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Official WordPress AMP Plugin Update Allows Sites to be Built Entirely With AMP

by Tom Bowen
written by Tom Bowen

The official WordPress AMP plugin has received a huge update, including the ability to build an entire website solely with AMP.

This update means you can build a website from the ground up without the need of duplicate versions for each web page. In theory, this update will be able to potentially solve the hidden URL issue that many publishers have with AMP.

If a site was built with AMP, then there would be no use for a separate AMP version. Therefore, the URL seen in the search results would be the publisher’s URL.

However, there are still some technological limitations of AMP, meaning that it’s not currently possible yet for all sites to be built with this technology.

For this reason, publishers should carefully consider the pros and cons before trying to use AMP to build their website from scratch.

Nonetheless, here are some more features pertaining to AMP’s new update.

Other New Features

AMP’s new update allows publishers to enable or disable the plugin only on specific web pages. This update also comes with a variety of other features, which include:

  • Content sanitizers: These tools help to substitute HTML tags for their corresponding AMP components, implement optimizations, and provide key information to the plugin compatibility’s tool.
  • Compatibility tool: This tool assists with further AMP debugging.
  • CSS Tree Shaking: This mechanism assists in the process of putting the CSS-house in order whenever the existing CSS rule exceeds the maximum limit allowed on single AMP pages.
  • Core theme support: This support tool enables full AMP validity for four default themes (i.e. 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019).
  • Gutenberg integration: This integration tool enables AMP content creation with WordPress 5.0.
  • Various enhancements: These enhancements include code, performance, and developer experience modifications.
  • Compatibility enforcement: This safeguard ensures that a site stays AMP compatible.

Even with all of these updates, the developers of this plugin have emphasized that AMP is still not a turn-key solution.

“It is important to note that the plugin is not a completely turn-key solution to “AMPlify your site”, but instead functions as a key enabling technology for a fully AMP compatible WordPress ecosystem.”

What is AMP?

Accelerated mobile pages (AMP) is an open-source library that provides users with a straightforward way to develop web pages that are smooth, compelling, and load instantly. AMP pages are designed to be linked to and controlled by you to make the internet a faster and convenient place for browsing information.

AMP utilizes countless processes to ensure that their pages load quickly. News outlets, e-commerce retailers, and so many more organizations use AMP to make their sites faster and more likely to retain site traffic.

Since web users prioritize websites that load quickly, AMP is the perfect tool to help make businesses more appealing to potential customers.

Conclusion

While AMP still does have its limits, the plugin has come a long way to making every website compatible with its new update.

There is certainly more work to be done to ensure that AMP can be easily used by any online entity, but it won’t be long before the entire internet is powered by AMP.

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Mobile First Update forcing WordPress & Google to Work Together

by Tom Bowen
written by Tom Bowen

Google has always focused on providing accurate search results, giving users the information they need and improving the user experience. In the past few years, the company has made a concerted effort to improve search speed and encourage web application developers, open-source communities, and other such contributors to focus on speed as well. Google’s primary goal is to help develop a healthy and flourishing internet landscape and the company has partnered with WordPress to get closer to that goal.

What is WordPress and why is it important?

WordPress is a highly popular open-source content management system that commands around 59% of the industry market share. The platform is based on the PHP framework and makes it easier for people to create comprehensive and efficient websites. It is feature-rich, SEO and user-friendly, and has a large number of active users.

According to TechRepublic, WordPress powers 27% of the web, which makes it a powerful presence on the Internet. As this CMS is an industry leader, changes in WP operations, coding, and the platform will encourage others to follow. And so it makes sense for Google to focus on this platform first.

Focus on speed and mobile

In 2015, Google launched the AMP project with the goal of making the web experience better for everyone, especially on the mobile platform. The company has worked with developers in the open-source community. They have also encouraged adoption of mobile-friendly technology, but progress has been slow.

Research suggests that less than 0.1% of websites have adopted AMP and 79.9% primarily use HTML. Analysis also indicates that most high-traffic websites use AMP while low-traffic sites use XHTML and HTML. With the intent of pushing adoption even further, Google is expected to roll out the Speed Update in 2018 and will focus on Mobile First. This means websites with better load times, speed and performance on the mobile platform might gain a higher ranking on the SERPs.

Post the update, marketers and website owners won’t be able to rely on their desktop website performance to rank higher on mobile SERPs. As mobile search volume has exceeded desktop volume, they will have to optimize for mobile if they want good visibility and higher organic traffic.

Google and WordPress

Google’s team will work to bring the WordPress eco-system up to current standards by using the latest technology like PWA or progressive web apps. It will work on all the components of the system such as plug-ins, themes, core coding, tools, and infrastructure, etc. which will improve the WordPress experience across the board.

Currently, websites based on WordPress are lagging behind sites built on other platforms. It shows poor performance on aspects like the number of requests going to the server, resource bites loaded, visual speed index, and content load times. The partnership between WordPress and Google might help the CMS platform shed the excess bloat in its coding and make it more streamlined. This will improve load speeds and overall website performance.

With better integration of modern technologies, WordPress performance will improve and that will impact the performance of all websites on this platform.

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Small Business Checklist – Three Ways to Improve Rankings

by Pythagoras Matko
written by Pythagoras Matko

Search engine optimization (SEO) is never easy for any company. With so many metrics involved, it can be truly challenging to secure measurable results for any new or existing brand. Similarly, digital marketing can be complicated for clients with limited time, money and resources. This is why it’s pivotal to have a seasoned and reputable company handle all your online advertising needs.  For small to medium-sized businesses, there are several ways to improve your visibility and Google rankings. In fact, here are some key points to address on any business SEO checklist:

  • What to address in your online SEO marketing campaign?
  • Why is SEO important for any new or existing company?
  • Which tools will help you secure higher visibility, page rankings, and client – customer patronage?
  • How much time commitment is involved for improving my business rankings and industry ratings?

