Make sure your on-site search helps convert site visitors into customers with these SEO best practices.
The post On-Site Search Best Practices For SEO & User Experience appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Learn how you can find your conversion rate on a few popular platforms for sellers on Amazon.
The post How To Find & Understand Conversion Rates Of Your Amazon Products appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller says you should always try to replace internal links pointing to HTTP URLs with the newer HTTP versions.
The post Google: “Always Try” To Replace HTTP Links With HTTPS appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Getting backlinks is one of the most challenging and time-consuming tasks in SEO. So how do you get started on creating a successful outreach program that brings in quality links?
Join Purelinq’s Kevin Rowe, who will walk you through creating a scalable outreach program to create a natural link profile, meet minimum quality requirements and drive maximum impact.
Register today for “Everything You Should Know About Building Quality Links at Scale,” presented by Purelinq.
The post SEO webinar on getting quality backlinks appeared first on Search Engine Land.
YouTube demystifies the Shorts algorithm in a Q&A video that addresses several of the most common questions creators have about gaining visibility with short-form content.
The post YouTube Shorts Algorithm Explained In Q&A Format appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Want to know how information about a topic spreads on Twitter? Or, what else your target market talks about? Try these tools from Indiana University.
The post Visualize Information On Twitter With Indiana University’s New Tools appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google shares six ways you can make your ecommerce site stand out from competitors on search results pages.
The post Google Shares 6 Tips For Ecommerce Search Results appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
QR codes are shaking up the marketing world (did you see that Coinbase Superbowl commercial?). This seminar will teach you everything you need to know about how QR codes can be used to unlock mobile engagement and revenue, channel attribution, and first-party data in a cookieless world.
Join QR marketing expert Brian Klais, CEO of URLgenius, to learn enterprise-grade QR strategies and best practices you won’t hear anywhere else and change how you think about QR code opportunities.
Register today for “Unlock the Cutting-Edge Potential of QR Codes” presented by URLgenius.
The post Webinar: The genius behind QR-code marketing appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Twitter's transparency report indicates that press freedoms are under pressure and most reasons for account suspension in decline except for child safety violations
The post Twitter Transparency Report Shows Dark Side Of Social Media appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google has made a variety of significant updates to its Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
The most significant overhauls were to Google’s definitions of YMYL (Your Money, Your Life), and the extent to which E-A-T matters as a matter of page quality.
Google provided new, clear definitions for what it means for content to be YMYL, mostly framed around the extent to which the content can cause harm to individuals or society. Google also provided a new table establishing clear examples of what it means for content to be YMYL or not.
In the newest update to the guidelines, Google also explained that for highly YMYL content – E-A-T is crucial above all other factors. Google also explained that it’s possible to have low-quality content on otherwise trustworthy and authoritative sites.
Google completely reframed its definition of YMYL (Your Money, Your Life). In the previous version of the Quality Rater Guidelines, YMYL topics were broken down into the following categories:
Google completely removed these categories.
The new version of the Quality Rater Guidelines now defines YMYL by its potential to cause harm.
Topics that present a “high risk of harm,” can significantly impact the “health, financial stability, or safety of people, or the welfare or well-being of society.”
Google then defines who may be harmed by YMYL content, including the person viewing the content, other people affected by the viewer, or groups of people or society as a whole. This could potentially be in reference to violent, extremist or terrorist content.
Google then defines YMYL topics as either being inherently dangerous (violent extremism), or harmful because presenting misinformation related to the topic can be harmful. For example, providing bad advice related to heart attacks, investments or earthquakes could cause harm to the user.
Instead of listing individual categories that may be considered YMYL, as in previous versions of the guidelines, Google now asks quality raters to think of YMYL in terms of four types of harm YMYL content can cause for individuals or society:
In another new addition, Google claims that a “hypothetical harmful page” about a non-harmful topic, such as the “science behind rainbows,” is technically not considered YMYL. According to their updated definition, the content must have the potential to cause harm or otherwise impact peoples’ well-being.
In another big update, Google claims that many or most updates are not YMYL because they do not have the potential to cause harm.
Google also stated for the first time that YMYL assessment is done on a spectrum.
To clarify these new statements, Google provided a new table on page 12 of the guidelines, which specifically delineates the types of topics that Google considers YMYL or not, with clear examples.
Google revamped its definition of what it means to be a low-quality page.
In a previous version, Google claimed a page may be low quality, in part, because the creator of the main content may lack sufficient expertise for the purpose of the page. This statement was deleted.
Google now expands upon the role of E-A-T in determining whether a page is low-quality in three new paragraphs:
Google explains that the level of E-A-T required for the page depends entirely on the topic itself and the purpose of the page.
Topics that only require everyday expertise don’t require that the content creators provide information about themselves.
Google also suggests that a low-quality page can exist on an otherwise authoritative website, like an academic site or a government site. The topic itself of the page is where YMYL comes into play – if the content could potentially cause harm to the user, quality raters must evaluate that aspect when determining the quality of the page.
