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As the hours tick down to Thanksgiving weekend and the official start of the holiday shopping season, here are a few last-minute items to help ensure you’re set up for success and can handily manage your paid search campaigns right through the season — even if you’re B2B or aren’t expecting a holiday bump. Double-check these paid search tacticsHoliday promotion extensions. You can still add holiday occasion-based promotion extensions to your Google Ads campaigns. These can be added at the account, campaign or ad group level are available for
Holiday in-market audiences. Google has a Seasonal Shopping in-market audiences for Black Friday Shopping, which includes “People who will shop sales around the United States Thanksgiving holiday (including Cyber Monday)” and Christmas Shopping, which includes “People who will shop for Christmas gifts.” Microsoft’s holiday in-market audiences are currently limited to Valentine’s Day, but you may find other in-market audiences that are relevant to your brand. Countdown customizers. Add a sense of urgency to your text ads with countdowns to let customers know when deals and shipping promotions are set to end. Microsoft Advertising and Google Ads both support countdown customizers. Automated bidding reminder. Keep in mind that automated bidding strategies require learning periods, so it’s best to not make changes that will reset campaigns back to the learning phase. Retargeting exclusions. Now is a good time to double-check that your retargeting campaigns are set to exclude inappropriate audiences or bombard those who just bought from you with the same ads — or worse better deals. Real-Time Holiday ManagementFor those of you managing campaigns in between second-helpings and weekend leftovers, a bit of prep work can keep you from having to stay fixated on your accounts. “By this time, you hopefully have all your ducks in a row tactically and strategically (bonus points for contingency plans), so a successful holiday campaign then really comes down to efficient analysis, effective optimization, and clear communication,” says Megan Taggart, VP of marketing at digital marketing agency Aimclear. Alerts and dashboards. Set up rules or scripts in your ad accounts, or says Taggart, “If you really want to get fancy, IFTTT triggers can be very effective for sending emails marked ‘Urgent’ — or messages to your phone as a call or text, removing the need to check emails every five minutes and allowing you to be more present over the holiday” Communication. Be sure your team and stakeholders have access to the campaign/promotion schedule, budget plans and KPIs before the long weekend starts. “Finally, it’s good insurance to make sure your laptop is within a stone’s throw in the event of any last-minute changes, updates, or CM snafus — just make sure to keep it closed after Uncle Ned busts out the cask of homemade Eggnog,” advises Taggart. Don’t blow your B2B budgetWhile some B2B businesses get in on Black Friday promotions with deals, many are preparing for spending slowdowns when their customers are out of the office during the holidays. Mindful budgeting is particularly important if your B2B campaigns have keyword overlaps with consumer intent queries that increase during this season. “In the B2B world, Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) doesn’t translate to an uptick in traffic and sales like it does for e-commerce advertisers,” says Melissa Mackey, Search Supervisor at B2B agency gyro. “For most B2B advertisers, the opposite is true – we have to worry about holiday-related drops in traffic that affect our ability to spend allocated budgets,” says Mackey. “To compensate, we’ll either heavy-up early in the month in anticipation or reduce the November budget to allow for what amounts to nearly a week of slow traffic and lead volume. The effort on our part happens prior to the actual Thanksgiving weekend in deciding how we’ll plan for the dropoff.” The post Last-minute paid search tactics, management tips for Black Friday, Cyber Monday success appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/34nUBbT You’ve got yourself an awesome product. You’re ready to roll it out to your customers. You even have the perfect prospect to kick off your SEO sales. You know they’re ready to improve their online presence. So you’ve got a great pitch, you wind up, and it doesn’t go nearly as well as you’d hoped. What happened? Search Engine Optimization can be a challenging product to sell if you don’t have the right approach. This guide will take you through every step of the process to help you close sales for your SEO prospects, helping your small business customers succeed, and helping your business grow. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download “The Ultimate Guide to Selling SEO.” The post The Ultimate Guide to Selling SEO appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/35CTtRY Google recently announced that publishers can now create Google Actions from web content using schema markup. For brands, Google Actions can be a great way to get more mileage out of your SEO strategy and offer another opportunity to reach searchers organically. Optimizing for newer SEO features like Google Actions and rich results are becoming increasingly critical when it comes to pleasing the algorithm. While the option isn’t available for every content type, this new capability is a big deal for less technical users looking to, ahem, get in on the Actions. What Are Google Actions?Actions are apps designed for the Google Assistant. They range from apps like the Dominos delivery action to health and fitness apps to personality tests and ride-hailing services. Actions work when the user prompts