Google is expanding support for rich cards globally. Yesterday, Google updated the blog post that originally announced this feature back in May 2016. In this update, Google said rich cards are now available globally. Originally, rich cards launched in the US just for movie and recipe websites. That has expanded over the months, both in terms the types of websites that are supported and what geographic versions of Google search support it. Now, rich cards are fully supported globally. Google wrote:
Google has not written or announced this expansion on any of their channels yet. We found this thanks to a tip from @ShobhitSaxena22. The post Google quietly expands rich cards worldwide appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2nAbk9a
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According to the latest State of Search report from SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), search ads dominate when it comes to digital marketing efforts performed by both agency and client-side marketers, but social advertising is the fastest-growing segment. Released on Tuesday, SEMPO’s survey includes responses from nearly 500 search marketing professionals, including agency professionals, consultants and client-side marketers. The survey includes a broad range of questions around the types of digital marketing efforts being formed, industry challenges and metrics. When asked about the type of digital marketing activities carried out, 95 percent of agency professionals and consultants listed search ads, as did 92 percent of client-side marketers. For agencies, this was a slight increase from last year, while marketers saw a 2 percent decrease. Seventy-six percent of agencies and consultants and 69 percent of client side marketers listed social ads — both sides doing more social advertising activities in 2016 compared to 2015. Social ads were the fastest-growing segment for digital marketing activities carried out by agencies and client-side marketers. Search ad spendingWhen asked if they were investing more ad dollars on Google, Bing and Yahoo in 2016 compared to 2015, the number of agencies and consultants investing on Google was up in 2016. Agencies and consultants and client-side marketers alike reported investing more on Bing in 2016 over 2015, but it was still far fewer than those who gave additional ad dollars to Google. Paid social spendingAmong its other findings, SEMPO’s report reveals that B2B marketers prefer LinkedIn and Twitter for paid social, while B2C marketers are more likely to turn to Instagram — with 53 percent of B2B marketers investing in LinkedIn ads compared to 13 percent of B2C marketers, and 54 percent of B2B marketers purchasing Promoted Tweets versus of 23 percent of B2C marketers. Fifty-three percent of B2C marketers are buying ads on Instragram, compared to of 25 percent of B2B marketers. The findings show agencies and consultants said “getting a budget” was their biggest social challenge, while client-side marketers said measuring their ROI was their biggest social challenge. SEMPO says it will be presenting the full report at its 2017 Search Industry Forum May 4–5 at the Hyatt Regency in Miami and that SEMPO members will have free access to the full report. More information about the report can be found at 2016 State of Search. The post 2016 State of Search report: Paid search dominates, but social ads are catching up appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2oaGFkc In the world of SEO, user experience on websites has always been a factor, as has the time it takes for a site to load. However, with the use of mobile devices surpassing desktop use (in most consumer-facing industries) and the wide adoption of broadband, people expect sites to load instantly. Long gone are the days of waiting 10 seconds for a site to load.
Accordingly, Google officially started paying attention to site speed and declared its importance as a factor in rankings. In order to keep up with Google’s site-ranking measures, WordPress blog users need to know exactly what they can do to improve their own site speed. Remember when Google rolled out AMP (accelerated mobile pages)? They now serve up publisher content in a simplified Google hosted experience that renders superfast. I like AMP from a user perspective because I know that AMP content will load incredibly fast on my mobile device, but as a publisher:
If you use StudioPress Sites or the Rainmaker Platform, your site will already load quickly. However, adding ad scripts, featured images, tracking codes, 301 redirects, etc. will slow down the loading of a site and increase demand on your server/hosting company. Here are six simple tips I recommend since we used them to dramatically speed up the Search Engine Journal (SEJ) load time — it’s at 1.8 seconds! 1. Use a content delivery networkA content delivery network (CDN) is a group of servers that deliver web pages and other content according to the location of the user, the webpage origin, and its server.
For WordPress blogs looking to improve site speed, Cloudflare is a great tool to consider. Cloudflare offers a free content delivery network that speeds up the performance of your site and optimizes it for efficiency on any device. It also offers security services that help protect websites from crawlers, bots, and other attackers. 2. Compress your imagesAnother effective way to reduce page-load time and increase site speed is by compressing your images. A CDN will help with this, but it doesn’t take care of 100 percent of the job.
