If you stay current on technology trends, you’ve probably heard of a few that are defining the future of the web, email marketing, and search.
These Big Three are HTTPS, voice search, and AMP for email.
Here are some wow-worthy facts about each:
If this is all news to you, or you haven’t been keeping tabs on tech trends, you probably have some questions.
What are these technologies, and/or where are they headed? What might “the future of the web” mean for your online marketing?
Let’s take a peek at the implications as all three gain ground in the industry.
HTTPS: Secure Browsing as a Google Ranking Factor
“HTTPS” stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure.”
It probably looks familiar; you’ll see this acronym at the beginning of URLs. Just take a gander at your browser bar and see if the web address starts with HTTP or HTTPS. Here’s what a secured site looks like (yes, that’s ours ;-)):
What’s the Difference Between HTTP and HTTPS?
HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP. It simply means that all data sent between your browser and the website you’re surfing is encrypted.
This encrypted data is unintelligible to anyone who may try to intercept it and steal it.
A great example:
The personal data you send when you make transactions online (like a purchase or a bank transfer) could be stolen by hackers if it wasn’t encrypted.
Why You Should Care: HTTPS Is a Google Ranking Factor That Will Increase in Importance Going Forward
Google has adopted the mantra of “HTTPS everywhere” regarding web browsing.
This means sites that use HTTPS/secure browsing will be prioritized in the rankings over sites that remain unsecured. And, according to Google, this will hold true into the future as sites continue to make the switch from HTTP to HTTPS:
Bottom line: If your website doesn’t use HTTPS yet, it’s time to get on that – yesterday.
Voice Search: The Future of Internet Search
In 2018 and beyond, voice search is bigger than ever – and growing.
The factors influencing this trend include:
Better technology, getting better all the time (voice assistants understand what you want and provide more accurate results)
New products make jumping into using voice searches easier for us humans, like integration with TVs and smart speakers
On-the-go voice search is becoming normalized, as it’s an easier alternative to fumbling with your smartphone’s keyboard and browser
Here’s a crazy fact related to just how good voice search technology is getting:
According to the Internet Trends Report for 2018, Google’s speech recognition accuracy is on par with that of a human.
[bctt tweet=”The Internet Trends Report for 2018 says that Google’s speech recognition accuracy is on par with that of a human. @JuliaEMcCoy” via=”@ExpWriters”]
Crazy, right?
Still more incredible: This technology is going to keep getting better.
Why You Should Care: Targeting Voice Search Is Different from Text-Based Search
So, what does the advent of accurate, easy-to-use voice search mean for you as a digital marketer or business owner?
First off, Google says that voice search users frame their queries differently than text search users.
This means using long tail keywords in your content, framed in natural language, will be more important as we head into the future. Bottom line: If you want to grab traffic coming from voice search, you have to target the keywords people are using to ask their voice assistants for information.
Search Engine Journal has some other good ideas to help you prepare for the advent of voice search:
AMP for Email: Complete Basic Web Tasks Inside Your Email Messages
Another technology getting a lot of buzz is AMP (accelerated mobile pages) for email.
Whoa, Back Up – What Is AMP?
AMP is an open-source initiative that helps web pages load much, much faster across all devices. It helps you browse the web on your phone as fast as if you were using a desktop computer.
Essentially, it helps your device bypass information and code you don’t need for mobile browsing. That way, you’re not stuck waiting for unwieldy pages to load.
In short, AMP helps create better mobile web experiences for everybody.
Accelerated Mobile Pages + Email = ???
So, what happens when you mash up AMP technology with email? Something pretty darn amazing.
According to Google, AMP has evolved from its original purpose. Now, developers are starting to use it to create rich web pages – ones that are more interactive, easier to use, AND faster.
Enter email.
Google and other entities like Pinterest, Doodle, and Booking.com are experimenting with providing a web-like experience within email messages. Check out the gifs below to see it in action:
Via Google
Needless to say, in the email experience you’re used to, things look a lot different.
