CodeFuel was among Microsoft Advertising’s distinguished regional winners in EMEA before being selected as their 2021 global partner. This prestigious award and recognition is based on excellence in partnership with Microsoft Advertising across the board, including key partnership results such as engagement and revenue growth. CodeFuel is one of only five companies to achieve the status of a global partner. The announcement was made during Microsoft Advertising Elevate on April 27, 2022, the annual global partner summit exclusively for elite and select partners. The Collaboration with Microsoft Advertising“We’ve had a partnership with Microsoft that extends more than ten years, and this recognition as Microsoft’s Advertising Partner of the Year is a moment of great pride in a long history of successes. Yet it is only the start,” said Doron Gerstel, Perion’s CEO. “As consumers globally relied on e-commerce to an unprecedented degree – advertisers responded by investing more into search – which is the category where consumers demonstrate the highest degree of intent. Capitalizing on this generational shift required close collaboration between the CodeFuel team and the Microsoft team, and the results speak for themselves. Going forward, we will continue to build our network of publishers while maintaining the impeccable quality standards which matter so much to both of us.” Gerstel added. Tal Jacobson, CodeFuel’s general manager, and his team worked to strengthen the collaboration with Microsoft Advertising through investments in technology and a focus on quality to maximize user engagement and growth. Working closely with Microsoft Advertising allowed the company to introduce new features while receiving the business and back-end support. “The growth we have achieved in the last couple of years reflects the close collaboration and the teams’ dedication to our mutual success, year after year,” said Jacobson. “We look forward to further driving success for publishers and advertisers.” “We are thrilled that CodeFuel, a Perion Company, has been named our Global Supply Partner of the year. This is an award that reflects the growth of the underlying business, which is the result of true partnership, close collaboration, and technology innovation. CodeFuel’s commitment to its clients has been noteworthy during a time of disruption and uncertainty. We look forward to our continued partnership and continued healthy growth of all aspects of the business,” said Sean O’Connor, International Marketing Director at Microsoft Advertising. The post CodeFuel awarded ‘Global Supply Partner of the Year’ by Microsoft Advertising appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/nxjFQNh
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Every campaign must begin with comprehensive research. From making sure that your initial benchmarks are correct to performing an in-depth competitor analysis, you must make sure that your data is accurate and complete from the start.
Launching an SEO campaign without gathering this data is like scuba diving at night without a headlamp. You will have no direction and can end up anywhere, possibly inside a shark’s mouth, instead of at the top of Google results. This next section will go over various data points and where to get this information. For all of these data points, we use Semrush or Google products. Benchmarking using Google Analytics and Google Search ConsoleIf you already have Google Analytics installed and acquire data, you can get various data points by clicking on Audience Overview, Acquisition Overview and Audience Benchmarking. There are numerous tutorials on understanding Google Analytics, and most of the data is simple to understand. If you are a Google Data Studio user, you can create a report to track and benchmark your data using one of the available templates. Here are a couple of suggestions: All-in-one Search Console template Google Analytics Acquisition overview Once you have explored Google Analytics and Google Search Console and have created your benchmarking reports, we can start analyzing data from Semrush. Bird’s-eye view of your site’s benchmark reportWe’ll start by getting an overview of how the website is currently performing. The following screenshot shows the Domain overview report in Semrush: This report provides a variety of data points about the site’s current health, including:
You can click through this report to get more detailed information or export this report to get an overview of all of your initial baseline data. Next, we’ll create an actual report to download with custom data. Create a baseline reportFor this report, we’ll use the Semrush reporting feature. In Semrush, create a project for your site. Start by running a site audit. Once the audit data is complete, create a new report. Here’s an example of a baseline report template: You can use this template to create your own and use the Quick Modify to switch out the URL. Organic researchGo to Organic Research and type in your website domain. The following organic research report will be generated: Pay close attention to the numbers under Keywords, Traffic, Traffic Cost and Branded/Non-Branded Traffic. These are great metrics to track as your campaign progresses. Here’s what they mean:
Site overviewNext, you can look at the specific graphs, toggling between keywords and traffic. Here’s the graph for the Organic Keywords Trend box: This example shows all the potential keywords from the top three on down, but you can select using the checkboxes which ones you want to display: Are your organic traffic and keywords trending up or down? Are they changing over time? You can also click on Traffic to see the estimated traffic graph: Notice that you can change the date range of the time to see All time or two years, one year, six months or one month. PositionsWhen you click on the positions tab, you will see the following screen: This section lets you dive deeper into your keyword rankings to determine how many of them rank for specific positions. You can also export your keyword ranking report into a spreadsheet that will tell you metrics like the following:
Export this table and save using the date first run to use this table for your benchmarking reports. Position changesWhen you click on the Position Changes tab, you should see the following: If you briefly scan the overview of the keyword changes report, you will see the following headings:
This data can help you figure out where to place your SEO priorities as part of benchmarking. You can use these keyword/page combinations to focus your SEO efforts and create SEO experiments as your campaign progresses. PagesNext, let’s look at what pages are performing well on your site and how many keywords each page ranks for. This section gives you specific metrics such as:
If you click on one of the pages, you’ll get more details for each specific page. SubdomainsThe subdomains tab of Semrush’s organic research can uncover critical subdomain information, such as making determinations in strategy based on subdomain removal (if desired), 301 redirect removal (if needed) and elements that are weighing down the domain or may need to be removed. Now that you have a strong understanding of your site’s current status, the next step is to investigate your competitors and the competitive landscape. The post Baseline analysis for your SEO strategy appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/S3fTrkV The post 20220428 SEL Brief appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/YpOdzHT Google has released version 10.1 of the Google Ads API, the previous version 10.0 was released just under three months ago. Google Ads version 10.1 brings support for discover campaigns, campaign groups, local service campaigns and more. What is new. Google published a detailed release notes of what is new in version 10.1 but here are the highlights it wrote in this blog post:
Old AdWords API sunset. As a reminder, the legacy Google AdWords API sunset today. You should be using the Google Ads API now and this API just gained an additional number of features. Why we care. The Google Ads API enables advertisers to funnel their account data into other applications that they use. It also helps advertisers manage larger accounts and campaigns. Support for more of the latest Google Ads products means that API users will have more flexibility with the tool. The post Google Ads API v10.1 is now available appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/eCF4fZ7 Search advertising revenue grew in the most recent quarter for both Google and Microsoft. Last night, Alphabet released its Q1 2022 report, while Microsoft released its Q3 earnings report. Strong year-on-year growth for Google. Overall, Alphabet reported revenue of $68 billion, up from $55.3 billion in Q1 2021. Zooming in on Google search, which accounted for 58% of Alphabet’s revenues, here are the key numbers for Q1 of 2022 (compared to Q1 of 2021):
Interesting stat. Google said that Maps searches for [shopping near me] were up 100% globally year-over-year. Noted Google: “People want to buy from brands that provide a seamless experience wherever and whenever they prefer to shop. For local businesses and big-box retailers alike, this remains a big opportunity.” Strong year-on-year growth for Microsoft Bing. Overall, Microsoft reported revenue of $49.4 billion, up 18% from $41.7 billion in Q3 2021. The company combines search and news advertising together. That revenue was $2.9 billion in Q3 2022 vs. $2.4 billion in Q3 2021. LinkedIn revenue grew to $3.4 billion, up 34% from $2.6 billion a year ago. Why we care. After the earnings were reported, there was some discussion that this was evidence of some sort of slowdown. But most of that conclusion seemed to be drawn from YouTube and by comparing Q1 2022 vs. Q4 2021, which is a ridiculous comparison due to the holiday season falling in Q4, when advertisers are dumping money into Google and Microsoft ads. Though a slowdown could come at any point, search advertising was strong in 2021 and brands plan to invest more in PPC this year. The post Google, Microsoft report strong search ad revenue growth appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/GtbuN6Z The Google Ads upgrade of all extension types (with the exception of Location and Image extensions) will be completed this Saturday. If you haven’t seen in your accounts already, the new extensions have a handful of new benefits as well as some new ways you’ll need