3 Ways Site Uptime Monitoring Boosts SEO

About 25 years ago, if someone told you to “Google” something, you’d probably smile, nod politely, and walk (or perhaps run) away. But now, Googling is the unofficial international pastime. Consider these statistics:

• 53% of all trackable website traffic comes from search engines — primarily Google, which commands 91.75% of total worldwide search engine market share.
• Google handles around 2 trillion (that’s 12 zeroes) searches per year.
• 39% of customers were influenced by a relevant search.

Clearly, the ability to show up for relevant search queries — a.k.a. search engine optimization (SEO) — matters enormously. In fact, it’s beyond enormous at this point. It’s ridiculous. And there’s no slowdown on the horizon. On the contrary, SEO will only play a bigger part in the digital role in the marketing mix going forward, for two simple and satisfying reasons: it’s much more affordable than conventional marketing and advertising, and it works. And you don’t need to have an MBA or have a Bloomberg terminal on your desk to know that affordable + works = popular. But less clear is the connection between site uptime monitoring and SEO. In fact, at first glance (and second and third as well), there may seem to be no connection at all. However, as any SEO expert worth their Google Search Console will attest, there is a significant link — positive or negative. Below we highlight three ways that site uptime monitoring can boost SEO:

1. Keep Visitors from Bouncing to the Competition

Would-be visitors aren’t the only ones who are frustrated when sites are not accessible — Google takes a dim view of this as well. Now, to avoid triggering paranoia, be assured that Google has said that occasional, short-lived downtime typically won’t negatively impact search rankings. However, ongoing or prolonged downtime is another matter entirely, and will lead to a major downgrade. Site uptime monitoring automatically alerts your SysAdmins, CTOs, and other relevant individuals when a site goes down, so that immediate steps can be taken to get things back online — and make both visitors, and (especially) Google, happy.

2. Identify and Fix Broken Elements

Google wants to provide searchers with relevant and quality site recommendations. The first part of that equation is largely determined by elements like keyword optimization, page rank and domain authority. But the second is determined by what visitors actually experience once they arrive on a site. Site uptime monitoring helps you proactively identify broken elements like links and buttons, so that they can be fixed before Google’s web crawler notices them and starts handing out SEO citations.

3. Boost Page Loading Speed

For a long time, SEO experts demanded that Google reveal that page loading speed was a factor in evaluating sites — and consequently in search engine rankings. And for a long time, Google sat back with its arms crossed and silently smiled (when you make north of $300 billion in revenue a year, you get to do fun stuff like that). However, a couple of years ago Google finally revealed the worst kept secret in the SEO kingdom: speed is, indeed, a factor for search. Site uptime monitoring helps you keep a close eye on page loading times, so that you can ensure that your site blazes like a brand new luxury sedan on the Autobahn, and not like a rusted out 1984 Reliant K-car that shouldn’t go faster than a bike and can’t really make left turns. The Bottom Line Site uptime monitoring is not a magic wand that will transport your site (or sites) to the coveted number one spot for relevant keywords. But as discussed above, it will significantly help your business gain an advantage in the search engine jungle — which means more visibility, more clicks, and more customers.

Start your FREE TRIAL of AlertBot now, and discover why it is the trusted site uptime monitoring solution for some of the world’s biggest organizations. There’s no billing information required, no installation, and you’ll be setup within minutes. Click here.

How Site Uptime Impacts SEO (Hint: It’s a REALLY Big Deal)

It is arguably the most important 3-letter acronym on the digital marketing landscape. No, it’s not ROI. It’s SEO. Consider that:

• Google processes over 5 billion searches every day.
• More than 90% of online experiences start with search engines.
• 5% of searchers click the first organic result, 15% click the second organic result, and 11% click the third result.
• 75% of searchers never scroll past the first page of results.

Clearly, effective SEO is extremely important. And for many businesses — especially smaller companies that are competing against big, established enterprises — it’s a matter of survival. However, for some decision-makers outside of the digital marketing world, the link between SEO and site uptime is less clear. Let’s fix that.

For Search Engines, it’s All About Relevance

 Realtors like to point out that the three most important factors in evaluating a property are: location, location, and location. Well, the big brains behind search engines like Google and (to a lesser extent) Bing and Yahoo are obsessed with: relevance, relevance, and relevance.

