The LinkedIn Funny emoji is here

LinkedIn has finally added one of the most requested features. The Funny emoji started rolling out to LinkedIn users at some point in the last couple of hours.

What it looks like. It is a blue laughing face. Here’s what the new reaction looks like:

Why LinkedIn is adding it. Because LinkedIn users have been requesting it more than anything else from the platform. And LinkedIn has become incredibly good about listening to its users and giving them what they want.

If only more companies gave their user bases what they actually wanted instead of not – while shoving lame, minor UI enhancements or features nobody wanted or asked for. Granted, the Funny emoji is a tiny feature, but the ability to make lots of your users happy can be priceless. It can be the difference between loyalty and abandonment.

Reaction on LinkedIn. Joy. And lots of Funny emojis everywhere.

LinkedIn has generally been thought of as a professional social network. But it’s not all serious anymore. There is some seriously funny content published on LinkedIn. Now brands, marketers, and creators who post funny content can earn the appropriate reaction. Good, humorous content can get some excellent engagement, and engagement leads to greater visibility on the network.

Source: The LinkedIn Funny emoji is here

Spotify commits to brand safety for podcasts

Spotify has partnered with Integral Ad Science (IAS) to create a brand safety framework for podcasts. The technology will be the first of its kind across a digital landscape where safety precautions currently exist for video, but not audio.

The technology uses episode-level transcription technology to help advertisers exclude topics that don’t align with their brand. 

What Spotify says. In a blog post, Spotify adds “As podcasts have grown from a niche to mainstream medium, so has the need for consistent, well-established brand safety guidelines and technology.” Podcast ad revenue surpassed $1 billion in 2021 and is forecast to almost triple to more than $4 billion in 2024. 

Understanding audio safety. Spotify and IAS will launch efforts to help the audio industry understand what tools and resources are needed to deliver brand safety. They’ll also develop reporting tools aimed at giving advertisers greater transparency into where their ads are being heard.

The new technology will be powered by Spotify’s first-party data and verified by IAS’ independent analysis solutions – which adopt the Global Alliance for Responsible Media’s (GARM) guidelines. Spotify announced last year that they were the first audio partner to join GARM, helping to define what brand safety is for audio.

Prospective timeline. There is no word yet on when the new safety solutions will launch. You can read the announcement here.

Source: Spotify commits to brand safety for podcasts

Pinterest introduces Idea ads and paid partnership tools

Pinterest has launched a new ad format – Idea ads – and a new partnership tool allowing creators to tag brand partners in their content. 

Idea ads. The new Idea ads follow a similar format to Idea pins, which were launched last year. Similarly, Idea ads are an immersive, multi-page format designed for advertisers “to showcase ideas in action.” When shoppers click on the ads they’re taken to the brand’s website to view relevant information. 

The paid partnership tool. This allows brands to partner with Pinterest creators. The partnership allows large brands to collaborate with Pinterest’s community of creators and connect with their audiences. 

With the paid partnership tool, brands can review the tag and approve (or deny) the content. Brands will benefit from the authenticity of the creator’s content. Brands can also promote the creator’s content as their own Idea ad with paid partnership across Pinterest. 

Source: Pinterest introduces Idea ads and paid partnership tools

Instagram’s Main Feed Is Going Full Screen

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Instagram will soon begin testing a full-screen redesign of its main feed.

If you blinked you may have missed Zuckerberg’s announcement, as it was made via an Instagram story.

Here are some screenshots showing a before (top) and after (bottom) comparison of the new design:

This makes Instagram look more like a TikTok clone, with the content taking up the entire length of the screen.

A small area at the bottom is reserved for navigation, while every other element is overlayed on the content.

To remedy any confusion around the new design, Zuckerberg follows up by clarifying photos will continue to be an important part of Instagram.

Source: Instagram’s Main Feed Is Going Full Screen

Facebook aims to bring changes in video content

Facebook decides to bring changes concerning the video content. It will dedicate a “discovery engine” to replace the main feed. It got discussed in the internal employee’s memo.

We can expect changes pretty soon. Facebook sent those memos on April 27. So the restructuring of video content must be in the processing.

Facebook’s dedication to bringing changes is to provide a platform where people can watch the recommended content. A personalized and trendiest space for people to spend time on.

Facebook also defined its three priorities marking its vision for the same. The first is to build an effective recommendation technology. The second goes on to increase the popularity of reels.

The third explains how to unlock messaging-based sharing. The purpose of the discovery engine is to offer video content from creators people are not much aware of. This is the first time Facebook is going to focus on unconnected content. It will also drive content from the entire network. The transformation of the main feed into only a recommendation-filled page will widen the user base.

Alison also stated the upcoming series, “Here’s how the future Facebook app will work in practice: the main tab will become a mix of Stories and Reels at the top, followed by posts its discovery engine recommends from across both Facebook and Instagram. It’ll be a more visual, video-heavy experience with clearer prompts to direct message friends a post. To make messaging even more prominent, Facebook is working on placing a user’s Messenger inbox at the top right of the app, undoing the infamous decision to separate the two apps eight years ago.”

Source: Facebook aims to bring changes in video content

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TikTok To Show Who Viewed Your Posts

Google Search Console compare feature in performance reports

Headless WordPress And More With Ivan Popov

TikTok To Show Who Viewed Your Posts

TikTok is in the process of adding viewer history to posts, according to a test that was spotted in the wild.

You’ll soon be able to see who viewed your TikTok videos, which is another set of data you can use to identify your most engaged followers.

The trade-off is that your followers will be able to see when you view their posts too.

If you’re not comfortable with that, you can opt-out of post view history. But then you won’t be able to see view history for your content either.

TikTok’s post view history isn’t like Instagram and Facebook stories, where it’s turned on for everyone by default.

There are other ways it differs from viewer history on other platforms, which we’ll look at in the next section. Here’s how TikTok’s viewer history works.

TikTok Post View History – How It Works

TikTok’s post view history is limited to followers only, which you can see in this screenshot shared by social media pundit Matt Navarra:

It says people you follow can see when you view their posts, and you’ll be able to see when followers view your posts.

In theory — if you wanted to stealthily view someone’s content, does that mean you could simply unfollow them?

It’s an interesting choice to limit view history in this way. I presume it’s to accommodate people with huge followings, as it filters the data down to mutuals only.

TikTok’s view history is also limited in duration, which will be available for seven days from the day of publishing.

If viewer history is valuable to you, you’ll have one week to collect the data.

TikTok Confirms Test Feature

In a report from TechCrunch, a TikTok spokesperson confirms the feature is real and that it’s available to select users.

When it will be available more widely is anyone’s guess. There’s no guarantee test features will ever roll out at all.

If feedback from the test group is negative, TikTok may decide to scrap viewer history or at least rework it.

At this point it’s just something to be aware of, and know that it be added to TikTok in a future update.

Source: TikTok To Show Who Viewed Your Posts

4 things to learn about paid search from The North Face

Managing a large international brand is hard work. Especially when that brand is multi-channel (sold direct and through retailers, online and through individual branded stores).

