How to build a long-term, search-first marketing strategy

“There are roughly three and a half billion Google searches made every day,” said Craig Dunham, CEO of enterprise SEO platform Deepcrawl, at our recent MarTech conference. “According to research from Moz, 84% of people use Google at least three times a day, and about half of all product searches start with Google. The way that consumers are engaging with brands is changing, and it’s doing so rapidly.”

He added, “Consumers begin their journey with the tool that many of us use hundreds of times a day. Thus, the connection to revenue becomes clear — it starts with search.”

The concept of digital transformation has been around for years, but it’s taken a whole new form in the wake of recent societal shifts. New technologies and the 2020 pandemic have led to a “greater focus on the need to drive optimal digital experiences for our customers,” says Dunham.

A brand’s website is often the first, and most lasting, impression customers will have of your organization. Here are some strategic actions he recommends marketers take to ensure their online properties are optimized for the search-first age.

Read more: How to build a long-term, search-first marketing strategy

How to earn customer trust with inclusive marketing

“Every day we are learning more and more about the importance of representation in products and experiences,” said Kelli Kemery, lead market researcher at Microsoft, in her presentation at SMX Next. “Inclusive marketing helps your brand connect authentically with customers to drive, love, loyalty, and trust.”

While many companies once saw inclusivity as an optional addition to their marketing campaigns, it’s become clear that customers want it in the center of brand interactions. And for good reason – embracing inclusive marketing practices helps brands reach those they’ve left out.

“Inclusive marketing invites underrepresented and marginalized people to experience and connect authentically with your brand,” Kemery said. “It elevates diverse voices and stories, questions assumptions and biases, and avoids stereotypes.”

Inclusion is a “modern marketing imperative,” she says, and brands that fail to embrace inclusive marketing will find themselves left behind as these trends continue. Here are four actions Kemery recommends marketers take to instill inclusive practices within their campaigns.

Drive purchase intent with inclusive advertising

Kemery pointed to some testing she did to determine if inclusive advertising increased buying intent. Through this research, her team discovered how much intent is directly driven by inclusive elements.

Create an inclusive keyword strategy

Inclusivity should apply to the keywords brands use as well. These are the terms audiences — marginalized groups in particular — are using to find brands they trust.

Develop an inclusive image strategy

“Authentic representation in advertising is important. The images that you choose matter,” Kemery said. “In our research, we found out that there is a strong tie between trust, love and loyalty. Once trust is established as a baseline, a brand can begin to build love and loyalty.

“To do this, the brand must go the extra mile to make someone feel understood through inclusion, and that means authentic imagery,” she added.

Practice inclusive audience targeting

“Through the customer research that you conduct to better understand your customers’ values and investigate inclusive keyword strategies, the goal is to uncover audiences that you may have overlooked,” said Kemery. “It is imperative to understand audience insights from any of the platforms that you utilize.”

“You can use these insights to find ways to authentically market to unique audiences who index higher for attributes such as valuing contributing to the community, and individuals who often look for brands that engage in their communities as well,” she added.

Read more: How to earn customer trust with inclusive marketing

Google Business Profiles sets waiting period for new owners and managers

Google updated its Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business, to help documents to say that when you add a new owner or manager to a business profile, those new users may have to wait seven days prior to being able to manage all the features of the profile.

New limits. These new limits are documented over here but I found them via Ben Fisher’s blog, where it says.

When a new owner or manager is added to an existing Business Profile, they must wait for 7 days before they can manage all the features of the profile. During this 7 day period, the new owner or manager gets an error if they try any of the following:

• Delete or undelete a profile.
• Remove other owners or managers from a profile.
• Transfer primary ownership of a profile to themselves or a third user.
• An existing owner or manager tries to transfer primary ownership of the profile to a new owner or manager still in their first 7 days.

If the new owner or manager deletes their account within the first 7 days, they’re removed from the profile. If they undelete their account, they must be added to the profile again.

Read more: Google Business Profiles sets waiting period for new owners and managers

E-commerce sales jumped this holiday season as search marketers weathered Google updates

U.S. consumers spent $204.5 billion on e-commerce purchases during the holiday season, according to data from Adobe. This represented an 8.6% increase in online spending year-over-year.

The numbers show that e-commerce spenders spread out their shopping more over the months of November and December. For instance, in the weeks before Nov 24, spending was up a whopping 19.2% YoY, while in the period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday – the so-called “Cyber Week”), spending was down 1.4% from the previous year. Sales were up again in the weeks after Nov 30, growing 5.6% YoY.

Undeterred by supply chain challenges. Disruptions to the supply chain created difficulties for shoppers even though they spent at record volume.

Online shoppers saw over 6 billion out-of-stock messages during the 2021 holidays, according to the Adobe study. This was 253% higher than 2019, in pre-pandemic times. It was also 10% higher than last year.

Read more: E-commerce sales jumped this holiday season as search marketers weathered Google updates

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Meta will remove targeting options for sensitive topics on January 19

IndexNow Enables Data Sharing Between Search Engines

Microsoft is making the IndexNow protocol easier to implement by ensuring submitted URLs are simultaneously shared between search engines.

IndexNow launched in October 2021 as solution to help websites get their content indexed and updated in search engines faster.

The IndexNow protocol ensures that all URLs submitted to any IndexNow-enabled search engine immediately get submitted to all other similar search engines.

That means webmasters just need to notify one API endpoint, as all URLs will be co-shared to every search engine that supports the IndexNow protocol.

In addition to saving time and effort for content publishers, this assists search engines in their content discovery efforts, which makes the web more efficient as a whole.

Microsoft Bing has already started sharing URLs from IndexNow with Yandex and vice-versa, and other search engines will follow suit after setting up the required infrastructure.

All search engines adopting the IndexNow protocol agree that submitted URLs will be automatically shared with all other participating search engines.

Source: IndexNow Enables Data Sharing Between Search Engines

Yoast SEO 17.9 adds keyphrase performance tracking

Yoast SEO added keyword phrase performance tracking to Yoast SEO 17.9, in partnership Wincher, the company announced. This lets those who use Yoast SEO to better understand how your posts are ranking over time in Google Search.

Wincher tool. The Wincher SEO tool is a tool that helps you track your keywords and positions over time. Here is what it looks like when you activate it in Yoast SEO:

Free and paid. This integration works with both Yoast SEO free and Yoast SEO Premium versions. The free version lets you track up to a total of 5 keywords for your entire site while the premium Wincher account lets you track up to 500 to 10,000 keywords depending on the plan you are on.

