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:
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Countries are taking exciting measures to brand themselves to the world. Here's what nation branding can teach us about growing our own brands.
via ShoeMoney http://ift.tt/2C7MHWS Matthew Sucherman, Google’s VP and deputy general counsel, announced today that Google has decided to keep their current AdWords API terms and conditions as they, were since the company changed it several years ago to comply with the FTC antitrust settlement. That means Google will continue to allow batch copying of AdWords campaign and ad data for export and integration into another ad network, such as Bing Ads or other networks. “We believe that these policies provide continued flexibility for developers and websites, and we will be continuing our current practices regarding the AdWords API Terms and Conditions and the domain-by-domain opt-out following the expiration of the voluntary commitments,” Sucherman said. Google explained that this requirement expires tomorrow, December 27, 2017, but they have decided internally to keep the terms and conditions as is. Google wrote:
The post Google keeps existing AdWords API terms related to exporting to third-party ad networks appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2l4c7h5 Local SEO practitioners have an increasingly important role to play in the digital marketing mix as searches with local intent continue to grow at a fast pace — particularly on mobile devices. Google has responded to this shift in consumer behavior accordingly, releasing several updates in 2017 that have allowed business owners to enhance their local listings. This year, our readers seemed especially interested in learning more about new Google My Business features, particularly Google Posts, Questions and Answers and the new website builder. This interest may reflect increased competition for a limited number of spots in the local pack: When all of your local competitors have the basics down, utilizing new and advanced features is a great way to make your business listing stand out. Although articles about Google dominated the top local search columns this year, there was one notable exception, by Local Search Association’s Wesley Young, that focused on how Facebook is solidifying its place in the local search ecosystem. Young’s column provided a compelling case for expanding your local marketing efforts beyond Google’s local pack. Top honors this year go to Joy Hawkins’s excellent and thorough coverage of Google’s “Hawk” algorithm update, which impacted how local listings are filtered based on their proximity to similar businesses. Wondering what else local search marketers were excited about this year? Check out our top 10 most popular Local Search columns for 2017:
The post Mind your business: Our top local search columns of 2017 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2l2bLqY It’s that time of the year! That time of year when we all agonizingly optimize for holiday shopping behavior, do our best to navigate complicated family dynamics and read countless end-of-year lists. SEL reporter Amy Gesenhues recently summarized the annual release of Google’s “Year in Search” for 2017, and there were some interesting takeaways. (Not the least of which was that the “Malika Haqq and Ronnie Magro” query didn’t make the Top 10 Searches Overall list — admittedly, I have no idea who those people are, but their names sure are fun to say!) Lists of this nature are intended to be simple, fun, and (to be candid) easy press hits. But there’s actually an important and applicable lesson to be distilled here, too. These “Year in Search” lists are representative of the searching populace; the lists communicate the interests of the collective audience. There certainly was no shortage of compelling stories in 2017, but the subjects included in Gesenhues’s piece are what drove the most engagement in this country. Of course, as digital marketers, we’re obsessed with targeting and often dismiss any characteristics of the “collective audience” as irrelevant to our sophisticated efforts. But in fact, the clear message that this peek-into-the-collective communicates is the value of targeting. Yandex, Russia’s leading search engine (and my employer), recently released its own version of the “Year in Search” — and there is very little overlap with Google’s. This may not be shocking to you, but if it’s common knowledge that the trends in one market may be vastly different than those in another, then why do so many advertisers apply the same approach across markets? More and more American companies are expanding their target audiences to incorporate the international consumer. Of course, there are more potential customers outside of the US than within, so the allure is understandable. But each international market is unique, and your marketing strategies need to reflect the differences. Below is Yandex’s 2017 Year in Search. Don’t forget to compare with Google’s list here! Events
Men
Women
Things and Phenomena
Sports
Films
Foreign TV Series
Memes
The post Unique international trends require a unique marketing approach appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2C8QMwr For the first half of my 20-year career, I focused primarily on technical, enterprise SEO for brands with dozens of domains and millions of pages. For the second half, I’ve been on the product side of a software-as-a-service platform designed to help large multilocation brands achieve digital success. Living and breathing product development has been helpful in reshaping how I prioritize and execute in all areas of my life, SEO consulting included. To that end, I believe it would be helpful for SEO professionals to think more like good product managers. Product managers and SEO experts actually have quite a lot in common. They both:
All of the above issues are interrelated. Because product managers and SEO professionals operate on the front lines, they are under the microscope, needing to prove their value constantly. The good news is that both create measurable outcomes. The bad news is that because they manage several variables, product managers and SEO professionals sometimes get lost in the weeds, placing too much importance on metrics that provide little value to their business. Greg Gifford underscored the challenge for SEOs in a recent Search Engine Land column when he wrote about the problem of marketers creating SEO reports that don’t measure valuable outcomes. Too often, monthly reports get mired in reporting SEO data that means a lot to an SEO practitioner but nothing to anyone in charge of creating customers and building a brand. The creation of irrelevant reports mirrors a misguided obsession with measuring every single ranking factor, regardless of how influential each ranking factor really is to a business. Tasks like adding H3 tags, updating meta descriptions because they were nine characters over the recommended length or refining your fully indexed site’s sitemap.xml file might provide some incremental value to your SEO. But just because you can, should you really place a high priority on that action, especially if your resources and budget are limited? As an antidote to obsessing over details that have little impact, I suggest embracing the ways that product managers such as Shopify Director of Product Brandon Chu approach their roles. Not long ago, Chu discussed the role of the “MVPM,” or minimum viable product manager. He cited a few points that really stand out. First, the job of a product manager is not to deliver a perfect outcome. Obsession with perfection is distracting. An obsession with perfection mires a product manager in details that provide, at best, an incremental value relative to the effort required to manage them. Second, product managers need to focus on the activities that provide measurable impact to a company’s most important goals. He wrote:
