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5 Ways to Really Speed-Up Your Page Load Times

October 11, 2011 By admin

It’s been known for quite a while now that one of the factors Google uses to rank websites is page load time. Faster loading pages will generally rank higher than pages that load slowly, provided other factors like content and a crawlable site are the same.

Fast loading pages aren’t important for just web rankings – if a page is loading slowly or times out, how many will hang around to wait for the page to load?

Whatever the reason for a slow loading page – antiquated server, extra coding, improperly formatted images – having one (…or several) will certainly cause you to lose visitors and more importantly, customers. To see how important this is to the average web user, check out this page load graphic courtesy of Blue Compass Interactive and our friends at Planet Ocean.


So how can I speed up my page’s load time? And what’s the recommended page load time for both search engines and web users?

For the best results, it’s recommended all pages on your website load within three seconds.

If your pages are taking longer to load, the following 5 tips will help optimize page load time and ensure your rankings (…and customers) will not slip by the way side due to slow loading pages.

1. Use an image editing program that provides a “Save for Web” setting

Images are by their very nature pretty big. If your webpage is loading images as-is it can dramatically lower your page load time. A “Save for Web” setting will export your image in a compressed file size. Also, don’t forget to specify the original file size in your HTML code (i.e. 500 pixels x 300 pixels). Not specifying these dimensions means your web browser will have to work harder to display the image, thus increasing page load time dramatically.

2. Keep HTML coding to a minimum

Many webmasters, perhaps you, use WYSIWYG (…what you see is what you get) type HTML editors. These programs though add a lot of unnecessary code to your page and thus, slow page load time down tremendously. Examples of unnecessary coding include “comment” lines and “date stamps” to name a few. One program you can use to compress your coding is the GZip HTML Compression tool.

3. Consolidate Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) and JavaScript

These days, every page has at least one cascading stylesheet (CSS), third-party application or JavaScript file to load before the page will function properly. This can slow even the smallest of web pages. Therefore, it’s best to force the browser to fetch as little external information as possible. Consolidate your CSS sheets down to one if possible and embed them at the HEAD of the individual page.

4. Control how your site content is ‘cached’

Demarking and controlling how your site’s content is cached by the search engines will dramatically speed up your page load time. How you do this depends on the type of server you’re hosting your site on.

For an Apache server, you can physically adjust the “Expires” or “Cache control” header attributes. The process for a Windows server is similar and involves manipulation of the HTTP ‘client cache’ element. And if your site is hosted through WordPress, download and install the WP Super Cache plug-in which serves up static HTML pages to the majority of your audience and dramatically boosts page load time.

5. Reduce the amount of cookies

Consider downloading and installing a free ad-on like View Cookies for Mozilla Firefox to monitor the amount of cookies being exchanged between you and your site’s visitors. Review these cookies and see which ones you can reduce in size or eliminate altogether. If you can’t recognize the cookie, then you probably don’t need it. The fewer cookies your page has, the faster it will load.

As we always say, one ranking factor alone won’t determine the success or failure of your site in the search engines. With that said, on-site technical improvements are a sound way to securing long-term rankings. Therefore, if you find your site’s load time is a bit lagging, make sure you pay close attention to the above metrics.

Filed Under: SEO Technology, Site Architecture Tagged With: , , , , ,

SEO and Social Media – What’s their Relationship?

August 31, 2011 By admin

Lately, I’ve been pondering an important issue many online marketers and search engine optimization pros find themselves having to think about more and more.

That issue of course is the relationship between SEO and social media – should search engine optimization specialists worry about social media and vice versa?

As you can imagine, much debate among the professionals surrounds this question. One side of that debate says the two channels are mutually exclusive. Many businesses in fact aren’t even worrying so much about their website and pouring all their resources into Facebook pages, Twitter profiles and Google Places pages.

According to Stoney deGeyter on Search Engine Guide, you can get a local ranking on Google just by having a ‘Places’ page – no website needed.

While it may seem easy and less expensive to simply put a blog on Blogger.com, build a Facebook and Twitter profile or utilize a myriad of other social media options, you would be remiss if you didn’t invest time and resources into building your main website.

Stoney says – and we agree – that you should definitely NOT neglect your website and focus ALL of your efforts on social media. One of the prime reasons for this – you own your website and the benefits that inevitably come from building it. As long as your site is hosted, your page(s) will appear in search results for the terms you’re targeting.