Source: Yoast SEO 17.9 adds keyphrase performance tracking

LinkedIn Virtual Event Attendance Up 231%

LinkedIn reports attendance for its virtual live events are up 231% year-over-year. Building on this success, LinkedIn is launching audio-only live events.

The increase in attendance correlates with an increase in the number of virtual live events on LinkedIn, as 150% more events were created year-over-year.

That number is likely continue going up with LinkedIn adding the ability to create audio-only live events.

Audio live events will allow attendees to actively participate in the conversation, rather than just being part of the audience.

In an announcement, LinkedIn states:

“This month, we’re taking a big step forward and building on the success of LinkedIn Live broadcasts by launching an entirely new interactive events experience that allows our members to more actively participate in the conversation.

Being an active part of the conversation at an event can help you make new connections, bolster your professional brand and inspire peers. In our new experience, you can participate in the live conversation by raising your hand and joining the speakers, “on stage” to help direct and add to the discussion.”

See below for an example of the user interface for LinkedIn audio events:

Audio events will first launch as a beta test with a few thousand users hosting events across a variety of topics and themes.

While the ability to host audio events will be limited during the testing period, all LinkedIn members have the option to tune in and participate.

Hosting capabilities will be expanded to more users in the coming months. LinkedIn plans to launch interactive video events later this spring.

Source: LinkedIn Virtual Event Attendance Up 231%

DuckDuckGo passes 100 billion searches

uckDuckGo, the privacy focused search engine, announced it has surpassed 100 billion searches – all time. It posted this announcement on Twitter.

100 billion searches. Here is the announcement on Twitter:

A year ago, the search company announced it was hitting over a 100 million searches per day. Now if you look at its public traffic statistics page, it shows all time searches passed 100,024,437,307 and the highest daily number of queries it saw to date was 110,439,133, that record was this past Monday. DuckDuckGo continues to grow on a daily basis.

Source: DuckDuckGo passes 100 billion searches

When it comes to prioritizing digital experiences, it’s either now or never

The world’s leading brands know the importance of using the right martech infrastructure to drive revenue growth. And with 80% of consumers now saying they expect brands to have a consistent message and appearance across their digital platforms, having the right digital experience is becoming table stakes. So what can your brand take away from these industry leaders?

Join customer experience and martech experts from Acquia who share real-world case studies from leading retailers who exemplify the advantages of using open source martech to prioritize customers’ digital experience and drive multi-channel sales.

Source: When it comes to prioritizing digital experiences, it’s either now or never

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Shopify SEO Gets Easier With Yoast App

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Google Ads releases disapproved ads auditor tool

Google has released a disapproved ads auditor tool for Google Ads that flags and can delete policy-violating ads across your accounts. To integrate this into your software you need to have skills in Python, BigQuery API, Google Ads API, and OAuth 2.0.

What it does. The disapproved ads auditor tool “enables advertisers to review at scale all disapproved ads across their Google Ads accounts,” the company said. This view allows advertisers to proactively audit their accounts, analyze the ad disapprovals holistically and identify learnings to minimize and reduce the submission of potentially policy-violating ads, the company added.

You can run the tool in two two Python modes:

• “Audit Mode”- export an output of disapproved ads across your accounts
• “Remove Mode” – delete currently disapproved ads and log details.

Github. You can view the implementation details on Github, but keep in mind, it is estimated to take about two hours to implement this solution into your systems.

This can help those who manage a lot of accounts or a lot of ads an easier way to stay on top of and scale management of disapproved ads in Google ads. Google said “advertisers operating at scale need a solution to holistically review policy-violating ads across their accounts so they can ensure compliance with Google’s Ad Policies. As Google introduces more policies and enforcement mechanisms, advertisers need to continue checking their accounts to ensure they comply with Google’s Ads Policies.“

Read more: Google Ads releases disapproved ads auditor tool

3 ways to check technical SEO health issues on your website

No matter how great your content is, your website’s ranking and traffic will suffer if there are unresolved technical issues. That’s why SEOs need to routinely check the health of their properties.

“Technical SEO needs to be aware of and support all functions of the business that have anything to do with the website,” said Ashley Berman Hale, VP, professional services at Deepcrawl, during her session at SMX Next. “We are nothing if we don’t have the support, the buy-in, and the understanding of the challenges of our colleagues and what they need.”

This need to be aware of other digital business functions highlights technical SEO’s importance in organizations. Without solid technical practices in place, other parts of the website will experience issues, which could affect your bottom line.

“You have to have a return on your investment,” she said. “It has to be sustainable — you have to be able to grow in a way that allows you to not just manage tech debt, but to innovate and become best in class. That’s what you need to succeed in organic search.”

Taking control of your website means pinpointing the most pressing technical issues. Here are three ways Hale recommends marketers check their site’s SEO health.

Read more: 3 ways to check technical SEO health issues on your website

SEO software tools: What marketers need to know

Search Engine Optimization remains the stalwart mainstay of digital marketing, with search driving around 50% of website traffic on average, according to an analysis of SimilarWeb data by Growth Badger. But the practice of SEO has become more complex and it involves more considerations than SEOs enjoyed in the “ten blue links” era.

Today, SEO includes everything from content marketing and distribution to user experience, and even the core job of gathering and interpreting search intelligence has become more challenging as the search engines continually
change their display of results and port them over to other media like voice assistants. This doesn’t mean that the well-established SEO best practices should be cast aside, however. Keyword research, page-level analysis, backlink tracking and acquisition, and rank tracking are still of critical importance, even as the environment continues to change.

SEO platforms offer numerous capabilities that range from keyword research and rank-checking to backlink analysis and acquisition, as well as competitive intelligence, social signal integration, and workflow rights and roles.

Enterprise-level platforms may also provide a more extensive link and site audits or analytics that include predictive scoring systems to identify potential opportunities to improve page performance or link authority. Vendors differentiate by offering more frequent or detailed data updates or content marketing features that sometimes require additional investment.

Read more: SEO software tools: What marketers need to know

Many SEOs Will Buy Links In 2022 Despite Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

Tim Soulo from ahrefs posted a Twitter poll asking will you pay money to get links in 2022? Sadly, someone spammed the poll but I recreated it and it clearly shows that many, almost half of SEOs, are planning on buying and paying for links in 2022.

With 770 results, if you remove the see results option, you see about 53% say they will not pay for links in 2022 but 47% said they will pay for links in 2022.

This is despite Google having a specific guideline against paid links saying “Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”

Also, in 2017, Gary Illyes from Google said that buying links is like throwing money out of the window.