I was thinking about these challenges recently and wanted to choose a brand and deep dive into how they handle their search campaigns.

The marketing demands of these brands can be difficult when you balance all the stakeholders, internally and externally. So, let’s take a look at 4 things you can learn in search from one of my favorite brands in this situation, The North Face:

1. Own Local – blocking and tackling when you have stores
2. Strong organic to help fund or offset paid search
3. Branded search – watch the competition
4. Getting the website right

To be clear: I have never worked with The North Face as a brand and I don’t know anyone who works there, so I have no insider information. This article is from an outside point of view and how I would assess their performance if I were to be in a business development pitch for their business.

1. Own local – blocking and tackling when you have stores

Brands that have their own locations would prefer customers to shop directly with them. They can control the experience, don’t have to compete with other brands, and can take home the biggest margins.

The first thing brands should do is ensure their location data (Google Business Profile) is as accurate and up to date as possible. Even though e-commerce has grown, its offline sales are still 80% of total e-commerce sales.

The North Face does a great job of maximizing its listings. All details are completed, and they are supplemented with ads focused on what’s available in the store.

2. Strong organic rankings to help offset competitive paid search

In retail, many brands find themselves in a negative or low ROI for non-branded keywords. It’s a competitive space and getting your conversion rates high enough to drive a positive ROI for non-brand alone is tough.

The North Face does a nice job with its organic rankings. Take a look at some data points against some other competitors to see what I mean. The North Face has a paid-to-organic traffic rating of 1.75%. This is the lowest in the group.

However, they have the most organic keywords ranked, and the second highest amount of keywords ranked in the top 3 organically (only outpaced by Canada Goose which has about a third of the total ranking keywords).

The North Face has worked to make sure their organic rankings are strong so that when they do participate in paid they can win and the total portfolio looks strong.

3. Branded search – watch the competition

Should you be bidding on it? Should you let organic listings handle it?

I’ve been a part of tests for the last 15+ years on this topic. There is no one-size-fits-all answer (for what it’s worth: I think you should bid on branded terms).

The North Face is a good example of why. It appears to me that they bid on their branded terms sometimes, but not always.

For The North Face, this is more of a defensive strategy. I found lots of examples where brands like Patagonia, The Gap, and REI were bidding on their brand.

4. Getting the website right

Even though when it comes to search a lot of the interaction and decision-making is on the keyword side. But you still need a strong website to make it all go.

For SEO, that means strong content and a crawlable and highly performant site. For paid search, that means landing pages that tie to your search terms and can convert at a rate that exceeds the bid prices.

This isn’t easy to do. However, The North Face does a very nice job in this area.

We discussed earlier how well they do from an organic perspective. On the paid side they also do a very nice job.

All the keywords map to the proper landing page. They maximize the use of ad copy to include all the proper callout extensions and site links. It’s very well done. 

Source: 4 things to learn about paid search from The North Face

Has Google’s SEO Office Hours Lost Its Spark?

Google’s John Mueller answered a question about what strategy to use to make specific pages show as sitelinks in Google’s search results.

Mueller provided an answer that noticeably matched what’s in the official Google Search Central documentation for sitelinks, although he added a little more nuance than what’s in the official documentation.

Nevertheless, Google’s new tightly controlled SEO Office Hours format is starting to show some limitations.

How to Make Pages Appear as a Sitelink?

The person asking the question wanted to know ways to influence Google to show specific pages in the sitelinks.

Sitelinks are additional links from a web page that is shown in a search result, so that one of the search results contains multiple links.

Mueller first explained what sitelinks are:

“So sitelinks are the additional results that are sometimes shown below a search result, where it’s usually just a one-line link to a different part of the website.”

Next he explained how Google generates sitelinks:

“And there is no meta tag or structured data that you can use to kind of like enforce a sitelink to be shown.

And it’s a lot more that our systems try to figure out what is actually kind of related or relevant for users when they’re looking at this one web page as well.”

Lastly, Mueller offers recommendation on what to do for sitelinks:

“And for that, our recommendation is essentially to have a good website structure, to have clear internal links so that it’s easy for us to recognize which pages are related to those pages, and to have clear titles that we can use and kind of show as a sitelink.

And with that, it’s not that there’s a guarantee that any of this will be shown like that.

But it kind of helps us to figure out what is related.

And if we do think it makes sense to show a sitelink, then it’ll be a lot easier for us to actually choose one based on that information.”

Answers Are Similar To Google’s Official Documentation

Previously the SEO Office Hours format permitted live questions and answers.  That’s gone now.

What Google is presenting are pre-screened questions with pre-screened answers.

The new format gives Mueller time to choose questions and research good answers ahead of time.

The answer Mueller provided is good but it also highlights a downside of Google’s new Q&A format that feels scripted and safe to the point that the information closely mirrors Google’s official documentation.

The down side is that the new format has the feel of Mueller Googling the answer for you then paraphrasing what’s on Google’s developer pages.

This is what’s on Google’s Search Central page:

“We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them.

• Make sure that the text you use as your page titles and in your headings is informative, relevant, and compact.
• Create a logical site structure that is easy for users to navigate, and make sure you link to your important pages from other relevant pages.
• Ensure that your internal links’ anchor text is concise and relevant to the page they’re pointing to.
• Avoid repetitions in your content.”

Source: Has Google’s SEO Office Hours Lost Its Spark?

Google testing new featured snippet layouts

Google has recently been testing new formats, layouts and interfaces for its featured snippet slot in the search results. Generally, Google shows a single source for a featured snippet but since 2018 Google has occasionally shown multifaceted featured snippets for some queries.

Many featured snippets. Google is testing showing many featured snippets, more than one, more than two – but up to four different featured snippets. Here are some tests spotted by William Alvarez on Twitter and Brodie Clark on Twitter – showing this in action.

Source: Google testing new featured snippet layouts

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Google Search Console compare feature in performance reports

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Google Search Console compare feature in performance reports

Google has a compare feature in the Search Console performance report. This compare feature seems to allow you to compare by query or pages across clicks, impressions and other metrics.

It turns out this is not new, it has been around for a while and I had some brain fog. I have updated the story to reflect this is not new and decided to leave it up, as it may help others.

What it looks like. Andrew Shotland shared screenshots of this on Twitter showing how the compare feature lets you put in two parameters or strings and compare them against each other. In this example, he is comparing queries containing “new” versus queries containing “tool”.

Here is the comparison tool that you can find when going into any of these parameters.

Here is the report that it generates after you apply these parameters:

More details. There is a help document available that has more details on this saying:

You can compare data between two values in any one grouping dimension, whether or not it is the currently selected grouping. For example, when grouped by Query you can compare clicks between two dates (this week vs last week), or two countries (USA vs France). Comparing by page or search appearance can change the metric calculation for CTR, impressions, and clicks. When comparing values for a single metric, the results table will display a Difference column to compare values in each row.

To compare group data:

1. Filters manage comparison (for example, Date or Search type). Either edit an existing filter or click New to add a new filter.
2. In the filter properties dialog box, choose Compare.
3. Add the dimensions or times to compare, and click Apply.
4. You can have only one comparison at a time. Adding a new comparison filter will replace an existing comparison. For example, if you compare dates and then add a comparison between countries, the country comparison will replace the date comparison.

