Microsoft has just announced two new updates affecting those who use Smart campaigns, as well as hotel and property managers. Google import for Smart campaigns. Now available in 11 new markets. The 11 new markets are:
Lodging solutions. Expanded Lodging solutions offerings, including international expansion, new placements for Property Promotion ads, including mobile and new product updates (Vacation Rentals and Room Bundles). The new Lodging solutions ads provides users with:
Feed requirements. Microsoft provides the following display for property ads feed requirements. Why we care. With the addition of new markets for Smart campaigns, advertisers will have access to a larger audience, which can lead to increased visibility and potential conversions. Lodging solutions provide advertisers with tools to efficiently manage and optimize their campaigns for hotels and other lodging businesses. Overall, the two new additions provide further diversification of advertising platforms. By having access to both Microsoft Advertising and Google import for Smart campaigns, advertisers can diversify their advertising efforts and reach a broader audience across multiple platforms. This may be a good opportunity to test them if you’re not currently using Microsoft ads. The post Microsoft Advertising unveils Lodging solutions, and adds 11 new Google import markets for Smart campaigns appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/RmLjpFz
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Longer video ads have demonstrated greater effectiveness compared to their shorter counterparts. Mobile user acquisition managers have noted significant performance improvements when using videos that are between 31-60 seconds long. “Our attention spans may be short, but longer mobile video ads have proven effective at catching users’ attention,” says marketing platform Liftoff, who published the report. Liftoff says its report analyzed nearly 1 trillion impressions across 24.5 billion clicks and 240 million installs between the start of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. Why we care. If you’re using shorter video ads in your app campaigns, try creating longer videos to test. By using longer video ads, you may be able to increase the effectiveness of your mobile marketing campaigns, resulting in higher engagement, conversions, and, ultimately a better return on investment (ROI). Getting more from your ads. When creating video game app ads, here are a few tips that can help you get more:
Dig deeper. You can view the entire report from Liftoff here. The post For video ads, longer is better appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/wL0fxes Google is conducting a small test where the search company is blocking news content in Google Search for fewer than 4% of Canadian users for the next few weeks. A Google spokesperson confirmed this test with Search Engine Land, adding that this is a “potential product response to Bill C-18.” What’s being tested. Google is testing blocking news across all Canadian publisher websites, in Google Search, Google Discover and other Google surfaces. This test is limited to less than 4% of Canadians. Google said. Google told us, “We’re briefly testing potential product responses to Bill C-18 that impact a very small percentage of Canadian users. We run thousands of tests each year to assess any potential changes to Search.” “We’ve been fully transparent about our concern that C-18 is overly broad and, if unchanged, could impact products Canadians use and rely on every day. We remain committed to supporting a sustainable future for news in Canada and offering solutions that fix Bill C-18,” Google added. What is Bill C-18. Bill C-18 would enact the Online News Act, which proposes a regime to regulate digital platforms that act as intermediaries in Canada’s news media ecosystem in order to enhance fairness in the Canadian digital news market, according to the Government of Canada site. What it looks like. We’ve been trying to find examples of this change across the web and we asked Google to confirm these findings but have not yet heard back from Google if this is how the the blocking will appear to Canadians. Here are some examples we found on Twitter: History. We had a similar situation with Australia where Google would remove links to publishers if they had to pay to link to those publishers. Also, we had this with Spain, where publishers’ content was limited and then Google was asked to later put it back to how it was. Why we care. This is just a heads up to searchers and publishers that you might see less content from Google Search and it might lead to less traffic to your website. So keep an eye on your analytics but again, this is a very limited test. The post Google limits access to news content in Canada appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/a9w4zOD If you want to improve your marketing performance, you may not need to add headcount or invest more in media. Instead, the most effective strategy might be prioritizing inbound SEO efforts. Inbound SEO is the process of optimizing your marketing content to rank higher in search results so your audience can find and engage with your content easily. This guide from Conductor explains how inbound marketing and inbound SEO work together and outlines the 8 core elements of a winning inbound SEO program. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download The Complete SEO Inbound Marketing Guide. The post 8 core elements of a winning inbound SEO program appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/DvRXQg2 A Framework to Start the Writing Business of Your Dreams: 15 Tips for Entrepreneurial Writers2/23/2023 You might have started your writing business because you love to write. You might get a lot of positive feedback... The post A Framework to Start the Writing Business of Your Dreams: 15 Tips for Entrepreneurial Writers appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger https://ift.tt/vBLkzr7 Google just announced that they’re adding four new Performance Max (PMax) features. TBD. There is no word on when exactly the new features will be rolled out.
