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:Local & Maps Link Building
Searching SEO
SEM / Paid Search Search Marketing
The post SearchCap: Google AdWords Editor, Danny Sullivan podcast & conversions appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2u7NItP
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Earlier this month, keeping with the traditions of a welcoming summer, Seattle opened its doors to data junkies, optimization nerds and the search-obsessed in celebration of yet another SMX Advanced. Not speaking this year, I had more flexibility to sit in on some of the many useful presentations. Among the most compelling was a session led by Jeremy Epperson of 3Q Digital and Khalid Saleh of Invesp titled, “Conversion Optimization: Turning Quick Wins into Winning.” In my role at Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine, my primary responsibility is to help North American companies succeed in Russia. Russia is a top 7 Internet Audience in the world, so I’m frequently approached by North American CMOs with a desire to “test the market.” Of course, my initial reaction is, “фантастика!” (“Fantastic!”) In today’s digital petri dish, let the data determine direction — testing is always a good start. Both Epperson and Saleh not only communicated the value of testing, but also emphasized the necessity for testing well. It’s a waste of resources to conduct a test that yields results contaminated by ignored variables or absent processes. Both speakers presented multi-step approaches to Conversion Rate Optimization. For the purposes of this article, I’ll introduce a blended step-by-step comprised of their shared components. (Before engaging in your own testing, I encourage you to take a peek at the full presentations, which appears at the end of this article.) 1. Work towards strategic business alignmentWhether it be on-page button testing, ad creative testing, or even tag testing from the SEO team, multiple departments/concentrations are going to be involved at different levels. In order to complete an actionable test, it’s crucial that all actors buy in on the test’s potential impact. Involving all departments throughout the process creates a necessary culture of optimization and a shared desire to be better. 2. Design a documented growth planIdentifying where you want to go encourages engaged parties to consider the optimal path to get there. Applying deadlines and targets will organize the testing process and cultivate shared accountability. 3. Conduct a heuristic analysisNow the fun begins. The need to be better has been identified, but where to begin? A heuristic analysis should identify the bottlenecks for growth and shape the testing battlefields. This is where expert opinion is applied to identify the broken component. 4. Perform qualitative researchEmploy fast-action data collectors to complement the expert analysis. Polls and surveys can be easily deployed to communicate with the customers and obtain opinions from the front lines. Software in this space continues to evolve and can be implemented with ease; use your institutional knowledge to ask the right questions, and listen to what the customers have to say. 5. Perform quantitative researchWhen your in-house analysis has been supported by your customers, it’s time to dig in on the quant side with the hopes of locating supportive evidence. What do the numbers look like? 6. Develop a hypothesisThe groundwork has been established, but before an A/B test can be executed, a hypothesis needs to be developed. The documented hypothesis is the trophy you get to raise after your successful test: “I thought if we did X, the result would be Y.” 7. Launch your testThe necessary preparation has been completed, and the test is ready to run. Each test is unique, but Epperson typically tries to complete a test within two to four weeks. The shorter the testing interval, the more testing we can perform. 8. Post-mortemThough the post-mortem analysis is often a forgotten victim to the jubilation or devastation of the test’s results, it is necessary to the success of future efforts that you find the time to properly assess the test. Final thoughtsI’ve long been of the opinion that in the digital world, a properly executed test should precede as many business decisions as possible; the arena we operate in facilitates an ease of access to speedy and reliable data unparalleled in competing industries — to not exercise this advantage would be careless. Q2 is just getting under way, so there’s plenty of time left in 2017 to scratch that itch and test the hypothesis you’ve long been kicking around! A winning process yields winning results. See the full presentations here: The post A winning process yields winning results: Conversion optimization tips from SMX Advanced appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2urxRp2 There aren’t many people who can claim to have created an industry, but Danny Sullivan is one of them. When he first published “The Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines” in 1996, he attracted an audience of online marketing pioneers who wanted to understand how search engines of the day — think Yahoo, AltaVista, Lycos and the like — ranked online content. Soon after, he launched Search Engine Watch and started hosting search marketing conferences. And in 2006, he co-founded Third Door Media — the company behind Search Engine Land and its younger siblings, MarTech Today and Marketing Land. As journalists, we don’t like to consider ourselves “the news,” but when Danny announced earlier this week that he’d be stepping away from daily duties as our Chief Content Officer and taking an advisory role, it was industry news. Big news. And so we think it’s apropos to spend this week’s episode of Marketing Land Live chatting with Danny about his beginnings as a search industry reporter, the evolution of both SEO and online journalism and, of course, his decision to shift careers. I had the pleasure of doing the interview, and I think you’re gonna love it. This week’s show runs just over an hour. You can listen here or use the link below to subscribe via your favorite podcast service. We