Pinterest is doubling down on Shopping by adding 4 new features

This week Pinterest introduced four new merchant features to help retailers promote their stores. 

• Product Tagging on Pins
• Video in Catalog
• Shop Tab on Business Profiles
• The API for Shopping

Product Tagging on Pins. Product Tagging allows merchants to make their pins shoppable, so shoppers can click and purchase seamlessly within the app. In early tests, Pinterest reported a 70% higher intent on product Pins tagged in scenes versus standalone product photo Pins. 

Video in Catalog. Video ad formats increased click-through-rate by 158%, lowered cost-per-click by 42%, and lowered cost-per-acquisition by 58% in early tests versus static images. Video ads allow merchants to show additional angles of their products to further drive conversions.

The Shop Tab on Business Profiles. Merchants will be able to display a prominent Shop button on their business profiles, giving shoppers an easy way to find and view shoppable products. In early tests, merchants reported about 30% of their first attributed sales from the Shop tab.

The API. The API allows for better and more accurate metadata management and product quality. Accuracy in early tests came in at about 97%.

Source: Pinterest is doubling down on Shopping by adding 4 new features

Google updates advanced location options for Performance Max campaigns

For Performance Max campaigns with a Google Merchant Center feed, you’ll now see advanced location options for targeting and exclusions.

Entrepreneur and ad agency owner Kasim Aslam first noticed the new feature yesterday.

Google confirmed it. “In campaign settings under “Location options,” advertisers will now find the ability to target based on physical “Presence” or “Presence or interest”. For Performance Max campaigns for online sales with a product feed, we’ll also be adding advanced location exclusions for “Presence” or “Presence or interest” similar to what is available in Smart Shopping campaigns today,” a Google representative told us.  

Advertisers who receive junk clicks or leads should now have the option to exclude certain locations from their targeting. Google is attempting to give advertisers new feature updates aimed at more transparency and account/campaign-level controls- specifically with Performance Max campaigns. When taking advantage of this feature, ensure you’re clicking the correct option to avoid excluding the wrong targets.

Source: Google updates advanced location options for Performance Max campaigns

DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Qwant Pen Open Letter On Fair Choice

In response to the Digital Services Act, Google’s rivals present 10 principles for fair choice in search engines and practical switching.

In an open letter released on July 5, 2022, the three search engine chief executives outlined 10 principles to enable internet users to change their default search engine effectively.

The release, entitled “10 Principles for Fair Choice Screens and Effective Switching Mechanisms,” comes on the same day the European Parliament adopts the Digital Services Act (DSA).

This groundbreaking political agreement aims to protect consumers by establishing a new standard to hold dominant online platforms, or gatekeepers, liable for illegal and harmful content. Companies designated as gatekeepers include Google, Meta, and Twitter.

Fair Choice Seeks to Break Away from Gatekeeper Defaults

The letter, signed by Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of DuckDuckGo, Christian Kroll, CEO of Ecosia, and Corinne Lejbowicz, president of Qwant, calls for a set of 10 “common-sense” principles that will improve online user experience.

The executive’s state in the letter:

“Choice screens and effective switching mechanisms are crucial tools that empower users and enable competition in the search engine and browser markets. Without strict adherence to both clear rules and principles for fair choice screens and effective switching mechanisms, gatekeeping firms could choose to circumvent their legal obligations.”

Adoption Could Cut into Google’s Market Share

Should these principles be adopted, it could lead to the signatory companies and other search engines claiming a more significant piece of the search engine market. Google currently accounts for more than 90% of all internet searches worldwide.

This could have rippling effects through the search engine optimization and digital marketing industries, as optimization tactics would have to be adjusted for these other algorithms.

Source: DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Qwant Pen Open Letter On Fair Choice

Google Search Console Insights For GA4 Properties Now Available

Google Search Console Insights now supports Google Analytics 4 properties, giving you access to more data.

In an update rolling out today, Google addresses a limitation of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) properties by making them compatible with Search Console Insights.

Combining data from Search Console and Google Analytics, Search Console Insights provides a thorough overview of how people discover your content across the web.

Since its launch in June 2021, Search Console Insights has only been compatible with Universal Analytics (UA) properties. If all you have are GA4 properties, your Insights section in Search Console would have been pretty bare.

It was a matter of time before GA4 support was added, however, as Google is sunsetting UA properties next year.

Using Search Console Insights

There are different ways to access Search Console Insights. You can get to it via:

• A link at the top of the Overview page
• From the navigation menu of Google’s mobile app
• Search Google for a query that your site ranks for

Search Console Insights is accessible without Google Analytics, though linking the two together will provide you with more significant amounts of data.

Analyzing Data In Search Console Insights

Google designed GSC Insights to offer a snapshot of content performance within recent weeks. It only shows GA data for the last 28 days, which is sometimes compared to the prior 28-day period.

With that being the case, it’s helpful to check GSC Insights regularly as the data is frequently updated.

If you have a GA4 property and don’t see any data in the Insights section after today’s update, here are a few reasons why:

Your GSC property is not associated with a GA property.
You do not have sufficient permissions on GA.
You have the wrong GA view selected in GSC.

Source: Google Search Console Insights For GA4 Properties Now Available

Elon Musk pulls out of the Twitter deal

Elon Musk calls out his deal with the Twitter buying process. He is trying to take out his $44 billion agreement. It is as per fling from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Elon Musk’s lawyers are calling it false and misleading. The statement was after the negotiation in concern with the number of monetizable active users (mDAUs) with the platform.

Musk’s lawyer stated, “Twitter is in breach of the Merger Agreement because the Merger Agreement appears to contain materially inaccurate representations…

Twitter has repeatedly made statements in such filings regarding the portion of its mDAUs that are false or spam, including statements that: ‘We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter…”

Mr. Musk believed in representing the merger agreement. Twitter is focused on many public statements in concern with the agreement. It is about the merger agreement. We also saw a false and spam account. The publicly filed SEC document is another problem of concern. Mr. Musk believes in providing the right recession in the Merger. However, Twitter’s material representation is also in the determination of false statements.

Source: Elon Musk pulls out of the Twitter deal

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Meta to shutter its Novi digital wallet, drawing a line under Libra

How to use Google Ads Competitive Metrics

Inflation’s Impact On Ad Spend Detailed In Merkle Report

Meta to shutter its Novi digital wallet, drawing a line under Libra

Meta is set to shut down its Novi digital wallet on September 01, the company has announced, effectively drawing a line under the Libra project.

Novi, which underwent a small pilot in the US and Guatemala towards the end of last year, used Paxos Trust Co’s USDP stablecoin to enable users to make transfers to each other via a mobile payment app.

The project has received a huge degree of regulatory attention since its inception. In November 2020, for example, leaders of the G7 group of nations objected to the launch of Facebook’s Libra Stablecoin, Novi’s predecessor, until they could decide if it was properly regulated.

Novi shutdown

Meta has told Novi users to withdraw their balances as soon as possible, as they will be unable to do so after September 01. And users will be unable to transfer money into their accounts after July 21.

Novi users in the US and Guatemala can head here to find out information on how to withdraw their balance via any of the major platforms. And privacy-conscious users can also request a copy of their data stored on Novi, which will no longer be possible after the pilot ends.

The project was initially intended to function via Meta’s own purpose-built stablecoin Diem, however the switch to Paxos was made after opposition from the US congress.

Source: Meta to shutter its Novi digital wallet, drawing a line under Libra

GitHub Copilot works so well because it steals open-source code and strips credit

The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), a non-profit community of open-source advocates, today announced its withdrawal from GitHub in a scathing blog post urging members and supporters to rebuke the platform once-and-for-all.

Up front: The SFC’s problem with GitHub stems from accusations that Microsoft and OpenAI trained an AI system called Copilot on data that was published under an open-source license.

Open-source code isn’t like a donations box where you can just take whatever you want and use it in any way you choose.

Background: GitHub is the defacto repository for open-source code in the world. It’s like a combination of YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit, but for programmers and the codes they produce.

Sure, there’s other options. But switching from one code-repository ecosystem to another isn’t the same as trading Instagram for TikTok.

Microsoft acquired GitHub in 2018 for more than seven billion dollars.

In the time since, Microsoft’s leveraged its position as OpenAI’s primary benefactor in a joint endeavor to build Copilot.

And the only way to get access to Copilot is through a special invitation from Microsoft or paid subscription.

A solution: Kill Copilot. Alternately, Microsoft and OpenAI could build a time machine, go back in time, and label every single datapoint in Copilot’s database so that a second model could be built that would apply proper credit to every output.

But it’s always easier to exploit the Wild West do-whatever-you-want regulatory environment and take advantage of people than it is to care about the ethics of the products and services you offer.

Neural’s take: When it comes to solid examples of AI that makes human lives easier, GitHub’s Copilot tops the list. It takes some of the tedious things that can take developers hours of work and makes them as easy as pushing a button or typing a few lines of text.

And there’s a bit of precedent here. GPT-3 and Dall-E use databases of human-generated media to generate novel outputs.

