In 2016, Google announced it would change the way its search index operates, gearing its algorithms toward the mobile version of sites. Google began a test run in December of 2017 and announced it’s conducting its first wave of transitioning as of March 2018.

According to Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, mobile-first indexing means Google will utilize the mobile version of a web page for indexing and ranking, to better help primarily mobile users find the answers to their search queries.

Simply put, as mobile search has surpassed desktop search, Google wants to ensure that mobile users are shown content that is formatted to fit their screen and a website they can navigate efficiently. This is due to desktop sites often having features that include elements that are missing or created to be viewed on mobile devices. If a mobile user clicks on a Google search result and the page loaded is optimized for desktop, this can cause issues with reading content, site navigation, and conversion (forms & phone calls). Google wants to make its search engine results pages (SERPs) are as efficient as possible for all users, regardless of device.

Although Google claims that the mobile-first indexing won’t directly impact website rankings, it does note that having a mobile-friendly site will likely help it to better perform in mobile search results.

Google’s transition to mobile-first indicates a lucrative opportunity for businesses to update their site’s mobile optimization to adjust to Google’s new ranking methods.

There are many facets to mobile optimization including but not limited to

• Responsive Web Design
• Avoid using interstitials
• Maximizing Site Speed with Search Engine Optimization
• Using Schema Markup to Create Knowledge Graphs

Google’s entire business and foundation is built upon the principle of giving users the information they want as fast and accurate as possible. If a user searches “home A/C repair”, they want to see a compiled list of the closest a/c repair businesses in their area and the phone number easily clickable (no one has time to memorize a number and manually type it in their keypad).

Whether you’re a local business looking to drive foot traffic, or an online retailer looking to increase sales, ensuring your website is mobile responsive is more important than ever.

Not sure if your website complies? Contact Exults Internet Marketing to see how we can bring your website to the forefront of search engine results and bring you the business you want today!

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The homepage features a clean layout with a focused navigation designed to showcase only the pertinent information. The navigation that stays with the user on scroll to facilitate multi-page browsing. The attorneys’ qualifications are clearly laid out on their bio pages, and representative cases are highlighted on the homepage and on the main navigation of the site. The responsive design is will allow for key interactions to happen on any device.

As expected, the IR Law team was extremely organized. When we began to lay out design, they were all very engaged in the process and were a pleasure to work with. We’re excited to see this “after” go live- check out the end result here.

Here is the before for reference:

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The new site places the emphasis on the most important part of the Foundation; the people that comprise it. Donors, alumni, and students come to life with compelling videos that capture the spirit of the American Dream campaign.

Being a charitable organization, donations are the lifeblood of the foundation. The streamlined navigation centers on the key points of the foundation’s mission, the lives it helps to impact, and the numerous ways donors can contribute.

Tony Catone, Creative Director, had a very specific vision from the start: incite action. The ever-present, brightly colored call-to-action buttons, the odometer animation on the statistics, and the auto-play hover effects on the videos are all designed to ask users to engage and let the site tell its story.

Tony’s creative vision was ignited by the people who are the Foundation;

“I really enjoyed working on this project- especially after watching the videos about the beneficiaries of the scholarships and seeing just how much the Foundation does for the students. After listening to their stories, I was inspired to take action- so I knew these videos needed to be the website’s heart.”

Exults CEO, Zach Hoffman, knew the Foundation needed to be showcased in a way that would help people better understand its reach:

“This new website represents the organization in the right light; it speaks volumes about the Foundation’s powerful narrative. When you visit this site, it tells an emotional, empowering story about the Foundation’s incredible mission to create change within our community. Listening to the students talk about their experience in their own voice helps donors understand exactly where their money is going: to the people who will help shape our future.”

After learning about the Foundation and the people who power it, we’re excited to see this project come to life and the response from the community, students, alumni, and donors. We hope to have conveyed the chief message at the core of the organization: how empowering people through education can change lives. To learn more about the Broward College Foundation, or to see the site in action, click here.

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At Exults, each of our Platoons has submitted what they believe to be the biggest changes, developments, or trends they’ve seen this year. So don your best white outfit, grab your frozen grapes and empty suitcases, and enjoy this compilation of this year’s noteworthy internet marketing trends as we count down to 2016.

Search Engine Optimization

Now that the doomsday hoopla has settled down and SEOs everywhere have adjusted to what optimizing for the search engines means today, we saw some very interesting trends emerge.

1. The Rise of Video

Video is a great addition to any website or marketing portfolio. You can create a fun explainer video to help summarize what you do, use it to enhance your site’s design, or reach new audiences on YouTube. There are several benefits to developing original video content and even more ways to leverage it including:

• Developing a branded YouTube channel and uploading your videos with optimized titles and descriptions
• Adding a video to pages on your site with lower engagement metrics to help increase time on site
• Creating a unique look on your website and showcasing your work with a video header

2. Engagement Above All

With each new algorithm refresh, update, or shift comes mandatory changes to strategy. You can choose to be flexible and adjust, or succumb to the “SEO is dead” swan song. What we’ve learned this year is engaging visitors is what matters most. Providing great content, multi-screen support, and incorporating mixed media will win users over. So how do you measure engagement? Generally speaking, your website should answer the questions that your customers are asking. If you follow that rule, visitors will likely reward you by browsing several pages and spending some time exploring your site. That, my friends, is engagement.

3. Responsive Design

As mentioned above, multi-screen support is one of the biggest changes we’ve seen this year. With Google Bot now crawling CSS files to check for responsiveness, and Mobilegeddon happening in the same year, it should come as no surprise that usability from any device is a ranking signal. Not sure if you’re responsive? Take the test.

