Google Rolls Out Huge Changes to Search Results

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Expect your PPC campaigns (and therefore probably your SEO traffic) to go a little haywire this week.  Google has abruptly rolled out a very large change to the search engine results page (SERP) interface…. removing all ads (and apparently everything) from the right rail – see Siberia below.

Siberia

Here’s What We Know

  • The changes impact desktop searches only.
  • There are now four ads above natural search results and three below.
  • The changes only impact “commercial” queries – presumably most of the more transactional legal terms, but probably less so for queries researching a particular issue (see example below).
  • The change is permanent (for now).

BAC

What it Means (I think)

  • Clearly pushing more ads above natural search is going to shift traffic from organic to paid…. SEO players lose, PPC players gain (and so does Google.)
  • In the already overpriced legal PPC market, there’s even more competition for just 4 prime spots (remember, SERPs used to have up to 11 ads, including most legal queries) which is going to drive up already irrational (read: unprofitable) PPC bidding among lawyers.
  • (Smart) lawyers will look to diversify their paid marketing channels – driving up bids in Bing.  (For more on the economics of this see my 2013 post – Google Adwords Costs 150% More than Bing Ads.)
  • Local now becomes even more important for lawyers (and remember, it was just August when the number of local results constricted down to the three firm “snack pack”.

 

In summary, there are fewer ads total; however, they take up more of the prime real estate – which impacts both natural and paid results.

The Decline of Reviews in Google SERPs?

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stars

Those lovely stars showing up in the SERPS…. just might be fading  away…. starting on February 15, the number of queries that returned results with review snippets has dropped by roughly one third.  Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land posits that this may  just a bug, not a feature change and Google hasn’t responded to questions about it.  Furthermore, I can’t imagine reviews are going to decline in impact for local results AND asking your customers to crow about you online is still a best (marketing) practice – so I wouldn’t change anything at the moment.

Here’s the drop-off visually from Moz’s SERP feature tracker:  Moz Stars

UPDATE:  Looks like this was indeed a bug over at Google:

 

recovery

 

Google Core Algo Update this Past Weekend

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Looking for patterns in web traffic for law firms between November and February is extremely hard given the natural fluctuations drop in lawyer interest that occurs over the holidays and the spike that occurs in January (and for divorce – sadly around Valentine’s day).

It just got harder.

Google confirmed that a core ranking algorithm update was pushed out over the weekend.  SEO nerds around the world are calling this “massive”.  Of note – this is NOT Penguin related.  So strap in, check your GA numbers and see what the impact is to your business.
John

 

“Responsive Websites” – What They Are and Why Your Business Needs One

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Do you know what responsive websites are? Does your business already have one? If so, this post isn’t for you.

Do you keep hearing about the importance of responsive websites and mobile search? Not sure if your website is responsive? Don’t understand what responsive design means? This post is for you!

What Is Responsive Web Design?

Responsive Web Design is used to make your website look good and be easy to read/navigate – no matter what device your visitor is using. This means your website’s content/design/layout is going to change based on the screen size/orientation/resolution of the viewers screen. A responsive layout will ensure a good user experience across all devices. Your visitors won’t have to pinch zoom on their phones or have trouble navigating to the content they’re looking for.

If you only visit your website on one computer, you would never know if your website is responsive or not. Below is an example of a strong responsive layout. Notice how different layout elements shrink, move, and stack – depending on the device.

Responsive Websites

Not every responsive website is the same. There are many ways to implement responsive design on a website. They require adequate HTML architecture, CSS media queries, mobile navigation options, and much more.

I Love My Website, Why Does It Need to Be Responsive?

If you have an older static website design, it’s probably very difficult to use on mobile devices. Ever looked for a restaurant’s menu on their website from your phone? I bet you’ve found it very challenging to pinch zoom and navigate to one of their most important pieces of content. If your business website is not responsive, I guarantee that your visitors are having the same problem.

The Importance of Responsive Websites

Responsive websites are one of your biggest keys to more website traffic and conversions. The search engines know if your website is responsive and what it looks like on mobile devices. Google is simply more likely to serve up your website in mobile search results if it uses responsive design correctly.

It’s Official: Google Says More Searches Now On Mobile Than On Desktop

If your website isn’t mobile friendly, I would estimate your mobile traffic is around 10-25% of all your traffic. We’ve seen that number spike to around 40-50% once a responsive design is implemented. That change is due to a huge increase in mobile search traffic once a website has responsive design. With the increasing number of mobile devices on the market, more and more people are searching for local businesses with their phones and tablets.

How Can I Tell If My Website is Responsive?