Google added a bullet point in its definition of what it looks like to lack E-A-T when determining whether a page is low-quality:
In another new addition, Google once again repeated that the level of E-A-T a page requires depends on the purpose and the topic of the page. If the page discusses YMYL topics (and potentially presents harm to the user or others), E-A-T is critical.
Even if the website has a positive reputation, if there is a significant risk of harm, the page must be rated as low quality.
Google inserted a new section in the “lowest quality pages” section suggesting that even authoritative or expert sources can still present harmful content. This could include hacked content or user-uploaded videos.
Just because content exists on a site that otherwise demonstrates good quality, if the content itself is deceptive, harmful, untrustworthy or spam, this still requires a “lowest quality” rating.
In addition to updating the Search Quality Rater Guidelines, Google also published a new resource describing how the Search Quality Rater Guidelines work. This resource includes sections about how search works, improving search and the quality rating process.
This document provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the role Google’s quality raters play in evaluating how well Google’s proposed changes are in line with Google’s own quality guidelines.
Google also provides information about who the raters are, where they are located and how the rating process works.
For those interested in understanding how Google defines the concepts of YMYL and E-A-T, Google’s updated Quality Rater Guidelines provide some new guidance about what they aim to achieve with their algorithm.
As opposed to thinking about YMYL in terms of business or content categories, Google asks raters to think about the extent to which content can cause harm to users.
Google also clarified that everyday expertise is sufficient for many types of content, but E-A-T is of the utmost importance when the content qualifies as YMYL (it has the potential to cause harm to individuals or society, or can affect one’s financial wellbeing, health or safety).
The post Google search quality rater guidelines update: What has changed appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Neeva has revealed how it instructs human evaluators to rate its search results, specifically for technical queries.
Like Google (which, coincidentally, updated their quality rater guidelines today), Neeva uses human raters to assess the quality of its search results.
The guidelines break down into three key areas: query understanding, page quality rating and page match rating.
Query understanding. This is all about figuring out the intent behind the user’s search query. Neeva breaks down the types of queries into the following categories:
Page quality rating. Neeva has broken down pages into three levels of quality: low, medium and high. Advertising usage, page age and formatting are critical elements.
Here’s a look at each:
Low quality:
Medium quality:
High quality:
Page match. Neeva has its raters give a score to the match between the query and a webpage, between 1 (significantly poor) to 10 (vital). Here’s that scale:
Read the full guidelines. They were published on the Neeva blog, here.
Why we care. It’s always smart to understand how search engines assess the quality of webpages and content, and whether it matches the intent of the search. Yes, Neeva has a tiny fraction of the search market share. But the insights Neeva shared can provide you some additional ways to think about, assess and improve the quality of your content and webpages.
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Google is delaying the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome by another year, with plans to start phasing them out in 2024.
The post Google Gives Third-Party Cookies Another Year appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google has updated its search quality raters guidelines today, this is an update from the October 2021 update. You can download the full 167-page PDF raters guidelines over here. This version has refreshed language in the new overview section, a refined YMYL section, with more on low-quality content, YMYL, E-A-T, and more.
What is new. Google posted these bullet points on what is new on the last page of this PDF.
Why we care. Although search quality evaluators’ ratings do not directly impact rankings (as Google clarified in the document), they do provide feedback that helps Google improve its algorithms. It is important to spend some time looking at what Google changed in this updated version of the document and compare that to last year’s version of the document to see if we can learn more about Google’s intent on what websites and web pages Google prefers to rank. Google made those additions, edits, and deletions for a reason.
You can download the 167-page PDF raters guidelines over here.
The post Google search quality raters guidelines updated today appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Google has begun the rollout of the fourth version of the product reviews update, a search ranking algorithm update targeted at ranking product review-related content on the web that is most helpful and useful to searchers. The first product reviews update was launched on April 8, 2021, the second was launched on December 1, 2021, the third has been released on March 23, 2022, and now the fourth has been released on July 27, 0222. The new is named the July 2022 product reviews update.
Google announced this update on Twitter referencing the standard help document around how to write product reviews.
Google product reviews update. The Google product reviews update aims to promote review content that is above and beyond much of the templated information you see on the web. Google said it will promote these types of product reviews in its search results rankings.
Google is not directly punishing lower-quality product reviews that have “thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products.” However, if you provide such content and find your rankings demoted because other content is promoted above yours, it will definitely feel like a penalty. Technically, according to Google, this is not a penalty against your content, Google is just rewarding sites with more insightful review content with rankings above yours.
Technically, this update should only impact product review content and not other types of content.
What is new. Unlike the March product reviews update, it seems nothing specifically changed with any ranking criteria with this update. Google is likely just refreshing the algorithm and making slight adjustments.
The rollout. This rollout will take “take 2-3 weeks to complete,” Google said. These, and core updates, normally take a few weeks to roll out, so that should be no surprise. You should expect the bulk of the ranking volatility to happen in the earlier stages of this rollout.
What is impacted? Google said this update may in the future impact those who “create product reviews in any language,” but Google said the initial rollout will be “English-language product reviews.” Google added they have seen “positive effects” from this update in the past and the search company “plans to open up product review support for more languages” in the future.
Please note that these updates can be very big, almost as big as core updates.