Does this surprise you at all?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Read more: Many SEOs Will Buy Links In 2022 Despite Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

Google: Keyword Density Still Not An SEO Search Ranking Factor

So it is now 2022 and some folks are asking if keyword density is an SEO Google search ranking factor. The answer is still no, according to John Mueller, a Search Advocate at Google.

This came up on Reddit just days before the end of the 2021 year. The question posted was “in your opinion, is keyword density still a SEO factor in 2021?” John Mueller responded to that saying “no.” Yes, that is all he said – no.

John has been saying this for about a decade, maybe longer.

Keyword density as an SEO topic is older than Google and it is one of those topics that will likely never die.

Oh, if you do not know what keyword density is, according to Wikipedia “keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. In the context of search engine optimization, keyword density can be used to determine whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.”

Read more: Google: Keyword Density Still Not An SEO Search Ranking Factor

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4 New Twitter Updates Including Video Replies & More

Twitter introduces new features such as video reactions, a new way to compose tweets, and more.

Four updates have rolled out to Twitter this week, which include new ways to react to tweets, new ways to compose tweets, and more.

Many of these features are in the testing stage, though if they prove to be successful they will likely be rolled out more widely.

The new features include:

• Tweet reaction videos
• A new composer bar
• A topics tag bar
• An easier way to share Twitter Communities with others

1. Tweet Reaction Videos
   Twitter is testing tweet reaction videos on iOS.

Officially referred to as “Tweet Takes,” these reactions can be used as an alternatives to quote tweeting.

The feature feels like it’s directly inspired by TikTok’s video replies, which function the exact same way.

Tweet Takes are rolling out on iOS in a test that gives users the option to create a video or photo when quoting a tweet.

Traditional quote tweets are still available as an option as well.

2. New Tweet Composer Bar
   Twitter is rolling out another test on iOS that makes it easier to Tweet by giving you easy in-line access with a new composer bar.

The new tweet composer bar appears directly above the bottom navigation menu and replaces the big, blue button with the plus-sign that was previously used to compose tweets.

3. Topics Tag Bar
   As spotted by Matt Navarra, Twitter is working on a topics tag bar on iOS.

Presumably, this will allow people to jump directly to topics that interest them most.

4. Share Communities With Followers
   Twitter is introducing a way to share communities with followers on iOS in effort to get more people to join them.

Navigate to the community page in the Twitter app and tap the share. From there you can share it with a wider audience or invite individuals directly.

Source: 4 New Twitter Updates Including Video Replies & More

Google AdSense related search experiments re-enabled

Google has announced that it has re-enabled the AdSense related search experiments. Google said as of January 6, 2022 AdSense publishers can once again create Related search Custom search style experiments in your AdSense account.

Paused for 8-months. Google actually originally announced the company was just pausing the related search experiments for a couple of months. Well, that lingered on for a total of eight-months and now over eight-months later, Google has unpaused this feature.

Where to access. You should be able to see this option under the “optimization” section and within the “experiments” tab in the AdSense console.

Why we care. If you missed using the related search experiments feature for your AdSense ads on your site, you can now re-enable it. It might be worth testing the feature if you have not done so for a while.

Source: Google AdSense related search experiments re-enabled

WordPress Core Vulnerabilities Hits Millions of Sites

WordPress announced it has patched four vulnerabilities that are rated as high as 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. The vulnerabilities are in the WordPress core itself and are due to flaws introduced by the WordPress development team itself.

Four WordPress Vulnerabilities

The WordPress announcement was short of details of how severe the vulnerabilities were and the details were scant.

However the United States Government National Vulnerability Database where vulnerabilities are logged and publicized rated the vulnerabilities as high as 8.0 on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten representing the highest danger level.

1. SQL injection due to lack of data sanitization in WP_Meta_Query (severity level rated high, 7.4)
2. Authenticated Object Injection in Multisites (severity level rated medium 6.6)
3. Stored Cross Site Scripting (XSS) through authenticated users (severity level rated high, 8.0)
4. SQL Injection through WP_Query due to improper sanitization (severity level rated high, 8.0)

WordPress Development Rushed in a Dangerous Way?

WordPress development slowed down in 2021 because they were unable to finish work on the latest release, 5.9, which saw that version of WordPress pushed back to later in 2022.

There has been talk within WordPress of slowing down the pace of development because of concern for the ability to keep up.

The WordPress core developers themselves raised the alarm in late 2021 about the pace of development, pleading for more time.

Data Sanitization Problems in WordPress

Data sanitization is way to control what kind of information gets through inputs and into the database. The database is what holds information about the site, including passwords, usernames, user information, content and other information that is necessary for the site to function.

The documentation states that WordPress provides built-in helper functions to protect against malicious inputs and that the use of these helper functions requires minimal effort.

WordPress anticipates sixteen kinds of input vulnerabilities and provides solutions to block them.

So it’s surprising that the input sanitization issues should still appear in the very core of WordPress itself.

WordPress Recommends Updating Right Away

Because the vulnerabilities are now in the open it is important that WordPress users make sure their WordPress installation is updated to the latest version, currently 5.8.3.

Source: WordPress Core Vulnerabilities Hits Millions of Sites

Google Ads to allow ads for sport betting in New York

New York state will begin allowing mobile or online sports bets to be placed beginning Saturday, January 8, 2022. With that Google has updated its Google Ads gambling policy to allow ads for sports betting from certified and state-licensed entities in New York State. This was confirmed by the New York State Gaming Commission yesterday and it goes into effect tomorrow at 9am local time.

The announcement. Google posted the announcement saying “in January 2022, the Google Ads Gambling and games policy United States country-specifics will be updated. We will begin to accept and run ads for sports betting from certified, state-licensed entities in New York from January 8.”

Google added “aAdvertisers must apply for certification” and “application for certification will be open to advertisers who wish to promote online gambling content in this region on January 7, 2022.”

Google wont update the policy until tomorrow but it will be updated tomorrow. Google wrote “the Gambling and games policy page will be updated when the policy goes into effect.”

Source: Google Ads to allow ads for sport betting in New York

Yoast brings WordPress Features in Shopify SEO

Yoast will make optimization of product pages and blogs for Shopify SEO easy. It will include features similar to the WordPress plugin. Shopify SEO will be officially launched on January 18th of this year.

It will come in 27 different languages and will offer a 14-day free trial. Yoast will also charge $29 per month after the free trial.

