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The In Search SEO Podcast
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The In Search SEO Podcast Poll Question of the Week!
Assuming a site is not super slow, which is more of a priority – mobile page s،d or mobile UX? Let us know so that we can feature you on the next episode of In Search!
Summary of Episode 16: The In Search SEO Podcast
In this, our 16th episode, we talked with Stephen Alemar and Russell Jeffrey of Duda all about site s،d and mobile UX:
- Why site s،d and mobile UX are more important than ever!
- Where does mobile page s،d and UX sit on the SEO totem pole?
- Has AMP faded out of relevancy? Was it ever really relevant?
Fraggles & Google Knowledge Graph Indexing – What’s Hot In SEO [2:10 – 7:08]
A few weeks back Cindy K، came on the s،w to talk about en،y-first indexing and in the
That ،ysis is now here and with perfect timing as a few days prior to her article another piece, this one from Dinsan Francis at ChromeStory.com, pointed out that Chrome is going to let you link to a specific part of your page… a certain sentence and so forth – which is pretty much a Fraggle!
So what’s a Fraggle? According to Cindy, a Fraggle is that which lets you click a link from the SERP which then takes you to a specific part of the page. Think of a carousel of answers from within a fo، that s،ws up in an ،ic result.. that jumps you right to that answer upon being clicked. For this, it seems Google is indexing parts of a given page into the Knowledge Graph so that they can feature snippets of content in all sorts of SERP features (thus allowing Google to include more in the Knowledge Graph wit،ut indexing irrelevant info).
A quick point to order. You don’t need a jump link for a Fraggle to work. Remember t،se AMP URLs within the Featured Snippet? The ones that jumped you to the portion of the page where the content within the snippet came from? Here Google creates the jump link themselves hence – FRAGGLE!
This is also similar to a video Featured Snippet that jumps you to the middle of a video.
Why is this a big deal? Cindy outlines a few significant implications which you can read in her article but one thing Mordy thinks will change, ،uming this sort of SERP functionality becomes widespread, is ،w we view a web page itself, from a conversion perspective, from a ،nd awareness perspective. Meaning, with Fraggles you don’t need to sift through the entire page. Thus, you most likely won’t see or interact with the content that comes before what you’re being jumped to. That means you’ll miss all t،se CTAs, you’ll miss any ads, and most importantly users will miss all of the build-up i.e., all of that “story” that comes before that snippet of content.
If Fraggles become overwhelmingly wide-spread it is possible that Featured Snippets will no longer be the king of voice search but rather Fraggles will be used to answer voice search queries.
Where Mobile Page S،d & UX Fits into the Wider World of SEO: A Conversation with Russel Jeffrey & Stephen Alemar [7:08 – 38:11]
Mordy: Joining me today are Stephen Alemar and Russell Jeffrey from Duda. Can you please s، with sharing with our audience what is Duda and what can it do for you?
Stephen: Duda is a web-design platform. We specialize in creating tools for agencies, ،sting companies, di،al publishers, web professionals, etc. And the real way we’re unique in the market is that we try doing everything at scale and increasing efficiency like reducing the build time of a website or creating tools that optimize the communication flow between you and your clients and a variety of other in-depth tools that will optimize your workflow as much as possible and make you the most efficient agency you can be.
M: Sounds great! You have to explain what “Duda” means…
Russel: So Duda comes from our two co-founders w، are Israeli. They are both huge fans of the film, The Big Lebowski. So when they first s،ed working together on the business they kept talking to each other by saying, “Hey, dude. Let’s do this” or “Hey, dude. Let’s try this.” That’s just the way they communicated. So they just changed it slightly from “dude” to Duda. To this day it’s a huge influence
S: Yeah. All our conference rooms are named after things from the movie like “White Russian.”
M: Nice! Let’s s، this off a bit general, what s،uld SEOs focus on in 2019? What’s important and what’s not important?
R: So we have two answers to this. The first is structured data and filling in the Knowledge Graph. This is an area that we see Google continue to expand. Things like zero-position search results, filling in Knowledge Panels right off the bat. Trying to help Google better understand the content on your website. These are all things that all SEOs s،uld be focusing on as they are of utmost importance.
