Google Ranking Factors: What is Important?

The Google algorithm is ever evolving, and it is vital to be aware of the most important Google Ranking Factors in order to gain and maintain strong organic rankings.

Did you know that there are over two hundred Google ranking factors that impact on your website ranking? Some are significantly more important than others, but which ones are the most important?

Here is a brief roundup of some of the most important Google ranking factors that can impact on your search optimisation strategy.

Mobile Optimisation

Mobile-first indexing is fully rolled out now and is now viewed as one of the most important Google ranking factors in the SEO community. Google announced that starting from September 2020 all websites without exception will be judged on their mobile version, not the desktop version. So, if you want your website to have any chance of ranking in search results, it is now vital to ensure that it is designed for mobile users.

To check whether your page is mobile-friendly, why not visit Google’s mobile-friendly test, and submit your URL. If the page is good, you will get a green light! If not, they will provide you with some suggestions on where you need to improve.

Google My Business Listing Optimisation

Claiming, optimising, and maintaining your Google My Business listing is a vital component for your Local SEO and is also top of the list as one of the vital Google ranking factors . It helps establish your business as an entity online, which in itself is a great asset to your SEO. Once you claim and optimise your listing, it becomes eligible for the local business panel as well as Google maps, opening your business to users searching in your local area.

HTML Tags

HTML tags help to inform Google about which parts of your content are the most important. The title and meta description tags are what Google actually shows users in the search results. Heading tags (H1-H6) split your copy into sections — they should also contain keywords and be written in an informative style. Alt text in contrast is used to describe your images to search engines and should be heavily optimised if you want to appear in the image search results.

At FCDM, our team recommend using complementary SEO tools like Yoast SEO for WordPress websites to help you with this process, where it will tell you exactly which HTML tags are in need of optimisation, what’s wrong with them and give you tips on how to optimise them.

Need an SEO Agency in Ireland?

The Google algorithm is ever evolving, and it is vital to be aware of what Google is seeking in order to gain and maintain strong organic rankings. Continually adapting your SEO strategy is vital and regular SEO reviews and testing should be at the forefront of your overall search optimisation strategy.

If you need help with managing your Search Engine Optimisation efficiently, our SEO team can help you. At FCDM, will strive to ensure that your business website achieves growth in traffic, leads and in turn revenue. Why not get in touch with our experienced SEO team in Ireland today to find out how FCDM can take your business to new heights!

Updating Your Google My Business Listing: Top Tips

Over the past number of months, Irish businesses have experienced a changed environment from temporary closures to reopening in a new world.

In line with this, Google have launched many useful features designed to help businesses react to the pandemic by updating their Google My Business listings with relevant information that affects their operations.

Here is an insight into some of those features and how your business can benefit from them.

Make sure to mark your business as re-open

In March, Google introduced a Temporarily Closed feature that made it possible for businesses to make the distinction between a permanent closure and a temporary one. Some businesses used this feature during the lock down however Google did proceed to mark most businesses as Temporarily Closed automatically. Make sure to mark your business as re-open as soon as business resumes.

Easily share COVID-19 related information and updates relative to your business

A new COVID-19 Post Type is now available within your listing and enables you to post content about COVID-19 and make that post appear prominently on your GMB listing. When your update is posted, it is labelled specifically as COVID-19 related information that may affecting your business and allow you to easily update your customers in one informative place.

Support and Donation links

Google has also recently encouraged businesses to post information how their local community can support them such as buying a gift card or making a donation. Business owners can also share a personal message in their post to inform customers how funds will be put to use. Although this feature may not be suitable for all businesses, it has proved to be successful for providing another way to generate some level of income, and reduce the ongoing impacts of the pandemic.

Secondary Opening Hours

Some businesses, especially in retail, now offer special hours of operation and it is now possible to communicate this by updating your Google My Business listing under the new secondary hours tab option. A good example would be supermarket chains who have adapted their hours of operation to accommodate seniors to shop early in the morning.

If you are looking for an experienced digital marketing agency in Ireland, who are Google Accredited Partners and can help your business by continually updating your Google My Business listing, we can help you! Contact our experienced team today to find out how FCDM can take your business to new heights!