The introduction of Shopify SEO will help in optimizing the post as per the desired keyword. Yoast also offers a lot of keyphrases and synonyms to help users write authentically.

Sellers will create SEO-friendly product pages and blogs to support their merchandise. It will let them see the readability analysis. It also helps in understanding where the contents need improvement.

Shopify SEO offers features to preview how the product and post will look on Google. It adds structured data for the browser to understand what the website is all about. Also, it will offer seven courses and accompanying quizzes to the paid users.

However, it tends to provide customer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If it interests you to learn more about the app, you can attend YoastCon. It will be on January 20, 2022.

Source: Yoast brings WordPress Features in Shopify SEO

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Apple Maps: What a maps web snapshot can do for your online content

Apple recently announced Maps Web Snapshots, a new static map product. Maps Web Snapshots allow users to create a static map image from a URL that can be used any time an interactive map is not necessary or JavaScript is unavailable. The map image pulls from a URL, making it a fantastic option for web pages and email clients alike.

How it works.  Maps Web Snapshots allow you to visually share points of interest and location details simply by loading a URL. The maps share chosen data points and details, including business locations, geographic boundaries, routing information, and parameters, which can be customized to display different overlay styles, color schemes, and map types, allowing you to choose what information your audience sees and how it appears on their screen. All you need is an Apple Developer account, MapKitJS key information, and a domain to refer the Snapshot from. Once you set up the appropriate credentials, you can utilize Snapshots Studio to build your Maps Web Snapshot.

Unlike Apples Core Maps product, these maps are static and do not offer interactive features, making them perfect for situations where JavaScript is not available.

What it looks like. If you’ve ever used DuckDuckGo, you’ve likely seen Maps Web Snapshots in action.

Apple provides the basic map layout for developers to use as a starting point. They can then add parameters to modify the map display based on the user’s light or dark mode display, in addition to choosing the type of map displayed using the Snapshot Studio tool. Once a location is chosen for the center point of the map, parameters such as map size, language, map or satellite view, color, and marker style can be customized.

Read more: Apple Maps: What a maps web snapshot can do for your online content

Google Ads error tells advertisers exact match keywords are saving as broad match

Search marketers entering exact match keywords may see an alert towards the bottom of their Google Ads interface stating, “Broad match keywords are on. Keywords will be saved as broad match.” This message is an error and has no impact on how keywords are saved, Ginny Marvin, ads product liaison at Google, has confirmed.

Tip of the hat to Drew Cannon for bringing this to our attention.

Google is working to remove the incorrect message. “This message is an error that we are working to remove,” Marvin said on Twitter, “The message was intended for a potential opt-in experiment, but it has no impact on how keywords are saved or the traffic to which these keywords match. Our apologies for the confusion.”

Read more: Google Ads error tells advertisers exact match keywords are saving as broad match

Search incrementality: How paid and organic work together for better performance

“When people tell me they can pause SEM and be fine with their performance on the holistic level on their site with just the organic listings, how do I react?” Jonathan Kagan, VP of search at 9Rooftops said at SMX Next, “First of all, no, absolutely not — unless your name is eBay, which is one of the few brands that have proven that they can do it without that, it’s not going to work for you.”

When the assumption is that your organic rankings are strong enough to keep traffic stable, some brands may be tempted to cut back on paid campaigns to save money. As Kagan mentioned, that can be true for brands that are household names, but for most queries, the search results page will show a variety of domains and paid search ads can increase the amount of real estate a brand takes up on the page.

“So, it’s essentially the concept of if you see it enough times, you’re more likely to go to one [brand] than the other,” he explained. To help brands better understand what’s driving their search marketing, Kagan shared a case study about search incrementality and the steps he uses to evaluate the impact of paid campaigns working in tandem with organic efforts.

For brands that don’t see a significant decrease in their important business metrics after pausing paid campaigns, it may be worthwhile to scale back and let organic do the heavy lifting. However, that’s just simply not the case for the majority of businesses, “So there is a definite need to run organic and SEM in conjunction together for a degree of incrementality and a degree of protection,” Kagan said.

Read more: Search incrementality: How paid and organic work together for better performance

How customer reviews can improve your SEO efforts

Customer reviews aren’t just trust signals for your customers — they can also provide potential SEO ranking boosts when used effectively.

“They [reviews] build trust in your brand,” said Kyra Sammis, customer success manager at Trustpilot, during her session at SMX Next. “Reviews are an opportunity for anyone familiar with your brand to publicly share what they love about your products, services, and customer experience. Having reviews publicly available conveys that you’re safe to do business with.”

Featuring reviews — even if they’re bad reviews — is vital for brands wanting to build customer trust in today’s competitive SEO landscape. And with 53% of all trackable website traffic coming from organic search, marketers would be wise to capture some of that share with customer reviews.

“Reviews are a powerful marketing engine in their own right — they’re a way to build trust in your brand,” she said. “You can turn that brand trust into measurable ROI through increased web traffic sales and revenue.”

Reviewing the ultra-specific, long-tail keywords your customers use when searching for your products, services or brand is key to capturing your niche’s audience. But marketers can also leverage the queries used in company reviews, which are highly relevant and amplify customer voices.

“Long-tail keywords get less search traffic, but will usually have a higher conversion value as they are more specific,” Sammis said. “Thinking of every possible descriptor, use case or problem your product solves can be difficult, to say the least. Thankfully, product reviews let your customers become the copywriters, enabling them to share their own unique experience with your products in their own words.”

Read more: How customer reviews can improve your SEO efforts

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Shopify SEO Gets Easier With Yoast App

Optimizing Shopify product pages and blogs gets easier with Yoast SEO, which launches this month and offers the same features as the popular WordPress plugin.

Slated to launch on January 18, Yoast SEO for Shopify will be available in 27 languages and come with a 14 day free trial.

After the trial period, Yoast SEO for Shopify will charge a subscription fee of $29 per month.

If you’re familiar with Yoast SEO for WordPress, which has over 5 million active installations, you’ll know exactly what to do with the Shopify app.

Here’s a rundown of key features:

• SEO analysis: Helps with optimizing your posts for desired keyphrases. Yoast’s understanding of related keyphrases and synonyms helps you write naturally.
• Readability analysis: Create SEO-friendly product pages and blogs with real-time readability analysis that shows show how and where your content can be improved.
• Automatic structured data: Yoast SEO automatically adds important structured data that helps Google understand what your website is about.
• Social media previews: In addition to visualizing what your products and posts look like on Google, you can see how they’ll look when they get shared on social media.

Why Shopify?