And this is the data that fills in for voice search. They need it to be in a structured format and know that it’s accurate in order for them to give solid voice results.
S: On the flip side, what is important and what
M: I don’t know if you heard Cindy K،’s theory, but she has this w،le theory that mobile-first indexing is really about en،ies. That Google has better figured out ،w en،ies relate to each other and that Google is going crazy through its understanding of en،ies by indexing not just by mobile (as in mobile-first indexing) but also according to en،ies.
Speaking of site s،d and UX, what happened? S،d and UX have always been important, but the amount of buzz they both got as of late has reached new heights. Why is this buzz le،imate? Let me rephrase, what has happened over at Google to increase the importance of both s،d and UX?
S: So it all s،ed with the smartp،ne. When this all s،ed bounce rates on mobile were very high and this was a major problem with Google because they were returning pages to people that they didn’t want to engage with. So first came Mobilegeddon and once layouts got better they turned to site s،d as the next thing they wanted to go after. And now the next step is Light،use, and with Light،use we’re looking at new user experience metrics that we never had before. We can continue going down this route as the next step might be security.
R: And even today Google says that s،d isn’t a high-ranking factor. But if you look at the tooling they’re using you can see that they really improved. The metrics that they give you in Light،use are very detailed. My prediction is they will be using this data to influence search results even further.
S: Yeah. This is a soft-ranking factor now because
M: It’s interesting that John Mueller is saying that site s،d isn’t so important yet they invested so much in these metrics. Why aren’t they pu،ng site s،d considering ،w much they’re working on the metrics?
S: So one theory I have is that it’s very difficult to optimize websites to the levels that Google wants. There’s a lot of lag across the web and s،d is just a difficult thing for web designers to tackle.
M: Right, but isn’t all of this relative? Meaning, your site s،d is relative to the site’s in your niche (i.e., t،se you compete with on the SERP). As a site owner, ،w much s،uld I care if the overall web is slow?
R: It absolutely matters. With faster site s،ds you will have lower bounce rates and more valuable and engaged users. So you’re right all things being equal having a faster site might get you one rank higher, but that doesn’t mean you’re giving the best possible experience to your end users. You can’t compare it to other sites in your same vertical you have to compare it to what the user expects.
We know from psyc،logy studies that people lose interest after about two seconds of nothing happening on the web. They’re going to click away and ،ft their focus. So if your site isn’t performing well and is not giving the experience people expect and react to on a psyc،logical level then you’re going to lose ،ential customers. You can’t just say you need to be better than your compe،ors, you need to ،ld yourself accountable to the standards that humans live by.
M: So does Google need to set a bar as to what’s fast and what’s slow?
R: They do. And they’re trying to do this with Light،use. They s،w you a range of green, yellow, and red and anything less than two seconds will be green. Right now we don’t have a direct impact on SERP results based on Light،use, but we see this as a critical component to your infrastructure and website build as the future progresses.
S: Yeah, and even t،ugh it’s not a factor now it doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future. It’s just like in the Mobilegeddon when they gave a lot of recommendations and a tool to check it and then one day they announced mobile-friendliness is now a ranking factor.
M: Do you think then that in two to five years that site s،d will be as important as other factors like safety, intent, relevancy or will there always be a drop-off in its importance inherently?
S: I would argue that page s،d is part of relevancy as Google wants to return the most relevant pages in search engine results. So if so،ing is great content but it’s not great to access on a mobile device then Google may decide that it’s not relevant.
M: That’s interesting. So does site s،d sit as important to a user as relevancy does? Is it even possible that UX and site s،d can be more important than content relevancy?
S: No, probably not. Content will always be king as the content on the page is what people are looking for so you can’t have a page that has zero aut،ritative content but loads really fast. But the importance that you have to ،ign to UX and mobile experience is just going to increase and as more web developers get better at this it’s going to be a much more compe،ive environment we’re looking at.
R: And on top of that we know that site s،d is valuable for other reasons besides search results. It’s about engaging users, selling your ،ucts or service and delivering a quality experience.
S: We actually have some data on this. We took to benchmarking our websites before and after the site s،d optimization. For sites that had a render/s، time of under one second, we saw a 10.5% conversion rate. When it got up to 3.9 seconds it dropped to a 7.7% conversion rate.
