The global pandemic has accelerated the trend to shopping online by approximately five years. People all over the world either increased the frequency of online shopping or tried it for the first time – and the first timers have now fully embraced the benefits of ecommerce.
This playbook from Bidnamic explores how top retailers have leveraged the rise of Google Shopping in search marketing, driving increased online sales and profits. You’ll learn about:
The input metrics used by campaign managers to beat the competition
The latest technologies to optimize each step in the customer journey
How to decide if Google Smart Shopping is right for you
Now that COVID vaccines are available to everyone 12 years of age and older, children may be more likely to return to school this fall, which means many retailers are preparing for back-to-school shopping. To highlight a few options that can help retailers optimize for both in-store and online back-to-school shoppers, Google has published a list of local ads solutions.
Get your local inventory online. Businesses that don’t yet have a local inventory feed can use Pointy from Google, a hardware device that attaches to a point-of-sale barcode scanner to pull its title, image and description to add it to Surfaces across Google. For eligible retailers in the U.S., Canada, UK and Ireland, Pointy is free until September 30.
Local inventory ads. Retailers can bring their brick-and-mortar store online with local inventory ads. Local inventory ads also enable stores to indicate whether products are available for immediate curbside pickup or pickup later.
Local inventory ads with pickup options. Image: Google.
Local promotions, which are available in beta to merchants participating in local inventory ads and promotions in Australia, France, Germany, the UK, Canada and the U.S., can also be used to show store-specific offers.
Promote your locations. According to Ipsos data commissioned by Google, 60% of back-to-school shoppers plan to do at least a portion of their shopping at a small business this year. Local campaigns, which measure and optimize specifically for store visits and local actions (calls and clicks to driving directions), can help businesses take advantage of this by enabling them to promote their locations across Google Maps, Search, YouTube, Gmail and the Google Display Network.
Optimize for online and in-store. Advertisers can include store visits in Smart Bidding to help them grow sales both in-store and online.
Why we care. More than half of North American back-to-school shoppers say they’ll check for in-store inventory online before going into a store and 48% will shop at stores that offer curbside pickup or contactless shipping, according to Ipsos data commissioned by Google. Promoting your in-store inventory, pickup options and locations can help retailers make the most of these consumer preferences and potentially sell more products.
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, in one of our featured stories below, I covered how Google decides to rank different vertical search elements, such as the image carousel or news box, in the search results.
Gary Illyes explained about the process but also said that Google determines when to show images or videos or top stories boxes in the search results based on what it learns from searchers’ actions. So, if a lot of people click on image results from the main search results page, it is a sign that Google may want to show an image carousel box on that page.
This click data is not used for individual search results (i.e., to rank page A over page B or to rank image X over image Y). Google is using the click data to see if people are going from the web results, to the image or video results and if they do that a lot, Google may decide to show an image or video carousel box in the search results. Got the difference?
Barry Schwartz,
Click analysis consultant
How Google ranks features like news, videos, features snippets
Gary Illyes from Google explained in a recent podcast how Google Search ranks its vertical search results, i.e., news, images, videos, etc, within the core search results. Why does Google show an image carousel for a specific query in the fourth position and why does Google show videos for another query in the top position?
Google uses a number of methods for this but Gary Illyes explained that each index or feature bids, like you would in an auction, for each position. So a video carousel can bid based on the weights Google assigned it, to be in position three or position four and Google’s overall universal search system will figure out where to place it. Google also decides when to show a feature based on click data, which is super fascinating as well. This gets a bit technical, so we recommend you read more.
Display & Video 360 gets new frequency and reach metrics
Google is adding a dedicated data visualization in Display & Video 360 (DV360) to show reach gains for each campaign that spans across channels and has a frequency goal set at the campaign level, the company announced Thursday. In addition, DV360 will also calculate the added reach advertisers get for each Programmatic Guaranteed deal using DV360’s frequency management solution.
Why we care. Having access to real-time reach gains can help advertisers gauge their campaign performance and manage their programmatic campaigns across channels. This new data visualization may also enable advertisers to save time that might otherwise be spent experimenting to test the impact of their frequency management strategies across various media types. And, the added reach data for Programmatic Guaranteed deals can help advertisers understand how those deals add to the incremental reach they get for their frequency management efforts.
Google no longer allows multiple instances of fact check markup per page
Google has updated its technical guidelines for Fact Check structured data, saying that a page must only have one ClaimReview element and that multiple fact checks per page is no longer allowed.
The revised guidelines now say “to be eligible for the single fact check rich result, a page must only have one ClaimReview element. If you add multiple ClaimReview elements per page, the page won’t be eligible for the single fact check rich result.” Previously, the guidelines said “a single page can host multiple ClaimReview elements, each for a separate claim.” But that is no longer the case, now you can only have one ClaimReview element per page, not more, to be eligible to show fact check rich results in Google Search.
