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RebelMouse Q1 2021 Platform Updates
Mar 29, 2022
Speed, performance, and Core Web Vitals enhancements
Click here to read our Q2 2021 platform performance updates!
At RebelMouse, we pour our souls into making sure that our platform is always the most modern, high-performance CMS on the market. In fact, we invested over $100,000 worth of hours into our platform in Q1 2021 alone. This has resulted in updates and performance enhancements that publishers would have to pay for on their own to make happen on any other platform, such as WordPress. We're proud to be at a level of scale where we can invest this way into our platform, and we will continue to invest at this rate every quarter moving forward just as we have in the past.
Here are the major updates that we've added to the platform in Q1.
Google Chrome Web Vitals and Google Analytics Tracking Installed
We've installed and configured an ultra-lightweight open source project from Google that allows you to track Core Web Vitals data directly in Google Analytics. This is so important because the only other place this data is tracked is only available on a monthly summary level. Now we can analyze changes to the platform and any property in Google Analytics and get daily reports.
You can now run your own reports if you have access to the Google Analytics account connected to your property.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) Visualization and Debugging Feature
CLS is very tricky to understand because the data Google collects goes way beyond the first page load. This creates a lot of confusion in the industry because Google's PageSpeed Insights tool only tracks the first page load experience and misreports the CLS penalties that will be collected by Core Web Vitals through the Chrome browsing experience.
Understanding these penalties is vital to fixing them and going all green on Core Web Vitals. So we've implemented a way to expose this on any RebelMouse-powered site by adding the following query parameter to any URL:
?debug=cls (e.g., site.com/slug?debug=cls)
By using our debugger, you can see your CLS penalties in real time, and the code highlights the offending element(s) so that it becomes immediately obvious what needs to be fixed to get a green score on CLS.
Faster Loading of Third-Party JavaScript Calls
We've figured out a new way to load critical third-party calls, such as ads, much faster, and without resulting in any penalties on performance scores. There is a new option in the JavaScript element in Layout & Design Tool that's called "Post LCP," and we highly recommend using it for any JavaScript that you need on your page.
CLS Improvements
With the knowledge that Google is rolling out new algorithm changes in 2021 that will place much higher value on metrics such as CLS, we've made several updates in anticipation of the changes.
- Sticky Element With Zero CLS Penalty
- We have a Sticky element in Layout & Design Tool that lets you do smart sticky footers, headers, or sidebars as users scroll. These were previously causing some CLS penalties, so we pushed out a platform-wide update that included smart CSS transitions. This has resulted in zero CLS penalties.
- We have a Sticky element in Layout & Design Tool that lets you do smart sticky footers, headers, or sidebars as users scroll. These were previously causing some CLS penalties, so we pushed out a platform-wide update that included smart CSS transitions. This has resulted in zero CLS penalties.
- Upgrade for Read More/Keep Reading Feature
- We've figured out a way to have zero CLS penalties when a user clicks the "Keep Reading" button on a post.
- We've figured out a way to have zero CLS penalties when a user clicks the "Keep Reading" button on a post.
- Upgrade for Sticky Leaderboard/Header Ad Units
- Many sites use logic that loads the leaderboard ad sticky for 3–6 seconds before letting users scroll past it. This is excellent for revenue and for page speed, but it was causing CLS penalties. We figured out a platform-wide fix that results in zero CLS penalties for these units. We also met with Google's performance team on this, and the latest version of Chrome Canary has shown that our solution is working.
- Many sites use logic that loads the leaderboard ad sticky for 3–6 seconds before letting users scroll past it. This is excellent for revenue and for page speed, but it was causing CLS penalties. We figured out a platform-wide fix that results in zero CLS penalties for these units. We also met with Google's performance team on this, and the latest version of Chrome Canary has shown that our solution is working.
- Ads Refresh Feature With Zero CLS Penalties
- For most media sites, refreshing a sticky ad unit every 30 seconds is a vital part of revenue. We discovered this behavior was creating CLS penalties, so we figured out a way to fix it so that the feature can work without resulting in any CLS penalties.
- For most media sites, refreshing a sticky ad unit every 30 seconds is a vital part of revenue. We discovered this behavior was creating CLS penalties, so we figured out a way to fix it so that the feature can work without resulting in any CLS penalties.
