social media logos on a mobile

Social media SEO trends heading into 2019

There’s been talk about social media as a ranking factor for a long time. In 2010, Google said social media was a ranking factor (that means if you're on social media, your website will generally show above similar businesses who aren't on social media - at least in 2010). In 2014, the same search engine said that social media probably isn’t a ranking factor. "Probably" being the key word...
Read More
Woman speaking into a mobile device to search

Voice search isn’t going away in 2019

Voice search isn’t going to go away. In fact, it’s expected to increase in popularity.  According to predictions by ComScore, 50% of all searches by 2020 will be voice. At the start of 2018, voice search was defined as “an upcoming technology that allows users to access internet search results using nothing more than a smart device and their voice.” In 2019, voice search will no...
Read More

Page speed is now a Google ranking factor for mobile searches

Google have confirmed that the “Speed Update,” as they're calling it, is now a ranking factor for mobile searches: People want to be able to find answers to their questions as fast as possible — studies show that people really care about the speed of a page. Although speed has been used in ranking for some time, that signal was focused on desktop searches. Today we’re announcing that...
Read More

Google to mark HTTP pages as “not secure” from July 2018

How secure is your website? If you’re collecting sensitive customer information like passwords or credit card information, or even if you've got a contact form that can be used by customer to send you messages what are you doing to ensure and reassure customers their information is safe with your business? What’s HTTPS? HTTPS is the acronym for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. It is a...
Read More

Google changes their take on meta descriptions

While Google has recently been  showing search result snippets featuring long meta descriptions (around 320 characters) over the past few months, Google have once again changed the rules and snippets are now back to their old length (between 150 and 170 characters). Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed that Google, in fact, has changed the meta descriptions. However, he doesn't say how long...
Read More
introducing-the-new-search-console-beta-message-what-is-the-new-google-search-console.jpg

What is the new Google search console?

In early 2018, many website owners began receiving a message from Google about a new version of Google Search Console. This edition is in beta and users can switch back and forth between the old version and the new version while the new version is being tested. It is likely that we will see new features and tweaks to the new version before the “beta” label goes away. So far, the most...
Read More
is-your-website-using-https-google-is-dropping-support-for-http-on-chrome-from-october.jpeg

Is your website using HTTPS?

Google’s efforts with Chrome to encourage the web’s transition to HTTPS are beginning to pay off. The company has now announced plans to extend the effort with the “Not secure” badge scheduled to show up on more HTTP pages. With version 56 in January, Chrome began marking HTTP sites with password or credit card fields as “Not secure” in the address bar. As a result, Google...
Read More
6-reasons-why-google-my-business-previously-google-places-is-essential-for-any-business.jpg

Why GMB is essential for any business

If your business has an actual physical location, then one of the first things you need to do to promote your business is to use Google My Business. This service enables you to get listed on Google Maps. It sounds so simple, but the benefits are profound. Here are some reasons why Google My Business is important for your business: Reviews make your business more relevant, and that will boost...
Read More
mobile-is-the-new-black-google-piles-on-the-pressure-for-mobile-friendly-websites.png

Mobile is the new black: Google piles on the pressure for mobile-friendly websites

Friday (4th November 2016)  saw a blog post from Google outlining a search algorithm change that will be the final nail in the coffin of non-responsive and non-mobile friendly websites. Google have previously only used the mobile-friendliness of a website to determine which sites are shown to mobile users. If your site isn’t mobile friendly but a competitor is there’s a good chance that...
Read More
2016-07-08_17h23_10.png

Google’s Chrome browser will soon label non HTTPS websites as “Unsafe”

After Google announced that it had started considering HTTPS as a metric when deciding the pagerank of a given website (giving higher priority to SSL secured websites over their non-SSL counterparts) it was only a matter of time before they took the next logical step and started further penalising websites without SSL (HTTPS) support. What we weren't expecting was Google to decide to go a...
Read More