Why we care. If your site does show fact check rich results in search and you are using multiple ClaimReview elements on a single page, you may want to remove all ClaimReview elements but one. Google’s guidelines now only allow one per page and thus your rich results for Fact Check may stop showing if you are marking up more than one per page.
Quality threshold, nofollow vs sponsored and Google Ads script beta
Google quality threshold. Gary Illyes of Google explains that if you are on the edge of Google’s quality threshold, you can see your pages pop in and out of the index and search results. You’ll probably want to improve your quality if you see that.
Localized site signals. If you have an English site and then a localized French language site, Google generally will give the French site its own signals, apart from the English site, said Gary Illyes.
Google Ads scripts beta experience. Google Ads launched a beta version of the new Google Ads scripts experience. To see it, open your script and switch on the new scripts experience (Beta) toggle above the code. More details over here.
We’ve curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader.
Google is adding a dedicated data visualization in Display & Video 360 (DV360) to show reach gains for each campaign that spans across channels and has a frequency goal set at the campaign level, the company announced Thursday. In addition, DV360 will also calculate the added reach advertisers get for each Programmatic Guaranteed deal using DV360’s frequency management solution.
DV360’s frequency management data visualization. Image: Google.
Why we care
Having access to real-time reach gains can help advertisers gauge their campaign performance and manage their programmatic campaigns across channels. This new data visualization may also enable advertisers to save time that might otherwise be spent experimenting to test the impact of their frequency management strategies across various media types.
And, the added reach data for Programmatic Guaranteed deals can help advertisers understand how those deals add to the incremental reach they get for their frequency management efforts.
More on the announcement
DV360 uses log data to compare the reach obtained by a cross-channel campaign against the reach that an advertiser would have obtained with separate campaigns, each with a single channel and its own frequency goal.
The information in the data visualization can also be accessed at the advertiser or partner level by creating an offline report in the standard DV360 reporting.
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.
The team here at Third Door Media has been hard at work programming our third virtual learning journey of the year, SMX Convert, which will be on August 17. We’re also looking ahead to next year’s line-up of events and we need to know how you feel about in-person and virtual events. We publish the results so that all marketers who are wrestling with these decisions can have some data to work with. Please make your opinions heard by filling out our quick survey.
Keep on scrolling for the latest news. And for those who, like me, sometimes struggle with navigating the challenges that arrived with the pandemic and our transition away from it *knock on wood*, I’ve written a special section at the end of this newsletter that highlights the importance of mental health and provides a few tips that can help you take back some control over your life — hang in there, you’re tougher than this.
George Nguyen, Editor
Instagram is disabling interest and activity-based targeting of underage users
Beginning in a few weeks, advertisers will only be able to target Instagram, Facebook and Messenger users under the age of 18 (or older in certain territories) based on their age, gender and location, Instagram announced Tuesday. As such, previously available targeting options, such as those based on interests or activity on other sites or apps, will become unavailable to advertisers. This policy change will roll out worldwide.
Why we care. If you’re managing Instagram, Facebook or Messenger ad campaigns that target minors based on their interests and activities across the web, then you’ll need to find an alternative way to reach them as you’ll be losing access to those targeting options in the coming weeks.
85% of users who did holiday research on Reddit made a purchase based on their research
Image: Reddit.
We’re approaching the midpoint of summer, but for e-commerce marketers that means it’s time to look ahead to the upcoming holiday shopping season. Often overlooked in traditional campaigns, Reddit can be a tremendous resource for shoppers researching what to buy and 85% of users who did holiday research on the platform made a purchase based on what they found, according to the company’s recently launched holiday guide.
October is an opportune time to get in front of users exploring their potential purchases as the platform sees a 2.7x increase in daily shopping and gifting conversations during this month. Advertisers may also be able to take advantage of auction efficiency in October as well, since it’s just before the peak of shopping season. Additionally, 34% of Reddit users shop in-stores for last-minute gifts between December 1 and Christmas day, making it a good time to drive awareness for in-store sales.
Twitter’s Shop Module pilot adds a product carousel to profiles
Image: Twitter.
Twitter has launched Shop Modules, a dedicated section at the top of profiles where brands can showcase their products, as a pilot, the company announced Wednesday. The Shop Module pilot is currently rolling out with a handful of brands in the U.S., and only people in the U.S. who use Twitter in English on iOS devices are currently able to see the module.