Source: Google Search Console compare feature in performance reports

Search marketers agree: automation is the least favorite part of PPC

Whether you love it or hate it, PPC is a part of digital marketing that just isn’t going away any time soon. I’ve been working in PPC for over 10 years and I’ve seen it all. ETA’s, RSA’s, cost-per-touch? (looking at you, Apple), broad match modifiers (RIP), and attribution to name just a few of the most recent changes.

Earlier this month we asked you “What’s your least favorite part of PPC?”

We received an overwhelming number of answers ranging in everything from Google support to agencies (no offense taken), to clients with unrealistic expectations. But one answer stuck out: Google automation.

Let’s dive in.

Automation can be your best friend or a nightmare. Learning how to navigate and find a balance between machine learning and manual management has been on a lot of marketers’ minds lately. (Did you catch Brad Geddes’s keynote on day 2 of SMX Advanced?)

Here’s what you said:

• “Constantly having control of what we’re doing taken away through automation.”
• “Everything becoming more automated, broad targeting, less insight in data and overall less control over your campaigns.”
• “Gradual loss of control over targeting over the years. Search engines introducing changes that will clearly harm performance but selling them to advertisers as “upgrades.”
• “Giving all control to Google with Smart bidding, dynamic ads, and lack of reporting while also seeing prices increase year over year!”
• “Google forcing automation on those of us that don’t want it.”
• “My biggest frustration is consistent pressure to relinquish control of performance to the platforms by adding automation features and broadening our targeting.

Google support. Many of the answers we received specifically named Google support as lacking when it comes to offering help. As hard as they may try, most times they miss the mark.

• “Google reps that just tell you to apply everything from the Recommendations tab and offer no additional insight or guidance. I don’t need a call to tell me to look at the Recommendations tab and I’ll apply recommendations that are appropriate, not just to improve a nonsense account score.”
• “Google’s lack of transparency and their account managers chasing me to increase daily budgets!”
• “My least favorite part in PPC are the Google Representatives that keep calling you even in the middle of the night. Although, there are times that their advice makes sense most of the time it will just drain your budget. They’re just very annoying, to be honest. I get more sensible recommendations on Facebook Groups than their Representatives.”

Source: Search marketers agree: automation the least favorite part of PPC

Google Search Expands Scrollable Right Panel

On April 1st we caught Google testing a scrollable right-side panel for related images. Well, it seems like that test was not just for images but also for other blocks like knowledge panels, featured snippets and other image features.

Both Brodie Clark and Khushal Bherwani shared examples of this on Twitter.

Here is Brodie Clark’s cast of this as he posted on Twitter where he said “Big changes could be coming to how images are viewed in Search. We’ve seen it for free product listings, Google Lens, and image packs. Scrollable popup feeds are now being tested for images in Featured Snippets & Knowledge Panels. More info + examples: brodieclark.com/notes.”

Here is Khushal Bherwani videocast of this as he posted on Twitter where he said “This is how the new test of Images preview works on google desktop SERP you can see Related images while scrolling down.”

Source: Google Search Expands Scrollable Right Panel

Facebook To Restructure Main Feed Around Video Content

A leaked internal memo reveals Facebook’s near-term plans to restructure its main feed around video content, such as Reels and stories.

Facebook plans to turn its main feed into a ‘discovery engine’ for video content, according to an internal memo sent to employees.

The Verge obtained the memo and published it in its entirety. Though the memo is being revealed today for the first time, it was first sent on April 27.

That means Facebook is already a month and a half into executing its ‘near-term’ plans. We may end up seeing these changes roll out sooner than later.

Here are the must-know highlights from the memo written by Tom Alison, head of Facebook.

Enhancing Content Discoverability

The buzzword Facebook is throwing around to describe its vision is ‘discovery engine.’

Alison says that’s what he wants to turn Facebook into—a place where people can go and get recommendations for content they’re likely to enjoy.

He lists three near-term priorities that will help Facebook realize its vision:

• Make Reels successful.
• Build world-class recommendations technology.
• Unlock messaging-based sharing.

Turning Facebook into a ‘discovery engine’ simply means recommending more content from accounts users aren’t connected to.

How Does This Satisfy Facebook’s Top Three Priorities?

Make Reels Successful

While Facebook plans to enhance the discoverability of all content, it identifies its biggest gap as short-form video.

To fill that gap, Facebook is making Reels more discoverable by integrating the short videos in more sections throughout the website.

Build World-Class Recommendation Technology

To accomplish its goal of becoming a discovery engine, Facebook plans to develop a recommendation system that’s responsive to peoples’ interests, able to identify trending content, and capable of making responsible selections.

Unlock Messaging-Based Sharing

People are increasingly sharing and discovering content privately through messenger, rather than publicly in the main feed.

Facebook plans to lean into that by enabling more ways to share content through its messaging apps.

When Will These Changes Roll Out?

It’s not known when the transition to Facebook as a discovery engine will take place, though Alison sounds eager to execute his vision.

The best way to prepare for this change, if Facebook is a priority for you and your business, is to get comfortable with creating and publishing more short-form videos.

While Facebook will continue to surface text and photo posts, they’ll be ancillary to the main attractions of Reels and stories.

Source: Facebook To Restructure Main Feed Around Video Content

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Headless WordPress And More With Ivan Popov

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Headless WordPress And More With Ivan Popov

Headless WordPress brings the opportunity to feed many channels from your WordPress install.

One can push data from WordPress into:

• Mobile app.
• Website.
• Third-party apps.

It makes WordPress more than just a CMS; it integrates into the whole ecosystem of web and mobile apps where users can still take advantage of using the WordPress admin panel.

Headless WordPress is one of the obscure areas for SEOs. A lot of SEOs don’t understand why it is used for or what it should be used for. When should Headless WordPress be used and when should it not be used?

Ivan Popov: “I believe the Headless real value is coming when we are having a high traffic website, a really visited one, for example. We are just not talking about hundreds of visits we are talking about millions of users.

They need real power and they need real value counts because it’s not the technology that is suitable just for starting business. It is more of the expensive ones that I really advise to be used only if your website is getting enough value and it is big enough.”

If you have a simple business website, like a company website or a simple shop, you should not worry about using Headless. You mentioned that it’s suitable for high-traffic websites. How many users per day, per hour?

Ivan Popov: “We are speaking about heavily visited websites. Like for example, if they have a thousand visitors every second, or ten thousand readers right now online reading the news, so we’re really speaking about highly visited websites.

Headless does not rely on caching, which is essential when it comes to highly dynamic websites which have personalized content, job postings, or listings websites with hundreds of thousands of webpages.

Caching risks the user to not always receive a fresh copy of the webpage, while Headless will always provide the live data.”

Did you see any indexing issues Headless websites may suffer from? Any SEO issues from Headless?

Ivan Popov: “Not only have I haven’t seen any issues, but I have seen benefits because Headless WordPress websites, for example, provide perfect green (Core Web Vital) scores from page speed tester tools and also the web dev tools testers.

