We’ve expanded our catalog of SMX events to six virtual learning experiences in 2021. The events will include our well-respected SMX Advanced event which will be held virtually for the first time this coming June and for the second year in a row, we’ll hold SMX Next focusing on next-generation strategies, tactics and technology. The other four events will serve to provide a deeper dive into critical topics such as measurement and reporting, creating compelling content, conversion strategies and coding in an SEO-friendly way. Each event will provide attendees a choreographed learning journey designed to ensure marketers get the most out of search, whether they are responsible for organic, paid, or both. If you have session and topic ideas that would fit into these learning journeys, please consider pitching a session for the following events which will take place in the first half of 2021:
Here are some tips to help get your pitch noticed.
You can look for more information and tips for submitting session pitches on this page, or go directly to the pitch form here. Please note, we have a new pitch form and process. When you first click on the pitch form you’ll need to create an account, wait for an email confirmation, and finally click on “Pitch A Session” to enter your specific session pitch details. Got questions? You can reach me directly at [email protected]. The post We’re revving up for more SMX events in 2021. Submit your session pitches now appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3oZj94W
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Google has confirmed minutes ago that the December 2020 broad core update that began rolling out on December 3, 2020 is now completely rolled out. Google said “the December 2020 Core Update rollout is complete.” The facts. What we know from Google, as we previously reported, is that the December 2020 core update started to roll out around 1:00pm ET on Thursday, Dec. 3. Like all core updates, this was a global update and was not specific to any region, language or category of web sites. It is a classic “broad core update” that Google releases every few months or so. In this case, it was the longest stretch since a confirmed broad core update, one that took just under seven-months, as opposed to the typical three-month time frame. It was a big update. This update, according to many of the tool providers and the SEO community was a very big update. Many who were either negatively or positively impacted saw gains or declines of 10% to over 100% of their current levels of organic search traffic. Previous updates. The most recent previous core update was the May 2020 core update, that update was big and broad and took a couple of weeks to fully roll out. Before that was the January 2020 core update, we had some analysis on that update over here. The one prior to that was the September 2019 core update. That update felt weaker to many SEOs and webmasters, as many said it didn’t have as big of an impact as previous core updates. Google also released an update in November, but that one was specific to local rankings. You can read more about past Google updates over here. Timing the update. There has been concern about the timing of this update, that it was released a couple of weeks prior to the holiday season. Google said it was done after the Thanksgiving season, after Black Friday and Cyber Monday but before the holidays. But for some, especially those that make a lot of their sales right before the holidays, this update can be devastating to their business. The roll out just finished a several days away from Christmas and during the Chanukah holidays – tonight is the 7th night of Chanukah. What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update in the past. There aren’t specific actions to take to recover, and in fact, a negative rankings impact may not signal anything is wrong with your pages. However, Google has offered a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update. Google did say you can see a bit of a recovery between core updates but the biggest change you would see would be after another core update. Now that the update is done rolling out, you should know if your site was impacted or not and decide on the necessary course of action. Why we care. It is often hard to isolate what you need to do to reverse any algorithmic hit your site may have seen. When it comes to Google core updates, it is even harder to do so. If this data and previous experience and advice has shown us is that these core updates are broad, wide and cover a lot of overall quality issues. Now that this update has been fully rolled out, it is time to dig into your analytics and data and decide on what next steps you need to take for the web sites you manage. The post Google December 2020 core update is now fully rolled out appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3oZpkWY The one constant in website data is it’s always changing, and Google Analytics is no different. In October, Google announced the release of Google Analytics 4 (previously called App + Web), billing it as an analytics tool that provides smarter insights to improve ROI as digital marketing moves to a cookie-less world. After an announcement like this, the first question every digital marketer asks is, “How does this directly impact my job?” The move to Google Analytics 4 is going to change how every person uses Google Analytics. The good thing is that we have time to prepare for it: Google hasn’t started talking about when it