Why we care. If this feature receives a wider rollout, Shop Modules may help bridge the gap between audiences discussing a brand and discovering that brand’s products on Twitter. Additionally, the user bases of social media platforms vary by factors like age, gender and education level. This new feature may be especially useful for B2C or D2C brands whose target audiences are particularly active on Twitter.
Service areas in local business listings, Olympic athletes in AR and the marketing data diet
Google local business listings in Search displays service areas. It would appear as though Google is testing a new label for displaying local business service areas. When you click on a region in the “Areas served” section, all the areas the business supports are overlaid. A tip of the hat to Ben Fisher who first brought this to our attention.
Are marketers welcomed guests or party crashers?This week’s Marketoon takes us through the various stages of data intrusion at the hands of unsavvy data management.
Olympic athletes in 3D & AR in Google Search. Olympics fans can see some of the more well-known athletes in 3D via Google’s augmented reality technology. Check it out by going to Google.com on mobile or in the Google app and scrolling down to the “Athletes in 3D” section.
By now, burnout is a given…but it doesn’t have to be
“Thank goodness 2020 is behind us, the vaccine is here and I can pick up my life where I left off!” — that was my immediate reaction after my second vaccine dose. To my unfortunate surprise, shadows of that traumatic period continue to peak around the edges of my life. It seems I’m not the only one: four in ten U.S. adults have reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder; that’s four times the rate reported from January to June 2019, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“To muster the energy for reentry into non-pandemic life, people need more than a vaccine and a vacation; they need validation of their experience, a broader reckoning with how they lived before March 2020, and tools to dig out from more than a year of trauma,” Lucy McBride wrote for The Atlantic, in which she cites hustle culture, toxic stress and poor access to affordable healthcare as factors that conspired to make Americans among the least healthy populations in wealthy countries — and that’s before we even had a pandemic.
Many of us are already resuming parts of our pre-pandemic lifestyles, but that can also introduce new stressors, like returning to the office. To help cope, McBride offered the following advice:
Accept that there will be anxiety and that the accumulated stress may have physical manifestations. “Normalizing these attitudes can help remove the shame and self-stigma of feeling unwell,” she said.
Being at the mercy of the pandemic can make you feel like you don’t have agency over your own life, so it may be necessary to take back control where you can. “Reassessing and simplifying our home life, work, and relationships can be a good place to start,” she recommended, “With limited space in our schedules and brains, we must populate our calendars with intention.”
And, advocate for the recognition of burnout within your own company and community. This makes it easier for people to show compassion, which can also do wonders to reduce stress and anxiety.
Adopting these pointers has helped me rebound from quite a few bad days — even yesterday, as a matter of fact. “Evidence also shows that people who experience trauma and adverse childhood events, particularly those that are sustained, are at significantly higher risk for developing subsequent medical problems such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease,” McBride wrote, so taking care of your mental wellbeing may also carry positive benefits for your long term physical health as well.
Google has updated its technical guidelines for Fact Check structured data saying that a page must only have one ClaimReview element and that multiple fact checks per page is no longer allowed.
The revised guidelines. The revised guidelines now say “to be eligible for the single fact check rich result, a page must only have one ClaimReview element. If you add multiple ClaimReview elements per page, the page won’t be eligible for the single fact check rich result.”
Previously the guidelines said “a single page can host multiple ClaimReview elements, each for a separate claim.” But that is no longer the case, now you can only have one ClaimReview element per page, not more, to be eligible to show fact check rich result in Google Search.
Before screenshot. Here is a screenshot of the guidelines before this change was made:
After screenshot. Here is what the page looks like now:
Why we care. If your site does show fact check rich results in search and you are using multiple ClaimReview elements on a single page, you may want to remove all ClaimReview elements but one. Google’s guidelines now only allow one per page and thus your rich results for Fact Check may stop showing if you are showing more than one per page.
In the latest Search Off the Record podcast, Gary Illyes from Google spoke about how Google Universal Search works and more importantly, how Google decides which vertical search feature to rank in what position in the main search results.
Gary Illyes explained why sometimes featured snippets show up at the top, or maybe news articles, or images, videos and so forth. In short, each of these vertical indexes bid for its position within the main web results. And how does Google decide to show images versus news versus videos? Gary Illyes said that Google sees what users click on and if for a specific query more users click on more images, Google knows users want to see the images carousel over a news carousel.
One caveat, this does not mean Google ranks specific and individual documents, images, web results, etc based on click data. But which universal element Google may show in the web results, can be influenced by clicks. So if Google does not use click data to rank a specific image or a specific video or a specific web page, but it can use click data to say, show the image carousel box here or there on the web results page.
Indexes bid for positions in the search results
In the podcast, Gary Illyes said that Google assigns a score to every result it finds for rankings. Then it will distribute that score to every index. By index, he means not just the web index but also, images, videos, news, etc.
