The Cessation (BAN) of Google Search in Australia? – Probable Impacts
The dispute between Google and the Australian government is on the rise. Latterly, Google has threatened to exclude Australia in its search.
Statement from Mel Silva (the regional director, Google)
“The latest version of the Code requires Google to pay to link to news sites, breaking a fundamental principle of how the web works and setting an untenable precedent for our business, the internet, and the digital economy. This is not just Google’s view. Many other respected voices have raised similar concerns in their submissions to the Senate Committee.
By introducing a flawed arbitration model and unworkable requirements for algorithm notifications, the Code exposes Google to unreasonable and unmanageable levels of financial and operational risk.
If the Code becomes law, Google would have no real choice but to stop providing Search in Australia. That’s a worst-case scenario and the last thing we want to have happen—especially when there is a way forward to a workable Code that allows us to support Australian journalism without breaking Search.
This workable solution would see Google pay publishers through News Showcase, a licensing program with nearly 450 news partners globally. By making News Showcase subject to the Code, Google would pay publishers for value, and reach commercial agreements with publishers, with binding arbitration on Showcase. In addition, we’ve also proposed amendments to the arbitration model that will bring it in line with widely accepted models and lead to fair commercial outcomes, and algorithm notification requirements that are workable for Google and useful for news publishers.”
Response from Scott Morrison (Australian Prime Minister) –
“We don’t respond to threats”.
What is the core issue?
The Australian government has proposed a law called ‘News Media Bargaining Code’ saying that tech giants like Google and Facebook should compensate the news organizations for using their content in the search.
Initially, Google agreed to pay for the news outlets they are utilizing, however, looking at the strict and unacceptable conditions proposed in the law, the tech giant Google and Facebook became extremely unhappy with the proposal and the outcome turned into a big conflict between Google and the Australian government.
How Much Amount does Australia Want Google to Pay?
The amount has not been decided yet. The decision is expected to be taken by the judge in case of disagreement between Google and the news organization.
Implications of Google’s Extinction from Australia
Google holds 90–95% search engine market share within Australia (almost the same as other countries). Hence, if Google leaves Australia, the searchers may face huge trouble. Also, Google is not a mere search engine. It is the owner of many other powerful services we use in our day to day lives like youtube, google docs, Gmail, and google map. The other main sector in which Google is playing a significant role is online marketing. Although the impact of Google’s move on these services is still unclear, even if these services are not impacted by the move, the searchers may experience degraded application performances in the absence of Google search.
Businesses will still be able to utilize Google’s online marketing services such as Google ads to strengthen their Digital Marketing but they may encounter significant losses as Google search will not be there to direct the customers towards their stores.
On the other hand, the removal of Google search from Australia can prove to be an outstanding opportunity for the local tech entrepreneurs of Australia to dominate the search market as the most powerful competitor in the domain will be off from the list.
Alternatives of Google in Australia
The other alternatives to Google present in Australia include – Microsoft Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo (privacy centered one), however, none of them is as powerful as Google is. The tech giant Microsoft is already positive and believes that his search product Bing can fulfill the absence of Google search in Australia. Indylogix is having keen expertise in Bing Search optimization and helping clients getting ranked in Bing. Seeking a Bing SEO expert, you can count on us. Let our SEO professionals rank your website higher in Bing search engine.
How Does it affect online businesses?
Despite the niche, the customer has developed a habit of searching for everything they want on Google. Google search is the most important and widely used search engine behind the success of online business in any country. It is the main source of enhancing your online visibility and gaining more traffic towards the website. Also, it is a gateway to drive the user to what they want to buy and how to reach the product swiftly and efficiently. Hence, the absence of Google search in Australia is assumed to have a negative impact on the profits of the business professionals utilizing Digital Marketing and selling their products or services digitally. Though there are other search engine options too in Australia, how well they contribute to the success of the online business is yet to see.
What about the Job of SEO Guys in Australia?
Google is the top player in the realm of SEO Professionals. The popularity and acceptance of Google search have made Search Engine Optimization a synonym for ‘optimization on Google search’. Whatever efforts the SEO guys embed to accomplish their job, everything is centered around Google by default. The reasons behind this are – the biggest market share of Google, industry-leading search algorithms, and the presence of powerful SEO supporting features.
