Google publishes Search quality rating guidelinesIn 2013, Google published Its Search Quality Rating Guidelines. Previous versions of the document had been leaked many times prior to this. But this was the first time Google went public with its document. It detailed how Google’s search quality raters – people hired through a third-party agency to rate the search results – graded Google’s search results. This document actually just a heavily edited version of an older leaked version. It went from 161 pages to 43. What was missing? Of note, The Page Quality Rating Guidelines and Rating Examples. We detailed what else changed in Google Gutted Its Search Quality Rating Guidelines For Public Release. This was released as part of Google’s larger How Search Works interactive resource, which provided a high level overview of how crawling, indexing and algorithms worked. Google also
Also on this dayGoogle URL inspection tool bug leading to errors for some2022: Google confirmed there was an “increase in errors when inspecting URLs” and was working on fixing the issue. Google removed App campaign placement data from Ads and AdWords API reports2022: Google: “We made this change because the data provided didn’t fully represent the complete view of the placements that help developers monitor brand safety for their advertisers.” Microsoft Advertising extends Shopping campaigns to more markets2022: The company also announced the global availability of its Marketing with Purpose attributes, a pilot for multi-asset Audience Ads and greater support for Google Import. TikTok videos can now be 10 minutes2022: The maximum video length on TikTok increased to 10 minutes following months of testing. Ginny Marvin joins Google as its new Ads Product Liaison2021: In her new role, the veteran PPC journalist and former Third Door Media editor-in-chief would be helping marketers learn about Google Ads’ products and policies. Video: Steve Marin on content, SEO and using data as backup2021: Also discussed: ego ranking, how to help your clients write content and much more. Botify founder: Half of enterprise pages not being crawled by search engines2019: The company hoped the $20 million it picked up in series B would bolster its platform to tackle the “complex” SEO climate. AMP user experience updates include video, lists, more2019: A recap of some new capabilities rolled out by The Accelerated Mobile Project. Google’s antitrust infringement continues ‘unabated’, Google Shopping competitors tell European Commission2018: Four months in, 19 rivals said too little had changed. Bing Ads launches ‘fan’ community program for its most dedicated advertisers2018: Users could apply to join the new advisory program to help advance the platform. AdWords Price Extensions now live on all devices2017: Advertisers could show prices for types of products and services in text ad extensions on desktop as well as mobile. Bing Ads Editor for Mac is now available to everyone2017: The highly requested desktop tool is now out of beta. Latest AdWords Editor Update Supports Callout Extensions, Video Campaigns, HTML5 Ads2016: Version 11.3 of AdWords Editor was now available. Google Takes Action On 65% Of User-Generated Spam Reports2016: Google took action on 65% of the 35,000 user-generated spam reports submitted to Google monthly, according to Juan Felipe Rincon from Google speaking at SMX West. The Associated Press Partners With Google & Twitter To Track 2016 Election Trends2016: The AP Election Buzz tool tracked 2016 election-related search volume and tweets. Bing Adds Interactive Solar System To Search Results2016: Searching for [Solar System] on Bing would return a cool interactive solar system map. Google Avoids Link Tax But Vague “Ancillary Copyright” Law Sets Up Future Legal Battle2013: There remains ambiguity about exactly how much can be excerpted without a content license. Yahoo Clues, App Search & Other Products To Shut Down April 12013: Yahoo Clues provided a snapshot of keyword searches over time, plus great demographic information about keyword preferences between male and female, different age groups and by location. Search In Pics: Google Cubatron, Sleeping Dog & Robbie The Robot2013: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Google Is Watching You (Or Not): New Privacy Policy Takes Effect Today2012: Google said the new policy would simplify privacy across Google’s many properties and make it possible for the company to build a range of new products and services for consumers. Bing Testing New, Google-y Local Search Results2012: A new display for local search results looked quite a bit like what Google often showed. Google Adds More Trike Views To Google Maps Street Views2011: Google Bikes pedaled around the world capturing pictures of streets where cars could not venture. Google Doesn’t Sign Up As Facebook Ad Provider2011: Facebook developers weren’t allowed to monetize their apps with ads from Google AdWords. Bing Shopping Incorporates Natural Language Search2011: Microsoft announced the ability to recognize price constraints, describing the innovation as “a small step in our journey to make search friendlier to natural language queries.” Comments Made On Facebook To Appear On Sites2011: Facebook announced changes to its Comment Box widget to keep at least some of the comments next to the original content. On Twitter, Oscar Comes Up Short Against Super Bowl2011: Twitter said its users sent a total of 36.4 million tweets in a five-hour span beginning with the Oscars pre-show and continuing