your plans. Look for an agency that will take the time to understand your audience(s), develop a customized approach for your project and recommend the right services to achieve success. You don’t know what you don’t know, so it’s important that your agency provide strategic guidance every step of the way.

3. Research Responsive Website Design & Development Experience
Building your site using responsive design is the standard these days, so selecting an agency that has demonstrated experience designing and developing responsive websites is critical. Creating a custom, responsive site will cost you a bit more initially, but it will immediately benefit you and your audiences given the trends in mobile usage. Ask the agency for examples of responsive sites they have built, and take each out for a test drive on your devices so you can experience them for yourself.

4. Select a Content Management System For Now (and Later)
With so many content management systems to choose from, it can be difficult to decide which will be the best for your business. It’s important to define your site goals, including — but not limited to — marketing, design, technology, workflow, security and compliance. An experienced agency should be able to guide you towards a CMS that will be a good fit now and down the road based on your goals and budget. Pro tip: make sure you understand the content that you can customize on your website, and who will own the website if you decide to part ways with the agency.

5. Evaluate Designs Beyond The Visuals
Many agencies develop beautiful-looking websites. The challenge is designing gorgeous websites that are also aligned with best practices for user experience (UX). Furthermore, the site design must be compatible with search engine optimization (SEO), content and maintenance strategies. Design fads come and go but strategic agencies will advise you of the “why” behind the look and feel — specifically how the designs will help support your business and marketing goals.

6. Plan for Content Development
Redesigning a website with the same content as your old website is the digital equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. You should look for a digital agency that understands and develops strong content to UX, SEO and business/marketing goals. Integrated marketing agencies have copywriters on staff who will work seamlessly alongside the design, development and marketing teams to produce website content that aligns with the site strategy. Your agency should also have the capability to produce additional content for ongoing consumption – from blog posts to infographics, videos and more. An agency that specializes in these services and tactics allows for continuity of content with your new site and saves time and effort in getting multiple vendors involved in subsequent content creation.

7. Understand and Demonstrate Search Engine Marketing Expertise
Search engines are most often the number one or two source of traffic to a website, so it’s no wonder that search engine marketing (SEM) has become such an important part of any digital plan. As a prime differentiator amongst firms, select an agency that can not only talk the talk, but also walk the walk. Understand what SEM services the agency offers, and ask about ranking results for other clients. Also, be sure that the agency can help you beyond the site launch, as you explore enhanced services such as pay per click (PPC) advertising.

8. Confirm that Knowledge Equals Experience
All agencies purport to know about their business, but it is demonstrated experience that really separates agencies from each other. It’s important to evaluate a firm’s working knowledge based on a variety of criteria. If you are in a highly specialized industry, a firm that has demonstrated experience with other clients in your industry is critical. However, it’s also important that an agency bring innovation and technology from other industries to keep your site competitive and fresh. Always ask for at least five client references and probe those clients with questions that will increase your comfort level with your decision. Additionally, take a look at any awards and recognition that an agency has received because those help provide an additional validation of the firm’s quality of work.

9. Know Who Is Doing the Work
Many agencies outsource work so they don’t have the overhead when project work ebbs and flows. The problem is that outsourcing can create inconsistency in terms of process, talent and relationships. Find out if the digital agency you are interested in has the full project team in-house and also ask when they can begin your project. This will give you the peace of mind that you are hiring the team they are proposing to be.

10.  Don’t Be Coy About Your Budget
Starting with a budget range is helpful for an agency to know where to begin the conversations. Buying a custom website is not a commodity with a fixed price tag and as such, factors that affect price include the services offered, number of pages, third-party licensing fees and much more. Defining your budget range early in the game will help a good agency point you in the right direction in terms of services and products, or politely decline the engagement if you are simply not a fit for each other. Be honest with your project criteria and select an agency that can help you achieve your goals within your budget.

11. Understand Ongoing Support Model
These days, most websites are not online brochures and instead, are direct reflections of your continually evolving business. Define upfront how you anticipate supporting the website’s changes internally, and understand what type of services the agency can provide post-launch. Define expectations for response time, ask about support processes and understand what kind of budget commitment you should anticipate. A reputable agency will want to work with you well past your website project so that together, you can execute against your digital plans.

12. Feel the Love
It is truly possible to like, if not even love, the agency you work with. From the initial call or meeting you have, you should feel very comfortable with the team you have spoken to, and actually look forward to continued dialogue. Much like dating, not every agency is a fit for every business. But, don’t underestimate the importance of the “vibe” you get from your conversations because you will be working with those people for months and hopefully beyond.

The selection of your web design agency is something that requires careful consideration. Once decided, you’re entering into a commitment for the duration of the project lifecycle. You not only want to “live” with the decision; you want the new site design to be a rewarding experience for every key stakeholder. Your goal should be finding a digital agency that can add value to the web project, resulting in a world-class site that’s on spec, on design and on budget. Let these twelve tips guide your process for choosing the right web design partner for your total site success.
Article Source: http://www.hsh.com/finance/mortgage/buying-a-home-shop-for-the-lowest-mortgage-rates.html

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Online marketing is important when it comes to small businesses. This is because consumers are online during this age in time and you want to make sure that when they are searching for something on the web that they come across your company. Having professional website development and a mobile website is a good start yet it is beneficial to invest in other online marketing services such as SEO and PPC too. Today, we are discussing the main benefits that come along with online marketing for small businesses.