And because of those green results and good grades, the websites are actually benefiting with SEO rather than having issues.”

So, you didn’t see any indexing issues, such as pages dropping from indexing?

Ivan Popov: “No, as long as everything is setup correctly, there is not an issue that can occur.”

So, it comes down to basic best SEO practices that should be implemented with Headless WordPress. If implemented, will the website get ranked normally?

Ivan Popov: “Absolutely. The thing here is that it is not like plugins that are just plug-in and play.

You need the technicians that need to do everything manually. But as long as it’s set up correctly, there is nothing that you can lose the rankings from.”

For those who want to learn Headless WordPress, what kind of educational materials do you recommend?

Ivan Popov: “Because everything is open-sourced, you can just try to learn this like you traditionally approach new technology. Just read as much material as you can. There are a lot of free materials as well.

Everything is open-sourced. There is a community. So, everything is just starting. Starting a project – the first project is the hardest – but then try to do as complicated things as possible, and you will learn naturally just like approaching any new technology.”

In your presentation, you mentioned that Headless WordPress based on NextJS is more SEO friendly than ReactJS. Can you please expand on that more in what kind of issues one might run into when using ReactJS and what kind of opportunities are given NextJS as you name it a more SEO-friendly framework?

Ivan Popov: “For example, if we are using a setup with ReactJS and reading the data from the REST API, then we rely on real time communication between the REST API on WordPress and the ReactJS website.

Basically Google is able to index meta descriptions as a part of HTML and not at the rendering phase. Rendering sometimes may take big computing resources and Google may drop off from indexing during rendering. 

Ivan Popov: “Yes, correct.”

In case of ecommerce, when would you recommend Headless? For eocmmerce stores with a certain number of products, customers, etc. in order to consider switching to Headless. 

Ivan Popov: “When using it for ecommerce, we should be really careful. It is scaling for large shops not for any shop but for a large shop. We are basically building everything from scratch.

In the case of ecommerce, is it better to consider other platforms instead of Headless?

Ivan Popov: “I cannot say this because I’m a die hard WordPress fan, but you need to make sure the investment is worth it.”

Source: Headless WordPress And More With Ivan Popov

Google to sunset old Search Console message panel

Google Search Console will sunset the old legacy version of messaging starting on August 1, 2022. If you try to access the legacy version of the Search Console message panel, you will be presented with a notice that reads “Important: This report won’t be available after Aug 1, 2022. Please use the new Message panel instead.”

The notice. Here is a screenshot of the notice that I can see for one of my verified sites in Google Search Console:

All messages moved. There is no need to worry, back in February 2022, Google moved all messaging from the old Search Console to the new Search Console. Google said then it has “finished the migration of all the messages into the new Search Console interface.” As a result of this, you should expect even “more user messages in the messages panel.”

More details. When Google rolled out the new Google Search Console in 2018, not everything was migrated from the old to the new platform. In fact, there are still several tools in Search Console that are not yet migrated. In 2019, Google revamped the Search Console messages into a bell icon in its own panel. But not all messages were found in that section when that launched. Now, all messages should be accessible in that message panel and the old version will go away in the next several weeks.

Source: Google to sunset old Search Console message panel

LinkedIn Launching Free Tool For B2B Professionals

LinkedIn is launching a free tool called Business Manager that’s designed to simplify the marketing efforts of B2B professionals.

LinkedIn Business Manager brings together tools from Campaign Manager and LinkedIn Pages into one dashboard.

It offers a number of quality of life improvements for marketers, such as the ability to share audiences for ad campaigns across accounts.

Here are some of the top features launching with LinkedIn Business Manager, and when you can expect the tool to be available.

What Can LinkedIn Business Manager Do?

LinkedIn Business Manager offers the following benefits for B2B professionals:

• Manage It All: Navigate across Business Manager, Campaign Manager, and Pages in one place.
• Save Time: Change settings across accounts with a single adjustment and save time on administrative tasks.
• Reach Buyers: Share and update Matched Audiences across your ad accounts.

When Is LinkedIn Business Manager Available?

LinkedIn Business Manager is currently available as part of an early test with select enterprise customers.

It will be available publicly to businesses worldwide ‘in the coming weeks.’

Source: LinkedIn Launching Free Tool For B2B Professionals

Google offers to show ad rivals on YouTube

European Commission probe. This development is likely to pave the way for Google to settle an EU probe, opened last year, without having to pay a fine. The EU initiated this most recent probe to examine whether the tech giant and largest provider of search and video was giving itself an unfair advantage by restricting rivals’ and advertisers’ access to user data.

Google singled out. A EU watchdog singled out Google’s requirement that advertisers use it’s Ad Manager to display ads on YouTube and also potential restrictions on the way rivals are allowed to serve ads. They are also inquiring into Google’s requirements that advertisers use Display & Video 360 and Google Ads to buy YouTube ads – which is how publishers purchase an advertising spot on the popular video platform. 

A different regulator, Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched its second probe into Google’s advertising practices last month, saying that the company could be “distorting competition and may have illegally favored its own services.”

Last year Britain imposed a competition regime to prevent Google and Facebook from “using their dominance to push out smaller firms and disadvantage customers.”

More information. You can read the full Reuters article here.

There is no response from Google on when they plan to allow rivals to place ads on YouTube, or in which countries this would take effect. 

Source: Google offers to show ad rivals on YouTube

Netflix Geeked 2022: La Casa Da Papel, Shadow and Bone, Queen’s Gambit and more games announced

As per the description by Netflix, adapted from much-popular series The Queen’s Gambit, this game, “the tables have turned and now you get to take part in the ultimate game of chess”. The players will see new locations for this upcoming game, which lets players take lessons, play puzzles and matches, and compete against online competitors or familiar faces from the original series.

• The newly announced Netflix Shadow & Bone is a single-player RPG for mobile platforms. It will allow the players to “step into the shoes of your favorite characters and journey across the world of the Grishaverse”.

• Inspired by the much-popular La Casa De Papel or Money Heist, this action-adventure game is a single-player action-adventure game. Players crack safes, pick locks and help rob a casino in Monaco — all to help an old friend of the Professor’s.

• As per the description by Netflix, adapted from much-popular series The Queen’s Gambit, this game, “the tables have turned and now you get to take part in the ultimate game of chess”. The players will see new locations for this upcoming game, which lets players take lessons, play puzzles and matches, and compete against online competitors or familiar faces from the original series.

• This award-winning management game is coming to Netflix. In this game, players will act as Stella, a Spirtfarer and ferrymaster to the deceased. They can explore the world, farm, mine, fish, harvest, cook, and craft while spending quality time with your spirit passengers, creating lasting memories and learning to say goodbye.

• The popular role-playing video game is now being converted into an animated series at Netflix. The streaming platform has revealed the teaser and the poster of this series. The hit role-playing video game is being adapted as an animated series at Netflix, and we’ve got the new teaser and the poster to prove it.

