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2023/12/28 2023/12/28

What does “AMP” mean?

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The rise of AMP- should our business get an Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) website?

Welcome, folks! Let’s talk about something changing the game in mobile SEO: AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages. You might be wondering, “What’s all the fuss about AMP?” Let’s unravel this digital conundrum together, and we will explain why your business should strongly consider getting an AMP version of your website design.

 

What is AMP, and why is it causing a mobile revolution?

Why is everyone who works in digital marketing chatting about AMP? It’s simple: AMP pages are like a bullet train in Japan for transport, for what it can offer your customers, that’s loading at an almost unbelievable pace on your smartphones and tablets. It’s a super-fast version of your company website.

 

Does my business need an AMP version of the website?

So, what makes AMP the talk of the town? For starters, it’s not just a trend; it’s a necessity for some. For large brands to keep their competitive edge and to keep that business high on Google, they often need to improve all aspects of the website to ensure that their search engine optimisation has the edge over the competition. With mobile devices ruling the roost, having a website that caters to mobile users isn’t just lovely; it’s critical.

 

Speed is now the name of the game:

When it comes to SEO and mobile optimisation, speed is king. AMP takes this very seriously.
Imagine a web page that loads faster than you can say- “accelerated mobile pages” – that’s AMP for you. It’s not just about loading fast; it’s about creating a good U.X. because it’s a bit like a lift in a shopping centre; customers prefer to get to where they want to go fast rather than slowly. This is the same for your company’s website; they will want to get to the product they want to buy as fast as they can, so if the website is too slow, this may increase the company’s bounce rate.

Here’s something to ponder: faster web pages mean more engaged users and a lower bounce rate, which can mean better business. With AMP, your pages aren’t just quick; they’re efficient and streamlined, making for a seamless user experience. As any good SEO consultant will tell you, your marketing agency should work hard to improve your company’s U.X. A happy user often translates to a happy business owner.

 

 

How does AMP work?

AMP isn’t just magic; it’s a marvel of technical ingenuity- and the most suitable web designers will be able to design an AMP version of your website. From prioritising resource loading to optimising JavaScript, AMP is like a finely tuned engine on a sports car that ensures your website runs smoothly and swiftly, no matter the traffic.

 

So, what does the future hold for AMP?

In the ever-evolving world of SEO, AMP isn’t just a passing trend; it’s a cornerstone of the future. It can enhance your website’s U.X., meaning that because you made your company website fast, shoppers will appreciate this; they will see how quickly every page loads, making it easier to browse more products. Because you’ve made it easier for your customers, making the website load faster can help reduce your company’s bounce rate.

With mobile usage skyrocketing, AMP isn’t just a choice; staying ahead in the SEO race is necessary.

FAQ:

Your burning questions About AMP answered:

 

What Exactly is AMP?

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. In layperson’s terms, it’s a way to build web pages and blog posts for static content that load much faster.

 

Why does my business need AMP?

In the fast-paced digital world, user experience (U.X) is everything. AMP enhances user experience by drastically reducing load time, leading to better engagement, lower bounce rates, and potentially higher revenue.

 

How Does AMP Work?

Without getting too technical, AMP works by simplifying the HTML code, optimising files like CSS and JavaScript so that the page loads much faster, and leveraging various performance techniques. It’s like streamlining your website to be more efficient.

 

Is AMP only for mobile devices?

Primarily, yes. AMP is designed to make web pages load faster on mobile devices such as your iPhone or Android smartphone. While it works on desktops, its main focus is improving mobile user experience.

 

Will AMP help improve my website’s organic SEO?

Faster load times and better user experience (U.X) can indirectly improve your business’s organic SEO. While AMP isn’t a ranking factor, its benefits can increase search rankings.

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2023/12/18 2023/12/18

What is the “Google Helpful Content Update”- and how should it change your business creates content marketing?

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Written by: Ryan Walsh

Date: 18/12/2023

 

It might be the case that your business’s rankings have taken a nosedive. This could be due to many reasons. However, many websites were impacted by the helpful content update Google rolled out.

Google rolled out many updates every year, yet the Google helpful update impacted many businesses.
Other updtaes, such as the Google Hummingbird, they are much more well known about. So this update, we would say is equally important, yet many businesses don’t know what it is. Yet, if your company website has a lot of pages and blog posts, well its especially important to see if the written work on every page is good quality, and follows Google’s EEAT advice.

