HOW TO AVOID GOOGLE MOBILE POPUP PENALTY FOR WORDPRESS SITES

Many people find it difficult to stay updated with the latest Google updates and trends. This negligence is most unfortunate and must be avoided at all cost. In the context of the latest Google updates, it is important to mention about the Google mobile popup penalty, which came into effect since January 10 this year. If you are still unaware about it, better read on to save your site being hit by it. This update has started creating considerable dip in mobile traffic for many businesses. So, better mend things in time, than suffer from the negligence.

The update basics:

Many experts involved with providing SEO services in Portland opine that by introducing this update, Google has initiated a shift change in ranking websites on its organic search results. By virtue of this update, pages in which, content is not smoothly accessible to mobile users, may not rank high on SERP. Though it is just one of the hundreds of other page ranking factors, yet you should not ignore it and suffer from the consequences. Google announced the mobile popup penalty quite sometime back, in 2016 August.

More than a penalty, it is devaluing pages:

Technically speaking, the Google mobile popup penalty more than penalizing your site, devalues your pages. Most websites use meaningless popups, which frustrate users. The main reason to introduce this update is to help users from this frustration. Unfortunately, people who do not keep up with the latest SEO trends and practices will probably overlook it and suffer as a result. In other words, popups will appear no more for mobile users and they will have easier and faster access to page content. This Google penalty will be applied on every applicable page of a website. In other words, your entire website will not be devalued or affected by it. Remember, the Google popup penalty is not only applicable to popups, but also to all types of invasive interstitials.

Google tips to avoid inviting the penalty:

Make sure, there is no popup to cover the main content, after user navigates to the page from organic search results.

There should not also be any delayed popup or the one that appears after user has scrolled down to a certain point on the page.

Do not display a standalone interstitial that user has to dismiss, before getting access to the main content.

Never use a layout that makes the above-the-fold part of the page look similar to a standalone interstitial and making the main content inlined beneath the fold.

Popups that are acceptable:

• Push notifications are still accepted, as they take up a small portion of the screen.
• Using cookies for age verification and other legal information that need to be collected from users
• Exit popups can stay
• Make sure that a banner should not take up more than a quarter of the device’s screen space.

Impact on Google Adsense:

Google mobile penalty is not going to have any affect on Google Adsense, as Page-level ads (like, vignette ads and anchor or overlay ads) stay within the accepted guidelines. Vignette ads do not show up when a visitor reaches the page from Google’s organic search result, whereas anchor level ads take up just a tiny part of the screen and can be easily dismissed. Mobile penalty is only applicable to traffic that is directly sourced from Google.

Other traffic: If your web traffic comes from sources other than Google, it is alright to use popups and it will not devalue your page.

Effect of Google popup penalty:

Some websites that have been negatively affected by Google mobile penalty, lost some 10 or more positions in their mobile ranking. Considering the volume of your traffic, losing 10 spots may sum up to losing thousands of visitors every day. On the other hand, websites that do not use popups are experiencing a steady improvement in their ranking. The possible reason for this could be, their competitors are getting penalised or facing devaluation of pages by Google popup penalty.

A practical example:

A brand experienced a 20% drop in mobile traffic after the popup penalty came into effect. Actually, there was a bug with their popup plugin and they lost about 2,000 customers in a span of 3 days. Somehow, they could not disable the WordPress plugin that was being used for popup. As soon as the problem was solved, their traffic and ranking returned within a few days.

Tips to check mobile traffic:

If your website uses welcome mats, popups or invasive interstitials, use Google Analytics to check your traffic coming from mobile handsets. Some people, also prefer keyword rank tracker tool to meet the goal.

Step #1: Log into your Google Analytics profile and select the date range in the filter at the top with your preferred dates.

Step #2: On the left-hand side, there is “Audience”, under which is “Mobile>Overview”. On reaching here, you will see traffic coming from desktops, mobiles and tablets. In case, you notice a 15% or above drop in your traffic, then chances are high Google mobile penalty has hit your site hard.

Tips on resolving the problem:

If your site has been affected by Google mobile penalty, do not panick or get carried away. There are two options to overcome the issue. One, simply disable the WordPress popup plugin you are using. Two, just disable popups on mobile handsets and keep catering to visitors as if, they are from desktops. DubSEO is a renowned SEO company in Portland, which never uses popups on mobile handsets. At other places, where it does, it uses only at 50% scroll. This ensures, the site remains unaffected, as well as its visitors do not get annoyed. Most of the modern plugins come with the option, whether you want to use them on mobile.

In case, you are using WP Subscribe Pro plugin from MyThemeShop, it is better to disable the popup, as currently, there is a bug in it with detecting mobile devices. Although, these plugins come with the option of disabling, you should test on your own handset just to be absolutely sure. Welcome mats from SumoMe are also affected by the Google mobile penalty. However, if you are using these, do not get panicky. SumoMe has just added a new feature, named “Display Mode”. It is found in “Behavior” tab of the mats and this feature completely complies with Google guidelines. Moreover, you are always free to contact the developer to enquire about the popup or lead generation plugins that you are using.

Of course, you do not want your webapges to be devalued by Google as a result of its mobile penalty update. Just to play it safe, disable the popups, welcome mats and every other invasive insterstitials from your website. In case, your site gets affected by it, do not panick, things will return back to normal in a few days.

