Google is introducing a new “Deals” feed in the Shopping tab along with additional Merchant Center features to support retailers running promotions, sales and price drops, the company announced Thursday. It is also expanding its integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce to enable merchants to showcase their deals across Google surfaces. The new “Deals” feed. All products with a deals badge are now automatically eligible to show in a new feed within the Shopping tab of the search results. This new feed is shown when a user searches for generic deal-related or shopping event-related queries, like “deals” or “black friday,” (shown above) or when “Deals” is selected from the drop-down menu in the Shopping tab (shown below). New ways to track your deals in Merchant Center. Merchants can now see which of their products is eligible for a deals badge from the products tab in Google Merchant Center. Eligibility is based on promotions, sales prices and/or price drops. In addition, a new dashboard (shown above) breaks out data on impressions, clicks and click-through rate for Shopping ads for products with a deals badge. The data can be segmented by promotion type, product, brand and category. Deeper integration with Shopify and WooCommerce. Building on Shopify and WooCommerce integrations announced earlier this year, retailers on these platforms are now able to show their existing deals across Google surfaces (Search, the Shopping tab, Images and Lens). And, starting next month, retailers that use Shopify’s Google channel app or WooCommerce’s Google Listings and Ads extension will be able to show their promotions in Search and the Shopping tab. Retailers can sync both existing and new promotions to their products listed on Google directly from their store dashboard. Why we care. As we approach the peak of the holiday shopping season, retailers now have multiple places in Google where their deals can appear — the newly announced Deals feed, the “Deals related to your search” section of the Shopping tab and the deals carousel (which appears when users search for deals during major sales events). Retailers that are offering promotions, sales or price drops should keep their product feeds up to date to ensure they’re eligible for these organic opportunities to get in front of shoppers. To that end, being able to see which of your products are eligible for a deals badge can be very useful, and now Google is showing that information in the products tab of Merchant Center. Breaking out the performance of Shopping ads based on products with a deals badge can help merchants understand the types of deals that are driving conversions and the product categories that perform the best when on-sale. And, the proliferation of e-commerce integrations offered by Google (and also Bing) lowers the barrier to entry for discovery and promotion in search. This leveling of the playing field works in favor of smaller retailers that may not have the resources or technical savvy that it used to take to establish a presence on these platforms. For Google, this not only strengthens it as a shopping destination but also makes it a no-brainer for retailers since, unlike marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay, Google doesn’t take a cut of the sale. The post Google introduces new “Deals” features for the Shopping tab and Merchant Center appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3jR18Wr
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It’s easy to envision that other people’s paths (career or otherwise) are somehow smoother than yours. Have you ever had... The post 7 Unusual Signs on the Path to a Breakthrough appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger https://ift.tt/2YqHbeW Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily. Good morning, Marketers, not gonna lie. My bet was on OASIS, but I suppose Meta is just as close. If you’re a Ready Player One fan, you know The OASIS was a MMOSG (massively multiplayer online simulation game) where people go to escape reality and “live” online. It’s what I thought of when Facebook announced last week that it was planning on rebranding to highlight its role as a “metaverse.” “The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world,” said the announcement. One of the recent indications we were headed this way was their introduction of Horizon Workrooms where you can meet in-person, online via your avatar. How well people accept things like Horizon Workrooms and Meta’s new direction is still up for discussion, but, spoiler alert, Ready Player One ends with everyone deciding to leave The OASIS and go live their real lives in the real world. Carolyn Lyden, Facebook is MetaFacebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday that the tech company is renaming itself to “Meta” to encompass its expanding technology and role in what it calls, “the metaverse.” The company owns multiple technologies and apps including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus VR. In July, Zuckerberg told The Verge that over the next several years, Facebook would “effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company.” Why we care. The rebrand comes right as whistleblower revelations have Facebook under fire for its practices, morals, and social impact. It also begs the question if the metaverse will become a new frontier for advertising (especially as the Oculus has been testing ads in VR). But also, as marketers, we can’t look away from a branding fail and “Meta” just feels like one. YouTube ads are the breakout star of Google’s Q3 earnings reportAnother quarter’s earnings report shows that Google is among the winners when it comes to the shifting pandemic landscape. Revenues for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, went up a whopping 41% YoY according to the report, with ad revenues