 

Google’s Helpful Content Update

The initial rollout of the update was back in September 2022, and many SEO consultants believe there have been many updates since. Therefore your organic traffic may not have decreased straightaway, as Google indexed, and revaluated old pages, its possible, yoru rankings may have decreased some time after.

 

Crawl Budget

It does boil down to how much of crawl budget Google has placed on your company website. A website such as BBC, a well known brand, its likely to get crawled and indexed by Googlebot everyday. A small business, that hasn’t invest much in search engine optimisation, well, that business may get indexed once a month, and not all pages may get indexed, so its possible that the business only feels the effect of Google Helpful Content update many months later, and that’s after each roll out of the Google update.

 

Can we recover from the Google Helpful update?

Well, often, a business can recover; however, it’s essential to take the advice of an expert on this. It could be the case that many factors are holding your website back, such as spammy links, thin content pages, and just a website with a high bounce rate. So, it’s essential to consult with an expert.

What we mean by this is, sometimes a business may think it’s the Google Helpful Content Update that placed the business lower in the SERP’s. However, it could be many different updates, for example a link update, or lets say Google’s RankBrain spotting that the website has a very high bounce rate.

 

So, what was the primary purpose of Google’s Helpful Content System?

The main purpose, we believe, is to reward pages and blog posts which are helpful to the business’s customers. Now, you might be thinking, surely that would be every page? Not really, as here’s the thing: so many companies, and we are talking about millions of separate businesses here, will have blog posts and main pages just written to improve the company’s SEO.

So, many businesses wrote complete waffle, in a weak attempt to get the business to rank higher on Google. However as Google got better and better at detecting spam, and low quality SEO, these businesses are getting deindexed, and removed off Google altogether.

So, a word to the wise, only implement quality SEO.

 

What are content thin pages?

So, these could be “content-thin” pages that do not offer much helpful information.
For example, you may want to read more about a product or service, and you’re presented with just one paragraph, which is not helpful to the reader.

So, for example, you want to learn about lets say a product, yet, the page doesn’t answer your question. Rather than having useful advice, such as a detailed product description, you just have one line of text, which doesn’t answer the question you have.

 

Keyword stuffing / over-optimised.

Too many businesses get lazy regarding their SEO; they know keywords they want to rank higher on Google. But sometimes, the business obtains poor advice; what happens is that the text, say a blog post, just gets over-optimised by repeatedly mentioning keywords the company wants to rank for. This can result in the business incurring a Google Panda penalty.

 

Google Panda

Since 2011, Google has been trying to eliminate low-quality SEO pages, such as thin content pages, from its index.
Therefore, the Google Helpful update continues this effort to reward businesses that write beneficial content marketing for their customers.

It takes a lot of time to write a detailed, helpful article. Yet, these businesses will end up ranking higher in Google’s results, as Google’s algorithm rewards businesses with higher rankings if they write top-quality content marketing.

 

Google’s EEAT update

So, if you’re doing SEO in-house, do take some time to understand Google’s EEAT guidelines. Basically, in a nutshell, the written work needs to be written by an expert who has real-world experience of what they are writing about so they can reliably offer advice.

So, for example, let’s say that you sell high-performance engine oil for high-performance cars for track days. The work needs to be written by someone who, say, a mechanic, can explain the compounds within the oil that make that product of such high quality.
Google’s algorithm is just so clever.

Many years ago, Google’s algorithm started understanding semantic SEO and the links between entities.

So, for example, if you’re writing a detailed blog post following the advice of Google EEAT, then what will happen is you are more than likely to mention many entities.

Google understands these entities and how everything is interlinked, and therefore, will know if the article offers super reliable advice or just a marketing waffle.

 

Google’s RankBrain

Google’s Rankbrain is used to decipher how real shoppers are using your company website if, for example, they are spending a long time on the website or just leaving after a few seconds. Bounce rates, time on site and dwell time are therefore all considered.

 

Don’t make sudden changes, and don’t expect results overnight.

So, if your organic rankings have decreased, don’t make significant sweeping changes to your website. Make slow, carefully thought improvements, so if you notice a content-thin page with only 100 words of text, do take the time to expand and add much more detail.

And don’t expect results overnight; you might work late into the night, making changes, hoping Google will reward your efforts the next day and place your business back on the first page. But SEO doesn’t work like this; seeing any noticeable improvements could take many months.

 

Carry out a content audit.