Why we care. Advertisers have been asking for improvements to PMax for quite some time, and it seems like Google is at least trying. The ability to view conversions, conversion value, and other metrics at the asset group level allows advertisers to refine their creative strategy and optimize their campaigns more effectively. Second, budget pacing insights can help advertisers ensure that their campaigns are delivering the desired results. And, the integration of video creation tools directly into PMax campaign setup and editing workflows is a simple and efficient way to create high-quality video content. However, the tool could be very limited in features. The new features and tools seem like a step in the right direction, but be sure to test them extensively and provide your feedback to Google whenever possible. Campaign-level brand exclusions. Google will provide advertisers with more control over their Performance Max campaigns. These exclusions will prevent the campaigns from appearing in Search and Shopping inventory for specific branded queries that the user wishes to avoid. By applying these exclusions, you can also prevent traffic from brand misspellings and brand searches in a foreign language. You’ll be able to exclude your own brand terms and choose from a list of other brands to exclude. If a particular brand is not on the list, you can request its addition through Google Ads. Page feeds. Performance Max users will soon have access to page feeds, a feature that will allow them to further optimize results from Search inventory. With page feeds, you can direct traffic to specific landing page URLs on their website and group those URLs by theme using labels to make them more easily usable in a particular campaign or asset group. When combined with final URL expansion, which uses keywordless AI technology to better understand the importance of landing pages to a business, page feeds can help guide and inform the AI and drive valuable conversions from unexpected or untargeted search queries. This provides Performance Max users with another tool to help them effectively utilize their final URL expansion feature. Video creation. To simplify the process of creating video ads, video creation tools have been integrated directly into the Performance Max campaign setup and editing workflows. Previously, these tools were only available in the asset library. This integration allows users to create video content quickly and easily, even if they lack the resources or time to do so. Additional reporting. Soon you’ll have the ability to view conversions, conversion value, cost, and other metrics at the asset group level. This data will enable you to refine your creative strategy and optimize campaigns. In addition, budget pacing insights will be available soon, providing you with automated suggestions to optimize budgets and improve campaign performance. These insights will include information on how much a campaign has spent and is projected to spend, as well as current and forecasted conversion performance. Not news. Google has also recently rolled out account-level negative keywords, experiments, and the new Content Suitability Center to improve efficiency. If you haven’t already tested these features, it might be worth giving them a shot. The post 4 new Google Performance Max features are coming soon appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/tP05a2v For the greater part of the last decade, Google released a slew of updates enriching the mobile-first search experience. There was the mobile-friendly algorithm update from 2015 and the switch to mobile-first indexing in 2019. In October 2021, Google introduced continuous scrolling on mobile. It’s a sensible change that matches users’ browsing experience in their social feeds. Fast forward to December 2022, Google rolled out continuous scrolling to desktop search results. It roughly mirrors the user experience, which has been live on mobile for a while, but there’s a notable distinction:
Historically, few users browsed past Page 1 of the SERPs and clicked results beyond Page 2. Like many SEOs, I was curious to know how continuous scroll impacts organic traffic. Would continuous scroll on desktop increase the value of organic results on those deeper pages? Or would consumers still rather change their search query if nothing was found on the first few search results? I digged into the data to find out. Organic traffic data: Pre- and post-continuous scroll changeTo understand the impact of continuous scroll on desktop, I looked at data over a 30-day period pre- and post-continuous scroll change. While there are some seasonality considerations, this pre/post methodology gives a better view of organic ranking trends. Meaning, if you looked year over year, SEO results would have (hypothetically) changed significantly. I also only included non-branded keyword data in the charts below. Branded data showed no significant changes of note. In fact, 99% of clicks in our data before and after this change went to positions 1-3. The data was similar for impressions, with 97% going to the top 3 positions for branded terms. The simple answer is the first page is massively essential. Yes, this change moved some impressions and clicks to more profound results. But, ultimately, the majority of traffic comes from the top 3 positions. Over 50% of impressions and 88% of clicks go to the top 3 positions. Impressions did increase for rankings 15-20 from 20% pre-continuous scroll to 25% post-continuous scroll. This reflects the updated user experience where consumers might not even realize they continued to go beyond the top 10 results to the top 20. After that, things were fairly flat, and >30 only accounts for ~10% of total impressions. For clicks, it’s even more important to be in the top 3. Only 4% of total clicks occur after position 6. This is 2X what it was before continuous scroll changes (previously, 2% of clicks came from positions greater than 6). Wow. Desktop is really driven by those top positions, even with a slight shift in impressions to deeper results. As a comparison, I thought I would show mobile data from the same data set. Mobile has a more of a scrolling user experience. The data set showed “just” 40% of impressions going to the top 3 positions. The next largest cohort was in the 7-10 positions with 35%. Users are just flicking through results if they don’t see what they are looking for in the top 3. For clicks, it is still just dominated by the top 3. 