Source: Netflix Geeked 2022: La Casa Da Papel, Shadow and Bone, Queen’s Gambit and more games announced

More News:

YouTube lifts some restrictions for mastheads ads

Google Expands Verification Requirement For Finance Ads

Google May 2022 core update is finished rolling out

YouTube lifts some restrictions for mastheads ads

Google has just announced that they are pulling back restrictions on some previously prohibited categories from showing on the YouTube masthead. 

Effective today. Google will now allow booking for masthead ads for the following categories:

• Sports betting (US only)
• Alcohol (where legal)
• Prescription drugs (US, CA, NZ)

What Google says. A spokesperson from Google stated “We’re constantly reviewing our ad requirements  to improve our products and services. Given the evolving regulatory landscape for sports betting and following the successful implementation of our new “per market” YouTube masthead format, we believe that this decision balances the needs of advertisers and consumers.”

Categories for election and political ads, as well as (non-sports) gambling remain restricted.

Additional YouTube masthead changes. In 2020 we reported on Google’s announcement that they would discontinue full-day masthead reservations and replace them with more targeted options. The new CPM option allowed mastheads to be more accessible to a broader market of advertisers. 

View the changelog. You can view the changelog and new policies here.

Source: YouTube lifts some restrictions for mastheads ads

Twitter removes nofollow attribute from links in tweets

In its source code, Twitter has removed the nofollow link attribute from Twitter posts. It is unclear if Twitter removed this attribute on purpose or not and if even search engines, like Google, would value links from Twitter or not.

Timing. According to Chris Silver Smith, Twitter removed the nofollow link attribute sometime in the past couple of weeks. He said on Twitter “Twitter is apparently no longer using rel=”nofollow”. This includes links you find on “profiles, tweets, and other pages on Twitter may now contain followed links,” he said.

Back in 2008, former search quality lead and spam fighter, Matt Cutts, posted that Twitter added the nofollow link attribute to bio sections on Twitter. Within a year later, Twitter added the attribute to all tweets and other sections of their site.

Will these links count? It is hard to know if Google or Bing or other search engines will start to now follow and count links found on Twitter.com and within tweets. We know Google can sometimes treat links that do not have a nofollow attribute as if it does have a nofollow attribute. I would assume Google would by default do that with most social networks, including Twitter because user-generated content and links are hard to trust in general.

Will it last. Also, I suspect Twitter will soon add the nofollow link attribute back to external links as soon as they hear about this publicly. So this may be short-lived. We have reached out to Twitter for a statement.

Source: Twitter removes nofollow attribute from links in tweets

LinkedIn announces boosting for Event posts

LinkedIn has just announced that they’re expanding the Boost button to the LinkedIn Events page. This means that advertisers will be able to promote events and drive registrations.

Last year LinkedIn gave advertisers a new feature to Boost organic posts from their page. This allowed them to promote an organic post to more of their followers, or specific professional audiences of their choice. 

How it works. To Boost an event, simply navigate to the Boost button on your Events page. Select the target audience you want to see the ad. Set the schedule, and budget, and enter the payment info. This will create an event ad that will appear in the feed of professionals you’ve selected as your target audience. 

What LinkedIn says. “Over the last few years, we have seen virtual events bringing communities together. Companies across industries have used LinkedIn Events to promote their content and continue building on their community of professionals.”

Source: LinkedIn announces boosting for Event posts

Why entity search is your competitive advantage

Entity search has become a competitive advantage for businesses and brands.

With Google opening its topics API and releasing the most comprehensive deep learning algorithms, such as PaLM, LaMDA2, and MUM, it’s critical to understand the semantic web and how to create and operationalize entity SEO.

This article will start our exploration of the what, why and how of leveraging entity search. (There is much more to come in my future Search Engine Land articles.)    

What is entity search and why is it critical?

Before diving deeper into entity SEO or semantic SEO, let’s start with what problems search engines are trying to solve and how entities help solve these problems.

Simply put, search engines are trying to provide the best and most comprehensive answers to every search query across all devices. 

However, the way we search has evolved.

A few years back, searching meant typing keywords into a search engine. Today, 40-50% of searches are conversational from various devices, such as smartphones, Google Home, Alexa, etc. 

A major challenge for search engines is understanding the context and intent behind the user query. Search algorithms that previously matched content with keywords are inadequate to process and understand queries that are often sentences and paragraphs and match them with the most relevant result.

A search engine can only cater to this changing search behavior by understanding relationships between words without ambiguity.

What are entities and entity search?

An entity could be a person’s name, place, object, event, concept or numerical expression that a search engine can understand without ambiguity, regardless of language.

For example, let’s look at a query like, “what is the cheapest price for a hotel in the San Francisco Bay Area?”

How many ways can that question be asked? How would it appear in different languages? How can search engines understand that all those permutations and combinations of queries mean the same thing? 

Traditional SEO versus semantic SEO – the difference

In traditional SEO, pages are ranked based on information retrieval scores using relevance, authority, and backlinks from other popular sites. 

Semantic SEO focuses more on providing the most comprehensive information for user queries using entities, facts associated with those entities, associated attributes, and questions related to that fact.

With entity SEO, the focus is on making it easy for searchers to get the answers they want and the brands that provide the most comprehensive topical information satisfying searcher query intent. 

Search algorithms favor semantic search

SEOs in the past focused on link building and utilizing keywords to help search engines find the information. Search algorithms have surpassed keywords and determine the context and intent behind queries by understanding relationships between entities.

Optimizing keywords will help to some extent. Still, the most sustainable way to succeed is to optimize entities in your content and adopt an entity-first or semantic approach to SEO.

Position zero

Marketers sometimes worry that providing rich results, like in the Quick Answer/Featured Snippet listing, People Also Ask or a How-to, gives the user the information in the SERP without them clicking on the listing and driving visitors to the website.

While this is true, the benefits of appearing high up in the SERP outweigh the perceived detriment of users who do not click.

This is especially true when the listing would otherwise have been below the fold lower down on the search results page.

Which entities should you focus on? 

The easy answer is any entity that relates to the content of your business, with two categories being the most important. 

The first is any entity that can help reduce ambiguity, such as business type, location, product details, and contact elements. To identify the right entities related to your business, you should review the schema.org classification for your business.

The second category is those elements where Google provides insights and demonstrates the structure of the business in the Search Console under Enhancements and Search Appearance.

Your website should have all these entities where relevant to ensure the topic/structure of the website is well understood.

Source: Why entity search is your competitive advantage

Google announced new core update for the year 2022

Google confirmed the completion of the update on the core algorithm. The update initially began on 25 May. However, the changes got noticed before the update. The advice for overcoming core update from Google is the same. Google says to improve the content to survive better.

John Mueller, Google’s Search Advocate, stated, “With the core updates, we don’t focus so much on just individual issues, but rather the relevance of the website overall. And that can include things like the usability and the ads on a page, but it’s essentially the website overall.”

One should take a comprehensive approach to improve the website. This starts with the content. Also, one should not get trapped in technical fixes while recovering from a core update.

This is an exhaustive task. But one can use AI generators to help with the content at hand. However, the core updates of Google affect almost all search results to a degree. However, the impact can get more easily noticeable in some specific areas. There are also symptoms that websites with AI-generated content got hit hard.