The quickest way to tell, is to pull up your website on your desktop/laptop and your mobile device and see if the layout is different. This should be happening on every page of your website, ensuring all your content is mobile friendly. Try checking more than just your home page and see what happens.

The more important test is Google’s Mobile Friendly Test. Try entering your URL into this tester on a few pages of your website. If you don’t see something like this… Mobile Friendly Test ResultYou should think about investing in responsive website redesign! You might also find some minor errors, like links that are too small. These kind of things can be easy for a web designer to change/fix and increase the mobile friendliness of your website.

What’s Next?

Google is working on a project called Accelerated Mobile Pages that will be rolling out in 2016. Their goal is to improve speed and quality of mobile websites and search results. From early examples, these pages look to be at the top of mobile search results. The earliest adopters will be major news outlets, but you can bet on this becoming and important feature for small businesses.

Automattic, the company founded by the WordPress platform founder, is already developing their AMP WordPress Plugin. This will allow WordPress sites an easier way to create Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages. Once the benefits of these pages are clear, you can guarantee Mockingbird will be implementing this on all our sites.

Google Erroneously Labelling Lawyers with Professional Misconduct

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Google’s Answer Box is a simple function that provides answers to basic questions directly in the search results. For example, “what time is it in London” or “how many square miles in an acre?”  The goal is to utilize content from extremely trusted websites to answer simple user questions without requiring a click through.

Answer Box results haven’t shown up heavily in legal.  Although that might have just changed – specifically for lawyer name searches.  Google is now pulling data directly from Avvo profiles for name search information – pulling Titles and work history directly into the search results on a simple name search.  This also includes a click through to the Avvo website – which could provide Avvo with a huge traffic jump.

Legal Answer Box

But note the horrible implementation – the title of the Answer Box is “Professional Misconduct” (not say…. the lawyer’s name).  At first blush (don’t make me think) it looks like poor Martha has been sanctioned in all of her jobs, going back to 1984.  (If you actually click through to the result, you’ll find that the Martha Patterson listed does NOT have any professional misconduct history.)  So – great idea, but horrendous implementation from Google.  This is a particularly tricky match – there are probably hundreds of Martha Pattersons in the US – and seven Martha Patterson profiles in the Avvo directory.

Now its highly possible that Google is just testing this among professional service providers (and the bad user experience above suggests that is the case) and is going to ratchet it back; although my instinct tells me your are going to get more and more information about individuals directly in the search box.

FindLaw’s take on the new .law domains….

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We wrote last week about the sales hype being drummed up for the new .law domains. Afterall, these babies are being advertised between $200 and $350 a year – a bit of a premium from the $14.99 you’ll get from GoDaddy.   Afterwards the post, someone forwarded me an article from FindLaw’s Lawyer Marketing Blog “Understanding the New .law Domain.”  Here’s FindLaw’s Mark Jacobsen’s take on the .laws TLDs (my emphasis):

From both a consumer and an SEO perspective, a verified, restricted top-level domain provides a level of confidence that you know who you are dealing with online. Which leads us to today and the .law domain.

Note that FindLaw claims about these restricted top level domains provide a level of confidence for SEO run 100% contrary to Google’s guidelines.  From John Mueller (of Google):

Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search.
…understand there’s no magical SEO bonus…

But if you are unconvinced and still think FindLaw might know more about Understanding the new .law domains than Google does, you can buy one from….. FindLaw.

Moz’s Local Ranking Factors Report

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Every year, I get an email from Moz asking for input into their Local Ranking Factors survey.  The survey is conducted amongst a small group of SEO nerds. Due to the competitiveness of legal marketing, be glad to know our niche is especially well represented- I’m joined by legal marketing geeks, Mike Ramsey, Gyi Tsakalakis and Casey Meraz.  This year, the study came out shortly after Google launched the snack pack (catch up here), so the results are particularly interesting.

If you want to geek out, you can read the full Moz study here.

Overall Ranking Factors

Ranking Factors continue to diversify – meaning there are a wide array of things you need to get right.  Vendors who provide just one piece of the puzzle are rarely going to be enough to drive success (and yes – I fully acknowledge this is a self-serving comment.)  The factor consistently gaining in significance is behavioral performance (i.e. click through rates, time on site etc.) – this has been backed up by numerous studies.  In legal, this emphasizes issues like brand, meta descriptions, a site’s look and feel/user interface and accessibility of information.

