Getting content and getting it fast is important in the world of the Internet, isn’t it?
When you see an interesting article, you want to click and read without having to wait for several seconds.
Facebook knew this way back in May, creating a new content delivery platform called Instant Articles. And now it looks like Google and Twitter are teaming up for something similar.
What is this new content delivery platform? And how can you use it for your content?
Avengers, Assemble: Google and Twitter Teaming Up for a Content Delivery Platform
Back in May, Facebook announced a new content delivery platform called Instant Articles. The plan on Facebook’s part was to offer original content from companies directly on Facebook instead of third party sites.
They’ve continued this with the revamp of Notes, creating a powerful long-form content platform.
And Google and Twitter did not want to be left out. Recode reports that many Twitter users are noticing that articles load instantaneously now, instead of waiting for a few seconds for it to load. Are you seeing the similarity with Instant Articles?
Once you get passed that similarity, you’ll notice a few interesting differences.
This isn’t necessarily being hosted directly on Google and Twitter; in fact, both channels want to make this an open source service. This gives several tech companies the opportunity to use this and build on it for their own needs.
This is a great opportunity for websites, and since this is based on cached websites instead of an individual content platform, it is open to everyone. And, you won’t lose out on ad revenue either.
How is this Going to Compete With Facebook’s Instant Articles?
The biggest way Google and Twitter’s new delivery platform is going to compete with Instant Articles is simply that it is open source.
Instant Articles is only for Facebook and isn’t available for everyone yet. However, with this platform, every single publisher will benefit.
When it comes to using Facebook, Mashable points out that it really is a difficult position for publishers. Instant Articles shows that people need to jump on the Facebook bandwagon or they could lose out.
However, it could also get to the point where people rely too heavily on Facebook and forget other channels.
This isn’t so with Google and Twitter, which is making this new option immediately attractive to many publishers both large and small.
Is This Going to Drastically Changes Online Content Delivery?
Thankfully, this new change isn’t going to be a drastic change. It just means that you need to focus heavily on content creation.
And really, you should already be focusing on it.
Creating excellent content pieces that people will click on is the biggest way that you can take advantage of this excellent opportunity.
Content creation is an incredible way to deliver content your clients want to see, providing them with value. This can definitely help you stand out from all of your competitors, making you someone people will trust quicker.
7 Ways to Prepare for Google and Twitter’s Content Delivery Platform
When it comes to creating excellent content and preparing to utilize Google and Twitter’s new setup, there are a few things you can do.
I am going to take a look and help you create some awesome long-form content pieces that people will click on and love to read ASAP.
1. Prepare to Write More Long-Form Content for Social Media
The biggest thing you need to do to prepare for the majority of recent changes, including Google and Twitter, is to make sure you are focusing on long-form content. Long-form content can drastically increase your website traffic, as well as making sure people stay, return, and share. Just take a look at this graph from Wordstream after they began to implement long-form content:
Image Credit: Wordstream
When they began to create long-form content, they saw that more readers stayed on their site longer. This is great because it then opens it up to encourage people to go around your site and look at your products and services. Sujan Patel says that long-form content also gives you the ability to reach a wider audience base, helps you to talk about more topics, and helps you generate more leads.
2.Hire Not Only Social Media Managers but Copywriters As Well
One of the best ways to prepare and get awesome content is to not only hire social media managers but copywriters as well.
This will help you create great content consistently, helping encourage people to click the links on Twitter and read your article.
Just imagine what the combined efforts of Google and Twitter with the power of a copywriter can do for your site. You’ll see some absolutely incredible results. Including, but not limited to, people sharing your content, engaging with it, and staying on your site longer.
3. Know How to Tailor Your Content for the Channel
You should also know the tone you want to use when it comes to reaching Twitter. You may need to create some great blog pieces that capture that tone, and help you reach out to a wider demographic.
It is vital to know, however, the difference between your brand’s voice and the tone you use. Your voice must always stay the same to help promote consistency.
Buffer’s Kevan Lee powerfully states that, “Voice is a mission statement. Tone is the application of that mission.”
You should already know the voice you want to have for your brand so use it when crafting content. And change up your multitude of tones to reach out to the right audience on Twitter.
4. Keep Up Your Business Site’s Blog
With Facebook’s Instant Articles, you might start believing you don’t need to keep up your site’s blog.