- Upgrade to Fonts Element for Zero CLS and LCP Penalties With Custom Fonts
- Lazy-loading fonts is vital for Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores and page speed. But we found that this frequently results in a CLS penalty since the page will shift a bit when the right font is loaded in. We upgraded to multiple weight options in the Font element of Layout & Design Tool so that you can lazy load a font and have zero LCP and zero CLS penalties. This will take some work to implement per site in order to take full advantage of the zero penalty opportunity.
Please contact your account manager or support@rebelmouse.com if you'd like us to help implement this feature.
- Lazy-loading fonts is vital for Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores and page speed. But we found that this frequently results in a CLS penalty since the page will shift a bit when the right font is loaded in. We upgraded to multiple weight options in the Font element of Layout & Design Tool so that you can lazy load a font and have zero LCP and zero CLS penalties. This will take some work to implement per site in order to take full advantage of the zero penalty opportunity.
- Slideshow Upgrade for Zero CLS Penalties as You Flip Through Slides
- We found that slideshows created in Entry Editor using Particle Assembler were creating CLS penalties. So we found a way to fix this so that you can use slideshows and have zero CLS penalties.
Redis Upgrade
We've upgraded Redis to the latest version, which has significantly improved back-end performance, as well as helped us stay compliant with the highest standards of security.
Platform Team Updates
DevOps
- This group focuses on developing platform infrastructure.
- We've added two senior hires to this team to focus on building out new features, as well as improve all of the platform functionality that RebelMouse users already enjoy today.
QA
- This group focuses on testing platform infrastructure.
- We've added four experienced hires to this team to help scale QA and find things that need improvement in development, build, and staging environments before they ever hit production.
We hope that you're as excited about these upgrades as we are, and we can't wait to show you all of the things that we plan to accomplish in Q2 2021!
They're here! Click here to read our Q2 2021 platform performance updates.
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The RebelMouse Approach to SEO
Jan 25, 2022
An SEO Strategy That Wins With Every Publish
How exactly Google determines search ranking largely remains a mystery for publishers, but what we do know is that the search engine continuously rolls out updates to its algorithm. And while sometimes these updates are small and nearly unnoticeable, other times they result in massive changes around the way Google crawls content, often disrupting the rankings of webpages all across the globe.
With each one of these algorithm changes comes a new approach to search strategy. It's a lot to keep up with in a competitive digital landscape. Publishers are already burdened with the task of creating high-performing quality content that's easy to find on Google and, in turn, easily shared across social. It's a job that can't be solved with advertising dollars either. It's estimated that nearly 80% of users disregard paid search results. Pair this with the fact that 93% of all online experiences begin with a search query and you're left with the realization that it's never been more important to prioritize search engine optimization.
The good news is that RebelMouse has a unique approach to SEO that leverages the tools available to us from the open web alongside our proprietary technology that enables users to win key phrases with every publish. The best part? The platform is designed to empower the people who live closest to content: writers and editors. Here's how it works.
Faster Page Speed: Google has set a high bar for the open web on what top performance should look like, especially on mobile. Each algorithm update further solidifies the do-or-die importance of page speed as a key ranking factor, often causing top sites to plummet off of page one.
Luckily, we power some of the fastest sites on the web.
Higher SEO Audit Scores: It's common to approach your SEO strategy from a place of reaction instead of being proactive — after all, SEO is likely only one facet of your responsibilities. But this usually results in a post-publish frenzy to tweak articles to boost search results. At RebelMouse, our front-end code is designed to give your content search success from the start.
Get higher SEO audit scores with RebelMouse
Rich, Sophisticated AMP: Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a fantastic tool to increase mobile performance. The hyper-fast mobile format delivers a longer time on site for each reader, which encourages better conversion. RebelMouse is fully optimized for AMP, and offers a game-changing way to generate revenue on AMP without sacrificing the experience it offers to readers. Our Particle Assembler allows for multiple page views and ad placements to occur within a single AMP article.
Learn more about how we support and monetize articles that use Google AMP.
Rich, Well-Formatted Structured Data: Part of the way we optimize our sites for SEO is by ensuring that your HTML passes Google's preferred formatting for key metadata. By giving Google all of the data about your site in a way that the search engine's crawlers can easily read, Google can both understand your content and rank it quickly.
Learn more about structured data and how we use it here.
Proprietary Editorial Tools That Teach Writers SEO: RebelMouse's Entry Editor features a rich SEO toolset that guides writers and editors to think about the right search phrase behind every story, as well as how to focus on small but meaningful modifications designed to improve organic search performance. Adding an SEO headline, a relevant URL slug, and a meta description to your article makes it easier for search engines to crawl, index, and understand your content. We recently expanded our proprietary search functionality to include recommendations for keywords that are of high value to Google.