Source: Google announced new core update for the year 2022

Athens to Host WordCamp Europe 2023

WordCamp Europe 2022 concluded last weekend in Porto, Portugal. The event sold 2,746 tickets and had 2,304 people attend. It kicked off with a record-setting Contributor Day that coordinated the efforts of 800 participants giving back to WordPress and its related projects.

WCEU featured 70 speakers across 26 sessions and 18 workshops, made possible by the efforts of 65 sponsors, 91 organizers, and 164 volunteers.

Attendees and organizers were thrilled to be back together in person after two years of not hosting the event due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Remkus de Vries, one of the founders of WCEU, joined our recent WP Jukebox podcast and commented on the importance of being back in person with fellow WordPress enthusiasts. He characterized WordCamps as the “glue” that keeps the community together.

Source: Athens to Host WordCamp Europe 2023

More news:

Google Expands Verification Requirement For Finance Ads

Google May 2022 core update is finished rolling out

Google Chrome’s Topics API test going public on July 1

Google Expands Verification Requirement For Finance Ads

Google is expanding its verification program for finance ads, which will require advertisers in more countries to prove they’re authorized to promote financial services.

Verification adds an extra layer of protection against financial fraud, helping to ensure people aren’t scammed when they click on search ads.

Google first launched this program in the UK in September 2021, which has reportedly lead to a noticeable decline in ads promoting fraudulent services.

Following the successful UK launch, Google is expanding the verification program to additional countries starting with Australia, Singapore, and Taiwan.

What Does This Mean For Advertisers?

Advertisers in the above-mentioned markets will have to go through two extra steps before running ads that promote financial services.

They will have to:

• Demonstrate they are authorized by their respective financial services regulator
• Complete Google’s advertiser verification program

This policy goes into effect on August 30, and advertisers can begin applying for verification at the end of June.

Getting Verified By Google

Google’s advertiser verification program consists of multiple requirements that each have their own set of steps to complete.

Advertisers are required to:

• Answer a series of questions about their business
• Verify their identity
• Verify details about their business operations

The process is extensive enough that Google doesn’t expect advertisers to complete it in one sitting. After initiating the verification process you’ll have 30 days to complete it.

Source: Google Expands Verification Requirement For Finance Ads

LinkedIn announces Business Manager

LinkedIn today announced the creation of Business Manager. The new Business Manager is a centralized platform designed to make it easier for large companies and agencies to manage people, ad accounts and business pages. 

A centralized platform. Business Manager will aim to simplify how marketers keep track of their accounts by offering their Campaign Manager and Pages options easily visible from a central location. Here’s what else LinkedIn Business Manager offers:

• View and manage teams, ad accounts, pages, and business partners from the central dashboard.
• Easier management and control of admin tasks such as permissions and billing.
• The ability to share and update Matched Audiences across ad accounts.

What LinkedIn is saying. “We built Business Manager with you, our B2B customers, in mind to help you maximize efficiencies, so you can create and execute engaging campaigns that cut through a crowded market with no added cost. Early test customers, like GroupM Canada, Merkle B2B, VMware and Xero, saw immediate value from the platform, and we’re excited to make LinkedIn Business Manager publicly available to marketers across the globe in the coming weeks.” That’s according to Gyanda Sachdeva, LinkedIn’s VP of product management.

Source: LinkedIn announces Business Manager

Yoast On Why It’s Adopting IndexNow Protocol

After originally dismissing Microsoft’s open-source IndexNow search engine indexing protocol, Yoast has reversed course and indicated they will now support it.

In a conversation with Search Engine Journal, founder Joost de Valk explains why.

Adoption of IndexNow by Yoast is a watershed moment for publishers and the search marketing community. It may signal even wider future adoption of the new protocol which may substantially alter SEO and content marketing in a positive way.

IndexNow

IndexNow is an indexing protocol that helps websites receive near-instant indexing by search engines.

It is an open-source initiative designed to help websites alert search engines to new or updated content.

Search engines benefit by no longer wasting data center resources by redundantly crawling web pages that are unchanged and already indexed.

The IndexNow indexing protocol can even be used to notify search engines of pages that are newly removed and returning a 404 server response code.

IndexNow reduces the amount of energy used by data centers, which in turn contributes to helping minimize the causes of global warming.

Informal Announcement By Yoast

When IndexNow was initially announced in October 2021, De Valk was the most prominent skeptic of the new indexing protocol, tweeting that he didn’t see any value in it.

So after all of that opposition and naysaying it was surprising when De Valk informally announced that Yoast will be integrating IndexNow into the premium version of the Yoast SEO plugin.

Yoast Integrating IndexNow

De Valk didn’t mention if the other search engines he heard were adopting IndexNow included Google.

Regardless, it’s a big deal that Yoast is adopting the new indexing protocol because it’s the biggest WordPress SEO plugin in the world, with over five million active installations.

This helps cement IndexNow as an important indexing protocol and encourage more search engines to join the movement toward instant indexing, which will in turn help SEOs and publishers.

Source: Yoast On Why It’s Adopting IndexNow Protocol

WordPress pages or posts: Which should you use?

Since its launch in May 2003, WordPress has become the most-used website platform globally. The WordPress platform powers almost 37% of the top 1 million trafficked websites, according to BuiltWith data.

Given the low cost (you really only pay for hosting), ease of installation and use and flexibility, WordPress is ready for websites of all sizes, from personal blogs to enterprise businesses.

Count me as a fan. I’ve advocated for its use, going back to nearly the beginning of its existence in 2003.

I’ve worked on many WordPress websites, and one of the most common questions I still get is about pages versus posts – which one should be used?

Before answering that question, let’s review how WordPress pages and posts differ.

WordPress pages

Pages in WordPress are intended to hold content that may be considered more “evergreen,” such as the home page, product/service pages, or about us-type content.

WordPress posts

Posts in WordPress link the platform back to its roots as a blogging platform. Posts were intended to hold news-related, time-sensitive, and other content that might be associated with websites that are strictly blogs.

One crucial thing to remember: Both pages and posts are content for your users and the search engines.

The website owner sets their appearance and use. Pages and posts can be used interchangeably for any purpose – though it’s a terrible idea to mix similar content between the two formats.

Evolving recommendations

My recommendations now are slightly different if a site is being built from scratch or undergoing a significant reorganization.

In that case, I have two recommendations based on the type of content that will comprise the majority of the website:

• For sites with a majority of evergreen-type content, I recommend the site be all pages.
  This allows pages to be built and nested together in parent/child relationships to construct a logical folder structure. Even if there is timely blog-type content, pages will work quite well unless there is an absolute need for tag or author connections.
• For sites with a majority of timely, blog-type content, I recommend the site be all posts.
  This allows for content to be organized along category lines. Posts also allow for tag and author archives to be used. This type of setup also allows for easy RSS feeds. The home page can be set up to show the latest posts to help keep it fresh with the newest information.

Should I uproot everything and change the structure of my site?

As I mention above, I recommend building this type of structure on a new site or if a site is undergoing significant work like a re-platforming onto a new theme or migration to a new design.