As I stated earlier, this is exactly what Mashable is afraid of. And you shouldn’t fall into this easy trap.
With the new change between Google and Twitter, you will absolutely need to keep up your business’s blog.
Don’t neglect it for other content delivery platforms because you could end up losing out on a lot more than you may realize at first.
5. Get Ready to Produce Original Content on the Majority of Social Platforms
More than ever we are seeing just how important original content is in the realm of social media.
There are multiple places that are requiring original content from Facebook to YouTube, and many sites like Upworthy are making sure they’re producing it.
In fact, research is already showing just how important original content is on platforms like Facebook. Native videos on Facebook do significantly better than those shared from third parties.
What’s the breakdown of how well these videos do? The videos end up reaching two times more people, getting shared three times more than third party videos, and receive seven times more comments.
Getting original content is not difficult, and when you focus on it, you will start to notice that more people are willing to engage and share.
6. Up Your Twitter Content Game with Powerful Tweets
The other big thing you should focus on with this new setup is convincing people to click your links and get to your page.
There are several awesome ways to do this, but a really great way is utilizing images.
Buffer takes a look at the power of images on Twitter, showing that tweets with photos get 18 percent more clicks, as well as 89 percent more favorites.
What about re-tweets? Tweets with images were re-tweeted 159 percent more for Buffer. Incredible, no?
7. Use Your Hashtags to Bring in More Readers and Viewers
You should also make sure you are hashtagging correctly. It can be super easy to hashtag a tweet to death trying to reach everyone you possibly can, but that doesn’t work well anymore. Linchpin SEO did a study showing that tweets that utilize two hashtags saw a 21 percent increase in engagement. And tweets with more than two? The engagement numbers actually dropped by 17 percent. Original, Powerful Content is More Important Than Ever
With all of these great advances in long-form content publication, you need to start creating awesome long-form content.
You need to ensure you are focusing on creating original content consistently to not only work with Facebook but also with Google and Twitter.
Conclusion
It’s always a good time to focus on the quality and consistent production of your content, and now that Twitter’s doing away with character limits, time to focus on long-form, high quality content even more! Express Writers can provide you with the exact type of long-form content you need to see awesome results.
What do you think about all this? Share in the comments!
For people familiar with Google’s local search content & overall algorithms, it’s clear that things are changing (again).
In the lingo of SEOs, earlier this month, people began to notice that the 7-packs that typically showed up in the business search results had been replaced by 3-packs. Although many marketers were initially alarmed, the trend continued and it soon became clear that the presentation of local searches had changed.
Find out all about Google’s recent local SERP changes.
Google’s Local Search Content: What Does the Pack Thing Mean?
Before we go any further, I better define what the heck this “pack” thing is. (This is what Google refers to it as.)
7-pack vs. 3-pack simply means that Google is showing 7 locations instead of 3 when you search for a location. See example screenshot when I searched for “restaurants Austin” on my mobile Android device. It only gives me 3 results before the More button.
Back to the News Story
So within hours of the first 3-pack’s appearance, 3-packs had completely replaced all 7-packs across all vertical search rankings in every country. People were shocked. Although Google is known for rapid-fire updates, they had previously tested local changes and then rolled them out only to certain countries.
Needless to say, the rapid change to local search results has left many people wondering what happened and what comes next.
Local Search Results Optimized for Mobile
One of the reasons that Google changed the face of their local searches is to accommodate the ever-growing number of mobile searches. By optimizing their search results for mobile devices, they cater to the wide selection of their users who prefer accessing the web via smartphone.
Now, when desktop users view their search results, they will notice that it looks quite similar to the search results a mobile user would see: the 3-pack has been designed to fit perfectly onto the screen of mobile users and desktop users are along for the ride.
In light of these recent changes, the top 3 search engine spaces are hot real estate for content marketers everywhere. Although mobile users have been accustomed to 3-packs for quite some time, desktop users are just now getting the swing of things and there is a high probability that content that doesn’t make the cut of the top 3 will be forgotten by users.
How Did the 3-Pack Changes Affect Traffic?
As you can imagine, Google’s local search content doesn’t just change willy-nilly. For all of Google’s algo updates, each proposed change goes through a heavy regiment of testing and, historically, SEO’S have noticed these tests as they take place. A few SEO’s predicted the 3-pack change and local businesses with more than two competitors have begun to feel the heat.