It Allows Your Customers Access to You Around the Clock
Online marketing allows you to keep your business open 24/7. This means that you never have to worry about losing customers because of them needing something outside of traditional business hours and you are able to cut back on the amount of overtime that you have to pay your employees. Allowing your customers to shop online is convenient for them too because they can browse your available options and shop whenever they have the time.

You Reach More Customers
Online marketing allows you to reach customers at any location. You no longer have to worry about only getting orders from consumers in your local area. Instead, you can sell products and services worldwide, which mean your small business, can start generating more revenue quicker. You also avoid having to have many facilities spread throughout the country or world.

Lowers Your Cost
Online marketing also lowers the amount of money that you have to spend in advertisements. When you market on the internet with PPC you are able to spend less money than if you were to advertise in the newspaper, flyers around town, or on the television. You also prevent yourself from having to purchase a lot of stock for store displays. Instead, you can order stock, as you need it so your inventory costs are able to stay as low as possible.

Gives Customers a Personalized Experience
Online marketing allows you to give your customers a personalized experience. You can create a profile of their purchasing history and their preferences, which allows you to provide them with targeted offers that are based on their interests. This allows you to increase your profits while also making sure that your customers are happy to continue shopping with you since they only see products that interest them.

You Can Create Relationships with Consumers
Consumers love to feel as though they know the person behind the brand and online marketing is a way to make this possible. With online marketing, you can send follow up emails to thank customers and confirm their orders so you can enhance your customer retention levels. You also can email them periodically to let them know about new products that they may like and provide them with special discounts or promotions. If you allow reviews on your website, you can allow customers to have a community type feel when they come to your store too.

Social Media Benefits
During this age in time, social media is very popular. Your consumers are there, your competitors, and your employees. Online marketing via social media is a great way to get your brand out there and interact with your customers. Studies have shown over the years that businesses that have social media accounts and are active on them receive more sales than small businesses that do not utilize social media. Social media is something that benefits you immensely and should be a part of your internet marketing campaign.

Stay Ahead of Your Competitors
When many small businesses are just starting out, they may do some online marketing yet their focus is to bring in local customers. You can stay ahead of your competitors by starting online marketing from the beginning. When customers need something they will find you online and order from you since your competitors are only able to assist them during traditional business hours.

Closing Thoughts
If you are a small business and want to enhance your revenues quickly, online marketing is the way for you to do so. It can be as simple as creating a website and making sure that it is mobile friendly, while incorporating SEO and PPC.  Social media should also be at the top of your list and your customer service must be superb.

We are in a technologically advanced world and to have any success during this age in time, online marketing is key. It benefits small businesses in a variety of ways, as you can see from the points that we have mentioned in this article today.

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In a digital age, where most users have computers and mobile devices, accessing websites, social networks, and other online media, has become part of day-to-day living. Thus, many companies have adopted digital marketing strategies to continue to promote their products and services to these users via these channels.

According to global stadistics (by the World Bank), more than 2 million people have Internet access today, out of which 70 percent uses it daily. It is for this reason that companies are investing an average of 12 percent to 20 percent of their annual income on digital marketing. Below are the five most common digital marketing strategies:

1. Social Media
Social networks are an efficient and low cost tool to promote new products and services, increase brand awareness, maintain loyalty from customers, increase website traffic, and improve customer experience. Therefore, social media has become an efficient channel to create new customers as well as driving brand loyalty. Many tools are available to marketers to create and maintain an online presence, as well as creating and maintaining demand.

The largest social networks are: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram. To manage large scale social networks, tools like: Hootsuite, Podium, and Buffer, are commonly used by digital marketers. These also facilitate reporting, traffic analysis, web and/or mobile segmentation, among other functions.

2. Images, videos, and blogs
According to statistics by Zabisco, a digital design company, 40 percent of online users respond better to visual information rather than textual content. There are several reasons why visual content should be part of a marketing strategy. For example, the brain processes visual information faster than text content information; articles with videos attract three times more viewers than articles without videos. Today more than 85 percent of users in the United States watch videos online.

3. Email
According to ExactTarget, one of the most popular tools for e-mail marketing automation, e-mail is an easy way for brands to reach their customers; 77 percent of consumers who give their email address would be open to receive more information via email.

There are other companies like Salesforce and Constant Contact, who are also engaged in developing e-mail marketing automation tools. They allow you to design campaigns and e-mail templates using HTML and CSS, as well as automating the sending of such emails, and analyzing results such as: number of people who opened the email, whether they clicked on the product or promotion, among other measures.