Previous advice on the product reviews update. The “focus overall is on providing users with content that provides insightful analysis and original research, content written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well,” Google said about this update. That is similar advice to the core update recommendations mentioned above, but here is a list of “additional useful questions to consider in terms of product reviews.” Google recommends your product reviews cover these areas and answer these questions. Do your product reviews…
Google also linked to its blog post from earlier this year named providing better product information for shoppers.
Google added three new points of new advice for this third release of the products reviews update:
Not a core update. Google also previously said that product review updates are not the same as core updates. This is a standalone update they’re calling the product reviews update. This is separate from Google’s regular core updates, the company told us. Nonetheless, Google did add that the advice it originally provided for core updates, “about producing quality content for those is also relevant here.” In addition to that advice, Google provided additional guidance specific to this update.
Why we care. If your website offers product review content, you will want to check your rankings to see if you were impacted. Did your Google organic traffic improve, decline, or stay the same?
Long term, you are going to want to ensure that going forward, you put a lot more detail and effort into your product review content so that it is unique and stands out from the competition on the web.
Also, those impacted by previous core updates, that put in the work, may be rewarded by this July 2022 product reviews update.
The post Google releases July 2022 product reviews update appeared first on Search Engine Land.
How can plumbers, welders, heating and cooling businesses, and other tradespeople attract more local customers from search? These local SEO best practices can help.
The post Local SEO Strategies For Plumbers, Electricians & Other Trades appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Many of the same concepts that you may be used to from Universal Analytics exist in Google Analytics 4. There are, however, several new concepts to GA4.
This article will detail some familiar and not-so-familiar concepts that GA4 brings to the table.
If you’re new to GA4, I’d encourage you to first check out this article to get up to speed on some of the differences between Universal Analytics and GA4, otherwise, read on.
Let’s start with the familiar by looking at concepts that exist in both Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4.
But first, a small caveat: Universal Analytics has the ability to filter data in a robust manner at the view level. Google Analytics 4 only has a few filters currently available at the property level (there are no views in GA4), and so any differences you may see in your data should keep your current UA filters in mind.
With that being said, let’s dive into some familiar metrics:
In Universal Analytics, the Users metric looks at the total number of users during the selected time period. In Google Analytics 4, the Users metric is actually split into two: Total Users and Active Users.
Active Users is the primary Users metric in GA4 and what you will see used in the default reports within the GA4 UI. Active Users are the users during the time period that have had an engaging session on your site in the past 28 days.
For most sites, these numbers will likely be close. But if you see differences between UA and GA4, this could be a reason why.
In Universal Analytics, a session is a period of time that a user is actively engaged with your site. There are several things that may end a session, such as an inactive 30-minute time period, a change of UTMs or the session breaking at midnight.
In Google Analytics 4, a session is determined via the session_start event. GA4 does not restart a session with a change of UTMs and does not break the session at midnight, but it does look for an inactive time period of 30+ minutes to restart the session.
Due to the varying ways a session is started between the two property types, total session counts may look quite different between UA and GA4 depending on how often you may have been subject to the restart criteria in UA – definitely keep this in mind as you compare numbers between the two platforms.
These should be pretty similar concepts between UA and GA4. The biggest difference here is that if you are using GA4 to track both app and web, GA4 combines the pageview and screenview metrics into Views. If you are only tracking web for both UA and GA4, the numbers should look pretty consistent between platforms.
Conversions are the new Goals, but please note that they are not equal.
A Conversion in GA4 is simply an event that has been marked as a conversion. This is as simple as toggling a button on or off to note that the event is now a conversion.
Two main things to be aware of here for the differences between Goals in UA and Conversions in GA4:
This is a new concept to GA4. An Engaged Session is defined as “the number of sessions that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a conversion event, or had at least two pageviews or screenviews.”
This new metric allows you to get a better understanding of the sessions that are higher quality and/or more engaged on your site content. Engagement Rate is the percentage of Engaged Sessions. The inverse of Engagement Rate is Bounce Rate (see below).
I need to start this one off by saying that I have never been a fan of bounce rate (or time on site metrics for similar reasons). I think that there are many places where the bounce rate calculation in Universal Analytics can lead you astray in your analysis. Simo Ahava even has a funny little website dedicated to showing you what a good bounce rate is.
But I do recognize that some businesses (especially verticals like Publishers) rely heavily on Bounce Rate. And I know SEOs tend to like this metric.
Google recognizes the need for this metric too. That is why just this month, they’ve released Bounce Rate back into the wild of GA4 (it had previously been considered a deprecated metric for GA4/wasn’t built into GA4 initially).
Here is where I need to stress that this is NOT the same bounce rate that you had in Universal Analytics.
Not.
At.
All.
In Universal Analytics, Bounce Rate was “the percentage of single-page sessions in which there was no interaction with the page.” Every “bounced” session had a duration of 0 seconds for the total time on site calculation. This meant that even if a user came to your website, hung around for 5 minutes reading every word on your home page, but didn’t click on anything or cause any other event or pageview to trigger, they would be considered a bounce.
To say this metric was flawed is an understatement.