invite you to subscribe via iTunes or Google Play Podcasts. Show notesDanny Sullivan: My new role as advisor for Third Door Media 10 big changes with search engines over my 20 years of covering them Thanks for listening! We’ll be back soon with another episode of Marketing Land Live. [This article originally appeared on Marketing Land.] The post LISTEN: Danny Sullivan reflects on 21 years covering the search industry appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2sYVOqa Victor Hugo Google doodle marks publication of the French novelists classic Les Misérables6/30/2017 Today’s Google doodle is a callout to French novelist, poet and human rights activist Victor Hugo. The doodle marks the publication date of what is arguably his most well-known novel, “Les Misérables.” “Before he turned 30, Hugo was already an established poet, dramatist, artist, and novelist,” writes the doodle team on the Google Doodle Blog. “Hugo appeared on a French banknote and is honored with streets, parks, hiking trails, and statues in most large French cities, as well as in Guernsey, where he lived in exile.” Designed by doodler Sophie Diao, the doodle leads to a search for “Victor Hugo” and includes a slide show depicting key scenes from his work. The Hunchback of Notre DameLes ContemplationsLes MisérablesGoogle notes that Hugo was exiled for nearly 10 years because of his political views, and it was during that time that he wrote numerous poetry collections and books about social injustice. He would go on to start the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, an organization supporting artists’ rights. Sophie Diao, the artist behind today’s doodle, has been the creative force for many of Google’s doodles, including last November’s Louisa May Alcott doodle, celebrating the “Little Women” author. Last year, Diao gave Search Engine Land a glimpse behind the curtain and answered our five most pressing questions about Google’s Doodle team and the work they do: Creating Google doodles that ‘Surprise & Delight’: 5 Questions with Doodler Sophie Diao. The post Victor Hugo Google doodle marks publication of the French novelist’s classic, ‘Les Misérables’ appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2sZ229j Google really wants advertisers to adopt their best practices. The latest version of AdWords Editor, version 12, has a whole new section to show you where you’re not complying, along with some other new features. Custom RulesThe new “Custom Rules” section can be found in the left navigation pane in AdWords Editor (AWE). It will report on warnings for not having at least four sitelink or callout extensions, using manual bidding, not having search audiences assigned to campaigns, not having conversion tracking set up and more. And if it wasn’t clear yet that Google really, really, truly wants advertisers to quit it with the basic A/B ad testing, there’s a built-in custom rule to show you how many ad groups have fewer than three ads. Below is a screen shot showing the list of built-in custom rules. They will show up even if there are no violations, just with a “0” in that column. Also shown in the screenshot is the editor pane for setting up your own custom rules to be able to quickly spot warnings and errors. You build the filter for the custom rule in the violation criteria box. Custom rules can also be set up to apply to campaign and ad group labels, which is pretty handy. To then see what entities are in violation for any custom rule, there are a couple of ways to go about it:
Other updatesThe first thing you’ll notice when you update to the new AWE 12 is a subtle new design change (you can tweet feedback to the AdWords team). As far as features go, the new AWE supports maximizing conversions bid strategy, image uploads for Universal App campaigns and responsive ads creation and editing. The post AdWords Editor’s new custom rules let you quickly see what’s missing in your accounts appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2txlFH7 Search in Pics: Old Google trailer Google Dance Tokyo shirt & really clean Google server room6/30/2017 In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more. Really big Google beach chair and beach ball:
Old fashion Google trailer:
Clean Google server room:
Google indoor tire swing:
Google Dance – the Tokyo version t-shirt:
The post Search in Pics: Old Google trailer, Google Dance Tokyo shirt & really clean Google server room appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2trJ502 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:Industry
Local & Maps
Link Building
Searching
SEO
SEM / Paid Search
Search Marketing The post SearchCap: Canada censors Google, Voice search SEO & more on the EU antitrust appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2u3hKib With an ROI of 122% email is one of the most effective marketing channels. But in order to reap the benefits, marketers must ensure their campaigns reach their intended recipients. To help brands overcome the challenges that stand in the way of optimal inboxing, Yes Lifecycle Marketing has developed this deliverability guide focusing on:
Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download “Email Deliverability Guide: Making It to the Subscriber Inbox.” The post Email deliverability: making it to the inbox appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2u38Ykj Featured snippets are quickly becoming the only search results for many queries. If a user goes to Google.com and types [what is the tallest tree], Google returns a featured snippet, followed by thousands of organic search results. However, when a user conducts the same query via Google voice search, Google responds with an audible version of the text in the featured snippet but (in many cases) no “blue links.” Before diving too deeply into featured snippets, let’s back up a minute… What is a featured snippet?A featured snippet is a summarized answer to a user’s query displayed in Google organic search results. It is extracted from a results page and includes the page title, URL and link. Featured snippets can be paragraphs, lists or tables. These results display an “About this result” link