But there’s a key difference between those generators and Copilot. Drawing a duck in the style of Monet or asking GPT-3 to tell you a story about a happy dog are one thing.

Regurgitating code snippets line-by-line from files in a database isn’t coding in the style of someone else, it’s using someone else’s code.

Source: GitHub Copilot works so well because it steals open-source code and strips credit

What’s new in Microsoft Teams: Chat Bubbles on iOS and Android, ‘co-organizer’ role and more

Microsoft in June 2022 rolled out a host of new features as it continues rapidly developing Teams, its collaboration platform for hybrid work with 270 million monthly active users. 

Multitasking in Teams meetings on the iPad has improved. There’s now a collapsible right panel during meetings that allows the participant, for example, to chat with colleagues while watching and listening to a presentation.   

Chat bubbles in meetings are now available on iOS and Android. When chat bubbles are enabled, users can see chat messages on the screen to preview the two most recent messages. This avoids the need to manually open the chat window within a meeting to see what participants are typing. Users can temporarily or permanently turn of chat bubbles. 

Organizations with multi-language teams can now customize emailed meeting ‘join’ invites to include the languages that users are most comfortable with. Admins can apply a policy by enabling the MeetingInviteLanguages parameter in the CsTeamsMeetingPolicy in the admin portal. It can be set at at the user or group level, or for the entire organization.

There’s a new “co-organizer” role, below the official organizer, which can be assigned to up to 10 meeting attendees. Co-organizers can manage Meeting Options, but they can’t currently create and manage breakout rooms, manage meeting records, and view or download attendance reports. Co-organizers need to be from the same tenant as the organizer. 

Source: What’s new in Microsoft Teams: Chat Bubbles on iOS and Android, ‘co-organizer’ role and more

Django fixes SQL Injection vulnerability in new releases

The Django project, an open source Python-based web framework has patched a high severity vulnerability in its latest releases.

Tracked as CVE-2022-34265, the potential SQL Injection vulnerability exists in Django’s main branch, and versions 4.1 (currently in beta), 4.0, and 3.2. New releases and patches issued today squash the vulnerability.

Tens of thousands of websites, including some popular brands in the U.S. alone choose Django as their Model-Template-View framework, according to some estimates. This is why the need to upgrade or patch your Django instances against bugs like these is crucial.

New releases mitigate potential SQL Injection

Today, the Django team has released versions Django 4.0.6 and Django 3.2.14 that address a high-severity SQL injection vulnerability and is urging developers to upgrade or patch their Django instances as soon as possible.

Assigned CVE-2022-34265, the vulnerability can allow a threat actor to attack Django web applications via arguments provided to the Trunc(kind) and Extract(lookup_name) functions.

“Trunc() and Extract() database functions were subject to SQL injection if untrusted data was used as a kind/lookup_name value,” states the advisory.

“Applications that constrain the lookup name and kind choice to a known safe list are unaffected.”

Patches also available

For those unable to upgrade to fixed Django versions 4.0.6 or 3.2.14, the team has made patches available that can be applied to existing affected versions.

Source: Django fixes SQL Injection vulnerability in new releases

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How to use Google Ads Competitive Metrics

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How to use Google Ads Competitive Metrics

If you’ve been running Google Ads for any amount of time, you’re probably aware that there’s generally a competitive aspect to any campaign that makes you want to monitor your vanity metrics around where you rank.

In one of my former jobs, a senior leader would walk by every day and ask who ranked number one that day, us or the competition.

The question wasn’t are we lowering our cost per acquisition or improving the overall metrics of the account, it was pure vanity and the desire to “win.”

While “winning” in this way isn’t actually meaningful, it is important to pick your head up out of the sand from time to time and understand how your campaigns are performing vs. the competition. This helps you know who your actual competition is and how aggressive they are.

These data points can be used to understand fluctuations in your own data. If your click-through rate is down, but you really haven’t changed anything, that doesn’t mean your competition isn’t on the move. Google recognized the importance of these data points and has been rolling out more competitive metrics into the Google Ads platform. 

You will find these metrics under “Competitive Metrics” and “Auction Insights” from the metrics and dimensions menu list in the reporting section of Google Ads. Underneath these two areas are some really great tools for understanding how you stack up to your competition. Here are a few of my favorites. 

Search Outranking Share

This data will let you know what specific domains are outranking your ads and how often. You can use this data at all levels (account, campaign, ad group, and keyword).

We find this particularly helpful when there is a direct brand selling with various affiliates. Since seeing all the various competitors is difficult given a host of factors, it can also be helpful to understand and identify competitors that were not on your radar. 

Search Overlap Rate and Position Above Rate

A couple of other similar, but important metrics available are Search Overlap Rate and Position Above Rate. 

Search Overlap Rate helps you understand how often a brand or domain also appears with you. This will give you a better understanding of the options your consumers have on the search results page.

The Position Above Rate metric provides insights into how often that brands ad appears above your own ad when they are both shown together. The last part is really important.

The data is not just telling you how often that brands ad has a higher rank than your average rank, but specifically when you are bidding against one another for the same customer search result.

Why is this important?

Because it helps give some insight into direct competition.

In the below data Listingbaby.com outranks the clients ads almost 90% of the time.

Click share is another crucial competitive metric that is provided. “Click share” is the clicks you’ve received on the Search Network divided by the estimated maximum number of clicks that you could have received.

These impression share metrics are available for both display and search campaigns.

They are also available for absolute top impressions (true #1 ranking). Reminder, it is a vanity trap to just chasing the absolute number one position, unless you are crushing your KPIs, then it’s game on.

Source: How to use Google Ads Competitive Metrics

Google documents how to inject canonical tags using JavaScript

Google has updated its JavaScript SEO help document to add technical details on how to inject canonical link tags using JavaScript. Google added a new section titled “properly inject rel=”canonical” link tag.”

What is new. Here is the new section where Google recommends not to implement your canonical tags using JavaScript, but if you must, Google explains this is the proper way to do so. Google wrote:

While we don’t recommend using JavaScript for this, it is possible to inject a rel=”canonical” link tag with JavaScript. Google Search will pick up the injected canonical URL when rendering the page. Here is an example to inject a rel=”canonical” link tag with JavaScript:

Google added this warning stating “When using JavaScript to inject the rel=”canonical” link tag, make sure that this is the only rel=”canonical” link tag on the page. Incorrect implementations might create multiple rel=”canonical” link tags or change an existing rel=”canonical” link tag. Conflicting or multiple rel=”canonical” link tags may lead to unexpected results.”

Hit or miss. We have seen cases where Google can pick up these canonical tags or other embedded elements, even structured data, using JavaScript. But it can be hit or miss, so it is recommended that if you are going to use JavaScript specifically to inject your canonical tags, follow these directions precisely.

Source: Google documents how to inject canonical tags using JavaScript

How We Create The Perfect SEO Brief That Aligns Teams & Beats Competition

Does aligning SEO goals with multiple teams and departments feel like herding cats?

To add fuel to the ever-extending timeline, you may have uninformed stakeholders who also need to provide their input.

Marketing, SEO, and content teams share many of the same goals, but how aligned are you in creating timely and consistently effective content?

It’s time to try the perfect SEO brief.

On June 22, I moderated a webinar with Ajay Rama, CEO of Alps.ai. He demonstrated how to create a well-coordinated brief that seamlessly connects your teams, elevates your content program, and outperforms your competitors.

Here is a summary of the webinar.

Challenges With Producing High-Performing Content

As you scale, these creating content can become more challenging.

Many companies have difficulty staying on track, resulting in deteriorating content quality.

• Quality of content is highly subjective and hard to scale, as it depends on the content writer’s capability, which varies from person to person.
• Research on the topic takes too much time, and the research quality is inconsistent.
• Multiple stakeholders make aligning and executing a vision a challenge.

What’s needed then?

A content brief is a solution to addressing scaling challenges.

What An Effective Content Brief Covers & The Execution Steps

A well-structured brief can elevate your overall content performance.

Three steps address each aspect of the core pillars that make a solid piece of content.

Step 1: Research User Needs

Research the keyword landscape for your topic before you start writing. You’ll need to understand what queries people are typing into search engines.

Once you know this, you can finalize keywords with which you should optimize your content.

Step 2: Perform Competitive Research

The next step is creating quality content.

Competitive research can help you build quality content. You can achieve this by knowing:

• What competitors are covering.
• How competitors are optimizing their content.

Step 3: Optimize Your SEO Outline

Know the elements of how you plan to communicate your content to the search engines.

This can be achieved through:

• Keyword targeting.
• Addressing user queries.
• Identifying and targeting the SERP packs.

Here’s what your content brief should look like.

Source: How We Create The Perfect SEO Brief That Aligns Teams & Beats Competition

CMS Market Share Monthly: 64.2% Of Sites Use WordPress

WordPress continues to dominate the content management systems (CMS) market and is currently used by 64.2% of websites that have a CMS, according to data from W3Techs.com.