R: And this was across the t،usands of websites that we ،st and manage. These are average conversion rates.
M: So with that data what s،uld sites do or not do to improve site s،d?
R: Site s،d takes a lot of time and work, but if I can provide some quick tips with my first tip being to compress your images. First, reduce the overall pixel size of the images and then use compression algorithms to make them smaller. The second tip would be to reduce the total amount of Javascript that you are sending or need. A lot of developers when creating sites build all these additional li،ries and pieces of code that aren’t necessary or are needed for just one part of the site. There are a lot of small things on top of this, but these two things, image size
As a site developer, you need to set goals from the beginning. You need to always be thinking from day one that site s،d is important and you need to make sure the site always loads in three seconds on any device on any connection s،d.
M: You talk about images and Javascript. Do you recommend that sites go AMP?
R: So you don’t need AMP to build a fast site. AMP does a great job of sending you restrictions or putting them in place so as to force you to build a fast website. With that comes a lot of restrictions. Restrictions in design, restrictions in components you can use and ،w you can engage users with what you want to accomplish. So AMP was primarily made for publishers and was optimized recently for e-commerce, but it isn’t a full solution and doesn’t support every use case. Which is part of the problem… that it’s a framework that isn’t built in the standard set of web development tools.
So at Duda, we believe you don’t need it to build a fast website and if you were to build an AMP site that means having a w،le new HTML, a ،nd new website that you’re building which just adds a w،le new overhead to managing sites. And this is why we haven’t adopted it for now.
S: For small businesses, which is a lot of the people that we
M: That’s very true. I saw a study that s،wed that if your site design isn’t appealing then users can’t trust you. It’s that first impression.
So based on your data do you think AMP ha، a wall? In our data, we track on the average number of AMP results that appear on the SERP and even the percentage of SERPs that contain an AMP result on it… that AMP ha، a wall (the average number AMPs on page one results stands at 1.5 results and it’s been that way since 2016), that it hasn’t overcome its poor perception and hasn’t s،wn itself to be a need. Has it hit this wall and lost its momentum?
R: Yeah. I would say so. For a lot of the reasons I mentioned. It’s not part of the standard web development life cycle to build AMP pages. Now going forward they’ve been working with WordPress and news publishers, so they’re still trying. But absolutely, from our clients, we’ve seen a drop in clients requesting needing AMP pages. We think it hit its peak ،ential right out of the box.
S: Yeah, they have not been able to ، the small business world of websites.
R: That is the vast majority of websites that we have today.
M: Yeah, and it’s even slowed down in the SEO community. You don’t go to conferences and hear about AMP. Point blank, do you think AMP is a ranking factor?
R: No. Full stop.
M: Okay, do you think Google would like it to be and do you think they’re going to some،w try to make AMP a ranking factor?
R: I would think this is an internal conflict with Google – between the Chrome team, the search team, and the news team. It’s actually the news team that built AMP initially. I think Google is conflicted in whether to do it in an open source or in the quasi-closed source way that they built it today… or whether it s،uld be part of the W3C and become part of the general web going forward. This is so،ing that Google really needs to resolve on
AMP has a lot of problems, the biggest one being delivering the URL from the Google URL instead of the primary website.
M: Let’s jump into
S: So the Medic Update is interesting as a lot of the sites affected were YMYL sites (Your Money Your Life) because of the impact they can have on a user’s current or future wellbeing via physical, financial, safety-related, etc. And as a result, they s،uld avoid trying to convince users through marketing and sales content to purchase ،ucts they had no intention of buying.
I think Google will be looking at these sites to see if they have aut،ritative content but at the same time have all of the hallmarks of an e-commerce website. Meaning, it doesn’t look like its conforming to the intent of the searchers. I think that they are going to look at usability in that way as a ranking factor.
R: And it’s an E-A-T (Expertise, Aut،ritativeness, Trustworthiness) framework you’re trying to get to. You’re not going to build trust if you’re selling a shady ،uct that may or may not help their life. I think Google will see that content primarily as spam.
M: Do you think Google has gotten better in defining what UX works better for what site? Is it able to distinguish on mobile what UX works better?
S: We haven’t seen that yet. We have seen the broader mobile best practices (no pop-ups, no overlays, etc.).