What if Google search is not there?
SEO professionals will have to shift to other search engines available in Australia like bing and yahoo. They will have to refine their skills and expand their knowledge as per the relevant search engines. The SEO job market may also degrade resulting in the loss of jobs for many and whatnot. In short, the exclusion of Google search can put the life of Australian SEO professionals under stress.
Google Sets Out December 2020 Core Algorithm Update
Dear readers
Are you sure your business is in the right picture frame?
One more core algorithm update of 2020 was declared by Google on December 3.
Here is the Twitter announcement made by Google –
This is the third time Google is making changes to its algorithms in the running year, 2020.
The last core algorithm update was announced on May 4. A huge time gap can be seen between the last and the current algorithm update as compared to the previous ones (may be due to COVID-19 pandemic).
Does it mean that this new update is more striking as compared to others (the older ones)?
Well, we don’t know. We have to wait and watch to get an answer to this.
What is the Impact of Core Update on Your Website?
A website can unexpectedly gain or drop rankings whenever a core algorithm update is introduced.
Hence, any change in the core algorithms is always a challenging phase for website owners and SEO guys, especially for the ones whose sites faced tough times as a result of previous updates.
This shift in the website ranking (no matter if it is good or bad) majorly indicates the content suitableness.
This means that if your content relevancy has been improved since the previous core update was made, it is expected more to elevate the website ranking.
On the other hand, if your content relevancy has been diminished since the previous core update was made, your website is likely to face tough times with this new core update.
What is the Response of the SEO Community on this Update?
The sudden announcement of this core update was a bitter pill for SEO people that turned the entire SEO community into panic and distress.
Here are the few responses the Google received on his twitter announcement
The above responses clearly show that SEO guys are not happy with this new update and are upset to face these changes again and again.
SISTRIX Google Update Radar Tool – To Understand the Impact of December 2020 Core Update
Google Update Radar tool enables users to understand the movement across SERPs and create a summary of the available data.
It is a free tool that allows the to monitor visibility index graph changes with the help of the tool box.
Moreover, the ranking changes feature of the tool helps users to understand keyword movements that happen on a day-to-day basis.
You only need to mention the start date and the finish date along with the filters (if any) to accomplish the task.
Closing Statement
Google is habitual of making updates timely.
But, when it comes to core update, this is something that is going to create a huge impact on several websites. The impact can be either positive or negative from the SEO perspective. But Indylogix will not let you go down because we are following white hat Digital Marketing Services since inception.
So, how the latest algorithm update is going to affect the SERP ranking of your website.
Let’s wait and watch!
Google’s Core Web Vitals are Changing into Ranking Signals in May 2021
Are you ready?
If you have been ignoring Google’s Core web vitals Google, please brace yourself because Google has officially announced that Google’s Core Web Vitals are going to be the conditions for their ranking factors from the coming month of May.
This means Google is going to consider the Core Web Vital score of your webpage together with additional ranking factors before driving your website to the top of the page.
So, guys, it’s time to handle Core Web Vitals with caution to avoid any drops in your page ranking.
Well, many of you must be unaware of this. Also, you will be wondering what these Core Web Vitals are and how they can impact the ranking of a website.
Don’t worry. I will cover all such information in this blog so that you have a better idea and knowledge of Core Web Vitals.
Let us first understand the meaning of Core Web Vitals.
What are Google’s Core Web Vitals?
“Core Web Vitals are a collection of three-page metrics whose main purpose is to examine the page loading speed, responsiveness, and visual balance of a web page visited by the user”
The Core Web Vitals are basically a part of those factors that are considered by Google to come up with the overall page experience score of a web page.
The Three Core Web Vitals Metrics
Core Web Vitals mainly include the given three metrics
- Largest Contentful Paint(LCP)
LCP weighs the loading performance of a web page and calculates the time in which the main content gets loaded on a web page.
To be more clear, LCP is nothing but the period between making a click and getting the page content displayed on the screen.