If these are some of the questions you have, it’s important to know that great organic (natural) rankings do not happen overnight. In fact, it’s a comprehensive, cohesive and ongoing process that requires you to have patience across the board. Similarly, a sound and effective SEO package reflect all the current and burgeoning trends. This includes mobile optimization for pages, along with social media integration and captivating and compelling content. With this in mind, here are three ways that have been proven to improve rankings for small and mid-sized businesses across the nation.

1. Understand What your Customers are Looking For

Before you venture into SEO, you need to know what your customers are looking for. For example specific products, tailor-made services, or quick responses to customer questions and concerns. Analyzing and assessing your small business needs is a specialty of any seasoned and reputable SEO agency. In fact, they can provide timely solutions for the following:

  • Optimizing your websites and blogs to reflect the latest changes in Google algorithms. Creating gripping websites that attract and engage your geo-specific or core customer bases.
  • Incorporating mobile optimization to secure higher visibility on Google Maps, local search results, and business listings. This is a crucial way to build a strong mobile presence while promoting your brands to new clients and consumers.
  • Ensuring your sites, blogs and online stores are fully compatible with desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. SEO experts take into account page loading times, which is important in reducing bounce rates and keeping potential customers on your pages longer.
  • Making sure your content is easy to scan and digest with industry-specific keywords, relevant text, and social media links (embedded and visible).
  • Promoting your business on Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Bing, and all social – mobile – and business platforms and directories.

2. Fix your Technical Issues

Another important aspect of small business SEO is fixing technical issues. While you may a great looking website, an SEO audit is the only way to ensure complete optimization across your pages. In fact, the way you present your pages are just as important as your business offerings and content. With this in mind, here are some of the technical issues SEO professionals address and resolve:

  • Speed and page download times. Long gone are the days of lengthy content and flash intros that would take forever to load.
  • Checking for duplicate content on the Web. This is important since duplicate content can seriously impact your rankings, ratings, and web-traffic.
  • Repairing broken links to ensure customers link back to the products, services, and information they seek. Broken links can prompt users and visitors to leave your sites and go elsewhere. Similarly, Google can penalize your pages for promoting misleading, false, or incorrect content and links.
  • Making sure all your pages are fully optimized for SEO. This allows search engines to properly crawl and index you web-pages on their listings and user searches.
  • Enhancing the strong areas of your pages, while improving the weaker and non-optimized areas of your website.

3. Optimizing your Pages

SEO on-page optimization is much more than just placing strategic keywords on pages. In fact, your content must also be streamlined, centralized and properly structured across your pages. Similarly, you must have keywords (preferably long-tailed) that effectively target your specific customer and client bases. With SEO content specialists, you are able to tap into important ranking signals and non-spammy keywords and links. Local experts will also optimize the following for optimal results:

  • Website, blog and online store titles and sub-titles.
  • Meta descriptions with back-links to your sites and pages. The correct form of preview content that can be accessed by users – by simply hovering their computer mouses over the content and links.
  • Body content – easy to scan content that is precise, concise and gets your messages across to users.

These are some of the ways to improve your small-business visibility on Google. However, you need a dedicated SEO company to cover all bases and take your brands to new heights in any industry.

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Web DesignWordPress

Web Design: WordPress Platform

by Tom Bowen
written by Tom Bowen

WordPress has been around for quite some time and is one of the most popular blogging software’s’ on the market. Over the last few years, WordPress has also become the content management software of choice for non-blogging websites. This is mainly due to how easy it is to use. People can create, design and update their website without being coding experts. With plenty of added extras to enjoy and a wealth of free or paid plugins and themes as well, a company’s website design and development can quickly start to take shape.

But with so many platform options available online let’s consider WordPress’ advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages

  • Easy to use: It has an easy and intuitive interface. Things related to web design and web development are a breeze and can be done quickly. Its simple technology reduces time spent formatting.
  • Great Menus: Its menu options, makes it nicer and simpler than other platforms due to its custom menus that can be rearranged to include categories, pages, etc.
  • People can manage their website from any computer: WordPress is browser-based. It’s possible to login from any Internet-connected computer and manages their site.
  • Community: The WordPress community is large and vibrant, offering everything from tutorials to a vast amount of free plugins that can visually or technically enhance the website design.
  • Search Engines Love WordPress Sites: If a business needs to reach the top results of a search within Google, WordPress offers many search engine optimization options that can help to make the website more visible to search engines.
  • A blog is built-in and ready to go: Since WordPress was originally created as a blogging platform, blogging capabilities are built-in and are easy to integrate, if desired.
  • The site can grow as the business grows: WordPress sites are very scalable. Hundreds of pages or blog posts on the business site as well as its performance will not be compromised in the least.

Disadvantages

  • Lack of freedom: for example if a business needs to customize which of its users can access management options they might need to consider a different site.
  • Too many plugins: which can result in frequent bugs that can slow down the website.
  • Tables and Graphics: WordPress can make formatting table and graphic images more difficult.

In conclusion, WordPress is a great platform to begin blogging or for a simple web design. It’s an easy and customizable solution with some great tools for the web design beginner. But someone who might be looking into a more advanced and customizable website should look into contacting a web design company.

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