Webmaster level: All


At Google we're obsessed with speed. We've long known that even seemingly minor speed increases can have surprisingly large impacts on user engagement and happiness. About a year ago we rolled out Instant Pages in pursuit of that goal. Instant Pages makes use of prerendering technology in Chrome to make your site appear to load instantly in some cases, with no need for any extra work on your part. Here's a video of it in action:



We've been closely watching performance and listening to webmaster feedback. Since Instant Pages rolled out we've saved more than a thousand years of ours users' time. We're very happy with the results so far, and we'll be gradually increasing how often we trigger the feature.

In the vast majority of cases, webmasters don't have to do anything for their sites to work correctly with prerendering. As we mentioned in our initial announcement of Instant Pages, search traffic will be measured in Webmaster Tools just like before this feature: only results the user visits will be counted. If your site keeps track of pageviews on its own, you might be interested in the Page Visibility API, which allows you to detect when prerendering is occurring and factor those out of your statistics. If you use an ads or analytics package, check with them to see if their solution is already prerender-aware; if it is, in many cases you won't need to make any changes at all. If you're interested in triggering Chrome's prerendering within your own site, see the Prerendering in Chrome article.

Instant Pages means that users arrive at your site happier and more engaged, which is great for everyone.


Posted by Ziga Mahkovec - Software Engineer, Instant Pages

Webmaster level: All

Great code has many attributes. It’s effective, efficient, maintainable, elegant. When working on code with many developers and teams and maybe even companies, great code needs to also be consistent and easy to understand. For that purpose there are style guides. We use style guides for a lot of languages, and our newest public style guide is the Google HTML and CSS Style Guide.

Our HTML and CSS Style Guide, just like other Google style guides, deals with a lot of formatting-related matters. It also hints at best practices so to encourage developers to go beyond indentation. Many style guide authors know the underlying motivation from the question whether to describe the code they write—or to prescribe what code they want to write. Not surprisingly then, in our HTML and CSS style guide you’ll find both (as much as you’ll still find a lot of different development styles in our not entirely small code base).

At this time we only want to introduce you to this new style guide. We hope to share more about its design decisions and future updates with you. In the meantime please share your thoughts and experiences, and as with the other style guides, feel free to use our style guide for your own projects, as you see fit.

Written by Jens O. Meiert, Senior Web Architect, Google Webmaster Team

Writing pay per click ads isn’t as simple as you might think. If you want to get targeted clicks that have the highest chance of converting, you have to craft powerful, eye-catching ads that your target audience can’t help but want to click.

Remember, mistakes in writing your ads will result in fewer clicks and possibly lower-quality clicks as well. The latter is especially problematic as it will cost you money as you throw it away on clicks that don’t bring business.

That’s why I’ve come up with this basic guide of dos and don’ts for writing PPC ads. After you’ve read my tips, leave your own by commenting below.

�

Do include the keyword you’re targeting—Make sure you include the keyword you’re targeting in the ad’s headline and body. This is important for a couple of reasons. First, it reassures the searcher that your ad is relevant to their query. In other words, it tells them that your page will give them the information they’re looking for. The other reason to do this is that Google will bold the keywords in your ad. This makes your ad really stand out, increasing the odds that it will get noticed and clicked. Don’t use keyword-only headlines—While you do want to include your keyword in the headline, that shouldn’t be all your headline is comprised of. Your headline needs to have a strong hook. It needs to be benefit-driven, and it should be interesting enough that someone feels compelled to read the ad and click the link. Be creative. Be clear. Be compelling. Do focus on a benefit—Your ad needs to be benefit-driven. It should speak to your customer’s needs and wants. It should address a pain point. Your ad shouldn’t be all about you. It should be about your customer, and it should present your product or service as a solution to their problem. Don’t try to do too much in a single ad—PPC ads are pretty small. You have your headline and a couple of short lines of supporting copy. In other words, you don’t have room to do too much. You should only focus on a single benefit, problem, product, or service in your ad. If you try to do too much in a single ad, you’ll end up with a confusing mess that doesn’t attract any clicks. Do include a call to action—Like any other type of ad, to get the best results you should include a call to action. Whether that action is to click the link to take advantage of a special offer, call your company now (I like including phone numbers in my PPC ads so visitors can take action directly from the search results page), or request a free consultation is up to you. Just make sure your ad gets the visitor to take some sort of measurable, valuable action. Don’t stop testing ad variations—You should always be testing different ad variations and completely new ads to see which changes get the most clicks and conversions. It sounds crazy, but sometimes, changing a single word in your ad copy can take your ad from ineffective to immensely profitable. Never stop tweaking, testing, and tracking.

