SEO & AI Search (GEO) Expert

Improve your Google ranking with Peter Mahoney, 20+ years SEO & Wordpress experience

How good am I?

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I’m not very good at tooting my own horn, but for the record, there are over 1,000 reviews of my service floating around on the internet, an 998 of those are 5-star feedbacks.

I’ve been doing website development since 1995, and SEO since 1998. Even according to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule, that makes me an expert in both areas a few times over.

I just had a moment this morning that reminded myself just how experienced I am what I do. One client signed up for my monthly SEO service a few weeks ago. Normally it’s a month before I issue the first update but I do like to keep an eye on how things are going and check the data fairly regularly.

So when he wrote to ask how things were progressing I was very happy to be able to send him this graph, showing the number of times his site was seen in Google search results over the past 90 days, with a crudely drawn arrow indicating when he started working with me.

So how good am I? Very good. I’m just not always very good at telling you about it.

Google’s RankBrain and SEO

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Google has a new update for us. Called “RankBrain”, in its most basic sense it’s an attempt by Google to run AI (Artificial Intelligence) as a way of working out how useful a site is to any given query.

One example Google has given for how it affects things, is this search query:

What’s the title of the consumer at the highest level of a food chain

Obviously that’s not the most well structured question, but a lot of searches aren’t that carefully thought out.

The point of the example is the word “consumer”. In different contexts it can mean different things, and RankBrain is intended to help match searches with the most relevant results; understanding the context.

It doesn’t have a huge effect on how I would structure a site and its contents for SEO though—fortunately because my advice for SEO has always fit in very nicely with Google’s overall ethos, changes to their algorithm usually strengthen my clients’ SEO.

But it is worth being aware that Google is definitively not just “pattern matching”; counting keywords in your content. They’re trying to read it like a human being would—so keep writing for a human audience when you’re adding content.

Google confirms more searches are performed on mobile devices than desktop computers

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For those of us who track this sort of thing, this comes as no surprise. But it’s worth knowing it’s now official – Google has confirmed that more searches are performed on mobile phones and tablets than traditional PCs/laptops.

It makes their last major update well timed – just a couple of weeks ago they made sure mobile friendly sites would have priority in mobile-based search results over sites that are not.

But this does mean if your site isn’t mobile friendly, we have the stats to hand that show you ARE missing out of search engine potential. Contact me and I can help.

Mobilegeddon

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It’s a catchy name for a simple, but important change.

Since April 21, Google has been ranking sites that are mobile friendly higher in search results–but only for searches performed on mobile devices.

So if I use my phone to look for a photographer – sites that are mobile friendly are going to come up before those that are not.

If I do the same search on my desktop, they won’t (as much).

There are two main things to take away from this:

  1. This is an important change, and you should check that your site is mobile friendly immediately. You can do that using Google’s own tool.
    If your site fails, let me know and we’ll do something about it.
  2. The other thing to keep in mind is this is just the start, it’s clear Google intends to roll this out to all searches, regardless of whether the search was performed on a desktop, tablet or mobile. It’s only a matter of time until all search rankings are affected–so make sure your site is mobile friendly.

 

Get mobile friendly

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Google has been sending out millions of these messages over the past couple of months.

Google systems have tested 177 pages from your site and found that 32% of them have critical mobile usability errors.

Google Webmaster Tools has long pointed out the important of having a mobile friendly site–but now Google is taking it seriously. When you’re looking at search results on a smart phone (which accounts for a huge percentage of people) you’ll see a little notification if a site is mobile friendly. Funnily enough, those sites will be getting most of the organic traffic.

There has never been a better time to get a mobile friendly, responsive website.

All the sites I build are responsive, and you’re welcome to ask for my help.

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