4. Smartphones, Tablets, and others gadgets
According to infographic by Aden Hepburn, founder and director of VML (WPP – Y & R Brands) in Australia, 56 percent of the population has a smartphone; 50 percent of users use their phone as their primary source of online search, and 72 percent of tablet owners shop from their tablets each week. Today, people use their cellphones more than any other electronic device. The mobile platform is constantly developing, and is one of the most important, when it comes to promoting products and services. This is why brands spend much of their marketing budget on this digital channel.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
The largest online search engines, by number of users, are: Google with 182 million users, Yahoo with 173 million, Bing with 162 million, and Ask with 69 million users.

Google, for example, uses natural positioning techniques (SEO), referred to by its acronym: Search Engine Optimization. This consists of generating free traffic from natural, organic, search results. Thus, the goal of SEO is to increase the visibility of web pages in search engines, without resorting to payments ads. A second strategy is search engine marketing (SEM), which consists of paid advertisements in search engines. For example, Google offers Adwords, which operates under a pay-per-click pricing model for ads.

Conclusion
Digital marketing is on a continuous growth path thanks to the ever growing number of always-online users – mostly due to the explosive growth in the mobile space. It is important for marketers to evaluate different strategies in seeking out where to invest their marketing budget to get the best results and increase conversions.

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In the last decade, internet and online marketing techniques have drastically altered the way in which we share information, introducing a profound impact upon the world of internet-related businesses.

Especially throughout the last few years, there has been a focus upon inbound techniques over outbound tactics, and more businesses than ever are discovering the advantages associated with publishing original content on a regular basis, instead of embedding advertisements into external content.

Never before in the history of the world, has the playing field been so level for companies everywhere. The advent of social media and blogging has completely democratized the business world, and opened doors for even the smallest of business.

By now you’ve likely heard the buzzwords — cloud computing, big data and responsive web design, etc. Well the latest and hottest to join the bandwagon is “content marketing strategy.”

It refers to the power of content and understanding of how you can create appropriate content strategy and market it for attracting the right kind of attention.

One of the fundamentals of a good content marketing strategy is that it should initiate a “two-way conversation.” Not only should your content be shareable, but should trigger discussions and encourage followers to comment.

The basic strategy of content marketing requires you to have a clear vision of your business objective. This will help you create viable web content strategies for engaging both your target customers as well as search engines — helping you generate better ROI by improving search engine rankings and ultimately the all important sales.

The essence of online businesses nowadays is to generate maximum web visibility and garner online reputation in the process. One of the basic rules is to provide your customers enough quality content for them to talk about and engage with.

To gain a deeper insight into this topic I recently spoke with Aaron Agius from Louder Online.

Over the past decade Aaron has helped some of the lead brands around the world built powerful online marketing campaigns by using an intelligent mix of Search, Content and Social tactics.

Some of the businesses he has helped online include Ford, IBM, The Star, LG, MLC, Million Dollar Woman, as well as a broad range of small businesses.

“The importance of a content marketing strategy cannot be understated. Content is the foundation of any successful online marketing campaign. A great strategy is needed in order to fuel social media activity, to create high converting landing pages for pay per click marketing, and to power increases in search engine rankings for target keywords.

Businesses of all sizes can benefit from implementing a solid content marketing strategy. Small businesses have just as much opportunity as big businesses to reach an increased audience trough content marketing — the key element that needs to be monitored is consistency. Consistent content creation and marketing is what sets apart businesses from the many similar businesses jumping on the content marketing bandwagon.” Aaron Explain

In my opinion every organization today needs a digital marketing plan in order to be successful. And while they may be able to maintain or even grow their revenue without one, companies without a strong digital marketing plan aren’t only leaving money on the table, they are loosing customers to those companies that do have a digital marketing strategy and plan in place.

Furthermore, Google’s algorithm is continuously changing, meaning this pretty much guarantees that the quick win strategies that may have worked in the past will no longer work in the future. Now is definitely the time to develop a new type of strategy to garner links and traffic.
Thought leaders and marketing experts from around the world, including the likes of Seth Godin and hundreds of the leading thinkers in marketing have concluded that content marketing isn’t just the future, it’s the present

Whether you already have a plan in place or been inspired by this article to design one, below Aaron shares his 5 steps you need to take in order to create a content marketing strategy that not only engages with your audience but ultimately into sales:

1) Focus your plan around being able to consistently create high quality content.

2) Ensure your content strategy covers a wide range of different content types. Text blog posts, advanced guides, infographics, images, video — the more types of media you create the greater the potentially reach and the number of different distribution channels you can use to get eyeballs on your content.

3) If need be outsource your content creation, but only do so once you have developed strict guidelines around tone, style, voice, and the core messages that you want your content to speak towards.

4) Identify the problems in your industry, the questions people are asking and focus on being a resource that creates content that solves problems and puts you in a position of authority within your industry.

5) Don’t forget the marketing in content marketing. This is the most important point. People are now creating endless amounts of content and thinking they are doing content marketing. You should be spending as much time in marketing the content as you are creating the content on the first place.

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