Many SEO’s speculate that Google made the change to 3-packs because the search results in the top three spaces of Google’s presentation were getting the most traffic. These results probably garnered more clicks and more attention, but this can probably be attributed to positioning more than anything else. Even if mobile rankings operated on the 7-pack system, the top 3 fit perfectly on a mobile screen, making them far more visible to a mobile user. Unless the mobile user scrolls down, results4-7 are all but invisible.
That said, it’s likely that Google made the change because results 4-7 were simply not getting enough clicks and they wanted to streamline user experience. Many local companies, however, don’t appreciate being booted from the first page because, even if they weren’t in the top 3, being in results 4-7 still offered ample branding opportunities and provided companies with a way to get their company out there for added exposure and notability.
Changes to Addresses
In the new 3-pack results, searchers will notice that Google has made some important changes to the addresses that appear in the 3-pack queries: they’ve removed specific, numerical addresses in favor of street names and not all local businesses love it. Although this change may promote people clicking through, which is a great thing for businesses that don’t land a spot in the top 3, even clicking through doesn’t show an address on the left side of the page.
Additionally, searchers no longer see phone numbers, Google+ links or flyouts. Store hours, however, have been added.
Ability to Search for Ratings
With the new 3-pack changes, Google users can now search for businesses based solely on their ratings. This is especially crucial for restaurant-related businesses. Now that users can search based on star-ratings (two stars, three stars or four stars), it’s obvious that companies are going to find themselves competing for increased ratings. When given the chance to search only for four-star companies, it stands to reason that Google users might not be all that interested in two or three stars. This is big news for small businesses with local competitors.
What Google’s Local Search Content Change Means for SEO
All of the changes implicit in the new 3-pack structure spell some big competition for SEO’s. Now that Google has essentially lopped four spots off of prime results page real estate, the competition for the top three has become fierce. Even companies that currently have a spot in the top three local search results can’t afford to get too relaxed: a spot today does not guarantee a spot tomorrow, especially because the competition for those spots just got fierce.
This new climate calls for companies to optimize their content for local SEO by taking steps like researching keywords, creating high-quality content and developing a highly visible home page that includes the company’s name, address and phone number as well as an embedded geo sitemap. Additionally, companies that can garner additional positive customer reviews will stand a better chance of sitting pretty in the search results.
Conclusion
Although these steps aren’t shocking to those familiar with SEO, they are new for local businesses that have never done any local SEO before. In the changing climate of Google’s local searches, though, it’s obvious that companies with more than two competitors now need to begin thinking about local SEO if they want to stay afloat.
We sat down – virtually, of course – with acclaimed author and SEO marketer Jeff Deutsch, author of the viral Inbound post Confessions of a Google Spammer (which hit over 160,000 views and 90k+ Facebook shares). He gave us some awesome, original insights on SEO basics for current marketers in 2015 (and beyond). It’s a read any online marketer should take the time to make.
Commence Jeff’s insights in 3, 2, 1…
Tell us a little about how and why you got started in SEO.
I’ve always dreamed of changing the world through mind control. As an introvert, SEO seemed like the best way to approach it. I probably got the dream from my dad. He was a pretty prolific writer. When I was 8 years old, he taught me how to hypnotize people. He used to proudly tell me stories about how, in college at Columbia in the 1950s, he would make his (pretty, female) subjects regress to memories from the womb—and beyond. I thought that was pretty cool.
Thousands of years ago in the 1960s, writers had to publish their stuff on things called books. My dad, Ronald M. Deutsch, wrote a bunch of them.
In college, I majored in political science. Because I thought they were going to teach me how to do mind control on a mass scale. (Spoiler alert: They didn’t.) So I tried doing it on my own. My first experiment came in 2003. At the time, the debate was raging on the need for war in Iraq. I was fervently against it. I had carefully collated all the projections on how many lives would be lost and money spent. Then I put up a website with the facts. Then I advertised the website by stapling and taping hundreds of bright lemon yellow flyers all over the conservative, war-hungry streets of New Orleans. The next day, I saw most of my flyers had been torn down during the night. My anti-war website got no traffic. That was the first time it dawned on me how important it is to have a reliable source of traffic that other people can’t easily take down. I wish I could say I started doing SEO back then, because man! It was easy back then. Unfortunately, I only started to figure it out in 2008, when I was doing marketing for a company in Beijing that had virtually no budget. By 2010, I had started my own little SEO company in Plainsboro, New Jersey, in an attempt to escape the Beijing pollution and relocate myself and my then-pregnant wife to the U.S. The relocation failed, but the SEO succeeded in a big way.
