Easy ways to optimise your website images to increase site speed

Google’s official slogan is “Don’t Be Evil”, but it’s long been rumoured that the company has a second, internal motto that they tend to keep under wraps:

“You’re either fast, or you’re f***ed.”

We’ve written about site-speed in the past, and there’s no doubt of its importance (if there is, stick around for the stats section of this post) but for content marketers, improving the speed of your website is often seen as a particularly arduous technical exercise that’s completely out of your control. Only a back-end full-stack engineer can speed things up significantly, right?

As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth. As Tom Bennet from Builtvisible explained in his excellent recent talk at Brighton SEO. Here, I’ll run through some key points Tom addressed to show how and why you should concentrate on delivering a lightning-fast experience to users.

Why is site speed important?

Now, I mentioned stats didn’t I?

According to the official Google webmaster blog, site speed matters. Google itself spends an awful lot of time checking whether or not your site is keeping up with your competitors. If you are slower, then your place in the search results will suffer.

But that’s not the only important factor here. Site speed improves the overall User Experience. As a case in point, Tom mentioned this extraordinary stat from Firefox:


When Firefox increased average page load time by 2.2 seconds, form downloads increased by 15.4%. That equates to more than 10 million downloads per year.

Once you hear figures like that, the value starts to become clear. Tom also took time to quote Steve Souder, a pioneer of much modern web performance work:



So, we know we can do something about it. But where to concentrate our efforts?

What can we do about it?

To illustrate, Tom built a simple, fairly standard content page using bootstrap and jQuery. The content marketing industry churns out thousands of these every day, so it should be fairly relevant:



Next, we fire up the page and measure it using a combination of Yahoo’s Yslow and Google PageSpeed rulesets. Here are the initial results:

Taht F Grade is going to seriously hurt our credibility in Google’s eyes, and 3.9 seconds is going to seem like a grind for users. If you don’t believe me, count slowly to four. Would you be willing to wait that long for every page on a site to open?

But where should marketers focus their efforts to have the most impact?

On a typical page like this, images are by far the largest and most common element, so this is where we should be concentrating to start with.

Now, this isn’t just a case of opening up your images in Photoshop and making them smaller. Resolution does matter (we still want our pages to look beautiful), but only up to a certain point, so the first step is to check our image sizes:

As you can see from the page element, this image has been uploaded at 1024 x 683 pixels, but the user will only ever see it at a maximum of 420 x 289, less than half the upload size.
As always, it’s important to consider the User Experience, so let’s ask ourselves a few questions:

• What formats should we be using for images? PNGs are great for images with fewer colours or transparencies, while PEGS are perfect for photos.
• Dimensions: what is the maximum width and height at which the image will be displayed?
• Finally, do you really need all of those images?

If you have text within an image, get rid of it and use an actual font instead, and use vector graphics or CSS for things like logos or shading on the page. As Tom put it

“The fastest HTTP request is the one not made.”

Google has a range of guidelines and advice on this available which you should check out.
So, Tom resized, reformatted or replaced his images. How did this affect the overall site speed?

Being diligent with images was enough to shave a whopping 1.2 seconds – or 30% – off of the total page load time.

It’s still not rocketspeed at this point, but it’s much, much better. Tom detailed several other useful tips during his presentation which I will try to cover in the future as well, but for now – time to tighten up those images.

A Guide To Create Universal SEO QA Checklist

If you've ever had a "facepalm" moment in SEO at least once in your career after launching a new page, such as it going live with an unwanted no-index tag, don't worry, you're not alone. SEOs are busier than ever, juggling a whole host of strategies and tactics. In all the hustle and bustle, small things can slip past even the most vigilant of us. In-house SEOs also frequently face the issue of well-meaning internal IT and web developer teams not being completely au fait with SEO and thus inadvertently committing many an SEO sin.

So what's a busy, over-stretched SEO to do?

Enter the universal SEO QA checklist, especially designed to be used by anyone on the team from IT to an admin to the SEOs. By serving multiple teams with one single document, the QA process becomes flexible, fast and simple to do, increasing the chances of its adoption company-wide. This document will be your ally, silently nagging the IT team to double-check the on-page SEO elements on your behalf.

Creating an SEO QA document that can be used by non-SEOs simply involves adding a brief element of explanation, to convey the why, what and how, helping to ensure that things turn out just the way you want. Keeping it as brief as possible is always universally appreciated!