Gary said then Google “will take all the results that came up from all the different indexes and try to mix them together,” to what we know as Universal Search. Each of these elements or indexes “are bidding for their desired positions” in the search results page. So featured snippets bid for its position, images carousels bid for their position, videos and so forth.
Some elements can “also say that I don’t want second position, or third position, or fourth position, or so on. I only want the first position,” Gary explained. Google also has “preferred positions for somethings like, for example, the video results,” he explained.
Some features, like related results, always tend to show at the bottom. So those features might specify it wants the bottom position.
John Mueller of Google then asked Gary Illyes, “So it’s almost like all of these different indexes, or kind of content have their own search engine and basically, they’re saying, like my result is like super relevant, or kind of relevant. And then, there’s like a super search engine on top of all of these search engines that mixes them all together?” In which Gary Illyes responded “technically yes.”
Clicks influence the features that get shown in the search results
Then Gary Illyes explained that Google learns which feature to show for which query based on what searchers click on and want to see.
John Mueller asked Gary Illyes “how do you recognize if we should show images or videos? Or that? Is it just like video search thing?”
Gary Illyes responded “We learn it. So, like when you search for something, something that normally doesn’t have images or videos, and you tap the images tab on the result page. Then, you are essentially teaching Google that there was this random person who wanted images for this particular query. And if there are enough users doing that, then you are essentially teaching Google that, that query might deserve images, or videos, or whatever.”
Just an editorial reminder, that this is not how Google ranks individual results in the search results but how Google determines what features (i.e. image carousel vs news carousel) to show in what position in the search results interface.
Paid search is an efficient and cost-effective way to drive more high-intent customers to your business. If you get it right, you can drive high-value inbound calls. And once you get a potential customer to call, they convert at 10x the rate than they do online, so you might be sitting on a gold mine. But driving inbound calls with PPC is a bit different than clicks, and attribution and optimization can be tricky.
In this webinar, the paid search geniuses from Media Experts and conversation intelligence pros at Invoca will show you how to implement and execute these killer paid search tactics that will turn more high-intent searchers into inbound calls that accelerate your customer acquisition.
Twitter has launched Shop Modules, a dedicated section at the top of profiles where brands can showcase their products, as a pilot, the company announced Wednesday. The Shop Module pilot is currently rolling out with a handful of brands in the U.S., and only people in the U.S. who use Twitter in English on iOS devices are currently able to see the module.
The Shop Module appears below the header and above the tweets section. Image: Twitter.
Why we care
Twitter hopes that Shop Modules will be “a feature that allows us to explore how shoppable profiles can create a pathway from talking about and discovering products on Twitter to actually purchasing them.” If the pilot is successful, Shop Modules may become widely available, providing brands with a new way to help audiences discover their products.
The user base of social media platforms varies by factors like age, gender and education level. This new feature may be especially useful for B2C or D2C brands whose target audiences are particularly active on Twitter.
More on the announcement
The Shop Module is a carousel of products. Tapping on a product takes the user to the associated product detail page (in an in-app browser, so they aren’t leaving Twitter), where they can learn more and/or complete the purchase.
The Shop Module pilot is currently not open for businesses to sign-up.
“We’re creating deeper partnerships with businesses that reflect whom we’re building for with a new Merchant Advisory Board,” the company said in its announcement. The board will consist of “best-in-class examples of merchants on Twitter” and the company hopes to utilize this advisory board to address the needs of businesses of various sizes and across verticals in its own product innovation.
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, we have a new Google algorithm update to talk about again this week — the link spam update.
If you thought Google was done with all these algorithm updates, you thought wrong. Google launched yet another algorithm update aimed at “nullifying” link spam. So if you or your clients were doing any spammy links and you see a drop in rankings over the next couple of weeks, it might be related to this new algorithm update.
I should note, Google used the word “nullify” for a reason. Nullify does not necessarily mean “penalize,” but instead, to ignore or simply not count. Google’s efforts around link spam have been to ignore and not count spammy links since Penguin 4.0 was released in 2016. But ignoring a signal that may have helped you rank initially might feel like a penalty — keep that in mind.
So far, we are not seeing too many complaints about the link spam update but we will keep you posted.
Barry Schwartz,
Link spam reporter
Google passes on 2% “Regulatory Operating Cost” for ads served in India and Italy
Beginning on October 1, 2021, Google will include a 2% “Regulatory Operating Cost” surcharge to advertisers’ invoices for ads served in India and Italy, according to an email sent to Google advertisers on Tuesday. The surcharge applies to ads purchased through Google Ads and for YouTube placements purchased on a reservation basis.