through the end of the show. DuckDuckGo Adds Yelp, The Free Dictionary To Search Results2011: DuckDuckGo added two new content providers to its “zero-click” search results: local business listings from Yelp and definitions from The Free Dictionary. Yelp: Google Told Us “Our Way Or The Highway”2011: Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman: “Google’s position is that we can take ourselves out of its search index if we don’t want them to use our reviews on Places…. But that is not an option for us.” Hello Chomp, Goodbye Android Market2011: iPhone “app search engine” Chomp introduced a version for Android to help address the “problem of app discovery.” Google To Increase Abuse Alerts To Webmasters2010: With website hacking and other forms of abuse on the rise, Google announced plans to step up the notifications it sent to webmasters when the company found these problems. Google Adds Flickr, Picasa Photos To Street View2010: The integration worked the same way it had since February 2009. When images were available, a small box labeled “User Photos” would appear in the upper right of the Street View interface. Is Google’s Street View Trike Headed Your Way?2010: Google announced the winners of its Street View Trike suggestions contest. Bing Adds Search History To Auto-Suggest2010: Bing said that “44% of non-navigational search sessions last longer than 1 week.” Happy Birthday, Yahoo: 15 Years Old Today2010: Yahoo celebrated its 15th birthday, in honor of the company’s incorporation. Pew: Portals Most Commonly Used News Sites2010: “Portal websites like Google News, AOL and Topix are the most commonly used online news sources, visited by over half of online news users on a typical day.” My Friendly Meet Up With Google Israel2009: Barry Schwartz recaps his meeting with the Google Israel team in their Tel Aviv office. What France Can Teach Us About Search Success2009: Ville d’Eu (more commonly known as simply “EU”) was thinking of changing its name in order to rank more easily in Google. Microsoft Live Search Tests: Best Match And Categorized Listings2009: Microsoft Live Search appeared to be flighting a new instant answer called “Best Match” that highlighted what presumably Microsoft found to be ideal result for the query. Google: Click Fraud Is 0.02% Of Clicks2007: How Google came up with the figure plus some click fraud fighting initiatives it planned to implement. Google Releases 2006 Annual Report & Google Subsidiaries2007: With financials for the year, a list of all of the company’s subsidiaries, as well as details of Google’s merger agreement with radio advertising placement firm dMarc. Hard Data On Yahoo Panama From Avenue A | Razorfish2007: Search Impressions were up an average of 5%; Cost Per Click was down an average of 6%. Citysearch Buys InsiderPages2007: Insider Pages was a reviews-based local search company. Outside.in: Building The ‘Hyper-Local’ Internet2007: It appeared Outside.in was automating the process of collecting content from various sources. It also relied on tagging and user submission for content discovery and organization. Danny Sullivan’s Ad Age Column & Fast Company Debate2007: On what makes search magical, why a new Google isn’t likely and debating whether Google is overrated. From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.
< February 29 | Search Marketing History | March 2 > The post This day in search marketing history: March 1 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/search-marketing-history-march-1-393679
0 Comments
Equipping marketing leaders with the skills, tools and data they need to prove ROI is like setting out to sea on a fishing expedition. Rather than distributing equal bait to each rod of a marketing campaign despite not knowing which will produce the most bites, marketing attribution teaches marketers to assemble the best combination of bait before casting its line into a sea of prospects. Register today for “Build a Winning Marketing Attribution Framework,” presented by Chanel99 and learn how to overcome the top three challenges in marketing attribution. Click here to view more Search Engine Land webinars. The post Build a winning marketing attribution framework appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/build-a-winning-marketing-attribution-framework-393723 The Google local pack, the map results, you see Google often display in the search results seems to have gone missing. I assume this is a bug, but no one is currently able to trigger a local pack to show up in Google Search. Examples. Try searching for [barber near me] and you won’t get that local pack. You just get the standard ten blue links, without the map. Here is what you would normally see: This seems to have stopped working at around 11:30 am ET. Why we care. The local pack drives a tremendous amount of traffic to local businesses. It going away, even for a short period of time, can be a huge loss for those local small businesses. I have to assume this is a bug and Google will address the issue soon. We have notified Google of this issue. The post Google local map pack goes missing in search results appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/google-local-map-pack-goes-missing-in-search-results-393693 Starting from March 29, 2023, the Google Ads API v11 will no longer be available. Developers still using v11 after this date will notice API requests failing. Depreciation and sunset timetable. Typically, major versions are supported for approximately 12 months, while minor versions have a