An SEO who applies Chu’s thinking might ask:
Once you’ve used the above questions to vet your most essential SEO actions, then:
By focusing on the most important outcomes and reporting them, you will become more valuable to your organization and improve the value of SEO as a profession. Here’s to a successful 2018! The post Embrace a product manager mindset to improve 2018 SEO KPIs appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2BGbFMh Psst … hey, Copyblogger is taking the week off between Christmas and New Year’s. At least, officially. I’m not supposed to be here at all. But, given that my schedule is always out of whack this time of year, I like to take advantage of the disruptions to think about what I want to make The post How to Build a Trusted Framework that Expands Your Content Creavity appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger http://ift.tt/2DTYE3c Today’s Christmas holiday marks day two of Google’s 2017 holiday doodle series. After posting the first of the series on December 18, Google has added two new images to the slide show for today’s doodle. “Our favorite penguins couldn’t be more excited to reunite with their loved ones. Happy to be together for the season of cheer, this colorfully feathered family can’t wait to sink their beaks into a delicious feast,” writes Google on the Google Doodle blog. While the December 18 doodle included an image of the penguins making plans over the phone with their bird friends, today’s doodle has replaced that image with the following artwork of the penguins and birds together: The doodle has also added the following image of all the friends sharing a dinner surrounded by lighted palm trees: Same as the first doodle, today’s image leads to a search for “December global festivities.” Going off the last image in the slide show that lists the holiday doodle series dates, there are two more holiday doodles to be posted, one for New Year’s Eve and one for New Year’s Day: The post December global festivities Google doodle marks day 2 of Google’s holiday doodle series appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2pwSfaM Welcome to a special Christmas Episode on the Steps and Giving Habits to Become a Top Influencer In this Episode You’ll Learn:– Why giving works and is important Recommended Resources Mentioned On ShowWhat Did You Learn?Thanks for joining me on the show. So what did you learn? If you enjoyed this episode please share it on social media and send it to someone that needs extra motivation in their MLM business. Do you have any thoughts or comments? Please take 60 seconds to leave an HONEST review for the MLM Nation Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely important for me to make this show better. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes so that you get updates and new episodes downloaded to your phone automatically. Click Here to Subscribe via iTunes Click here to Subscribe via Stitcher Click Here to Subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes feed) The post 430: Special Christmas Episode “Steps and Giving Habits to Become a Top Influencer” appeared first on MLM Nation: Network Marketing Training | Prospecting | Lead Generation | Leadership | Duplication | Motivation. via MLM Nation: Network Marketing Training | Prospecting | Lead Generation | Leadership | Duplication | Motivation http://ift.tt/2D9iKoX Google & NORAD Santa Trackers show St. Nick already in flight for his 2017 trip around the world12/24/2017 It’s Christmas Eve in North America, but on the other side of the globe, Santa has already started his 2017 Christmas trip around the world to deliver gifts. According to both Google’s Santa Tracker and NORAD’s Santa Tracker, Santa is approximately 14 hours from making his away to North America and has already delivered more than a million gifts. NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) has been tracking Santa’s whereabouts since 1955 when a Sear’s department store ad mistakenly printed the phone number to NORAD’s headquarters as a hotline to find Santa. The military organization took up the call, and has been following through on the tradition ever since. Google launched its first Santa Tracker in 2004 using Google Earth. In 2007, Google partnered with NORAD to track Santa, but then in 2012, Google went back to tracking Santa on its own and NORAD partnered with Microsoft. (You can find out more about Google’s history tracking Santa in this Marketing Land story from 2014: How Google Became A Santa Tracker Tradition To Rival NORAD.) Google’s 2017 Santa TrackerGoogle is continuing its tradition of following Santa and his reindeer around the world this year, offering a number of ways to track where he is at any given moment. There is the desktop tracker that shows Santa’s path via Google Maps. You can also download the Chrome extension for Google’s Santa Tracker, or the Android app. In addition to tracking Santa’s whereabouts, Google displays approximately how long before he makes his way to your stop, and provides a “Live Feed” with animated updates from Santa and his elves. NORAD’s 2017 Santa TrackerNORAD’s Santa Tracker appears to be using both Bing Maps and Cesium mapping technology that lets viewers follow Santa’s journey in either 2D or 3D mapping images. There are photos of locations Santa has already visited along the bottom of the map that link to Wikipedia pages for each of the locales. NORAD has also created quick videos of Santa’s stops so far, a list most likely to grow as Santa gains more ground. NORAD will also send you Santa’s location if you email [email protected]. Here’s an automatic response I received after sending an email with a subject line “where’s Santa” earlier today: Also, much to my surprise, NORAD’s hotline number — (877) 446-6723 — has a live operator who will tell you exactly where Santa is at the time of your call, and where he’s headed next. Whether or not you’re following Santa’s trek around the world tonight, Search Engine Land hopes you and your family are enjoying your holidays and wishes you a happy New Year in the week to come! The post Google & NORAD Santa Trackers show St. Nick already in flight for his 2017 trip around the world appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2DGqQ9m |
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