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Google’s New SERP Penalties For Pop-Ups On Mobile Affecting Internet Marketing

Internet MarketingAlthough Google announced in August 2016 that it would be implementing a search engine result page (SERP) ranking penalty for websites that feature “intrusive interstitials” on mobile, it seems that many site owners didn’t appreciate the full impact of this change until it happened in January 2017. The penalty affects sites that cover any page’s main content with a pop-up, or display a stand-alone interstitial which the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content, or where the above-the-fold portion of the page’s content appears in a pop-up, and the user has to click through to get to the original content on the site page. In other words, the content on those pages you’ve indexed for mobile search has to be immediately available to mobile users when they click through to your site. This means we need to re-think how and when we’re using pop-ups for Internet marketing.

New Strategies For New Rules

This pop-up penalty is an addition to Google’s ranking signal of mobile friendliness; if your site obscures its content behind advertising pop-ups, it will no longer pass the mobile-friendliness test. Obviously, removing revenue-generating pop-up ads will be hard to swallow for many site owners, but if you’re using interstitials for your own marketing purposes, there are ways to turn the situation to your advantage. Google is a business, and it is making these new requirements in an effort to increase their perceived value (and ad rates) by ensuring that their users are directed to useful content that is readily accessible. Websites that try to fight this tide by continuing to use these pop-ups on their mobile content will eventually become flotsam, miles off the coast, unseen and alone.

Build A Surfboard For Your Website

The only realistic choice for successful business websites in the face of Google’s new wave of requirements is to build a surfboard and learn to ride the wave. Content marketing provides business websites a way to effectively stay on top of their SERP rankings by using Google’s quality requirements, including mobile-friendliness, to gain an advantage over their competitors, establish themselves as expert resources in their fields, create a sales funnel that actually works, and expand brand awareness and recognition as users share interesting, useful, and original content with their own contacts. Fresh and original content are also part of Google’s ranking signals, so including new content like blog posts, lists and round-up articles, guides, infographics and videos on your site regularly not only pulls visitor into your sales funnel, but also boosts your organic reach.

Internet Marketing Is Evolving

The Naperville Internet marketing firm, Design & Promote, helps companies in the Chicago area and nation-wide to develop websites and marketing plans that get serious results, even through major changes to how Internet marketing gets done. From branding to content marketing to social media, we’ll give your company and its website every advantage for successful sales and marketing.