support lifespan of 10 months. Migrate asap. To migrate to the newest version, visit the Google Ads API documentation here. Dig deeper. Read the announcement from Google here. Why we care. New API updates directly affect the functionality and performance of advertising campaigns. Once a version is sunset, all API requests using that version will fail, potentially causing disruptions to campaign management and optimization. By staying up-to-date with the latest version of the API, advertisers and developers can access new features and improvements, ensuring your campaigns are running efficiently and effectively. The post Last call for Google Ads API v11 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/last-call-for-google-ads-api-v11-393690 Microsoft Bing will upgrade Bing Webmaster Tools to add reporting and tools around the new Bing Chat feature and a new index coverage report. This was announced by Fabrice Canel, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft Bing, this morning in a keynote given at PubCon Austin. Bing Chat in Webmaster Tools. Bing Webmaster Tools should be adding Bing chat integration to allow publishers, content creators and site owners to see how much traffic the chat feature is sending their sites. It will be part of the Bing performance report and show impressions, clicks, click through rate and more. Here is a photo of this report from Jennifer Slegg on Twitter: Index coverage report. In addition, Fabrice also announced a new index coverage report coming to Bing Webmaster Tools. This report will show how your pages on your site are being indexed by Bing Search. If pages are being excluded or if pages are having issues being indexed. Here is a photo of this report from Patrick Stox on Twitter: Why we care. With all the concern, confusion and stress around these new chat AI features, having a report that shows how many people see our links, click on our links and visit our sites will be helpful to publishers, content creators and site owners. In addition, the new index coverage report can help site owners understand which pages are not being indexed, so they can work on improving indexing through IndexNow, sitemaps or other means. The post Bing Webmaster Tools to gain Bing Chat and index coverage reporting appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/bing-webmaster-tools-to-gain-bing-chat-and-index-coverage-reporting-393687 Don’t get it twisted. The machines are taking over. It’s only a matter of time until we’re all serving aluminum overlords’ every beck and call. Fortunately for all of us simple humans, that day is not today. Despite being a regurgitating raconteur, AI is still a glorified mansplainer – like the Wizard of Oz, minus the fancy haberdashery. It can’t wrap its dumb little head around anything subjective. It’s eye-wateringly expensive to run. Orders of magnitude more than Google Search. As if that weren’t bad enough, AI content also makes a mockery of E-E-A-T. And its source material is probably (definitely) stolen, infringing on others’ copyrights and fair use intellectual property rights. Promising? Sure. Ready for prime time? Not quite. So don’t fire your whole writing team just yet (unless they already sucked to begin with). There are still a few things AI can’t do and won’t be able to do for years to come. 1. Google has already been disrupting top-of-the funnel content for yearsMicrosoft made waves with a massive $10 billion investment into OpenAI. That’s a lot of cheddar. But there’s only one problem… Nobody uses Bing. Seriously, no matter how you slice or dice the data, they have less than 10% of the market to Google’s ~80-90%+. So will AI help? Sure. I mean, it can’t hurt! It was already a ghost town to begin with. I’m not (just) being flippant. I’m making a point. Google has already been disrupting SERPs – for years! – with a proliferation of featured snippet and knowledge graphs, and instant answers that give you exactly what you’re looking for… without requiring a single click. That means U cAn GeT yUr DrInK oN without ever clicking on poor liquor.com below (and giving them some “ad cents.” (Get it?) 2. Spend more time on MOFU and BOFU content (i.e., the less disruptable stuff)Despite Google SERPs + AI already cannibalizing your top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) content, it’s less destructive for middle or bottom-of-the-funnel (MOFU/BOFU) stuff. You know, the kind that actually compels people to do something – click, opt-in, add to cart, start a trial, create an account, or just hit the Buy button. AI content will be similar for the foreseeable time, because the underlying technology relies exclusively on pretrained models. It’s why machine can often beat Grand Masters at chess. They can scan and store information (read: patterns and moves) and then make decisions based on that data faster. Like “garbage in, garbage out,” it associates data points that often show up together, then spits it back out again when called upon – without actually understanding what it’s saying. So while AI content can do a passable job at a simple, black-and-white query like “What is Advil?” and similar, it’s less useful for figuring out if you need Advil or if you should go to the ER. Which brings us to the next subplot: AI content is notoriously wrong. Not, like, some of the time – but, like, all of the time. 3. Great content is often written by subject-matter experts, with quotes and nuance to add color to a topic or angleThe world we live in is not black and white. It’s all shades of kinky, messy, sweaty grey. That’s also why the best content is done by or with subject-matter experts. ‘Cause said experts rely on primary research and verifiable facts or stats vs. baseless claims to properly prepare persuasive points. That’s not what you get with AI content. Plus, it’s easy to spot, like the nerdiest game of whack a mole. A new version of ChatGPT is released, a few weeks later, Turnitin can spot it with 97% accuracy. Take even the title of this article. It was initially going to be a straightforward “how-to,” but I knew turning it into a Top 10 listicle would get more attention. Knowledge of the audience should even inform the content structure. But that isn’t all. The very definition of “content” continues to evolve as more and more stuff shows up in today’s SERPs. 