So, we SEOs are a bit like hamsters on a wheel sometimes, writing and writing more blog posts. However, there’s a time to stop, to take stock, and think, well, is the work reported, say, seven years back, still relevant? Is it good quality? Does it follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines? Does it meet the standard of SEO that Google EEAT now expects?

Then, ask the following:

  • Is the work good quality?
  • Does the work offer helpful advice?

Does the work meet the standard that Google’s EEAT expects?

What to do if you don’t think the content marketing is excellent:

 

Add more detail

Add new paragraphs and more up-to-date statistics, and generally improve the work.

 

Make the work more valuable.

So, when you started your business, you may not have been able to pay a digital marketing agency for advice. But now you can; they might want to revisit the work implemented years ago to see if it can be improved.
So, why not rewrite some paragraphs and offer more helpful advice?

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2023/12/12 2023/12/12

What exactly is local SEO?

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Local SEO is simply the process of optimising a website so that it appears higher within the organic search results and also so that the company appears Google My Business results.

Google’s algorithms will take into account the proximity of where the person is at that moment in time.

For example, if they ask Google to find for a “local MOT station”, then that person will be shown local garages based on exactly where they are standing at that moment in time. If they are North of Cardiff, garages will be shown in that area, as that’s where they are at that time. Google will presume you want businesses which are close to where you are standing at that point in time.

If they were to change the location later on the day, let’s say to a different part of Cardiff, the results would be different again within the Google My Business results.

Prominence

How important is that business within the local area? How many quality backlinks does the website have for example? How many positive reviews they have?

Relevance

How relevant is the business to the product or service the persons looking for it? For example, somebody might ask to find a local bakery, and they may also ask Google to find companies that make wedding cakes.

Therefore, there might be a bakery just around the corner, but if the website doesn’t stipulate that they make wedding cakes, then that business is unlikely to be shown in the results.

 

 

Why we think your business needs to invest in quality SEO

In our opinion, there are often many excellent SEO consultants in any given city; these people can help to place your business higher within Google’s organic search results and help to get your business ranked in the Google My Business results as well.

When you think about how many shoppers use Google daily, to find everything from post office opening times to finding a local solicitor. As a matter of fact, Google’s global search engine market share was 92.06%.

A representative from Google also stated in 2018 that 46% of Google’s searches have local intent.

This is why so many businesses invest in seo, as it can help your business to draw in more customers.

 

Here is what you should think about before investing in SEO: whether you will outsource this work to a local marketing agency or perhaps you would like to do it yourself, we would highly recommend that you must understand white hat SEO.

For example, that gives you a quick example of what not to do; let’s say that you are creating a Google Business Profile; you might think it’s a brilliant idea to add a keyword you want to rank higher for on Google. For example, you might add the company’s name, plus electricians and the name of the city where your business is based.

But you shouldn’t do this, you should just write your companies name, as it appears on companies house.
So for example, if “electricians + name of city” is not part of your business name, then don’t add this within the business name section on

Google My Business, this is not a white hat. This is just one example, of what not to do, there are a lot more.
In a nutshell, only use white hat seo methods.

NAP details

Your business premises, where you meet your customers, this will form part of the NAP information.

NAP information represents your company’s name, address, and phone number.

We can help your business improve your local SEO

We have partnered with many businesses here in South Wales for over 10 years, to help get those businesses onto page one of Google.

We have helped these businesses dramatically increase the number of organic shoppers which visit their websites. This has helped those companies to increase their profits.

If you would like to learn more about how local SEO can increase your sales, why not give us a ring today?

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2023/12/08 2023/12/08

What is “Bard”, and how good is Google’s new Bard AI?

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Google has released its own conversational A. I chatbot, its therefore a rival to ChatGPT which has taken the world by storm.

 

What is Bard AI?

Google’s Bard

Google’s Bard is a chatbot, and it is trained using a huge language model.
The language model it uses is called LaMDA for short, which most users will not know, but what they will want to know is how good it is, and it, like ChatGPT, helps people to save time. For example, lets say you have written an article, its too wordy, its 3,000 words, reading it will require an espresso to keep the reader awake, so you could ask Google’s A.I, to summarise the article, to say 700 words, but to keep within that text, the critical points.

 

What can you use Google’s Bard for?

Well, anything, from instructions on cooking a tasty curry to how to best maintain your wood burning stove.
But the significant part is the A.I am conversational, so what do we mean by that?