near the bottom right corner of the answer box. Google includes answers in featured snippets at the top of search because it is faster than sending users to the source page — no matter how fast the source page loads. As a result, marketers could experience declines in clicks and page views for featured snippet queries but should interpret increased impressions for these queries as a positive KPI. In fact, from a marketing perspective, featured snippets are highly desirable. Top positioning in Google mobile or desktop search results can help URLs garner greater visibility than traditional results. (And although Google may soon change this, it is currently possible for sites to appear in both the featured snippet and the organic results, giving those sites lots of visibility on the SERPs.) Because featured snippets typically appear above the first organic result, you may hear marketers refer to them as “position zero.” What makes a good featured snippet?If you’re wondering what Google looks for in a featured snippet, it can be helpful to identify existing snippets and review the pages from which they’re pulling info. By reviewing winning content, we can start to get an idea of what Google wants. However, it can be just as illuminating to look at the content that failed to achieve a featured snippet. Following is a little-known tip to help you identify what I call “featured snippet candidates.” I think of these as pages that could have produced a featured snippet but didn’t quite make the cut. Featured snippet candidates provide a prime opportunity for understanding more about how featured snippets work in Google organic search results. By comparing these pages to the “winning” pages, we can get clues about ideal formatting, page layout and content quality that can help inform our own optimization strategies. To see featured snippet candidates, just add the parameter “&num=1”, “&num=2”, “&num=3” (and so on) to the end of Google’s URLs for queries with featured snippets. Currently, Google displays “candidates” for many featured snippet queries. One thing you may notice is that featured snippets and “candidates” can change on a fairly regular basis. Depending on a variety of factors (where, when and how you search), your results may vary from the examples shown below. Even if your examples are different from mine, the process is what is useful. Here is an example of a featured snippet for the query [hummingbird food] from the URL http://ift.tt/2sqM2JI Here is an example of a featured snippet “candidate” for the same query [hummingbird food] from the URL http://ift.tt/2sVpe8u — as you can see, we appended the URL above with &num=1. If you have a page that you believe has the potential to produce a featured snippet, consider the search query (or queries) that might be appropriate and check them for featured snippets. If your desired search query does produce a featured snippet, take a look at the “winning” snippet, as well as the “candidates,” to get an idea of what you could be doing better. How do you measure featured snippets for text and voice queries?Unfortunately, featured snippets are difficult to detect, let alone track — especially for large sites. So far, I have not found a tool to detect more than about 20 percent of the featured snippets found by manual review. Additionally, there is currently no way to track voice queries for the 400,000 to 500,000 estimated Google Home devices. Complicating matters further, featured snippets for long-tail queries with very low search volumes are not unusual — so there might be search queries triggering featured snippets that you (or a tool) wouldn’t necessarily think to check. And because featured snippet queries do not have to be phrased as questions, tools that filter based on question keywords like “how to” are not truly accurate. You may also notice that Google canonicalizes some featured snippet queries. A Google patent published in 2017 states:
And of course, featured snippets can vary (or not appear at all) based on device, time, location, previous queries and/or a combination of the three. The bottom line? Do not trust tools when it comes to determining if pages from a site are appearing in featured snippets. Tools only find a fraction of the queries returning featured snippets for a site. The best way to investigate featured snippet performance is manually, with queries from Google Search Console keyword data or with the AdWords dimensions “Paid and Organic” report. (Search Console provides data for the last 90 days, but the Paid and Organic report in AdWords includes Google search console data for more than 90 days.) Featured snippet observations & tipsAfter reviewing and comparing hundreds if not thousands of featured snippets and “featured snippet candidates” over the past couple of years, I’ve put together a few observations and tips.
Final thoughtsHistorically, Google has helped users find answers to questions on their own, one step at a time, via “10 blue links.” But today, Google is positioned to answer questions and complete tasks for users in a single step, with or without a screen. Featured snippets may prove to be one of the most critical elements in the future of search. The post Featured snippets: Optimization tips & how to ID candidate snippets appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2sr6p9w Google Analytics is a treasure trove of data, but how should you use it? This week, startup PaveAI is releasing a new AI-powered platform that it says is the first to turn Google Analytics data into news you can use. This is the San Francisco-based company’s second version of the platform. An earlier implementation, released last year, did not utilize AI and primarily turned Google Analytics data into English. By contrast, this release recommends specific actions to increase leads and revenue, employing statistical models to determine which recommendations will improve ROI. [Read the full article on MarTech Today.] The post PaveAI unveils AI-powered platform to turn Google Analytics into actions appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2t5sIDQ |
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