4. Better structure content types around the Query + SERP layoutGoogle “HubSpot tutorial” and here’s what you won’t see first:
Give up? Videos! C’mon, OpenAI. Where’s your vlogging game at? This is a perfect segue (if I do say so myself) because the one thing that video often has over plain text is personality. The delivery of the content in video is arguably just as (if not more) important than the actual content. But. That shouldn’t necessarily be the case. It just is. Because most writing on the web suuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccckkkkssss. Take the obnoxious-as-hell introduction of this article. I’ve worked with hundreds of brands in the past decade. And I can only count on one hand the number that would let us usually get away with something like that. Most want to play it safe. Water it down. Make it more generic. Make sure the Oxford comma is just so. You know, because customers really care how you format em dashes. (Wait. No, they don’t.) Get 10+ writers to drone on and on and on like the same nameless, faceless, Company, Inc. that’s been the content strategy over the past few years. Yet, over the next few, it will die an excruciatingly-violent, Squid Games-esque death. ‘Cause AI content is already the faceless master of the universe. 5. Think more recurring columns from individuals with personalities vs. lots of generic writing that all sounds the sameCue Bourdain. God, I love him. And miss him. Because he would drop bombs on the regular like so:
From the thought-provoking:
To simple quips:
What do you call that? Journalism? Satire? No clue. I just call it endlessly readable. Can’t-take-my-eyes-off-it watchable. Literally-LOL listenable. AI can’t do that. Because AI ain’t got no soul. It can’t make counterunitive arguments. It can’t weave a narrative that builds on itself. Not yet, anyway. And not over the next few years at this rate, either. Those things are self-referential. They build arguments with one brick after another, which requires leaps in logic. Or they’re completely counter to what “most” acceptable norms might suggest on a particular topic or category. Remember: garbage in and garbage out. AI can’t process nuance like this yet. 6. Mixed media increases persuasion, consumption and even memory recallWhen people say "content," their minds drift to "text." But the lines between content types have already evolved. And for a good reason. Imagery is proven to increase memory recall. Meanwhile, scanning and skimming is the new reading. That's why showing people what something looks like will always, unarguably, be better than walls of text. You might as well be dropping 300 words of Lorem Ipsum when an image comes into view, like so: Mixed media helps break up content, actually encouraging more scanning and scrolling, which your crack fiend-like audience is already accustomed to online. This should include everything from:
And it means anytime you explain some visual process, show it! It's better to show people exactly how to "add a strikethrough in Google Docs," as an example, than to ramble on and on and on and bury the good stuff in walls of text around it. 7. Create long, in-depth content that can easily be repurposed into more audio and visual mediumsYou don't need another statistic to explain video's importance to marketing. No one does. So let's skip the foreplay and focus on the important point: The very same long, in-depth, nuanced, interesting content that AI can't do also lends itself really well to another human-friendly element: audio and video. A basic element is to take in-depth content and create audio summaries. Or, simply include thematically related discussion-style podcasts into related articles. The Economist does both. But you can and should do the same with video, especially as YouTube continues to eat away at traditional television + streaming time while also eating away at organic SERP placements, too. (See point #4 above.) So take your top content, or most competitive "head" terms, and create everything from product-focused walkthroughs to in-depth reviews or even motion graphics. Just remember that we're shooting for what AI can't do = which often means more human inclusion with some talking-head elements, too. 8. Illustrate stories with interactive content and data visualizationThe theme over the last few tips here is to focus less on the actual content itself and more on how you deliver it. Specifically, make it more interactive so it is easier to grasp and more interesting to focus on for a few minutes. Data visualization is the natural extension, then. Again, take a cue from top publishers like The Economist, which has recently been churning out interactive content pieces like this overview of worldwide weather systems. 