Google breaks LCP into three main categories namely good, need improvement, and poor as shown in the below picture
To achieve an outstanding user-experience, the LCP value should not go beyond 2.5 seconds calculated right from the beginning of the page loading process
Tips to improve the LCP of your site- Avoid using large page elements.
- Choose a good hosting provider to host your site.
- Avoid using unnecessary third-party scripts on your webpage.
- Implement lazy loading on your website or webpage.
- Minimize your CSS.
- First Input Delay(FID)
FID determines responsiveness and identifies the experience i.e. what a user will feel when he will interact with the page for the first time.
It measures the time taken for a user to connect with your page. The examples include- Selecting a menu option.
- Expanding accordions.
- Performing navigations.
- Entering values to the text fields and so on…
The below picture shows Google’s guidelines for FID.
As the picture shows, the value should not go beyond 100 milliseconds to guarantee a delightful user experience.
- Tips to improve the FID of your site
- Minimize the use of Javascript
- Depreciate or avoid the use of third party scripts
- Utilize browser cache
- Cumulative Layout Shift(CLS)
CLS calculates visual stability i.e. how stable is a web page when it gets loaded.
For example, If a page element moves around the page at the time of loading, this is a sign of poor CLS which should not occur.
The below picture shows Google’s guidelines to categorize CLS values.
As the picture says, the CLS value should lie within 0.1 to promise a great user experience.
- The factors that may elevate the value of CLS include the following
- The images or videos of unpredicted size.
- External ads that are likely to change their size frequently.
Tips to improve the CLS of your site- Define the size for media elements including videos, images, GIFs, etc.
- Reserve the space in advance for the ads.
Different Ways to Check Core Web Vitals of Your Webpage
- Analyzing your Core Web Vitals with the help of Google LightHouse
- Steps include:
- Launch your website in the browser.
- Choose the Developer option.
- Select the LightHouse tab from the given options.
- Toggle to select between mobile and desktop options.
- Click on Generate Reports.
- Steps include:
- Analyzing your Core Web Vitals with the help of Google Light House
- Steps include:
- Launch PageSpeed Insight tool.
- Enter the desired URL.
- Toggle between mobile and desktop as per the need.
- Review the field or Stimulated data.
- Steps include:
- Analyse your Core Web Vitals using Google Search Console
- Steps include:
- Log in and launch the Google Search Console dashboard
- Select Core Web Vitals from the enhancement tab.
- You can review the scores for both desktop and mobile devices as per your need.
- Check reports to gather details about the issues.
- Steps include:
A Glance at Page Experience Signals
Page experience signals is a collection of signals determining the overall experience whenever a user interacts with a web page.
- Mobile Friendliness
- Safe Browsing
- HTTPS
- Intrusive interstitial guidelines
How to Optimize Your Page Experience
- Analyze and optimize your Core Web Vitals using any of the tools mentioned above.
- Check the mobile-friendliness of your webpage or pages with the help of the Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
- Ensure better security of your webpage/pages with the help of the Security Issues report.
- Ensure a safe site connection by securing your site with HTTPS.
- Utilize interstitials in an optimized way.
Augmenting the Core Web Vitals
Google advises taking anything marked as ‘poor’ as the top priority and fixing the issue on an immediate basis.
Then you are free to fix the other relevant issues based on their urgency of fixing.
If you are an individual with very little or absolutely zero technical knowledge, it is advised to take assistance from the technical team to solve the issues.
Meanwhile, you can follow a few practices including using AMPs (Accelerated Mobile Pages), limiting your number of page resources up to 50, restricting the size of your web pages under 500 kb to achieve better results.
EndNote
As the number of websites present on the world wide web is mounting every day, acquiring a good website ranking on the SERPs has become a more tough assignment.
A single mistake committed by you can have a huge impact on the ranking of your website.
Hence, folks, understand the Core Web Vitals thoroughly and follow all the required practices to optimize them.
Contact our team of professionals if you need help!!
Local SEO – A Secret Sauce Behind Business Success
Are you sure that your online visibility is not blurry?
Have you ever heard of Local SEO for business?
it’s now a trending concept that is helping businesses to generate more customers in their geography. First and foremost, let me make this concept clear and then I will provide you all the important details.