91% of clicks came from those top 3 positions, and just 3% coming from anything >10. What this data means for search marketersThis data set should confirm two things for search marketers:
We still see so many brands think of SEO as something to set up when they redesign or re-platform their website. This is the equivalent of a New Year's resolution with your fitness in the gym versus making the changes needed to really improve your health over the long term. You can't just go to the gym in January and think you are healthy for the rest of the year. Keep writing content and optimizing technical elements to keep your website strong and healthy year round. No matter what change in user experience happens or AI thing comes along, your site will be ready for that change. The post How Google continuous scroll has impacted organic traffic [Data] appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2kEI5GL Every new year, SEOs, bloggers and publishers are eager to capitalize on “fresh content” ranking boosts by adding new dates to old or existing content. Google’s search advocate John Mueller again reiterated that only significant content changes should lead to a changed date in articles. But what is considered significant? And what does it really mean to change a date? Both depend on many factors. As always, there is middle-ground to cover so let’s dig deeper in this article. The evolution of fresh content ranking boostsThere was a time when updating content did not help attract visitors on Google. Then over the years, Google increasingly rewarded “fresh content.” Do you remember the concept of “query deserves freshness” (QDF)? As early as 2007, former Google SVP Amit Singhal discussed how the algorithm considers searchers’ need for current information. The QDF model aims to measure, assess and rank content based on its value for a particular (time-sensitive) search query. It was among the first algorithm tweaks meant to take user intent into account. This meant that less authoritative but newer content would sometimes outrank high-quality but older content because some searches require current results than others. The example below shows a Google search for [us elections] in January 2023: When you click the “Overview” button on top, you will get another results page with even more current results covering primarily the latest election that will take place next. (Here the “2023 United States House of Representatives elections.”) When you search for election results, you most likely don’t want to see results from the past election (even though they have earned many links ever since). You’d want results from this election, which may not have attracted as many links yet in a short time. In the past, the article date indicated to Google which resource was newer. Only a limited number of keywords were affected at first, and this still does not apply to all search queries. Some SEOs started gaming this ranking signal quickly. They changed the date automatically, sometimes every day. Others removed the dates to at least not look outdated. All this forced Google to dig deeper into the actual content’s value. The Google algorithm has significantly changed since, but QDF is still present among other freshness systems.
This is still one of Google’s unique selling points. They have a fresher index compared to Microsoft Bing. Bing and alternative search engines, still heavily rely on site authority as measured by incoming links and overall trustworthiness. This works fine for some keywords but is stale for others. What is considered ‘significant’ when updating content?As Google heavily invests in its helpful content system and other AI-based ranking algorithm tweaks, you can rest assured that it looks beyond just an article’s date. The good news is that you don’t have to repeatedly write about the same topic at length to produce fresh content. Updating existing content “significantly” may suffice. Simply changing an article’s date and claiming it is “new” won’t cut it. There’s no misleading Google and visitors. For me, a significant content change can’t be measured by a percentage or word count. Changing 50% of your article by simply rewriting it with synonyms or AI-generated content don’t count because your additions do not add value. Consider the following:
As an example, I published an article on Google and alternative search engines, which ranked well, especially in 2021. I was tempted to update it for 2022 to keep it fresh. Ultimately, decided to change the article’s main focus. In 2019, I wrote about DuckDuckGo. In 2020, I recommended Ecosia as the best Google alternative. In 2021, I suggested Startpage instead. After that, in 2022, I decided to push Neeva. Each time, I made changes that some might consider minimal. In reality, they are significant in the context of the topic.
