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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: , , , , ,

Google + – What is it and how will it integrate into your marketing strategy?

September 9, 2011 By admin

Over the last couple of months, we’ve been tracking the rollout of Google’s new social network, known as Google +.  Considered by many to be Google’s response to Facebook, the new network has grown to over 20 million users in just the first few months of its existence.

Even though Google + has already grown to this many users, many of us are just starting to figure out how to integrate it into our social media marketing strategies. While there of course naysayers out there, much of the buzz surrounding Google + is pretty positive with many marketers saying it will eventually develop into the ultimate content sharing and marketing platform…more on that below.

But first off – how does Google + work and what makes it different from Facebook?

Google + is essentially the search engines latest foray into the social networking world. According to the company’s official blog:

“Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools. In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.”

Google’s basic idea is to make all of their existing products (search, Maps, Gmail and more) socially compatible. Doing so, they hope, will challenge Facebook as the leading social network.

Each profile will center on the ‘stream,’ which is essentially the equivalent of Facebook’s news feed. This stream though will be joined by four other core elements – Circles, Hangouts (video chat), Huddles (instant message) and Sparks (things you may be interested in).

One key difference and advantage Google + has over Facebook – users, through Circles, have better control over who sees the information they post. On Facebook, all of your friends see what you put online, be it they’re your friends, family, co-workers, business contacts and so on.

With Google +, you will be able to have one circle for your friends, another for family members and another for business colleagues

We all communicate differently with various people in our lives. You don’t communicate with a business prospect the same way you communicate with your mother. Google+ reflects this reality.

And that’s one distinct advantage of Google+ when sharing your content online – it allows you to target your marketing messages to the people who matter most.

Will Google+ eventually become the ultimate content sharing platform?

That remains to be seen of course but Google+ has already solved many of the inherent privacy and ‘over-sharing’ issues that make Facebook problematic. Google+ also provides a rich multimedia and discussion environment that Twitter cannot match. According to Brian Clark at Copyblogger, Google+ has been put together in a way that “…encourages, rewards and protects content sharing.”

And one more biggie – Google+ will certainly be tied into search rankings, unlike Facebook. When it comes to better search rankings, building an audience on Google+ may be the best thing you can do.

At the end of the day, Google+ is taking many of the positive attributes about Facebook and Twitter and making them better. Google has had the luxury of watching what Facebook and Twitter did wrong and making it better.

Google being very careful in its pursuit though since their first two attempts at social networking (Buzz and Wave) failed to catch on. This latest social network attempt by Google hasn’t been released to the general public just yet – it’s being dubbed as a ‘project’ and is by invitation only.

We’ll keep on the lookout for how this latest innovation from Google can play into your social media marketing strategy. In the meantime, check out a demo and see how it works for yourself!

Filed Under: Social Media 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.

Related Posts

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: , , , , ,

Why Optimized Press Releases Still Matter in a Post Panda World

August 10, 2011 By admin

Following Google’s Panda update earlier this year, many syndication and content ‘farm’ websites experienced a sharp drop in rankings. Many press release distribution outlets like PRLog.com were hit pretty hard in this update.

We’ve always extolled (…and still do) the value of generating a steady flow of press releases announcing news at your company – a new product, new hire or a professional award or recognition – are just a few newsworthy topics you can announce through a press release.

Considering the fact that 92% of journalists use search engine feeds like Google News or Yahoo! News to find newsworthy topics (…daily for 81% of journalists according to research firm Marketing Sherpa), not developing a steady schedule of press releases can put you at extreme disadvantage.

And recent research from TEKGroup International analyzing journalists on media relations practices found over 70% journalists read one or more blogs daily…just under 30% regularly use social media in their jobs and approximately 37% subscribe to RSS feeds…50% regularly visit Google News.

We can even glean more information from the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report from the Social Media Examiner. Over 80% of respondents in this survey say they plan to either increase press release frequency or keep it the same.  Of those respondents who say they will increase their frequency of press releases (43%), approximately 52% were small business owners while only 24% were larger companies.

Another interesting fact from the report – when asked to rank all types of marketing they were using or planning to implement, respondents ranked press releases at #4 at 57%, just below event marketing.

Despite the fact Google’s Panda update somewhat diminished the value of links from distribution sites, we can see still see the inherent value of developing newsworthy press releases.

Remember one important point – write press releases with both the search engines and social media networks in mind.

Doing so will ensure you reach both your target audience and hungry journalists looking for a great news topic.

Proper press release optimization and targeting not only helps you rank high in Google News and other outlets, they help you engage both your audience and journalists. Eventhough the link value has diminished somewhat, be sure you still include press releases in your online marketing strategy.

Related Posts

5 Common Mistakes that Stop Press Releases Cold

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

Fast Track your PR with Paid Press Release Distribution Outlets

Free Press Release Distribution – A Great Way to Get your PR Noticed

Filed Under: Online Marketing 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: , , , , , , ,
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