�

What are your best tips for writing a PPC ad? Share them by leaving a comment below.

 

�

In many ways, your logo is the face of your company. It’s the image your customers will associate with your brand, so it’s important to make sure that you get it right.

Here are 5 tips to keep in mind when designing a logo for your company.

�

Include your name…legibly—While there are some large corporations that are able to get away with abstract logos (the Nike swoosh comes to mind), you shouldn’t take that approach. You probably don’t have that kind of recognition, nor do you have the money to do the type of promotion necessary to make an abstract logo inextricably tied to your brand. So, include your company or product name in the logo, and make sure people can read it easily. Don’t expect miracles—A new logo isn’t going to turn around your company’s fortunes. The sales won’t start suddenly flooding in just because you have a new logo; so while logo design is certainly important, you don’t want to put too much time, money, or effort into it. Keep things in perspective and get your priorities straight. Less is more—Some of the best words of advice when designing your logo are “keep it simple.”  Your logo needs to be clear and easy to reproduce. If you have too many elements and complex themes going on, your message will get lost. Look forward—While you can’t always predict the future, you need to be thinking about it when designing your logo. Where do you want your company to be 5-10 years from now? Will you be adding a new product or service line? What do you want people to think of when they think of your brand? How is the design landscape changing? These are all things to consider when creating a new logo. Choose your designer wisely—Finally, you need to find a designer to bring your vision to life. Not all designers are good. In fact, the industry is plagued with terrible designers and design agencies that charge exorbitant rates for mediocre work. Spend some time shopping around. Always look at a designer’s portfolio before you make a hire.

�

What are some other logo design tips that should be on this list?

�

�

 

Webmaster level: All

We recently updated the Top Search Queries data to take into account the average top position, we enabled programmatic download and we made sure you could still get all the queries that drive traffic to your site. Well, now it’s time to give you more search queries data!

First, and most important, you can�now see up to 90 days of historical data. If you click on the date picker in the top right of Search queries, you can go back three months instead of the previous 35 days.

And after you click:

In order to see 90 days, the option to view with changes will be disabled. If you want to see the changes with respect to the previous time period, the limit remains 30 days. Changes are disabled by default but you can switch them on and off with the button between the graph and the table. Top search queries data is normally available within 2 or 3 days.

Another big improvement in Webmaster Tools is that you can now see basic search query data as soon as you verify ownership of a site. No more waiting to see your information.

Finally, now we are collecting data for the top 2000 queries for which your site gets clicks. You may see less than 2000 if we didn’t record any click for a particular query in a given day, or if your query data is spread out among many countries or languages. For example, a search query for “flowers” in Google Canada is counted separately from a query for “flowers” in Google US. Nevertheless, with this change 98% of sites will have complete coverage. Let us know what you think. We hope the new data will be useful.

Written by Javier Tordable, Tech Lead, Webmaster Tools

We spend a lot of time on here talking about social networking, but what happened to real life, in-person networking? It still exists, and it’s still as important as ever. While social networking is an efficient way to build relationships, you still can’t beat the power of a bond forged with a good face-to-face meeting.

Networking events are still a great way to meet people who can help your business grow, whether that be potential clients, vendors, business partners…you name it. But you can’t just show up at one of these events and expect success. You have to have a good strategy in place to be successful at networking events. Here are some tips to help you out.