Shopify is a distant second for June 2022 and accounts for 6.3% of the CMS market.

Wix, Squarespace, and Joomla round out the top five with less than 3.5% market share each.

WordPress Plans To Continue Working On Security, Stability

WordPress shows no signs of slowing down and is currently about five years into a ten-year project that involves rewriting its entire codebase.

In a recent interview, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, Executive Director of WordPress, told SEJ,

“…the next year, as with all of the years in a project like that, is making sure we are still as stable and capable as a CMS as people have come to expect while still pushing forward with a newer more modern way to manage your content online.”

Shopify Enters B2B Marketplace With June Update

Shopify released its Summer ’22 Edition in June, adding more than 100 new features for users.

A new feature simply and aptly called “B2B” will connect Shopify Plus merchants with wholesalers and offer integrations with NetSuite, Brightpearl, Acumatica, and others for a more seamless experience.

Wix Publishes Structured Data Guide For SEO Pros

Wix, in third place for CMS market share this month, released “Wix Structured Data Guide: How To Use Standard & Custom Markup” in June.

Contributing author Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Branding at Wix, shared his comprehensive guide to implementing structured data on Wix here at Search Engine Journal.

“In fewer than three years, Wix went from supporting little by way of structured data to offering SEO pros and site owners the ability to do nearly whatever they want with relative ease,” Oberstein wrote.

He also noted that due to recent platform updates, any content elsewhere on the internet around this topic is now out of date.

Source: CMS Market Share Monthly: 64.2% Of Sites Use WordPress

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Inflation’s Impact On Ad Spend Detailed In Merkle Report

FCC tells Google, and Apple to remove TikTok

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Inflation’s Impact On Ad Spend Detailed In Merkle Report

The leading technology and data-driven customer experience company, Merkle, released its quarterly Performance Media Report last week.

Research from the past quarter shows valuable insights into marketers’ priorities, challenges, and performance.

With over 57% of respondents indicating an increase in paid search spend YoY, these findings are especially crucial as we face economic challenges and uncertainty.

I sat down with Matt Mierzejewski, SVP of Search at Merkle, where he provided his take on some of the most glaring stats from the Performance Report.

Prioritizing Privacy And Measurement

From the Merkle report, 45% of respondents stated that getting accurate reporting in the face of privacy regulations is a top priority in measurement.

Many companies are likely in the same boat but may not know where to start.

Mierzejewski states: “Brands are big on cross-device measurement. Apple disrupted the measurement game. Many companies are looking to build their data warehouses for multiple reasons:”

• Too much reliance on individual platforms. The more conversions are modeled in a platform, the less perfect a company’s individual measurement is.
• They’re tired of black box solutions. Brands want to be able to own or change the way they model conversions.

Prioritizing Audiences & First-Party Data

Looming privacy regulations have kickstarted the need for brands to create and manage their first-party data.

However, only 35% of respondents prioritize managing audiences and first-party data.

Mierzejewski summarized: “It misses out on the opportunity for the best customers. You’ll be left competing for the worst customers!”

Paid Social Growth In 2023

When asked about what social platform would see the most growth in 2023?

“If we’re talking raw dollars, Facebook and Instagram will still win,” Mierzejewski stated.

Further, he notes: “If we’re looking at percentage growth and who to watch for, it’s TikTok.” Matt shed some light on user projections, with TikTok’s growth projected to surpass Snapchat next year.

Inflation Is Driving Faster Adoption Of Machine Learning

With inflation costs, adopting automation and machine learning may be put on the backburner.

Not according to the Merkle Performance Report.

• 41% of respondents are beginning to take action on automation and machine learning strategies
• 38% of respondents have made significant progress in their ML strategies

Inflation’s Impact On Advertiser Strategies

We’ve seen the stats on increased advertiser costs YoY.

We have a better understanding of what marketers are prioritizing in the future.

Amid economic factors that companies can’t control, advertisers might not know how or where to pivot their strategy. When posed with this question, Mierzejewski provided his expert opinions.

“Expect double-digit changes to ad spend.”

Whether the above statement refers to an increase or decrease in ad spend, this change is based on a mixed bag of strategy, cash flow, inventory positions, and the vertical.

CPCs will likely decline.

In these types of environments, CPCs are likely to go down. This could allow advertisers to shuffle dollars based on what will work hardest for them.

“Don’t over-pat yourself on the back.”

Mierzejewski emphasized, “Be careful on the data.” He explained that with inflation and rising costs, you may also see a natural rise in revenue.

Source: Inflation’s Impact On Ad Spend Detailed In Merkle Report

Google rich results guidelines now prohibits weapons, recreational drugs, tobacco & vaping products and gambling-related products

Google has updated its rich results content guidelines to align better with the overall Google merchant guidelines thus disallowing rich results for products that are widely prohibited or regulated, or that can facilitate serious harm to self or others.

These include, but are not limited to, weapons, recreational drugs, tobacco & vaping products and gambling-related products.

New rich results guidelines. Google has updated the rich results product content guidelines to add this section:

Don’t mark up content that promotes widely prohibited or regulated goods, services, or information that may facilitate serious and/or immediate or long term harm to self or others. This includes content related to firearms & weapons, recreational drugs, tobacco & vaping products and gambling-related products.

Application. Google said this policy applies to all forms of rich result markup, including star ratings, prices, or availability information and more. This can impact products with rich result structured data markup that are widely prohibited or regulated, or that can facilitate serious harm to self or others. “This could include goods like fireworks, recreational drugs, and other products that can pose acute threats of physical harm,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land.

Effective immediately. Google told us this policy goes into affect today, at the time this story has published.

Source: Google rich results guidelines now prohibits weapons, recreational drugs, tobacco & vaping products and gambling-related products

Small Business Search Trends On The Rise In 2022

A new report from Semrush reveals searches related to small businesses, particularly ‘opening’ a small business, are on the rise.

The report details the business categories and specific search queries gaining traction and offers insight into what areas of marketing businesses are investing in.

Data in the report is based on the keyword and search volume intel collected by Semrush.

After analyzing the traffic growth trends to organic search performance over time, Semrush shares which small business categories manage to do better online.

Here are some key highlights from the report.

Search Trends Around Opening A Business

Looking at search volume for various searches that indicate an intent to open a business, the report finds:

• Over the past four years, the number of “open business” searches has grown by 21%.
• The majority of “open business” searches occur in January and March.
• From 2018 to 2022, searches for all things related to starting a small business spiked by 76%.

Most Popular Small Business Categories

While general interest in starting a small business is spiking, search volume indicates aspiring business owners are looking to open boutiques:

• Almost one-fifth of all entrepreneurs-to-be want to open a boutique.
• starting an Etsy business looks attractive to almost one-fifth of all the searchers.
• Vending machines appear to be gaining the most significant traction, as the category broke into the second spot of most-searched small businesses.

Most Frequent ‘Small Business’ Related Searches

Half of all the top small business-related searches are related to financing.

Here are the top queries, ordered by average monthly searches:

1. Small business loans
2. Small business grants
3. Small business administration
4. Small business ideas
5. How to start a small business

Small Business Searches Related To Marketing

Keyword stats indicate small business owners try to embrace all the up-and-coming trends:

• Searches for digital marketing services surged by 1,500% (especially fast during the pandemic).
• Interest in creating short videos for small businesses grew by 420%.
• 600% more people were looking up free text message marketing in 2022 than in 2018.

Small Business Site Categories With the Highest Traffic Growth

The report finds the average traffic growth for small businesses across the board was 2900%.

Top 10 Small Business Site Categories By Share of High-Ranking Organic Keywords

Here are the categories listed in order, followed by the median number of organic keywords where the domain ranks in the top 10

1. Publishing: 45,581
2. Online Media: 10,116
3. Veterinary: 9,379
4. Entertainment: 6,627
5. Consumer Services: 3,518
6. Consumer Goods: 3,339
7. Building Materials: 2,957
8. Music: 2,593
9. Human Resources: 2,145
10. Food & Beverages: 1,839

Source: Small Business Search Trends On The Rise In 2022

WordCamp US 2022 Tickets Now On Sale: Limited to 650 Attendees

WordCamp US will be hosting its first in-person event since 2019 in San Diego this year. The three-day event will run from September 9-11 at Town and Country Resort.

Tickets went on sale today and are still available but likely to sell out soon. Unlike previous years, which had attendees number in the thousands, WCUS 2022 will be capped at 650 tickets sold. Organizers said this is to allow for adequate social distancing and to give the team better flexibility in case changes are necessary.

Tickets will include lunch on Friday and Saturday as well as entry to Contributor Day on Sunday. It also includes admittance to the Saturday night after party and a commemorative t-shirt. WCUS will feature more than 30 speaker presentations and six workshops. Attendees will have the opportunity to network with fellow WordPress enthusiasts and approximately three dozen sponsors.

WordCamp US 2022 is requiring all attendees to be vaccinated or test negative within 24 hours of the event. Masks will be required indoors and organizers have hired a company to enforce proper mask wearing and verify vaccination and testing.