the Assistant with a phrase like, “OK, Google, talk to [Action].” According to Google, here’s a representation of what happens “behind the scenes” during an interaction: It’s important to understand that all Actions take place inside the cloud, though users can access them on any device with the Google Assistant enabled. Each action is also tied to a specific intent and is programmed with a corresponding fulfillment process to complete a given request. Speaking of intent, let’s move on to the next section, where I’ll go over the link between schema markup and Google Actions. Google Actions + SchemaSchema markup is a type of microdata that gives Google more context about the intent of any given piece of content. When you add schema markup to a webpage, it creates an enhanced description – aka a rich result – which appears on the front page of Google. These rich results include everything from “book now buttons” for local businesses to recipe instructions, contact information and events. Search engines need to match content to search queries, and part of assessing the quality of a search result depends on intent. Schema is a way for websites to let search engines know more about the intent behind the content. It’s also a requirement for websites that want to be eligible for Google’s rich results – which increasingly account for the lion’s share of the first page in the search results. Of course, adding the markup alone won’t guarantee position zero. You’ll need to make sure you follow Google’s recommendations perfectly, that you choose the right schema for the page you’re targeting, and that your content is useful, credible and engaging. It’s a tall order, but Google’s latest announcement brings schema to Google Actions, offering an additional channel for earning some of your SEO share back. For content creators is, this means that they now have the ability to create Google Actions, regardless of whether or not they know their way around Dialogflow or the Google Actions Console. Instead, Google automatically generates an Action when users add specific markup to eligible content types. Google Actions schema: Content typesThe main benefit of using schema for content actions is that it provides an opportunity to increase brand awareness in a format with limited advertising opportunities. Using schema markup, Google can create a variety of Actions based on six types of content that you might publish on the web. Here’s a look at the supported content. PodcastsLast May, Google announced they would be adding podcasts to the search results screen through a new structured markup option. For podcasters long reliant on clunky search features on platforms like Apple Podcasts or Stitcher, the option to improve discoverability in the Google Search results is huge. The markup allows podcasters to improve their showing in the Google Search results and on Google Podcasts, with individual episode descriptions and an embedded player for each right there on the first page. Another new feature, Deeper Podcast search, lets users search for the actual audio directly inside the podcast using Google transcriptions. Connecting podcasts to a Google Action takes things to the next level, making it easy for users to find your podcast in the Assistant directory and play episodes directly from their phone, smart speaker, or Google Home display. Here’s how to turn podcasts into a Google Action:
FAQsPer Google guidelines, you can apply FAQ schema to any site that features a list of questions and answers on just about any subject. Meaning, the option isn’t limited to the official FAQ pages included on a company’s website; instead, you can create FAQ pages for any resource or topic relevant to your business. What’s nice about FAQ schema – whether it’s linked to an Action or not – is those brands that earn position zero can take up a ton of real estate on the SERPs. As with all other types of schema, FAQ content needs to match what’s on your website 100%. Otherwise, Google may hit you with a manual action. It’s also important to note that FAQ content is purely informational in intent – and as such, you can’t use markup as a free advertising channel. By turning your FAQ pages into Google Actions, the Google Assistant can read your answers out loud when searchers enter a related voice query. Here’s what you’ll need to know. Valid vs. invalid use-casesFAQ pages must be written from the perspective of the website, with no option for users to submit alternative answers. This can take the form of either a product support page where, again, users don’t have the option to offer additional answers. This means that forum pages or pages where users can submit questions and provide answers don’t count. In those instances, you’ll need to add the QAPage markup instead (keep in mind, this will not automatically create an action). Markup the entire thingWhen you add FAQ schema to your page, make sure that you include all text associated with both the question and the answer. Notice how this Booking.com example includes the question as a complete sentence and a conversational answer–they don’t just say, “it’s $167.” Additionally, all FAQ content must be accessible to the visitor on the source page. So, if you click through to Booking.com based on that answer, you’ll see that exact same text on the official website. Here’s an example of FAQ markup in JSON-LD format: RecipesRecipe markup allows users to promote their content through rich cards presented in the Google Assistant and learn about your content in the Assistant directory. Use it to highlight nutritional information, prep time, and ingredient lists, along with images that get searchers interested in your food. What’s more, you can use the recipe schema together with the guidance markup, which gives consumers a way to follow along with audio instructions for your recipes. As it stands, you’ll need to fill out a Google Form to get started with the feature. It’s pretty short, requiring only your name, email, domain, and company name. It’s also worth pointing out that you’ll need to make sure your page features both the recipe and guidance markup to be eligible for rich search results and as a Google Action. Additionally, you’ll need to make sure that you set up your structured data correctly. A few things to consider:
Here’s an example of recipe schema in JSON-LD format: How-to guidesHow-to schema can be used to markup articles that contain instructional information that show users how to do something new. As is the case with the other content types I’ve mentioned, there are some guidelines you should know about before applying the HowTo markup to your site. According to Google Developers, HowTo markup applies to content where the main focus of that page is the how-to. In other words, it doesn’t count if you write a long-form article that includes a short how-to section along with several different elements. The content must also be read sequentially as a series of steps. How-to content must also abide by these guidelines:
Here’s an example of HowTo markup in JSON-LD format: Right now, HowTo Actions are only available for Google Assistant, not for Smart Displays. However, Google is working to sign up more publishers interested in creating how-to content for smart displays. Sign up here to let Google Developers know you’re interested in this option – and perhaps we’ll see this feature roll out sometime in 2020. NewsAdding markup to your news content helps you increase visibility in the SERPs and gives users the option to consume your content via Google Assistant. Users can apply this schema to blog content, articles, and news articles, though they’ll need to be a registered publisher on Google News to take advantage of this tool. The News markup makes stories visually stand out in the SERPs. Features like the host carousel, top stories carousel, visual stories, and large thumbnails and headlines allow users an opportunity to attract more organic traffic to their sites by giving them more real estate to share content. To add voice compatibility to the list of features, you’ll need to choose between AMP and non-AMP formatting, which I’ve laid out for you here. AMP with structured data Google recommends that users opt for AMP, as its fast load times mean there’s less of a chance that the Assistant will experience a delay when “reading” an article aloud. It’s also worth pointing out, AMP articles come with a few more requirements than non-AMP content. To set it up:
Recommended properties:
Non-AMP with structured data While Google encourages users to embrace AMP, you can add structured data to Non-AMP articles, as well. And like their AMP counterparts, those news stories that include markup have a higher likelihood of appearing in the search results with rich results features. To set it up:
Recommended properties:
Keep in mind, you will need to mark up your content as structured articles for it to show in the news result. Here’s an example of article markup in JSON-LD form: Before you apply markupTo turn News content into a Google Action, you’ll need to meet the following requirements. Have a dedicated news site:
Here’s an example of News markup in JSON-LD: Markup vs. templatesIn addition to markups, Google introduced another simplified way to create Actions for the Google Assistant: templates. While this option isn’t automated like the Google Action schema approach, there’s no code involved in the template process, either. Users can quickly create an action by filling out a Google Sheet, although this option only extends to four content types: personality quizzes, flashcards, trivia and how-to videos. How-to videos must be uploaded to YouTube to be eligible. According to the developers’ page, getting started is relatively simple. All you need to do is complete the following steps:
Claim your new actionIf you’ve already published your content with relevant structured data, Google may automatically create a page in the Assistant directory. If this happens, the site owner will receive an email prompting them to claim the page. You can also do this by visiting the directory itself and clicking the link to claim the page. Remove your actionBecause Google auto-generates content Actions, you may end up with some unwanted Actions in the directory. To remove them, all you need to do is follow these three quick steps:
Wrapping upSmart devices and voice search are becoming increasingly valuable pieces of the SEO landscape, and Google Actions offer a new point of entry for brands looking to increase visibility in the organic search results. This latest update makes Google Actions accessible to a broader range of marketers who may not have the time or the know-how to build an Action from scratch. The post How to use Schema to create a Google Action appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/37Ef1j9 This is a simple story about the life of a particular writer, and how he ignored the one thing about... The post The Old Man and The Pen appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger https://ift.tt/34oCdjc It’s not a secret that Google Maps has solidified its place as the dominant entry point for local search. In fact, a new consumer survey from Brandify found that 77% of respondents use Google Maps to find “near me” business information well ahead of other sites. Survey consistent with traffic data. That finding is backed up by data from GatherUp, ThriveHive, and others that show Google Maps is driving most of their customers’ local traffic. Interestingly, the