Google Search Console just got a lot better.

Google has announced that the Google Search Console now has more reporting options for your property sets.
Property sets is Google’s way of allowing you to combine different profiles in Google Search Console into one report. When it first launched several months ago, it basically let you view the Search Analytics report for all the properties you combine with the property set.
But you couldn’t see many of the other reports within the Google Search Console. Now you can. With this update you can see mobile usability report, review your AMP implementation, double-check rich cards or hreflang/internationalisation markup and more.
Plus, “you can now just add any verified properties to a set,” Google added.
Need help using Google Search Console, contact the SEO Flatrate team today.
SEO Flatrate
e. support@seoflatrate.co.uk
t. 01202 911141
w. www.seoflatrate.co.uk

SEO NEWS:
Great News for all Sitemap fans as Bing & Google decide to increase the file size limit of Sitemap files moving forward.
Whilst the 50,000 URL limit has not changed at all, the good news is that your Sitemap file size can now be up to a whopping 50MB.
Google and Bing announced jointly that they have increased the file size limit of Sitemaps files from 10MB to 50MB. That means the uncompressed version must now be under 50MB, no longer under 10MB.
Fabrice Canel, principal program manager at Bing, said,
“While most sitemaps are under this 10 MB file limit, these days, our systems occasionally encounter sitemaps exceeding this limit.Most often this is caused when sitemap files list very long URLs or if they have attributes listing long extra URLs (as alternate language URLs, Image URLs, etc), which inflates the size of the sitemap file.”
The 50,000 URL limit per Sitemaps file has not changed; you can still only have up to 50,000 URLs in a single Sitemap file. But the file size has increased significantly.
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There is a misunderstanding about how social media and SEO work together, Google keep telling us that social media does affect the search rank, however nobody seems to understand how.
Social visibility is only achieved by being active, so creating and posting great content that shares quickly is most definitively a step in the right direction but only gets half the job done. Dont simply schedule standardised posts to go out across all social networks, because we believe this simply wont work.
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The SEO link to Social Media is not just about creating and posting unique content, it’s about promoting that content so that it achieves results.
Remember Google reiterated only yesterday 07.06.2016, that they do not use Social Media to rank your website, so you might just want to think about the following 10 points when planning your social media posts so you know where to invest your efforts get the best SEO results moving forward.
1. Google does not directly factor in social signals, however rest assured it does not ignore them either. It’s the results we SEOs are looking for from social sharing, not the rank. for example the organic reach and user engagement.
2. Having “social presence” won't increase your pagerank.
However unique and engaging content, activity and response will lead to increased visibility and as a positive result also links it is exactly these links that will help you achieve a higher rank (SERP) over time.
3. The amount of followers, connections and influencers that are connected to your social media platforms will have a positive effect on your ranking
So this is the trick, the likes and followers must be earned guys, most certainly not bought and that means you will need to grow your Social Accounts organically! So no short cuts and no easy way out, it may be slow but it is most certainly a very effective SEO process.
4. Post optimisation is key to your success.
Think about the Social Media account you are planning to use to use carefully and remember that you CAN rank for the same post with different search terms. This is where a SEO can make the difference and prove to be a real asset. Remember content is king so if your SEO company knows nothing about content then you have a real issue on your hands.
5. It is always possible to increase and improve your online reputation and this can be significantly beneficial to your SEO.Again, unique content is king, high quality unique content can increase your brand presence dramatically.
6. Social media will never be the engine of survival for sales conversions
However SEO certainly will be and together both Social Media & Sales Conversations create a spark that inevitably will require some investment if they are to be used to drive sales and conversions simultaneously.
7. Google and Twitter are playground sweet hearts.
All your latest tweets can be found in Google Search Results, Google bots search specifically for the best content and very latest topics and if one of these happens to be your tweet, then you will rank first on a Google search BOOM you have just gone from zero to hero!. However, this instant rank you have just recieved could end up on page 100+ if other more relevant content is found that overrides yours.
8. SEO and Social media are both considered to be inbound marketing techniques (pull marketing), however remember spamming your audience continuously will turn them away, so focus on pulling them in with great content and great conversation, identify their interests, passions, topics and fulfil a need don't just bang stuff out and expect to win the battle. If you get this right, then and only then will selling be easy and customers will come to you.
9. Use the free tools guys get yourself Google Knowledge Graph and Google my Business asap and use them.Both of the above will help search engines, especially Google, rank your social media posts far better than those who do not have such tools implemented.
Remember throughout 2016, it is going to be important that both businesses’ brands and users plan in for social media, content marketing and SEO when planning their marketing budgets and keep disciplines implemented in their business, without your Social Media Marketing working like a well-oiled machine, Seoflatrate fear those left behind in 2017 may get left behind indefinitely.