ShortPixel is a WordPress plugin that allows you to compress both new and old images on your blog. We use it on SEJ and various other sites, and absolutely love it. It allows you to quickly compress images in batches for greater convenience, reduces the time it takes to do backups, and ensures all your processed files are kept safe and secure. The best part about it is that your image quality stays the same, regardless of the size of the image. Other image-compression plugins also maintain the quality of your pictures and improve site speed. 3. Prevent ad scripts and pop-ups from slowing down the user experienceMany web pages today contain some form of third-party script that either runs ads for revenue or uses pop-ups to promote conversion. You want to build your audience and get more customers of course, but balance is key here. Although it’s difficult to completely get rid of them to improve your site speed, you can tame their performance impact while keeping them on your website to provide their intended benefits. The trick is to first identify the third-party scripts that run on your site, where they come from, and how they impact your blog.
One of my favorite tools to do this is Pingdom’s Website Speed Test, because it breaks down each file and script, and tells you which takes the most time to load. The same rule applies for pop-up plugins that you add on to your site.
One of the fastest pop-up plugins on the market is OptinMonster (a StudioPress partner). Its founder, Syed Balkhi, is a WordPress expert who stays on top of factors like site speed and overall user experience. 4. Install a caching pluginAnother effective way to reduce site-loading time is by installing caching plugins to your WordPress blog.
Several cache plugins work best for WordPress, such as WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache. These plugins are easy to install and can be disabled anytime. They allow you to select certain pages on your blog (or all of them) to cache, and offer many other content compression settings that you can turn on or off. WordPress supports many other plugins that allow you to optimize your blog to get rid of any latency in page-load time. It is important to test out these plugins to find the one that works best for you. 5. Disable plugins you don’t useTons of WordPress plugins can also make your site super slow, especially ones you don’t need.
Many WordPress users install different plugins when they first create their blogs to enhance how they look, but realize over time that great-looking blogs don’t always attract traffic, especially if your page-loading time is slow. Also, I would highly recommend making sure your plugins are updated. This may help improve page-load speed, but more importantly, it makes your site more secure. 6. Add one more layer of media optimizationOne thing we realized at SEJ when speeding up the site was that even after optimizing images, ad scripts, and caching, there were still multiple forms of media that slowed down load time.
One solution we found to assist with that is BJ Lazy Load. Essentially, this lazy-load plugin renders all written content first, then as the user scrolls down the page, images and other forms of media load. This way, the user doesn’t have to wait for tons of media to load before reading the main content. What I really like about BJ Lazy Load is that in addition to images, it also lazy loads all embeds, iFrames, and YouTube videos. For a WordPress blog that uses a lot of embeds, it was ideal for us. Bonus tip: ask your web host for helpIf you run a WordPress blog or WordPress-powered site, then you should work with a hosting company that specializes in WordPress, such as WP Engine, Presslabs, or Rainmaker’s own Synthesis. I’ve worked with all three, and one thing I can absolutely tell you is that if you contact them and ask how your site can be sped up, they will help you because the faster your site is, the less load on their servers. As more and more people turn to mobile devices to access the internet, it is essential to optimize your blogs for mobile use and find ways to minimize page-loading time. Remember, bounce rates increase when your page-load time is slow, which impacts whether or not your content gets read or skipped for other sites that load pages faster. The post 6 SEO Friendly Tips to Improve Site Speed on WordPress Blogs appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger http://ift.tt/2nuZ5Jo Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land:
Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:
Search News From Around The Web:Local & Maps
Link Building
SEO
SEM / Paid Search
The post SearchCap: Google search app, PPC titles & AdWords DSAs appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2ns0P60 For the past 10 years, search marketers have purchased every available seat for Search Engine Land’s SMX Advanced. This year will be no different. Don’t miss this once-a-year opportunity to attend the only advanced search marketing conference, June 13-14 in Seattle! SMX Advanced is designed and programmed for advanced search marketers like you. Sessions are fast-paced, interactive and don’t slow down to cover the basics. You’ll learn how experienced SEOs and SEMs like you stay on top of new challenges, and help you overcome them! You’ll leave SMX Advanced with actionable takeaways. Keep reading to see SEO & SEM session and keynote highlights: SEO session highlights:
SMX Advanced kicks off for SEOs with Google taking on all questions, covering the most-discussed SEO issues including Fred, how to optimize for the voice search revolution and much more. The keynote will leave plenty of time for open Q&A as well! SEM session highlights:
Be sure to attend the SEM keynote presentations featuring Bing and Google for insights into future developments and opportunities you’ll have with your paid campaigns. Want to see all the sessions in one place? Check out the agenda at a glance! Lowest rates expire next weekSMX Advanced rates will never be lower than they are right now! Register for an All Access Pass through April 8 and pay the super early bird rate of $1,795. That’s right — a $500 (nearly 22% off!) savings compared to on-site rates! Upgrade to an All Access + Workshop combo pass and pay $2,595, an $800 savings (almost 24% off!). Check out our complete pre-conference workshop schedule for more details. P.S. SMX Advanced is even better when you learn as team! Save with group rates. The post Attend SMX Advanced for SEO & SEM tactics that work. Rates increase next week! appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2nrQ8Ai With hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions of pages, sites, and keywords to manage and optimize, enterprise SEO has become increasingly complicated and time-consuming. Using an enterprise SEO software platform can increase efficiency and productivity while reducing the time and errors involved in managing organic search campaigns. If you are to looking to adopt an SEO software platform, this MarTech Today guide will help you through the decision-making process. Included are profiles of 13 leading SEO tools vendors, pricing charts, capabilities comparisons and recommended steps for evaluating and purchasing. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download your copy. The post Compare 13 leading SEO software platform vendors appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2nrMuqh Google announced that the Google Search app for iOS devices has added GBoard, trending widgets and new 3D Touch functionality. GboardGboard, the popular Google search keyboard, which Google enabled for iOS as an add-on keyboard back in May 2016, is now available directly within the Google app. Launch the Google search app on your iPhone or iPad to try it out. To access this keyboard, go to your Google app settings to set up Gboard on your device. Gboard is a really excellent alternative to the iOS default keyboard that lets you type normally but also search for emojis, GIFs, search results and much more, directly in your keyboard. TrendsA new iOS dashboard widget is now available for those who installed the Google Search App. It is named “Trending on Google,” and it will show you the current Google Trends when you swipe right on your home screen. To access the widget, use 3D Touch on the app icon or swipe right on your home screen. To install it, swipe right on your home screen, scroll to the bottom, tap “Edit,” then add “Trending on Google.” 3D TouchNot only can you hard-press, aka 3D Touch, to access Google Trends, you can also hard-press on a web page within the app or search results to find out more. Press on the “G” button at the bottom of the page to instantly start a new search. Or you can hard-press on Search results, Map results and cards in your feed to see a preview of the content before opening it all the way. You can try these features out using the iOS Google app. The post Google Search App for iOS gains Gboard, trending widget & 3D Touch appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2ndVWf2 Google announced updates to AdWords Dynamic Search Ads on Tuesday, including support for expanded text ads. Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) will transition to expanded text ads through April, bringing them in line with search and display campaigns. Google is introducing a new solution for DSAs called page feeds. Page feeds consist of two columns: Page URL and Custom Label. The feeds enable advertisers to designate exactly which landing pages to include in a DSA campaign. There are several benefits and use cases for page feeds, such as these:
After uploading a page feed to the Business Data section of the Shared Library in AdWords, add it to the relevant DSA campaign in settings. Custom labels are applied from the Auto targets tab. Click to add a new Dynamic ad target and enter the custom label. Bid modifiers can be applied to custom labels. Google also says it has continued to make quality updates for DSAs, such as taking location signals into account, and that the latest changes have led to better conversion rates and lower CPAs, on average. The post AdWords Dynamic Search Ads gain page feeds, will soon support expanded text ads appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2neUqu6 Title tags are a meaningful on-page ranking factor and are among the most influential factors in determining click-through rate (CTR) from search engine results pages. Higher CTR not only drives more traffic immediately, it also improves organic rankings when combined with good on-site metrics. Title tag CTR is also difficult to test: it requires a large number of pages that drive a lot of organic visits, and a pretty big chunk of time — usually around two months to give Google time to index all the pages in the test and then collect enough data to have statistically significant results. A tempting alternative is to use PPC ads to get quick answers about what title tag is best. Unfortunately, testing at Wayfair.com shows that PPC ads are not always an accurate measure of what titles will perform well in the organic results. The reason is that users who click on paid ads are not a random sample of searchers; they are a biased group. We know they behave differently from overall searchers because they are in the minority of users who click on ads. And it turns out they respond differently to titles than users who click on organic results — specifically, it appears that promotional messaging (“on sale,” “discount,” “free shipping,” “50% off”) performs far better in paid ads than it does in organic results. Titles that performed best in ads often drove organic users away.
Testing shows that PPC ads are not always an accurate measure of what titles will perform well in the organic results.