Social media on the other hand isn’t so permanent – for starters, not all of your followers may see what you post since social media channels, especially Twitter, are in real-time. Meaning if you post something at 3:00 but your follower(s) doesn’t login until 8:00, they may not see what you’ve done.

Search rankings for content on your site are more permanent though (i.e. they have a longer shelf life than social media) – SEO puts your site in front of people when they’re looking, no matter what time of day that is.

In an interview with Social Media Examiner, Copyblogger CEO Brian Clark comments on why SEO and social media work together…all the top SEOs have been using social media to build contacts and share content.

According Brian, the two are intertwined since good search rankings depend on two things – links and traffic. You have to attract traffic and links before you rank well in search engines. Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter give you that initial boost to build strong search rankings.

See Brain’s interview below for more. His comments on SEO and social media are around the 5:00 minute mark in the video.

In the end, both social media and SEO each have their own benefit. Social media channels provide the opportunity to share content in real time. SEO on the other hand builds a more long-term foundation that’s available whenever someone is searching using your keywords.

It’s important you focus on both – build good keyword targeted content that’s highly shareable through social media. Focusing on one at the expense of the other will certainly leave many opportunities on the table.

sme_bw2010_brian_clark_v1 from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

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4 Ways to Use Twitter to Improve Search Rankings

5 Ways you can optimize your ‘Tweets’ for Search

Which Social Media Channel is Right for My Business?

5 Ways to Create a Sustainable, Engaging Following on Facebook

Filed Under: SEO Technology, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

New ‘+1’ Button from Google Now Available for Websites

August 5, 2011 By admin

Billed as a direct response to Facebook’s ‘Like’ button, Google’s +1 (…pronounced ‘Plus one’) button provides another opportunity for site visitors to share content they like. Including a +1 button on your site’s pages not only opens another avenue for visitors to share your site socially, it carries certain SEO benefits as well.

According to Google, the +1 button is short-hand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.” It allows a user to give something their public stamp of approval – in turn, sharing content, video or any kind of webpage with friends and contacts on Google.

You’re likely seeing +1 buttons starting to appear on many websites.

They’ve been appearing in search results for a while now but only recently have website owners been able to post the small button on their webpages…all that’s required is a short bit of code you paste onto your page. You can also customize how the +1 button appears on your webpage(s).

For users, +1 activity for them and their friends can be set to appear on each page that includes the button. There you can see who has “+1’d” that page. It’s said content recommended by friends is much more valuable than content from a random person…in this atmosphere driven by how sharable your content is, we tend to agree.

This is by far Google’s most ambitious attempt yet to compete with Facebook in the social media realm.

In the last year, the ‘Like’ button has pretty much become the default means by which people share articles, videos and other content online. Google hopes to change this.  Judging from early numbers on +1 and Google’s + network, they may give Facebook a run for its money.

It would behoove you to make sure your content is sharable on all of the popular places people interact online.

Besides social sharing, +1 can also yield some benefit in terms of search engine optimization as well. In an FAQ, the search engine says adding the button will prompt Google to re-crawl your page(s) and store the title and content data for future impressions.

+1 impressions may also serve as a signal on how relevant your page’s content is says Google. Over time, they hope to incorporate this kind of data into their algorithm.

This new development from Google is exciting indeed. We’ve already begun adding +1 buttons to some of our webpages. If you click on one, a login screen will appear where you can sign in to your account.

Considering the ease at which you can add the +1 button, we think it can’t hurt. But considering the SEO benefits and the tremendous popularity from its onset, we think Google +1 is certain to rival Facebook’s ‘Like’ features.

In light of this, we think it’s very important you make sure visitors can easily ‘+1’ your site.

Filed Under: SEO Technology, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

3 Steps You Should Take Before Linking to another Site

July 12, 2011 By admin

Anyone in the business of optimizing websites for search engines knows the importance of links, which Google and other search engines view as a vote of confidence in your site.

Aside from including unique, high-quality, relevant content on an easily crawlable website, link building is perhaps the most important task for building high search engine rankings. In the beginning, you may have to obtain links from sites that have absolutely nothing to do with what you’re about. Or, you may have to get links from sites that aren’t very trustworthy.

While this isn’t necessarily your first choice, obtaining links from these kinds of sites certainly won’t hurt your search rankings – they may even help a little bit in fact.

Generally speaking, incoming links (other sites linking to yours) will not get you in trouble. However, outgoing links (you linking to others) can get you in a heap of trouble if they’re not done properly. Linking to sites that have been penalized by Google could result in you getting a penalty.