Here's a sample, very basic checklist which can be edited and customized to meet the needs of your team:

URL

• All lowercase, separated by hyphens (-)
• Short, relevant and descriptive of content
• www vs non-www redirecting properly
• URL without the / at the end redirecting to version with / (or vice versa)
• Proper usage of http:// and https://

Page Source:

1. Meta Content

• Page title: Each title needs to be unique and no longer than 60-80 characters
• Description: Each description needs to be unique and no longer than 155 characters
• Open Graph tags (if using)
  • This is a set of specific tags for Facebook
    • Og:title, og:type, og:url, og:description, og:image

2. Robots Control

• If page is supposed to be indexed: Index, Follow
• If page is NOT supposed to be indexed: Noindex, Follow
• If page is NOT supposed to be indexed or crawlable: Noindex, Nofollow

3. Canonical Tag

• Canonical tag should be the full URL in all lower case.  
  • Example: http://www.website.com/
    • So instead of: http://www.WebSite.com, it should be: http://www.website.com/

4. H1 Tag

• Only 1 H1 tag on the page
• Copy is descriptive and helpful for user

5. Analytics

• All analytics and tracking code is accurate and consistent with rest of site

Page Content:

• Check all links to make sure they are functioning and directing to the correct pages
• Make sure all the content on the page is spelled correctly and there are no grammar errors
• Ensure that Social Share Buttons are functioning correctly

Media

• All images need to have Alt attributes
• File names of any type of media should describe what that media is   a. File names should be lower case, separated by hyphens
• Text content should not render as images

The recommended process when using this document to reduce the occurrence of errors is to have IT review their work against it and then another person, whether an admin or yourself, doing another round of checks against it. Do you have other recommendations or tips you'd like to add? Please share them in the comments below.

Source - http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2375162/quality-assured-how-to-create-a-universal-seo-qa-checklist

5 SEO Trends Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know for 2015

"Is SEO dead?" It's a common question within the online marketing world today. If you're an entrepreneur relying on a strong online presence to connect with customers, you're right to pay attention. It's undeniable that the SEO landscape is changing.

For instance, Google is taking a hardline approach. Shady link-building tactics (think Rap Genius), poor quality content and bad design are just a few of the factors causing websites to get penalized. So what's worked for your business in the past may no longer work, and in fact, could actually hurt your business now.

Today, successful SEO strategies have to incorporate diverse components including brand building, mobile optimization, content marketing and social media integration. It's time to adapt your strategy to address these realities. Here's a closer look at five trends that will shape your SEO success in the year ahead.

1. Effective SEO has three pillars. A strong SEO strategy has three core components: links, content and social media. What's become more pronounced in the last year is the relationship between these elements. Content must be laser focused on your audience's needs and honed to drive specific profit-generating actions. Social media amplifies your reach, signaling to search engines that users find your content valuable. Links from high quality sites also reinforce that you're a solid, trustworthy site. A virtuous cycle is starting to emerge that all begins with writing great content.

2. The rise of content marketing moves toward digital maturity.Content marketing was the top marketing buzzword of 2013, and it's a trend that's here to stay. Brands need to become savvy about telling their own stories and creating content that resonates with audiences. As the initial fascination with content marketing wears off, marketers are now demanding more return on investment, or ROI. Content marketing is maturing, and as a result we're better able to effectively target content, measure performance and correct course to improve results.

3. Mobile optimization is no longer optional. With the release of Google's Hummingbird updates, it's getting harder for sites without a mobile strategy to rank well. This includes both a responsive design and a mobile content strategy. Realistically, it's time to invest in this anyway from a business perspective: Half of Americans own smartphones and more than a third own tablets according to Pew Internet. Responsive design ensures that your site looks great across a range of mobile devices. A mobile content strategy targets your content to the context, needs and behaviors of mobile users. To learn more about post-Hummingbird mobile optimization, read The Key Ingredients to a Winning Mobile Content-Marketing Strategy.

4. Building your brand is more important than building links. A strong brand is playing an increasingly important role in SEO. One tangible example is Google's introduction and emphasis of Google Authorship, a program that connects content to your author profile with recognized authors' content performing better in search engine results. Building your brand and thought leadership in your space are critical steps to ranking well over time. For help building and implement a branding strategy, see this collection of resources.

5. Social media, especially Google Plus, plays an integrated role with SEO. Google is relying more than ever on human signals in the form of shares and mentions on social media to help vet sites. If you don't have a strong social media marketing presence and a strategy that makes it easy for people to share your content, it's time to implement one (for help with that, I recommend "How to Determine Which Social Media Network Fits Your Business."