will sunset Universal Google Analytics, so there is no need to panic. Taking time now to understand how your data works in GA4 will save you time and headaches later. Setting up your first data streamThe first step with Google Analytics 4 is setting up your data stream. In the admin section for Universal Google Analytics is the ability to upgrade a property. If you choose to upgrade your property now, you will have to be using the gtag install for GA. The upgrade will create a new property for tracking that starts with G-. In order to keep the universal property firing while you learn the new interface, you will have to have both tags firing on your site. This is key to keep using the universal reporting we are all familiar with while you learn GA4. After you create the property, you will have to connect a data stream to it. If you are tracking both website and app traffic, you can add both data streams to one report. If you only use Google Analytics on a website, you’ll only have to set up a website stream. By default, GA4 will measure page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, site search, video engagement and file download. Once you create a stream, Google will give you the full G property and code to install it on your site. Remember, you still want to have your Universal Google Analytics code firing on the site, or through Google Tag Manager, for data to flow to both versions of GA. Realtime refresh in GA 4Once your new code is installed on the site, navigate to the Realtime report to confirm the data is flowing in. GA4 has combined all the individual reports from Realtime into one mega report. The user map now will update in real-time, plus show you data from the last 30 minutes. The two other big changes are with the events and conversions: Google Analytics 4 is making the pivot to focus on engagement, so all user activity, including page views, are being tracked as events. The second change is the conversions menu. Those “important actions” that we use to track as goals are now all called conversions. Google has also upgraded the number of conversions you can track to 30. Even with an increase in trackable conversions, you will still need to be smart about which events you are tracking. Google also thought about it and added one of the coolest features to GA 4: now, you can customize and edit events right in the Analytics interface. Being able to customize and create events right in GA means less reliance on coding event tracking in Google Tag Manager. Editing your events in GA4When you first navigate to the events menu, it will show the standard events that come with Google Analytics 4. You’ll also have the buttons at the top of that screen that allow you to modify an existing event, or create a new event. The menu also has easy sliders that turn any event into a tracked conversion. While every user click on your website is important, only some clicks should be counted as conversions. That’s where modifying events becomes key. You can set up new events that only count certain clicks. To do that, first, click on the “create an event” button. You’ll then give the event a new name and the conditions for that event. Since all page views in GA4 are considered events, you can create an event for “page location” and then put in the page name you want to track. In the example below, we’ve created a new event for visits to the “Contact Us” page on a website. Once you create your first event it will take about 24 hours for it to show up in the conversions and events screen. To verify your new events right away, click back into the Realtime menu and you’ll be able to see the new custom event. Change doesn’t have to be scaryAt first look, Google Analytics 4 seems drastically different and that change can scare people off. The good news is, as digital marketers, we’re all in the same boat of learning a whole new system. We also have time to learn this new tool. As you build a learning plan, make a list of the reports in Universal Google Analytics that you visit the most. Once you have that list together, start to work at finding that same data in GA4. Tackle this change one report at a time and you’ll be prepared to make the full migration to Google Analytics 4. The post How to get started in Google Analytics 4 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2KtcC3M Traditionally, content proofreading is a separate task from editing. And I still treat the two as different activities. However, the... The post 10 Content Proofreading Tips to Catch More Avoidable Goofs appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger https://ift.tt/2KdTEOB Google has temporarily disabled yet another feature in Google Search Console, the issue validation function is currently disabled. Google said it is “temporarily disabled due to upcoming changes in the report.” There is not estimated time for when it will be fixed. Issue validation. This feature lets you communicate to Google that you fixed an issue that is preventing Google from properly accessing your site or parts of your site. There is a “validate fix” button for your errors and when you click on it, Google has a workflow to validate that fix. The notice. Here is the notice you would find when you access the Coverage report in Google Search Console: More details. Google posted more details on this help document page saying “If you see a “validation temporarily disabled” message in your report, this is because we’re updating some of the criteria for some issues in this report. This change does