Learn more about our SEO tools for editors here.
Iterations at the Speed of Google and Other Tech Giants: Our team is continuously launching updates that keep our platform modern. We've tracked social and search algorithm changes and how they impact the publishing industry for many years. And thanks to the massive scale of our CMS, we live close to various data points around site performance, which allows us to identify the key strategy changes publishers need to make to stay ahead of and on top of industry standards.
Understand Google's SEO roadmap.
Case Study Snapshots: Google owns most of the referral traffic on the internet, and your site should reflect this reality. Every success we have at RebelMouse is ruled by data. Here's a look at some of the amazing surges in traffic from Google that our clients have seen by being on RebelMouse:
See how much you can grow on RebelMouse here.
Start Winning on Search
RebelMouse's approach to search works for any kind of site, whether you're a brand, new media company, or traditional publisher. SEO doesn't have to be something that only developers and analysts understand. Our product is designed to put the power of search in the hands of content creators, editors, and social curators.
Start winning search with every publish. Request a proposal today and let's start working together.
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Rebel Insights
A Guide to Google's Publisher Center
May 24, 2022
May 2022 Update: Looking to set up Publisher Center?
Navigating critical tools for your organization on your own can be treacherous. RebelMouse has built a platform infrastructure that exceeds the digital publishing industry’s standards, while simultaneously cracking the code on Google's algorithm puzzles. Our platform is designed from the ground up to empower users of every skill level to build sites that perform well against Google’s Core Web Vitals, which means better organic reach, search returns, and visibility. In fact, Google recently featured RebelMouse on its web.dev blog to highlight how our performance optimizations nurture user loyalty and engagement. We provide the tools and information that unlock sustainable growth and revenue, and we outperform other industry leaders on site, search, and social. Let's start working together.
In late 2019, Google merged Google News Producer and Google News Publisher Center into a single tool. Officially called Publisher Center, Google has created an enhanced user experience and expanded set of functionalities that easily allow any publisher to manage content across multiple properties on Google News.
One of the many great new features Publisher Center offers is the ability to manage multiple sites simultaneously under one organization, as well as the ability to switch between more than one organization.
This makes managing many sites across multiple organizations a snap.
It's important to note that whoever sets up a new publication within Publisher Center must have ownership of the site where that content is published within Google Search Console.
How to Set up Google's Publisher Center
Setting up Your Organization
Make sure you are logged into your Google account and navigate to the home page for Publisher Center. If you don't already have a Google account, you can set it up through Publisher Center as described by Google.
If your organization was previously set up to publish on Google News, you may already see your site listed. If this is the case, click Edit to begin the process of optimization.
Setting up Your Publication
If this is your first time ever setting up your organization to publish content on Google News, click + Add Publication in the left-hand navigation menu:
Publication Name
Here you will provide the basic information of your site.
Once you've created your publication, you'll see the following main screen:
From here you will be able to continue the setup process for your publication. The first thing to do is to verify your site ownership through Google Search Console. If you need any help setting up Google Search Console, please check out our post on the process.
Verify Your Content
The next step is updating your basic information, as well as verifying your content and URL through Publisher Center. First, click on Publication Settings from the main interface:
Here you can update your publication name, primary language, location, and verify your URL. If you have any difficulty verifying your URL, Google has detailed help on the verification process.
From this interface you can also add any additional website URLs, as well as update your contact information. Simply scroll down and you will see all of the available options:
Basic Information and Location
Next you will want to add your logos to your publication. Simply click the Visual styles tab at the top of the page and add in your appropriate logos:
Once you're finished adding all of your information, don't forget to click Save in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Once you have completed your basic information, you'll be ready to configure. Simply return to the main interface and click on the Google News box:
This will open up the configuration interface, where you can customize your visuals and content. If you've already set this up, you will see the current data. If you haven't, you'll want to click Edit on the right-hand side of the screen to begin setting things up:
This will take you to the general edit menu for your publication. You are able to add your publication description, category, distribution options, and Google Analytics tracking. When you are done, simply click the Next button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. This will take you to the Content settings tab:
If you want to add specific sections as tabs in your Google News app, click on + New Section. From here you can name your section and add your RSS Feed for Google to be able to filter.
When you have your sections complete, you can restrict access to your sections for specific users, if you need to have something private, or for testing. Again, when you're finished, just click Next in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and you'll move on to the final step, Review and publish:
As you can see here, if you are missing any details, Google will list them out for you to review. Once all of your settings are complete, you will be able to submit your site to Google for their review.