What this means, is that when responding to a search query — anything from “tennis rackets” to “what’s this itchy red bump on my foot?” — search engines strive to produce results that will be seen by searchers as relevant. Otherwise, eventually searchers will switch search engine brands (e.g. leaving Google and using Bing). Relevance is the glue that keeps the relationship sticky. And unlike with those glorious model airplanes that many of us failed to create when we were kids, in this case, the more glue the better.

 Downtime Damages Relevance

 Since search engines strive to deliver relevant search results (and therefore positive user experience), it makes sense that downtime — which can be defined as a site being inaccessible or outright disappearing — is the enemy.

After all, if a searcher looking to buy a tennis racket clicks a site and discovers that it’s unavailable, then they won’t just punish the company that they hoped to engage: they will, in time, punish the search engine that pointed them in that direction. That fear keeps search engine folks awake at night (including mighty Google which commands more than 90% of the desktop and mobile search marketplace), and it explains why downtime is such a threat: it damages relevance.

 Is 100% Uptime Absolutely Vital?

This warning about downtime begs an important question: do companies that want to stay far, far away from Google’s, Bing’s and Yahoo’s penalty box have to ensure 100% uptime? Not necessarily. While uninterrupted availability is ideal, it is not realistic. Occasionally, a site will go down for a few seconds or perhaps even longer. There are a variety of reasons for this, such as problems with a web host, an unexpected spike in traffic, and ol’ fashioned human error (hey, we all make mistaks…er, mistakes).

However, the top priority for all businesses that want to win the SEO game must be to minimize site downtime in terms of both frequency and duration. They also need to know why site downtime occurs, in order to proactively address issues and keep them from recurring. And that is where site uptime monitoring enters the picture.

What to Look for in Site Uptime Monitoring

 There are many site uptime monitoring products in the marketplace, ranging from superficial (and usually free — hey, we get what we pay for), to robust and reliable. Obviously, organizations need to choose from among the latter and avoid the former. To that end, here is what to look for in a site uptime monitoring solution:

• Full site monitoring. It is not enough to monitor a site’s basic availability — because that only confirms that it exists, not that it is actually functional. It is also necessary to verify each page element, script, and interactive feature, as well as scan for errors, track load times, and pinpoint problems.
• Automated alerts delivered by phone, email and/or texts to specified individuals (e.g. CTO, IT Director, etc.), in the event of site downtime — so that the right people can take immediate action.
• The ability to record and monitor multi-step web processes with real browsers (across desktop and mobile devices), mouse clicks, and keyboard interactions.
• The ability to monitor any port on any server or device to ensure that it is up and running, including: ICMP, TCP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, DNS, FTP, Telnet, and custom ports.
• A range of performance reports including website load times, geographic performance, failure analysis, and more.
• Ongoing monitoring from a large group of locations around the world, which is essential for avoiding false alarms and verifying that a site is truly down/unavailable.

And it goes without saying: a legitimate and reliable site uptime monitoring solution must be backed by a responsive team of experts who will immediately take ownership of an issue and see it through to resolution. This cannot be emphasized enough, because the only thing worse than site downtime is trying to get help from people who don’t know what they’re doing. It gets ugly in a hurry.

SEO is Here to Stay

The rules of SEO will change — this much is certain (Google tinkers with its algorithm hundreds of times a year). But what isn’t going to change for search engines is the supreme importance of delivering relevant results. This means effective site uptime monitoring is not an option. It is essential, and companies that fail to heed this wisdom will soon be expressing another 3-letter acronym: SOS.

AlertBot is a leading site uptime monitoring solution that checks ALL of the features and functions above, which is why it’s trusted by some of the world’s biggest brands. Start a FREE TRIAL of AlertBot now. There’s no billing information required, no installation, and you’ll be setup within minutes. 

If You Build It, They Won’t Come: 5 Big, Scary and Costly e-Commerce Site Mistakes

by Louis Kingston

In the 1989 flick Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner turns his Iowa cornfield into a baseball field because a voice tells him: if you build it, he will come. The “he” in question is his late father, and the movie has a magical, uplifting ending that makes us want to dream again (and possibly, play baseball or eat some corn).

Well, many folks who launch e-commerce sites also believe that: if I build it, they will come. This time, “they” means throngs of happy, profitable customers. Except…they don’t. And before long, the site is forced to scale down or shut down. Even writing to Kevin Costner doesn’t help — even if you promise to watch a double feature of The Postman and Waterworld (not recommended without a physician’s approval).

