pocdigitalmarketing

5 Ranking Factors in the Google Page Experience Algorithm

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 01:34:49 GMT

5 Ranking Factors in The New Google Page Experience

If you were not already aware….Google has rolled out the fully baked Page Experience ranking factors for your website.

Google has made this move because the most important criteria they use for ranking search results is a site's delicious relevancy to a searcher's query.

So, what can you do to ensure your site satisfies Google’s taste buds?

Well there are 5 essential ingredients to keep in mind when creating or modifying your site's recipe for Google’s enjoyment. Some will be easy to do, others may be a bit more complicated, however try to mix as many as possible into your recipe.

1. Mobile First Design – The Icing on the Cake!

Google has been using mobile-first indexing as a ranking factor for a few years now. Mobile first means your site has been designed to be easy to scroll, view and use on a mobile device.

Not to be confused with “Responsive Design”, Mobile-first means you can adjust your site to show a different and tastier experience on mobile vs a desktop. These two platforms can require different content and flow.

2. Page speed – How Fast Can You Bake?

Jeff Bezos understands that every second of load time delay costs him billions of dollars in sales.

This is because people want things fast and they want them now. If your site takes more than a few seconds to deliver its tasty content, the user will leave and look for a better cake elsewhere.

Google has also been using page speed as part of its mobile first ranking factor, but as of this year, it will be given even more weight as part of the page experience ranking factor.

Check your website by using Google Page Speed Insights to see how sweet your site speed is and how well your website performs.

3. HTTPS – Lock Your Pantry

Ensure your site is properly secured for users by ensuring it is encrypted. Often referred to as an SSL certificate.

You will know if your site is as locked up as a pretzel when you see the lock icon to the left of your domain name like below.

4. Accessibility – Make Your Kitchen Easy To Use For everyone

Accessible sites are becoming more and more prevalent. Ensure your website is designed and adjustable to those with disabilities.

Allow users to change font size and manipulate navigation so that your website is easy for ‘readers’ to read for visually impaired users.

Not only is making your site accessible becoming mandated, it is also the right thing to do.

5. User experience – Avoid the Sprinkles doughnut

Be careful with your use of popups, overlays and accordions. Nothing is more annoying to a user than constantly closing windows or having to excessively click around your site. Keep it simple and easy to navigate.

Also ensure that your site pages are stable and do not not jump around as it loads. As you can see in the example below slow loading can cause users to click buttons potentially buying sourdough when they wanted cinnamon danish.

In Summary…

Take a close look at the ingredients that contribute to a great user experience on your website, like :

Easy to read and useful current content
A well organized and accessible website
Mobile first design
No intrusive pop-ups
Stable Loading without jumping around
SSL Encryption
A Website designed according to your users needs

Content will always be king in Google’s eyes as it strives to deliver the information a user is searching for. However, how that information is delivered will become more and more important in your search ranking results.

Keep Baking!

Let's Improve Your Ranking Today!

No project is too large or small for Piece of Cake Digital Marketing, which has over two decades of internet experience. This dedicated team of professional online strategists, designers, programmers, SEO specialists and SEM marketers is extremely passionate about empowering their clients to prosper!

Roger van Maris,

roger@pocdigitalmarketing.com

(647) 405-8579

5 Ways to Improve User Experience on Your Site To Boost Your Rankings

Mon, 09 Aug 2021 20:20:01 GMT

Seems like there’s never a dull moment in the world of digital marketing. Can’t a gal just sit and eat her piece of cake without some platform changing its algorithm? Apparently not.

Google has announced plans to change its page ranking algorithm in May 2021 by adding increased emphasis to page experience.

But don't worry about your SEO ranking collapsing like a badly made cake. For those of you on our Piece of Cake platform, we are prepared, and for those of you who are not, we're sharing everything you need to know!

So what is this fancy icing Google is adding to it's search Algorithm? Page experience measures how users experience your website. This means that the algorithm would be looking at the signals that your website visitor are enjoying their tasty morsels of your website content.

Websites that deliver a better user experience, especially in mobile, will start to rank higher in organic search listings.

Lucky for you, our Piece of Cake website builder allows you to build your mobile user experience just right, without affecting the desktop experience.

Here are five ing redients you can mix in to your site today to help get ready:

1. Speed Up Your Load Time

If you’ve ever baked a cake, then you know how agonizing it is to wait for it cool before you cut it… but you patiently wait. Not so with web users. Slow load times is a cardinal sin of the user experience. Most web users will move on if your page isn't baked within 1-3 seconds!

Check wha t your current website speed is by visiting Google’s Page Speed Insights to help you analyze and optimise your website speed.

2. Throw Away the Intrusive Pop-ups

Avoid using pop-ups that block your reader's view!