And despite the ongoing assertions of social media pundits – Social is entirely immaterial to local performance – coming in dead last among all ranking categories.  Joy Hawkins (who is our secret go-to person when we get utterly stuck on a complex Google My Business issues) explains social and search:

I gave social signals 1% for organic impact because I do think it’s possible that they could impact ranking – I have just never seen a single case where they did. I always quote Matt Cutts where he indicated that when it comes to social signals it’s a correlation and not causation. Businesses that are active on Facebook also usually care about their ranking on Google and are actively trying to improve it. One doesn’t cause the other.

David Mihm, the author of the survey, offers his take on the waning (if not entirely dead) impact of Google+ in ranking:

At this point, I view Google My Business essentially as a UI for structured data* and a conduit to AdWords. While Google’s original “business builder” vision may still come to fruition, it clearly won’t be under the social umbrella of Google+.

Top 10 Ranking Factors for Local (now Snack Pack)

  1. Physical Address in City of Search
  2. NAP Consistency in Structured Citations
  3. Proper Google My Business Categories
  4. Proximity of Address to the Point of Search (i.e. physically where is the searcher)
  5. Quality/Authority of Structured Citations
  6. Domain Authority of Website
  7. Product/Service Keyword in Google My Business Business Title
  8. City, State in Google My Business Landing Page Title
  9. HTML NAP matching Google My Business Location NAP
  10. Click Through Rate from Search Results

Of particular note is the focus on quality including the prevalence of accuracy in Google My Business information (note David’s comment above).

Ranking Differentiators for Competitive Markets (i.e. legal)

My favorite facet of the survey is the focus on competitive markets – essentially almost all of the legal marketing space.  After getting the fundamentals right, this becomes the tactical focus of our engagements and frankly, these are often the hardest components of search – the stuff that can’t be automated, simplified or easily copied.

  1. Consistency of Structured Citations
  2. Domain Authority of Website
  3. Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to Domain
  4. Quality/Authority of Structured Citations
  5. Proper Google My Business Category Associations
  6. Physical Address in City of Search (in the past month, we have been consulted twice on helping law firms decide what building to move in to.)
  7. Quantity of Native Google Reviews
  8. Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to Google My Business Landing Page URL
  9. CTR from search results pages
  10. Quality/Authority of Unstructured Citations (i.e. Newspaper articles)

Note the heavy heavy focus on quality above.  You don’t achieve these tactics through $10 for 1,000 twitter followers or a paid citation campaign.

Non Local Local Results

Heh?  This is really localized natural search – i.e. results for local queries (even those without a geo-modifier) that return typical SEO results.  I don’t want dwell on this, as this is a post about Local (i.e. mapped) results, but for natural search with a local component (which represents at least 95% of legal searches – the focus is on providing accurate location signals through Google My Business and a heavy focus on site authority (i.e. high quality links).  In fact the top 2 signals according to the survey are link related.

Negative Ranking Factors

Of course, no SEO conversation would be complete without a discussion of penalties.

  1. Incorrect business category
  2. Listing at false business address
  3. Mis-Match NAP or Tracking Phone Numbers
  4. Presence of malware
  5. Reports of Violations in your Google My Business location
  6. Mis-matched NAP/tracking phone numbers on Google My Business page
  7. Mis-matched Address on Google My Business page
  8. Multiple Google My Business locations with Same Phone Number
  9. Absence of NAP on website
  10. Address includes suite number similar to UPS Mail Store or other false address.

The negative ranking factors center around incorrect NAP as well and inconsistent information in…. here it is again…. Google My Business.  Given the prevalence of geo spam among lawyers (i.e. “virtual offices” or fake offices shoehorned into your friends insurance office), I expect we will continue to see a greater focus on reporting of non-real offices.   Frankly, the only impact we saw among law firms with the Pigeon roll out was severe penalties on some significant local spammers; so none of this really surprises me.

Snack Pack

Acknowledging that the Snack Pack launched just prior to the survey (and so the following is probably more intuitive rather than based on any studies, Moz asked about change in tactical focus given the snack pack.  Across the board, the increased focus was on quality signals (NAP, Authority, Citations).  The only quantity factor was Google specific reviews (i.e. the more the better but note the focus on Google, NOT reviews across the web – Avvo, Yelp etc.).   Tactical losers focused on quantity (which I read to mean low cost, low value, low authority – easily replicable) links, citations and…. my favorite punching bag…. social shares.

The Snack Pack – A Follow Up

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Earlier this month, Google shook up search results by creating what is now being referred to as the local “snack pack” (you can read the Mockingbird coverage of the changes here). And no, for those of you reading this before lunch, unfortunately this is not Google’s way of announcing they will now be delivering pudding.

snack-pack

As shown in the image below from Casey Meraz, local business listings, previously shown in a local pack of 7 listings, have now been limited to a 3-business “snack pack.”