Social media has matured to the point where it's intersecting with SEOto help determine search rankings. Two easy places to start are building your Google Plus presence and ensuring that your website and blog have content sharing modules built in.

As you're developing your company's SEO plan, remember that all these trends add up to two things: integration and balance. Invest in all the key areas -- from writing good content, to building links and developing your social platforms -- with the understanding that they mutually support each other. Customize your plan by identifying your company's gaps and opportunity, and focus on the channels that bring you closer to your audience. Good search engines rankings will follow.

10 Smart Tips to Leverage Google+ for Increased Web Traffic

This time, it's about engaged traffic. While checking our stats here at Moz, we noticed that while visits sent to us from Facebook keep decreasing, traffic from Google+ has started to appear significant by comparison.

While not everyone has an audience active on Google+, the number of people who interact socially with any Google products on a monthly basis now reportedly exceeds 500 million.

What's different about Google+ is that beyond the direct social visits as seen above, Google offers marketers the opportunity to interact with visitors through many more touch points, including YouTube and directly in search results. This means that for visitors who engage with you through Google+, the potential traffic channels multiply. 

For this method to work, it requires that your visitors actually engage. 

Facebook and Twitter experts know this and perfected their engagement craft over several years. Engagement with Google+ means a new set tactics and best practices. These are areas that I consistently see otherwise expert brands fall short and miss easy opportunities.

Let's discuss supercharging our Google+ engagement.

1. Headlines, every time

The more users notice your Google+ posts, the more likely they are to engage. The challenge is to stand out in a sea of thousands of posts. First things first. Unlike other social platforms, Google+ posts act more like mini blog posts, and every post needs a headline. Not only does adding a header help your post stand out, but Google uses the first words of your post in two different ways:

1. They incorporates your headline into the title tag of the post
2. The headline is typically what displays in Google search results

Adding the right headline can help your post stand out in search results, and can greatly influence the number of people who both notice and click through to your content. Use a headline, every time.

2. Formatting for Attention

Easily break up your long blocks of text with formatting to make your posts simpler to read and skim. This allows you to communicate more clearly and makes your text more accessible. In addition to adding bold to your headline, copy and paste the formatting cheats below to help compose a post that stands out from the rest.

G+ Formatting Cheats:

*This is a Bolded Headline*

_ Italic_
*Bold*
-Strikethrough- 

Mix and match styles: _*Bolded Italic*_

Numbered List:
  *1.* Point One
  *2.* Point Two
  *3.* Point Three

Bulleted List:
  • Point 1
  • Point 2
  • Point 3

Link: http://example.com

#hashtag1 #hashtag2

How it Looks:

3. Use your words

Google+ is a both a visual and a text medium, so make them both count!

Don't be afraid of writing longer posts. Instead of simply posting a link to your latest blog posts and hoping for the best, add a summary of your important points. Explain why this is important. Give people additional context as to why they should click and share.

Personal example of Google+ posts where I embraced the long-form:

• Introducing The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0 • 308 +1s, 222 Reshares
• 5 Takeaways and Assumptions from Matt Cutt's Video on Authority vs. Popularity • 194 +1s, 94 Reshares
• New Google Title Tag Length Guidelines: 55 Characters • 152 +1s, 180 Reshares

The few minutes it takes to jot down your thoughts could result in multiple reshares and thousands of additional eyeballs on your content.

4. Use your images too

The vast majority of top posts on Google+ use images. In fact, the most popular post I've personally ever shared was a simple animated GIF.

For increased shareability, it's usually best to upload your own photo.

By default, Google+ tries to include an image for any URL that you share. Unless you define the right Open Graph images and the proper social meta tags, the images are often not ideal, or are sized wrong. When you upload your own image, the image links to the full-size version, not the URL you want to share. In this case, don't forget to include a link to the URL in the text.

5. Smarter sharing > targeted

Most people set their post to "public," thinking this gives them maximum exposure. In fact, there is a much more effective way to gain exposure to your top content, as long as you don't abuse it. By also adding your circles and select individuals to your share settings, this triggers a notification for those users that you've shared a post directly with them. Used smartly, these notifications can greatly influence the amount of activity on a post.

Warning: When targeted sharing is used too often, it turns spammy.  Be careful what you share. Only choose your very best, most important posts. Amazingly, Google+ also allows you to notify people in your circles via email when you share. In order for this to work, the individuals must have their email notifications set up correctly. Be extra careful with this function, as it can turn people off fast!