Sponsored Search

Google’s AdWords platform remains one of the most effective forms of advertising in the digital age. With a sound strategy and an experienced agency, the phrase “AdWords doesn’t work” is poppycock. Not only were we lucky enough to travel to Google HQ this year for the Google Partners Summit, but we also had the opportunity to try out several AdWords betas that soon became official products.

1. Dynamic Remarketing

This product was available in beta mid 2014 and officially rolled out late last year. Dynamic Remarketing makes your display campaigns more versatile than ever by catering creative to exactly what the user was looking for on your site before they left. Our favorite application of this product might just be eCommerce websites with Google Shopping; users are retargeted with the products they were looking at on sites they’ve abandoned.

2. Customer Match

Taking notes from Facebook (which has had the Custom Audience feature for quite some time), Customer match allows advertisers to target users based on their email address and show them ads while they’re searching. The applications of this feature are endless, which makes it one of the most exciting betas we have been a part of to date.

3. Target ROAS bidding for eCommerce

As an agency we don’t use bidding strategies very often, but target ROAS bidding for high volume Shopping campaigns has proven to be quite useful. Unlike most of the other flexible bidding strategies that are available, implementing this bidding strategy actually gives us more control over performance (instead of less). By defining our target return on ad spend metric, we force campaigns to perform within set parameters.

Social Media

When it comes to online marketing, social media is a heavily debated topic. Developing a Social Media Marketing strategy that is profitable for you and valuable to your audience can seem less daunting than the quest for the holy grail. The most important thing to remember about social media is that you don’t dictate the content that you share; your audience does. So while you may think it’s a cool idea to share links to your products every day, your audience may not.

1. Shopping gets Social

We typically recommend Social Media Marketing for branding, audience engagement, and awareness campaigns. Well, we can now tack on product sales to that list with the launch of product-focused ad formats. Between buyable pins, Facebook product ads, and the much awaited launch of Instagram ads, social media is quickly evolving into a modern day bazaar.

2. New ad platforms

Buyable pins and Instagram ads have monetized these juicy, user-engaged platforms that advertisers have long- awaited sinking their teeth into thereby revolutionizing the way we shop and share. Both of these platforms have pushed advertisers to develop creative that is bold and enticing, a departure from the sterilized, multipurpose display ads of yore. This shift towards visually appealing creative that captures what is awesome about a company or product makes marketing even more fun.

3. Tweets Indexing

In 2015 we’ve seen fresh, unique content prevail in the oversaturated, myopic, content heavy boom-and-bust strategy vaguely known as “The New SEO.” With Tweets indexing in a matter of minutes, it’s imperative to consider each one of those 140 characters your company’s Twitter account is syndicating.

Website Design

At Exults, we’ve seen a lot of website design trends come and go in our 10 year run. 2015 has been a standout for us because the trends we’ve seen take off this year have revolutionized our process and changed the way we see and think about design.

1. Responsive Design

Earlier on in this post we discussed responsive design as it pertains to SEO. Well, it’s also a big change in the way we build websites. It’s not too often we say this, but responsive design has changed the way we do everything. Because each element present on our custom sites needs to scale down (and look good doing so), we have changed our design process. With each design decision we make, we have to think about how it will look on every common screen size a user could be viewing it from.

2. HTML5 display ads

While animated ads aren’t new, the ability to upload your own custom animated display ads (rather than using Google’s ad builder tool) is. 2015 has been the year of added “oomph” and we’re using HTML5 in more ads than ever to give our clients an extra leg-up on the busy, ad-filled pages of the display network. With the very recent launch of Interactive Display ads beta, custom motion graphics and frame by frame animation are going to continue their rise in 2016.

3. The End of Stock (photos)

More people, businesses, and organizations have websites than ever before. Market saturation always results in some level of duplication- and stock photos are a prime example of that. We’ve all seen those overused stock photos that seem to follow you around like creepy eyes in a Haunted Mansion painting. That’s why we’ve started using unique photos on our design projects as often as we can. If you’re going to boast about your fleet, show it! Have an awesome team? Let your customers get to know them. Is your office an inspiring place? Put that imagery on your website. By incorporating real elements onto the intangible web, you’re creating a more organic experience for potential customers.

And (deep breath) that’s it! The most noteworthy trends in our industry for 2015, compiled in listicle format for easy reading. We’ll see you on the flip-side, 2016!

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Mobile devices are the new convenience standard- surpassing tablets and laptops.  They’re easy to carry, full featured, and always connected. As the saying goes, “due to overwhelming demand…” your search results will now be even more refined on a mobile device.

Starting April 21^st websites that are mobile friendly will be clearly labeled if you are browsing from a mobile device. Additionally, mobile- friendliness will be a ranking signal thus giving websites that mobile compatible ranking priority to mobile visitors.

If you’re concerned about potential limitations on your site, you can use Google’s Mobile Friendly Test resource. The tool will outline any inconsistencies or load issues along with showing you what your site looks like on a standard mobile browser.

Check out how our own site did:

To address this new shift, we recommend either developing a dedicated mobile site, or converting your existing site to a responsive format. There are advantages to both, and ultimately the most effective method will depend on your needs.

A dedicated mobile site is best for local businesses that offer several products or services, or are looking to drive foot traffic. A mobile site should be a condensed version of your main site and have the pertinent information potential customers would need quickly. Examples of this could include contact details, address, pricing information, or product offerings.

Responsive design involves re-coding your existing website to actively respond and adjust to screens of all different sizes. This format works for businesses that provide products or services that require more information or involve a more in depth buying cycle. In this case, even if on a mobile device, users will be looking for information to support their decision.

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