�

Build connections before the event—In many cases, the events will have a list with contact info for everyone who has RSVP’d. Spend some time reaching out to the people on this list beforehand. Look them up on Twitter and Facebook, or shoot them an email if their email address is listed. Let them know you’ll be at the event and want to say hi. Show up early—Showing up early is a great way to mingle with the select few others who show up before the event starts. It also keeps you from showing up too late when everyone else is already engaged in conversations. Go alone—You might think it wise to go with a wingman, so you can help each other out. I advise against it. Why? Going alone forces you to get out there and mingle with others. If you go with a friend, you may wind up talking to each other the whole time and never branching out and meeting new people. Wear your nametag—At nearly every networking event you go to, nametags will be available. Wear yours. It lets people know who you are immediately. You could even write something creative on it under your name to really stand out (e.g.”Hire me!”). Quality, not quantity—You’re not there to see how many hands you can shake or business cards you can collect. You’re there to build relationships. You’re better off making a few truly meaningful connections than a dozen brief, forgettable encounters. Be a good listener—Too many people make networking about themselves. It’s not just about you. It’s about the other person, too. Don’t talk incessantly. Listen. And I really mean, listen. Take part in an actual conversation; don’t just wait for your turn to speak and deliver your pre-written pitch. Follow up—After you’ve made some good connections, you need to follow up with them. The following day, shoot an email, make a phone call, or do some adding on Twitter to those people you met. Doing this while you’re still fresh in their minds is essential to laying the foundation for a meaningful relationship.

�

Do you attend networking events? Why or why not?

 

�

Nobody wants to lose clients, but from the way we act sometimes, you’d think we’re trying our darndest to drive clients away. Many of us are dummies when it comes to dealing with clients…so dumb, in fact, that when we lose clients, we have no idea why, despite all the mistakes we made.

Here are just some of the things you might be doing that are causing you to lose clients.

�

Overpromising and under-delivering—Hands down, this is the worst mistake you can make. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. It’s that simple. If you say you’ll have the work completed by a certain date, you had better have it done by that date. If for any reason, you can’t deliver on a promise, communicate with the client to let them know in advance. Don’t fall silent. Broken promises will kill your credibility, and when a client can’t trust you, they won’t stick with you. Ignoring clients—Communication is at the heart of every relationship. Without it, relationships wither away. You must keep in touch with your clients. Speak to them regularly. Make sure their needs are always being met. Get their feedback. Find out how they’re doing on a personal level, too. Just be there for them. Never ignore a client. Being unavailable—Do clients hit a brick wall every time they try to call or email you? You must be available to your clients, because if you’re not, someone else will be. Respond to emails in a timely manner, and make sure there is someone available to pick up the phone. Never send your clients to voicemail. Offering no personal touch—There’s both a personal and professional side to your client relationships. Many are good at managing the professional aspect of these relationships, but they fail to make personal connections. The personal touch is what creates lifelong clients. Do good things for your clients like you would for a friend. Show an interest in their personal well-being. Find things that you share in common with them. You aren’t going to be best buds with them, but you need to have a personal connection. Not providing value—At the end of the day, what are your clients getting out of this relationship? Are your products and services really up to par? Are you providing value-added services to enhance the overall experience?

�

What are some of the biggest mistakes companies make that cost them clients?

 

Webmaster level: All

Webmaster Tools added lots of new functionality over the past year, such as improvements to Sitemaps and Crawl errors, as well as the new User Administration feature. In recent weeks, we also updated the look & feel of our user interface to match Google's new style. In order to keep bringing you improvements, we occasionally review each of our features to see if they’re still useful in comparison to the maintenance and support they require. As a result of our latest round of spring cleaning, we'll be removing the Subscriber stats feature, the Create robots.txt tool, and the Site performance feature in the next two weeks.

Subscriber stats reports the number of subscribers to a site’s RSS or Atom feeds. This functionality is currently provided in Feedburner, another Google product which offers its own subscriber stats as well as other cool features specifically geared for feeds of all types. If you are looking for a replacement to Subscriber stats in Webmaster Tools, check out Feedburner.

The Create robots.txt tool provides a way to generate robots.txt files for the purpose of blocking specific parts of a site from being crawled by Googlebot. This feature has very low usage, so we've decided to remove it from Webmaster Tools. While many websites don't even need a robots.txt file, if you feel that you do need one, it's easy to make one yourself in a text editor or use one of the many other tools available on the web for generating robots.txt files.