6. The mighty, mighty #hashtag

Twitter and Facebook have made us accustomed to hashtags, but Google+ uses them in entirely different ways to organize and recommend content. Google uses hashtags and semantic analysis to form relationships between topics. For example, consider this hashtag search for #linkbuilding. Notice the related topics Google associates with link building:

These associations aren't random. In fact, Mark Traphagen demonstrates how you can "teach" Google these relationships by tagging your own posts. By default, Google often adds hashtags automatically to any post with sufficient text. Best practice is to add your own relevant hashtags at the end or within the body of each post.

7. Find the followed links

The followed link on Google+ has gone the way of the dodo. When Google+ was born, it was a bonanza for links, and seen as an SEO paradise. Since that time, Google has replaced most equity passing followed links with nofollow, which pass no link equity. This includes profile links, "contributor to," and shared URLs. There is one exception. Public +1's remain followed.

For now, whenever a visitor +1s your content without sharing it to their stream, this results in a followed link as long as the visitor has +1's set to "public." This could be an oversight, or Google could remove these followed links soon. While the value of +1s for SEO has been debated again and again, this may be the last remaining place that a +1 may actually pass link equity.

8. Leverage Google+ comments

I'm sort of in love with the Google+ commenting system. Much like Facebook's popular commenting plugin, you can embed Google+ comments on your own blog. What makes this so powerful is when visitors leave a comment, they are given the option of sharing your post to their own Google+ followers. This can greatly increase engagement among these users and their followers.

Officially, Google+ comments are only supported for Google's own Blogger platform. Fortuneatly, clever folks have devised a number of plugins and solutions for Wordpress, Drupal, and more.

9. +Post Ads: the future of social engagement?

Google's +Post Ads offer an interesting premise: take your most successful Google+ posts and turn them into ads that show all over Google's massive display network. This exposes your posts to more people who otherwise would not have interacted with your brand on Google+ alone. This interaction drives more social sharing, and the sharing can continue after the paid promotion is over.

For example, if you are a car manufacturer, you could target your Google+ posts to appear on auto parts websites.

While still early in adoption, +Post Ads present a unique opportunity for businesses to attract customers at different stages of the buying cycle, and then keep those customers engaged through social media. While the jury is still out if +Post Ads will be effective, it will likely take some time for marketers to learn how to effectively leverage this channel.

10. Interactive posts

Interactive Google+ posts allow you to perfectly customize how your content is shared, but they also allow you to prompt your social audience to take a specific action.

Google maintains an impressive list of actions which you can automatically embed into your post. These include:

• Watch a video
• Sign up for a newsletter
• Reserve a table at a restaurant
• Open an app
• ...and about 100 more.

Mike Arnesen wrote up a good overview of getting started with Interactive posts, or you can find more at the Google Developers blog.

---

Building your influence 

Google+ isn't so much a social media platform like Twitter and Facebook, but an identity platform that works with Google to connect across all our different devices and web services. This means that while sites like Facebook and Twitter can still deliver traffic to your website, Google+ is so integrated across so many platforms that it has many more places to touch potential visitors. Business that build up their audience base today potentially position themselves to collect bigger rewards in the future.

Do you receive traffic from Google+? Is it a part of your social strategy? Let us know in the comments below.

3 Ways to Use Google+ to Increase Search Rankings

Do You Want To Increase Your Search Rankings?

Did you know your Google+ page and profile could help?

Google+ can help you increase search rankings for your website, but you have to take the time to optimize your page, profile and content. This article shows you three ways you can maximize your Google+ presence and tells you why that’s important for SEO.

Google+ isn’t just another social media platform; it’s a powerful weapon in your SEO arsenal. Check out Moz’s recent Future of Search Report for the latest on ranking factors.




SEO ranking correlations. Image source: The Future of Search: 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors Released, by Moz.

Editor’s Note: This article has been edited as there’s been a change and the links on the About tab of Google+ Page and Profile are no longer DoFollow links. The reason Google+ is an SEO goldmine is that the first link added to a Google+ page post is a DoFollow link, which means it passes link equity, or link juice, on to the website you share. If you’re sharing your website, you’re getting the link juice.

DoFollow links are a core building block of SEO. They work in conjunction with PageRank, TrustRank and link context to determine how you rank for specific keywords.
#1: Optimizing Your Google+ Page for Search Ranking

Spending a little time to optimize your information can reap big rewards. With five easy tweaks to your Google+ business page and personal profile, you can build a strong foundation for SEO success.