Brandify survey shows the percentage of Maps users goes down (51%) and the order of sites changes somewhat when consumers are asked which local sites/apps they consider “most useful.” Most local search on smartphones. The vast majority of people (81%) use smartphones for “near me” searches, with a small number favoring tablets (9%) and the rest using desktops or laptops (22%). This stands in dramatic contrast to a survey released last week, which found that the PC was preferred for local searches — although the survey sample was dominated by those 55 and older. There are a couple of other interesting things about the chart above. Facebook is the number two choice for local business search. That’s followed by Yelp and “business website.” This is another rejoinder to those who believe the small business website is dead. Following websites, Google Assistant/Home and Instagram are next on the list. They, in turn, lead Apple Maps. Instagram is definitely on the SMB marketing radar but most local SEOs aren’t focused on the social site. There’s no additional visibility in the survey on the breakdown between Google Home vs. Google Assistant. It’s likely that most people are using voice search/Google Assistant on the smartphone. Alexa, however, is used by 8% of the survey sample for local lookups. That’s probably roughly equal to what Google Home would be if broken out separately. Most people not “on the go.” Another very interesting data point that mirrors mobile user behavior overall is the finding that most local search activity (on smartphones) is happening in people’s homes (59%). By contrast, roughly 31% said they conducted near me business searches “in the car” or “out and about.” The average local searcher, then, might be at home on the sofa using his or her smartphone. I suspect they’re not conducting “near me” searches as much as category searches, assuming a local result. But this is speculation on my part. Following a local search, the action most of these survey respondents are most likely to take is “visit the business in person” (56%). That’s followed by “call the business” (36%) and email or complete an online form (13%). Among these respondents, 54% percent said they would visit the business in person, either “right away” or the same day. And 46% said they would visit within the next few days. The survey featured just over 1,000 responses from U.S. adults. The gender distribution was 53% female. Just under half (47%) were under 45 and the remainder were older. Why we should care. What most marketers still don’t fully appreciate is that most online research results in an offline purchase. This is the dominant use case now for non-informational searches: a user on a smartphone looking for a product or service, where the transaction or fulfillment is offline. But if the Brandify survey is representative, the majority of these local searchers are just going to show up at a business or store, making tracking them a significant challenge. The post Google Maps the dominant local search tool, followed by Facebook and Yelp appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2QMZBTH Google Ads engineers have been working to fix conversion reporting since a bug caused conversions to be overreported for in the AdWords API, Google Ads API beta and Google Ads scripts. Status update. As of Sunday, conversion reporting has been fixed except in the Search Query Performance, Geo Performance, Keywordless Query, and Keywordless Category reports, Google said. What was the problem? A bug on November 20 at roughly 9:00 PM EST caused conversion reporting problems between November 11, 12:01 AM PST and November 20, 11:59 AM PST. It affected campaigns that aren’t using last-click attribution. The problem only affected reporting, not smart bidding algorithms. Why we care. If you downloaded conversion field data via the ads APIs or Google Ads scripts between 9:00 PM PST November 20 and 9:00 AM PST November 24 and aren’t using last-click attribution you should pull that data again to be sure it’s accurate. You should continue to hold off on pulling data from the still-affected reports noted above until they’re confirmed fixed. The post Google Ads conversion reporting bug (mostly) fixed appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/34k3KT1
Are you having a hard time converting traffic to dollars? Here's what Amazon's gorilla marketing stunt can help you with that.
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There are between 10 and 12 million landlords in the United States. If you’re looking for a great way to earn passive income, landlording can provide optimum financial security. But property management takes a lot of work. Is becoming a landlord worth it? The Pros of Becoming a Landlord The landlord role isn’t for everyone. But for successful landlords, they’re reaping the benefits. Healthy Rental Market More Americans are renting, more than they ever have been in 50 years. Renting offers many benefits for tenants. They’re not liable for major repairs, they’re free to leave at the end of their
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Escape rooms are a booming industry and have been popular ever since the first escape room opened in Japan in 2007. Escape rooms are not only a profitable business but they’re fun to manage. You can work on crafting puzzles and complex labyrinths that will intrigue your guests. But escape room owners often face one major obstacle. Crafting a storyline is difficult — especially when you’re facing competition from other escape rooms. Here’s how to “wow” your audience and craft brilliant storylines for your escape room. Stick to a Genre Do you love a good thriller? Or are you a
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