How big have SEO basics changed since the day you started out in SEO compared to today?
Nowadays, it takes a LOT more money, charisma, or tech skills to start an SEO agency. Today’s SEO basics are a lot different that yesterday’s.
Photo credit Social Media Explorer
Back in 2010, anyone with limited tech skills and the right cheat-sheet could easily start a successful SEO agency on a $1200 budget. I even wrotea post about it on backlinksforum.com if you want to know the details. But the basic concept was building parasite backlinks using spun content and force indexing them. If you don’t recognize those terms, never mind. They’re not going to help with SEO for the big money keywords these days anyway. However, I talked to some guys at one SEO agency at Opticon and according to them—amazingly—these methods STILL work for very low competition keywords. They use them to rank for reputation management clients’ names. But they are the exception to the rule. Most successful agencies these days have the money, charisma, or tech skills to have a comparative advantage over you and me. They gobble up all the keywords (and clients… and money…) by combining that advantage with the scaling power of automation and social media to force the Gini coefficient of SEO ever upwards closer to 1.0.
Money SEO agencies
These guys just buy links on high PR guest blogs like HuffingtonPost, or buy whole sites on Flippa to turn into pumpers or feeders, or pay to build a big ole PBN. They have the resources to reverse engineer their competitors’ backlink profiles and outbid them on quality link placement.
Profile: Think in-house link buyers for online casinos. Zodiac sign: Taurus. Star Wars equivalent: Think Senator Lott Dod, Minister of the Trade Federation. D&D counterpart: A NEUTRAL EVIL human rogue.
Charisma SEO Agencies
These people know how to network, be popular and get tight with high traffic sites. And get them to link to their creative content. Which they know people will like because they extrovertedly talk talk talk to everyone.
Profile: Think inbound marketers like Dharmesh Shah, Neil Patel, Joel Klettke. Zodiac sign: Libra. Star Wars equivalent: Queen Padmé Amidala. D&D counterpart: A LAWFUL GOOD half-elf bard.
Tech Skill SEO Agencies
These folks know how to automate outreach and find loopholes to rank and bank. Mostly these guys are pretty agnostic about the method, and only care about the result, so it’s hard to label them “white hat” or “black hat.” If, for example, they develop a WP plugin that gets them cloaked links, and they only rank reputable sites, who are they hurting really? Or maybe they develop the scripts to find high value expired domains with aged backlinks to build PBNs or 3BNs. The main thing is that they are mavericks who zig when everyone else zags, and they almost assuredly rock the pants off PHP, Python, Ruby, or all three.
Profile: Think Justin Mares fromProgrammingForMarketers.com and any SEOs on StackExchange.com. Zodiac sign: Aquarius. Star Wars equivalent: Han Solo. D&D counterpart: A CHAOTIC NEUTRAL halfling swashbuckler.
By the way, as you can see from my $1200 guide above, back in 2010 people like me used to hand out actionable, effective SEO basics advice on forums for free all the time.
Those days are over.
Nobody does that anymore for The Three Reasons People Don’t Publicly Share Effective SEO Tactics Anymore.
Photo credit SERoundtable.com
The Three Reasons People Don’t Publicly Share Effective SEO Tactics Anymore
Google’s anti-spam team reads the forums to find and close loopholes the way agents in the Matrix popped into people’s bodies.
SEO is a zero-sum game. There will always only be 10 spots on the first page of Google and a scarcity of high value, low competition keywords. It doesn’t make sense for me to help people compete with me.
Any SEO who outs a privately known method for ranking is shunned by his community.
Instead of talking publicly on forums, SEOs now trade secrets privately and carefully on platforms that Google’s anti-spam team is less likely to be able to monitor, like Skype. So you can imagine how important it is to have SEO buddies these days. This will not be the first time I mention that in this interview. My biggest regret after my link building empire crumbled was that I hadn’t spent more time developing relationships with SEOs. The people who did that, like Matthew Woodward, Terry Kyle, and Alex Becker, will keep making money no matter what algorithm change Google throws at them. Remember the catchphrase from V for Vendetta–“ideas are bullet-proof”? Well in SEO, human relationships are algorithm-proof.