WCUS has negotiated a hotel block with a reduced rate ($199/night) at the Town and Country Resort. A reservation link will be published July 7.

There were only 50 tickets remaining at the time of publishing. Speakers have not yet been announced. Volunteers and speakers will receive a free ticket but are advised to buy one just in case and will be able to receive a full refund. Sponsors and organizers do not need to purchase a ticket.

Source: WordCamp US 2022 Tickets Now On Sale: Limited to 650 Attendees

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FCC tells Google, and Apple to remove TikTok

U.S. Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr wants Apple and Google to ban TikTok from their app stores.

Why? The request is due to the social media app’s “pattern of surreptitious data practices,” according to Carr.

The request also comes after BuzzFeed News reported that U.S. data had been accessed from China.

TikTok had been adamant that any U.S. user data was kept in the U.S. But employees of TikTok have been able to access nonpublic data about TikTok users, according to leaked audio.

“As you know TikTok is an app that is available to millions of Americans through your app stores, and it collects vast troves of sensitive data about those US users. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance — an organization that is beholden to the Communist Party of China and required by the Chinese law to comply with PRC’s surveillance demands,” Carr said in a letter addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook. “It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting being combined with Beijing’s apparently unchecked access to that sensitive data.”

TikTok’s response. TikTok said it was moving all U.S. user data to Oracle servers, and they would delete all U.S. user data from their centers. 

TikTok caught in a national security loop? In 2020, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning TikTok from the US, citing an investigation in 2019 over national security concerns. TikTok’s response: the order was issued without any due process.

Last year, President Biden revoked the ban and replaced the order with requirements that the Commerce Department review apps that may pose national security risks. 

TikTok, Apple, and Google have not yet responded to the request. 

Source: FCC tells Google, and Apple to remove TikTok

Google Maps adds a new store location feature, Locator Plus, Reserve with Google integration, new analytics, and more

The Google Maps Platform has added a bunch of new features for businesses to add deeper integration with its Google Maps Platform APIs to help those businesses streamline some of their integrations with Google Maps. These include the ability to embed Reserve with Google on your site, a new embed a store location tool, a Locator Plus feature, store locator analytics, and more.

Reserve With Google Embed Feature

We have seen Reserve with Google feature in Google Search and Google Maps for a while now. Now, Google is allowing businesses to use the Reserve with Google feature on their own sites or portals.

Google added new APIs to allow you to embed the Reserve with Google on your site and your own maps. Google said this allows for “end-to-end appointment booking flow and connects users to a variety of services.” It allows your customers who are using your store locator an option for bookings, right within the locator, which creates an easier booking process.

Store Locator Embed Feature

Google also has rolled out a way to manage and publish your store locator using the Google Maps platform. Google said this will allow you to “quickly update and roll out your store locator” on your site. In the Locator Plus solution, you can capture the location of every single store you want to show users – all within one map, Google explained. This can now be done with a simple copy and paste of some embedded code and very little API development coding.

Google Locator Plus

Similar to the store locator feature, the new Locator Plus feature allows businesses to easily import business details from their Google Business Profile. This will allow the business details you already have in your Google Business Profile to be reflected in the store locator on your website. The details include hours, contact information, photos, service options, and more.

Google Store Locator Analytics

With all these announcements, Google also is rolling out a new Google store locator analytics dashboard. This analytics dashboard should help you better understand the impact of your implementation and generate insights from your data. It shows you how well your site visitors are engaging with your store locator, Google said.

The dashboard helps you measure your performance week over week, including the number of views, number of interactions with Google Search and Google Place Details, and overall engagement rate. The dashboard uses anonymized data to provide important benchmarks on how a developer’s implementation compares against other developers using the same solution.

All these tools can be useful for large and small businesses to manage their local presence not just on Google but also on their own site. Plus, searchers are accustomed to Google and may find these embedded features familiar and be more likely to use them.

Source: Google Maps adds a new store location feature, Locator Plus, Reserve with Google integration, new analytics, and more

W3C Announces Major Change

The W3C announced the biggest change to its structure and governance in order to evolve and make faster decisions while assuring it will remain the same.

The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), the standards body in charge of web standards such as HTML and browser privacy, announced a significant change in how it will operate. Beginning on January 2023, the W3C will become a new public-interest non-profit organization.

Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C)

While many turns to Google to understand how to use HTML elements like titles, meta descriptions, and headings, the W3C created the actual specifications for how to use them.

The W3C is vital for the future of the entire web because it is developing privacy standards with stakeholders from around the world and the technology sector.

Stakeholders such as Google, Brave browser, Microsoft and others are involved in developing new standards for how browsers will handle privacy.

However, there are others with a stake in tracking users across the web via third-party trackers, who also belong to the W3C, who are trying to influence what those new privacy standards will be.

Transition to a New Legal Entity

Although the W3C is transitioning to a new structure, the announcement sought to assure the public that current decision-making processes will remain the same.

While they state that the development and decision-making processes will remain the same, the reason for transitioning to a non-profit organization is to enable the W3C to “grow” beyond the original structure since its founding in 1994 for developing web standards for the early web and to “mature” in order to meet the needs of the future better.

Source: W3C Announces Major Change

WordPress Contributors Propose Improving Block Themes’ Visibility in the Directory

WordPress theme authors and contributors from the Themes team are exploring ways to make block themes more prominent on the official directory. These are themes that are specifically tagged with support for full-site editing. Despite WordPress having a block theme for its most recent default theme, authors have been slow to create more. There are currently only 86 themes that support the full range of WordPress site editing capabilities.

A meta Trac ticket opened five weeks ago proposes giving block themes priority in the directory. Themes Team contributor Sandilya Kafle kicked off the discussion with two ideas:

• Add a new tab in the theme repository ( Popular, Latest, Block)
• Change the popular themes algorithm and add 1 block theme in 1 out of 10 popular themes.

“There might be some other way to encourage block theme authors to contribute more,” Kafle said.

“We don’t need this always, but we can try this for at least one year and see how it will go. Block themes need some attention and encouragement. Only very few FSE themes are maintained properly.”

Source: WordPress Contributors Propose Improving Block Themes’ Visibility in the Directory

More news:

TikTok Advertisers Can Now Set Custom Attribution Windows

Core Web Vitals scores improving for top-ranked sites

TikTok commits to updating ad policies to better align with EU rules

TikTok Advertisers Can Now Set Custom Attribution Windows

Marketers running ads on TikTok can now optimize their campaigns with flexible attribution windows ranging from one day to 28 days.

An ‘attribution window’ refers to the time it takes for a customer to take action after an ad is clicked or viewed.

Some conversions happen immediately, while others require multiple touch points before a customer is convinced to make a purchase.

A customizable attribution window allows marketers to optimize campaigns for their individual goals.

One business may only want to measure clicks that lead directly to sales, in which case a one-day attribution window is most appropriate.

Another business may expect their customers to think about the purchase for several days before converting, in which case a seven-day attribution window is more suitable.

With TikTok Attribution Manager, you can select a specific time period to measure success for both click-through attribution (CTA) and view-through attribution (VTA). Here’s how it works.

TikTok Attribution Manager

TikTok Attribution Manager is a new tool that lives inside TikTok Ads Manager under the Assets menu.

For web and app campaigns, the CTA window can range from one day to 28 days, while VTA can be up to seven days.

Advertisers can select from the following options:

• CTA: 1, 7, 14, 28 day
• VTA: off, 1 and 7 day

What’s The Ideal Attribution Window?

The best attribution window for your campaigns depends on the products or services you’re advertising, and the action you want customers to take.

When Is TikTok Attribution Manager Available?

Attribution Manager is available now in TikTok Ads Manager, and will soon be available to advertisers running web campaigns using the TikTok Pixel or Events API.

App promotion campaigns will get this feature when TikTok Ads Manager moves to a self-attributing model, which is said to happen at a later date.

Source: TikTok Advertisers Can Now Set Custom Attribution Windows

Google Marketing Live 2022: Reactions from the experts

At this year’s SMX Advanced Julie Bacchini, President of Neptune Moon, moderated a roundtable discussion with three other experts on the topic of the recent Google Marketing Live 2022.

Included in the panel were:

• Cory Henke, CEO / Founder of Variable Media
• Jyll Saskin Gales, Marketing Consultant at Jyll.ca
• Michael Henderson, VP Performance Marketing of Paytient

GML2022: Thoughts & reactions from the panel

“So this year’s Google Marketing Live was all about commerce,” Gales said. “Commerce was the star of the show and I don’t know that I was expecting that.”

Bacchini highlighted the point that this year there was a lot of talk about auto-generated creative and speculates that we will see more of this in the future.

“In the keynote, they said ‘Let’s build the future of marketing together’ and then every mention of the future of marketing was AI and automation,” Henderson said. “It felt a little over the top.”

The consensus was also that folks were expecting more about some of the newer campaign types like Performance Max, but real news on the topic never materialized.