Some of the changes were about only a few sentences, while the final change to Neeva was the most consequential. The significant point was the changed focus of the article. I recommended a different search engine as the best alternative each year. (The Neeva business model differs from all other search engines, so I wrote more about it.) What does it mean to ‘change a date’?Dates displayed on web articles can be modified in different ways. Typically, you can change the date displayed within a WordPress article. Some go as far as adding dates in other areas of the page, such as:
While each approach has pros and cons, avoid adding dates to URLs, especially if you plan to change the date later or can’t rule out that possibility. Even headlines and titles can be tricky. Ideally, add dates only when you know that you will be able to update them next year. Otherwise, the content may get ignored by searchers next year as outdated. When and how to change your article datesWhen updating existing content, I occasionally rewrite the article completely. Other times, I only fix broken links and change terms that sound obsolete (i.e., "submitting to social media" was replaced by "sharing on social media"). Sometimes, I remove mentions of defunct sites and services (think Google+). So when is it appropriate to change the date in your content, and how can it be done? 'Last updated' dateAdding a "Last updated" date to your refreshed article might be the safest way to do it. Depending on the change's significance, I would manually add it on top (bigger or more meaningful change) or below the article (less significant or sizable). You can also tweak your theme or use a WordPress plugin for that purpose. Only displaying the last updated date and not the original publish date is also an option. Date publishedThe laziest solution, albeit one of the already riskier ones, is automatically changing the published date WordPress displays above or below your article. (Below is better for all those publications that are not into breaking news or tend to publish evergreen content). In WordPress, you can also republish such articles (on top) as new. I use this method if the article is predominantly new. In all other cases, when an article has considerably changed so much that it is more new than old, I tend to change the "published" date without republishing as new. As we are inherently biased when dealing with our own work, especially as writers, we may have difficulty assessing the true value of the changes. An editor can help you decide whether the content is really "new" or current enough to deserve a new date. Alternatively, you can compare two versions of a post in WordPress to see how much has indeed changed. First published and last updatedSometimes an article is both old and new. The foundation is still the old one based on insights from years ago, but there might be additional insights or newer examples recently. In this case, I usually mention the "first published" date and add a "last updated" date within the article. This method is also used in other publications. List of changesI've been writing about SEO since 2007, so I have many old articles. Many are still valid or are evergreen. I make numerous updates to articles which continuously garner traffic despite being published a while back. After the second update, I would start listing changes (similar to release notes listing the fixes and features of a software's latest version) such as:
Maintaining lists like this can be cumbersome after a while, so I only used this technique for popular resources. Date in the headlineDid the meaning or significance of the content change radically enough so that it's truly different from last year? Does the content contain any of the following?
Sometimes, even a changed opinion can be enough, as shown in the best Google alternative example above. Date in the titleThis one is tempting for SEOs. Changing the date in the HTML title tag can boost your ranking without compromising user experience. Why not just add the current year to all pages? You can, but verify that the points in your content are still valid. You'll often only notice something outdated with thorough analysis and fact-checking. Date in the URLOnly add a date in the URL when you are sure you won't change it again in the future. URL slugs like Down the road, when you want to use the same popular and well-linked page for the next election, you'll have problems. Ideally, don't add dates to the URL in the first place. Change your dates responsiblyNo matter how much you crave the fresh content ranking boost, do not get tempted by sheer greed for Google traffic. Do not change your content's date without truly offering something new. Avoid potential backfire, including Google penalties or algorithmic fixes. Even if you get away with changing the dates on old content that hasn't been refreshed significantly, you risk losing visitors' trust. Plenty of visitors (like me!) bounce on sites that still ask to share on Google+ and StumbleUpon. Or stop reading upon seeing outdated information or screenshots of Google's old logo. The post How to update content and dates for SEO in 2023 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2vxQo6A Google has updated some of its search documentation to say now that the Google helpful content system can impact your site’s visibility not just in Google Search but also in Google Discover. This was a bit of a surprise to me because Google has not communicated this change up until now, and we have had a few helpful content updates since its first communication. New communication. Google updated this document to say, “The system generates a site-wide signal that we consider among many other signals for use in Google Search (which includes Discover). The system automatically identifies content that seems to have little value, low-added value or is otherwise not particularly helpful to people.” Previous communication. Previously, when Google first launched, they said that the helpful content update/system only impacted Google Search visibility, not Google Discover. Google told us that the helpful content “update targets only Google search right now.” “However, Google may look to cover additional products (e.g., Google Discover) in the coming months,” Google added. When exactly this changed, I do not know yet; I did ask Google. Other ranking systems. Other ranking systems at Google do and have impacted the visibility of sites in Google Discover. Algorithm updates like Google core updates and others, Google confirmed many times impacted Google Discover visibility. Google updated its Discover help document to say, “As part of Google Search, Discover uses many of the same signals and systems used by Search to determine helpful, people-first content. Given this, those looking for success with Discover should review our advice on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.” The older version