As always, it’s been a busy month in SEO. Here’s a run-down of what I think are the key developments, announcements and just general points of interest to come out of the SEO world this month.
Google My Business Posts
Google Posts are now available to add to your Google My Business listing. A terrific addition to the Google My Business feature, Posts allow you to provide additional, timely information about your business straight into the search results. First released in January 2016 for presidential candidates to use and later opened up to select US and Brazilian celebrities and organisations, Google’s post feature has now been rolled out to all Google My Business listings. With a generous limit of 300 words it’s a great way to encourage users to click through to your website’s latest offers or news. Find out more with Tech Crunch
Mobile First Indexing Delay & Advice
By now, nearly everyone with a website should be aware of the upcoming mobile first index. The news broke in November 2016 that soon Google would be ranking websites based on the mobile version first, that is, if you have one. This move towards the new way of indexing has been anticipated by SEOs ever since, with initial estimates that it would be rolled out by the end of 2017. This month Google announced that it will likely be 2018 before the launch begins and the process of moving to a fully mobile-first index could take as long as 5 years!
The delay in the mobile first index launch is good news considering this month Google advised website owners that if they were planning on migrating their mobile website to a mobile responsive one, they should do so before the mobile first index rolls out. The reasoning is that currently, under the desktop first indexing, updating your site to a mobile responsive one will not require the mobile site to be indexed whereas once the mobile first index is rolled out both the mobile and mobile responsive sites will need to be indexed prolonging the migration and the migraine that goes with it. Read more about this at Search Engine Land
SEO “The Movie”
Not quite making it to a cinema near you but available online is a great video by the folks at Ignite Visibility; “SEO – The Movie”. The 40 minutes video interviews some of the top talent in search engine optimisation and charts the industry from the mid-90s to present day. If you are interested in the rise of SEO and the history of the major search engines this should make its way onto your viewing schedule. I’ve seen it and spoiler alert – there’s a lot of interesting facial hair…