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO is a trending marketing strategy assisting businesses to promote their products and services to their local customers.
Difference Between SEO and Local SEO
SEO, as we all know, is a powerful way to improve the SERP ranking of a website or a business.
The primary difference between SEO and local SEO is that where general SEO aids to increase the ranking of a website nationally, local SEO primarily focuses on a particular area and targets more on your local audience. To accomplish successful local SEO, you need completely different strategies and approaches than that of general SEO.
Importance of Local SEO
- Enhances the local traffic towards a website.
- It boosts the visibility of your brand within a specific locality or region.
- To increases the possibility of converting an online search into offline shopping.
- It aids to catch more customers in your locality.
- It helps you to get more leads from the crowd of mobile users.
Striking Facts About Local SEO
- Almost 80% of local searches convert into a purchase.
- Almost 50% of Google searches are intended for a local search
- There is more than a 500% hike in local searches in the last few years.
- Almost 50% of the searchers tour the store on the same day of performing the local search.
- Nearly 76% of the local searches performed on smartphones visit the store for sure.
Effective Tips to Optimize Your Local SEO
Performing local SEO may seem a simple and easy chore, however, there are many significant practices that need to be followed to achieve the desired outcomes.
A few of these can be seen as under:
- Review Your Homepage
To optimize your website for local SEO, the first thing you need to review is the home page of the website. Make sure your home page explains very well who you are, what services do you offer, and what is your location. - Leverage Google My Business Account
Improving your business profile is an effective way to boost your SERP visibility. This can be better achieved with the help of a Google business account created for that business. There are a few important points you need to consider while creating your business profile. These include providing correct and up-to-date information about your business, including your company’s logo, providing clear information about the products and services you sell, giving immediate response to the customers, and so on. Also, make sure to include your offers and discounts in your business profile. - Check Mobile-Responsiveness of Your Website
People are shifting from desktops to mobiles at a very rapid rate. In fact, there are already a huge number of users that use mobile devices to perform a search. This gives a rise to the need for a mobile-friendly website. Make sure your website’s design is mobile optimized and fits very well to a variety of mobile screen sizes and resolutions. - Optimize Your Location Pages
This point is highly crucial if your store is situated at multiple locations in the given area. Following details need to be clearly defined in one or more of your location pages- Your store opening hours with specific timing details
- The name, address, and a valid phone no.
- Attached google maps on all pages
- Parking availability
- Create Separate Pages for Different Products and Services
You may think of explaining all the products and services on one single page. However, it is good to avoid the same as it may diminish local SEO rankings. Opt for creating a unique, separate page to explain every single product or service you provide. This will benefit you with better and more effective results. - Make an Optimal Use of Your Metadata
Metadata i.e. a few lines of text written below your website URL on the SERP. These lines are very important to create the first impression of your website as well as your business. Visitors often read this data before clicking the website URL. Make sure this metadata is clear, impressive, and logically explains the area of your business to the reader. Also, make sure to add your city and location in your metadata if you are aiming to improve your local SEO. - Ensure to Create Social Media Accounts
To achieve good rankings for your local SEO, you must have social media business pages on various social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter. It serves as a bonus and another way to point your location when it comes to improving your local SEO.
Role of Content in Improving Your Local SEO
Drafting and publishing good quality content is one of the most effective ways to improve your local SEO. It is a superb way to rank yourself for the local keywords involving relatively less competition.
There are various different types of content that can help your local SEO. These include creating city-specific landing pages, creating state or region specific landing pages, FAQ pages, SEO optimized blogs, and so on.
Requisite Tools to Manage Your Local SEO
- Whitespark
Whitespark is a great website that aids to increase the number of your online customers significantly. It is a great tool to boost your rankings, drive more business, and accelerate you towards your success.