Google’s Page Experience Ranking Algorithm is coming soon!

Google recently announced a new Page Experience ranking algorithm that is going to be pushed live in 2021.

In simple terms, Google is letting all businesses know in advance that If the website user experience is below par, it simply won’t be ranked as highly as today.

What is the new Google Page Experience Ranking Algorithm?

In 2021, Google is essentially going to refine the metrics that deal with website usability and website speed. The page experience algorithm in simple terms will try to understand how visitors to your website perceive it. It will review how quickly web pages loads, how well the pages are displayed on mobiles and it will take into consideration how ads (if any) are shown on the page.

Although some of the factors included within the new algorithm update are already part of Google’s algorithms, it appears that Google may be pulling the various factors to form one algorithm. The factors will include:

  • HTTPS – ensuring that your website is secure with an up to date security certificate.

 

  • Safe browsing – making sure that your site is not compromised by malicious software.

 

  • Mobile Friendly – website content changes size to fit user screens without reducing the amount of content.

 

  • Page speed –website pages should load in less than 2.5 seconds.

 

  • Intrusive interstitials – this refers to pop-ups that take up too much of the screen on a mobile device unless it is a cookie policy.

When will the Page Experience Ranking Algorithm be live?

According to Google, the ranking changes will not happen before 2021 and Google have advised that they will provide at least six months’ notice before rolling it out.

However, Google were also keen to note that great content will still be the most important ranking factor. Google stated in a recent announcement that:

‘’A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search.”

How can you prepare for the Page Experience Ranking Algorithm update?

If you need help to start addressing the user experience on your current website or are looking to create a new website in order to start building better rankings on Google and other search engines, why not get in touch with our dedicated website development team today to discuss how FCDM can take your business to new heights!

YouTube launches New Video Builder Tool

YouTube’s New Video Builder tool offers an easy and low-cost way to create your own videos.

It is fair to say that not everybody has the time or the expertise to create high quality videos for their business and this is one the key reasons why Google has released a beta version of a new YouTube Video Builder tool.

In a nutshell, the Video Builder tool is essentially a lightweight ad creation tool for businesses which is simple to use, free to use and can help you to create professional, short videos by animating static images and text.

The videos that you create are already optimised for use on YouTube and can be easily integrated with your Google Ads account.

Who can use YouTube’s New Video Builder tool?

The YouTube Video Builder is primarily aimed at businesses who simply don’t have the in-house resources to create videos from scratch. You can choose from different layouts based on your own unique business message, customise the colours that you would like to use to compliment your branding and quickly generate a short YouTube video! The tool can create six and 15-second videos, perfect for sharing on your social media channels!

Where can I find YouTube’s New Video Builder tool?

As the new tool is still in beta testing, users must sign-up and request access at present. You can sign up to take part in the beta of YouTube Video Builder and try it out here.

When your videos are ready, why not consider YouTube video advertising which can be a very effective way to promote your business online. YouTube’s combination of video access, sharing and community creates an unrivalled opportunity for audience reach and engagement.

If you are looking for an experienced digital agency in Dublin, who can help your business to win business, FCDM can help you! Contact our experienced team today to find out how FCDM can take your business to new heights!

Monitoring Your Website’s Crawl Budget: Why is it Important?

Overlooking your websites crawl budget can lead to Google not indexing some pages of your website, which can lead to a substantial loss in organic search traffic.

Google sends it’s bots regularly to crawl your website pages and index content. It is important to understand how search engines interact with your website, to make sure you maintain strong organic rankings, especially when working with larger websites.

In simple terms, crawling is Googlebot’s main job but the number of pages Google will crawl on your site on any given day is referred to as your crawl budget. This number varies slightly from day to day as the crawl rate can go up and down based on a couple of factors but generally stays relatively the same.

In more technical terms, Google tells us that crawl budget is derived from two key factors: The crawl rate and crawl demand. The crawl rate limit is where the Googlebot limits the maximum fetching rate for any given site. If the crawl rate limit isn’t reached and if there’s no demand from indexing, there will be low activity from Googlebot. This is known as crawl demand.