not affect validation requests that are currently in process, but new validation requests can’t be submitted until after we finish updating our issue criteria. Thank you for your patience.” Request indexing tool. Over two months ago, Google also temporarily disabled the request indexing tool. Guess what, it is still disabled. Google’s John Mueller did tell us that he does expect it to be fixed before the end of the year. Why we care. If you use this tool to try to get Google to recrawl and process pages, you might be out of luck, at least for the short term. For now, fix the issues on your end, try to submit a fix validation with Google but do not expect to see a response in Google Search Console. Google can still end up processing the fix without communicating that resolution in Search Console. The post Google temporarily disables issue validation in Search Console appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2Kv3ATI Google announced it is now moving the campaign goal metric in Google Ads to an easier location to find it. The score is being moved near your optimization score, so it is easier to locate. Google said it is being moved to make it “easier for you to understand how optimization score prioritizes recommendations.” What is looks like. Here is a screen shot of the new location for the score: How is this score calculated. Your campaign goals are determined by your bidding strategy and can be focused on conversions, conversion value, clicks or impression share. Using a goal eases your decision-making when you create a campaign in Google Ads by guiding you to the specific features designed to help your campaign succeed. When you create a campaign, you can select a goal. The goal you select should align with the main thing you want to get from your campaign, for example, Sales or Website traffic. After selecting a goal, you’ll see relevant, recommended features and settings to help you attain the results that matter most to your business. Changing your goals. You can update your bidding strategy at any time by clicking change bid strategy. This will likely impact your campaign goal metric. You can add or remove a goal at any time and, if you want, choose to not use a goal and create your campaign without seeing a goal’s recommendations. To see more information about each goal type and some of the highlighted features each goal recommends, simply place your cursor over a goal. Top recommendations. Google is also now highlighting the top recommendation for your Google Ads campaign. Google said “this can help you prioritize recommendations that will have the greatest impact on your optimization score and account performance.” Why we care. These scores and metrics can be useful and sometimes fun to see. But keep in mind, they are no substitute for your true metrics, which should be about the return on investment for your campaign spend and if those ads are converting to real sales. The post Google Ads moves campaign goal metric appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3mpuw4B For over half of its 22-year history, Google has been the most prevalent search engine in the United States. Over that term, its perception has gone from quintessential Silicon Valley startup and underdog to the gatekeeper of the internet, presiding over algorithms that have massive business implications and developing a reputation for expanding its business into different sectors in the name of providing a better experience to its users. More recently, increased scrutiny over its business practices has led government regulators to crack down on perceived improprieties and some users have shown a slight sway towards a more privacy-oriented search experience. Pushback has also come from other search engines, such as DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, which have been vocal critics of how Google is presenting search engine alternatives to Android users in the EU. The groundswell of resistance to the market leader may create the right circumstances for alternative search engines to assert themselves. Founded by former Google ad boss Sridhar Ramaswamy, Neeva was announced in June, and You.com was announced this month by former Salesforce Chief Scientist Richard Socher. While taking a significant slice of search market share away from Google might be part of their overall goal, and what many marketers would like to see, success as a new search engine is contingent upon many factors and may come in a more modest form. Regulators want to see more competition in searchOver the last few years, Google has been facing increased scrutiny over alleged anticompetitive practices both in the US and abroad. In 2018, it was penalized €4.3 billion (roughly $5 billion), the largest antitrust fine ever imposed by the European Commission (EC) — that’s on top of the €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) fine it levied on Google the year before for favoring its own content in search results. Last year, 48 state attorneys general joined in an antitrust investigation of the company. On the federal level, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against Google in October, alleging that it uses contracts and its market power to neutralize rivals. If Google is found to have engaged in anticompetitive tactics, the question then turns to remedies. A report issued by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust recommended a number of potential remedies, including “structural separation” to restore competition, but Google is