Mobile & Local SEO, hosted by SEMrush

A Webinar, by Jake Aull, Hosted by SEMrush June 21, 2016

Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marke@ng | 404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | @jakeaull

Mobile and Local SEO for 2016 and Beyond

About Speaker Jake Aull

Jake Aull wrote and started teaching Georgia State University's first course in Social Media Marke@ng in 2010/2011, which he con@nues to this day. He has also wriRen books for Pearson-‐Pren@ce Hall, including WordPress SEO Success (currently in Barnes and Noble bookstores) and the Instructors’ Manual to Pearson’s first Social Media Marke@ng text book. He has been a leader and speaker in social media marke@ng and SEO in the southeast. Jake is Head Honcho of ZenFires Digital Marke@ng in Atlanta, GA, providing Search Marke@ng services and consul@ng to various clients and companies across the U.S. Jake has also been published and cited in publica@ons such as Atlanta Business Chronicle and OZ Magazine and is Chair for Atlanta Interac@ve Marke@ng Associa@on Search Marke@ng SIG 2015. Jake Aull Head Honcho, ZenFires | @jakeaull zenfires.com | slideshare.net/jakeaull

Zen Fires Digital Marke@ng | [email protected]

Mobile and Local SEO for 2016 and Beyond: What’s Covered in this PresentaHon

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•  Local SEO Today: The Market Roles

•  Mobile Websites

•  Mobile Adver@sing

•  Mobile Apps

•  Audio/Voice Search


Local SEO Today: The Market Roles


Local SEO Today: The Market Roles _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

•  Directory loca@on lis@ngs management services (Yext, Moz Local) •  vs. data aggregators (Axiom, InfoUSA, Neustar) •  Yext vs. Moz Local (Yext’s new data layer is lost ager the contract term is over) •  Or, DIY

•  Is it worth paying Yelp and other channels? •  Google Local

•  It’s now GoogleMyBusiness •  Expect the death of Google+ •  It’s easier than ever for customers to leave Google reviews – so be sure to ask customers to leave them!

•  Claims and verifica@ons work beRer with domain-‐based emails (so sync to gmail?) •  Don’t forget about Apple Maps and Facebook check-‐in.

•  And pay aRen@on to Waze and tradi@onal GPS services (e.g., TomTom drives Apple Maps)


Local SEO Strategies for Websites _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

•  Definitely don’t ignore the reviews! •  Ask for reviews in your preferred channel (Yelp, Facebook, etc.) •  Using Schema.org markup, reviews can be shown in website SEO lis@ngs on the SERP •  (Schema.org discussed throughout this presenta@on)

•  Don’t forget about NAP •  Show the name, address, phone strategically throughout your website


Mobile Websites


Mobile Websites & Google

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•  There has always been a rela@onship between mobile and local •  (remember the fun abbrevia@on SoLoMo for Social/Local/Mobile?); this con@nues to grow with updated tech in geo-‐fencing and NFC.

•  Point is to apply geo-‐local SEO strategies to your sites, to reap addi@onal mobile SEO benefits, even if local wasn’t your original primary search strategy.


Schema.org & Mobile SEO

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Local SEO applies to more than just desktop sites, loca@on directories and apps:

•  The loca@on data in schema markups achieves more visible no@ceability and results in mobile (as well as desktop).

•  Also note the increased real estate and visibility devoted to ra@ngs and reviews lis@ngs (which are also an item of schema markup)

•  How to get these lis@ngs? Look at schema.org and/or use SEO plugins such as Yoast WordPress SEO Premium.

•  (And of course loca@on directories in general come up high in Google SERP; so be there!)


Schema.org & Mobile SEO ____________________________________________________________________________

•  Schema.org data lis@ngs have various category op@ons, but any/all can pop out on the small mobile window for increased results.

•  For example Google and schema have always allowed extra real estate and highlights for “News” content, ar@cles and blog posts.

•  Such News content also is given added emphasis in AMP (accelerated mobile pages) aRributes and op@miza@on.

•  Whether responsive or adap@ve/device-‐specific-‐served websites, there’s no turning back now.

•  Over half of search is in mobile; and Google wants either responsive or adap@ve/device-‐specific websites for indexed lis@ngs.

•  If you’re looking for an easy/quick way to have a mobile-‐friendly site, most Wordpress themes are mobile-‐responsive (or else can be with a plugin).



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•  Mobilegeddon happened a year ago, the penal@es for non-‐mobile sites were not as bad as everyone feared.

•  However the expecta@ons and penal@es have happened nonetheless, and have increased in @me.

•  Today, Google’s updated Penguin operates more closely to real-‐@me, for accelerated penal@es, as well as improved results lis@ngs.