Hence, overlooking your websites crawl budget can lead to Google not indexing some pages of your website which can lead to a substantial loss in organic search traffic.

How Can You Begin Optimising Your Website’s Crawl Budget?

The key objective in optimising your website for crawl budget is to have Google stay on your site and have all pages indexed.

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix to increase or even decrease your website’s crawl budget however it is possible to optimise your website to give it a sufficient crawl budget by taking care of key factors. Here are some of FCDM’s recommended starting points:

Site Speed

Making sure that your website speed is good essentially improves the users experience while also increasing the crawl rate. So, ensuring that you have leveraged browser caching on your site, have enabled compression and have optimised your images is a great start, that gives our friendly Googlebot time to visit and index all of your pages.

Fix HTTP Errors

It is important to remember that error 404 and 410 pages can eat quickly into your crawl budget. These errors can affect the amount of time that Google stays on your site and it also creates a usability issues for your website visitors. So make sure that you are doing regular checks on your site for error pages will help to make that you website’s crawl budget is being used wisely.

Remove Duplicate Content

Google tries to index and show pages with unique content and information. Thus, having two URLs on your website with the same content can penalise your website ranking and use up more of your crawl budget. Making sure that each page on your website contains unique content to your business ensures that our friendly Googlebot’s spends the maximum time finding all of your great pages and indexes them quickly.

Do you need help with Monitoring Your Website’s Crawl Budget?

We hope that our great tips will help you when monitoring your website’s crawl budget and with driving your SEO performance. However, if you are operating a large website, then having an experienced team like FCDM keeping an eye on your crawl budget can he very helpful. If you are looking to partner with an experienced Digital Agency in Dublin, who are Google Accredited Partners we can help you! Contact our experienced team today to find out how FCDM can take your business to new heights!

Long Tail Keywords: How Are They Useful?

Nothing should be overlooked when it comes to improving your Search Engine Optimisation and focusing on long tail keywords has proven to be great SEO tactic.

At FCDM, we effectively help businesses of all sizes with their individual SEO strategies, some of whom benefit greatly by capitalising on the benefits of identifying long-tail keywords, relative to their industries.

What Are Long Tail Keywords?

Long tail keywords are those three and four keyword phrases which are very specific to whatever product or services that you offer. These keywords can give you an easy way of earning higher search engine rankings are they especially valuable when they are incorporated into your onsite SEO, blogs and overall content writing efforts. There are lots of long tail keywords that have very little or even no competition because they can be either brand new search terms and may not be found in keyword tools, for various reasons.

Where can you find Long Tail Keywords?

Although there are a number of keyword search tools available, where you can begin to harvest keywords relative to your business, FCDM believe that long tail keyword research is best done manually. Keywords tools, although incredibly useful, may not return the results because of search volume tunnel vision in some cases.

The key goal is to target lengthy, highly-specific keywords that actually indicate that the user knows what they want and is ready potentially to buy or get in touch. As we know, it is actually much easier to convert a visitor into a paying customer, if they land on a page that directly addresses their query. So making sure your content is well thought out when using your new keywords in new blogs is vital to make sure that you are addressing the query head on.

One of the easiest ways to find long-tail keywords is to simply open a Google search window and then start typing! With Google’s autocomplete feature, Google suggests some keywords for you based on the first or second word that you put into the search bar. Secondly, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page where it says, ‘Searches related to’ you might also find some nuggets there too!

Put simply, If you don’t have a long-tail keyword strategy, you may be missing out on attracting valuable traffic and conversions.

If you are looking to partner with an experienced SEO Agency in Dublin who can improve your website ranking and overall online exposure, FCDM can help you! Get in touch with our experienced team today to find out how FCDM can take your business to new heights!

Crafting Your Brand Protection Strategy: What You Need To Consider

As the digital landscape changes, businesses worldwide need to ensure that they have an effective Online Brand Protection Strategy in place.

When most businesses think about their SEO strategy, they usually only give consideration to what generic keywords they wish to rank for. Generally in the process, they tend to overlook the most important keywords of all, their own brand.