Right now, you have to click a link inside your emails to do any of this. Those links may or may not:
Take you to an in-app browser, which gets confusing (I have regularly forgotten which app I’m using because I’m stuck inside an in-app browser – cue frustration)
Open an outside app, taking you away from the app you were originally using (which can also be super annoying)
In contrast to these possibilities, AMP for email lets you stay inside your email message while carrying out common actions you would normally need a browser to complete.
Photo from Google
Really cool, right?
Why You Should Care: With This Tech, Email Marketing Could Get Even Better
Email marketing is still one of the most powerful ways to connect with your audience. It’s one of the only avenues left where your organic reach is virtually untouched.
According to a 2016 study from eMarketer, the ROI of email marketing was a whopping 122%:
Now, imagine the power of email combined with this new AMP technology.
You could offer a richer email experience for your list, and they’d never have to leave your original message.
For those of us who champion email, that’s exciting to think about. Bottom line: Keep your eye on AMP for email – it’s looking like it will be the next big thing to hit email marketing.
The Future of the Web Looks Good for Digital Marketers
As technology improves, the digital marketing landscape is looking more and more exciting.
This industry is changing at lightning speed, and it can be hard to keep up – but, overall, these changes are a great thing.
They’ll give us more opportunities to connect with and reach our target audiences, not to mention provide value in fresh and fun ways.
The future is looking bright.
Roundabout August 2014, Google announced that it was including HTTPS as a lightweight criteria for aiding page ranking.
When Google said this, not a whole lot of people took the news truly to heart.
Previous exploration of the statistics had shown that HTTPS was pretty much a parallel of HTTP and that there was no real overlap between them.
But now, suddenly, in the last week or so—HTTPS traffic has had a big ranking boost. Is this Google’s realization of a statement that Matt Cutts made in 2014 about wanting to see more rewards for sites using TLS?
Reviewing What SSL & HTTPS Content Is
To understand why this is an important issue, let’s define these two acronyms. No insult to anyone’s intelligence: it really is something that needs defining.
HTTPS stands for “Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure“, which is, in layman’s terms, a more secure version of the HTTP that we all know and love. Its major use is in sites that traffic in sensitive information, i.e. banks and other e-commerce based pages. HTTPS is easy to spot online as it’s usually prefaced by a padlock icon right before the site name in the address bar.
SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer and is the successor to TLS (Transport Layer Security). SSL encrypts a connection (as opposed to a single file) ensuring that all data that passes through the connection is secure and unable to be tampered with by external entities. Together, HTTPS and SSL provide a solid layer of security and a good deterrent to malicious entities.
What Does HTTPS Have To Do With SEO?
Until recently, HTTPS (if it was even considered relevant to SEO) provided a very minor rankings boost, typically less than other indicators such as high quality content. This seems to have changed recently. In the last few days, the investigation of HTTPS URL’s on page one of a search increased dramatically compared to the previous ten days. This in itself is news and cause for concern. What is it that’s making these HTTPS sites rank so well all of a sudden? When we assess the possible causes we are left to assume that either:
Google’s algorithm updated to a point where HTTPS is now considered a lot more important to page ranking or
A massive movement of one or more popular domains from HTTP to HTTPS.
Taking these two as our premises, we can now set out to get to the bottom of this crazy swing in page rankings.
Welcome to HTTPS, Wikipedia! Following the Statistics Trail
The first thing we have to see is if there was a large domain that shifted across from HTTP to HTTPS that might account for a huge (9.9% in fact) change in page ranking for HTTPS pages. A cursory glance allowed us to discover that Wikipedia, a page that already accounts for a lot of page-one traffic, was slowly doing a changeover to HTTPS. Since Wikipedia makes up a large volume of our page-one rankings then it may be safe to assume that their switch is what skewed our readings by such a large margin. The only way to figure if Wikipedia’s change was what caused our statistics spike is to leave it out of considerations to see if this is an HTTPS gain and not one due to Wikipedia’s massive bulk.