to find your data. Here’s everything you need to know once the upgrade is completed for all advertisers. What’s new with the upgraded extensions?It was time for the rebuild of extensions and according to Google this upgrade will “reduce the complexity of extension creation and management” along with adding additional features. As reported in February, one of the biggest improvements to extensions is the ability to pause them. You will no longer have to remove or delete extensions in your campaigns. With this toggle feature, pausing extensions “won’t affect the performance of your ads or extensions,” which is a huge win in and of itself. Additionally, this new upgrade will allow standard extensions to truly live alongside automated extensions. With this update advertisers will have “greater visibility into automated extensions for the first time and more control to decide if they want to use them as part of their campaign.” Automated extensions will also have the ability to be paused by advertisers. According to Google, “advertisers can see a 20% increase in click-through rate on average when four sitelinks show with their search ads,” and these autogenerated extensions may help those short on time. Lastly, when upgraded, sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets extensions can trickle from higher levels of a campaign down to a lower campaign level. So Account/Campaign Sitelinks could show within an ad group that already has its own sitelinks: This would be a good time to check your accounts and make sure that any of your Account/Campaign sitelinks, callouts and structured snippets extensions are acceptable across all ads and ad groups. What’s going away with the upgraded extensions?As with most change, these new upgraded extensions will leave a few features behind. Elements being deprecated as part of the extensions upgrade are:
How to find legacy extension dataGoogle in order to see legacy data post-migration advertisers will have to utilize Reports. Google chronicled the steps along with API information in a recent update. The legacy data can be found in the Predefined reports section and ‘Extensions’ will show historical data while ‘Extensions (upgraded)’ will show your post-migration stats. Why we careIn May, all extensions (except image and location) will have been upgraded. It may be prudent to double-check accounts to ensure higher-level extensions would be suitable for all ads/ad groups. Advertisers should also keep an eye on the automated extensions generated as well. A big benefit that you’ll see is the ability to pause extensions as needed without any performance ramifications. Last, have no fear, your data is still here. Historical data is still maintained, just in the Reports section post-migration. The post How the Google Ads extensions upgrade may impact your accounts appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/ZWbm38w Every time you type a question into Google, the results page can look completely different. Think videos, images, ads, graphs, and related questions. Today there are more than 40 different interactive elements or SERP features that can appear. These responsive results offer an improved user experience, but pose a real challenge to search engine optimization (SEO). So, how can you know what SERP features should be at the forefront of your strategic planning? In this report, Similarweb analyzed the most popular SERP features across various industries. It covers
Read it now to find out the best strategies to leverage and how. The post SERP feature trends every SEO must know appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/HCwalxy When Google rebranded from Google My Business To Google Business Profiles, the search company said it would push businesses to manage their listings directly in Google Search and Google Maps. But it also said the Google Business Profile Manager tool will stick around for larger businesses with multiple locations, and will be renamed “Business Profile Manager.” Well, that might not be the case. When you now login to the Google Business Profile manager, even if you manage many locations, you will get a notice that says “from early 2022, you can no longer manage your business here.” What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of the notice that says:
Stay here. What happens when you click on “stay here.” Well, you are taken to a short poll asking you if you tried to manage your business listings in Google Search or on Google Maps. If you say yes, it asks you if you want to continue to use Google Business Profile manager or not – in which I said yes, please. Why we care. Using Google Business Profile manager to maintain and update your business listings is much more efficient and straight forward than doing so directly in Google Search and Google Maps. We do suspect that Google will improve the user experience for maintaining your business directly in Google Search and Google Maps. But there is something to be said about having a list of all the businesses you manage in a single location without having to search for the listing in Google Search or Google Maps. Will this feature go away soon? I suspect for many it will but hopefully there will be a new portal for larger businesses with many locations and local SEOs that manage many locations to use going forward. The post Is the Google Business Profile Manager going away for multi-locations businesses as well? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/6qt139u The verdict is in: publishers are abandoning Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). Multiple media outlets, including Search Engine Land, are moving away from it, without any noticeable impact on traffic or search rankings. Since AMP’s launch in 2016, technology, and Google’s own requirements, have moved on. Now that it is no longer required for inclusion in Google News or Top Stories, AMP’s usefulness is being increasingly questioned, especially since other technologies can offer increased flexibility in terms of customization and monetization options. Yet, despite these limitations, AMP remains an easy way to produce fast-loading, user-friendly mobile pages with several benefits. AMP pages are five times more likely to comply with Google’s Core Web Vitals (CWVs) than standard mobile webpages, which means not only a better user experience but also a positive impact on search rankings. So, as publishers consider moving on from AMP, how can they ensure they retain its advantages while also freeing themselves from its restrictions? A solution for every publisher – whatever the sizeWhile larger publishers, such as Vox and BuzzFeed, have the resources to invest and develop their own custom AMP alternatives, not everyone has the means to do so. At Clickio, we have created our own alternative – Prism – a cloud-based mobile template that can be easily installed by publishers big and small. Based on this experience, we’d recommend publishers focus on the following areas: 1 – Optimize for Core Web VitalsOne way to ensure your web page continues to perform well for both search rankings and user experience is to comply with Google’s CWV metrics, which effectively replaced AMP as a determining factor for Top Stories. The first step is to set up real-user monitoring, so you can check your actual CWV scores in real time, investigate where any issues lie and take action quickly. When creating Prism, we developed our own Core Web Vitals Monitoring tool, as seen below, which allowed us to test the impact of different page designs and settings. Often seemingly insignificant changes can cause a sudden drop in one or more of the CWVs, so it’s important to keep monitoring these closely. When looking to optimize your CWVs, one of the key requirements is to ensure your pages load quickly. Using full-site caching and a content delivery network (CDN) will ensure pages load quickly for your visitors, wherever they are, by making use of multiple data centers around the world. This replicates some of the advantages of having Google cache your AMP pages but gives you more control. It can be expensive for individual site owners but does bring additional benefits – such as increased security and reliability. In Clickio’s case, we use Cloudflare Enterprise, which all publishers with Prism can benefit from for free. Alongside this, we also spent time stripping out unnecessarily complex code and long JavaScript tasks, as well as optimizing images and adding smart lazy loading. This ensures images only show as the user scrolls down the page, reducing loading time and avoiding nasty layout shifts that can cause poor CLS scores. Thanks to measures such as these, 92% of Prism sites meet all CWVs criteria – far outperforming the global average of 36%. 2 – Interactivity and user engagementA positive user experience doesn’t stop at quick loading times. If publishers want to keep their spot at the top of search results, and maximize advertising revenue, they need a platform that keeps their readers engaged. With Clickio Prism, we tackled this side of things by integrating features into the page design that boost engagement and facilitate interactivity. These include: Infinite scroll – continues to load additional articles as users make their way down the screen Instant swipe – allows readers to jump directly to the next article with a single swipe across the page, similar to many apps Related articles – shows a carousel of other stories on similar topics within the article Features such as these make it easier for users to navigate publisher sites and find more of the content they’re interested in. In fact, visitors spend an average of 45% longer on Prism sites compared to the standard version. 3 – Increased monetization optionsSince advertising is a core component of any publishing operation, a platform that supports a high number of demand partners is vital. AMP can be quite limited in the options available to publishers and makes it difficult to implement header bidding – perhaps not surprising given it competes with Google’s own advertising offering. Prism, on the other hand, supports both open bidding and header bidding via Prebid.js, and makes it easy to track revenue from different sources and ad units within the Clickio platform, as seen in the screenshot below. Whereas AMP only allows specified ad formats, Prism gives publishers greater freedom to incorporate non-standard formats, such as stickies and smart banners. At the same time, Prism features a dynamic layout that