In GA4, Bounce Rate is a simple calculation that is the inverse of Engagement Rate. Earlier, I mentioned “Engaged Sessions” – 10 seconds or more than one event or pageview. These are the basis of Engagement Rate. This means that Bounce Rate is the percentage of sessions that are considered to be not engaged.
Why does this matter?
Bounce Rate is now a much more useful metric to show you how many people did not engage with your website. The people who came, read everything on your homepage for 5 minutes and then left are now considered an engaged session, so they will not be counted as a bounce.
While imperfect, it’s a much better definition of what a bounce actually is, helping you as the analyst to better understand who is and who is not engaging with your site content.
Hurray for improved metrics in GA4!
The post GA4 brings new and familiar concepts to the future of analytics appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Providing a memorable and consistent customer experience is more crucial and challenging than ever.
Businesses must consistently adapt by adopting new technologies, reliably benchmarking performance, and listening to critical customer feedback to deliver unparalleled value and achieve positive growth.
Highly personalized, seamless experiences are at the forefront of customer expectations, which means businesses must evolve to provide connected journeys every step of the way. A comprehensive set of solutions that seamlessly mix local marketing and customer experience technology wasn’t available; until now.
Every customer’s experience begins the moment they discover your brand. A customer may conduct an online search to learn more about a business or read customer reviews. The experience doesn’t end once a purchase is made. Customers have the power to be a brand’s best advocate or its most vocal critic – either way those experiences are invaluable. Having the tools accessible to better understand your customers’ pain points allows your business to engage more effectively at every touchpoint and build a loyal following.
Forsta, the global leader in customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX) and market research, is combining capabilities with Rio SEO, the industry-leading local marketing platform for enterprise brands. Together, the combined technologies power a seamless customer experience solution, enabling brands to engage customers throughout the entire buyer’s journey, from discovery to purchase and through to brand reputation and advocacy.
Rio SEO and Forsta are reshaping the local search landscape by bringing to market the industry’s only end-to-end local marketing and customer experience solution for global enterprise brands.
We call this unique combination Local Experience (LX), and it’s a game-changer for enterprise brands looking to optimize their business and deepen customer relationships.
Rio SEO’s Open Local Platform supplements Forsta’s Human Experience platform by enabling customers to seamlessly expand their customer experience programs into the discovery and consideration phases earlier in the purchase funnel and through to the post-purchase brand reputation and advocacy stage. Rio SEO’s local marketing solutions drive discovery and sales at the local level, at scale and complement Forsta’s technology to support customer engagement and loyalty post-sale.
Forsta’s market research and customer experience solutions, recognized as a Leader in the 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant
for Voice of the Customer, take you from data, to insight, to action by helping you understand your customer, see who they really are, and better respond to their needs.
Enhance your discoverability, attract new customers, and build long-lasting relationships with Forsta and Rio SEO’s LX solutions. Visit rioseo.com/forsta to learn more.
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If you’ve enjoyed every SEO job you’ve had in the first 90 days, kindly remove yourself from this article for being a liar.
We good? Awesome.
Did you know that 33% of employees quit their job within the first 90 days that they’re employed.
That’s a sobering fact.
The kind that makes you want to get not-sober as you kickstart for your first 90 days as an enterprise SEO Director.
Enterprise SEO departments have a high turnover rate due to cultural challenges because other departments don’t understand SEO or how to work together.
At the risk of stating the obvious, your first 90 days as an enterprise SEO Director sets the stage for the rest of your time at the company.
Have you found yourself asking these questions before:
Over the next few articles, I’ll help you answer these (and more) questions, based on my experience as an enterprise SEO Director. Starting with
In due time, you can show up to Zoom meetings acting like “the champ is here,” but not in the first 90 days.
You’ve got massive plans afoot for an SEO makeover for your enterprise company.
It’s a lot to take in.
So I recommend starting with developing relationships. You want your enterprise SEO department to be seen as a strategic player on a bigger team.
Allow me to paint you a picture.
It’s your second week as the new SEO Director. SEO is a brand new department at the enterprise company. Everyone is excited to have you join the team.
Until you start to notice other departments are already doing SEO, but do not realize they are doing SEO.
In the second month as the new SEO Director, you present your observations of the challenges and offer new solutions to the executive team. Your presentation goes well.
Later, you find out those other departments are not happy with you presenting the challenges you see in their department.
This is not what you want to see in your first 90 days as a new enterprise SEO Director. This is a common problem SEO professionals face as SEO is still relatively new in enterprise companies.
SEO Directors need to position themselves as a strategic partner that flows and moves with other departments.
Getting SEO done on a website with millions of webpages requires other teams’ resources.
Enterprise SEO teams are never self-contained. Instead, SEO departments lean on the resources of other departments to get things done.
The hardest part of my job as an enterprise SEO Director is selling SEO to other teams. I have to persuade other teams that my goals can help impact their goals.
So how do we find common ground?
The key to finding common ground with empathy.
You need to understand what your engineering, editorial, design and other teams care about. You need to look at their goals and priorities and build your goals and priorities to align with them.
If you come to the table with audits, deliverables and recommendations, you start to lose social capital. You’re turning people off by getting too into the SEO terminology weeds.
