App Indexing in more languages
Webmaster level: all
In April, we launched App Indexing in English globally so deep links to your mobile apps could appear in Google Search results on Android everywhere. Today, we’re adding the first publishers with content in other languages: Fairfax Domain, MercadoLibre, Letras.Mus.br, Vagalume, Idealo, L’Equipe, Player.fm, Upcoming, Au Feminin, Marmiton, and chip.de. In the U.S., we now also support some more apps — Walmart, Tapatalk, and Fancy.
We’ve also translated our developer guidelines into eight additional languages: Chinese (Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
If you’re interested in participating in App Indexing, and your content and implementation are ready, please let us know by filling out this form. As always, you can ask questions on the mobile section of our webmaster forum.
Finally, if you’re headed to Google I/O in June, be sure to check out the session on the “Future of Apps and Search”, where we’ll share some more updates on App Indexing.
Posted by Erik Hendriks, Software Engineer
Hummingbird & Entity Search – #SMXSydney
A roundup of talks at SMX Sydnay 2014 relating to the impact of the Hummingbird algorithm on your SEO strategy, both desktop and mobile.
Post from Annabel Hodges on State of Digital
Hummingbird & Entity Search – #SMXSydney
Making your site more mobile-friendly with PageSpeed Insights
Webmaster level: all
To help developers and webmasters make their pages mobile-friendly, we recently updated PageSpeed Insights with additional recommendations on mobile usability.
Poor usability can diminish the benefits of a fast page load. We know the average mobile page takes more than 7 seconds to load, and by using the PageSpeed Insights tool and following its speed recommendations, you can make your page load much faster. But suppose your fast mobile site loads in just 2 seconds instead of 7 seconds. If mobile users still have to spend another 5 seconds once the page loads to pinch-zoom and scroll the screen before they can start reading the text and interacting with the page, then that site isn’t really fast to use after all. PageSpeed Insights’ new User Experience rules can help you find and fix these usability issues.
These new recommendations currently cover the following areas:
- Configure the viewport: Without a meta-viewport tag, modern mobile browsers will assume your page is not mobile-friendly, and will fall back to a desktop viewport and possibly apply font-boosting, interfering with your intended page layout. Configuring the viewport to width=device-width should be your first step in mobilizing your site.
- Size content to the viewport: Users expect mobile sites to scroll vertically, not horizontally. Once you’ve configured your viewport, make sure your page content fits the width of that viewport, keeping in mind that not all mobile devices are the same width.
- Use legible font sizes: If users have to zoom in just to be able read your article text on their smartphone screen, then your site isn’t mobile-friendly. PageSpeed Insights checks that your site’s text is large enough for most users to read comfortably.
- Size tap targets appropriately: Nothing’s more frustrating than trying to tap a button or link on a phone or tablet touchscreen, and accidentally hitting the wrong one because your finger pad is much bigger than a desktop mouse cursor. Make sure that your mobile site’s touchscreen tap targets are large enough to press easily.
- Avoid plugins: Most smartphones don’t support Flash or other browser plugins, so make sure your mobile site doesn’t rely on plugins.
These rules are described in more detail in our help pages. When you’re ready, you can test your pages and the improvements you make using the PageSpeed Insights tool. We’ve also updated PageSpeed Insights to use a mobile friendly design, and we’ve translated our documents into additional languages.
As always, if you have any questions or feedback, please post in our discussion group.
Posted by Matthew Steele and Doantam Phan, PageSpeed Insights team
It’s all about the Apps: The Planet of The Apps
Apps, apps, apps. Infinitemonkeys looked at the statistics and facts around apps and came up with this infographic.
Post from Bas van den Beld on State of Digital
It’s all about the Apps: The Planet of The Apps
Friday Infographic: The Mobile Marketing Revolution
A nice overview of the mobile marketing revolution: the timeline of mobile marketing and some pretty impressive usage statistics.
Post from Bas van den Beld on State of Digital
Friday Infographic: The Mobile Marketing Revolution
Yahoo News Digest App Hits Android & Goes International
Earlier this year Yahoo continued its mobile push with the release of their mobile news app “Yahoo News Digest” for iOS. The main powering agent of Yahoo News Digest was the technology from former acquisition, Summly. Today Yahoo News Digest is expanding out to more devices in more…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Online Marketing Chart of the Month
The true value of what mobile technology has offered consumers and marketers has perhaps not been recognised until recently. For the first time ever, there are more than one billion smartphones currently on the market. Don’t underestimate what this figure means – the rise of mobile technology has doubled our time spent online in the last few years.…
The post Online Marketing Chart of the Month appeared first on DEJAN SEO.