If you’re familiar with Yoast as a company, you may be aware that it has only supported open-source platforms.

That may lead you to wonder why Yoast is suddenly supporting Shopify, which is closed source.

Yoast addressed that question in an announcement, noting the obvious that this allows the company to sell its product to more people.

But there’s more to it than that, as Shopify creates opportunities for small businesses to sell products directly to consumers, rather than going through a third party.

What About WordPress?

Yoast SEO for WordPress isn’t going anywhere and will continue to receive the same level of support.

The company affirms it remains committed to “Five For The Future,” which is an initiative where companies pledge 5% of their resources to the WordPress project.

Source: Shopify SEO Gets Easier With Yoast App

The ultimate social media guide to building your brand in 2022

Marketers can’t argue the effectiveness of social marketing or the need to cultivate a social presence to connect with their audience. The struggle is keeping pace with the constant changes of the social landscape and its relation to your brand’s health. This is more important than ever in light of the past 22 months of the pandemic.

Join experts from NetBase Quid as they share insights from their State of Social 2022 report, including the biggest trends in social media that are shifting brand priorities and where the golden opportunities are for brands to connect meaningfully with targeted audiences.

Register today for “The Ultimate Social Media Guide to Building Your Brand in 2022,” presented by NetBase Quid.

Source: The ultimate social media guide to building your brand in 2022

Best Buy to sell search ads under its own in-house media company

Best Buy has launched Best Buy Ads, its own in-house media company, the consumer electronics retailer announced Tuesday. Best Buy Ads offers paid search ads and sponsored product listings on Best Buy’s website, among other ad offerings.

E-commerce’s explosive growth over the last two years has been accompanied by growth in digital commerce advertising as well. Best Buy Ads offers a marketplace that brands can use to get their offerings in front of customers, providing them with another Google alternative (even though it’s an alternative with a much smaller, more focused audience) as well as a new channel with which to engage customers during the discovery stage. 

“We interact with our customers three billion times a year — in our stores, in their homes, and online,” the company touted in the announcement. Those interactions can provide meaningful data to target customers for brands that sell products at Best Buy or simply offer complementary products.

Source: Best Buy to sell search ads under its own in-house media company

Microsoft releases IndexNow plugin for WordPress

Microsoft Bing has published a new WordPress plugin that makes it easy to integrate your WordPress blog and site with the IndexNow protocol. The plugin was released over the holidays and is available over here in the WordPress plugin directory.

What is it. The WordPress IndexNow plugin enables automated submission of URLs from WordPress sites to the multiple search engines without the need to register and verify your site with them. Once installed, the plugin will automatically generate and host the API key on your site. It detects page creation/update/ deletion in WordPress and automatically submits the URLs in the background. This ensures that search engines will always have the latest updates about your site, Microsoft wrote.

What is IndexNow. IndexNow provides a method for websites owners to instantly inform search engines about latest content changes on their website. IndexNow is a simple ping protocol so that search engines know that a URL and its content has been added, updated, or deleted, allowing search engines to quickly reflect this change in their search results.

Currently both Microsoft Bing and Yandex have adopted the protocol, but Google is supposedly testing it out as well. IndexNow is used on over 60,000 sites that use CloudFlare.

How it works. The protocol is very simple — all you need to do is create a key on your server, and then post a URL to the search engine to notify IndexNow-participating search engines of the change. The steps include:

1. Generate a key supported by the protocol using the online key generation tool.
2. Host the key in text file named with the value of the key at the root of your web site.
3. Start submitting URLs when your URLs are added, updated, or deleted. You can submit one URL or a set of URLs per API call.

The WordPress plugin makes this easier and you don’t have to go through all these steps to set it up.

How to install. To install the IndexNow WordPress plugin, follow these steps:

• Log in to WordPress admin panel for your WordPress site. Click on ‘Plugins > Add New’.
• Search for ‘IndexNow Plugin’ and install.
• Once installed, click on ‘Activate’ to enable plugin.
• Go to IndexNow admin page and click ‘Let’s Get Started!’

Source: Microsoft releases IndexNow plugin for WordPress

Google fixes user and permissions issue with Search Console

In November, Google’s Caio Barros posted a notice in the help forums that there was “a problem” in Google Search Console’s user interface where “Full Users” see their status as “Delegated Owners” within the settings ownership verification section of Search Console. Well, Caio Barros confirmed this is now fixed, a couple months later.

The issue. The issue was that when you went to the ownership verification section in your Search Console settings, you would see your status as “Delegated Owner.” But you would not be able to see the “Users and Permissions” option on your account. That means you were likely a Full User and not a Delegated Owner, but Search Console didn’t show that.

Now resolved. This issue is now resolved, Caio Barros wrote yesterday “this issue should be fixed now.” He said “if you are a Full user but don’t have ownership (i.e., don’t have permission to add and remove users), you’ll see a message like this,” which says you are “not a verified owner.” Caio said this new message makes it super clear and unambiguous.

Now, if you really are an owner and wish to delegate ownership to another user, you can now go directly into the user management settings in Search Console and set the user permission to “Owner.” Then the user will see their ownership verification as delegated owner. They are still not a verified owner, but can manage users and permissions,” Caio explained.

Source: Google fixes user and permissions issue with Search Console

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Meta will remove targeting options for sensitive topics on January 19

Meta will remove certain targeting options relating to sensitive topics on January 19, 2022. “Health causes,” “sexual orientation,” “religious practices and groups,” and “political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and figures,” were among the examples of targeting options slated for deprecation.

Sensitive targeting options. “We will be removing some Detailed Targeting options because they relate to topics people may perceive as sensitive, such as targeting options relating to causes, organizations, or public figures that relate to health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, or sexual orientation,” Meta said in the announcement. The company provided the following examples of targeting options that will be removed:

• Health causes (e.g., “Lung cancer awareness”, “World Diabetes Day”, “Chemotherapy”).
• Sexual orientation (e.g., “same-sex marriage” and “LGBT culture”).
• Religious practices and groups (e.g., “Catholic Church” and “Jewish holidays”).
• Political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations and figures.

Campaigns can continue to deliver to impacted targeting options until March 17, 2022, “in the vast majority of cases,” Meta said. Until March 17, advertisers will be able to make most edits at the campaign level without affecting targeting. However, some changes at the ad set level may update your target audience (for example, changes to placements, targeting options, etc).

After March 17, edits for impacted campaigns will not be possible at the campaign, ad set, or ad level.