The bad news is that this kind of misery happens all the time. The good news — actually, make that the amazing, glorious, Field-of-Dreams-ending-like news — is that preventing this doom and gloom is largely a matter of avoiding these five big, scary and costly e-commerce site mistakes:

1. Lousy UX

Tiny buttons that are impossible to click on a mobile device without a magnifying glass and hands the size of a Ken doll. Search functions that neither search nor function. Elusive top level categories. Gigantic banners that pop open and chase customers around from page to page, like a kind of online shopping Terminator (“I’ll be baaaaaack!”). These are just some of the many ways that lousy UX destroys e-commerce sites.

The remedy? Monitor all pages and multi-step processes (e.g. login areas, signups, checkout, etc.), to identify bottlenecks where customers routinely encounter errors or unresponsive behavior, and fix any gaps and leaks right away. Learn more about doing this here.

2. S…l…o…w…n…e…s…s

Just how vital is speed? Behold these grizzly statistics:

• A one-second delay in load time can send conversion rates plunging by seven percent. (Source: Kissmetrics)
• 70% of customers say that a website’s loading time affects their willingness to purchase. (Source: Unbounce)
• As page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds the probability of bounce increases by 32%; from 1 second to 5 seconds the probability of bounce increases by 90%; and from 1 second to 10 seconds the probability of bounce increases by 123% (source: Google)

The remedy? Be ruthless about making your e-commerce site as fast as possible (and then make it even faster). Here are the usual suspects: bloated HTML, ad network code, images not optimized, and using public networks to transmit private data. There are other culprits, but look here first — you’ll be amazed at how much speed you unleash.

3. Not Focusing on SEO — or Focusing too Much on SEO

Let’s talk about health. Some people have poor health because they don’t exercise at all. Their daily calisthenic routine involves digging in the couch for the remote. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there are people who work out too much — like, we’re talking to extremely, unhealthy levels. You know the type.

The same phenomenon occurs in the e-commerce world when it comes to SEO. Some sites don’t focus on SEO, which means they aren’t going to get found by the 35% of customers who start their buyer’s journey from Google. And some focus too much on SEO, that they neglect other channels and tactics — including good, old fashioned pure promotion.

The remedy? Definitely make SEO part of the visibility strategy. But don’t make it the end-all-and-be-all of online existence. It’s important, but it’s not everything.

4. Bad Customer Service

 Customer service is as important in the online world as the brick-and-mortar world, and in some cases it’s even more important, because exiting the buyer’s journey is so simple — as is writing a scathing zero-star review that would have made Roger Ebert wince. Unfortunately, many e-commerce sites treat customer service as an afterthought or a necessary evil, rather than an asset that should be leveraged to optimize customer experience and generate loyalty.

The remedy? Make customer service — characterized by the ease, speed, and quality of responsiveness and resolution — a big part of the plan. It’s not an expense, but an investment.

5. Lack of Original, Compelling Content

E-commerce sites aren’t vending machines, yet many of them seem to take their inspiration from these handy contraptions that dispense candy and soda in exchange for money and the push of a button (be careful you don’t press the wrong one — you might end up with that oatmeal cookie that has been there since 2007, and not the Snickers bar that you’re craving).

However, most customers — even those who are very focused on getting a specific item, like a pair of sneakers, a smartphone, or a hotel room — want and expect to access relevant information to help them make a safer, smarter purchase decision. This could be videos, infographics, social proof (e.g. testimonials, reviews, case studies, etc.), articles, blog posts, and downloadable assets like ebooks,  checklists, and so on.

The remedy? Don’t skimp on creating original, compelling content. As a bonus, this will help with SEO and can connect you with profitable customers who are not in your primary target market.

The Bottom Line

Competition on the e-commerce landscape for the hearts, minds, and indeed, wallets of customers is ferocious. Avoiding these mistakes will go a long, long way to helping your e-commerce site survive and thrive.

You may even make enough profit to retire early, buy a cornfield in Iowa, and then turn it into a baseball field that inspires the feel-good movie of the year. Hey, it worked once before, right?

Louis is a writer, author, and avid film fan. He has been writing professionally for tech blogs and local organizations for over a decade. Louis currently resides in Allentown, PA, with his wife and their German Shepherd Einstein, where he writes articles for InfoGenius, Inc, and overthinks the mythos of his favorite fandoms.