The company was already passing on digital service taxes for ads served in Austria, France, Spain, Turkey and the UK, and this is more of the same. Advertisers should be aware that these fees are charged in addition to their account budgets, so the surcharges won’t be reflected in the cost per conversion metrics in their campaign reporting. Advertisers should take these factors into account when creating their budgets.
And, if you’re thinking, “Hey, regulators are levying these taxes on Google, not on advertisers!” well, you’re not alone. Unfortunately, Google isn’t alone either as Amazon and Apple are also doing something similar by passing on their taxes to third-party sellers and developers in some territories, meaning that passing on government-imposed taxes is quickly becoming a precedent.
Google has begun the two week process of rolling out a new algorithm update; the company is calling it the link spam update. Google said this update targets spammy links “more broadly” and “across multiple languages.” It is a global update that impacts all languages and seems to target links that are manipulative and not natural.
As of Tuesday, I have yet to see many complaints from SEOs about this update. I should add that, over the weekend, I did notice an unconfirmed update that seemed to target more “black hat” methods but again, that was the weekend, and Google said this update started on Monday, so the two are probably unrelated.
In any event, if you see a ranking drop in Google over the next couple of weeks, it might be related to some of your link building methods.
Google seems to have resolved the bug that was preventing review snippets or stars from showing in the search results. We are now able to see the gold stars for many results in the Google Search.
The bug began creeping into the Google Search results interface on Wednesday, July 21st based on the reports that were sent to us. By the following day, the review stars were hard to find for any query you conducted in Google. Google confirmed the issue on Friday, July 23rd. Then, on Monday afternoon (July 26), the issue started to get resolved and now everyone seems to be able to see review stars again.
Why we care. Reviews not showing in the snippets can lead to a lower click through rate from the search results. Lower click through rates can lead to less traffic and less traffic can lead to fewer conversions.
priceRange local business schema. Google has updated the priceRange fields in the Local Business structured data documents to say that the priceRange fields must be less than 100 characters to be eligible for use in Search features.
FAQ content guidelines expandable areas. Google updated the FAQ schema content guidelines document to say the FAQs can be in expandable areas as well as visible on the page to be eligible for use in Google Search features.
Creating a winning SEO proposal for a new lead is hard work. You need to assess their SEO potential, identify the right strategy for them, and showcase the business value you can create. And then you need to explain it in a way that is meaningful for the client.
A lot of proposals tend to jump directly to how the agency can do that for the lead, yet an important step is missing.
To make your business case compelling, the first thing you need to do is understand what success looks like for your potential client. Then you can speak their language, whether that’s revenue, transactions, conversions, or traffic.
Kevin Gibbons, CEO and founder of Re:signal and SEOmonitor Masterclass educator, points out that what you should do is tie your activity back towards key business outcomes. If you can’t understand and explain exactly what success means and why they need SEO, then there will be no real alignment.
That’s where, Gibbons adds, a reliable forecasting methodology makes the difference. Or as he puts it, a forecast done well will help you define:
The WHY = What success can look like for the business and its growth potential.
The HOW = The key areas of the market that the client can grow into.
The WHAT = The necessary actions your agency can take to achieve those business outcomes.
If the what is pretty straightforward, the why and the how become just as straightforward with the right forecast in place:
Set a realistic business development direction
If you don’t have the bigger picture behind your SEO proposal set, you won’t know where you end up. “The forecast is a great sense check on WHY you are doing this in the first place,” says Gibbons.
This is the step in which creating a forecasting scenario gives you the right overview of the size of the opportunity. You not only get to evaluate if it’s the right lead for your agency but also if SEO is the right choice for the lead’s current business potential.
“You need to give them confidence that the results are realistic. If you’re a new retail brand with very little organic visibility and poor brand awareness/reputation, it’s very unlikely you’re going to be able to start ranking competitively for “sportswear” or ”skirts” overnight,” Gibbons explains.
“Your forecast model should take into account your current opportunity versus the size of the market and break it down into achievable bite sizes so that eventually you can eat that elephant – but you start one achievable bite at a time,” he adds.
SEOmonitor’s forecasting methodology allows you to model the data taking into account all the right inputs that influence your targeted keywords, to create a realistic scenario:
The CTR value — the average CTR curve for the top 10 positions on each individual combination of SERP features and devices.
The inertial trend of the non-brand organic traffic, based on search seasonality only (as if the website’s rankings would stand still).
The Year-over-Year search trend of the keywords included in the Forecast.
The ranking improvements of long-tail keywords (that are not part of the forecast) and their impact on traffic.
Clarify the client’s growth opportunities
The “why” that fuels your forecast and the SEO proposal is also based on how you curate your initial market and search landscape analysis.