projecting confidence and may take the fight to court. If that happens, it could be two years before an initial judgment, and even then, the company may pursue an appeal. However, with scrutiny over the company’s dominant position coming to a head, potential competitors have been gradually coming out of the thicket and attempting to distinguish themselves from the market leader. RELATED: Does the Google antitrust case make an Apple search engine more likely? Can anyone actually go head-to-head with Google?As Google exists today, creating a search engine that could meaningfully compete with it would necessitate “[Building] a product that shows results at least as relevant, useful, fast, and cognitively low-load as Google themselves, then build a brand that at least tens to hundreds of millions of people rapidly trust and prefer to Google,” according to Rand Fishkin, CEO and co-founder of SparkToro, adding that the latter half is a more realistic possibility due to Google’s “continuing tack away from ‘beloved startup’ and toward ‘evil empire’ over the last ~8 years.” “To be honest, I don’t see how that will happen,” Eric Enge, principal at Perficient, told Search Engine Land, “Quality of search results has a lot to do with the data you have access to, and [the search engine] with the most data wins — I don’t see how anyone can catch Google in that regard.” Fishkin shared a similar sentiment: “I don’t think, realistically, anyone can build a search engine close to Google’s quality without their years of data on what people searched for, clicked, and found valuable vs. not (via measuring things like bounces-back-to-the-SERPs, query modifications, regularly choosing result #8 over #1, etc). That’s Google’s real secret sauce — the ace no one can touch. Tragically, I don’t think many folks in search (including these two new companies [Neeva and You.com]) realize how impossible a hurdle that is to overcome.” While the bar is high, these two potential rivals presumably believe there are areas of opportunity that Google has yet to claim, and have been able to attract investment towards that cause. As of June, 2020, Neeva had already raised $37.5 million and employed 25 individuals, and You.com is being backed by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and venture capitalist Jim Breyer. Funding, however, is unlikely to level the playing field — even with Microsoft’s massive resources, Bing has largely been unable to sway users or digital marketers away from Google. Catching Google does not need to be the goalInstead of building a search engine that could take Google head on, “the objective could be to build a strong cadre of users interested in building out their ‘own corner of the web,’” Enge said with regards to Neeva, adding that this strategy would not require billions of users to be a successful business. DuckDuckGo employs a similar strategy to differentiate itself from others and appeal to privacy-minded users. In November 2020, the number of queries DuckDuckGo handles per month increased to an all-time high of nearly 2.4 billion. Nevertheless, it still only accounts for 2.3% search market share in the US, compared to Google’s 87.7%. Neeva’s subscription-based service, which will reportedly cost less than $10 per month when it launches, seeks to deliver a personalized yet ad-free experience. And, it may not have as many technological hurdles to overcome as it will leverage existing content and data sources, including Bing search results, Apple Maps, and weather.com. This may help Neeva save on its development budget coming out of the gate, and if it’s able to attract enough subscribers, the company aims to lower its monthly fee, which may make it a more attractive alternative for new users. Although exact details haven’t been announced, the You.com website makes multiple references to helping users with their online purchasing decisions. The company’s early access survey also asks numerous questions related to e-commerce. If You.com wants to be a player in the e-commerce space, it may also have to compete with Amazon. If it decides to challenge Amazon directly, then “the biggest challenges … are scale of operators, especially on the shipping+delivery side, then the two-sided marketplace-building challenge of growing potential customers and stores/sellers, and finally, luring enough investment to withstand the sustained price wars Amazon’s willing to engage in,” Fishkin said. “So many people are wired to start their shopping with Amazon that it seems highly improbable that anyone will accomplish that,” said Enge, caveating that You.com could still build a strong user base through its differentiating features, such as a custom You.com URL with the user’s name to facilitate sharing. Distinguishing itself in the e-commerce sector may be a more realistic path, as companies such as Etsy, eBay, Shopify and, to some extent, Google Shopping have been able to carve out their own niches in the space. “A site like You.com, if they do integrate in some level of e-commerce, only need to start producing millions of dollars of revenue to be off to a great start,” Enge reiterated, “While this is still a non-trivial accomplishment, it’s a lot simpler than trying to unseat Amazon.” What success might look like for new search enginesThe long-term viability of potential Google or Amazon competitors will partially depend on their ability to attract an initial audience, which is difficult to forecast at this point since neither Neeva or You.com have released more details