Keeping up with Google’s New Features – SSL, AMP, and Google Posts

Secure Encrypted Browsing with SSL

For awhile Google has been pushing site owners and developers in the direction of secure browsing.

The enabling technology is known as “SSL,” uses the secure protocol “https://”, and has become an increasingly significant ranking feature for Google search engine results pages (SERP).

Visitors to SSL-enabled sites see the green security padlock next to the web address (URL) (see image->).

If you’ve got forms on your site for any purpose without SSL (you should have a contact form, and no exposed email addresses), Google chrome presents a “site not secure” warning to users:

Google is moving quickly toward warning on all http (non-SSL) pages on Chrome and Android.

It would be good and timely to take care of this given Chrome’s current 56% market share.

What the heck is AMP and do I need it?

“AMP” in Googlese is “Accelerated Mobile Pages.”  AMP pages are specially formatted for mobile, presenting stripped-down, marked-up pages to mobile devices where available. An AMP installation creates a parallel set of pages, serving those pages to mobile devices. Important site elements such as the front page will be unaffected, with the mobile-optimized version served as intended. AMP is most useful on single article pages and blog posts that can pull traffic via keyword value.

AMP-compliant pages have an advantage for customers doing searches on mobile, ranking higher than non-AMP pages of equivalent content.

Google has been working with WordPress engineers. AMP can be implemented on WordPress sites with some configuration required. A correctly configured AMP installation will create AMP html pages for all relevant content on your site automatically.

Google My Business offers Posts appearing in Maps and Search.

From Google’s vastly improved Google My Business dashboard, it’s possible to post directly to your SERP. This article in Forbes suggests that your posts may show up on their own in SERP, independent of specific searches for your site or location.

This feature is available from your Google My Business dashboard. Clicking through offers options, and the posting process is intuitive. It’s a good idea to plan your post and have an image available, preferably at least 1200px wide.

We recommend our clients leverage these technologies ASAP.