What’s one piece of advice you would give someone just starting out learning SEO basics?
If you have lots of money, charisma, or tech skills, just do like the people do above. If not, get an entry-level SEO job or apprentice to a successful SEO. Learning what works through experimentation takes too long. Paying for what works is too expensive. Build a network of friends on a Skype-like platform and talk to them as often as possible. Trade up on secrets the way Kyle MacDonaldtraded up from a red paperclip to a house. For those of you who are thinking “aw what a let-down, he didn’t tell me the secret right now!” Re-read The Three Reasons People Don’t Publicly Share Effective SEO Tactics Anymore repeatedly until you get it.
Do SEO and content marketing tie in today? How important do you feel content marketing is to SEO?
If you’re going the charisma route, content marketing is everything. For the other two, it’s only absolutely critical. Look at how Hayden from NoHatDigital.com is using his awesome IM blog to build a worldwide niche site intern army (directed by an oligarchy operating out of a mansion in Mexico.) When you start making good content, use it to attract friendships and talk talk talk to your network as much as possible. They’ll tell you what works in SEO basics, behind the scenes.
What’s one tip you’d offer for someone who’s looking to boost SEO rankings on their existing site?
Never, ever, ever (did we say never?) think of SEO like this… Photo credit searchengineland.com
Get on SEO forums, meet people by proving you can provide value, and make friendships. Get on Skype (or some other non-Google monitored IRC platform) and trade up on SEO secrets like the red paperclip guy. Oh and, never out your best secrets of successful SEO basics on a public forum (like this blog post.) 😛
We love the content you share on Inbound.org! Thanks for being a great inspiration in SEO.
Thanks!
And Finally, Check It Out: Jeff’s Awesome Offer For You (Yes, You The Reader!)
One last thing. Like I said earlier, human relationships are algorithm-proof. I’d like to build a relationship with everyone who enjoyed this interview. And I have the perfect first step. It’s one of those “once-in-a-lifetime type opportunities.” Literally. It has to do with something called CRO. Remember that I wish I’d gotten into SEO in 2003? In 5 years people will be lamenting not getting into CRO “back in 2015.” Why is it important? Well, doing SEO without CRO is like burying a treasure chest in quicksand. CRO converts visitors into leads, buyers, subscribers, whatever. And it’s also not dependent on Google algorithms. That’s why I started working for a company that makes an awesome CRO tool.
Right now I get to give away 5 lifetime Enterprise level licenses for Ptengine, which normally cost $300 a month. Even better, I get to work with the winners to help them get more conversions per visit. And I don’t have to charge them $0.01. All you have to do is work with me to create a case study about our success that we can put on our website. Interested applicants should email me at jeff.deutsch@ptengine.com to apply. Just let me know what your website’s domain name and about how much traffic it gets.
Who Is This Jeff Guy?
Jeff Deutsch is the VP of Marketing for Ptengine, a tool made by people who are obsessed with making your visitors stop abandoning your website. (He seriously wants you to email him at jeff.deutsch@ptengine.com so he can help you for free. He’ll explain after you email him.) He works out of Tokyo and Beijing and the Bay Area. In his spare time he contributes to Inbound.org and HubSpot’s blog.
Have you seen Google’s recent blog post about link-building?
Well, SEOs and web masters alike have been tearing their hair over it. Well, maybe not that extreme, but close.
According to the Portuguese piece, ANY asking for a link is actually unnatural link building and you could be facing manual fines.
We had our translator translate the words of the article to get to the bottom of things. Here’s what she came up with: “Artificial link schemes, PageRank manipulation, and unnatural positioning techniques in search results directly jeopardizes our capacity to measure a websites’ reputation. Employing artificial link schemes leads to a negative impact on a website’s search results positioning. We take manual action on individual websites that destructively and intentionally violate our Webmaster Quality Guidelines…Our stance regarding links that point to your site has not changed. Link schemes and purchasing links that pass PageRank with the purpose of distorting organic search results are still considered in violation of our Webmaster Quality Guidelines.”
So, here’s what it really says, in English.
What we take away from this is that if you ask for links, you could be hit with penalties. There’s also reference to buying and selling links which Google have spoken about previously. Not the same thing as no-linking.
