When optimizing websites for faster page load time, one of the most common errors we see is that images aren’t the proper size, requiring the browser to resize the image every time the page loads. Since images can often make up the bulk of the bytes needed to load a web page, everything we can do to make our images smaller and easier to load will pay dividends in increased site speed. [Read more…] about Why Image Resizing is Important
Track Post Publish Date as a Custom Dimension in Google Analytics
I recently spoke at DFWSEM’s monthly meeting, on the topic “Track Everything with Google Tag Manager.” We had a great time, talking about some (but by no means all) of the many wonderful things you can track using Google Tag Manager (check out my slides for more on that).
While I was prepping for the talk, Beth Kahlich hit me up on Twitter with this question: [Read more…] about Track Post Publish Date as a Custom Dimension in Google Analytics
How We Built UpBuild’s Family Leave Policy
When Mike first sent me the offer for the Director of Strategy role here at UpBuild, I was (perhaps needless to say) incredibly stoked. I also had a couple of follow-up questions as we discussed the offer, one of which was: does UpBuild have a family leave policy in place?
Mike and I had discussed my wanting to start a family at some point as part of the reason I was looking to change roles and work remotely. It’s not a level of transparency I’d recommend for everyone in their job search process; I was really fortunate to already have a pretty good level of trust with Mike built up from having known him through the industry for so long.
Mike responded:
[Read more…] about How We Built UpBuild’s Family Leave Policy
Takeaways from the Google Quality Rater Guidelines
Like many software companies, Google employs a team of human beta testers to check the quality of their search results. Called “Quality Raters,” these human testers evaluate algorithm updates by assessing whether or not a given set of search results are good results for the query that generated them. Google provides Quality Raters with a lengthy document of guidelines outlining what makes a webpage a high- or low-quality result for a query.
For years, SEOs coveted the Google Quality Rater Guidelines. Despite the heavy layers of nondisclosure agreements Quality Raters sign, sooner or later the guidelines would leak out to be dissected by SEOs, fueling rounds of speculation as to Google’s goals for the algorithm. Starting in November 2015, however, Google decided to fight leaks with total transparency and publish the Quality Rater Guidelines. [Read more…] about Takeaways from the Google Quality Rater Guidelines