SEO Title

The SEO title is the name of your Google+ business page (be sure you’re using your company name here). Avoid trying to stuff any keywords into the SEO title—it’s unprofessional and has little SEO value.

Custom Page URL

Google+ recently rolled out the Custom URL feature. This is great news for companies that want to include cleaner links in their marketing. Your new customized URL looks like this: https://plus.google.com/+YourCompanyName.

To set your custom Google+ page or profile URL: Go to your page or profile and click About.
Scroll down to the Links box. You’ll see your existing Google+ page URL.
Click on the link and Google+ asks you if you want to convert to a new custom Google+ page URL.

Below you can see where I’ve customized the URL for my personal Google+ page to JamesThomasUK.





Google+ Links section.

SEO Meta Description

The SEO meta description for your page combines your tagline and the first two sentences of your introduction. You only get 160 characters, so make them count.

Google+ Intro section.
To edit your meta description or tagline, go to your Google+ business page and follow these instructions:

1. Click the Manage This Page button at the top of the page. 
2. Click Edit Page on the section with your page name on it. 
3. Click Edit in the Story section on the next page. 
4. Make your changes and click Save. 

It’s smart to include one or two of your target SEO keywords in your description.

Google+ Authorship




Google+ authorship is an important ranking factor and one that you may not know about. Authorship tags each piece of content you create and lets Google know you created it. Without Google+ authorship, you’re losing potential link juice and SEO. Eric Schmidt, author of The New Digital Age, says, “Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification…”

There are two ways to set up Google+ authorship to “claim” your own content:
If you have an email address that matches your domain (i.e., john@yourURL.com), you can go to the Google+ Authorship page and simply enter your email address to complete the process. If you don’t have an email address that matches your domain, then you’ll have toinclude a Google+ link to your profile in the author bio of any site you write for. You’ll use this format: <a href=“[profile_url]?rel=author”>Google</a>

If you need more help, Google has provided a more detailed guide in the Support section of Google Webmaster Tools. The image below shows what a correct Google+ authorship looks like. You can see that my picture and Google+ information are included next to my name.



Google+ authorship information as it appears in search engine results. #2: Posting Content

Once you’ve optimized your Google+ page and profile and correctly set up authorship, you’re ready to start posting content. This is the quickest and easiest way to build a solid following on Google+ because at the end of the day, content is still king.





The Anatomy of A Perfect Google+ Post. Image source: Dustn.tv.

When posting content to your Google+ profile or page, follow these guidelines:
Share a summary of the content you’re linking to. Don’t go overboard; short and simple are fine.
Don’t include the link in the Summary box. Instead, put the link in the Link Attachment area so you’ll get the SEO benefit of a DoFollow link.
Share the content with any of your existing circles.
Check the box that allows you to email your Google+ update to your circles, if you think this is something a specific Circle in your audience would like.





Google+ post setup.
#3: Connecting the Dots

Now it’s time to pull all of your efforts together and start tracking your results. You cantrack every piece of Google+ content you distribute or just a chosen few. Tracking the content you share on Google+ allows you to correlate SEO gains and ranking increases against Google +1s and other social signals. An easy way to keep an eye on what’s working and what’s not is to assign each Google+ link a custom URL, then review its stats weekly in Google Analytics.

• To set up a custom URL, open Google URL Builder in a new tab and complete the information. Here’s an overview of each section and what you should type in: 
• Website URL: Enter the URL of the content you want to share and measure. 
• Campaign Source: This is the platform you’re using to distribute the content—in this case, Google+. 
• Campaign Medium: The medium is how you’re sharing your content. This could be a tweet, Facebook status or LinkedIn update. In this instance, the campaign medium is Google+ Post. 
• Campaign Term: You can skip this one for now. It’s not used for this campaign. 
• Campaign Content: Type in the title of what you’re sharing; for example, “How to measure social media traffic.” 
• Campaign Name: Use something simple you can easily recognize later when you’re sifting through Google Analytics; for example, “January’s Google+ campaign.” 

When you’ve completed the URL Builder form, click Submit and you’ll get your appended URL. If you like, you can use a URL shortener like bit.ly to make it look cleaner.

Use Google+ to increase your SEO ranking.

With so many changes in the Google search algorithm, it’s important to keep up with what matters—and right now, Google+ matters. Taking the time to optimize your page and profile, share interesting content and track your efforts puts you on the path to higher SEO rankings. What do you think? Have you seen value from your company’s Google+ page? Share your experience in the comments!