The most prominent local SEO tools offered by Whitespark include- Local rank tracker
- Reputation builder
- Review checker
- Local citation finder
- Review Trackers
Review tracker is one more powerful tool to manage your local SEO. The tool enables you to create and maintain a solid online reputation by monitoring and analyzing your customer reviews. Brands like Subaru, Midas, and American Family Insurance are already utilizing Review Trackers. The tool offers many different pricing plans from which you can choose as per your budgets and requirements. - Moz Local
The next important tool that offers a brilliant way to perform your local SEO is Moz Local. The tool provides various important data and methodologies that help you to boost your website visibility. The local provides easy and effective location management by availing you with the facilities like location data management, real-time profile management, data cleaning process, review management, and so on. - Synup
Synup is another effective reputation management and digital marketing solution specifically designed to help your local SEO. You can perform a variety of important tasks including managing your listings, monitoring your analytics, and generating reports with the help of the tool. The tool avails you with numerous listing updates and provides immediate notification whenever a review regarding your business is generated. - SEMrush
SEMrush is another prominent tool capable of aiding you with your SEO and search analysis. It provides users with various important information including website traffic information, keyword information, relevant SEO information, and so on. The most popular and widely used tools provided by SEMrush include competitor analysis, backlink checker, and keyword research.
Conclusion
We all are more interested in the things which are geographically nearer to us. Hence, local SEO has become a crucial aspect to execute a small scale business that operates within a specific region or locality.
It optimizes the SERP ranking of a website for a specific region or locality instead of working on a national level. Focusing on your local SEO means more local traffic that turns to more local customers and ultimately more local sales.
So guys, what are you thinking about? Drive ahead your business with powerful local SEO strategies. Meanwhile, if you want a digital marketing expert, you can get in touch with Indylogix Solutions.
How To Team Up Web Design With SEO?
Hello creative designers,
Are you wondering how to design an SEO friendly website?
If yes then this blog is for you. If not, this blog is still beneficial for you as it will give you a booster idea about the connection between one of the most crucial aspects of SDLC i.e. the designing and the Search Engine Optimization.
We have torched a few important chores, a website designer must do to improve SEO of the website.
Let us commence by understanding the importance of good web design and SEO. Meanwhile, if you are someone who needs a team of expert designers or SEO practitioners to raise your business, you can hire dedicated developer anytime.
Significance of Web Design
A web design of a website is a critical element of any marketing strategy. It affects your visitors and your business in many ways. Let us have look at a few areas in brief –
1. Better Engagement with the Audience
Your website’s design is the first thing your audience is going to notice whenever they visit your website. Hence, a clear and logical design is very important to make an optimistic influence and retain them for a long time.
If the web design is appealing and beautiful, people would love to explore more and know more about your business.
A badly designed website, on the other hand, will result in a negative impact on the audience and ultimately, the abandonment of your website.
2. Enhanced Brand Image
Your web design is the replica of your brand. Hence, if you run a poorly designed website, it will diminish your brand image.
On the other hand, a well-designed website incorporated with outstanding content will help you to gain the trust of your audience and enhance your brand image.
3. Raised Profits
An organized and appealing web design can give you the chance to generate more potential leads. This will have a direct influence on the profits and revenues of your business i.e. it will get increased of course.
Significance of SEO
Search Engine Optimization is also a crucial element of a successful online presence just like a website design. On-page & off-page SEO help to drive traffics to a website. The difference here is SEO focuses mainly on raising the rankings of a website over different search engines and driving more traffic towards it.
Let us understand its cruciality.
1. Increased Website Traffic
The main focus of all the SEO activities is towards increasing the visibility of your website. This increases your website’s SERP rankings which ultimately results in driving more significant traffic towards your website.
2. Better User Experience
The term SEO can be mainly divided into two categories – on-page SEO as well as off-page SEO.
On-page SEO, one of the most crucial elements of any SEO strategy concentrates mainly on the areas such as website responsiveness, speed, and likewise. This aids in enhancing the usability of the site.
This way you can gain a happy visitor by ensuring a better visitor experience.
3. Easy Attainment of Your Business Goals
Well-planned and properly implemented SEO strategies helps a business to boost its online presence and enhance its brand value. It also aids a business to generate new opportunities to grow and raise its sales and revenues.
This helps a business to attain its goals easily, effectively and timely.