Google has since clarified that link building isn’t all-together an archaic no-no. Just have a look at their Link Schemes section. There’s no talk about not being able to ask for links at all. There is, however, reference to buying, selling and exchanging of links.
Google is striking down their crazy thunder on all marketers once again.
Google & Their Link Building Statement: Let’s Talk About That
Buying, selling and exchanging links refers to valid, authoritative links that pass PageRank. This even includes exchanging cash, goods or services for links or sending a blogger a free product to mention and link to.
So it might be safe to say that not asking for links is actually aimed at people who try to use other ways of acquiring links. Case in point: Thumbtack. In this instance, points were given for links that were thought to be neither bought nor sold and were therefore acceptable.
Is It a Good Idea Not To Ask For Links?
It probably is if you’re a newbie to SEO and web antics. Especially if you’re not quite familiar with the difference between a dodgy and legitimate link. Google’s post, if you look a little closer, is aimed more at those who have already been slapped with penalties.
For the experienced SEOs out there, well, you know the nuances of link building and you know you should only be asking for quality links for the very best sources without any worry of harming the site.
Where to From Here? 2015 and Further
The rules to link building are dynamic. So what exactly is considered safe and what isn’t? And is it worth just “having a go and hoping for the best?” You might as well be no-linking.
You’d be forgiven for thinking Google webmaster trend analyst, John Mueller, was as confused as many an SEO. But check out his recent Google+ live hangout. It’s here that he tackles the question of whether or not link building serves any good.
He mentions that he tries to avoid link building. That’s a bombshell. And we’re left thinking, again, that Google is rather anti-link building. But Mueller goes on to elaborate. He says the web giant do still take links into account as part of their ranking algorithm.
He expands on that by mentioning that building links directly isn’t the best way to go about it. Instead, the goal should be to ensure content can stand on its own and is easy for readers to share on their own platforms. It all comes down to that old adage of “content is king”.
During the chat, Mr. Mueller downplays the importance of links. He insists that the ranking algorithm in fact takes several factors into account.
That Means Link Building Can Do More Harm Than Good
For ages Google has thought of link building as soft link manipulation. Instead, they find the most pertinent pages for a query and then rank them on quality and authority. Any inorganically acquired signals of quality or authority, including links, may inhibit the accuracy of the rankings.
And it’s in this context that Mueller dismisses link building.
Look at Google Penguin. This updated ranking algorithm sorts out what it thinks is spammy or low-quality links. Results with too many links or links from irrelevant source can result in a penalty.
So we start to understand why link building could do more harm than good.
However, just because this old practice could be dangerous, doesn’t mean it is. If it’s approached properly and with care along with an understanding of what will be a success and what will get a penalty slapped on you, then you can carry on happily.
Actually, There’s a Right Way to Do This Link Building
You can do link building “right”. It just requires a bit of extra time and resources. If Google considers you trustworthy, credible and authoritative, then your links will be considered valuable. When another site links to yours, it shows you have something valuable to offer and in turn you become more valuable.
But if you’re building links on your own, your chances of credibility are low. Google doesn’t want to see you voting for yourself. Rather work on coming up with top notch content that is more likely to be shared on the web.
The main types of content that are shared most frequently include detailed blogs, infographics and videos. The higher the quality of your content, the more links it will attract with very little effort. Once you’ve got that down, syndicate the content via social media and watch the rest take care of itself.
Another way to build links is through guest blogging. Go ahead and establish relationships with other bloggers who will invite you to contribute to their sites and get you link building without having to be too passive about reaching out.
The Pros and Cons
It used to be “best practice” to source keyword-rick links on article directories, bookmarking sites and website directories. But today those values will only devalue your site and very possibly see you dealt a manual penalty.
The Answer: Link… Properly
The bottom line: it’s all about quality content. You can enjoy tons of value and no risks. But it does take time and resources. Don’t write-off link building altogether. Google certainly values external links. It’s likely time to redirect your online strategy.
Focus on stellar content and throw in a small bout of traditional link building and you won’t have to worry about those penalties. No matter if Google really does start saying no-linking. You can take your content to a whole new level right now. Check out our content marketing services.
Today is the big day: Google’s mobile algorithm update is rolling out!