Site performance is a Webmaster Tools Labs feature that provides information about the average load time of your site's pages. This feature is also being removed due to low usage. Now you might have heard our announcement from a couple of years ago that the latency of a site's pages is a factor in our search ranking algorithms. This is still true, and you can analyze your site's performance using the Site Speed feature in Google Analytics or using Google's PageSpeed online. There are also many other site performance analysis tools available like WebPageTest and the YSlow browser plugin.

If you have questions or comments about these changes please post them in our Help Forum.

Written by Jonathan Simon, Webmaster Trends Analyst

In an episode of Mad Men, Don Draper and Roger Sterling both responded to the loss of a client by saying, “The day you sign a client is the day you start losing them.” While I don’t share their negative attitude about client retention, I also understanding that losing clients is an unavoidable part of running a business. Even if you’re always on you’re A-game and always going above and beyond to exceed expectations, you will still lose customers. It’s just the way it is.

So, the question then becomes, what do you do when you lose a client? Here are some tips to guide you through this challenging time.

�

Speak with the client—If at all possible, get a meeting with the defecting client. Try to find out exactly why they are leaving you (this may take some digging; oftentimes, clients hide the truth) and if there is anything you can do to win them back, whether that’s right now or at some point in the future. Identify where you went wrong—You must see this as an opportunity to learn from your mistakes and avoid them in the future. Take the client’s feedback and do your own analysis to figure out exactly where things went wrong in the relationship. When a client leaves you, it’s usually not a snap decision. It’s usually something that builds up over time, so if you can identify your mistakes, you can avoid them in the future and also watch for the warning signs of a client’s departure. Assess the financial impact—Not all clients are the same. Some losses will be great; others might not really matter all that much. You need to assess the financial impact of the client’s departure immediately. Will the loss have a major impact on profitability and cash flow? Find short-term fixes while creating long-term solutions—If the loss of a client creates a major impact on profitability and cash flow, you need to start finding solutions to reduce the fallout immediately. This may mean identifying some short-term fixes while you’re working on a better long-term solution. You may need to cut back spending temporarily, run a promotion to generate cash flow, or take on clients that aren’t necessarily your dream clients just so you can keep your business running. Contact other clients—Now is the time to make sure your relationships with your other clients are still okay. You can’t afford to lose another client at this precarious moment. Get new clients fast—You can’t afford to wait for new business to come rolling in. You have to generate it yourself, and you have to do it fast. Ask for referrals, pump up your PPC campaign, do some cold calling…do whatever it takes to get new business fast.

�

What are your tips for responding to the loss of a client?

 

�

With social media outsourcing increasing 128% over the past two years, I think now is a good time to discuss some of the risks that come with outsourcing your social media marketing. This isn’t a post to dissuade you from doing so. On the contrary, I think that for many companies outsourcing social media just makes the most sense and will get the best results. But clearly, there are risks. Knowing these risks is important.

Here are 5 important risks of outsourcing social media marketing.

�

Outsiders don’t know your business like you do—When you hire a consultant or company to handle your social media marketing, it’s important to realize that they don’t know your business as well as you do. They don’t have their fingers on the pulse of your business, and you just can’t expect them to keep up with everything that’s happening in your business and your industry on a daily basis. Times are always changing—When you hire someone to manage your social media, what typically happens is they create an editorial calendar with several weeks’ or months’ worth of status updates written ahead of time. That’s fine, but the world around you is always changing and you run the risk of your updates sounding out of touch when they’re planned out in advance. Your message could get lost in translation—Your social media marketing should be centered around key messages and talking points related to your business’ goals. You need a clear communication plan, and the party you outsource your social media to must understand your messages and communication strategy. Otherwise, your message will get lost in translation. You could get held hostage—When you outsource your social media marketing, you’re essentially handing over the keys to your brand. Someone else is now in control of your communications and brand image. Don’t let them hold your brand hostage. Make sure you create your own social media accounts and that you have the username and password to each of them so you don’t get locked out. You could waste a lot of money—Let’s face it, there are a lot of so-called social media gurus out there who don’t know their backside from their elbow. Hiring the wrong person could end up costing you a lot of money.

 

What are some other big risks to outsourcing social media marketing? Share them by leaving a comment.