Narrowing down your keyword list and understanding where the SEO opportunities lie will be the solid foundation for your scenarios. If your forecasting input lacks the quality it needs, your estimates will be misleading.
You need to know where you’re heading, the strategic way:
The keyword research is the input that you need to curate, organize and prioritize.
The keyword strategy is the output — the narrowed-down, categorized keyword groups that inform your action plan and your forecasting foundation.
This framework will help you maximize the impact of your SEO efforts and keep you from wasting resources for both your agency and your client.
But, to do so, you need a correct diagnosis of the client’s status quo and the problem you’re trying to address with SEO.
Map the client’s business
The client’s website categories and buyer personas are crucial for your understanding of the business. You can address their product or service categories as a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis and pinpoint the ones that are the most prolific in comparison to their competitors in the search landscape.
There might be the case that the client wants you to focus on certain categories, but you can be proactive in showing them where their strengths lie.
This view combined with the buyer journey will offer you the basis for evaluating demand and search intent — important for setting the right diagnosis. To better grasp the demand, you can think about what search queries the target audience used and reverse engineer the SERPs and the features Google highlights.
Let’s take an example.
Say your client is a small fashion designer with a fairly new website. It won’t make sense to battle big retailers (e.g. GAP and friends) on broad keywords like “dresses” or “jeans” from the get-go. Yet, the designer’s strength lies in customization, so you spot an opportunity for such things as “custom cocktail dresses” or “custom black dress”. Answering the search intent at every step of the journey with content marketing will prove an important part of your diagnosis and action plan: awareness (“little black dress for body shape”), interest (“best black dress”), and consideration (“custom black dress price”).
Map the client’s SEO opportunities
Apart from matching website categories with demand, there are numerous ways of spotting the SEO opportunity.
You can start with the high-opportunity keywords uncovered in your research phase — the keywords with the lowest difficulty to reach the top positions and the highest potential traffic once there.
You can evaluate the desired keywords that have missing landing pages or cannibalization issues and start fixing those immediately.
Then, there’s the problem of timing: spotting seasonal keywords and using them when their peak approaches is another low-hanging fruit, provided you get their timing right. Some, like holiday and actual season-related products and services, are straightforward. It’s the industry-specific ones that will give you the advantage.
Again, for the sake of clarity, let’s take an example.
Your client is an online bookshop preparing for the summer season. Of course, such queries like “best summer holiday reads” or “books to take on the beach” will be addressed. Yet, there might be high-opportunity keywords related to an exclusive event or book with the writer’s autograph, or new editorial launches for the summer months that will be seasonal and industry-specific.
A robust rank tracker can help you work efficiently in prioritizing and segmenting your keywords accordingly, with advanced filtering capabilities to highlight keywords with issues, keywords with low difficulty, high opportunity, and so on. It will save you hours of manually sifting through your initial keyword list.
Set a shared definition of success
Once you’ve uncovered the most relevant keywords out of your research and you found your answers to the diagnostic question, it’s time to test the viability of your SEO proposal.
That’s again where forecasting comes in handy in qualifying both the lead and the size of the opportunity. You can create multiple scenarios with your team and calibrate your keyword strategy until you have a realistic, solid proposal — sharing the final version with your client will further the trust and pave the way for setting expectations.
As we’ve said in the beginning, you should always have a shared definition of what success means for the SEO campaign: additional traffic, additional conversion, revenue, etc. That way, you make sure you track what matters for your client and you both evaluate the SEO performance with the right lens.
The keyword strategy and forecasting exercise are great opportunities to uncover new business potential, as well. This, in turn, positions your agency as a business partner, not just the people executing the SEO tasks.
In conclusion
To prove the ROI of your SEO proposal you need a good understanding of the client’s business and market, the right keyword strategy in place which becomes the basis of a realistic forecasting scenario.
All of these processes ensure that both you and the client speak the same language and know where you want to go in order to achieve business goals and growth targets.
After hundreds of hours of research with our agency clients and many years refining the know-how inside the product, SEOmonitor’s team decided it’s time to distill all that knowledge into a series of masterclasses.
We’ve launched SEOmonitor Masterclass for agency people to further their knowledge with business frameworks applied to their environment and processes. The first two on SEO Forecasting and Keyword Strategy can be freely accessed at masterclass.seomonitor.com.
Both masterclasses include assignments, key takeaways, case studies, and demos for agencies to study and use in their own processes. After completing them, you’ll be able to leverage strategic frameworks for your agency, maximize the impact of your SEO efforts, and make better decisions for your future SEO campaigns.
Join our learning community today and help us bring more transparency to the SEO industry!