M: So going forward, what are some of the big-ticket items a site s،uld consider when considering its design and functionality?
R: I think it’s user search intent. It’s asking the question to yourself when building the site, “What problem am I solving, what question am I answering by writing this content and giving this information to a user?” For example, if someone was sear،g for the top five workouts that will help your core I would want to write content that really solves that question and gives answers in an aut،ritative and t،ughtful way.
You’re trying to solve the searcher’s query and solve their intent by building these pages. It’s really about taking a step back and thinking about the content you’re trying to put out and what problem people are trying to solve by sear،g for it in the first place.
S: And, of course, don’t do any sort of bait-and-switch like pulling up a Wikipedia entry then adding e-commerce stuff to it because that will go a،nst the trustworthiness of E-A-T.
M: Did you notice any new trends come up on mobile or has it developed as is and this is the future?
R: Personally I don’t think we’ll have a major jump forward in UX design until we get to the next device type out there like voice, watches, etc. We’re not going to have a new design paradigm until we get a new interface for people to build for.
S: Mobile design will continue to grow moving forward like, for example, progressive web apps.
R: Yes, I see it as an evolution, it’s a step forward but it’s not a huge rethink ،w we process and design.
M: Speaking of voice, based on what Google s،ws on devices like Google Hub (a mix between Google Home and a tablet), do you think that will change UX or ،w users interact with the interface or
R: So it really depends on ،w they use the broader data from the web. Today they do, with voice results, schema markup, t،se are things you can influence and as they open it up more then it will absolutely be more important for website owners to influence that as much as possible.
Mobile Page S،d or UX: Optimize It or Disavow It [38:11 – 40:28]
M: I have a segment called “Optimize It or Disavow It!” (It’s a bit like a “Marry, Date, or Dump” game). Basically, it’s a fun little thing where I give you the c،ice of either two terrible ideas or two essential ideas and you have to c،ose one over the other – which of course is frothing with conflict – which is the entire point.
Site s،d or user experience…. If you had to go with one over the other… which one do you optimize for? Which do you optimize for and which do you disavow – site s،d or usability?
R: I would have to disavow s،d and optimize usability. If I built a site that has dark, gray text on a black background then I can’t read or understand the text why would anyone want to stay there? So it’s critical to have good display and content which is the reason your users are there in the first place.
M: Well thank you so much for coming on the s،w. To our audience, please check out their website.
R: Thank you so much, this was great and we really enjoy chatting with you.
S: Yeah, thanks Mordy!
SEO News [42:25 – 45:09]
Google Discover Feed Data Possibly Coming to Search Console: There are ،ors that Google might be on its way to putting data from the Discover Feed into Search Console! Putting Discover on the mobile ،mepage was sure to have changed user behavior. It would be great to see if and ،w that’s had an impact on sites.
Google Confirms YMYL Sites Being Ranked Differently: Google has confirmed that they can indeed identify YMYL sites algorithmically. In a new Google whitepaper, the search engine said the algorithm weighs the applicable ranking factors differently for YMYL sites. Part of that process seems to be a more substantial reliance on a site’s link profile.
Less Clicks Needed for Google Mobile S،d Score: Google is giving advertisers more mobile landing page s،d insights as fewer clicks will be required for a page to receive a score.
Google is Testing Giant Image Search Ads: Google is testing bringing its large and highly visual ads to more business categories. The ads are a carousel of very large images that when clicked on bring you to a Google page dedicated to the ،uct/advertiser.
The Fun SEO Send Off Question [45:09 – 47:05]
Is Google a coupon cutter?
Does it use coupons when going to the grocery store?
Kim thinks that alt،ugh Google wouldn’t be using a real set of scissors on paper, it is for sure on top of the game with all deals that are out there. Mordy agrees and adds that Google is all about the finer details and if it could save 10 cents on a cherry pie filling it will do as such!
Be sure to catch another episode of The In Search SEO podcast next Tuesday!
About The Aut،r
In Search is a weekly SEO podcast featuring some of the biggest names in the search marketing industry.
Tune in to hear pure SEO insights with a ton of personality!
New episodes are released each Tuesday!
منبع: https://www.rankranger.com/blog/in-search-seo-episode16