All agreed that the lack of talk around keywords and bidding was surprising, and unique, for a Google Marketing Live event.

Reaction to Amazon & Tiktok

The panel thought that the event felt more “reactive” to Amazon and TikTok with announcements aimed at taking market share from the ecommerce and social media giants.

Everyone on the panel also agreed that this year’s event was the most ecommerce heavy event to date.

Gales was most excited about the new vision for the search experience. She said:

“We always think of search as more bottom of funnel, demand capture with people looking for exactly what they want and finding a solution … and instead this new vision informed by shopping features, by video features was really about discovery and engagement.”

Other positives from Google Marketing Live

• Shareable asset library. Henderson noted that he wasn’t expecting the new shareable asset library, but that he was delighted at the prospect of it.
• Google tag. The panel had high hopes for the new Google tag that was announced but are still hungry for more information.
• Connected TVs. Henke made an astute point that you can currently target TV-only campaigns, but with new partners like Hulu this is yet another way to “step on more turf” of competitors.
• Geo-experiments. Henerson was excited to test the geo-experiments feature around conversion lift.
• Discovery campaigns. The panel was excited about the ability to bring video into discovery campaigns and on the continued buildout of that campaign type.

Potential concerns from Google Marketing Live

One main element of concern for the panel was the risk posed by uploading user data.

Bottom line

Whether you like or dislike the changes announced at this year’s Google Marketing Live, they will be coming to your accounts soon. This roundtable gives a fair look at how four ads experts are planning for these changes.

Watch the full SMX Advanced roundtable

You can view the full discussion at no cost until Aug. 31, along with all of the other sessions from this year’s SMX Advanced.

Source: Google Marketing Live 2022: Reactions from the experts

LinkedIn Lists This Year’s Top 25 Marketing & Advertising Companies

LinkedIn lists the top 25 companies in the marketing and advertising industry in a new report that could be a valuable resource for job seekers.

The report aims to highlight the ‘best workplaces to grow a career’ in 2022.

Companies are chosen based on a methodology that looks at LinkedIn data across seven pillars:

• Ability to advance
• Skills growth
• Company stability
• External opportunity
• Company affinity
• Gender diversity
• Educational background

LinkedIn’s Top 25 Companies In Marketing & Advertising

1. Havas Media Group: Media Planner, Media Supervisor, Investment Associate
2. Merkle: Search Engine Marketing Analyst, Account Manager, Senior Analyst
3. VMLY&R: Creative Director, Engagement Director, Account Manager
4. Criteo: Account Strategist, Account Executive, Software Engineer
5. Spark Foundry: Media Associate, Strategy Associate, Senior Analyst
6. Power Digital: Marketing Strategist, Account Manager, Search Engine Optimization Specialist
7. Quotient Technology: Customer Success Manager, Campaign Manager, Sales Director
8. PHD: Strategy Supervisor, Media Strategist, Associate Media Director
9. Digitas Art: Account Executive, Art Director, Producer
10. Publicis Health: Search Engine Marketing Analyst, Account Manager, Pharmaceutical Sales Representative
11. Area 23: Account Supervisor, Producer, Associate Creative Director
12. RPA: Account Coordinator, Account Executive, Media Planner
13. Intouch Solutions: Account Manager, Project Manager, Marketing Coordinator
14. Digitas North America: Data Analyst, Account Manager, Art Director
15. Horizon Media: Brand Strategist, Digital Media Planner, Strategy Supervisor
16. Spectrum Reach: Account Executive, Account Planner, Local Sales Manager
17. Ogilvy: Account Executive, Art Director, Copywriter
18. Octagon: Account Executive, Event Specialist, Group Director
19. McCann Workgroup: Account Executive, Art Director, Copywriter
20. Starcom: Media Associate, Senior Analyst, Strategy Supervisor
21. Saatchi & Saatchi: Account Executive, Art Director, Copywriter
22. Walmart Connect: Partnerships Manager, Campaign Manager, Account Manager
23. WPP: Researcher, Executive Assistant, Information Technology Operation Manager
24. 360i: Media Manager, Account Manager, Art Director
25. DDB: Account Executive, Art Director, Copywriter

Source: LinkedIn Lists This Year’s Top 25 Marketing & Advertising Companies

What to do if you’re negatively impacted by a major algorithm update

“Not all Google updates are equal,” said Glenn Gabe, SEO consultant at G-Squared Interactive, in his presentation at SMX Advanced. “Google pushes thousands of changes per year, but some are small and some are large.”

Whenever a new Google algorithm update is announced, SEOs often spend a lot of money, time, and resources optimizing their sites. And while this can be a good thing, as it helps improve these properties, it can also distract marketers from higher priority tasks when the update is overhyped.

For example, many sites worked heavily on improving Core Web Vitals even though the page experience signal is lightweight (more of a tiebreaker). Gabe showed examples of sites that saw no movement at all when their CWV scores were “poor” and “good”.

Don’t jump to conclusions

Any major drop in rankings/visibility following a Google update will undoubtedly spur many SEOs to action. But, to avoid wasting too much of your valuable time and resources, Gabe recommended getting all the facts in place before jumping to conclusions.

“Avoid the knee-jerk reaction when rankings drop,” he said. “You might need to [make changes], or you might not need to. A drop during a major algorithm update could be due to relevancy adjustments, intent shifts, or overall site quality problems.”

“All of these are very different, so don’t just charge ahead,” he added.

Determine if there are site quality issues

Sometimes visibility changes following a Google update stem from a quality issue with your site, rather than a change in the algorithm or new competitors.

“If you determine this is the case, there’s good and bad news,” Gabe said. “You can address those problems and see recovery eventually, but it takes significant work over the long term. You will typically not recover quickly — it’s usually months of hard work.”

Pay attention to E-A-T

“E-A-T, or expertise, authoritativeness, and trust, is super-important,” said Gabe. “You could think of Google’s algorithm like a human who’s asking if the [site] creator has expertise on a topic. You have to look at your content objectively.”

Because E-A-T isn’t a score or scale, it’s not always easy determining how well your site embodies its principles. Yet Google’s documentation has highlighted its importance — especially when future-proofing sites for algorithm updates. So, SEOs should ensure they’re adhering to its standard.

When it comes to improving E-A-T after a ranking drop, many SEOs focus on improving content quality and thoroughness, which are incredibly important. But, as Gabe noted, authoritativeness is also heavily influenced by links and mentions from authoritative sites.

Source: What to do if you’re negatively impacted by a major algorithm update

More News:

Core Web Vitals scores improving for top-ranked sites

TikTok commits to updating ad policies to better align with EU rules

Twitter testing Notes, a long-form content feature

Core Web Vitals scores improving for top-ranked sites

Organizations have been investing resources into improving their Core Web Vitals scores, according to new research. 

Enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge has compared the top rankings for 500 keywords, from this year to last, in four markets: education, B2B technology, finance, and retail. 

Core Web Vitals, one year later. It’s been just over a year since Google’s page experience update started rolling out June 15, 2021. It was completed Sept. 2. 

The three Core Web Vitals website performance metrics were a subset of the overall Page Experience Update. Those metrics are:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – loading, target 2.5 seconds.
• First Input Delay (FID) – interactivity, target 100 milliseconds. (Note: Google announced in May that it might replace FID with a new metric called INP – Interaction to Next Paint).
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – visual stability, target 0.1.

Page experiences are improving. Here’s the data from BrightEdge:

On average:

• Retail scores improved by 58%. BrightEdge noted that retail giants have made significant strides in improving poor experiences – last year, top-ranked retail sites failed to meet Core Web Vitals metrics.
• B2B tech scores improved by 30%. Publishers and resources from SaaS platforms have made good gains.
• Education scores improved by 28%. More .gov sites are ranking and have good Core Web Vitals scores.
• Finance scores improved by 27%. This sector was best prepared last year and perhaps due to that saw the least amount of performance gains.

Source: Core Web Vitals scores improving for top-ranked sites

Virtual environment optimization (VEO) is coming. Ready for it?

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will impact the future of marketing.

Optimizing for the future of virtual marketing demands a name, which I am calling virtual environment optimization (VEO).

Today, we’re already starting to see the building blocks – and optimization potential – for this new technological world with the metaverse.

What is Virtual Environment Optimization (VEO)?

VEO is the task of working within a virtual environment and utilizing the resources available to best position the clients’ products and services within an alternative reality.

In search engine optimization (SEO), the focus is mainly on utilizing content, its best practices, and a slew of strategies to drive the clients’ website to the top of the search results. With the numerous changes in technology, it became necessary for SEO to adapt to areas such as voice search, map search, mobile search, and much more.

Why you should consider virtual optimization (VEO) now

Statistics indicate how VR and AR have progressed (and will continue to progress) over the next several years.

Currently, in listing the industries where VR is the most useful, marketing and advertising are listed at the bottom, with only 16%. This indicates that there is plenty of room for growth and improvement.