can automatically adapt ad placements depending on the user’s device type and connection speed, as well as the length of particular articles. This makes a real difference when it comes to revenue, leading to an average increase of 59% in session RPM. 4 – Ease of setupAnother advantage of AMP, and a reason many publishers continue to use it, is its simplicity. While it’s possible for almost any site to set up AMP pages, without much technical expertise or costly development, Prism also retains this benefit. Simple mobile-optimized templates can be set up via a WordPress plugin or through integration with Clickio’s CDN. What’s more, while the installation process is pretty straightforward, new Prism publishers are also guided through it by a dedicated account manager who can help make sure everything is implemented correctly. After initial setup, new users are offered a free A/B test against their existing mobile site to see exactly what difference Prism will make. Here’s an example of one such test for a UK publisher, which ran for two weeks. In this case, a faster load time and the introduction of instant swipe and related articles encouraged users to spend over 40% longer on the site, viewing 20% more pages. As a result, they also viewed more ads, which helped to increase revenue by over a third. Moving on from AMPAMP was a necessary stage in web development, putting user experience front and center. But, as with everything, more advanced and tailored solutions have evolved over time. By using tools, like Prism, that comply with CWVs, boost user engagement, and offer greater flexibility, publishers can ensure their mobile sites continue to promote a positive user experience, even without AMP. Why not try Prism for free? Click here to request your free trial. The post Optimizing mobile sites: What’s the alternative to AMP? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/92tYdDI Word count is not a ranking factor stated repeatedly by Google. But don’t tell recipe bloggers that. Why? Because the average food or lifestyle blogger’s goal is to monetize, which is done predominantly by running ads on the site by a major ad publisher. Longer recipe posts mean more ads, which means more ad impressions. This can lead to higher RPMs for bloggers, which is great for the blogger but not necessarily great for the people who read the content. Ad companies themselves loathe discouraging this trend. Although I am a 20-plus-year SEO veteran, I have focused exclusively on the food niche since 2015. Over the last seven years, I’ve worked with thousands of food bloggers as an SEO consultant. I’ve audited them all, from bloggers just starting out, to bloggers trying to qualify for quality ad networks, to bloggers already making six figures a month from ad income. The experience has been illuminating. Not only has it made me a better SEO, but it’s allowed me to meet some of the most talented content creators in the world. Here are some of the top takeaways from those many SEO audits. Lesson 1: It has never been more competitive to run a successful food blog!The pandemic was jarring to many industries, but the impact on the food and lifestyle blogging niche was profound. Millions of people stuck at home under mandatory quarantines suddenly found the time to embrace existing hobbies, new interests and long-delayed pursuits with vigor. One of the more popular decisions made during the pandemic was starting a new blog or going full-time on what was previously just a “hobby” blog. The influx of what was estimated to be thousands of new bloggers into the lifestyle and recipe niche resulted in much more competition for long-tail keywords, a rush for the best resources and training and an accelerated desire to qualify for an ad company and monetize as fast as possible. During that period, one of my biggest takeaways was that bloggers were coming to me earlier in the blogging process than ever before. This was to ensure they were using the best stack of hosting, plugins, keyword research strategies and SEO best practices from the beginning and give them a competitive advantage. Pandemic bloggers were more willing to view their new blogs as a business from the drop, not as a hobby, and spend money at the beginning of their blogging journey to give them the best chance of standing out and building traffic. This desire to invest in experts, tools, and training has carried over into 2022. Bloggers are now qualifying for ad networks and building traffic to the 50,000+ sessions a month (the minimum we see for good monetization) faster than ever before! Lesson 2: Quality SEO training in the recipe niche is sorely lacking (and questionable)I remember speaking at my first food blogging conference back in 2015. I heard gasps from the audience when I told them that Alternative Image Text (Alt Text) wasn’t used to stuff photos with keywords for Pinterest, but to help users with visual disabilities understand what was actually in that photo. It was also eye-opening to see what passed for SEO training in the niche in those earlier days. Blogger retreats, masterminds and e-courses were not in short supply, pushing ridiculous on-page over-optimization techniques such as bolding whole sentences, wrapping entire paragraphs in