driving $51.3 out of the $65.1 billion. Google attributed the continued increases to its big push for commerce in Q3 (and before) in the earnings call. Along with the investment in commerce, Google is offering even more options for advertisers who are seeing a return to in-person shopping, especially as the holiday season nears. YouTube is the breakout star. “YouTube advertising revenues reached $7.2bn, an increase of 43% from the previous quarter thanks to both direct response and brand advertising,” reported John Glenday for The Drum. This is the result of YouTube’s CTV (connected TV) advertising increases and its competitive product Shorts, which competes with the likes of TikTok and Snap. This increase is a big deal since Apple’s App Tracking Transparency had the potential to affect YouTube similarly to other video social media apps. Why we care. “Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler explained on the call that while shoppers are returning to physical stores, the company’s also seeing ‘strong growth in local shopping queries’ at the same time,” said Sean Hollister for The Verge. Advertisers can expect to see the continued shift in local and omnichannel search marketing strategies, so if you’re not preparing yet, it’s something to consider for your 2022 strategy. Google reduces the unique product identifiers enforcement on free product listingsIn September, Google said if a product listing was missing required attributes such as GTIN [gtin], MPN [mpn], and brand [brand], the product was immediately disapproved and no longer shown in free listings. Now, starting in November 2021, “with the introduction of limited performance enforcements, products that are missing such attributes will remain eligible to serve but their performance may be limited,” the company said. Why we care. If you are taking advantage of the free Google Merchant Center and you are not using UPIs on your products in those feeds, you previously may have seen those products being rejected and disapproved. Now, instead, those product listings will likely continue to be served but their performance in Google Search may be limited. Businesses and individuals get Instagram Stories link sticker just in time for holiday shopping season“Instagram’s link stickers, which let you include hyperlinks in Stories in the form of stickers, will now be available to everyone on the platform, the Facebook-owned social media network has announced,” wrote Jon Porter for The Verge. Instagram began testing the sticker option as a replacement to the “Swipe Up” linking in Instagram Stories around August. Plus, the features were only available to verified accounts or those that met a 10,000 follower threshold. Why we care. Instagram users have long been lobbying for this functionality as the platform says it supports small businesses, but previously did not allow them to link their products, stores, and services through Stories. The feature is now available to everyone just in time for the holiday shopping season. If your business has a decent following on Instagram, make sure to incorporate it as part of your social strategy to help move those loyal communities down the funnel toward a purchase. PPC Shorts: Feedback, video campaigns, luxury shopping trends, and Zapier integrationsMicrosoft previews new first-party feedback system. You can submit new feedback, vote and comment on existing feedback, and track responses from the Microsoft engineering teams. Google Ads Video reach campaigns are now available globally. Video reach campaigns give you the option to use automation to serve the best combination of skippable and bumper ads to maximize your reach and efficiency. Holiday online shopping trends for luxury goods. Research shows that 78% of luxury shoppers on Microsoft Advertising properties use their mobile phone as a second screen device when watching TV – so search is at their fingertips Link your Zapier account in the Google Ads UI. Google Ads announced an integration with Zapier, an automation solution, that helps you work with your first-party data across tools like lead form extensions, offline conversion imports, and Customer Match. What We’re Reading: The secret to people management? Less managing, more peoplingOftentimes when we’re good at our jobs, the next level up in promotion is “manager.” You go from doing the tasks to managing others who are doing the tasks. And while some people excel in these roles, for others, people management takes intentional work. In this piece for Atlassian, Pranav Shahi gives 10 strategies for becoming a successful people manager:
“To scale and become a high performing team, you not only need caring and sharing, you need daring. And all dares come with a huge chance of failure. Get comfortable with that,” recommends Shahi. The post Meta or meh? Facebook’s new rebrand; Friday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3Bmg8Bv Google has removed 12 documented structured data fields from its help documents citing these were removed because they are “unused by Google Search and Rich Result Test doesn’t flag warnings for them.” What was removed. Google removed 12 different structured data fields from within HowTo, QApage and SpecialAnnouncements rich results types. These include:
Google removed these 12 fields from the help documents to more accurately describe what Google Search and the Rich Results Test support. Remove the code? Should you remove the code and fields from your structured data and code on your web pages? No, you do not have to. Google simply will not support them, but it doesn’t hurt you to keep the fields populated on your pages. Google simply won’t use them for Google Search. Why we care. If you are using these fields, just be aware that these have been officially removed from Google’s Search help documentation. They do not work for rich results in Google Search and the testing tool won’t notify you if there are errors or warning with these field types. Again, you do not need to remove the fields from your structured data, but Google will simply ignore them. The post Google removes 12 structured data fields from the help documents appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3boR56y The post 20211029 SEL Brief appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3GzNnFu Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday that the tech company is renaming itself to “Meta” to encompass its expanding technology and role in what it calls, “the metaverse.” The company owns multiple technologies and apps including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus VR. In July, Zuckerberg told The Verge that over the next several years, Facebook would “effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company.” What’s the metaverse? The way that Zuckerberg explains it in his founder’s letter today makes it sound like the next level of virtual reality: “You will be able to teleport instantly as a hologram to be at the office without a commute, at a concert with friends, or in your parents’ living room to catch up.” What does this mean for Facebook? “Starting with our results for the fourth quarter of 2021, we plan to report on two operating segments: Family of Apps and Reality Labs,” said the announcement. “We also intend to start trading under the new stock ticker we have reserved, MVRS, on December 1. Today’s announcement does not affect how we use or share data.” Why we care. The rebrand comes right as whistleblower revelations have Facebook under fire for its practices, morals, and social impact. It also begs the question if the metaverse will become a new frontier for advertising (especially as the Oculus has been testing ads in VR). But also, as marketers, we can’t look away from a branding fail and “Meta” just feels like one. We will continue to update this announcement as we learn more. The post Facebook is now Meta: Tech giant announces rebrand appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3vTVtUo Now is the perfect time for marketers to build on what we’ve collectively learned over the past 18 months, and prepare for a comeback by embracing marketing agility. In this webinar, experts from Adobe share three different ways to increase marketing velocity by focusing on optimizing and becoming more agile in your approach. Register today for “3 Ways to Turbocharge Your Team for Greater Marketing Agility in 2022,“ presented by Adobe. The post 3 ways to turbocharge your team for greater marketing agility in 2022 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3Gyjdm0 As soon as Google announced that its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) framework would no longer be required to appear in the Top Stories section of its search results, SEOs working with publishers began envisioning more ad revenue opportunities without sacrificing the traffic that Top Stories could bring. However, some publishers may feel “stuck” with the framework due to a lack of developer resources or other factors. But, in light of recently unredacted allegations from 17 state attorneys general accusing Google of throttling non-AMP ads in order to give AMP a “nice comparative boost,” publishers that are still using AMP may be raising an eyebrow of suspicion. “We’ve all known for a long time that AMP was Google’s attempt to force its own paradigm onto the web, a way to try and control the chaos and establish its own methods as a standard way of doing things,” said Barry Adams, independent SEO consultant and co-founder of News and Editorial SEO Summit, “These latest allegations, if true, show just how far Google’s greed can reach, that it would artificially penalize websites that don’t use Google’s preferred approach,” he said, citing 2018 accusations that Google slowed down YouTube for Firefox users as precedent for such conduct. While the allegations carry huge implications, the fact of the matter is that, until proven in court, search marketers simply won’t know if they’re true. Nevertheless, the page experience update is now fully rolled out and we have a clearer idea of what the possibilities and compromises are without AMP. Considerations for abandoning AMP“If these allegations are true, this would be morally wrong on Google’s end,” Daniel Smullen, head of SEO at Mediahuis IRL, said “But, let’s be honest, most publishers adopted AMP due to its Top Stories eligibility requirement. Not due to its ‘perceived’ speed-boosting effect.” The Top Stories offers publishers greater visibility in search results, which may potentially attract more traffic than a standard search listing. “If there was ever an anti-trust element to AMP, it was this,” Smullen added. But, AMP is no longer required for Top Stories. AMP became a requirement to appear in the Top Stories carousel in 2016. Last year, Google announced that AMP would no longer be required for its Top Stories section, opening it up to pages that do well in terms of page experience scores. While the page experience update didn’t have the impact some SEOs were expecting (Google did say that “sites generally should not expect drastic changes”), non-AMP pages are now appearing in the Top Stories section: On October 27, 2021, non-AMP URLs accounted for 24.6% of Top Stories content in the U.S., according to Newzdash’s AMP Tracker tool. In certain countries, this ratio can be much higher — in the Netherlands, it was 80.9% on the same date. Know your Vitals. Your current user experience needs to be taken into account when evaluating whether to maintain, abandon or adopt AMP. “In my opinion, if publishers are failing all three Core Web Vitals metrics, and if they care about competing on search, continuing with AMP, from a business perspective, may make the most sense,” said