Meta will also remove redundant targeting options. The company will also remove targeting options that haven’t been widely adopted, citing that they may be redundant with other options or be too granular, although it did not specify which options. Meta has done this before in previous updates as well.

Read more: Meta will remove targeting options for sensitive topics on January 19

4 ways data analysis can help you generate new ideas and optimize your content

Generating new content ideas can become quite difficult as a brand blog or publication matures. While many search marketers already use keyword tools to identify what kind of content their audience is looking for, taking that process a step further by using tools to analyze what users are asking, along with your competitors’ content, can help you unlock fresh topics.

At SMX Next, Ashley Segura, co-founder of TopHatContent, shared how she uses data analysis to generate content topics, uncover ways to improve existing content, and identify the factors behind why your competitors may be outranking you so that you can close the gap.

Perform a content gap analysis

“This is going to show you where your current content is really missing the mark and you do this through looking at a competitor,” Segura said. While there are many ways to perform this, with various tools, Segura used Semrush’s keyword gap tool in her examples.

To start, marketers should put three to five different competitors into the keyword/content gap tool of their choice to see what their competitors are ranking for that they could also potentially be ranking for as well, or to identify content that they’re currently missing out on.

Explore your content topics based on what users are asking

“It’s one thing to use the data to come up with topic ideas,” Segura said, “That’s a great place to start, but then you need to use the data to make sure you’re covering everything there is to know about that topic.”

Using a topic research tool (Segura used Semrush’s tool for her examples), marketers can identify angles they can use to approach the content.

The topic research tool will populate cards with similar keywords that have to do with your topic. In the case of Semrush’s tool, the “Questions” section of the card shows what users are asking with regard to the keyword in question.

Perform a competitor content analysis

A competitor content analysis can help you go beyond what’s on their pages to explain their content success.

Use data to structure your content

Keyword analysis tools can also be used to bolster your content by helping you identify topics that your audience may be asking about. Sometimes these topics can be their own standalone article, but when they’re not quite dense enough, you can create headings within your related content to address them, Segura recommended.

Read more: 4 ways data analysis can help you generate new ideas and optimize your content

Google: Quality Of Your Languages On Your Multilingual Site Can Impact Each Other

Google’s John Mueller confirmed on the December 31st SEO hangout that if you have multiple versions of your site (on the same domain name), and one version is deemed high quality by Google and the other version is deemed low quality by Google – the low-quality version can negatively impact the high-quality version. And yes, we should all know by now that quality is at the site level and significant portions of your site can impact other portions of that same site.

This came up at the 6:52 mark where an SEO asked “do you consider the language quality of each language version on the same domain independently or can there be some sort of negative or bad neighborhood effect so that if one language version is of poor quality, all the other language versions on the same domain suffer as well?”

Read more: Google: Quality Of Your Languages On Your Multilingual Site Can Impact Each Other

Google: Site Duplicated With IP Address Won’t Lead To Your Site Being Removed From Search

Generally, Google will list a site in its search results with the domain name, not the IP address associated with the domain name. But if you see both and if your site is crawlable via the IP, it is not going to lead to your site being deindexed by Google, said John Mueller.

John said this in a Reddit thread where the user said “my IP address is being indexed for pages and actually ranking.” Truth is, that is not so uncommon – I see it a lot.

John Mueller of Google said, “having a duplicate via IP address is not great, but wouldn’t result in a site disappearing from Search.” He actually said something like this back in 2017.

John posted a very long response there about the site, saying his issues are likely not technical SEO-related at all. 

Read more: Google: Site Duplicated With IP Address Won’t Lead To Your Site Being Removed From Search

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Blackberry stops support for its classic smartphones

Before the dominance of iPhone and Android smartphones, BlackBerry used to dominate as a popular phone brand. Now the company’s power is slowly decreasing in the smartphone industry. Recently, the company has officially announced that it will stop supporting all its Classic smartphone models. This means that any users who were using the BlackBerry Classic smartphone today will no longer use it.

The company officially announced on Thursday that the company is now going to stop support on smartphones running BlackBerry OS, 7.1 OS, PlayBook OS 2.1 series, and BlackBerry 10. Additionally, the tech giant has warned its users that it will stop updating these software’s so that the carrier or Wi-Fi of these devices is still functional. Due to which maybe even basic functions like calls, cellular data, SMS, and emergency calls on these smartphones may stop reducing. The company will officially stop support for these models from January 4, 2022.

However, the company made it clear that its devices which work on Android. They will continue to receive support in the future. In a press release for non-Android device users, the company said that, as a reminder, we are notifying that some basic services such as BlackBerry OS, 7.1 OS, PlayBook OS 2.1 series, and BlackBerry 10 will cease to support any further. It is doing so that facilities like calls, SMS, emergency calls can be stopped through these devices.

Currently, OnwardMobility holds a license to manufacture BlackBerry devices. After the introduction of the iPhone, the market value of Blackberry dropped significantly, and eventually, the company lost its relevance.

When other brands such as Samsung switched to touchscreen smartphones to stay in the market, Blackberry decided to continue with its older smartphones, and by then, it was too late to make a comeback. If you are also using an Android Blackberry smartphone, then make sure to back up your phone’s data as soon as possible.

Source: Blackberry stops support for its classic smartphones

InMotion hosting server major hardware failure

InMotion hosting server experienced a major hardware downfall causing many sites to go offline. The host is surging to restore assistance

InMotion hosting underwent a major hardware downfall on Monday. The reason for the downfall was the RAID arrangement, which is the tough drive. The present situation is that they are restoring the servers with the latest backups.

The server failure seems to have just influenced one server, with the influenced server called ecbiz213. If your site is operating and up, then this outage cannot influence your website at all. InMotion is on Twitter dealing with consumer feedback. Nonetheless, some are noting that they have not obtained notes. It’s not impossible that they linked hosting email accounts to the down server.

InMotion today introduced their support page to report that they were apt to find more latest backups, which is positive news. That implies they will be apt to renew sites, hopefully to the extremely new versions. It is always a positive idea to retain a backup on hand for specifically this cause. While a web keeper generally conserves tie-ups of their hard drives, it’s certainly the best method to maintain a weekly or daily backup.

Source: InMotion hosting server major hardware failure

Indian Government asks Apple to invest in ‘Make in India’ goods worth $50 billion

The tech giant Apple has been approached by the Central government t of India to focus more on the ‘Make in India’ initiative. The center has proposed that the company increase its annual production output worth $50 billion over the next 5-6 years. The production would include expanding, making ‘Made in India’ iPhones, Macbooks, iPads, air pods, and watches. 