H2 or H3 tags and spamming the focus keyword into every heading possible on the page. Even worse were the cooperative linking strategies that bloggers pushed in private masterminds on Facebook. These groups used themed weekly roundups like Sunday Supper and Meatless Mondays to pull together dozens of bloggers linking back and forth in reciprocal linking schemes. These practices resulted in unwitting bloggers getting slammed by algorithmic actions through Core Updates and select manual actions by unnatural links identification. In recent years, food bloggers have been plagued by “poor advice” or a failure to vet the sources they are getting said advice. A great example can be found in the concept of blog coaching. Why would someone take coaching on SEO concepts or traffic-building strategies from an “expert blogger” who hasn’t qualified for an ad company, has no real credentials and is even smaller than the blogger they hope to coach? Well, you honestly shouldn’t. But that hasn’t stopped me from seeing the practice repeatedly to the detriment of the paying party. Next, SEO myths are rampant in the food blogging niche. When I run across these (for example, word count or Google Analytics data being ranking factors), the best approach is usually to educate, not argue, by linking out to a supporting statement from Google if one exists. Finally, good advice doesn’t have to cost a fortune! For the last several years, I’ve worked closely with recognized professionals like Top Hat Rank and Nerdpress. We host monthly SEO for Publishers Webinars that are 100% free and dedicated to making sure bloggers have the most correct and up-to-date SEO information possible. Lesson 3: The concept of herd mentality is rampant in the recipe niche, to its great detrimentAlso known as mob mentality, herd mentality is defined as making a decision or adopting a strategy based on the opinions and recommendations of peers and friends, not necessarily from actual data or personal experience. Unfortunately, herd mentality can be harmful to bloggers in the food blogging niche. Common herd mentality practices involve adopting mass-recommended plugins, courses, themes, or implementing “questionable” strategies that others may be doing, and as such, you should be doing as well. Because most food bloggers operate on the WordPress platform, herd mentality practices present themselves in plugins, themes, and WP-specific hosting providers. I’ve seen bloggers switch entirely away from one SEO plugin or theme or host to another, to their detriment, just because a friend, a more prominent blogger or a Facebook thread told them to do so. The most visible example of herd mentality, though, tends to be a blind following of bigger bloggers in an attempt to replicate their success. This is especially destructive because trying to replicate what you see in top-ranking sites also means repeating their mistakes. You also don’t see a complete picture when trying to copy the strategies of larger sites. Backlinks are still an incredibly powerful ranking signal for Google. Strong backlink profiles can act as “spackle” and cover-up clear mistakes in on-page optimization, topical relevancy and UX practices that smaller bloggers cannot overcome. Blindly following the herd can easily run you into a metaphorical pack of blogging lions ready to make you their next meal. Seek out advice from experts, and do your own research, always! Lesson 4: Bloggers tend to be too hard on themselves when a little “grace” will go a long way.Food blogging is, for most creators, a solitary pursuit. They spend dozens of hours a week researching recipes, testing steps and ingredients, shooting photography, conducting keyword research and writing up the final recipe before promoting it on social media. This kind of dedication can lead to isolation and cause mental health concerns that bloggers feel unable or unwilling to express to friends, colleagues or their own family. It also worsened during the pandemic as regular social outlets like blogging conferences, in-person meetups, or simple trips to the grocery store or farmer’s market for ingredients became impossible. Society, traditionally, has been no help in solving this crisis or providing enough viable support options. The stigma of mental health is still paramount to stereotypes we see on TV and in movies. Keeping things to “ourselves” is sometimes easier than opening up to possible judgment or criticism. Bloggers must give themselves personal grace. One of the biggest mental health traps that food bloggers fall into is the “comparison trap.” Why is this blogger doing so well when I’m not? And it’s something I specifically try to tackle in my audits. I show, via illustration, what works and does not work by using “competitive, not comparison” data. Then, with that data, bloggers can formulate a plan that meets their timeline, not an artificial timeline dictated by outside forces over which they have no control. The result is a better mindset, more confidence in their strengths and direction and a better mental outlook on the journey! The post What 1,000 food blog audits has taught me about SEO appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/CTV15A0 |
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