Smullen. “Moz, in its recent page experience ranking factor study, has shown that passing all three Core Web Vitals metrics did not add a significant enough advantage over passing two of the metrics,” he said. A study by SISTRIX also found that pages that meet all three CWV requirements ranked just 1% better than the average for all domains, but pages that failed at least one CWV metric ranked 3.7% worse (according to SISTRIX’s Visibility Index). While passing all CWV metrics does not guarantee inclusion in the Top Stories section, it can act as a “tie-breaker” when your content performs similarly to that of your competitors based on other ranking factors. And, “[It is] important to note that failing all three did suggest a ranking dampening effect,” Smullen added. Revenue considerations. “We have to weigh the pros and cons of having a website that relies on advertising for revenue which, at times, doesn’t give us the [performance] metrics we would like,” Matt Dorville, SEO manager at BuzzFeed, told Search Engine Land shortly after the announcement. Being free of AMP may enable publishers to seek out more ad revenue opportunities, but they’ll have to weigh that revenue against potentially longer load times from showing those ads. Internal bandwidth. Improving your user experience to the point where it can compete with other publishers that might be using AMP may fall on your developers, who might already be stretched thin: “It’s been a really, really tough time to say, ‘We’re going to put a priority on certain things, like tickets for our site that will help speed, that will help things in the page experience,’ but at the same time we have fewer engineers, we have less bandwidth, we have fewer people on staff to go and do that,” Dorville said, noting that some publishers may be operating with a smaller staff and tighter budgets due to the economic impacts of the pandemic. Major site changes. Conversely, major site changes, like a redesign or switching to a different CMS, may make maintaining AMP more difficult. “For publishers that are already up and running on AMP, I think the decision point will be when the site goes through any major overhaul,” Matthew Brown, managing director at MJBLabs and former director of search strategy for the New York Times, previously said, “Then the costs of updating everything to AMP starts to look less favorable given it’s no longer a requirement for Top Stories.” For some, AMP may still be a viable alternativeThere are many push-and-pull factors to be considered when deciding whether to stay with AMP or get rid of it. AMP typically does provide a snappy page for your users, and “[It] offers strong page experience scores out of the box for publishers once their AMP code validates to ‘Google’s’ standards,” Smullen said, “AMP also gets a page experience advantage on search engine results pages due to its caching technology named the AMP Cache.” “This is where Google, on its own servers, further optimizes the publisher’s valid AMP code,” he said, “Whether Google artificially inflated the comparison of AMP versus non-AMP, the speed-boosting impact of the AMP Cache is not a hoax.” But as always, test before taking the diveAt this point, any allegations against Google are yet to be proven in court. However, if it makes sense for your publication to start investing in user experience instead of maintaining AMP, “I’d advise doing that on a per-section basis, starting with relatively low traffic sections of the site, to see what the impact on traffic is,” Adams recommended, “The case studies we’ve seen so far suggest that deleting AMP, when done right, doesn’t result in any significant loss of traffic, providing the site’s Core Web Vitals (for non-AMP articles) are fairly healthy. And even a small traffic loss is likely to be worthwhile when getting rid of AMP, due to the increased monetization of non-AMP articles.” The post Whether Google manipulated AMP or not, it’s a great time to reassess using it appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3EtFWhk Instagram has made the link sticker available to all users this week. The feature lets you link out to third-party sites, stories, products, and more via the Stories option in the app. Previously only available to select accounts. Instagram began testing the sticker option as a replacement to “Swipe Up” linking in Instagram Stories around August. Plus, the features were only available to verified accounts or those that met a 10,000 follower threshold. Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, has been emphasizing how the platform is crucial for small, local, and retail businesses — especially as a rallying cry against Apple’s App Tracking Transparency initiative. However, the social media managers for these types of businesses have always advocated that making the Swipe Up link option, and now the sticker link option, available to everyone and not just select users, would be one of the best ways to support SMBs and commerce businesses. The Stories link feature opening up to everyone is a huge opportunity for SMBs, retail, social justice orgs, and more. Instagram says that those misusing the Stories link feature to share misinformation or harmful websites will lose access.How to start using link stickers. To add a Link sticker to your Stories:
“We’re also working on ways to customize the sticker so it’s clear what someone will see when they tap your link,” according to the announcement. Why we care. Instagram users have long been lobbying for this functionality as the platform says it supports small businesses, but previously did not allow them to link their products, stores, and services through Stories. The feature is now available to everyone just in time for the holiday shopping season. If your business has a decent following on Instagram, make sure to incorporate it as part of your social strategy to help move those loyal communities down the funnel toward a purchase. The post Instagram opens Stories link sticker to all users appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3GvIfSx Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily. Good morning, Marketers, what if Microsoft hadn’t fumbled so hard with smartphones? Today is Bill Gates’ 66th birthday, and regardless of how you feel about him, his successes and failures have helped shape the environment that we market in. Bing is the default for Windows, making the search engine an important consideration for some B2B marketers or for brands with audiences that primarily use desktop devices. I also regularly see PPC experts praise the efficiency that Bing Advertising offers, although they acknowledge the tradeoff in search volume. Returning to my question at the top, Gates once said that, “The greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is — that is the standard [non-Apple] phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win.” Gmail, Google Maps and Search were among the top 20 free apps in Apple’s app store last year, even though iPhones are pre-loaded with Apple’s own mail and map applications (Google pays Apple to be its default search provider on iOS). If Microsoft had succeeded, Google’s ecosystem might not be the powerhouse it is today and perhaps search marketing would look less like a monopoly, or maybe just a different monopoly. George Nguyen, Core Web Vitals: SEOs aren’t sold the work was worth itSince its announcement in May 2020, the page experience update generated much speculation among SEOs. This was because it made user experience more of a Google ranking factor than it had been before and because it was announced more than a year ahead of its rollout. Before it went live, Google told us that “Page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account. Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes.” Now that the update has completely rolled out, SEOs are reflecting on how it actually played out for their brands. Although opinions vary, the general consensus seems to be that the page experience update didn’t result in major rankings fluctuations, but ROI isn’t just on the SERP — “Performance optimization may not be a silver bullet for rankings, but we don’t optimize just for that,” said Detlef Johnson, Search Engine Land’s SEO for developers expert. “[Core Web] Vitals, as determined by Google, are the tip of the spear that you can sharpen to cut through the network to load the experience faster, which can lead to more add-to-cart actions because it builds confidence and trust,” he added. Priority Hints, a new, experimental feature to help site owners and Chrome browsers prioritize which resources to load first, can help you deliver a faster experience to your users. It can be used to boost the priority of the LCP image, causing LCP to happen sooner and thus improve the associated metric — in a test on Google Flights (shown above), Priority Hints improved LCP from 2.6 seconds to 1.9 seconds. Conversely, you can also lower the priority of above-the-fold content that may not be as important, like the second, third or fourth images in a carousel. Google makes it easier to remove images of kids from the search resultsGoogle is now letting anyone under the age of 18, or their parent or guardian, request the removal of their images from the Google Search results. The removal request can lead to the image no longer appearing in the Google Images tab or as thumbnails in any feature in Google Search, the company said. Why we care. Sometimes teenagers and kids do rash things with their phones. Having these controls in place can help undo some of the harm. On a more professional level, this may give more tools for online reputation management firms to deal with some content removal within Google Search. In 2022, retailers will lose half of sales on backordered items unless they compensate with experience, according to ForresterResearch company Forrester has released its 2022 consumer and customer experience predictions, highlighting pandemic-related issues and evolving consumer sentiment. Here are the most important predictions for search marketers:
Why we care. These predictions align with what many businesses have been experiencing and how consumer sentiment has changed since the start of the pandemic. While most of the predictions aren’t directly related to SEO or PPC, they may affect reviews, ad campaigns and customer loyalty, which greatly influences strategy for search marketers. The non-impact of URL length, iOS 14’s effect on ad revenue and morbid Squid Game memesNo, URL length doesn’t matter. “I’m currently only aware of one part of our systems where the URL length plays a role. That part is canonicalization,” Google’s John Mueller said in the latest #AskGooglebot video, adding, “If we find a shorter and cleaner URL, our systems tend to select that one. This does not affect ranking, it’s purely a matter of which URL is shown in Search.” Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising earnings both up over 40%. Both Google and Microsoft released earnings statements on Tuesday. Year over year, Google Ads grew 43% (from $37,095B to $53,130B) and Microsoft Advertising’s business was up 40%. It seems that YouTube’s earnings weren’t impacted as dramatically as some might have expected by Apple’s app tracking transparency initiative. Just for fun. The first two are funnier/more disturbing if you’ve seen Squid Game — tip of the hat to Suganthan Mohanadasan and Crystal Carter. And, here’s one I think SEOs that work for publishers will really be able to relate to, courtesy of Izzi Smith. The post Core Web Vitals: SEOs look back and shrug; Thursday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3EsKLqO |
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