For example, instead of saying “I need to set the SEO strategy,” say “I need to align our SEO strategy with your work so my team can make better decisions.”
Let’s say that the marketing team’s Q3 goal is to scale the international audience.
As an SEO, you might see opportunities in site architecture, page layouts and technical improvements.
Ask yourself: Are there SEO improvements we can make that support the scaling of international audiences?
You need to overlap your SEO opportunities with the marketing team’s strategy.
But your deliverable is documentation of the process into the strategy. You don’t want to skew the conversation by talking about deliverables as audits or keyword research. Your communication is the deliverable.
Your SEO deliverables don’t exist for change. Your SEO deliverables exist to create documentation and standardize the process.
This way of looking at SEO deliverables will help set the landscape to get the resources you need to execute in your first 90 days. You may need to negotiate for resources.
As the SEO lead, you want to communicate that you understand the strategic initiative and that your strategy supports it.
Focus: Learning
Priorities: Get up to speed on needs and challenges for the Content and SEO team and [Company Name] as a company. Understand the expectations [Your Boss’s Name] has for me, learn how the internal processes and procedures currently work, and start to explore some of the challenges facing [Company Name] and Content and SEO.
Learning goals:
Performance goals:
Personal goals:
Focus: Contributing
Priorities: Perform my role as Director of SEO at full capacity, with a decreased need for guidance. Start to explore how I can make a unique impact within the SEO channels and [Company Name].
Learning goals:
Performance goals:
Personal goals:
Focus: Taking initiative
Priorities: Start assuming more autonomy and finding small ways to practice leadership skills. Start to explore SEO goals for the rest of the year.
Learning goals:
Performance goals:
Personal goals:
Most enterprise companies don’t have an SEO strategy at an executive level.
During your first 90 days, you want to build a foundation for your SEO strategy that aligns with the bigger marketing and product strategy.
The post Your guide to the first 90 days as an enterprise SEO director appeared first on Search Engine Land.
To stand out in an over-saturated travel industry, you need to capture the eyeballs of your targets. You need a content strategy.
The post Travel Content SEO Strategy: How To Build Links, Traffic & Conversions appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Today Google announced that they have created Confirming Gross Revenue – a new solution to give ad buyers and publishers a way to verify that there were no hidden fees taken from their transactions within Ads Manager.
View the report. Advertisers can view the new Revenue Verification Report to see the total gross revenue received from a specific publisher. Google says that the ad buyer and media publisher can then come together to verify that the media cost from the buyers’ report matches the gross revenue the publisher received. The idea here is that if the numbers match, the buyer can assume that their full media spend reached the publisher and no hidden fees were taken.
Early testing. Google is testing the new reporting with Display and Video 360, but are collaborating with other demand-side platforms, sell-side platforms, publishers, and agencies to implement similar reporting with other partners.
Thanks, Google? Google claims that (on average) 15% of advertisers’ ad spend is unattributable. They claim that while the Google Ads platform doesn’t take fees, they “can’t speak for other companies in the space.” Google has also participated in industry transparency standards “across buyside and sellside businesses, like ads.txt / app-ads.txt, sellers.json and SupplyChain Object into Ads Data Hub to help marketers using Display & Video 360 see the steps their impressions took before arriving on a publisher’s site.” The objective of these transparency initiatives is to give advertisers better visibility into buying decisions and strengthen fraud detection.
What Google says. “Confirming Gross Revenue is one part of our efforts to address concerns over the lack of transparency that we have heard from publishers, agencies, advertisers and regulators. Over the next few months, we’ll continue to work with the industry on shaping this new solution and, more broadly, initiatives to instill more confidence in online advertising. Bringing greater transparency to advertisers, agencies and publishers is core to our approach. We welcome participation from others who want to work together to advance an ad-supported internet that works for everyone.” Allan Thygesen, President, Americas & Global Partners.
Why we care. Do we? Maybe I’m wrong but I’ve never been fortunate enough to question where my ad dollars are going, and I don’t know any other agencies or advertisers that have. While I don’t agree with some of the websites and platforms my ads end up on, I never considered that mysterious fees were the explanation for any mismatch in revenue reporting.
On the upside, this new report might call out shady behavior of platforms that have been taking fees or a cut of ad spend. It doesn’t hurt to check out the new reports if you use Display or Video 360 and see what information they provide about where your ad spend is going.
The post Google just announced a Revenue Verification Report to confirm buyer and publisher ad spend appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Google and Microsoft released their quarterly earnings yesterday. Both companies missed the mark and fell short in some areas, but for the most part hold steady given circumstances such as the war in Ukraine (pulling their services out of Russia), supply chain issues, economic uncertainty, and hiring freezes.
Here are some key takeaways:
Holding steady. Google claims that despite some pullback from advertisers and the loom of financial uncertainty, performance in search was strong and “customers are still seeing value.” During the earnings call CEO Sundar Pichai spoke about search changes and increased opportunities for shopping, as well as attempts to compete with TikTok and Instagram.
