Fetch and Render: Best new technical SEO tool for 2014
Google recently announced a new Webmaster Tools feature that allows you to see a website through Googlebot’s eyes. The Fetch and Render function will crawl a URL site and grab external files, such as images and JavaScript, then put it all back together (rendering) to show you how your site looks to Google. This powerful new tool will cut time spent troubleshooting a website’s impaired performance. The Problem: Poor Website Performance Just as in medicine, you can diagnose symptoms of poor website performance by looking at specific aspects and comparing their functioning to healthy, best practice results. When issues are identified, you can tweak individual things such as robots.txt, scripting, flash, iframes, and non-indexable text until overall performance improves. Although this methodology may work, it’s not the most efficient way to fix technical website issues, especially at the page level. The Solution: Google Webmaster Tools Fetch and Render Even the cleverest SEO expert may have a hard time telling you exactly what Google can and cannot read. Using the Fetch and Render function, you can manually submit a page for a full technical review of SEO symptoms. This feature also provides a snapshot of what Google can actually see on your page so you can determine if text or images are hidden. Instead of replacing all of the script on your website, you can identify specific script that Google is having trouble reading. This holistic view empowers you to be the SEO expert and to outline the most efficient and accurate remedy for technical issues with exact recommendations for improved website performance. 0
2 min read
Google results page looks different: Digging into the SEO implications
Title tags and meta descriptions are important players in the world of natural search. Beyond keyword matching as a ranking factor, these two elements combine to form the SEO “ad copy” for a given page. A page’s title tag is used by search engines as the ‘headline’ portion of the result, and its meta description forms the paragraph or ‘snippet’ portion. For years the golden standard of SEO best practices has always been a 70 character title tag and 160 characters maximum for meta descriptions. The week of March 17th, 2014 Google changed that “golden standard” by rolling out a visual update to its search engine results page (SERP). A number of page design elements were changed, including the addition of a yellow ‘Ad’ tag next to paid search results, and an increase of font size to make natural search results larger. The change in font size, however, affected more than the appearance and readability of search results: By increasing font size of the snippet, it also changed how long title tags and meta descriptions could be before Google cuts them off. This update requires a change in best practices related toTitle and Description lengths. Advertisers must shift from relying solely on character length to now also consider the width of the characters. This means that characters are no longer a reliable measurement for Title and Description Lengths. A title can be only 45 characters and still be truncated, or more than 80 and show up cleanly – depending on the characters involved. Looking at character width we suggest advertisers stick to around 480 pixels for the Title Length and 920 pixels for the descriptions. How should SEO’s now calculate Title and Description lengths? The solution is simple and just requires some creative thinking. By utilizing width rules in excel you can set the ideal pixel width for your cell and use that to tell you if your titles are long enough to be properly displayed. Please keep in mind that your title and description text will bold and become larger depending on a search users query. If you have a primary query term make sure to bold those keywords in excel to see if they still fit within the pixel width requirements for Google’s search results. Can we still use characters as a best practice? Characters can be used as general guideline but we strongly recommended that you check the pixel width separately as characters are not a reliable indicator of what will be shown in the SERP. If using Character guidelines you will need to develop individual ones for every language to account for differences in character width. General US Title and Description Character Guidelines Desktop Title: 55 Characters Mobile Title: 55 Characters Desktop Description: 150 Characters Mobile Description: 115 Characters Was this a US only update? No, this update was made globally so it’s important to update best practices for all non-US specific websites. Using excel width as opposed to counting characters is a more accurate way of developing Title and Description recommendations as it takes into account the width of unique characters for different languages. Using the above example; translating this title into another language (like Russian) makes it way too long. It’s necessary to look at global implications of titles and descriptions to make sure that they fit into Google’s new design. Does this affect both Desktop and Mobile Search? Yes, the changes make search results more touch screen friendly and create a uniform look across desktop/tablet/mobile Google search experiences. What you need to do after reading this: Update Global Title and Description Best Practices Globally: Don’t just rely on character count. All of your character length requirements need to be re-evaluated. Do a little bit of QA in Excel and see what size fits the languages you work with. Save those templates for future recommendations. Change Existing Titles and Descriptions (if they are being cut off): Nothing is more embarrassing than seeing your carefully crafted title or description cut off. Make sure to update them as soon as possible. You might be missing out on key intent phrases. 0
4 min read
The Impact of Google's Changes to the Mobile Search Page
During the second half of 2015, Google rolled out a series of changes to the mobile SERP (Search Engine Results Page), causing substantial fluctuations in the world of Paid Search and SEO. While these changes affected brands in various ways, iProspect saw an overall trend: Paid Search is increasing in mobile visibility and engagement, while SEO is decreasing in high volume branded terms. This was primarily caused by three specific experiences being changed in mobile SERP. Impacts Searcher with “I-Want-To-Know Intent” Enhanced Sitelinks and 3-4 Paid Search Ads What has changed: Enhanced sitelinks became larger; these now include drop-down functionality and can display up to four ads within a SERP. Highly competitive branded keywords (i.e. Brand Name or Brand Products) were the most impacted. Impact: The growing amount of enhanced Paid Search sitelinks is eating into traditionally high-volume brand terms that drive a lot of SEO traffic. Typically, these are primarily “I-Want-To-Know” moments, where an individual is validating a purchasing decision or already has the brand in mind. While it appears to have great efficiency and engagement for Paid Search, the slight increase can sometimes be correlated with huge decreases in SEO CTR as the user is actively looking for a brand experience. Old SERP New SERP Impacts Searcher with “I-Want-To-Buy-Intent” Product Listing Ads (PLAs) What has changed: PLAs now take up a larger portion of the above-the-fold SERP and include other rich features, like review ratings. They are commonly present for corresponding product queries. Impact: The larger size of PLA ads is causing a decrease in SEO, while making Paid Search ads more effective. When the brand is allocating budgets appropriately to capitalize on the enhanced look of the new PLA units, they will often see an overall lift in search engagements for these “I want to Buy” search users. Old SERP New SERP Impacts Searcher with “I-Want-To-Go Intent” Local 3-Pack What has changed: Queries with high local intent and generic brand queries are now being served a Local 3-Pack result that includes a map. Impact: Searchers looking to find directions are now being presented with this information directly from the Local 3-Pack. The end result is a decrease in SEO traffic to the brand site for the “I Want to Go” intent users looking for the “location because the information is now present directly in the mobile SERP. Old SERP New SERP Evolve Your Mobile Search Strategy Google is evolving the SERP, predicting what users want and giving the information directly to them. As mobile search results continue to evolve, it is essential to deeply integrate your SEO and Paid Search strategies. Google will continue to makes changes to capitalize on AI machine learning to define the most valuable experiences for search users and provide brands with new ways to monetize and engage on those moments. Your brand’s search strategy needs to consider each touchpoint for search users. Let us know how we can help your brand navigate and succeed in the new mobile search environment. 0
3 min read