Rich’s Web Design – May Newsletter– 100% of RWD Clients are Mobile-Friendly –– The Importance of Reviews –

– Mobile Rankings Reports –

 


100% of RWD Clients are Mobile Friendly!  

If you missed my announcement back on April 16th, ALL of RWD clients are now mobile-friendly.  This has been a significant achievement, especially with Google’s well advertised April 21st update, which will punish those sites that are not mobile-friendly.(See any of my last few newsletters for further details of this update).

I still have not heard of any other web firms that have or can make this claim.

The Importance of Reviews! (Updated from 11/14)
Have you seen these  stars show up on Google search results? They are Google Reviews that people are placing on your business Google+ page. As you can see below in my email signature, reviews are also an important aspect of YELP, Angie’s Lists, Bing and local YellowPages … but the most effective are reviews placed on Google+!

I have started to assist my clients in printing business cards w/ short URLs that direct customers to their own review pages.  Vista Print is a very inexpensive and reliable service for these.  Go to some of the short URLs ( for example – http://goo.gl/0WzNRc ) in these business cards and see.

For Google Reviews, customers must also have Google+ accounts in order to write a review. Customers need to post the reviews themselves, through their Google+ accounts. Customers can leave ratings without actually writing a review. The rating is just the “stars” without the text of a review. At least in terms of rankings, the number of reviews you have seems to matter more than the quality of those reviews.

Best-practices for requesting reviews – Ask everyone for a review, not just your diehard, happiest customers. Point out as often as possible that you’d like your customers’ honest feedback. Don’t incentivize – Not only is it against the rules, but makes you look as though you’re desperate. Your customers care, not all of them, but that’s OK. Many will write a review if you ask and especially if you give them basic instructions as to how.

Place a line on your email signature that guides people for reviews. Where have you seen this before???

   Sincerely,

http://my.angieslist.com/angieslist/Review/7917105

   Rich Blakemore
   d.b.a. Rich’s Web Design
   511 S. Main St. Kernersville, NC 27284
   336-408-9075
   http://www.RichsWebDesign.com
   Review Rich’s Web Design at Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp or

http://my.angieslist.com/angieslist/Review/7917105
 
Mobile Rankings Reports
Check your ‘Rankings Reports’, coming out today, and look for the column that shows, ‘Google Mobile’.  It will be interesting to see how these numbers have been influenced by the April 21st Google Mobile-Friendly Update.  For some clients, these may be exactly the same as your regular Google results, for others your rankings may improve.
For example, if you have consistently been #4 for a particular targeted phrase and #1-3 have had a mobile-friendly site for months, then logic tells me that you will probably stay in the #4 position.  Remember this Google update ONLY effects mobile search results.

On the other hand, if sites in positions #1-3 have NOT had a mobile-friendly site, then you should move up in this latest rankings. … Enough about this Google Update – Are you now tired of hearing about it? 

Sorry!