YouTube Shorts momentum. Pichai said YouTube Shorts are watched by over 1.5 billion signed in users per month, and over 30 billion daily views. Subscribers surpassed 5 million subscribers – including trials. Last week a partnership with Shopify announced giving advertisers and creators additional opportunities to promote products.
Summer search trends. Philipp Schindler, CBO, Google adds that last minute hotel deals and summer vacations increased substantially. Travel brands continued to utilize new tools to streamline the booking and reservation processes. Retailers taking advantage of a full omnichannel strategy including using curbside and pickup features increased revenue by as much as 34% from last year. Schindler continues that searches for “open now near me” were up 8x globally YoY, while searches for “designer outlets” jumped 90%. Additionally, apparel categories such as women’s clothing and other beauty categories such as perfume and fragrances gained interest.
Performance Max. I didn’t think we would get off the earnings call without talking about Performance Max. Schindler mentioned that the adoption of Performance Max campaigns are up 5x year to date. Though, it’s not mentioned if those numbers include accounts that have been automatically updated to PMax from Smart Shopping.
New developments. 3D AR features are also available to a few retailers such as Target and Wayfair, allowing customers to shop for products in real life. Additionally, the new ad formats allow for a more visual browsing search. CTV viewership is 3.1x more effective than regular tv, and CTV markets will be expanded to LATAM and EMEA markets. Lastly, Schinder mentions that full funnel strategies are gaining speed and advertisers that use them experience 80% unique reach across brand and action campaigns.
Listen to the call. If you’re interested in the full Alphabet earnings call, you can listen here. You can also view the Alphabet earnings report here, and the Microsoft report here.
Why we care. Though the numbers aren’t as good as analysts may have predicted, Google ads aren’t going anywhere any time soon. New products in CTV, gaming, Shorts, and shopping are keeping ad revenue afloat, despite some advertisers abandoning the platform altogether. Given that they can’t gain any more market share, new products and features will be the only way to keep the momentum going (outside of charging more for advertising). I’ll be curious to see how the adoption of new features pans out in Q3.
The post Alphabet, Microsoft release end of quarter earnings appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Google Analytics is updating reports for GA4 properties with a segment of data counting traffic from Performance Max and Smart Shopping campaigns.
The post Google Analytics 4 Now Reports On Performance Max & Smart Shopping appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
B2B marketers tend to be excluded from most articles, case studies and examples. Even when we get mentioned, our marketing efforts are bucketed as “B2B” and not industry-specific.
However, there are many sub-categories of B2B marketing (e.g., SaaS, ecommerce, education, healthcare).
After working with hundreds of B2B accounts, I’ve found there are multiple factors that people tend to overlook or don’t even consider using because it is not “B2B” specific.
That’s a costly mistake.
This article will cover basic challenges when using Google Ads for B2B marketing, as well as more advanced obstacles. The advanced challenges are not necessarily difficult, but they will require time and some planning to overcome.
Businesses won’t search for your website on just any day or at any time. If you are helping a business that has never used Google Ads before, you should turn to Google Analytics.
Within Google Analytics, you can understand exactly when prospects are engaging with your business, and get clarity into whether those prospects are passively researching your business or actively filling out forms.
A key part of creating an ad schedule is also considering what you want to promote during a given timeframe. If your landing page tells visitors they can request live customer support but your team is not able to help at 3 a.m., you shouldn’t be advertising that specific page during that time frame.
Common sense is also beneficial when setting your ad schedule.
For example, if you repair kitchen equipment for restaurants, you need to consider your customer’s schedules. Their busiest times (and when they will need an urgent response) will depend on their restaurant type. High-end dining will need help at night and over the weekend, and the busiest time for a cafe will be in the morning.
Thinking about small, yet critical insights like this can also open a window for ad scheduling testing and for bid adjustments
Plenty of B2B companies operate in sensitive or highly regulated verticals. Hence, keeping tabs on where your ad is showing is critical for any marketer that works in these verticals.
Showing your search ads on the display network or in the search partner network are two things you don’t want to do if you would like to protect your brand and avoid wasting valuable ad dollars.
With search ads, you can use keywords to predict a user’s search intent.
But display ads use audience targeting for increased awareness. Therefore, creating search campaigns with “display select” turned on is a quick way to lose visibility into where your ads are showing.
On the other hand, we have search partners. Your ad is shown on pages you can’t track, you can’t adjust bids and you can’t pause placements you don’t like.
So, why use them?
For B2B specifically, you might get a few leads here and there, yet close to zero of those leads will become MQLs or SQLs.
SKAGs were probably one of the most amazing tactics B2B marketers had 10 years ago. However, they are no longer a tactic worth implementing.
Let’s do a quick recap of what they are and why they were so popular.
Back in the day, you would create an ad group with one keyword, and that keyword had to be present on your ad copy and your landing page. This meant that all messaging was exactly the same between your keywords, ad and landing page. Keeping that messaging consistent meant your quality score would be higher as well.
When Google Ads expanded match types to include close variants, keywords with the same meaning, the whole shebang, this tactic lost a lot of power. Now, there’s no way to guarantee that all your messaging will align, you will end up competing with yourself.