5 best user-friendly graphic tools to create your social media posts

These days, packaging information for daily consumption has taken the bite-sized form. This is a valuable practice for those who like to supplement their content with a touch of graphic design. Enhancing content with images is a vital habit for bloggers and content writers.

This involves using typography and infographics, creating panels and layouts to segregate content, templates, headers, and suchlike to make good images. These images can then readily be converted into the required dimensions for particular social media handles.

The following list of free and commonly used web-based graphics design applications. These can be immensely beneficial for content marketers as they are built to allow any lay person to create stunning images for social media.

Canva

This online graphic design platform offers an array of features that can help you create quality images for the web. With a user-friendly interface, Canva seems to be the quintessential design site. It has an assortment of layouts for making anything from holiday greetings and classy resumes to posters for your next gig and templates for your blogs. Its collection of ready-made templates is free and can be used for several purposes. It also has options for creating posts specific to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media sites. The end result turns out to be a quality image.

Fotor

Apart from the photo editing feature Fotor is known for, it also has several options to apply graphic design elements to the image. It is best used for its simple editing, and it also allows you to adjust the dimensions of an image to fit those of other social media handles as Canva does. It also gives you the option to save your images on Dropbox, a cloud storage facility, or on your computer.

Easelly

Ever needed some fancy infographics to pep up your presentation? Here’s your answer. Easelly is another web application that is best for making infographics. It has a variety of features that contribute to making detailed infographics with several templates. It also has an assortment of readymade layouts in case you have some starting trouble.

FotoJet

FotoJet is another browser based application and known to be quite a good alternative to Canva. It comes with options of creating collages, editing pictures, and creating images with graphic design elements. FotoJet comes with two modes: Creative and Classic. The Creative mode helps create designs with the built-in templates and layouts, and the Classic mode is used to create designs from scratch. This would mean choosing your own layouts and other things to create your own templates.

Pablo by Buffer

This application is very useful for creating posts and images for on-the-go editing. With Buffer’s Pablo, you can make posters, flyers, and posts for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest quickly. The readymade templates and layouts will do the job for you as you add the content. It can then be saved and uploaded onto the required social media handles.

Even though all these websites are free, they have a premium option where you can pay for certain extra features that could take your designing capabilities to the next level. Although, a huge drawback could be having a solid internet connection, without which there might be a constant lag or the annoying. Nevertheless, all of these tools have a very simple and user-friendly interface, and are built to keep you creative with your graphic designing.

5 free online apps to create stunning visuals for social media

Visual content is indispensable for every digital marketer today. Not only is visual content more appealing to viewers, it’s also 40 times more likely to be shared on social media than any other type of content. Catchy graphics and images have the added advantage of propagating information in a quick and concise manner as compared to, say, blog posts which are time consuming to read.

Nowadays, marketers don’t need to rely exclusively on designers to create such visuals. A plethora of online applications, replete with pre-existing design templates and graphics, are enabling design novices to create engaging visuals with minimum effort. Here are five such free online tools which you can use to create stunning visuals for social media sites:

Canva

Canva is probably the most versatile free design tool a marketer can use. You can create visuals ranging from simple image posts and banners to detailed posters and blog graphics. It comes pre-loaded with a variety of pictures, vector images, and fonts, most of which are free to use. Canva also offers its users a multitude of templates which can be tweaked and personalised with ease, courtesy of a stellar UI. Once you're done creating what you need, you can download it in Instagram, Facebook or Twitter specific sizes with the click of a single button.

Pixlr

Using Adobe Photoshop requires a fair amount of practice from the user. Understanding the need for a simpler photo editing software, Autodesk launched a toned-down version of the Photoshop known as Pixlr. The online-only app, despite being completely free, does not miss out on Photoshop's most commonly used features which suffice for all but the most serious designers. In case you find using Pixlr to be a bit complicated, there's an even more scaled-down version called Pixlr Express for basic photo editing like adding filters, adjusting brightness, and creating collages, among others.

Recite

Sharing famous quotes has become quite the rage on social media, with posts bearing hashtags like #MondayMotivation and #WanderlustWednesday flooding Facebook and Twitter every week. Recite is a free online tool that caters only to those who want to create engaging quote-bearing visuals. Extremely simple to use, Recite uses a no-nonsense format that requires you to simply enter a quote and select a design template. You can't edit the visuals or upload your own background images, but, with the multitude of different templates Recite offers, you'll never need to.

Pablo

Sometimes, all you need to create an engaging piece of visual content is a captivating image with text overlaid on it. Pablo is a free online software that enables users to create such visuals with unbelievable ease. You can either upload your own photo or select one from its vast cache. After that, adding text, filters, and even your brand's logo, is an effortless task. You can also resize the images in an instant to suit your needs. And since Pablo is a tool by Buffer, a popular social media management app, you can post your creations directly to various social media sites directly.

Piktochart

Infographics, out of all the different types of image content, are the most useful for sharing a large amount of information in an easy-to-consume manner. They are also far more likely to be shared on social media than other content formats. Piktochart is a highly-rated online tool that lets you create captivating infographics with ease. The tool gives you freedom to create your own infographic from scratch in addition to ten varied templates that cover the most common infographic types. Piktochart can also be used to create visually engaging presentations and printables, like reports and posters.

These tools can be used by marketers to create social graphics and images for advertisements, announcements, blog headers, and a lot more. And not only do these online apps eliminate the need for a designer, they are extremely intuitive and simple to use as well.