According to Finances Online, the top workforce development benefits of VR are as follows:

• Providing information in real-time.
• Facilitating training and mirroring in real-life experiences.
• Enhancing creativity in product design and development.
• Enabling a remote workforce to collaborate in real-time.
• Allowing users to live out someone else’s life experiences.
• Capturing novel user data like behavior and eye and gesture tracking.

Virtual reality is projected to change the shopping environment for consumers

Retail is the sector that is projected to deliver the largest commercial investment in AR/VR technology in 2024, with $7.3 billion, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

According to pymnts.com, the home try-on effect will be eliminated by 25% from the benefit of virtual store implementation. As of now, the average e-commerce rate is 2%.

Virtual products

When looking at how trends may be leaning toward using VR and AR to boost the clients’ visibility, Google is a perfect example. Already Google has worked towards virtual products as early as 2013, with the creation of the Google Glasses.

Consumer trends and how they have changed

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, online shopping saw a massive increase and changed the way people shop.

The commerce platform Kibo surveyed both millennials and Gen Z about their shopping habits. Out of both age ranges, 28% have admitted that they plan to continue online shopping even after the pandemic, as they prefer it over shopping in a physical store.

What might optimizing a virtual environment look like?

The Metaverse offers a great example of the future of VR and marketing.

Meta had already taken the initiative to help users monetize on products.

In Horizons World – the company’s social metaverse platform – it will start to test “in-world purchases,” allowing Horizon creators to sell virtual items to enhance the worlds they’ve created for users. In addition, Meta hopes to focus on ads in the future of Horizons Worlds.

Aside from Meta, we can look at real-world sectors for optimizing virtual environments:

Groceries

Online grocery shopping has taken off, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey from eMeals indicated that 34% of individuals use delivery services to buy groceries online. CEO Forrest Collier said:

• “With 97% of respondents to our survey saying that they plan to continue using online grocery in the future despite order delays or cancellations, it’s likely that one of the lasting effects of this pandemic will be to accelerate the widespread adoption of online grocery.” 

Clothes and other product retailers

The future of VR and AR in clothing stores could result in each brand eventually creating its own unique virtual retail outlet.

In a virtual setting, consumers would be able to explore an incredibly large inventory, filtering based on style, season, brand, size, etc. There may even be a “virtual mirror” to utilize, similar to MTailor’s custom tailoring services using AR.

Home goods

AR has already been implemented into the home goods sector. For example, an individual can use their phone to select items and test how they would appear in their home in real-time.

The benefit of VR marketing in a shopping environment is that groceries and all retailers will be able to save tremendous amounts of money by going virtual.

Virtual content will reign supreme

The phrase “content is king” has been used as a motivator for clients when planning content strategies for the creation of pages, blogs, videos, etc.

Now, as we start to enter a world of virtual reality, clients will have to shift to keep up with and produce virtual content where it is relevant.

Source: Virtual environment optimization (VEO) is coming. Ready for it?

Shopify Unveils 100+ New Updates & Features

Shopify has released its Summer ’22 Edition, adding more than 100 new features – including NFTs, Twitter shopping, and tap-to-pay on iPhone.

Called Connect-to-Consumer (C2C), the eCommerce site aims to help sellers find customers and scale their businesses with the most recent version of its semi-annual showcase of new products.

Release Marks Shopify’s Foray Into B2B

In addition to adding direct-to-consumer functionality, C2C also includes Shopify’s first incursion into the business-to-business marketplace. The feature, called ‘B2B,’ connects merchants with wholesalers.

B2B is designed to create a seamless experience for Shopify Plus merchants who want to sell to other businesses on the same platform they sell to consumers.

Other Key Features Aim To Open New Commerce Channels

C2C showcases the breadth and depth of the e-commerce giant’s initiatives. Some of the key new features include:

• Tokengated commerce
• Twitter sales channel
• Tap-to-pay on iPhone
• Local inventory sync
• Shopify Functions
• Dovetail

With so many updates released at once, it may take some Shopify sellers time to figure out just what will work for them. But many of these tools serve the same function: increasing exposure and generating new sales.

Source: Shopify Unveils 100+ New Updates & Features

Googlebot discloses that crawlers use just 15 MB

Googlebot pointed out that only 15 MB of web pages are crawled by it. The disclosure was during the update in the help document. It indeed shocked the SEO community. This means that Googlebot is disregarding the text under images.

Google stated in the help document, “Any resources referenced in the HTML such as images, videos, CSS and JavaScript are fetched separately. After the first 15 MB of the file, Googlebot stops crawling and only considers the first 15 MB of the file for indexing. After that, the file size limit applies to the uncompressed data”. However, John Mueller explains that it is for only the HTML file via Twitter.

Googlebot weighs the webpage when the important content is on the first page. This requires the code to structure the SEO in the first 15 MB. It is especially for the HTML or support text files. This also explained the need for images and video compressed in those files.

To make sure that Googlebot crawls and recognizes HTML pages, it is important to keep them under the size of 100 KB. Google checks page size with tools like Google Page Speed Insights. There is also a need for content on-page. To begin indexing, it is important to practice on-page SEO.

Source: Googlebot discloses that crawlers use just 15 MB

More news:

TikTok commits to updating ad policies to better align with EU rules

Twitter testing Notes, a long-form content feature

Now You Can Add Corrections To YouTube Videos After Publishing

TikTok commits to updating ad policies to better align with EU rules

Following discussions with the Commission and network of national consumer protection (CPC) authorities, TikTok has agreed to implement regulations around promoting alcohol, cigarettes, and ‘get rich quick’ schemes.

TikTok will also allow users to report undisclosed branded content and flag ads that trick children into making purchases. 

New labels for paid ads. The policy will identify ads with a new label, allowing users to see immediately whether a post is sponsored. Publishers will also have to switch on a toggle button when they’re publishing content captioned with certain keywords such as #ad or #sponsored.

In addition, users with more than 10,000 followers will also have their videos reviewed to ensure they meet TikTok’s guidelines.  

The new commitments. According to the European Commission, the main commitments agreed to by TikTok are: 

• Users can now report advertisements and offer that could potentially push or trick children into purchasing goods or services.
• Branded content now abides by a policy protecting users, which prohibits the promotion of inappropriate products and services, such as alcohol, “get rich quick” schemes and cigarettes.
• Users are prompted to switch on a toggle when they publish content captioned with specific brand-related keywords such as #ad or #sponsored.
• If a user has more than 10,000 followers, their videos are reviewed by TikTok against its Branded Content Policy and Community Guidelines to ensure that the content is appropriate.
• Policies clarify how to purchase and use coins, and pop-up windows will provide the estimated price in local currencies. Consumers are allowed to withdraw within 14 days from the purchase, and their purchase history is also available.
• Policies also clarify how to get rewards from TikTok and how to send gifts, for which users will be able to easily calculate their price.
• Paid advertisements in videos will be identified with a new label, which will be tested for effectiveness by a third party.
• Users are able to report undisclosed branded content, and new rules for hashtags and labels will be implemented.

What the Commission says. “All social media platforms are required to play by the rules and make sure that consumers can easily identify commercial content, including when promoted by influencers. … Despite today’s commitment, we will continue to monitor the situation in the future, paying particular attention to the effects on young users.”

A troubling history of challenges. In 2020, TikTok came under hot water regarding its content moderation process and its exposure of young users in the app. While there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the app itself, a leaked document in 2020 showed that TikTok moderators had been instructed to suppress content that featured people who may have been seen as less desirable, as investigations have uncovered that TikTok relies on pretty young women, in particular. 

TikTok’s commitment. To learn more about TikTok’s commitment to EU rules, you can read the article here.

Source: TikTok commits to updating ad policies to better align with EU rules

Deepfake Technology Pros & Cons For Digital Marketing

Deepfake technology is changing the way people see digital marketing.

Though marketers are still in the early stages of experimenting with deepfakes and deepfake technology, these videos convey a more immersive marketing experience through storytelling.

Deepfake technology is a type of “deep learning.”

Deep learning is a machine learning type that allows computers to learn tasks independently without being explicitly programmed.

Deepfake technology also involves computer vision, allowing computers to recognize objects in images.

For example, computer vision uses deep learning algorithms to identify objects in photos or videos. So it can tell you whether there’s a dog in your photo or not!

In addition to computer vision and deep learning technologies, the creation process for deepfakes involves image synthesis:

• Taking one image (like someone holding up an American flag).
• Combining it with another image (a person holding up an Australian flag).
• And creating something new from these two components (a person holding up both flags).

Deepfake Examples

• Carrie Fisher’s performance in Star Wars: Rogue One was possible with deepfake technology.
• A deepfake of Salvador Dali was used to host the Dali Museum in Florida.
• Deepfake technology allowed us to experience a speech JFK never got to make.

Deepfake Pros

This type of technology is beneficial for marketers in three ways:

• First, it can lower the cost of video campaigns.

Marketers can save money on video campaigns using deepfakes because in-person actors are unnecessary.

Instead, they can purchase a license for an actor’s identity, use previous digital recordings, insert the appropriate dialogue and create a new video.