Nothing turns a reader's stomach faster than a flat t asting pop-up coming between them and the cake they're trying to eat.

3. Keep Your Customers Safe

You bake your cakes carefully for all to enjoy. Build your websites carefully too!

Nobody wants their personal data stolen or a surprise virus on their laptop.

Boost user confidence in your website with an SSL certificate to protect your customers’ data secure from hackers.

4. Make Your Site Mobile Friendly

Over 50% of people who devour websites are on mobile devices.

Make sure your delicious w ebsite design is in peak shape for your mobile fans. You don't want customers who visit your website on their phone and not be able to enjoy it's contents.

5. Serve Up Relevant Content

Google has said that a great page experience won’t override having great content. No amount of sprinkles, glitter and decoration will make up for bland, dry content.

Serve your visitors, and Googl e, the best of what you have on your website. So make sure you serve up delicious content and a nicely-layered user experience!

Need help?

We’re here for you. After 22 years of making awesome websites, for us, digital marketing and SEO are a Piece of Cake.

Mix Instagram Right into Your Website

Mon, 09 Aug 2021 20:19:58 GMT

We have a new ingredient in our website kitchen that lets you connect to your Instagram account. You can take advantage of this delicious social media network while keeping your websites photos fresh and serving up more delicious engagement!

This tasty new morsel lets you sprinkle your freshest Instagram photos into your site automatically with no extra effort. Just set up this new ingredient and your website will instantly update with your most freshly baked Instagram photos.

This easy-bake website widget will save you a bunch of decorating time.

Don’t have Instagram in your recipe book? Adding a dash of Instagram to your marketing recipe is a not only a delightful idea, it is also good business. Why?

More than 1 billion people take a bite out of Instagram every month. Instagram is the third most savoured social media treat after YouTube and Facebook!
It’s not just kids who have an Instagram sweet tooth. Adults are the largest growing group with an Instagram craving!
80% of Instagramers are munching on business accounts. It’s a great way to get your scrumptious business out there!

The best part is, you can bake Instagram into your website in less time than it takes to say, “Mmmm Good!”. Simply click “Connect Instagram” in any Photo Gallery and stir in your Instagram account details. That’s it! Now you can decorate your site with Instagram photos just like any other Photo Gallery – with the extra sweetness of never having to update those pictures again! Your website will mix in new photos automatically as soon as you add them to Instagram.

Ready to get baking?

Login to your website builder to mix in Instagram today. If you have any trouble, Piece of Cake Digital Marketing is here to help.

Make Your Site Unique with Custom Fonts

Mon, 09 Aug 2021 20:19:52 GMT

A brand-new ingredient lets you quickly and easily stir custom fonts into your website. Now you can use any scrumptious font out there to make your site stand out!

Fonts aren’t just the icing on the cake – they’re the flour and sugar in your website recipe. The right font shows your customers the style and tone of your brand. Whether you’re a fun-loving strawberry shortcake, an intense and serious black forest cake, or a trusty and relatable coffee cake, your font is a key ingredient to connect with your customers.

The new Add & Manage Fonts capability lets you sprinkle in an unlimited number of fonts. You can treat yourself to thousands of Google fonts or mix in any custom font you have the rights to. Uploading the fonts is as easy as slicing a cake. And once your favorite font is uploaded, you can access it from every text element on your site.

When you’re adding a new font to your recipe, remember these tips:

Only bake two or three fonts into your website. Any more than that will be too distracting!
Choose fonts that are easy to read. If you’re icing “Happy Birthday” on a cake, you don’t want to add so many curlicues that nobody can read it!
Use serif fonts for serious carrot cakes or zucchini breads, and use sans serif fonts for more relaxed pineapple upside down cakes or confetti cupcakes. (Serif fonts are the ones with the little feet on all the letters.)

For now, these new fonts can only be sifted into new websites.

Want some help picking out the most delectable font for your website?

Reach out to Piece of Cake Digital Marketing with any questions!

7 Reasons NOT to use Wordpress

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 04:27:20 GMT

Unless you have been in a sugar coma for the past 15+ years, .. you’ve heard of Wordpress. It seems it’s a buzzword for all people using the internet. But do you really know what it is, how it’s built and what the best way to use it is?

Let us explain by first reminiscing a little…. Back in 2003, just as Arnold was taking office as Governor of California, 2 smart guys by the name of Matt and Mike (M&M!!) released the Wordpress framework as a blog management solution. Back then, people were not only losing themselves for Eminem's hit song, but also for a decent content management system, and an easy way to manage their blogs and sites. So when Wordpress came out offering an open-source (meaning everyone knew what ingredients were used to make it) solution, people gobbled it up more than the South Beach Diet & Atkins combined! What was there not to like-- It was relatively easy to use, economical, and you could build a “Blog” website in a matter of hours.