10 Ways to Optimize Images to Improve Your Website Performance

by Louis Kingston

“Visuals express ideas in a snackable manner.” – Kim Garst, CEO of Boom Social

Visual imagery on websites is a powerful tool to grab the user’s attention keeping them curious, engaged and interacting on your webpage. Humans are a visual species. Our brains can process an image within 13 milliseconds with over half of the brain devoted to processing the visual information it receives. We show excellent memory capability for remembering pictures that is much higher than retaining text. Over 65% of the population are visual learners. What this means is that our websites must contain a healthy dose of visual images to keep a visitor engaged. Whether it’s on our homepage, service pages, in our blog articles, on our e-commerce sites –images are essential to driving sales, conversions and ultimately company growth.

Are Images Slowing Down Your Load Speed?

However, the images used must be optimized so that they don’t hamper your website’s performance. If they are too large, they are going to slow down your website’s loading speed. The Google algorithm doesn’t like that. More than seven seconds to load and Google’s going to ignore you, and you won’t make it to page one of SERP’s (search engine results page). The search engine’s focus is on organically profiling businesses that offer a great user experience; slow load speed will just have potential visitors clicking away.

Google loves text, and when it crawls your site, it can’t ‘read’ your images unless you have created file names, alt tags, and captions to describe the image. You are losing out on a perfect SEO opportunity if you don’t optimize your images.

Let’s investigate ten ways you can achieve image optimization for your website…

1. Use keywords in the image file name. The file name affords a perfect opportunity to include your primary keywords as well as giving Google enough text, so it knows what it is “looking’ at on your webpage. But make sure you never keyword stuff these descriptions. You don’t have to use descriptions for decorative images (that would be overkill and Google might penalize you).

2. Images must be scaled to fit the size it will be displayed on the site. The mistake many people make is that they think that once they take a large image and put it into a small size display area, it will then not take up so much ‘space.’ But the file size is still enormous and will continue to take a long time to load. The image should first be scaled to the size you want it to be displayed. You can also choose to remove any pictures that are no longer serving your website which will also improve the overall load speed.

3. Always reduce the image file to the lowest possible size without compromising too much quality. Many online tools can assist you to reduce your file size, like JpegMini, io, ImageOptim etc. Aim to keep your image file size below 70kb (if possible).

4. Use responsive Images for a better mobile experience. When you use responsive images plugins that apply the srcset attribute, it allows your pictures to display differently for each device screen width. If you are using WordPress, this function is automated.

5. Add Customer-Centric Captions. According to KissMetric, the captions under images are read 300% more than the body content. Visitors to web pages are scanning information, and a well-captioned image can provide them with a wealth of info at a glance. Remember that the images should always be relevant to the content.

6. Always be visible with alt tags. Proving alt tag text ensures that your images can always be ‘seen.’ If a user is unable to download images or if they are using a screen reader due to being visually impaired, the alt tag will describe the image.

7. Make sure to add image tags to your XML image sitemaps. This helps Google with indexing the images on your site. If you are making use of JavaScript galleries or other flashy pop-ups, let Google know what they are and where they are located on your sitemap so they can crawl these images on the web pages’ source code.

8. Remove metadata from raster images. If you are using raster images, there is often unnecessary info attached to it like geo-location and other information regarding the camera used which only takes up space. You will make the overall file size much smaller when you can get rid of this extra metadata.

9. Where possible use vector images. This format is ideal for multi-device use with high-resolution. Raster should only be used when there are complex scenes with loads of detail and irregular shapes. Then using GIF, PNG, JPEG, JPEG-XR, and WebP will be the right choice. Experiment with the raster settings to reduce the quality to free up more bytes.

10. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) should be minified and compressed. Minifying SVG files will reduce their size and GZIP can be used to compress them.

How is Your Website Performing at the Moment?

Of course, these are just ten basic image optimization pointers. You can drill down even further on image optimization to enhance your website performance. If you would like to find out more about your website’s performance, AlertBot can show you what elements are slowing down your site or what bottlenecks are causing user traffic to click away. We also offer a Free 14-day trial (without collecting any billing info). Give us a try!

Louis is a writer, author, and avid film fan. He has been writing professionally for tech blogs and local organizations for over a decade. Louis currently resides in Allentown, PA, with his wife and their German Shepherd Einstein, where he writes articles for InfoGenius, Inc, and overthinks the mythos of his favorite fandoms.