said, “Our automated systems surface content in Discover from sites that have many individual pages that demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T). Those looking to improve E-A-T can consider some of the same questions we encourage site owners to consider for Search. While Search and Discover are different, the overall principles for E-A-T as it applies to content within them are similar.” Why we care. So now, if you saw any visibility changes, both positive or negative, in Google Discover around the time of any Google search ranking update, including now a helpful content system update – you may be able to attribute it to that update. The post Google helpful content system can now impact Google Discover visibility appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/SoyIbKW Everyone in SEO is buzzing about AI following announcements from Google and Microsoft about forthcoming AI-powered search functionality. It’s still early, but AI is already helping search professionals do their jobs faster and easier. The sky’s the limit for its future potential. For now, however, human input remains a vital component. But whether that continues to be the case remains to be seen. Here’s a closer look at five ways AI is helping SEOs – and five ways it still has a long way to go. 1. AI generates broad global keywords – but not specific keywordsAI has helped accelerate the process of identifying global keywords, according to Michael Bonfils, global managing director of digital marketing agency SEM International. This allows him to establish a baseline to tinker with more easily. “It by no means understands a client’s unique business as all businesses are different one way or another, but it helps us speed up the process of organizing campaigns, considering suggested keywords and ad copy and evaluating the lingual translations of these words to determine if they should be added to a client’s campaign or not,” he said. Bonfils estimates AI speeds up the process by about 25%, which he called “considerable help.” Meanwhile, Alec Cole, an SEO strategist at performance marketing agency Amsive Digital, agreed on the language point – going as far as calling it his “favorite” application, but also the “scariest.” That’s because AI can “[review] international pages in languages I don’t speak for fluency and repetition of terms.” 2. AI creates markup and formulas – but inaccuracies aboundIn addition to keyword ideation, Cole has used AI to write regex, Excel formulas and schema. However, he warned of schema, “My goodness, you have to watch it.” For example, he recently had AI generate person schema for an author at a pet company and “it attempted to say she was experienced in animal husbandry, which she absolutely is not,” he added. 3. AI produces page titles and meta descriptions – but their relevancy is questionableFor his part, Barry Rolapp, a senior SEO strategist at Amsive Digital, has used AI to synthesize content into meta descriptions and page titles, but said ChatGPT is much better with the latter. "As one would expect, the system has issues with understanding what is important information in a body of text and what is less relevant," he added. In addition, AI doesn't do well with character counts, so, "I often find myself having to rework the prompt to get what I want and then find myself frustrated that the same prompt does not always yield the same type of results." Rolapp conceded this is likely due to user error, but "shows that the systems aren't able to completely understand my intent and the amount of time I take 'optimizing' a ChatGPT prompt takes away from the efficiency I am supposed to be getting from leveraging the tool." 4. AI writes content – but struggles with facts (and duplication)While some SEOs are using AI tools to produce content, such as generating blog topics, outlines and FAQs, content creation is where things can get dicey. For starters, SEO consultant Sara Taher noted the issue of potential duplication. "I had a client reach out recently to ask about ChatGPT and how they can use it for content creation and I highlighted to them that the tool does not produce unique content and that content may be duplicated in the future," she added. And while Jessica Bowman, CEO of SEO site SEOInhouse.com, conceded AI will eventually be the driving force behind scaling content production, she noted, "I would see it as a rough first draft that needs [to be] fact checked and [edited] for tone, voice and uniqueness." She agreed AI struggles with unique elements, such as brand messaging, product descriptions, and emerging technology. "I also have one concern about AI … it only knows what has been input," Bowman said. "So it's not going to always give you a unique angle and expertise to stand out among your competitors, the marketplace and the internet at large [for rankings]. This is something that would need to be incorporated during human editing." 5. AI can help solve problems – but its true potential is TBDEnergy company Schneider Electric uses AI for tasks like project management, keyword research, social media optimizations – but not content creation. "One of our goals this year as a team is to really simplify for ease, value and relevance," added Danita Smith, SEO program lead in North America and senior web specialist at Schneider Electric. "And so AI fits right into that." There's potential to save time, which Smith called "the most valuable asset." However, it's still early days, so the company – like many others – has only started to evaluate its broader potential, including how to become a nimbler organization. "One of the challenges that we always face is that things don't happen fast, typically in an enterprise organization and resources are tight," she said. "But there's always a push to scale things … We're looking at how we can use [these types of tools] to help us meet some of those production demands." In addition, Schneider Electric is looking into the power of generative AI and other AI tools to become greener – and more inclusive. "I'm looking at it as how I can use it to potentially be more friendly to our planet Earth," she said. "We can also look at it to do more inclusive marketing, which is one of our goals as well to make sure that we're using proper representation in our content and just exploring other ideas so that we are getting more creative with some of our deliverables." There's also potential in "goodness knows what else," as Cole put it. "I've gotten into the habit of throwing just about anything I can at it to see what comes out," he added. "It misses consistently, but it's fantastic at helping me crack the door open on difficult problems or automating a few tasks that classically took me a very long time." The post 5 ways AI is the future of SEO – and 5 ways SEOs still have job security appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/TCGSHKo |
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