Category: Blogger Tips and Reviews

You might or might not have seen the news about Google changing the algorithm to add mobile friendliness to the mix.

Some won’t care, but for most of us, where we land in the search rankings tends to make a difference in how many visitors the great Google sends along to us through natural search terms.

Search terms are what people use to find content they want to read.  If those words come up in a post, then you can easily find yourself on page 1 of Google for those particular words, but the new changes coming into force this week means that if your website isn’t already mobile friendly, ie, if it doesn’t read well on mobile devices, then you could find your website suddenly plummeting down the search engine rankings pages.

Most of us bloggers already know that Google Page Rank will never be updated again (unless Google has a change of heart) so making sure your content is mobile ready is pretty important nowadays.  None of us want to be sent into obscurity for the lack of responsive pages.

Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?

You can find out if your website is Google friendly by checking this link to the Google Mobile Friendly Test.  This is what you want to see, with the text showing that your site is awesome for being mobile friendly.

Being mobile friendly is more important than simply the Google recommendations, it’s a way that very large proportions of people now access online content.  You want to make sure they can access yours properly, which includes being able to read the size of text on their screens.

It’s a good idea to check yourself.  A quick look on your Apple iPhone, iPad, or Android Samsung Galaxy, Note, or whatever phone you do have, might give you a good idea of what other people find if they’re taken to your website by a search engine.

Look carefully for whether your text is readable or not and if your website resizes with the different sizes of gadgets that people use.

How Many People Read Your Website Using Google Analytics

If you use Google Analytics, you can go to your dashboard to find out just how many people access your content using mobile devices.  It’s worth looking at.  The simply truth is that from today, if your site doesn’t have mobile optimization, then you’ll lose readers and page views.

You’ll get an idea there about how many people read your website by using mobile devices, but it is worth remembering that if your reader count is low for mobile devices, it could simply be because your website isn’t actually mobile responsive yet and you’re losing potential readers.

Make Website Responsive Suggestions

• On WordPress, it’s easy if you don’t have a mobile responsive theme already.  You can use the Jetpack plugin and activate mobile responsive in the options.  This option is quick, but you will have the same styling and format as every other blog or website out there that uses this option to go mobile friendly.  It’s not the best idea for being an individual in a crowded webspace, but it does work instantly.
• Choose a theme that is already mobile responsive.
• Create a mobile specific website for your website.
• Have a developer create a responsive theme for you.

Gary Schwartz says that as our pages go mobile friendly, they’ll be recognised by Google when they pick up on it, so if you’re struggling to find a way round it, going page by page is an option.

The easiest way is to use your blog platform options if you’re desperate, but in reality, the best way to have your own individual styling on mobile pages is to have a theme that is already mobile optimized.

Good luck and I hope you’re all mobile friendly going forward.

I think as bloggers, we are often at risk of more online potentially threatening situations, just by the way that we make transactions online and often use credit cards to pay for things on our blogs.

I’ve been targeted, and it’s possible that the attack and interception of details came from WooThemes.com, but it’s not 100%.

There is just the same chance that my details went missing from somewhere else.  Woo have said there are about 300 people who have reported in so far.

From the 5th of May, some fraudulent transactions started showing up.  It’s not easy to sort things like this out, as I suspect they always start from a position of “the customer may be lying.

My card hasn’t been out of my sight and nobody else knows the pin.  Actually, I don’t even know the pin anymore so I haven’t been using it at all for over a year.

A few days ago, I called and cancelled my card.  The card as far as I was aware, could only access funds in the account and not elsewhere.  Despite that, three days after cancelling the card, another payment went through, which took up the remaining balance on that account.

I know now that the payments were made online, so whoever made them, has my security number from the back of my card.

At the same time, Woo Themes sent out an e-mail today notifying customers that there is a problem and some customers have reported fraudulent transactions on their credit cards.  You can read it for yourself here.  It also made me sigh with relief to know there is a likely candidate for where details went missing.

It could have been so much worse if I had not known transactions were being taken.

Check your credit and debit card payments regularly.  You just never know when it might be you.

A few days ago, I saw a tweet that was retweeted and I followed a link to an article about favouriting tweets.

I opened my surprised eyes as it talked about things that seemed more fitting as terms from fiction riding under the radar of legality.

I chuckled as it talked about hate-faves, fist bumps and too hot to handles.  I really can’t repeat any more or I might spit out my coffee.

I honestly didn’t think people used the “favourite” function for anything other than bookmarking tweets.  Perhaps I’m niave and perhaps function is the operative word as if I choke on my coffee any more, I might need my bodily functions mopped up.

It made me giggle a fair bit actually.  Is this making any sense to you?  Honestly, it took me a while to get my grey matter around it.

I found out that wonder of wonders – people are actually favouriting tweets to say thank you, I hate you and much more.

This Twitter Revelation Began Simply:

@QHSEman1 Tweeted this link m.theatlanticwire.com/technology/201…

It seems to me that people could use a favourite to keep note of a Twitter id, to be able to refer to a tweet somewhere down the line and they could even favourite so that they remember to come back later on an anonymous account and rip me to shreds.   I guess that’s a hate-fav.  I’ve had a few of those.  Perhaps a bit of ESP is in my future so I can tell the ones that like me from the ones that don’t.  In all reality, I’d really like to know.

The revelation also led me to imagine what secret messages people are trying to convey to Google or Yahoo, or even Jeeves.  Favouriting a website on your browser could mean you want to have its babies.

Joking aside, it seems it’s actually a very real issue and lots of different people use them for lots of different things.

If favouriting a tweet was with the intention of a favourite back, or a follow, or to show approval or “like” of a tweet, it might not be interpreted as that by other people.

There are several reasons for not using a favourite as anything other than simply bookmarking a tweet for later:

• Most people will have no idea why you are favouriting their tweets.
• Other people may use favourites very differently from you.
• It is most disconcerting to have tweets that are in effect non-tweets be favourited.  I often wonder if I have a new troll if someone favourites a tweet that is simply a statement of gibberish or nonsense.
• Replies and mentions mean everyone knows what you mean and there is no wondering why.
• Lots of people have notifications turned off and don’t even use the e-mail address they sign up to social media.
• Favourites don’t show up in rankings, stats or anything else in my Twitter App of choice, so are pretty much pointless as kudos givers – especially if they may never be seen.
• There’s nothing wrong with using DM’s.  That’s why there are there.  Say thank you privately if you want to, and the tweeter will know exactly what you mean.  Abusing DM’s is a completely different thing.

I did a quick trawl of the Internet and could only come to the following conclusion in answer to the original article which asked “what are you really saying when you favourite a tweet?”

“I’m either bookmarking it, or I’m in spy mode as only I know why I decided to favourite a tweet that you might or might know whether I liked or not and might or might not even ever find out about.”

Confused?  I am.