• Second, it can create better omnichannel campaigns.

Since deepfakes don’t need in-person actors, marketers can easily repurpose content for numerous marketing channels with less time and money.

Instead of reshooting the campaign to accommodate different media, marketers can edit the video cuts to create a social campaign.

Or, they can create new synthetic dialogue to create a podcast or radio ad.

• Third, it can provide a hyper-personalized experience for the customer.

Brands can provide more relevant messaging and experiences for individual customers based on their personal preferences — such as the color of their skin.

Deepfake Cons

Unfortunately, deepfake videos have been used for more nefarious purposes.

For marketers, this can mean fake customer complaints, fake product reviews, and an overall decrease in customer trust.

Lack Of Trust

The most apparent impact of deepfakes is that they are used to create fake videos, which means that verifying the authenticity of any given video becomes more challenging.

Even if you could tell for sure whether or not someone’s image was actual or not before viewing a video, it is still impossible for anyone who didn’t know the person personally.

For marketers, using deepfake videos could violate ethics if consumers feel manipulated by the campaign.

Increase In Scams

Deepfake technology could increase potential scams, such as creating false accusations against companies.

These videos are made by taking recordings of actual incidents and changing the audio with new dialogue to make it seem like something that it isn’t.

How Marketers Can Use Deepfakes In Their Campaigns

Despite the unfortunate ways people use deepfakes, marketers can make their campaigns come to life quickly with this technology.

Influencer Campaigns

Imagine booking one of the top influencers for a campaign.

You only need a bank of digital footage instead of requiring them to shoot a video for hours.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning do the rest.

Or, you could use historical influencers, such as Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn.

Since there are a plethora of video and voice recordings of them, marketers can use their likeness in a deepfake to boost their campaign.

Experiential Campaigns

To stand out against the crowd, brands can use deepfakes to immerse the consumer into a shopping experience.

Nostalgic Ad Campaigns

State Farm created one famous example of deepfake technology.

The insurance company created an ad for the series The Last Dance by superimposing 1998 Sportscenter footage to make it look like Kenny Mayne predicted the documentary.

Product Demos

Product demos could become experiential for customers.

Instead of using the same b-roll for all clients, marketers could create personalized demos that show the actual client using their product. It can’t get more personal than that, can it?

This technology is here to stay, and it will continue to evolve.

Source: Deepfake Technology Pros & Cons For Digital Marketing

Twitter launching Branded Likes

Twitter has launched Branded Likes – custom Like animations for tweets that brands can create through the ads manager.

What are Branded Likes. Branded Likes are Like buttons stylized for specific tweets. You can see an example here promoting the “Scream” movie.

A costly addition. Branded Likes were featured during the Super Bowl with brands Anheuser-Busch and PepsiCo taking the bait. But the price tag for the emojis then was around $1 million. They won’t cost that much when they’re launched, but it does make us wonder what sort of impact they had at that time if any.

Who will get access. Twitter says that they’ll make Branded Likes available as an ad option to all advertisers in the U.S., UK, and Japan next week.

Source: Twitter launching Branded Likes

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Twitter testing Notes, a long-form content feature

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Twitter testing Notes, a long-form content feature

Twitter is testing a new feature that would eliminate the constraints of its 280-character tweet limit and allow users to publish long-form tweets.

Twitter confirmed the test via a tweet.

When this will become available to all Twitter users? It’s unclear. Twitter noted: “We’re excited for the moment when everyone can use Notes, but for now, our focus is on building it right. A large part of that is engaging with writers and building community.”

For now, Twitter plans to test it over the next two months with a small group of writers from Canada, Ghana, the UK, and the U.S.

Why do we care? This could be the solution to those long Twitter threads, introduced in 2017. While those numbered threads had the ability to generate more engagement (e.g., reactions, replies), they were also incredibly hard to follow – especially spin-off conversations.

What it looks like. In Twitter Notes, it looks like you will be able to add:

• Formatting: Bold, italic, and strikethrough text; insert ordered/unordered lists; add links.
• Media: You can add one GIF, one video, or up to four images.
• Tweets: You can either embed tweets by pasting URLs or from bookmarked tweets.

Notes also have a “Focus mode,” that makes the article composer full-screen.

The continued homogenization of social media platforms. Just about every platform right now is trying to duplicate popular features from other platforms (especially TikTok) in an effort to stay relevant. Twitter is no exception.

But this new-to-Twitter feature – if it becomes widely adopted – would basically put an end to what initially made Twitter unique: its reliance on brevity.

Source: Twitter testing Notes, a long-form content feature

Meta unveils new policy to fight fake reviews

Meta has unveiled a new community feedback policy in the U.S.

It targets fake reviews that appear on its Ratings and Review or Question and Answers features on Marketplace and Shops.

Why Meta created the policy. Meta said it wants reviews to be based on real purchase experiences from real customers and “to keep irrelevant, fraudulent and offensive feedback of our platforms.”

The policy. Meta has put together a list of five things that could get reviews flagged:

1. Manipulation. Community Feedback must not be used to misrepresent, deceive, defraud or exploit others for a financial or personal benefit.
2. Incentivization. Community Feedback must not be directly or indirectly incentivized unless otherwise disclosed and compliant with Meta’s policies on Branded Content. We define incentivization as a business partner or seller providing something of value, such as a monetary payment, free gift, or refund, in exchange for Community Feedback ratings, reviews, or answers.
3. Irrelevance. Community Feedback must be based on a reviewer’s direct experience with a product, business, or seller. Additionally, the feedback must be related to the intended use of the product and/or business.
4. Graphic or Inappropriate Content. Community Feedback must not include any content or media that is excessively graphic, inflammatory, violent, discriminatory or threatening to any person or group.
5. Spam. Community Feedback must comply with Meta’s policies on Spam. Including, but not limited to engagement bating, high-frequency content posting, sharing, or promoting is not allowed.

You can view the policy here.

How Meta will enforce the policy. Meta said it will use a mix of automation and human reviewers. And based on this passage from their announcement, it sounds like we can all expect some false positives – and more “Facebook jail” sentences – as Meta tries to figure this out. 

Source: Meta unveils new policy to fight fake reviews

A Guide To Social Media Algorithms & How They Work

Why do so many marketers keep asking, “How do social media algorithms work?” Because the algorithms for the major platforms can change quickly.

But, marketers should also keep asking, “Which social media platforms have the most users?” Because that data can change frequently, as well.

So, here are the latest answers to the first question about the algorithms for the eight platforms that you should be considering today.

Spoiler alert: This update contains some surprising shifts in the latest data on monthly unique visitors, monthly visits, and monthly average visit duration from SimilarWeb.

How Does The YouTube Algorithm Work?

YouTube got 1.953 billion unique visitors worldwide in May 2022. The platform received 35.083 billion monthly visits that month with an average visit duration of 21:41.

Now, some social media marketers may be shocked, shocked to find YouTube ranking ahead of Facebook.

But, SimilarWeb’s data above is only for desktop and mobile web channels. It doesn’t include data for connected TVs, which became the fastest-growing screen among YouTube viewers in 2020.

YouTube’s search and discovery systems tackle this challenge by paying close attention to:

• What viewers watch.
• What they don’t watch.
• How much time do they spend watching?
• What do they share and like?

How Does The Facebook Algorithm Work?

Facebook got only 1.620 billion unique visitors worldwide in May. The platform received 19.739 billion visits that month with an average session duration of 10:05.

Now, Facebook’s unique visitors started dipping worldwide in February 2022.

But, as you can see in the chart below, there was a substantial drop in unique visitors in Russia in early March, after Russia blocked Facebook in an effort to control the spread of information on the invasion of Ukraine.

Screenshot courtesy of Similarweb, June 2022

This had a negative impact on Facebook’s total unique visitors worldwide, which were already losing momentum. Nevertheless, the platform is still too big to ignore.

And she summarized half a dozen of the biggest changes Facebook had made in 2021 to give users more control over, and insight into, how content appears in their News Feed.

This included publishing a new series of Widely Viewed Content Reports to share what content is seen by the most people in News Feed in the U.S.

How Does The Instagram Algorithm Work?

Instagram got 1.050 billion unique visitors worldwide in May. The platform received 6.497 billion visits that month with an average session duration of 07:51.

Russia has also banned Instagram, but the growth in unique visitors from other countries around the world has offset that.

So, you still need to know how Instagram’s algorithms work.

How Does The Twitter Algorithm Work?

Twitter got 979 million unique visitors worldwide in May. The platform received 7.056 billion visits that month with an average session duration of 10.39.

This data does not screen for fake or spam accounts. Nevertheless, it’s worth investing the time and effort to keep up with how Twitter’s algorithm works.

Like most social media platforms, Twitter has multiple algorithms.

Twitter says its “algorithmic Home timeline displays a stream of Tweets from accounts you have chosen to follow on Twitter, as well as recommendations of other content we think you might be interested in based on accounts you interact with frequently, Tweets you engage with, and more.”