9. Lean into nuance and subjectivity by comparing alternative solutions for different audiencesAI doesn't waffle. It can't, by definition. It's programmed to spit out facts like that supremely-annoying know-it-all in your office. (Err, Slack Watercooler.) The good news is that this dovetails nicely with the fact that online audiences are also becoming savvier. Meaning: if you just spew BS, they'll see right through it. Nowhere is this clearer than affiliate-related SERPs. Sure, you can still pull the wool of the eyes of rubes in the "make money online" space. But generally speaking, people are smart enough to know that there is no #1 right answer 100% of the time. Instead, you often compare different options for different people based on a wide range of factors. For instance, what's the best dive watch you can buy right now? The answer is entirely dependent on budget! What's "nice" at $100 isn't at $1,000, $10,000, or even $100,000. (Much to my bank account + wife's chagrin.) But the point is that you can and should lean more into subject-style content. At the very least, take a more balanced and nuanced approach to the kind of searches that might realistically work for multiple parties. Once again, you can up the ante here by using better design, presentation, and even development to highlight these subjective differences clearly. Think: comparison charts and graphics. Showcase pros vs. cons or which alternative is better depending on their budget, goals, and preferences. 10. Demonstrate how things works, not just what they're capable ofYou should always strive to go the extra mile. Sounds trite. But it's true. If the competing content has zero images, you should have five. If they have 10 stock images, you should have 10 custom ones. Your content will need a competitive "moat," made up of all these elements we're talking about today, to "future-proof" your content as much as possible. My last favorite example includes calculators, tools, quizzes, and other embeddable elements. Let's literally and figuratively go that extra mile now. Say you have two ways of determining your expected finish time in a marathon. You can:
(Hmmm. That latter example even kinda sounds like what AI is doing, anyway? ) Remember that "content" doesn't always mean "text." Yes. You will often need text to start. A script is the nucleus of a video. But the actual presentation, format, delivery, or interaction will continue to matter more and more over the next decade. Double down on what AI can't doThe cat is out of the bag. AI will only continue getting better and better and better. Pretty soon, we'll have no choice but to build digital pyramids in the metaverse in its honor. Thankfully, that day isn't today. Or tomorrow. Probably not five years from now, either. AI can do lots of things better than you and me. However, it's embarrassingly bad at a slew of things. Compete on those latter things. On the things that aren't easily reproducible and aren't likely to change anytime soon. Especially the human bits that are already hardwired into our internal hard drives. Machines might be able to beat you at chess. But they won't ever at intangibles like instincts or intuition. Or any other "i" word to complete the cheap alliteration joke that confirms there's a living, breathing human typing this after all. The post AI can’t write this: 10 ways to AI-proof your content for years to come appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/ai-proof-your-content-393638 As an advertiser or SEO professional, it’s essential to recognize that with the growing popularity of online shopping, customers’ safety and security have become a top priority for e-commerce platforms. In response to this, Google has implemented three ways to help customers shop safely and ensure that merchants’ stores meet these standards.
Automatically vetting product merchants. Before a product or merchant can list on Google, they must undergo a thorough safety review to ensure they meet standards. With the help of the Shopping Graph, a vast database of products and sellers, the systems can quickly evaluate the legitimacy of a business, ensure that the product information is accurate, and verify that the content adheres to Google policies. These policies cover all products displayed in shopping results, including those obtained from web crawling. By following these policies, Google will ensure that the products you see meet standards and that you won’t come across items that violate the rules, such as violent weapons, merchants misrepresenting their businesses, or hateful content. In January alone, Google prevented about 100 million product offers from being displayed and rejected nearly 300,000 accounts for quality issues or policy violations. Store badges. Google offers store badges to businesses that are known to provide a positive shopping experience. The badges are awarded to stores that meet criteria for fast shipping, easy returns, high-quality websites, and excellent user ratings. Google also displays ratings for both products and their various sellers, allowing you to learn from other shoppers’ experiences with those products and businesses. Additionally, the product listings link you directly to the merchant’s website, providing you with the opportunity to conduct further research about the store and its policies. This is so you can make informed decisions about your purchases and ensures that you are shopping with confidence. Automated and human reviews for merchants and listings.