Monday Afternoon #HeroConf Keynote Speaker Brad Geddes, Mobile Ad Testing
Jasmine Aye recaps Brad Geddes presentation at HeroConf on proper ad testing for mobile users and how to consolidate metrics into easily reportable figures.
Post from Events State of Digital on State of Digital
Monday Afternoon #HeroConf Keynote Speaker Brad Geddes, Mobile Ad Testing
Top 3 Mobile Payment Solutions
With card fees being so high, many are looking for an alternate solution. Mobile payments is one. In this article we explore 3 of the most popular options.
Post from Ned Poulter on State of Digital
Top 3 Mobile Payment Solutions
App Indexing updates
Webmaster Level: Advanced
In October, we announced guidelines for App Indexing for deep linking directly from Google Search results to your Android app. Thanks to all of you that have expressed interest. We’ve just enabled 20+ additional applications that users will soon see app deep links for in Search Results, and starting today we’re making app deep links to English content available globally.
We’re continuing to onboard more publishers in all languages. If you haven’t added deep link support to your Android app or specified these links on your website or in your Sitemaps, please do so and then notify us by filling out this form.
Here are some best practices to consider when adding deep links to your sitemap or website:
- App deep links should only be included for canonical web URLs.
- Remember to specify an app deep link for your homepage.
- Not all website URLs in a Sitemap need to have a corresponding app deep link. Do not include app deep links that aren’t supported by your app.
- If you are a news site and use News Sitemaps, be sure to include your deep link annotations in the News Sitemaps, as well as your general Sitemaps.
- Don’t provide annotations for deep links that execute native ARM code. This enables app indexing to work for all platforms
When Google indexes content from your app, your app will need to make HTTP requests that it usually makes under normal operation. These requests will appear to your servers as originating from Googlebot. Therefore, your server’s robots.txt file must be configured properly to allow these requests.
Finally, please make sure the back button behavior of your app leads directly back to the search results page.
For more details on implementation, visit our updated developer guidelines. And, as always, you can ask questions on the mobile section of our webmaster forum.
Posted by Michael Xu, Software Engineer
4 Global Search Statistics That Really Matter
We hear a lot of facts and figures – but which ones really matter? These are some global digital statistics worth paying attention too!
Post from Gemma Birch on State of Digital
4 Global Search Statistics That Really Matter
Google Glass, iBeacons and smart watches – media hype or game changers? #AdtechANZ
Managing Direcor of b2 Cloud kicked off Day 2 of Ad:Tech Sydney, talking about the technology of the future including platforms such as Google Glass, iBeacons & Smart Watches.
Post from Jo Turnbull on State of Digital
Google Glass, iBeacons and smart watches – media hype or game changers? #AdtechANZ
How 90s HTML Coding Will Save The SEO World In 2014
A surprising blast from the coding past has been making a comeback via SEO, and is frequently making its way into the core of advanced responsive design thinking: the humble sprite.
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Improved Search Queries stats for separate mobile sites
Webmaster Level: All
Search Queries in Webmaster Tools just became more cohesive for those who manage a mobile site on a separate URL from desktop, such as mobile on m.example.com and desktop on www. In Search Queries, when you view your m. site* and set Filters to “Mobile,” from Dec 31, 2013 onwards, you’ll now see:
- Queries where your m. pages appeared in search results for mobile browsers
- Queries where Google applied Skip Redirect. This means that, while search results displayed the desktop URL, the user was automatically directed to the corresponding m. version of the URL (thus saving the user from latency of a server-side redirect).
Skip Redirect information (impressions, clicks, etc.) calculated with mobile site.
Prior to this Search Queries improvement, Webmaster Tools reported Skip Redirect impressions with the desktop URL. Now we’ve consolidated information when Skip Redirect is triggered, so that impressions, clicks, and CTR are calculated solely with the verified m. site, making your mobile statistics more understandable.
Best practices if you have a separate m. site
Here are a few search-friendly recommendations for those publishing content on a separate m. site:
- Follow our advice on Building Smartphone-Optimized Websites
- On the desktop page, add a special link rel=”alternate” tag pointing to the corresponding mobile URL. This helps Googlebot discover the location of your site’s mobile pages.
- On the mobile page, add a link rel=”canonical” tag pointing to the corresponding desktop URL.