As per Times of India source, “The meeting with the Apple officials happened recently, where senior government members – including a top minister – were present.”

Additionally, the tech giant is also expanding its business in India to expand its presence by generating 1 million jobs across India. The company’s vice president of Product Operations, Priya Balasubramaniam, mentioned that Apple has been operating in India for over two decades. It is worth noting that the tech giant started manufacturing iPhones at a facility in Bengaluru in 2017.

Source: Indian Government asks Apple to invest in ‘Make in India’ goods worth $50 billion

Samsung unveils new MicroLED TVs in smaller sizes at CES 2022

Samsung on Monday introduced its new 2022 model MicroLED TVs, some of which are smaller in sizes than previous iterations, ahead of CES 2022 starting on Wednesday.

The South Korean tech giant said its 2022 roster of the technology will come in 110-inch, 101-inch, and 89-inch TV sizes. Samsung began selling MicroLED TVs as 110-inch screens last year.

MicroLED uses micrometre-sized LEDs to express individual pixels and do not use a backlight or a color filter. This allows better colour accuracy and a higher contrast ratio than conventional liquid crystal display TVs that use a backlight.

Samsung said it applied 20-bit micro contrast processing technology to the 2022 model MicroLED TVs to improve HDR features of the TVs.

The company claimed that the sets met 100% of the RGB color space set by DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB.

The new MicroLED TVs also support up to four HDMI port connections to split the screen into four to display four different contents simultaneously, Samsung said. They also support Dolby Atmos Sound and have speakers on all four sides.

Meanwhile, Samsung also said its 2022 model Neo QLED TVs will come with an upgraded processor that supports better contrast mapping than last year’s edition.

The TVs can now control the luminance of the screen at 14-bit rather than 12-bit.

Also ahead of CES on the same day, LG Display said it will introduce its new OLED technology that improves the luminance of the screen by up to 30% compared to its predecessors.

The technology, called OLED.EX, uses new deuterium-based organic material and the company’s own algorithm to improve luminance.

All OLED panels it ships will come with the technology from the second quarter, LG Display added.  

Source: Samsung unveils new MicroLED TVs in smaller sizes at CES 2022

Could electric velomobiles change micromobility? Meet the Kinner Car

If you’re a fan of velomobiles and love the retro style, then I think you’ll find the Kinner Car intriguing — and not just because of its hybrid car-bike nature. While the Kinner is described as a primarily human-powered vehicle, you’ll still get electrical assistance.

Still a work under progress, the current prototype is 285cm long, 100cm wide, and has a 220cm wheelbase, allowing it to be legally classified as an electrically assisted bicycle — in Europe, at least. 

It fits two riders and has room for luggage under the hood.

The Kinner has been created by guitar-builder and classic-vehicle-restorer Ari Jukka Luomaranta. I reached out to him, to get to know more about it. 

What type of electric motor will the vehicle use?

According to Luomaranta, the Kinner will use an assistant electric motor with automatic gears. 

Plus, you can turn the Kinner “on” by simply using the respective app on your mobile.

Does the Kinner fill a gap in the micromobility market?

Micromobility is booming in cities around the world, and we’re seeing more and more ebikes, escooters, tri- and quadcycles on the streets. So this made me wonder, is there a place for vehicles like the Kinner?

Luomaranta believes there will be demand for this kind of vehicle in the future.

To begin with, the Kinner encapsulates a more social concept, he says. You can ride it with a friend, a partner, a parent, you name it. Plus, it’s flexible and can easily be built in different variations to accommodate different social activities.

In fact, Luomaranta believes that as European cities are transforming their central areas into low-emission zones, the Kinner could provide a viable replacement to cars, by offering comfort without any environmental impact.

When will the Kinner be available?

The first deliveries will start in April 2022 and the velomobile comes with a $17,448 price tag. 

Luomaranta says that they have already received orders and that they will start making the first batch of six cars in the beginning of January. 

Source: Could electric velomobiles change micromobility? Meet the Kinner Car

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Google Search Console products rich result report error handling updated

Google has made a change to the rich result reports for product structured data on December 28, 2021. This rich results report is viewable in Google Search Console and the change may result in the number of product entities and issues being different from previous days.

What changed. Google said the search company “changed the way that it evaluates and reports errors in Product structured data.” Google did not specify any more details than that.

The impact of the change. As a result of that change, Google said “you may see changes in the number of Product entities and issues reported for your property, as well as a change in the severity of some issues from errors to warnings.”

Google will annotate the report so that if you see a decrease or increase in these numbers, it might be related to the change Google made on its reporting end and nothing you changed on your end. Again, it might just be a reporting change and the Google search results have not changed.

If you notice changes in the product-rich results report in Google Search Console, do not panic, it is a confirmed change on Google’s end. If you didn’t make any changes to your site around this date, there is even less reason to be concerned.

You should still review all the errors, issues, and warnings Google specified in this report and resolve those issues going forward.

Read more: Google Search Console products rich result report error handling updated

Google algorithm updates 2021 in review: Core updates, product reviews, page experience and beyond

From an SEO perspective, 2021 can be summed up as stressful — not just because of several algorithmic updates throughout the year but also possibly because of the timing of some of those updates. With the COVID vaccine rollout, some businesses began returning to normal, but then the Delta and Omicron variant threw everything for a loop — was it just too much to handle for some?

It may have been a bit too much to handle for Google as well: The search engine launched Page Experience update late, never hit its deadline for the mobile-first indexing this year, and seemed to rush out two late. big algorithmic updates towards the end of the year.

June 2021 core update. Google took a while to release its first core update of the year, the June 2021 core update, which began rolling out on June 2, 2021. That update finished rolling out about ten days after it started, on June 12, 2021. This core update seemed to have been a slow rollout that had a bunch of mixed results based on the data given to us by several data providers.

Read more: Google algorithm updates 2021 in review: Core updates, product reviews, page experience and beyond

Google now lets you place products at the top of your local and Maps listing

Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business, has a new feature in the products section that lets you mark a product as “special.” After you mark a product as special, that product will be moved to the top of the products you listed in your Google Business Profile listing.

What it looks like. Here is the setting in the Google Business Profile products section that says “Mark as Special.” It says “products marked Special is shown at the top of the page.”

Clearly, some local SEOs and businesses wanted a method to promote products to the top of the page. This gives them a way to feature one or more products higher up in their Google local search listings and Google Maps listings.

Read more: Google now lets you place products at the top of your local and Maps listing

December 27 & 28 Google Search Ranking Algorithm Jolt?