Communities of young & older geeks started exploding on the internet, creating plugins, and themes for Wordpress. And like a stacked-tier cake, each individual added their personal touch and flavours to the system… until … the cake started looking a bit eclectic, lopsided, and over decorated. It was showing some serious cracks and shortcomings...

Let’s take a bite into some of them…

1. Hacker Heaven

One of the most common issues seen with Wordpress is its proclivity to being hacked. This is because hackers are attracted to it like bees to honey... it’s open-source... they can see the code... they see how things work… how it is written... and they try to exploit it to their advantage.

Having your site hacked can not only hurt your bottom line, but is very unprofessional, and can get you banned on Google! Yes, google will block your site if you have a virus or redirects to spam sites on it! And once hacked.. There is no Wordpress development team you can contact to fix your problem. You are stuck finding an expensive programmer to help you or... trying to figure it out on your own on the Wordpress forums.

Although the Wordpress community is very active, the official wordpress support is represented by volunteer developers from all over the world, which does not always translate to good reliable support.

There are several plugins that can help with this issue but the plug-ins come with their own caveats as we will plug into below (pun intended haha!)

2. Plug-in Indigestion

Wordpress itself is a bare website skeleton. Developers use themes and plugins to make it look and work the way their customers want it to. Much like a Mr. Potato head whose pieces can come from many different places, shapes and sizes.. Wordpress becomes this monstrosity of a potato, mashed together to make a semblance of a human after thanksgiving dinner. What this means is that although you may be delighted by the outward appearance… behind the scenes is a mish-mash of duck-taped and hacked together pieces also termed a “Kludge”. Sound yummy?

Further…. these plugin and theme programmers don’t all communicate together to ensure every plugin and theme works seamlessly together. So you get compatibility issues. Like a baker trying to make a bacon vinegar layered cake.. The results are not exactly optimal or edible!!

3. MIA Programmers

Each wordpress plug-in is written by a different programmer, from a different part of the world. Sometimes they are very young individuals, sometimes they are full fledged companies, or just start-ups. So... what happens if that plug-in’s programmer decides to become a concert trombonist, or run off to Fiji to enjoy life on the beach?

Maybe the start-up runs out of money and decides they rather become house painters instead of programmers, or maybe they make it big, sell it and live happily ever after never looking at another plug-in…..

What do you do when something goes wrong on your site? You have to turn to a new programmer who has to learn what the previous person wrote and try to fix it. Sigh!!

4. All about that Base

The wordpress skeleton.. The base that all is built on.. updates itself periodically, or should be updated.. This is to try to keep up with technology, hackers and bugs.. And of course, the flavour fad of the month. So when you upgrade your version, which you will eventually have to do, or risk becoming hacker honey ..... You may find that your carefully built plug-in and theme sand castle crumbles upon it’s base!

5. It was meant to be a blog, let it be one!

If you are wanting a blog. Wordpress is THE best software to use, especially if you use zero to minimal plug-ins. However, the minute you want to create something more… you start taking a blog-Ferrari and trying to put SUV tires on it and have it pull a 24 foot trailer.... It starts to loose the amazingness it was built for.. And you start popping cylinders and burning way too much oil!

6. SEO Friendliness

Like 35% cream, Wordpress code is very “Heavy” on the search engine and browser system. This means your site can be sloooow to load, which is a huge Google ranking factor. The code is bloated like a kid on beans, which can hurt you in search engine rankings.

It’s also top heavy.. And not in a good way! The amount of code in the top 200-500 lines of the website forces your content to be pushed down. Search engine spider’s love reading about as much as most video game crazed teenagers do. Pushing your content and hence your keywords and what your site is about, so far down it can be damaging to your search engine reputation, causing you to rank lower than the Kardashians fall schedule.

7. Spread the SPAM!

As mentioned earlier, Wordpress was meant to be a blog posting system. Bloggers love comments, and Wordpress was designed to accommodate them. This makes it a magnet for automated spambots (yes, there is such a thing!), which love to spread their spam at every opportunity they get. Like Aunt Gertrude trying to force her fruitcake on you at Christmas, these spambots will find their way into the house even if you try to lock all the doors and disable comments.. They do this via what’s called a brute force attack, and they do it well!

In conclusion.. If you’re a Blogger.. Go crazy! Wordpress is the best platform out there for blogs. But if you are a business owner, then Caveat Emptor, your Wordpress site may look all pretty from the outside, but the inside is a ticking bomb of jumbled code ready to bring you down. And from 18+ years of making websites.. And dealing with clients on Wordpress.. It appears to happen at the exact moment they need it the most to close a very important deal, or handle an extensive marketing effort.

As in most things, you get what you pay for, and an open source solution, unless done by professionals that know how to optimize efficiency and minimize risk, is not a professional business solution.