 

snack-pack-old-new

Like most changes to search results, many in the SEO industry are seconds away from declaring a state of emergency. Now you must be top 3, otherwise you will never get another visitor to your website ever again.

Is this really the case? Should you be panicking? Calling your SEO agency in a rage questioning why you aren’t in the top 3?

Like any good business school graduate, my answer is: it depends.

Let’s start by recapping a few things most of us can agree on:

  • PPC ads (marked in yellow at the top and right hand of the SERP) are not being changed as they are manipulated via AdWords efforts, not SEO.
  • Ranking #1 in any type of search result for any phrase is generally going to be better than ranking 10th or 79th. In general, more traffic to your website -> more client inquiries -> more money in your pocket.
  • The legal industry is notorious for web spam – from fake reviews to fake satellite offices. This is an unfortunate but very real reality; one that actively affects how your law firm performs in search.

At first glance, it would appear this update would be particularly harmful to those who were previously showing up in the local 7-pack in spots 4-7, and are now no where to be found. While many local businesses fall into this boat, the negative consequences are hard to quantify. As pointed out by Jennifer Slegg in her initial coverage in Moz, presumably, Google removed listings 4-7 in the local pack because they weren’t getting nearly as many clicks as the top 3. So, hypothetically, the update could not have much of an effect at all.

Along the same lines, in his heat map analysis, Casey Meraz demonstrated that ranking in the snack pack is not the end all be all of local search. Whether there are organic results above or below the snack pack, significant portions of users choose traditional organic listings over localized results.

Like nearly every update in Internet land, it’s impossible to predict how the snack pack will impact your site with 100% accuracy. Regardless of your situation, remember to focus on what actually matters: inbound requests for your business. Ranking #1 for “personal injury lawyer” is not always indicative of success – that’s why Mockingbird doesn’t provide ranking reports. More often than not, a large portion of your search traffic is coming from branded or long-tailed searches.

When determining what to do in response to the snack pack, ask yourself a few questions…

Has your local traffic decreased since the local pack update? Is that translating into a lack of calls and form fills?

1. Does your web presence suck? Does your “office” conveniently share an address with USPS? Is the phone number on your Google+ listing actually your phone number?

–> It’s not rocket science – fix this. Your contact information should be how people can actually contact you. Your business address should be the place that you actually work. Your phone number should be your actual phone number.\

2. Are you following best practices? Is your information up to date and regularly updated? Are you in a particularly competitive location/industry?

–> It might be time to consider the traditional suggestions – consider upping your investment in SEO efforts, place an increased emphasis on NAP consistency, and if you aren’t already, try PPC advertising for lead generation.

If you didn’t notice a change from the snack pack update, keep on keepin’ on. Continue to make improvements to your web presence and keep your business information up to date. If you experienced a positive impact, congratulations, you win the Internet! You are officially #1. Your job here is done. Also, consider sending your SEO agency cookies to celebrate; chocolate chip is always a fan favorite.

HOT: Google Updates Local Results

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Fresh from the web comes this update about Google’s recent changes to the local pack.

The local 3-pack

Google’s local results, AKA the “Local” or “Map” pack, just got streamlined from seven results to three.

What is it?

The “Local Pack” is the list that appears on the left of your screen when you search Google for a local service or business. As an example, here’s an image from a post last year:

What’s Changed?

As you’ll note below, the local pack just slimmed down. It lost four listings, doesn’t feature a phone number and no longer shows the Google+ page. The number can be found by clicking the listing: More on that in a bit. Businesses still show star rankings where applicable. Street names are now used in lieu of full addresses. Hours of operation will show either opening or closing times, depending on the time of day.

Attack of the 3 Pack
LA Area Search for “Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney” – 2:30 PM, 8/7/2015

Previously, clicking a link in the local pack would have the listing’s knowledge graph page fly-out to the right, as detailed here. In this new iteration, clicking the the listing (and not the website or direction links) brings up an entirely new pageLocal Pack Click-Through

This new page now features the business knowledge graph card. Users can now find the full address and phone number here. This page also features a total of 20 business listings, and links to more at the bottom.

So what does it mean?

The obvious first thought is that it just got harder for folks that were ranking 4-7. Does this mean it’s time to up your Adwords advertising spend? Perhaps. It could also be a boon to companies that rank #1 or #2 organically but don’t show up in the local pack. That the local list is now shorter means less scrolling to get to them.

Time will tell if users adjust to this new “local pack lite” and click through to the 20 listing page.

We’ll keep an eye on this for you. In the meantime, redouble your local SEO efforts: The bar just got higher.