If your website is working well and you don’t notice any significant problems, it’s OK to take an “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach.

Source: WordPress pages or posts: Which should you use?

Twitter announces Product Drops for merchants

Merchants have a new Twitter feature, called Product Drops, to help engage their followers and stay on top of new product releases.

What are Product Drops. Product Drops from Twitter is a new feature that allows brands to notify their followers when they launch a new product. The feature is the first of its kind for a social media platform.

How does it work. When a merchant tweets about an upcoming launch, followers will see a “Remind me” button at the bottom of the tweet. They’ll simply tap that button to be reminded of the launch day. 

On the product’s launch day, they’ll receive a notification in the app 15 minutes before, and at the time of the drop. Clicking the notification will bring them to the merchant’s website where they can shop for the product and (hopefully) grab it in time. 

The devil is in the details. Before followers click the “Remind me” button they can view the full details of the product that’s dropping. To do this, they’ll just click on the tweet and the Product Details page will open. From there, they can view the price, description, and more. 

Ready. Set. Launch. Twitter is rolling out Product Drops to merchants in the US only, on English iOS devices. It’s being tested with select partners including:

• Dior
• Fossil
• Jeff Staple
• Home Depot

There is no word on when the feature will roll out to all merchants.

What Twitter says. “People come to Twitter to talk about products and product drops every day. And merchants have long been dropping products on Twitter without any native product support. We’re excited to change that and introduce new shopping features that empower shoppers to stay on top of the launches that matter most to them and provide merchants with another way to engage shoppers around big product moments.”

Source: Twitter announces Product Drops for merchants

More News:

Google May 2022 core update is finished rolling out

Instagram Releases New Reels Features

Google Chrome’s Topics API test going public on July 1

Google May 2022 core update is finished rolling out

Google has confirmed that the May 2022 core update is now finished rolling out. The update took 15 days to roll out, starting on May 25, 2022, and ending on June 9, 2022.

More on the May 2022 core update

The SEO community. The May 2022 core update seems much more significant than November 2021 one. Unlike the November 2021 core update, where the timing for the update was not the best, i.e. right during the busiest online shopping season, this update was scheduled a lot better for retailers. I covered the community reaction in one blog post on the Search Engine Roundtable early on. It includes some early chatter, ranking charts, and social shares from some SEOs.

On Twitter, you can find plenty of examples of SEOs sharing charts from their clients – mostly showing winners but also showing losers – with this update.

What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update in the past. There aren’t specific actions to take to recover, and in fact, a negative rankings impact may not signal anything is wrong with your pages. However, Google has offered a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update. Google did say you can see a bit of recovery between core updates but the most significant change you would see would be after another core update.

Source: Google May 2022 core update is finished rolling out

4 proven methods to improve Google RSA conversion rates

As machine learning seizes yet another opportunity to beat out human capabilities, Google Ads is officially retiring Expanded Text Ads (ETAs) on June 30.

The simple days of three headlines and two descriptions will be replaced by mix-and-match opportunities of up to 15 headlines and four descriptions. 

Advantages to running Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) include:

• The ability to test multiple ad copies at once without the manual labor of setting up different ads.
• Endless ad copy combinations, allow for robust testing and quicker learning.
• Automatic winning ad-optimization. The system will award the most impressions to the winning ad copy combinations in the end. 

However, trust concerns arise when advertisers use these algorithms. RSA reporting leaves much to be desired, as you can only see the number of impressions for each asset and combination.

Does the lack of control over ad copy combinations leave you questioning if there’s more you can do to optimize performance?

Read on to discover four ways to improve RSA conversion rates – with test findings to back them up.

1. Look beyond impressions for decision-making

Google provides impression volume for each headline and description.

If you’re receiving enough volume (over 5,000 impressions in 30 days), then the algorithm may be able to assign a performance rating to your ad copy. The ratings include:

• Low
• Good
• Best

While it is recommended that you replace a “low” performing asset with a new variation to improve CTR, impression volume is simply not enough to dictate a true winner. 

2. Don’t worry about ad strength for conversion volume

When comparing ETAs and RSAs, advertisers often see higher CTR in RSAs but lower CVR.

This could be caused by the lack of messaging control and Google’s push for advertisers to follow best practices to improve their ad strength.

In order to bring your RSA ad strength from Poor to Excellent, Google wants to create and test as many ad copy combinations as possible, recommending:

• To maximize the number of headlines and descriptions (up to 15 headlines and four descriptions per ad)
• Unique headlines and descriptions
• Unpinned copy
• To include high-volume keywords in your ad copy

While following best practices is said to be optimal for performance, advertising rebels should run their own tests. Manual testing can continue after ETAs disappear.

3. Run experiments to test ad copy variables

Now that we know we can pin ad copy without any repercussions to our CPL or CVR, we can think about the proper way to A/B test headline and description variations.

When leveraging smart bidding tactics, algorithms are doing what they can to help you reach your goals. Even when you check the Do not optimize ad rotation option in the settings, Google is not serving your ads evenly because it is working to satisfy your campaign goals first.

Knowing that Google will favor one RSA over another if you run two RSAs in one ad group simultaneously, gaining true KPIs on each ad copy variable is difficult when impression volume is so skewed.

The best way to test one variable at a time is to set up a custom experiment or ad variation. This will ensure that the spend gets split 50/50 for each ad.

4. Create ETAs within RSAs

Although this test defeats the purpose of Google’s ETA exile, you can offer just three headlines and two descriptions per ad.

Testing two pseudo-ETAs in an experiment is a great way to analyze winning ad copy.

In this experiment, we looked at giving the algorithm some freedom while maintaining control of our messaging:

Client B is on a tCPA bidding strategy and needs to get the most efficient CPL possible.

• Control (Base): RSA with ten headlines and four descriptions; Top 3 headlines and top 2 descriptions pinned, based on impression volume
• Test (Trial): RSA with only top 3 headlines and top 2 descriptions, based on impression volume

Source: 4 proven methods to improve Google RSA conversion rates

WordPress launches new version WordPress 6.0, Arturo

The WordPress community points out some fascinating and amazing views on the latest version. The viewers have warmly accepted the newest version of WordPress. There was some conflict on the plugin, but the option remains fairly and evenly accepted.

Recent trends from WordPress documentation call it out to 36.2 WordPress sites updating to the release. It got done within just two weeks of the launch. Only 20% of the new user sticks to the 5.9 version. The new version includes many cool features.

The version change also depicts that there is an update on all the available features. It might be a problem for some users. The version changes often indicate many other things, more like a new cell phone model in your favorite phone company. Though, WordPress affirms that will not happen here. The newest representation is more like accumulative changes. It will reform the process of creating the website, making it more accessible.

A Facebook group of WordPress users are still some way not ready to update the version. The acceptance is still at some place other to achieve. A member pointed out the lack of documentation in the newest version, and that may be a valid point.

Source: WordPress launches new version WordPress 6.0, Arturo

Elementor Acquires Strattic

Elementor, a popular website builder plugin that is active on more than five million websites, has acquired Strattic, a static and headless WordPress hosting company. Strattic will continue operating as “Strattic by Elementor” and the team will remain as its own unit within the company.