Once merchants have been onboarded, Google will continue to monitor listings to ensure that nothing has changed in a suspicious or problematic manner since their initial inclusion on Google. For example, if a merchant met country-specific requirements for selling alcohol during onboarding, they periodically verify that those qualifications are still being met. Google will also take various actions when they detect suspicious behavior, including removing suspicious listings that violate policies or banning a merchant from listing on Google. Why we care. These efforts can directly impact advertisers ability to reach potential customers through Google’s advertising platforms and search results. When customers feel secure shopping on Google, they are more likely to make purchases and interact with the merchants and products advertised on the platform. Advertisers and SEOs can take advantage of this trust by ensuring that their advertising and product listings meet Google’s policies and requirements. By adhering to these standards, they can earn store badges, improve their visibility, and increase the chances of attracting new customers. By complying with Google’s policies and guidelines, advertisers and SEOs can avoid having their products or listings removed or being banned from the platform altogether. This would undoubtedly harm their ability to reach customers and affect their overall business goals. Therefore, it is essential for advertisers and SEOs to stay up-to-date with Google’s policies and make sure that their advertising and listings adhere to these standards. The post 3 ways Google ensures safe online shopping appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/3-ways-google-ensures-safe-online-shopping-393676 B2B marketing leaders voice similar concerns around paid search:
These are just a few pain points keeping marketers up at night. Targeting the ideal customer is a challenging and can lead to budget waste and a high cost per qualified lead. Compared LinkedIn targeting which offers options such as company size and job title, paid search requires more elbow grease. Follow these best practices when running enterprise PPC campaigns for B2B brands. 1. Create the right contentDecision makers at large companies think differently than those at an SMB. They have different needs and concerns, requiring specific messaging. Enterprise companies stress about security protocols and require social proof. They need to know that other significant brands trust your brand and that you have the security measures to keep their data safe. Emphasizing your operational uptime and customer support procedures builds trust. Building trust with the buying committee is critical when decision-makers have several options. Larger customers often equal larger budgets. They tend to shop more for the product or service that will provide their customers or employees with the best experience. Remember that large companies have longer sales cycles and have more decision-makers in their buying committees. This cycle requires more touchpoints and relevant content for users. Sometimes, buying committee members enter the buying process very late and must be quickly brought up to speed. It’s essential to have content ready for all departments, including finance, procurement, IT and more, to keep the deal moving and prevent any slowdowns. Ad copy should address customer pain points and speak directly to the persona you’re trying to reach. For example:
Landing pages should be relevant to your search keywords and speak directly to your key persona. Consider creating landing pages for specific company sizes or job functions. 2. Differentiate audiences with keywordsEnterprise-level searchers won't always identify their company size in their queries. That said, bidding on mid-market or enterprise-intent keywords can be beneficial (i.e., "enterprise software" and "tools for large companies"). To eliminate budget waste on small businesses, consider adding "small business" as a negative keyword. Think about what other keywords your buyer might be searching for, knowing that larger companies have different needs and concerns.
Competitive conquesting is another option for capturing the right audience. When competitors have large companies as their key demographic, bidding on their keywords can help you capture some of their traffic or at least gain brand recognition via the SERP. 3. Couple offline conversion tracking with value-based biddingOffline conversion tracking (OCT) is ideal for any B2B Google Ads account. It pushes your CRM data into the platform and allows for bidding optimizations on back-end leads, not just front-end website conversions. But without telling Google the conversion values, Google will treat each lead equally and bid on them evenly. There are two ways to tell Google to optimize toward larger companies with OCT. The first is to use dynamic values with OCT. Larger companies should have a larger value assigned to them in CRM. When used with a value-based bidding strategy like maximize conversion value or tROAS, the algorithm will prioritize the largest value leads first. If you can't get dynamic values with OCT, consider setting up separate conversion actions for each funnel stage by market segment. The setup might look like this: In the example above, a manual upload for OCT is used and knowing that the goal is to generate more enterprise-size leads, each lead is marked as either enterprise or SMB. Enterprise MQLs get a value of $50, while SMB MQLs get a value of $10, telling the algorithm to prioritize enterprise MQLs. 4. Leverage first-party dataYour data is the most valuable data you can leverage in digital advertising as it is (hopefully) more reliable and accurate than third-party options. Using first-party data to leverage conversion value rules with value-based bidding can take your campaigns to the next level. According to Google:
Uploading a first-party list of prospects or customers within your ideal target can help you set a bidding adjustment for anyone on that list. The larger the list you provide, the better. Conversion value rules, which can be set via campaign settings under "value rules," can also be used with third-party data. If you know leads residing within a certain region or in-market for products/services are more valuable, you can also increase those audiences' value. With Microsoft Ads, bidding increases are available on specific company names, industries or job functions within your search campaigns. This is helpful if you have an ABM strategy and a list of specific companies you want to target. While manual bid adjustments only work with manual bidding strategies, Microsoft will use bid adjustments to inform decisions when on automated bidding strategies. 5. Assess the big pictureLeads aren't everything. Sometimes it's enough to know that you are reaching the right people and they're clicking your ads, even if they need to warm up more to convert. KPIs outside leads and cost per lead can help you understand if the needle is moving, especially with longer sales cycles and larger buying committees. Look at LinkedIn demographics or Clearbit to know who's visiting your site via ads. In your LinkedIn ads account, build an audience based on specific website URL parameters that your audience would visit. For example, URL contains "google" and "paidsearch." Using the LinkedIn Website Demographics tool, you can glean insights into the companies, job titles, job functions and more that have interacted with your ads. A tool like Clearbit integrates with Google Analytics to identify the companies, industries and job titles that visited your website. You can build audiences in GA with Clearbit data and push those audiences to Google Ads for targeting. Consider building an audience of company sizes in your target range and launching a display, video or even RLSA campaign to those audiences. These audiences can also be used for conversion value rules to increase bids. Reach your ideal B2B audience with better PPC adsB2B search advertising can prove more challenging than B2C in some instances. But reaching the right audience is possible through content, tracking and measurement tactics. A clear picture of your target persona and their pain points is crucial to eliminating budget waste. Step into your customer's shoes and identify their job demographics, concerns, likes, dislikes and more to improve your messaging and nudge your strategy in the right direction. The post 5 tips for capturing more enterprise-level leads with B2B search appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/capture-enterprise-level-leads-b2b-search-393655 Microsoft released version 96 of the Bing AI chat feature earlier this morning. This new update brings quality improvements such as a higher response rate to chats and also fewer “hallucinations,” Mikhail Parakhin, the CEO of Bing, wrote on Twitter. What is new. Mikhail said the two main improvements to Bing AI chat include:
Here are those tweets: As a reminder, Microsoft had to limit the number of chats due to these issues. Tone not live. Yesterday, Mike Davidson, Corporate Vice President, Design & Research at Microsoft, on Twitter said the ability to pick a tone for Bing Chat was live for some, but Mikhail said not just yet. It might launch in the coming days, he said. Why we care. Again, it’s fascinating to follow all these rapid changes from Microsoft on its new Bing AI Chat. Keeping an eye on what Microsoft is doing to improve the quality of the results, how it responds to criticism, and more is something that is not just fun and exciting to stay on top of, but may teach us about how we can leverage these features to garner more traffic to our sites. I wonder if anyone will pick up on these quality improvements but the speed of these updates to Bing Chat is so much fun to see. The post Microsoft Bing Chat launches quality improvements appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/microsoft-bing-chat-launches-quality-improvements-393683 Managing online reputation can be challenging. You must keep up with Google’s ever-changing algorithms and rich results, including the People also ask box. Also known as PAA, this Google SERP feature plays a significant role in a brand’s online reputation. A potential client’s first impression of your company can be easily swayed based on the sentiment of the questions and answers presented by the PAA. Over the last year, my team and I have been studying and testing newer methods of influencing the PAA snippet. We recently found success for a client in the educational services industry struggling with a negative People also ask question about one of their products. By experimenting with ORM and SEO tactics, we captured the negative PAA and had Google pull a new, positive answer from our client’s FAQ page. This article shares findings that can help other brands struggling with negative PAA results. But first, let’s quickly review how Google’s People also ask feature can affect your online reputation. What is Google’s People also ask?People also ask is a dynamic feature in the Google search results that provides additional information about a user’s initial query. This Q&A style feature typically presents 2-4 additional queries. When clicked, an answer snippet will drop down, linking to the webpage from which Google pulled that answer. Typically, Google will highlight the most salient information of the snippet in bold text, as shown above. While Google has not explicitly revealed which factors the algorithm uses for the PAA, we suspect they are similar to its search ranking factors, which include relevance, freshness, quality, authoritativeness, and more. Can People also ask affect my reputation?Absolutely. The PAA typically ranks within the top 2-5 results on Page 1 of Google’s SERPs, which means there is a high likelihood that a user researching your company will see it. Even with a great website and other high-ranking, positive content on the page, having a negative PAA can make or break your online reputation. Take Frontier Airlines, for example. Their Page 1 search results appear positive in sentiment, featuring their website, social pages, and other owned content. However, their PAA tells a different story. PAA questions related to trustworthiness, ratings and frequent cancellations could quickly raise red flags to users researching the airline, causing them to question whether it is the best choice. Provocative questions like these are also more likely to capture the user’s attention. Curiosity will lead them to look at the answers. Let’s look at “How is Frontier Airlines rated?” Having 2.5- and 2-star ratings is not good. Seeing numbers like these can cause the user to question the airline’s quality and safety. Even if other review sites have higher ratings, this result can plant a seed of doubt in the user, and they may turn to one of Frontier’s competitors