Or, D-Day this week—for webmasters to have their sites up to par with accepted mobile optimization standards.
Since this announcement from Google came out in February 2015, professionals that use the internet have been trying to figure out exactly how much of a change we’re likely to see here. Whilst the regular desktop users won’t notice any difference in the way they see the world, this mobile update makes it easier for mobile users to access content on the internet and read it comfortably in miniature screens.
The Mobile Content Update: What’s The Extent of Change?
The last time Google announced algorithm changes so openly was when the first anti-content-farm update (nicknamed “Panda”) came out and changed the game for SEO in general. Based on the amount of time Google gave before their scheduled algorithm change, we can be fairly certain that we’re going to see some pretty major changes as far as internet-based business is concerned. Google has realized that vast numbers of users have forgone the traditional method of access through browsers and are now looking at web-pages on miniature screens such as tablets and mobile phones. In order to help these users out, Google has instituted a checking system that will determine whether the page is mobile-friendly or not (there is no grey area here, it’s either-or) and let the user know beforehand.
What The Google Update Means for Content
The crux of the matter for content production teams and content marketing professionals is that we need to rethink our content game when it comes to Google’s mobile update. A few of us already have mobile-friendly sites (You can check if yours conforms here), but there are many of us that aren’t mobile-friendly and don’t create content for that audience. It’s about time we changed that. With the burgeoning mobile internet market entering the big leagues with this update, we would be making a serious misstep to overlook these users. How can we go about creating content that meshes with this new update?
Make it Short and Snappy: The key thing to keep in mind here is that mobile users will most likely be consuming much more bite-sized content than regular web users. Short, sweet and concise are what you’re aiming for. Long content (such as a few thousand words of length) still has its place on a web page, but not one geared towards mobile users. Just like how regular web users are daunted with walls of text, mobile users will probably take one look at a massive post and run for the hills. Keeping it concise and to the point is important to maintain your reader’s interest.
Build your Home Page Differently: Home pages usually have a large amount of copy to go with them because they aim to draw the user in and make them click on to other linked pages. With the new mobile update, we’re going to have to start considering our home page differently. Typically, we’re going to have to revamp the homepage to make it more suitable for viewing on a small screen by getting the copy more concise than it currently is. For a mobile user, you should be considering your homepage as ad copy in a limited space. Your mobile-search compatibility will not affect your regular desktop rankings (according to Google).
Consider the Look & Feel of your Email Campaigns: The sheer amount of users that check email on their phones has gone up tremendously since the early 2000’s. I, personally, check email on a bi-hourly basis and many other professionals do it far more often than that. Google’s integration of Gmail with the Android operating system makes it even easier for users to stay connected via their phones. To this end, when we design our email marketing campaigns, we should give a thought to those users that are accessing our emails through the phone and develop the look and feel for our marketing content around that.
Hard-Hitting Headlines: Writing content for a web browser means you have a whole lot of screen real estate to work with. For a mobile platform, that screen real estate comes down to nearly nothing and you’re going to have to be creative about how you fill that space. Your headlines have to attract and tease, but they only have a handful of characters in which to pique the readers’ interest. Professionals that use Twitter will shine here since they are already used to getting their message across in one hundred and forty characters. This just gives them an extension of that particular skill, shortening headlines down to the very minimum so that they can be easily transferred to a mobile platform for viewing.
Don’t Sacrifice Quality for Space: Probably the largest challenge we will have as content creators is maintaining the value of our message despite having to deliver it to our audience in a reduced space. This is where the true marketing professionals will shine. Someone who truly understands the audience will be able to explain to them in the least amount of words possible the things that the audience needs to know. Concise explanation is exactly what we want for our post-mobile content, because it gives us value without sacrificing content for it. At the end of the day, content drives our business and for it to do so with success, it must be good content.
A Changing Paradigm of Digital Content
Now would be a good time to batten down the hatches and perform a mobile content audit to determine if your site will be able to survive the oncoming algorithm change. We won’t know for certain exactly how significant a hit sites will take until the algorithm goes live, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. One thing we know for sure is that the face of content marketing is changing yet again, undergoing an evolution that ensures that our field of expertise delivers the best it has to our audience at all points in time. The only other professions that have such massive, seismic shifts that change the layout of the whole field are geography and seismology. Are you ready to take your content into the mobile-based internet of the twenty-first century?
