TRAFFIC
Figure 2:
seconds for them to understand if the site is
relevant to them and another 22 seconds for
them to comprehend the site properly.
So, for BetABonus, they have to back up
their claim instantly, otherwise users will
just bounce off the site and go to another
search result. Figure 2 is a screen grab of
their mobile site. Notice the big headline
about free money and hundreds of deals. It
just validates the fact BetABonus is the best
site for enhanced odds.
This means higher click-through rates
for rankings they have, along with lower
bounce rates back into search results than
other competitors. All of this positively
influences rankings.
And since there is so little real estate on
mobile, it makes title tags even more critical.
● #3 Take Google’s advice on mobile
Read Google Webmaster tools
documentation on mobile SEO. Just search
for ‘Google mobile SEO’ and you’ll find it.
The main point: fast, responsive websites
12
iGB Affiliate Issue 51 JUNE/JULY 2015
“Portent recently published the results of a study showing
that 40% of a 25,000 website sample from the Majestic
Million were not mobile friendly.”
please Google!
With Google, I always think it’s
important to read between the lines so you
can understand whether their advice is for
you or for them.
Google talk a lot about responsive web
design and it helps them massively, but it
helps you too.
In my opinion, people have for far too
long obsessed about making websites
beautiful and intricate. One of the great
things about responsive design is that
‘beautiful’ websites are really hard to build
if you are doing expand/contract themes.
If you look at usability and conversion
studies, it’s obvious that people want
functionality and good typography above
everything. Responsive web design pushes
you into simplifying website design and
focuses you on the deliverable for that
website or page.
Another main point is that you have one
web address for one-page, instead of this
messy solution of having a mobile site and
the desktop one.
Of course, most affiliates only need
simple sites. Therefore, if your website isn’t
responsive yet, then now is the time to sort
it out, before Google really does follow
through on its threats with Mobilegeddon.
● #4 Page speed
Following on from responsive design
is page speed. In theory, if you have a
responsive design, then you should have
fewer graphics. Of course, that’s not
necessarily the case.
You can always tell when Google cares
about something, because they bring
out a tool to gently reinforce their point
around this. In this case, Google have a
very useful page speed testing tool which
can show you which image assets are too
large, which scripts need optimising and
so on.
My view on page speed is that it affects
rankings, but not in the way people
think it does. If you land on a page and
you are left hanging around for up to 10
seconds, you’re more likely to bounce
straight out and jump into another search
result. Bounce rates into SERPS are most
probably a bad signal.
These stats are interesting:
• 47% of people expect a web page to load
in two seconds or less
• 57% of visitors will abandon a page that
takes three seconds or more to load.
• At peak traffic times, more than 75% of
online consumers left for a competitor’s
site rather than suffer delays
It’s all very good saying ‘increase your page
speed’, the question is how?
• Start using a CDN (Content Delivery
Network)
• There are several providers including
Cloudflare and MaxCDN. If you use
WordPress (remember to always update
it folks!)
• There is a plug-in called W3 total cache.
Within that, there are CDN settings