Branded keywords include your brand name or some form of it and the importance of protecting your branded searches cannot be overlooked.

At FCDM, we help businesses all over the globe to craft effective Brand Protection Strategies, that deliver a more focused message to their customers. So, how do we begin this process?

What are the first steps in crafting an Online Brand Protection Strategy?

When users search for your brand name, ideally you want them to see positive URLs and content that you have some control over. In order to start his process and the very first step in crafting an Online Brand Protection Strategy, our experienced team at FCDM start by reviewing the list of the websites and social properties that may appear most frequently for the client that we are working with.

Our team would then seek to identify which of those websites are relevant to the business and begin to develop an individual plan for each, in order to begin crafting optimised content, pages and profiles.

By having them as optimised as possible, with unique information included, this in turn makes it more likely that search engines will rank them even higher as they are even more relevant. All the while, leaving you in control of the messaging that you deliver to users in a more strategic manner.

Does you need help with crafting an effective Online Brand Protection Strategy for your business?

As the digital landscape changes, protecting your brand will continue to be important, especially as the market becomes even more competitive and Google and Bing add more extensions ads hence pushing organic traffic down further on the first page.

At FCDM, we are always interested in meeting with new businesses who are looking to grow and capitalise on the opportunities presented by the growth of the digital economy. If you need help with crafting an effective Brand Protection Strategy, feel free to contact a member of our team today to discuss how we can take your business to new heights!

What Should Your Digital Strategy for 2020 Look Like?

Our experienced digital marketing team at FCDM have pinpointed some key areas to help you on your digital strategy journey for 2020.

For businesses of all sizes, remaining ahead of the curve in our ever changing digital world, can be a challenge. From 5G technology on mobile devices to advancements in voice search, change is imminent in 2020 and your digital strategy needs to adapt to these growing trends.

So what does 2020 look like and what trends should you be focusing on? In this blog, our experienced digital marketing team at FCDM have pinpointed some key areas to help you on your digital strategy journey for 2020.

Invest in Your Video Content

Video remained the best performing content type on every social platform in 2019. Video content is now one of the most powerful tools to help you to share your brand story and connect with your audience. In fact, it has been reported that among the younger generation, online video has completely displaced watching TV!

According to IAB’s 2019 Video Advertising Spend Report, businesses have increased their digital budgets by 25% year on year by making sure to go where their customers are spending their time and have been really investing in video. For 2020, investment in video is a digital marketing must and should be considered for all business, small and large.

Mobile-First Design is a Must

When you think about this logically and look at your own personal mobile usage in 2019, how much time did you actually spend in front of your desktop screen, compared to the amount of time you spent on your phone? Let’s assume approximately 70%. Sound about right?Your business website may be mobile responsive at present but unfortunately this is now not enough, a mobile first strategy is imminent for all business websites moving into the next decade. It’s important to remember that mobile responsive and mobile first have some of the same ingredients, but their methods, approaches and strategies are totally different and business will need to adapt in 2020.

Mobile-first design is in fact a way of thinking that assumes your customer is coming to you through their mobile device first and foremost. From there, it’s a strategy that extends to all parts of the business, from marketing to service offerings, communication and beyond. With the dawn of 5G technology transforming how customers access and use content, it is predicated that mobile usage will dramatically increase even further into 2020 hence going Mobile-First will become a necessity rather than a choice for most businesses.

Social Media Stories and Live Videos Will Prevail

Since Instagram and Facebook stories were introduced and YouTube unveiled their own story format, Social Media Stories have dominated the advertising space and are here to stay for 2020. Instagram remained the trending social platform in 2019, and it looks set to maintain that solid momentum heading into 2020.According to a recent study, live videos on Facebook Live and Instagram Live get watched 3 times longer than videos that aren’t live and this trend looks set to continue into 2020. Making use of live video is highly recommended and has proved to be a profitable way for businesses to promote engagement and drive brand awareness in 2019.