Before getting into a link-swap with another site, you should consider the following three steps to ensure your site doesn’t get penalized through a bad outgoing link.

1. Search for the site’s domain name in major search engines

If the site in question isn’t listed in Google, Yahoo or Bing, you should stay away from it. If the site is banned, linking to it could lead to your site being banned. But even if the site in question isn’t ‘bad’ in terms of the search engines, linking to a site search engines don’t know about won’t net you any benefit. Therefore, if you can’t find the site in Google, etc., don’t link to it.

2. Find out who else is linking to them

If you’re thinking about linking to another site, you also need to consider who else is linking to them. One tool from Search Engine Guide (Site Strength Indicator) can help you easily determine who’s linking to the site you’re looking at.

Sites with a high number of incoming links will benefit you more if you can get a link from them.

Also, the importance of the other sites linking to the site you’re looking at makes a difference as well. PageRank is one metric Google uses to determine a site’s importance. Those with a higher PageRank will yield more benefit to you.

Whatever you do, do not link to a site with a PageRank of zero. Either the site was penalized or it’s too new to have any PageRank value.

3. Avoid linking to sites that are controversial

Linking to a site that includes what Google considers controversial topics (i.e. gambling, adult, pharmacy, loan/debt sites) will also get you in trouble with the search engines. That’s why it’s important you carefully evaluate each site you consider linking to. Unless you’re in the same industry, Google will penalize you for linking to another site with controversial topics.

Remember, you probably will not be penalized for sites linking to you. But if you link to a site that’s not trustworthy or has been penalized a lot, your rankings and standings in the search engines are likely to suffer.

Related Posts

8 SEO Tricks You Do NOT Want to Use – Avoiding the Google Penalty Box (Part I, Part II)

Private: 50 SEO Ranking Factors You Need to Think About in 2011

8 Ways You Can Safely Sell Links on your Website

5 Steps to Obtaining Organic Links through Blog Comments

 

Filed Under: SEO Technology Tagged With: , , ,

7 Things Google’s Farmer Update Penalized Sites For – and What You Can Do About It

April 12, 2011 By admin

google-farmerAs promised (…a little later than I first said, sorry), here’s an overview of what Google penalized sites for in their Farmer (a.k.a. Panda) update. It’s called ‘Farmer’ because many of the sites penalized were what many consider to be ‘content farms.’

Specifically and technically speaking, this particular update was algorithmic rather than manual in nature. All told, it affected over 12% of search queries in the U.S.

That adds up to some pretty significant numbers so therefore, it’s logical to see how more than just ‘content farm’ type sites were affected…many sites with good, high-quality sites were affected to. Many forums back this up as some sites say they lost as much as 50% of their U.S. based traffic from Google.

So what exactly were the issues surrounding Google’s Panda update and how do they affect my site?

While many of these affected sites claim they generated 100% original content, a deeper examination yielded of some of the example sites shown on forums and articles weren’t quite 100% original.

Specifically, sites affected by the update included one or more of the following 7 criteria:

(There were many more actually but these were the 7 most common)

1. Incorrectly or failing to use a canonical tag – especially common among e-commerce sites as Google would index two identical URLs

2. Excessive use of RSS feeds

3. Not providing unique content – as decided by Google. Essentially, they decide if your site is ‘authoritative’ enough and if they trust it

4. Optimizing for search engines rather than your audience

5. Using boilerplates too much and across too many pages

6. Having too many ads ‘above the fold’

7. Any site previously blocked manually by Google Chrome Personal

It’s safe to say sites undeserving of these kinds of penalties got caught in the cross-fire…Google even setup a Webmaster forum on the topic and has even admitted that it’s possible considering the fact this update was algorithmic rather than manual in nature.

Google says in reply to questions on its forum that since the Panda update was completely algorithmic in nature, Google cannot make any individual exceptions.

So basically what they’re saying is tough luck, too bad or whatever euphemism you can come up with to describe the situation. rich-poorConsidering this fact, it won’t do you much good to appeal to Google but if you find other, non-content related issues, then we suggest (…and our friends at Search Engine News do too) you contact Google about those issues.

To address these problems, we want you to remember this one important axiom – content is king!

It’s likely there are specific pages in your site that’s causing you to lose traffic. Isolate those pages and see if they fit any of the 7 criteria mentioned above. Either way, you should ensure those pages have 100% unique content.

If you’re an e-commerce site, generate product descriptions starting with your big products and working your way down. Not only does this prevent negative impacts from these updates, it will position your site for better long-term rankings.

Filed Under: SEO Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,
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