Well, you could talk to the A.In a similar way you would speak to a shop assistant, to gain helpful advice.

So, I have a question, can you follow on with another question if you so wish?

Okay, so how do I make a tasty vegetarian korma curry?

Then Google’s Bard replies with an answer.

Then you could reply, but I have no coconut milk, what can I use as a substitute?

So, it’s bit like having a chef standing next to you, as you cook, you can ask questions and get answers in real-time.

Who doesn’t love a good digital showdown? Here, we highlight some key differences between Google Bard and ChatGPT.

 

How will AI tools such as Google’s Bard and ChatGPT change SEO?

A lot of various SEO agencies have stated how they think A. I tools, such as Google’s Bard, is changing SEO.
What for sure, is that it is having an impact; people may get so used to using chat bots, like ChatGPT, that they don’t use Google as much; what we would say is its still too early to tell right now what the uptake is is, how many people have stopped using Bing or Google so much, and now use their AI app instead.

However, as SEO consultants, we have to adapt, and therefore, this poses the real question, could shortly we have fewer organic visitors coming via the search engines to our client’s websites, if so, it’s a bit like having fewer people visiting a car showroom, the people are there because they want to buy a car, yet there might be less shoppers.

Yet what this means, is that these shoppers become even more valuable to the business, as you still want to make sales.
So we think businesses must concentrate on offering the best U.X, customer service, and us SEO agencies, must be delivering very high quality SEO, because there may well be less organic visitors coming to the clients website. Us SEO consultants might have to work just as hard, to gain less clicks, as the number organic visitors may decrease, even though the business climbs Googles organic ranks.

 

 

 

 

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2023/12/06 2023/12/06

What exactly is a CDN, and could it be used to improve your business search engine optimisation?

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Written by: Ryan Walsh

Date: 06/12/2023

You might’ve heard your SEO company talk about the many advantages of having a content delivery network, also often called CDN. You might also wonder what this is and the main benefits of purchasing a CDN.

A CDN is simply a network of servers located in many different countries across the globe, and what they do is allow your company website to be served much faster to a shopper and more reliably from servers situated closer to where the shoppers are.

So, for example, let’s say somebody is shopping for a nice suit; it will be better to visit that website using a server in Amsterdam if the shopper is based in the U.K rather than the website coming from a server in America.
So the main benefit is speed; the website loads faster for the shopper, allowing FCP, or First Contentful Paint, and therefore offers a better user experience (U.X) because someday may want to look at, say, 17 different items before they make a purchase. If the e-commerce website is slow, then they’re likely to get frustrated- the shopper is likely to buy there suit from elsewhere. They could even leave the website and visit a competitor’s website- causing the business to have a higher bounce rate.

So having a quality CDN, where the businesses website is much faster, can lead to a better user experience and potentially lower your business bounce rate.

 

So, how exactly does a CDN work?

What you want is to purchase a high-quality CDN; these companies should have different servers based in multiple locations worldwide.

The primary purpose of purchasing a CDN is simply that the hosting company which owns the servers will have a server-based closer to the shopper is.

So, if somebody is shopping for an item in the United Kingdom, it could be possible that there is a server in Birmingham; therefore, positioning the servers much closer to the shopper allows the website to load much more quickly and therefore, this could help a business to reduce its bounce rate.

 

Improved page loading times

Let’s say peak times when people are coming home from work, say at 5:30 or 7:30 in the evening- this is lilkely when a lot of people will be purchasing items here in Britain.

The person might be packed into a train, shopping for items on their iPhone and are simply looking to buy a rather generic item such as a duvet set for their home.

However, if the website they are on is extremely slow and are likely to leave that website and visit a competitor’s site- causing the business to have a high bounce rate.

So, by purchasing a quality CDN, this allows your company website to load much faster because the website is coming from a server closer to where the shopper is.

For example, you could have a server in the United Kingdom rather than just hiring a hosting company based in America. Therefore, the website will likely load faster if your shopper is here and your hosting companies server is within the same country.

 

Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

This is a free tool; we would recommend using it to see if you can make your website faster.

 

Which companies offer CDN services?

A famous company is called Cloudflare, this company uses something called Smart Routing to ensure that your website is delivered to the shopper quickly.

 

There’s also Amazon Web services

This is another famous company used for CDN services; Amazon Web services can also be easily integrated into your WordPress content management system, and we would recommend this company also.

 

 

 

 

 

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