Around December 27th and 28th, we may have a Google search ranking algorithm jolt or quick tremor. I highly doubt Google pushed out something over the holidays, this last week of December. But it might just be some weird change that jolted the search results (like that even happens as I am describing).

There was a spike in SEO chatter in the WebmasterWorld forums starting late December 26th through December 28th and some, but not all, of the automated Google tracking tools, showed blips around December 27th and 28th. It is not unusual for Google’s search results to fluctuate without Google manually pushing an algorithm update, but this jolt seems stronger than normal fluctuations. Maybe it was some sort of weird bottleneck or something, I have no idea.

Our Google traffic and overall numbers have increased noticeably in the past couple of days, which frankly comes as a surprise for an international travel-planning site. The growth is in line with our standard pre-COVID traffic pattern: a low for the year before Christmas, followed by a slow but steady climb toward our annual summer peak starting around Christmas or New Year’s.

Read more: December 27 & 28 Google Search Ranking Algorithm Jolt?

Google: We Can Handle Really Long HTML Sizes Unlike Bing

Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter when it comes to really long HTML file sizes, Google can handle it – and you should not worry about it. The question came up when someone shared a screenshot of Bing Webmaster Tools giving a notice that the “HTML size is too long.”

The SEO asked “Does Google have a limit on crawling long pages – Bing Flags some of our long posts as HTML Size is too long.” Google does have a limit but most pages won’t come to that limit.

John responded “we don’t have a documented limit, last I saw someone check it was 10’s-100’s of MB, so I wouldn’t worry about that.” John did add that it might impact your page speed and core web vitals metrics. He said “giant HTML pages do slow things down, so it’s probably still something to keep on your to-do list.”

Here is a screenshot of the Bing Webmaster Tools notice and to be clear, this is a notice and it does not mean Bing cannot handle it.

Read more: Google: We Can Handle Really Long HTML Sizes Unlike Bing

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Google On How To Improve SEO Audits

Google’s Martin Splitt offers advice on how to improve SEO audits in a way that makes them more useful to web developers.

A number of tips are shared in the second episode of Google’s SEO & Devs web series on YouTube, which is dedicated to the topic of SEO audits.

Bartosz Goralewicz, CEO of Onely, joins Splitt to provide recommendations on what works best, based on first-hand experience between his team and his clients.

This episode is worth listening to in full, as you’re certain to learn something that will improve your working relationship with developers and stakeholders.

Here’s just a sample of what’s included in the 30+ minute video.

Ditch The PDF Reports

Splitt recommends replacing PDF reports with more efficient forms of communication.

The issue with delivering SEO audits via PDF report is they often state what’s wrong with a site without saying what needs to be done to fix it.

Another problem with these reports is they’re not always aligned with the goals of the website.

Improve SEO Audits With Better Communication

Bartosz says the key to delivering better SEO audits is to communicate more thoroughly with stakeholders and developers.

“Usually we start with stakeholders… we talk to the stakeholders, we hop on a call before creating any offers or anything. We hop on a call and talk about what’s the KPI, what’s the problem, what are the challenges, why are we even doing that.

Why is this so important? Why do you want to fix that? Because if traffic is the only metric we still will work withthem, but we know how this might go. So we’re going to start with that.”

Starting the audit process with establishing stakeholder goals can help prevent you from delivering useless SEO audits, like the ones Splitt discussed in the section above.

Source: Google On How To Improve SEO Audits

Google Merchant Center allows retailers to save product filters

The ability to save product filters has been spotted in Google Merchant Center. We’ve reached out to Google for more details about this feature but have not received a response at the time of publication.

Tip of the hat to Kirk Williams of ZATO Marketing for bringing this to our attention.

This nifty, albeit minor, update can save marketers some time that might otherwise be spent fumbling through data to find what they’re looking for. Being able to save product filters enables marketers to more quickly analyze different product categories, such as clearance items, for example.

Source: Google Merchant Center allows retailers to save product filters

Google rolls out placement exclusions for Smart Shopping campaigns

The ability to exclude undesirable ad placements for Smart Shopping campaigns has been spotted in the Google Ads interface. Placement exclusions can be applied to the Google Display Network and YouTube, according to the screenshot (below).

We’ve reached out to Google for more details about this feature but have not received a response at the time of publication. Tip of the hat to Davey Stokkers and Fabio Antichi for first spotting this feature, and Gianpaolo Lorusso for bringing it to our attention.

More and more consumers are seeking to purchase from brands that align with their ethics and values. Being able to control what your ads appear alongside can help you prevent unwanted brand associations, which can, in turn, affect your conversion rates.

Additionally, Smart Shopping and Local campaigns will be bundled into Performance Max campaigns sometime in 2022. It’s not clear whether placement exclusions will still be available when that occurs. We will update this article with more details when we receive a response from Google.

Source: Google rolls out placement exclusions for Smart Shopping campaigns

Google Search Console testing announcement bar

Google is testing a new announcement bar or tab at the top of the Google Search Console interface. The bar does not yet seem to function properly but has three levels of announcements depending on the urgency of the information.

Types of announcements. Google Search Console shows these three types of announcements bars:

• Informational announcement
• Minor issue announcement
• Major issue announcement

What it looks like. Here is a screen shot of what it currently looks like, although, clicking on them currently does not do anything:

It seems Google will be able to use this to communicate issues with Google Search directly to site owners. Again, this is not fully functioning right now but I suspect it is rolling out soon.

Source: Google Search Console testing announcement bar

Waymo will partner with China’s Geely to develop electric robotaxis

Waymo is teaming up with Chinese carmaker Geely to build electric, fully autonomous robotaxis for the United States.

The self-driving arm of Google (GOOGL) parent company Alphabet announced the partnership Tuesday, calling the deployment of the cars a big part of its commitment to “expanding access to sustainable transportation.

“Both firms said in press releases that the ride-hailing cars would be designed and developed by Zeekr, Geely’s electric mobility brand, at a facility in Sweden using “a new proprietary and open-source mobility architecture.”

Once the cars are delivered to Waymo in the United States, they’ll be set up with autonomous driving technology called Waymo Driver.

The companies did not say exactly when the vehicles would hit the streets. A blog post on Waymo’s website said the cars would be introduced within its Waymo One fleet “in the years to come.”Waymo has said its self-driving vans have given tens of thousands of rides since the company launched a public robotaxi service in Chandler, Arizona, more than a year ago.

Source: Waymo will partner with China’s Geely to develop electric robotaxis

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