Elementor founders Yoni Luksenberg and Ariel Klikstein met Strattic founder and CEO Miriam Schwab 10 years ago when they attended a WordCamp she organized in Jerusalem. The following year Elementor sponsored the WordCamp she organized in Tel Aviv. In 2020, Elementor raised $15M in its first round of funding, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, after passing four million users.

Schwab founded Strattic in 2018 as the first WordPress hosting company to streamline the creation of static files managed via a headless install.

“Very early on it became clear to us at Strattic that we had better make sure we support Elementor in the static versions of our sites,” Schwab said. “More and more users were coming to us with sites built on Elementor, which was a strong indication of the plugin’s growing adoption and popularity. We prioritized supporting it in general, including rolling out support for their forms, and most recently adding a Strattic publish button from the Elementor editor.”

Source: Elementor Acquires Strattic

More news:

Google Chrome’s Topics API test going public on July 1

Instagram Releases New Reels Features

Apple Search campaigns shifting to cost-per-tap (CPT) pricing model

Google Chrome’s Topics API test going public on July 1

“A small percentage of traffic” will soon see the initial testing of Google Chrome Topics API go live on July 1. The new feature will enable users to enable interest-based advertising without having to track the site a user visits. 

Interest-based advertising. According to recent developer documentation, “IBA can help advertisers reach potential customers and help fund websites that cannot easily monetize visits to their site purely via contextual advertising. IBA can also supplement contextual information for the current page to help find an appropriate advertisement for the visitor.”

The Topics API. The Topics API has three main tasks:

• Maps website hosts topics of interest. For example, a yoga website would be categorized under “Fitness”
• Calculate the main topics for a user based on their browsing history
• Provide a JavaScript API to help select appropriate ads based on the user’s interest

Review the official developer’s documentation. You can find the entire developer’s documentation on the new Topics API test here.

What Google is saying. Google states that this initial test is to validate that their systems are operating as designed, and no revenue or performance impact is expected. But advertisers who prefer not to be included in the initial test can opt-out using Chrome’s Permissions-policy header. 

Source: Google Chrome’s Topics API test going public July 1

Yandex CEO and founder resigns following sanctions

Arkady Volozh, Yandex’s CEO and executive director, resigned from his position, the company announced today.

The European Union imposed sanctions on Volozh personally. Yandex has not been sanctioned by the EU, U.S., or UK. Volozh had a 45.3% voting and 8.6% economic interest in Yandex.

Why we care. Yandex is generally regarded as Russia’s Google, even though Yandex pre-dates Google (Yandex launched in 1997). Yandex’s share of the Russian search market is estimated to be at 48%, behind Google’s 49%, according to StatCounter – but Yandex says it owns 61% of the search market. So this development, as well as others below, mean it’s worth keeping an eye on the state of the company if you work on any sites that rely on Yandex organic traffic.

What Volozh said. “While I consider this decision to be misguided and ultimately counterproductive, I do not intend to give any instructions to my family trust as long as sanctions are in place. During this time the trust will vote in line with the recommendations of the Board. While I will continue to support the team wherever possible, this decision is in the best interests of the company and its stakeholders.”

Go deeper. On March 22, Wired published Is Russia’s Largest Tech Company Too Big to Fail? The article details how everything Volzh helped build over 20 years began crumbling in 20 days.

Source: Yandex CEO and founder resigns following sanctions

How Do I Structure A Global Site With Country-Specific Content?

While international-based websites might be confusing and expensive to implement, you generally have the freedom to go about it however you feel best.

Occam’s Razor applies more than we like to think when it comes to SEO.

So yes, to answer your question, I think that’s the simplest approach, though it depends on the type of content you produce.

For example, suppose you’re uploading international news stories in English that will be read across the globe.

In that case, having a generic top-level domain (gTLD) will be the best route with subdirectories for each separate country you wish to target.

However, if you want to create localized content and appeal to specific audiences in different countries, then there are perks to using ccTLDs and subdomains, which I think warrant discussion.

Which URL Structure Is Right For Me?

Ultimately, I think two options will best suit your website, so the choice is up to you of which you think is best for your news organization.

gTLDs With Country-Specific Subdirectories

If you use a blend of international and localized content, investing in a top-level domain with subdirectories for different countries would be the easiest option.

Each country-specific landing page could have its own unique landing page with limited navigation that deals with specific content to that country, such as .com/au or .com/uk.

The benefits of this approach are that it’s incredibly easy to set up, and all domain authority will be shared across your entire website. Additionally, you could have the same team managing your local and broad-focused content.

Localizing Content With Subdomains

On the other hand, if your primary focus is on localized content, and that’s where you want to dive in, then hosting regional webpages on subdomains may be a good option.

Ideally, you would have a broad gTLD with international-based content for your parent brand.

Then, you could create subdomains for specific countries that appeal to that demographic audience.

Extra Considerations

Language vs. Geotargeting

Now, a lot of what we’ve discussed so far primarily focuses on geotargeting for specific countries/regions.

However, what happens if these countries have a large population of multi-lingual speakers? How do we optimize for that?

For example, what if you’re writing international news stories in English but want to create the same article in Spanish and feature it on your homepage?

Whether using a subdomain or gTLD, you can implement hreflang tags to help you create multilingual content for both broad and local topics.

A basic hreflang tag is an HTML tag, such as <html lang=”en”> and signifies that the web page is written in a specific language to search engines.

Keyword Research

Clearly, your website will not encompass every country and language.

So, before you spend dozens of hours setting up a new subdomain, implementing hreflang tags, and hiring multilingual content creators, you need to research and determine which countries are worth targeting.

International keyword research is a great strategy to discover which markets will have the most engagement with your website. For example, Semrush provides tools that allow me to filter keyword trends and results by country in English:

Content And Translation

Finally, if your website focuses on regional content, you’ll need to invest in local content creators to provide visitors with an authentic news experience.

Hire translators and avoid using translator tools as much as possible. Furthermore, try to make your subdomain or subdirectory as unique to that country as possible.

Source: How Do I Structure A Global Site With Country-Specific Content?

InstaWP Gets Seed Funding From Automattic

InstaWP has received an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Automattic. The service launched in July 2021 as a quick way to set up testing or disposable WordPress sites and users frequently commented on the remarkable speed of the tool, which spins up a site in less than a second.

Founder Vikas Singhal said the investment gives Automattic a percentage of future equity under a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) arrangement. In order to receive the investment, Singhal was required to register InstaWP Inc. as an independent US-based organization.

“InstaWP has a vision of making it easy to get started with WordPress,” Singhal said.

“Initially I thought InstaWP was just a disposable WP tool but fast forward eight months, it’s much more than that. It’s a workflow tool now, which makes working with WP 10x easier.”

InstaWP provided an Agency plan for LearnWP to use during Social Learning Spaces, Calls for Testing, and similar uses. The fact that it’s being used in WordPress education, where some users are brand new to the platform, speaks to how user-friendly it is to fire up a new WordPress testing site.

Source: InstaWP Gets Seed Funding From Automattic

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