Beginning in a few weeks, advertisers will only be able to target Instagram, Facebook and Messenger users under the age of 18 (or older in certain territories) based on their age, gender and location, Instagram announced Tuesday. As such, previously available targeting options, such as those based on interests or activity on other sites or apps, will become unavailable to advertisers.
Why we care
If you’re managing Instagram, Facebook or Messenger ad campaigns that target minors based on their interests and activities across the web, then you’ll need to find an alternative way to reach them as you’ll be losing access to those targeting options in the coming weeks.
More on the news
This policy change will roll out worldwide and, as mentioned above, apply to Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.
When a user turns 18, Instagram will inform them about the targeting options that advertisers can now use to reach them and the ads settings at their disposal.
Alongside this change, Instagram also announced that all users under 16 (or 18 in certain territories) will have their accounts set to private as a default when they join the platform.
The company is also taking precautions to make it more difficult for potentially suspicious accounts to follow minors: “We’ve developed new technology that will allow us to find accounts that have shown potentially suspicious behavior and stop those accounts from interacting with young people’s accounts,” the company said. Accounts owned by minors won’t be shown to adults in the Explore, Reels or “Accounts Suggested For You” sections of the platform.
Beginning on October 1, 2021, Google will include a 2% “Regulatory Operating Cost” surcharge to advertisers’ invoices for ads served in India and Italy, according to an email sent to Google advertisers on Tuesday. The surcharge applies to ads purchased through Google Ads and for YouTube placements purchased on a reservation basis.
Advertisers should be aware that these fees are charged in addition to their account budgets. As such, the surcharges won’t be reflected in the cost per conversion metrics in their campaign reporting. Advertisers should take these factors into account when creating their budgets.
Additionally, as Greg Finn, partner at digital agency Cypress North, advised on Twitter when Google first announced that it was passing on this surcharge last year, applying the “People in or regularly in your targeted locations” setting can result in racking up more surcharges.
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Google will add the surcharges to advertisers’ Google Ads costs at the end of each month, to be paid the next time they are charged. The surcharges are subject to any taxes, such as sales tax, VAT, GST or QST that apply in the advertiser’s jurisdiction.
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Good morning, Marketers, do you work for a business that cares about making its content accessible to all?
In our industry, we’re used to speaking of legislation in terms of antitrust or privacy, but for this newsletter intro, I’d like to shift our focus to another piece of landmark legislation: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — its 31st anniversary was yesterday. The ADA is directly responsible for the employment of so many people because it requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations, and we’re a more inclusive, stronger society for it.
In addition to brick-and-mortar facilities, ADA protection also extends to websites. Between 2018 and 2019, there were over 2,200 lawsuits filed in federal courts, and although some were aimed at notable brands like Dunkin’ Donuts, Bank of America, Domino’s Pizza and Nike, the majority were directed at SMBs. Today is a fine day to ask yourself and your team, “Are our sites ADA compliant?”
Google publishes timelines for Privacy Sandbox proposals
Google’s Privacy Sandbox timeline. Image: Google
Google recently published a timeline reflecting the stages of development for various categories of Privacy Sandbox initiatives. The timeline provides search marketers with a general idea of when the initiatives should be ready for adoption. That can give marketers some indication as to whether the company will meet its new deadline (late 2023) to deprecate third-party cookies.
Transition period: Stage 1 (in which APIs for each use case are available for adoption) is currently forecasted to begin Q4 2022. Sometime after that, we should have a clearer picture of what advertising with Google looks like as third-party cookies are phased out.
Google fixing two search bugs; review snippets and soft 404 detection
Google has confirmed it is resolving two bugs, one related to review stars showing in the search results and another related to how Google processes soft 404 documents. The two issues seem to be unrelated.
Over the past couple of days, Google Search has, for the most part, stopped showing review snippets — the image above shows the same results screenshotted two days apart. And, Google recently changed how it detects soft 404 pages, which caused some to see spikes in soft 404 errors but not clearly seeing if those pages were in the Google index or not. Both of these issues can directly affect your traffic from Google Search, so when the company does fix them, it may lead to more traffic.
New business openings remained strong in Q2 across categories, according to Yelp
New business openings over time. Image: Yelp.
In Q2, new local businesses opened in record numbers and across numerous sectors, according to Yelp. In categories like home, local, professional and automotive services, new business openings were higher than they’ve been since 2017-2018. Business owners may feel more confident thanks to widespread vaccine rollout and pent-up consumer demand — a phenomenon I’ve seen referred to as “rage spending.”
The economy is rebuilding its momentum and people are rethinking their lifestyles in the wake of the pandemic. We’ve seen massive shifts in the labor force, with many workers using their newly found leverage to find better, higher-paying jobs. While I’d like to say that “the pandemic is gone for good,” my guidance in today’s introduction still applies: never say “never.”