If users want to, they can click on the star symbol to see the latest Tweets as they happen. But, few people choose to drink water from a firehose.

How Does The TikTok Algorithm Work?

TikTok got 690 million monthly visitors worldwide in May. The platform received 1.766 billion visits that month with an average session duration of 03:48.

This data doesn’t include Douyin.com, which is counted separately. But, as the chart below illustrates, TikTok.com gets about 98% of the unique visitors worldwide for both of the ByteDance apps.

How Does The Pinterest Algorithm Work?

Pinterest got 409 million unique visitors worldwide in May. The platform received 945 million visits that month with an average session duration of 05:29.

With Instagram declaring it is “no longer just a square photo-sharing app,” this is the time to learn how Pinterest’s algorithm works.

The ranking factors on Pinterest relate more to engagement metrics and social shares, but it also involves keywords.

How Does The LinkedIn Algorithm Work?

LinkedIn got 306 million unique visitors worldwide in May. The platform received 1.479 billion visits that month with an average session duration of 07:32.

So, social media marketers – especially ones at B2B organizations – need to know how LinkedIn’s algorithm works.

How does LinkedIn’s algorithm know if a conversation is valuable? It uses the following framework:

• People you know
• Talking about
• Things you care about

How Does The Reddit Algorithm Work?

Here’s how each sort option recommends content:

• “Hot” ranks using votes and postage.
• “New” displays the most recently published posts.
• “Top” shows users the highest vote count posts from a specified time range.
• “Controversial” shows posts with both high count upvotes and downvotes.
• “Rising” populates posts with lots of recent votes and comments.
• ‘Best” uses machine learning algorithms to personalize the order in which users see posts.

Source: A Guide To Social Media Algorithms & How They Work

Google News becoming more customizable for desktop

Google News recently launched the latest version of the desktop. The recent updates disclose the; addition of new filters, custom topics, and fact checks. The new look has received much feedback.

The redesign outlay was out on the 20th anniversary. Google News was one of the earliest tools for news online.

The updated version of Google News detailed new filters. This will also help readers to select filters of their interested field. You can add a local news section and set up multiple locations to get direct news from those locations.

The other new feature in Google News is the “Customizable Topics”. This feature will let the user customize Google News with important topics of their interest. It will also let you add and remove topics from your daily dose. All of it with just clicking on the blue customize button.

Source: Google News becoming more customizable for desktop

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Now You Can Add Corrections To YouTube Videos After Publishing

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Now You Can Add Corrections To YouTube Videos After Publishing

A new feature for YouTube creators will make it possible to add corrections to videos after they go live.

Previously, the only way to correct an error in a published video was to remove it, edit it, and re-upload it.

The old solution created more problems than it solved, due to the fact all watch time and engagement metrics were lost in the process.

Instead, if YouTube creators decide to address their errors at all, they usually do so by adding a note in the description or the comment section.

However, that’s only useful if the viewer scrolls down the page, and of no use at all if the video is embedded on another site.

Now you can correct existing videos in a way that’s immediately visible while the video is being viewed.

How YouTube Video Corrections Work

YouTube’s corrections feature is a mix of old and new. It still requires creators to call out errors and provide clarification in the video description section.

What’s new with this launch is the ability to draw attention to corrections during the video itself.

With YouTube video corrections you can alert viewers when a particular moment in a video contains and error, and link them to the description section where the clarification is provided.

When you add a correction to a YouTube video, viewers will see a card appear at the time of the error.

The info card teaser, signalling the presence of a correction, will show up once throughout the video at the correction timestamp.

Clicking on the card will expand the video description where there’s a written correction or clarification.

While not a perfect solution, this will at least help make it more obvious to viewers when a creator acknowledges their errors and provides the correct details.

Source: Now You Can Add Corrections To YouTube Videos After Publishing

WordPress.org Strongly Urges Theme Authors to Switch to Locally Hosted Webfonts

In light of a recent German court case, which fined a website owner for violating the GDPR by using Google-hosted webfonts, WordPress.org’s themes team is updating its recommendations for hosting webfonts. Most theme authors have been enqueuing Google Fonts from the Google CDN for better performance, but this method exposes visitors’ IP addresses.

“The themes team strongly encourages the theme authors to update their themes,” Themes Team representative @benachi said in a recent announcement. “We recommend updating by switching to locally hosted webfonts. Luckily Google Fonts can be downloaded and bundled in a theme. Bundled font files allow users to host webfonts locally and comply with GDPR.”

The Themes Team is also considering banning remotely hosted fonts moving forward and will discuss at the next meeting.

Many theme authors may not update their themes until forced to by a ban from WordPress.org. In the meantime, users might consider adding a plugin to host webfonts locally. WordPress developer Xaver Birsak has created a small single-purpose plugin called Local Google Fonts that automatically detects Google font sources and gives users the option to download them and use them locally.

This plugin checks for fonts embedded via wp_enqueue_style. Users who are embedding Google fonts via @import will need to change that before using the plugin. It currently auto downloads new font versions if available. Birsak has created it as a set-it-and-forget it kind of plugin. This may be a good option for non-technical users who have a theme that hasn’t yet been updated by the author. Local Google Fonts is available for free on WordPress.org.

Source: WordPress.org Strongly Urges Theme Authors to Switch to Locally Hosted Webfonts

Could TikTok Be A Search Engine? For Many Users, It Already Is

TikTok was spotted testing a new search feature, raising questions about its viability as a search engine.

Interestingly, many people already use it as one.

According to a screenshot shared on Twitter, TikTok is starting to show suggested search terms when viewing a video’s comment section.

To learn more about this feature, I explored Twitter to see if anyone else was talking about it.

Ultimately, I wanted to answer the question: ‘What if people started using TikTok as a search engine?‘

Instead, I discovered a whole segment of people treating TikTok as a search provider, with some even preferring it over Google.

The question quickly turned from ‘what if” to ‘what now?‘

We’re past the point of questioning whether TikTok has potential as a search platform. The users decide, and increasingly turn to TikTok for their information needs.

‘TikTok Is Proving To Be A Better Search Engine Than Google’

The above heading is a quote from a viral tweet from last month.

It’s unclear whether the tweet received over 110K likes and 14K retweets due to the audacious comparison between TikTok and Google, or because people agree with the statement.

Why Are People Using TikTok As A Search Engine?

The growing use of TikTok as a search engine stems from several factors:

• Short attention spans
• Unsatisfactory Google results
• Visual learning styles

Arguments Against TikTok As A Search Engine

You’ll get a different perspective if you check the quote tweets for the viral tweet that started this whole discussion, where it appears the people against the idea of TikTok as a search engine outnumber those who support it.

Due to the colorful language used, I can’t share many negative opinions here. Still, it’s safe to speculate that naysayers are passionate in their beliefs that TikTok search isn’t suitable for keeping up with current news and events.

That’s because they don’t trust TikTok as a source, alleging that the app spreads misinformation. That happens to be a sentiment shared by a majority of United States users.

What Does TikTok As A Search Engine Mean For Digital Marketers?

For marketers, it’s time to consider responding to the demand for short-form video by adding it to your content strategy.

The demand for TikTok-like content isn’t about to slow down any time soon, and support for the format from Google and other tech giants is at an all-time high.

Now is an opportune time to branch out and get in front of new customers by diversifying your content output.

Source: Could TikTok Be A Search Engine? For Many Users, It Already Is

WordPress.org Forces Security Update for Critical Ninja Forms Vulnerability

Late last week, Ninja Forms users received a forced security update from WordPress.org for a critical PHP Object Injection vulnerability. This particular vulnerability can be exploited remotely without any authentication. It was publicly disclosed last week and patched in the latest version, 3.6.11. Patches were also backported to versions 3.0.34.2, 3.1.10, 3.2.28, 3.3.21.4, 3.4.34.2, and 3.5.8.4.

Wordfence noticed a back-ported security update in the form builder plugin, which has more than a million active installs. Threat analyst Chloe Chamberland explained the vulnerability in an advisory alerting the company’s users:

We uncovered a code injection vulnerability that made it possible for unauthenticated attackers to call a limited number of methods in various Ninja Forms classes, including a method that unserialized user-supplied content, resulting in Object Injection. This could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code or delete arbitrary files on sites where a separate POP chain was present.

The vulnerability affects Ninja Forms’ “Merge Tags” feature that auto-populates values from Post IDs and usernames, for example. Wordfence threat analyst Ramuel Gall reverse engineered the vulnerability’s patches to create a working proof of concept. He found that it is possible to call various Ninja Forms classes that could be used for a wide range of exploits, including complete site takeover. Chamberland reports there is evidence to suggest the vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild.

WordPress.org’s forced security updates are a mitigation effort used in rare instances where the vulnerability is particularly severe and affects a large number of users. More than 680,000 sites were updated on June 14. This PHP object injection vulnerability scores 9.8 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System, but it has not yet been given a CVE ID.

Source: WordPress.org Forces Security Update for Critical Ninja Forms Vulnerability

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