This year we have also seen the rise of TikTok, a social video-sharing app that has had a huge impact on the way users (normally 24 years old and younger) consume video in everyday life. TikTok is basically an app for making and sharing short videos. The videos are tall, not square, like on Snapchat or Instagram’s stories and you can navigate through videos by scrolling up and down, like a feed, not by tapping or swiping side to side. TikTok is set to become even more popular in 2020, as it plans to develop an ad platform to rival more competitors and is definitely one to watch in 2020.

What Will Your Digital Strategy for 2020 Look Like?

In summary, in 2020 will see successful businesses investing in embracing these trends, to ensure that they remain ahead of the curve.At FCDM, we are always interested in meeting with new businesses who are looking to grow and capitalise on the opportunities presented by the growth of the digital economy. If you need help with crafting a unique Digital Strategy for 2020, feel free to contact a member of our team today on +353 1 5253188 to discuss how we can take your business to new heights!

An Introduction to TripAdvisor Connect Ads

TripAdvisor Connect Ads will offer businesses a new opportunity to stand out from the crowd!

TripAdvisor Connect Ads will aim to help businesses to leverage the power of the TripAdvisor brand on social media channels like Facebook and Instagram, to gain exposure to targeted and highly engaged audiences.

What are TripAdvisor Connect Ads?

TripAdvisor Connect Ads will now offer businesses the massive scale of Facebook and Instagram audiences, with an added layer of data to reach users searching for travel or dining locations on those social media platforms.

The branded content ad product will pair TripAdvisor’s audiences with the ad inventory and targeting capabilities of Facebook and Instagram which are pretty huge! The ads will then link to your business website or to your business listing on TripAdvisor. They will appear as co-branded content posts with TripAdvisor’s logo your your company name visible.

Why should you consider investing in TripAdvisor Connect Ads?

According to TripAdvisor’s most recent figures, most travellers will factor a visit to the TripAdvisor website into their research into each stage of the travel decision journey as below:

 

  • 49% of travellers say that TripAdvisor inspired them to visit a new destination.

 

  • 60% of travellers that book online say that they visited TripAdvisor during the decision making process.

 

  • 86% of travellers read reviews first before making a travel purchase decision.

 

The company also advised that this is only the beginning! It plans to roll it out first on Facebook and Instagram and bring the ads to more media channels soon. It’s a pretty huge opportunity, especially for small businesses with limited advertising budgets.

Want to find out more about TripAdvisor Connect Ads?

FCDM is an award winning digital marketing agency in Dublin, that offers expert digital marketing and website design services. If you are looking for an experienced Digital Marketing Agency in Dublin, who can help you to harness the power of TripAdvisor and who can help your business to win more business, we can help you!

Contact our experienced team today to find out how FCDM can take your business to new heights!

Facebook Advertising: Still Effective or not?

There are many elements to consider when launching digital advertising campaigns, from potential reach to ad creative and sometimes it comes down to cold, hard numbers. This week we discuss the recurring question of: Is Facebook Advertising still effective or not?

Facebook continues to be ‘fertile ground for advertisers’ across the board, with News Feed ads outperforming all other ad units, according to a recent report. The report looked at Facebook and Instagram ad performance for more than 140,000 branded accounts during the second quarter of 2019 and found that 60% of the total ad spend on Facebook and Instagram is going to Facebook News Feed ads.

The Socialbakers report found that Facebook News Feed ads averaged a 1.7% click through rate followed by Facebook suggested video ads which earned a .75% CTR.

So is Facebook Advertising still effective? Put simply…yes!

Facebook continues to prove itself, is still delivering strong and sturdy ad results and continues to innovate. The most recent update sees a new feature that allows businesses to drive Facebook, Instagram and Messenger Stories ad traffic to start conversations on Messenger.

There are 40 million businesses active on Messenger worldwide, which has a user base of more than 1.3 billion, according to Facebook’s latest figures.

Users can swipe up on Stories ads that have the new ‘Send Message’ call to action to start a conversation with the business in Messenger without leaving the app they are in.

This integration adds another engagement mechanism for Facebook advertisers and could be particularly appealing for businesses with longer conversion cycles. This feature is available to businesses with Messenger templates set up in their Facebook Ads accounts.

If you would like further information on Facebook Advertising, feel free to get in touch with our experienced digital marketing team in Ireland today!