It’s news to me. I just learned that at one point, Sergey Brin and Larry Page called their search engine “BackRub,” because it analyzed backlinks. Just imagine: BackRub Maps, BackRub+, BRMail, BackRub Shopping… So, what’s got a better ring to it? Vote here.
Google Maps updates “dangerous” Ben Nevis route. “Mountaineering groups said the dotted line crossed ‘potentially fatal’ steep, rocky and pathless terrain, while a suggested walking route for a different mountain, An Teallach, would lead people over a cliff,” the BBC reported. I’ve followed Google Maps directions on trails before and it hasn’t always turned out great — I’m glad this is now on the company’s radar, but I wonder if they’ll be able to resolve this issue at scale.
The EU gives Google two months to improve hotel and flight search result transparency
Yesterday, the European Commission told Google that it has two months to improve how it presents flight and hotel search results and explain how it ranks them. If it doesn’t meet the deadline, the company may face sanctions.
“The latest grievance centres on the prices on its services Google Flights and Google Hotels,” Foo Yun Chee wrote for Reuters, “The final prices for these should include fees or taxes that can be calculated in advance, while reference prices used to calculate promoted discounts should be clearly identifiable, the EU executive and national consumer watchdogs, led by the Dutch agency and the Belgian Directorate General for Economic Inspection, said in a joint statement.”
In the U.S., Google is already showing why it ranked a specific search result, so I imagine this won’t be a huge leap for the company to achieve. However, some of the EU’s regulatory tactics seem to have an end goal (like more transparency or increasing competition), but also leave a lot of wiggle room, which companies are sure to take advantage of — for example, the auction that initially powered the search choice screen, which Google ultimately had to drop due to pressure from regulators and competitors. If vague instructions are given, don’t be surprised when the result isn’t exactly what you were hoping for.
Google seems to have resolved the bug it has with showing review snippets or stars in the search results. We are now able to see the gold yellow stars for many search results in the Google Search results.
Timeline. The bug began creeping into the Google Search results interface on Wednesday, July 21st based on the reports that were sent to us. By the following day, Thursday, July 22nd, the review starts were hard to find for any query you conducted in Google. Google confirmed the issue on Friday, July 23rd. Then yesterday afternoon, Monday, July 26th, the issue started to get resolved where now everyone seems to be able to see review stars in the Google Search results.
Reporting issues. Google also wrote on the data anomalies page that between July 19th and 23rd in the Google Search Console Performance reports for Google Search, “Due to an internal issue, you may see a drop in your Review snippet and Product rich results performance during this period. We regret any problems this may have caused on your site.” So make sure to annotate your own internal reports about this issue.
Why we care. Google was not showing review stars in the search results and that can lead to a lower click through rate from the search results. Lower click through rates can lead to less traffic and less traffic can lead to less conversions. But at the same time, your competitors likely did not show the review stars, so everyone was in the same boat.
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Google is rolling out the link spam update today and throughout the next two weeks. This link spam update targets spammy links “more broadly” and “across multiple languages,” Duy Nguyen, a Google Search Quality Analyst, said.
The announcement. Google wrote “in our continued efforts to improve the quality of the search results, we’re launching a new link spam fighting change today — which we call the “link spam update.” This algorithm update, which will rollout across the next two weeks, is even more effective at identifying and nullifying link spam more broadly, across multiple languages. Sites taking part in link spam will see changes in Search as those links are re-assessed by our algorithms.”
Nullifying link spam. You can see the word Google used here was “nullifying,” which means not necessarily “penalize” but not count or ignore. Google’s efforts around link spam has been to ignore and not count spammy links since Penguin 4.0 was released in 2016.
Might feel like a penalty. While Google may not penalize your site or links for these spammy links, if Google ignores or nullifies links that may have been helping a site rank well in Google Search – that might feel like a penalty. In short, if you see your rankings drop over the next two weeks and it is a sharper drop, it might be related to this update.
Best practices on links. Duy Nguyen, a Google Search Quality Analyst, published a blog post about link spam and best practices, that you can read here.
Why we care. Again, if you see ranking declines in Google over the next two weeks, it might be related to this new link spam update. Make sure your links are natural and in accordance with Google’s webmaster guidelines. Work on improving your site, so it can naturally attract new links over time.
As Google wrote “as always, site owners should make sure that they are following the best practices on links, both incoming and outgoing. Focusing on producing high quality content and improving user experience always wins out compared to manipulating links. Promote awareness of your site using appropriately tagged links, and monetize it with properly tagged affiliate links.”