or an expected launch date. “In my opinion, no,” Fishkin said when asked about whether he thinks Neeva or You.com’s differentiating business models and features are enough to attract new users during their launch period. “If I were in their shoes, I’m not sure I’d announce my ‘secret sauce’ way of competing against the tech monopolies until after I launched — so hopefully they’ve got more up their sleeves,” he said. A component of the “secret sauce” may hinge on identifying users who have needs that Google isn’t currently addressing. “These users will likely still use Google quite a bit, but they might use Neeva or You.com for specific scenarios,” Enge said, “If these companies can maintain this level of focus they could have a chance of success.” If these companies take traditional venture capital, success may look more familiar: “Becoming a unicorn with $1B+ returned in shareholder value,” Fishkin said, adding, “That could be through an acquisition, of course, but hopefully some of these folks would aim to actually compete long-term against Google.” The potential impact on GoogleThe existence of more viable competitors provides marketers and users with more options, but it may also, to some extent, influence Google’s strategy. That may force Google to respond by catering more to the preferences of users and search professionals, which might improve the landscape for everyone. “Certain specific innovations might spark new innovations, or adoption by, Google,” Enge said, noting that even a large degree of success for potential rivals would still represent small numbers for Google, and that the impact is unlikely to be evident in the near term. “Google’s never had a real competitor before, but when they had a perceived one (in Facebook), they took some fairly clumsy steps,” Fishkin said, referring to the company’s now-defunct social networking platform Google Plus, “So maybe we could hope that would happen again and give rise to an actual market for search instead of just a monopoly.” The post What would it take for new search engines to succeed? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3qYr44v In July, Google announced it would deprecate the Structured Data testing tool after released the Rich Results Test tool out of beta. The SEO community were not happy with the news and Google listened and decided to keep the tool but move it to schema.org. Google said “we’ve heard your feedback” and it is “refocusing the Structured Data Testing Tool and migrating it to a new domain serving the schema.org community by April 2021.” Rich results tool. The rich results tool will be on Google’s own site, designed and maintained with the purpose of showing you Google Search rich result types. Google said “to test your markup for Google Search rich result types, you can continue to use the Rich Results Test.” Structured data testing tool. However, Google will be migrating the Structured Data testing tool off of Google’s own domain and on to schema.org. Google said “to better support open standards and development experience, we’re refocusing the Structured Data Testing Tool and migrating it to a new domain serving the schema.org community by April 2021.” Google explained that “the main purpose of the tool will be to check syntax and compliance of markup with schema.org standards.” However, going forward the structured data testing tool will no longer check for Google search rich result types. Why we care. This seems like an okay compromise where Google will keep both tools under different locations for different purposes. The tool will not away, as Google originally said, but the purpose of the tool will be for checking syntax and compliance of markup with schema.org standards and not related to how Google shows these as rich results in Google Search. The post Google to move the Structured Data testing tool to schema.org appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2LEIeE4 Brian Barwig spotted Google displaying web search results in the Google Maps local search results listings for an individual business. Brian, a local SEO, said “we are noticing a new section, “Web Results”. We, at Search Engine Land, were able to replicate this. Where to see it. Go to a business listing in Google Maps and scroll past the business information and towards the bottom, you will see “Web Results.” What it looks like. Here is a screen shot from my business listing: Web results in local. Google tends to try to keep local search and web search results separate but there have been overlap before. Google did show web site mentions in the local results before. Google also leverages algorithms used in web search for local search, such as neutral matching and others. Why we care. If potential customers scroll down your local listing in Google Maps and the web results do not look appropriate for your business, that can end up being a turn off for those customers. Do your best to make sure those web results are accurate, the snippets and content in the results look good, just in case someone does scroll down to look at them. The post Google Maps local listing now showing web search results appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3nlJFVV The overall aim of your blog is to help your audience with the issues they struggle with while also educating... The post One Ridiculously Easy Blogging Ingredient that Satisfies Hungry Prospects appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger https://ift.tt/2IQaVNb |
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