83. Mobile Ranking Factors and How to Be Number One with Cindy Krum

[00:49] - Cindy talks about the main things that you need to be cognizant of in mobile marketing.

[01:41] - What does mobile-first indexing for Google mean for marketers?

[02:48] - Cindy explains what responsive design is, and explains both its upsides and a downside involving bounce rate. She and Stephan then discuss this.

[05:19] - While Google is okay with other options, responsive design is their favorite.

[06:19] - Cindy has written a couple articles on her predictions on what mobile-first indexing will mean for the SEO community. She then backs up and explains that right now, there isn’t a great term for all the stuff that’s getting internet enabled, and that many things are getting lumped in the “mobile” category. This is why she thinks that “mobile-first” is a misnomer.

[09:32] - Stephan points out that listeners should note that search engines can follow a train of thought.

[10:17] - Cindy thinks Google is having a brand identity issue.

[11:56] - Cindy explains what the relevance of everything she’s been saying to a mobile marketer is. She then explains that AMP is an interesting side note, but she’s talking more about Firebase.

[14:02] - Stephan pulls us back a bit, offering some insight and explanations about Schema, JSON-LD, metadata, microdata, and more.

[16:39] - Cindy never expected Stephan to be her “nerd interpreter,” she jokes. He mentions his other podcast, the Optimized Geek.

[18:05] - What is AMP, and why do we need to take action on that immediately?

[20:01] - Stephan chimes in, explaining other aspects of AMP and responsive design. Cindy continues by talking about another restriction, which is that you’re strongly encouraged to host all of your external content in Google’s cloud hosting. She then emphasizes the importance of engagement.

[23:37] - Stephan explains that AMP pages are hosted on Google and also link to Google. Cindy elaborates on this.

[25:53] - We go back a bit, with Stephan discussing some actions to take now that we’ve discussed AMP in depth.

[26:36] - Cindy talks about moving to responsive design.

[28:22] - Stephan talks about the difference between dynamic serving and responsive design. Cindy then explains that dynamic serving is tougher to test and tougher for Google to crawl.

[31:54] - Stephan brings up app indexing, which he and Cindy discuss using the example of Yelp.

[34:14] - We circle back to a particular point about dynamic serving: having the vary header set in your HTTP headers.

[35:48] - Cindy explains what JSON-LD is, and what marketers should know about it from a mobile marketing standpoint.

[38:17] - We learn what an API is.

[39:06] - Cindy differentiates regular mobile apps from progressive web apps.

[41:50] - Stephan offers an old-school equivalent to what Cindy has been saying about progressive web apps.

[42:52] - One of the things that slows things down the most when on web pages on the phone, every page has to reload even though much of the content is the same. This is different with PWAs, Cindy explains.

[43:53] - What is Firebase in relation to PWAs? Through her answers, Cindy makes clear that she thinks having a PWA is a better choice than making native apps.

[46:34] - There are ways to use AMP HTML in your PWA to make it very fast. She and Stephan then discuss the fact that a handful of apps are throwing off stats for apps in general.

[48:48] - We learn more about what’s important in terms of ranking in the app stores.

[50:29] - Stephan launches into a lightning round of quick questions. Should people check to see what their mobile page speed is?

[53:14] - What is deep linking?

[55:31] - Listeners can email Cindy at Cindy@mobilemoxie.com.