Not only that, but as marketers, we have evolved to understand we need to focus on intent and quality of the overall experience instead of just trying to match keywords to landing pages.
When looking at Google’s definition of an ad group, they state “use ad groups to organize your ads by a common theme.”
An extremely common B2B challenge is that marketers struggle to choose which landing page is best for a given keyword. So, they try to match existing landing pages to a group of keywords that seem similar!
What they end up with are ad groups that have a demo, a trial, a whitepaper download and a blog post. That’s not ideal.
Instead, they need to separate keywords (and landing pages) based on a searcher’s intent, journey phase, etc.
Going back to PPC 101, Google tends to show ads with the most engagement. Now, naturally fewer people are willing to click an ad that says “contact us for a demo,” and more people will be willing to click an ad that says “read our latest blog post.” By default, you are burying your bottom-of-the-funnel pages.
In today’s world, if the intent of two keywords is different, you will need two different landing pages. And since these two keywords don’t share a common theme, you will also need two ad groups.
If you have ever tried to find a built-in audience segment for your B2B business, you know that odd stuff comes up.
For example: When I worked with an advocacy software company, Google said their top in-market audience was “High Performance and Aftermarket Auto Parts.”
Say what?!
Thankfully, you don’t need to rely on built-in segments. If you have access to Google Analytics, navigate to the demographic and interests report. From there you can see the in-market and affiliate segments associated with the traffic from all channels that are currently landing on your website.
By using segments and filters, you can identify audiences that are high-performing or low-performing statistically speaking.
While I don’t recommend you only target or exclude these audiences, this analysis can help you make positive or negative bid adjustments based on performance!
The other great thing about these audiences is that you can (and you should) layer them into your search and display efforts. And remember, you can adjust your bids based on how well these audiences perform.
Don’t get rid of a low-performing audience entirely – just bid lower until you reach a happy equilibrium. At the same time, don’t be afraid to bid up on audiences that drive more than their fair share of high-quality traffic.
The typical B2B buyers’ journey includes multiple touch points and stakeholders before they make a decision. That means it isn’t enough to know how many clicks and leads you are getting in a month. You need to know who is interacting with certain touchpoints.
All major marketing automation platforms (e.g., Marketo, Pardot, HubSpot) have direct integrations with Google Ads. The integration process for each platform is different, but generally speaking, you’ll be able to make this connection by going into the platform’s settings. In Marketo, it is under LaunchPoint. In HubSpot, it is under Marketing and then Ads, and in Pardot, it is under “connector.”
Once you have found those areas, you will need to click create a new connection with Google Ads, then log in to your Google Ads account. Boom! Those platforms will be connected.
Going through this easy process will allow you to have better attribution on your marketing platform and see which specific ads, keywords and so on, are driving qualified leads. You can also create audiences and exclusions. The sky’s the limit!
Google Ads introduced enhanced conversions in May 2021. This is a fantastic tool for B2B marketers.
It starts with Google collecting key information about a user who submits a form on your website. Then, after they become a customer, you can upload this data into your Google Ads account and obtain insights into which ad they clicked before becoming a customer.
The downside of using enhanced conversions is that you need to have your conversions set up using Google Ads conversion tracking. If you are importing leads from Google Analytics to Google Ads, you won’t be able to use this feature.
Setting up enhanced conversions can be complicated, however. Here’s a great video guide about enhanced conversions from the Paid Media Pros.
A lot of B2B marketers don’t even know about this awesome, recently launched feature. You should definitely give it a shot, especially if you don’t have access to a marketing automation platform or CRM.
If you are a B2C or DTC marketer, you are familiar with the ins and outs of ad customizers. However, the amount of B2B marketers using them is super tiny. This is a shame – they are incredibly helpful and so easy to set up.
Ad customizers allow you to personalize your ad copy based on a user’s location, the product they are searching for, and so much more.
To get started, simply upload a data file with all your customizers. If you don’t know how to do that, Google Ads has a downloadable template in the UI platform you can use. From there, create your ads and let Google do its magic.
It’s no surprise B2B marketers don’t gravitate toward ad customizers. If you look at the examples on the Google Ads support page, you will see those are all B2C products. That doesn’t mean B2B marketers shouldn’t use them, however.
For example, if you have cities or states where your business has a local presence, make sure to incorporate that into your ad customizer. If you don’t have a local presence in a given area, just use your default message.
Here’s another example of how B2B marketers can use ad customizers: Discounts! If you have a discount that changes depending on your product and you don’t want to create multiple ad groups and ads to promote the correct discount, ad customizers can totally help you scale these campaigns while ensuring your account is easy to manage.
It’s sad but true: Many ad platforms were not made with the challenges of B2B top of mind.
However, that doesn’t mean that B2B marketers can’t be just as successful as B2C marketers on platforms like Google Ads.
You just need to be creative and think outside the box.
Below is the complete video of my SMX Advanced presentation.
The post Google Ads for B2B: How to overcome challenges, platform limitations appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Are you able to develop a relationship with your current clients and make your future prospects like you?
The best way to do this is to understand the personality of your customers. This can help you predict their motives.
Approach content by developing it for the psychology of the user, rather than the psychology of the writer.