Three title testing methodsThe Wayfair SEO team wanted to know if there was a faster way of testing title tag variations that gave accurate answers, so we tested a list of 10 different title tag formulas in three different ways:
Each test used the same 10 title tag variations (except the Mechanical Turk test, which had only seven) and the same control title tag, and the tests ran separately over a three-month period in the summer. Here is the methodology and findings of our tests. Mechanical TurkWe used the Mechanical Turk & SERP Turkey method. We tested our title tag variants with two different keywords, and tested them in the #1 position and the #3 position. Our goal was to get 1,000 clicks in each bucket: not large enough to detect very small changes in CTR, but that was fine, because we were looking only for meaningful wins. This test took about a month. It’s worth noting that it was difficult to get enough survey completions through Mechanical Turk, and we had to pare down our list of title variations to seven so we could get sufficient clicks in each bucket. A meaningful negative of Mechanical Turk is the fairly limited number of title variations that can be tested at once. Interestingly, the results of this test were actually different based on what position the title tag was ranked:
SERP Turkey pages — basically mockups of search engine results pages (SERPs) that you build yourself — do not include any paid ads above the results, and my hypothesis is the users who might have clicked on those ads are instead clicking on the organic results (particularly the ones at the top), and we’re seeing that paid click behavior in the organic results. This biased the #1 ranking position greatly and had a smaller bias on rankings farther down the page. Ultimately, I think SERP Turkey would be a much more valuable platform for this kind of testing if we could also insert fake ads into the fake SERPs, to draw those users out of our test data. That said, this method — using the #3 ranking position and not #1 — correctly predicted the winning title tag; however, it also measured some title tags as performing significantly better than control that actually lost in the live SEO test. PPC adsThe PPC testing was by far the easiest and fastest way to get results — we had strong results in under a week. We tested our list of 10 variants on a few dozen different keywords, including the same keywords targeted in the SERP Turkey test, with the same control. We ensured only the first line changed between variants and keywords, and over-bid to guarantee visibility. Unfortunately, the results did not correctly predict the winning title tag — instead, they gave victory to losing title tags. Of note:
It seemed very clear that users who click on paid results are positively influenced by promotional (“hot deals,” “buy it now” and “save save save”) language. There did appear to be some other discrepancies with the live SEO test that were harder to explain, other than to say what’s good for a paid ad title isn’t necessarily good for an organic title, and vice versa. Live SEO testThe live SEO test is the tried-and-true method we were trying to replace. The test took about two months to run (30 days for everything to get indexed, then another three weeks to collect visit data). We took a large number of product listing pages in similar furniture categories, generally ranking on the first page, and randomly distributed 2,000 URLs each into groups for the variants and a control group. We used the same control and variants as the PPC test, and all of the SERPs associated with the pages had ads present (usually three). Almost all also had the Google Shopping block. As an example, the groups might look something like this:
Each variant was tested on 2,000 pages, and each 2,000-page group received over 100,000 organic visits each week. We measured the change in organic visits to the test pages vs. the control pages to see how the groups performed, and also spot-checked CTR changes in the Search Console, though these numbers are only relevant for terms with large search volume. This method remains the best way we’ve found of testing title (or meta description) changes. We saw that groups with promotional language in the title tag all performed worse than the control — sometimes substantially worse. We also saw winners, including some that also did well in the PPC and Mechanical Turk tests. TakeawaysIn our testing, paid ads did not consistently identify winning organic title tags. While trying to improve your title tags is definitely a very smart SEO play, relying on PPC might end up steering you wrong. PPC was able to identify some winners, but also mislabeled losers as winners, particularly when it came to promotional language. Mechanical Turk fared similar to PPC ads, particularly in the #1 ranking position. I hypothesize that you really need a test set with top ads in them for an effective test. The number of variants you can test is fairly limited due to the lack of huge numbers of people on Mechanical Turk, and it still took a pretty long time to generate results. Mechanical Turk is probably only a viable testing platform for sites that don’t have enough search traffic to their pages to do an on-site test. Neither method mislabeled winners as losers. If it did badly in either Mechanical Turk or PPC, it also did badly in organic, so using PPC ads or Mechanical Turk can be a good way to at least weed out very bad title variants. But ultimately, neither was a replacement for actual live SEO testing on high-traffic pages. A winning formulaOne piece of general title advice I can give after several rounds of testing over the years is this: It is incredibly difficult to find an e-commerce title tag better than a simple “[category name] | [site]” formula. So “Mustache Wax | Rand’s ‘Stache” is almost always a winner. The post Study: PPC cannot accurately identify winning organic titles appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2ocUPy7 |
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