4. Potential Lead Generation
As I have already mentioned, a good SEO always helps a business to secure more website traffic. When the number of visitors towards a website will be more, the possibilities of generating more potential leads from that traffic will also increase significantly.
The Relation Between Web Design and SEO
The connection between web design and SEO is intricate. As designing is all about the look and feel of the website whereas SEO is about the ranking of the website over the search engine result pages, it seems they have no connection at all. However, the former is not true.
A website requires the united efforts of experienced designers, developers, and SEO experts to produce the desired outcomes.
Although the designing and SEO of a website are completely different chores, the ultimate objective of both the terms is presenting the website visitor with an excellent user experience. Hence, the terms have a strong relationship with each other.
List of Designing Elements That Impact SEO
1. Title Tag
The title tag is something that is used to display a message on the uppermost bar of the browser. To achieve a better SEO, the message given within the title tag should be unique and should clearly define the purpose of the page to the search engine.
2. Heading Tags (H1, H2…..H6)
The heading tags are utilized to show up what a web page as well as the different sections under it are all about. Both main as well as subheadings given on a web page should be catchy and should define the most important points to be noted on the same.
3. Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are nothing but a few lines of text displayed under your website name/URL on SERPs.
Good and well-explained meta descriptions increase the possibility of having a searcher visiting your website. Hence, meta descriptions are very important to enhance the click-through rates of a website or a webpage.
Role of Designers in Improving A Website’s SEO
1. Structure of Website
A website’s structure is a crucial thing that binds a visitor from the website. A clean and understandable structure is important for both the UX as well as SEO of the website.
The designers can give their significant contribution towards creating and maintaining a well-structured website.
As a designer you can make sure that your webpage is having H1 tag as the primary subject of your page. You can also utilize H2 to H6 tags for subheadings to make the page more SEO friendly.
You can also keep a check on the links present throughout your webpage. The links should be clearly visible and properly understandable to the user. Give separate colors to the links to make sure they are not lost within the other text.
If you are a programmer, make sure you are not spoiling the code with too many div tags. Concentrate more on the main, headers, and navigation bar instead. They are the crucial elements to improve the SEO of any website.
2. Responsiveness of Website
Mobile devices are the essence of today’s world. We live in a scenario where the use of mobile phones to use the internet is more than double than the use of desktops. A website which is not mobile-friendly is losing significant chances of gaining more traffic in such a scenario.
As a designer, you can make sure your website is optimized for variant screen sizes and fits well on any device of any screen size. No matter it is a desktop, tablet, or a mobile device of any screen resolution, your website should be optimized for that.
Check the font sizes are appropriate for varying devices and their screen sizes, check that pop ups fit and display properly to all devices. Also, check the image sizes are correct and suitable to all devices and so on.
3. The Navigation
The navigation of a website is an important element no matter it is for a small website or for a large, enterprise level web application. Hence, having a well-planned and logical navigation is highly crucial.
Give adequate time in planning and designing the navigation of your website. It should be clear, sensible, and simple. The navigation should be properly categorized and subcategories should be logically related to the main category.
Your navigation should be such that it is not missing out on any important pages.
A good navigation is not only a matter of praise for the designer but it improves the SEO of the website as well.
4. Speed of the Page
The loading speed of a website or a web page is a critical element and one of the most common reasons for the abandonment of the page.
No visitor likes to wait for more than three seconds on an average to get a website page loaded and quits the site immediately if this is the case.
Website’s loading speed has a great impact on the SEO of the website as well.
As a designer, you can have a number of options to optimize the loading speed of a website.
First of all, evade injecting too many images in the page design. Second, use lightweight images instead of heavier ones. Third, use the images in proper dimensions and format, and so on.
Image optimization is a crucial thing from a development perspective also. Adopt lazy and progressive image loading to ensure a better user experience as well as loading speed.
Final Words
Well, you must have understood the connection between web design and SEO is unavoidable. A well-thought web design can prove to be one of the best helping hands to improve the overall SEO of a website.
Designing a high-end, SEO optimized website is not a tough task. If you keep the above-mentioned points in your mind you can surely play a significant role in enhancing a website’s SERP presence. Good luck designers!