Content Labels
Once you've determined what your sections will be, you will need to add labels to them. These content labels add greater context to what type of content the respective section contains.
It should be noted that not all sections will need content labels, and that they should only be used if they accurately represent one of the provided content label options.
You can add site-wide content labels, or have them for specific sections. Google gives you a short list of options for adding content labels:
Adding Users
Individuals can be granted access at an organization, publication, or publishing account level.
To grant access, click User permissions in the left-hand navigation menu. Once there, you can enter the person's email address and select the level of permission they need.
You can also review which users already have access and at which permission level.
Figuring out Google Publisher Center is just one part of your digital strategy puzzle. High-traffic sites need a robust platform that changes as fast as the digital landscape. RebelMouse enables you to keep pace with a platform that’s engineered to ride the bleeding edge of digital publishing. We’ve got our fingerprint on the pulse of all major algorithms so that you’re always one step ahead.
- Publish seamlessly across all major social platforms and publishing formats, including Facebook Instant Articles, Apple News, and Google’s AMP.
- Utilize proprietary search technology and structured data to maximize SEO efforts and get the most out of every publish.
- Customize page layouts with little-to-no design experience and limited developer resources, complete with site-wide A/B testing.
Oh, and we can help you manage tools like Google Publisher Center so you can focus on creating content that moves the needle for your business.
Let's start talking.
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Rebel Insights
Engagement on the Rise: Why It’s Your Ticket to Loyalty
May 11, 2022
New data from Chartbeat shows engagement time is increasing despite traffic dips
Getting users to your site is only half the battle. For publishers, it’s now become more critical to focus on how long those users stay on your site — and if they ever come back. Q1 2022 data analyzed by Chartbeat found that engagement is on the rise, even though metrics like pageviews and mobile traffic experienced a decline.
Chartbeat measures engaged time by the “amount of time that readers spend actively engaging with a page — scrolling, clicking, or moving their mouse.” With this in mind, their data showed that most regions in the world registered an average of 30 seconds of engaged time on site in Q1. Readers in Latin America led the results with an average of 34.7 seconds of engaged time.
Taking a look at how engaged time has increased in recent weeks, and even years, is critical because engagement builds loyalty. If you provide users with an engaging experience, they are more likely to return. It’s those repeat behaviors that create sustainable growth for your site. Chartbeat’s data from Q1 certainly confirmed this. In Northern Europe, 40% of traffic came from what Chartbeat calls “loyal readers.” A loyal reader is someone that returns to your site at least 50% of the days in a two-week period.
How RebelMouse Builds Engagement and Loyalty
Since Chartbeat’s data shows that loyalty can account for nearly half of your traffic, it’s important to make sure that your content isn’t just resonating, but that it’s also supported by the right technology.
Here are just a few of the ways RebelMouse can help you build loyalty and engagement.
Page Performance: Many publishers are still on the fence about whether or not excellent scores on Google’s Core Web Vitals are worth the effort. They also worry that even a quality user experience won't deliver the boost in readership they need. Fortunately, our prioritization of performance at RebelMouse has given us the data to prove that Core Web Vitals are an excellent way to generate new traffic and build the user loyalty needed to have a successful business. Click here to read more on Google’s web.dev blog.
Custom Data: It’s important to clearly see how users engage with your site so that you can identify strengths and weaknesses within your user journey. RebelMouse offers unique, customizable dashboards through Google Data Studio that provide key insights into the metrics that matter most to publishers. We give our clients the ability to quickly understand the performance of their sites so that they can then make important decisions on the fly. Click here to learn more.
Distribution: Your loyal readers aren’t just on your website, which means it's important to properly engage them across multiple platforms. As publishers, you don't need to waste resources on strategizing the perfect plan for every platform. RebelMouse enables companies to succeed in a world where audiences can get easily fragmented. Click here to learn more about all of the distribution channels that easily integrate into our platform.
Holistic SEO: Another key way to improve engagement and loyalty is through content discovery, and search is the top referral traffic source in 2022. However, a modern search strategy takes a lot more to pull off these days. RebelMouse’s platform takes a holistic approach to optimizing websites for search, combining the best practices for content and technical SEO out of the box. Click here to learn more.
The data is in, and it’s never been more important to focus on the engagement and loyalty metrics that move the needle. RebelMouse can make this an easy part of your content strategy so that you can build new audiences with every publish.
Request a proposal today and let’s start working together.
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