•  Which contributes to the rise (seemingly out of nowhere) on websites of back link and other spam-‐based errors -‐ for both mobile and desktop websites (since mobile site errors are shown separately in Google SearchConsole).

•  Therefore mobile metrics must be monitored (and fixed) for such errors -‐ quickly and thoroughly.


Some Sample Mobile Metrics on Google AnalyHcs _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



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•  Tradi@onally, the primary approach to mobile website SEO (ager ensuring a mobile website was in place) has been to have Google Search Console “Fetch as Google” a mobile site and check metrics there such as “Mobile Usability” and check “Crawl Errors/URL Errors” for smart phone.

•  Today, it’s worth looking for mobile-‐specific errors, and sepng up Google Search Console to iden@fy mobile-‐specific data.

•  For separate, adap@ve/device-‐driven mobile websites (not typical responsive sites, but s@ll mobile-‐friendly), a separate mobile sitemap.xml file should be generated and submiRed to Google.

•  Expect mobile-‐ (and tablet-‐ and smartwatch-‐) specific metrics and analy@cs to increase in spotlights of Google tools offerings.


Some Sample Mobile Metrics on Google Search Console (used to be Webmaster Tools) _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Mobile Websites & Speed

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•  Speed has always been an issue for websites and search, but takes on new dimensions for mobile site downloads and therefore mobile SEO.

•  One of the suggested cons of mobile responsive sites is that they are larger sites (than strictly mobile device-‐served sites would be), and therefore slower, hur@ng SEO.

•  Therefore test your site speed against the norm and compe@tors (there are a number of tools that do this) and see if you need to upgrade or change website hos@ng.

•  Moz.com prefers “pages to be under 3-‐5 seconds at 1.5Mbps load @me.”

•  Also, cross-‐browser troubleshoo@ng gives birth to mul@-‐device troubleshoo@ng. So test your site in mul@ple plasorms and browsers.


Mobile Website Device/Browser TesHng

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•  If you don’t have all op@ons at your disposal, remember that desktop browsers such as Safari allow you to control and change the browser-‐device appearance of your site; to preview how it would look on smartphone or tablet. Take advantage of this feature!


Mobile AdverHsing


Mobile SEM

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•  Marketers agree that SEM/PPC is heavily emphasized on the small screen of search results (as compared to desktop).

•  (And remember that ads have been moved off the sidebar of Google desktop, to mimic a more mobile-‐responsive appearance, allowing less real estate overall for the SERP, emphasizing GoogleMyBusiness map and pins, and ads, above-‐the-‐fold).

•  Therefore, consider if you need increased digital adver@sing for your mobile presence.

•  The mobile ad data is very valuable as well

•  Don’t forget about the targe@ng, and data analysis benefits, of loca@on-‐specific adver@sing!

•  (But remember that mobile ad blocking is definitely in growth)


Sample Google AdWords Data _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

•  This shows regular AdWords campaign results in a laggard industry (hospital/medical marke@ng), with

unexpected highest results from mobile plasorms.

•  Therefore be ready to educate clients/decision makers on the effec@veness of mobile marke@ng channels they didn’t expect.


Mobile Apps


The Case for Mobile Sites vs. Apps?

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•  You may not need an app -‐ mobile responsive websites do a good job of serving content to customers on mobile. So ask yourself -‐ do you really need an app? And the costs that go along with it? Considering that most apps are downloaded and opened once by users and then never again?

•  But if you do generate an app, app store op@miza@on is emphasized in the search industry ar@cles now more than ever.


App Store SEO

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hRp://searchengineland.com/op@mizing-‐mobile-‐search-‐2016-‐con@nuous-‐process-‐236854


Audio/Voice Search


Audio Search _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

•  Audio search (such as Siri and Google voice) have been on the definite rise in the last year. Part of this is due to smartwatches. When such devices are used for search, and they are too small or inconvenient for typing, then audio search becomes default.

•  For emphasis, I read recently that 10% of global searches are audio.

•  Bing pays Apple to be the search engine for Siri.

•  What is important to recognize here is that audio search re-‐interprets lengthy queries to results based on minimal keywords.

•  For example ‘I want a good pizza restaurant’ can be interpreted in audio search results as ‘pizza restaurant in (your area).’

•  Recognizing that people use different words for voice search than text.

•  Expect this division for users, and technology, to grow in their separate behaviors and tech.


Voice Search Infographic _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

hRp://[email protected]/google-‐study-‐voice-‐search-‐direc@ons-‐103985


Mobile and Local SEO for 2016 and Beyond _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

•  Local SEO Today: The Market Roles

•  Mobile Websites

•  Mobile Adver@sing

•  Mobile Apps

•  Audio/Voice Search

Thank You!

Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marke@ng | GSU Social Media Marke@ng Instructor 404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | @jakeaull

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