For example, for me (who has the attention span of a gnat), what if a content writer knew that she only had 30 seconds to answer “what are the best running shoes I can wear as a beginner?” Or what if she knew that for my friend (who can overthink how a garage door opener works for hours), she had a good 30 minutes to inundate him with as much information about “what are the best running shoes?”
Dr. Taylor Hartman wrote the book on understanding motives in psychology. I was fortunate to have met him and to learn about how “The People Code” could be transformed into developing deep psychological trait-based content for better performance.
I’ve taken these ideas and tested them. Not only the behaviors of individuals, but all the way up to entire countries and cultures.
I was astonished by what I found, from the improved ROI to the more efficient buyer journeys.
The best way to start writing ads or content based on psychological behaviors is to first understand yourself.
There are many different systems and tools you can use for personality assessments. However, for this article, I’m going to use Hartman’s tests and methodology. It starts with an honest quiz you give yourself of about 50 questions.
For example:
What ONE word of Phrase describes what you are like most of the time?
a/ Opinionated
b/ Nurturing
c/ Inventive
d/ Outgoing.
As a child, I was:
a/ Stubborn, bright, and/or aggressive.
B/ Well-behaved, caring, and/or depressed
C/ Quiet, easygoing, and/or shy
D/ Talkative, happy, and /or playful.
When you are done with the self-assessment questions in the book, you tally up your answers on how many As, Bs, Cs, and Ds to determine where you stand on the psychological trait spectrum, with:
All of our behaviors will fall into a personality classification on this spectrum.
Sometimes they will fall in between two color behaviors as well. For example, you can be evenly split between a Red Dominant and Blue Compliant or a Steady Green and an Influential Yellow.
Most of these traits are people who have type-A personalities. Direct, decisive, doers and workaholics.
They may come across as too confident, demanding and domineering. Often they thrive and appreciate admiration, they have a specific need to look good to others and can also be a bit on the selfish side.
The patience of this trait is usually at a minimum, which means content absorption is also at a minimum.
Very much the intimate ones. Usually cautious about how they go about things and as a consequence, they tend to have anxiety and be very worry-prone.
There is a need to connect with others and to be understood and appreciated. They are dependable, loyal and expect honesty from others.
They can also come across as moody, self-righteous, condescending and sometimes even a little too empathetic.
Most Compliant Blues love other Compliant Blues. They tend to get each other so very well.
That being said, content absorption is usually done when you can touch their heart and their soul.
These are the slow, peaceful yet independent people. Typically quiet by nature, they resist and hate confrontation. They are great listeners yet they thrive and need their alone time.
Even-tempered and supportive, but also silently stubborn and over-sensitive. Sometimes it’s harder for this group to embrace or even understand empathy, yet they are diplomatic. T
hey are the polar opposites of dominant reds and tend to do a lot of research and take their time making decisions. The more content, the better.
These are the fun-loving, extremely social, playful influencers. The ones that are likely to be interesting, interactive, happy and spontaneous.
They thrive on adventure and need to be adored and praised. Friendships are the highest priority for them yet they can turn off others easily by their impulsive and sometimes irritating loud nature.
Always need to look good socially and it seems like nothing can go wrong, except for their attention span. Your content better not be boring or this group will be off with their mind wandering around the next palm tree vacation.
As you can see from the four different personality types, we are all pretty different and what we absorb in terms of content and creative is also different.
What may resonate well with one group, may fall short with another. Using the “Running Shoes” topic, take a look at how each content reverberates with each group differently.
This group is the dominant power type-A personalities. They will make quick decisions if you can feed their ego and not bury them with too much information.
Here are some examples that this group would enjoy:
This group (of which I consider myself a member) is motivated by the heart and feelings. Considering they are so trusting, they can easily be taken advantage of.
This group does have an analytical side and can be brutally honest if need be. They tend to over-read into everything. But throw in a horse with a hurt leg that’s been patched up and is walking again, you’ll have already won them over.
Here are some examples that this group would enjoy:
This group is the peace-lovers. The ones who take life in the slow lane.
This group is often what we all need in order to slow down, take a deep breath, pretend we do Tai Chi and then go with them on their journey of never-ending research. Stretching the period of decisiveness from what you thought would be two hours to three weeks.
This group is made up of little rays of sunshine – the influencers who not only make me smile but make me want to pick up a good self-help book so I can be just like them.
Content-wise, you’ve got to make sure you style your content as much as possible. Just about anything colorful and fun can get them going. Because they lack the patience for deep research, I will need to write content that’s fun, useful and clear.
Frustrating an influencer is like death. They can go from the funniest clown to the meanest Karen in a heartbeat.
In my next article, I plan to do a deeper dive into other forms of psychological profiling, how to tag classifications to personas, how culture, country and language also have their own psychological traits, and how to survey your customers to get insight into what types are attracted to your brand.
Even if you feel you have perfected your writing, re-developing what works based on behaviors is the next step in really enhancing your reader base and ultimately, developing that bond with your current clients and future customers.
Because, finally, you understand them and they get you.
The post Content creation: A psychological approach appeared first on Search Engine Land.