instead. How do I get rid of a negative PAA result?Many ORM and SEO tactics can be used to remedy negative PAA results. Our current approach is to try and capture that negative PAA result by optimizing a piece of owned content for Google to pull its answer from, and replace the current negative-toned answer with a positive-toned one. What follows are the steps we took to help our client with their negative PAA result. The problemOur client struggled with their online reputation due to a negative PAA that repeatedly popped up just below their website when searching their main keyword. The PAA question itself was not inherently negative. However, Google pulled the answer from a negative blog post that spoke poorly about the client's product. This threatened our client's business, as users who saw this negative PAA might be turned away from our client's product or other services. The approachOur initial ORM strategy was to try and push out that negative PAA by promoting the positive PAAs, which ranked below it. This worked as a temporary fix. However, with Google's dynamic algorithm, we saw the negative PAA return. Realizing that this PAA was here to stay, our next move was to try to capture the PAA and replace the negative answer with a positive one linked to our client's website. Content evaluationWe start by evaluating if the content we want Google to pull its answer from already exists. If not, we'll need to create that content piece and decide where and how it should be published. If the content exists but isn't currently being pulled in as the PAA answer, we'll audit the page and see where we can make optimizations and updates. In our client's case, they already had an FAQ page on their website for us to work with. We chose the FAQ page because its structure matched the PAA question and answer format. Next, we'll look at the existing page content to see what optimizations are needed. Through researching other PAA questions and answers, we've noticed that the PAA answer quite often matches the wording of the PAA question. Consider this example: Above, you can see that the answer "Ice cream was invented by China" follows the same structure as the question "Where was ice cream first invented?" There are two key elements here:
Keep these points in mind when writing your content. It may help Googlebot when crawling your page to see the association between the page content and any relevant PAAs. Page format and schema evaluationOnce we learned that the target page content should match the target PAA, we did an audit of our client's FAQ page and noticed discrepancies between the wording of the PAA question and the wording on the FAQ page. Our target PAA question read "When was [product] invented?" so we updated the title of our target Q&A section on the FAQ page to match the PAA question text. We also ensured that the title was an H3 instead of plain text so Google could better understand the hierarchy of the FAQ page content. Then, we updated the first sentence of the answer text to say, "[Product] was invented in 2011…" This perfectly mirrored our target PAA question and gave us a higher chance of capturing it with our content. Since we updated text on the FAQ page, we wanted to evaluate the page code to check if any schema had been previously implemented or needed updating. For an FAQ page, we'd recommend implementing FAQPage type schema to the code and ensure that the text in the code exactly matches the text on the page. This prevents any confusion for crawlers and helps emphasize the reliability and quality of the content on your page. Luckily, our client had already implemented this schema type, so we just needed to update the schema text to match the new on-page text. Engagement and promotion strategiesLastly, we targeted the client's FAQ page with ORM tactics, including improvements in click-through rate (CTR), link building, and social sharing. Our goal was to send signals to Google and show that users are interested in the page, find the content valuable, and want to share the content with others. When looking at CTR improvement for the FAQ page, you'll want to consider your query's monthly search volume (MSV) and the monthly CTR of your target URL. Stay relative to the MSV and monthly CTR numbers, or else Google may see your engagement efforts as spammy, which can hurt your chances of ranking higher in the SERPs. CTR and MSV data can be found using tools like Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner. Link building should also be intentional, as Google wants to see quality over quantity in backlinks. Find publishers and other third-party sites in the same field as the client, and work with them to write content that mentions the client, with the target keywords as the anchor text for the chosen links. In our client's case, we found ~8 publishers whose content focused on education and parenting topics. We provided them with the exact anchor tex and supplied the URLs we wanted them to use. For our target URLs, we chose the FAQ page and the info page for the client's product mentioned in the PAA we are trying to capture. Many social sharing strategies can increase engagement to your target page. If your company has a connection to any influencers, you can send them the FAQ page and other target URLs and ask that they share them on their social media, along with relevant hashtags and keywords. You can also encourage friends, family members, and followers to share on their social media. Be sure to avoid incentives with this tactic. You don't want to appear like you are "buying" shares. We're looking for genuine engagement here! Additionally, if the target URLs have a comment section or any other interactive feature, you can encourage your social media followers to leave comments or interact with the target page. We used several social sharing tactics for our client to help increase their FAQ page engagement. The resultsA few weeks after implementing these ORM and SEO tactics, the PAA question was updated to pull its answer from the exact section on our client's FAQ page. The PAA question and answer remain relatively consistent. We are continously targeting the FAQ page to solidify its spot in the PAA. The post Case study: How to get rid of a negative ‘People also ask’ result appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/google-people-also-ask-negative-result-case-study-393666 |
AuthorLet us market on the internet and earn some money. Archives
April 2023
|