- Use the
HTTP Vary: User-Agentheader if your servers automatically redirect users based on their user agent/device. - Verify ownership of both the desktop (www) and mobile (m.) sites in Webmaster Tools for improved communication and troubleshooting information specific to each site.
* Be sure you’ve verified ownership for your mobile site!
Written by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead
Best of 2013: No 3 – How to do a Mobile SEO Audit: Identifying and Maximizing your Website Mobile Potential
Take a look at the most complete SEO Audit step by step guide to develop a Mobile SEO Analysis and Recommendations. Start optimizing for Mobile Now!
Post from Aleyda Solis on State of Digital
Best of 2013: No 3 – How to do a Mobile SEO Audit: Identifying and Maximizing your Website Mobile Potential
4 Trends Marketers Must Address In 2014: Audience, Relevance, Social & Mobile
Upon revisiting last year’s post on this topic, a couple of our bold predictions flopped and a couple turned out to be more reality than fantasy. Though we didn’t see Apple monetize the search results served up by Siri, we did see ad formats evolve to increase relevance and user…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Checklist and videos for mobile website improvement
Webmaster Level: Intermediate to Advanced
Unsure where to begin improving your smartphone website? Wondering how to prioritize all the advice? We just published a checklist to help provide an efficient approach to mobile website improvement. Several topics in the checklist link to a relevant business case or study, other topics include a video explaining how to make data from Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools actionable during the improvement process. Copied below are shortened sections of the full checklist. Please let us know if there’s more you’d like to see, or if you have additional topics for us to include.
Step 1: Stop frustrating your customers
- Remove cumbersome extra windows from all mobile user-agents | Google recommendation, Article
- JavaScript pop-ups that can be difficult to close.
- Overlays, especially to download apps (instead consider a banner such as iOS 6+ Smart App Banners or equivalent, side navigation, email marketing, etc.).
- Survey requests prior to task completion.
- Provide device-appropriate functionality
- Remove features that require plugins or videos not available on a user’s device (e.g., Adobe Flash isn’t playable on an iPhone or on Android versions 4.1 and higher). | Business case
- Serve tablet users the desktop version (or if available, the tablet version). | Study
- Check that full desktop experience is accessible on mobile phones, and if selected, remains in full desktop version for duration of the session (i.e., user isn’t required to select “desktop version” after every page load). | Study
- Correct high traffic, poor user-experience mobile pages
How to correct high-traffic, poor user-experience mobile pages with data from Google Analytics bounce rate and events (slides)
- Make quick fixes in performance (and continue if behind competition) | Business case
How to make quick fixes in mobile site performance and compare your site to the competition (slides)
To see all topics in “Stop frustrating your customers,” please see the full Checklist for mobile website improvement.
Step 2: Facilitate task completion
- Optimize crawling, indexing, and the searcher experience | Business case
- Unblock resources (CSS, JavaScript) that are robots.txt disallowed.
- Implement search-engine best practices given your mobile implementation:
- Responsive design: Be sure to include CSS
@mediaquery. - Separate mobile site: Add
rel=alternate mediaandrel=canonical, as well asVary: User-AgentHTTP Header which helps Google implement Skip Redirect. - Dynamic serving: Include
Vary: User-AgentHTTP header.
- Responsive design: Be sure to include CSS
- Optimize popular mobile persona workflows for your site
How to optimize popular mobile workflows using Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics (slides)
Step Three: Convert customers into fans!
- Consider search integration points with mobile apps | Announcement, Information
- Brainstorm new ways to provide value
- Build for mobile behavior, such as the in-store shopper. | Business case
- Leverage smartphone GPS, camera, accelerometer.
- Increase sharing or social behavior. | Business case
- Consider intuitive/fun tactile functionality with swiping, shaking, tapping.
Written by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead
Why You Need Responsive Design
Responsive web design is a real buzzword this year, but what does it mean and is it the best design option for your site? In this post we look at the importance of responsive design, why you should use it, and occasions where maybe you should not…
Post from Laura Phillips on State of Digital
Why You Need Responsive Design
Matt Cutts: Wrong About Responsive Web Design
In the SEO world, many view Matt Cutts’ word as gospel, and indeed, he is usually spot on with his recommendations and advice. However, Cutts recently released a video in which he explains to viewers that responsive Web design is does not have a negative impact on SEO – and I…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Getting A Better Read On The Value Of Smartphone Paid Search
The increasing ubiquity of mobile devices has been a mixed blessing for paid search advertisers. On the one hand, most industry stats show smartphones and tablets driving nearly all Internet traffic growth, while volume from traditional desktop and lap…