When we isolate our statistics to remove HTTP/HTTPS from the results (by considering them both as equal), we still see a change (although obviously less massive than before) when it comes to page-one rankings. This translates to the idea that HTTPS may be getting a boost in rankings from somewhere. We can see that having HTTPS as a protocol is beneficial to the user and maybe this provides a further clue as to whether this is just an anomaly or something more in-depth.
HTTP Content & Google’s Overall Perspective
Google has changed its Internet focus from being search oriented to being user oriented. They have realized that by catering to users first, they are building a trustworthy presence on the Internet. How they are doing this starts with their algorithm changes. From the time Panda was released to Google’s mobile update a couple months ago, we can see how Google is slowly making webmasters consider their audience. Gone are the days when a page’s ranking was based solely on the amount of keywords it had stuffer per total page count on the screen. Now it’s all about user benefits and HTTPS offers a lot of benefits to the average user. HTTPS is especially important in situations where sensitive information may be at risk.
HTTPS exists as a method of empowering the user by ensuring that all information that concerns him or her is unable to be broken into by a third party that is unaffiliated with either side of the connection. HTTP doesn’t allow for protection of a user’s account information or ID and if it is used on a login page then it can be vulnerable to penetration by third parties and makes for a great target for people to obtain information about a user. If this is a Google update, it is centered on the user (as most of the modern updates to their algorithm are) and rewards sites that put users first.
What This Means for Us as Content Publishers
We understand exactly how important any addition to Google’s algorithm is. Although it’s not a confirmed addition it has all the bells and whistles associated with a Google update. The only way we’ll know for sure if it’s a permanent Google update is when Wikipedia’s site finally settles down into HTTPS mode and we can observe the ripples on both the HTTPS and HTTP side of things. In any case, what we should be considering is how HTTPS can help our users since it’s likely that in the future whether your site is SSL-compatible or not may actually affect your search ranking a bit.
As a content publisher your content is accessible by all users and information they submit to your site can be vulnerable to external penetration. This in itself is not too worrying if the information submitted is of a non-essential nature. Things get a little bit trickier when it comes to more sensitive information. HTTPS ensures that an eternal entity cannot spoof your address in the hopes of phishing information out of your visitors. Your audience trusts your site to the point where it would allow your site access to some information unequivocally. Having HTTPS on your site ensures that no on abuses this trust between you and your audience and makes you a more trustworthy site overall: an important factor in your overall page ranking.
Two Main Ways HTTPS Works
HTTPS ensures a connection is secured on both ends so that an external source cannot garner information passed over the connection for malicious purposes. How does this comes down a three-step process:
Encryption: Data passed from the client to the server and vice versa are encrypted to keep that information safe. This means that when a user is on a site, it is impossible for another user to “listen in on” or “eavesdrop” on the data being sent to and from the server.
Data Integrity: This means that the data going to and coming from the server cannot be changed. It stops attacks by “injection” where an external entity can change or edit data as to make it unusable by the server.
Authentication: This ensures that the server that the user is connected to belongs to the business they intend to deal with. It also stops “man-in-the-middle” attacks where another user spoofs the server in order to intercept data that is meant for the server which can then be decrypted.
How do I Add HTTPS support for my site?
There are a number of ways to do this but the most efficient method (and that recommended by Google) is to include server-side 301-redirect requests for any HTTP page to send the user on to an HTTPS secure page. Alternatively you can use a server that supports HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) which shunts users to an HTTPS site even though they entered an HTTP site in the URL bar. It serves as a drastic measure but ensures that you don’t serve unsecured content to your audience.
Why HTTPS May be Important in the Future
Methods of obtaining information through illicit means on the Internet is not exactly something new. From the early days of viruses that installed back doors in computers to the relatively modern practice of phishing, it is clear that we can’t ever wipe out the processes by which people are relieved of their valuable information online. And make no mistake, in the virtual world, information is as good as hard currency in the real world. In order to protect users that utilize our site and to ensure that we remain a secure and trustworthy domain to deal with, we should consider setting up HTTPS on our servers.
It may take some work, but the overall benefits would be worth it in the long run, especially if this Google update pans out and further enforces HTTPS favor.
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