Earlier this month we reported that Google AdSense was planning to start testing their FLEDGE API on August 28. Now it looks like they’re pushing it back to on or after September 24. What is the FLEDGE API. The API uses interest groups to enable sites to display ads they believe are relevant to their users. According to Google, when a user visits a website that wants to advertise its products, an interest group owner (such as a DSP working for the site) can ask the user’s browser to add membership for the interest group. What does the delay mean. Not much. There will be no publisher revenue impact expected. Google also says the blocking control for animated display ads will not apply, meaning animated ads may serve via FLEDGE even if you’ve enabled the blocking control. Turning off access. If you’re not interested in FLEDGE accessing your sites, you can turn it off via Chrome’s permission policy header. Read the announcement. You can read Google’s full announcement here. Why we care. AdSense users who were expecting to test the FLEDGE API now have another month to prepare. As we mentioned previously, as Google moves toward a cookieless existence, remarketing may become more of a challenge. Advertisers and AdSense publishers need to consider how this will affect their revenue. The post Google AdSense FLEDGE API testing delayed until September appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/google-adsense-fledge-api-testing-delayed-until-september-387569
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You’ve set up your Performance Max campaigns and maximized the data and insights. Now what? Your primary goal with Performance Max is to enable the algorithm to do its job well. Like most things in life, you get what you give. The AI can perform better if you provide stronger data inputs (data feed + audience signals + creative assets) and outputs (tracking). Machine learning can only make smart choices when we teach it what is valuable to us. This is why it’s super important to ensure your campaigns are tracking conversions properly. PMax requires patience: give it 2-4 weeks to gain momentum while making limited incremental changes. Bid strategyDepending on your product/goal. We typically recommend starting with Maximize Conversions so the system can gather data. Once you have solid historical data, you can layer on a target CPA or switch to Maximize Conversion Value with target ROAS. If you find that you’re not spending your full budget, that means your bid is too aggressive. Try increasing your tCPA or decreasing your tROAS targets. If you are spending your full budget daily, you can likely decrease bids incrementally or spend more! Audience signalsIf overall performance is poor and you are not seeing many conversions, try tightening your audience signals. Provide strong data so Google knows who your customer is. Interests are great, but the best data is your actual customer data. I highly recommend adding these:
Creative assetsHere’s a great thread from @duanebrown on the importance of strong creative in Performance Max. Similar to paid social, PMax is reliant on creative assets to sell your products. Ads Creative StudioGoogle recently released some tools to make it easier to create and manage your assets. Ads Creative Studio is an amazing tool to create templates graphics and videos. Video BuilderVideo Builder is located in Google Ads and lets you easily create videos from a template. Google Ads > Tools & Settings > Shared Library > Asset Library > Create Video Data feed (ecommerce)When submitting products to Google Merchant Center, make sure you are submitting as much info as possible. Specific attention should be made to product identifiers. Google looks at the following three columns to understand what specific product you’re selling:
Additionally, but just as important to have:
ExclusionsSomething not working? Exclude it and force the system to focus elsewhere.
LocationIf you’re seeing irrelevant traffic from countries/locations you’re not targeting. Make sure to switch the location settings to Presence. This can be found in the campaign Settings > Locations > Advanced Options Landing pagesIf you find that PMax is cannibalizing search and sending traffic to pages that are not converting well, you can:
BudgetIs your campaign performing well? Increase the budget in 10-20% increments on a weekly basis. Don’t increase too much in one shot, it’ll shock the system and force it to find new traffic sources. Takeaways
The post Performance Max optimization: How to improve your performance appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/optimization-improving-performance-in-performance-max-387562 With increased automation from Google – Smart bidding, Responsive Search Ads, etc., how marketers approach Paid Search management has evolved. Automation can incorporate more information to better understand the user’s intent, personalize the right message, and make the right bid for each search. Join Vishal Maru, VP of solutions at iQuanti, as he discusses the three value-added tasks marketers should focus on and also learn best practices to enable automation effectively. Register today for “How Google Paid Search Automation Has Changed the Game for Marketers!” presented by iQuanti. The post Webinar: How Google paid search automation has changed the game for marketers appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/webinar-how-google-paid-search-automation-has-changed-the-game-for-marketers-387536 The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) programs has allowed writers to streamline content development. Simple AI writing tools are available for spelling and grammar checks, while more advanced programs provide copywriting and content generation with the click of a few buttons. But is it worth using such tools when Google is clearly against AI-generated content? Learn three pros and four cons of using AI content generators before purchasing your own subscription. The pros of AI writing tools1. Writing efficiency and scalabilityThe greatest benefit to using these tools is the speed at which content is generated – significantly quicker than human writers. Between researching and writing, a two-page article may take a human writer 30 minutes to an hour to complete while this can be done in a few minutes by AI. Multiplying this writing efficiency by the number of articles to produce at any time, AI writing tools improve the scalability of work. Other benefits of this efficiency include:
2. Cost-effectivenessQuality human writers can cost a few hundred dollars per content project, depending on factors such as:
This cost is often worth it, given the high-ranking results of detailed, well-researched content. Comparatively, most AI writing tools use a monthly subscription pricing model that limits the number of words, keywords and articles developed in the billed period – with prices often around $100 per month for tens of thousands of words and multiple articles. Using AI writing tools might be more cost-effective when developing brief, simplistic content. 3. Spark ideas and overcome writer’s blockA common hurdle to human writers is creating authoritative content on subjects they are not qualified experts on. This hurdle requires extensive research and ideas to develop the content. To overcome this, many AI tools can develop detailed outlines on what to include in the content and key points on the subject. This circles back to writing efficiency, as AI tools can help overcome writer’s block and spark ideas for content development. The cons of AI writing tools1. Quality concerns and plagiarismAlthough AI is considered one of the fastest-growing industries in the world, it still heavily relies on data analysis and algorithms to write content. The intended tone of an article and the misuse of statistics within the flow of the content are just two of the quality concerns that can be experienced with AI writing tools. Similar to the quality concern is the potential to be flagged by search engines as plagiarizing other content. Many AI tools scrape pieces of content from other websites and then re-word them, which is against Google’s guidelines of “stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding sufficient value.” 2. Risk of Google algorithms devaluing your contentGoogle’s helpful content update aims to “help people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.” This clearly states that the search engine prefers human-written content that provides a satisfying experience while also utilizing SEO best practices, and intends to better reward these website pages. The update also says to “avoid creating content for search engines first”. As many AI-writing tools analyze search engine results without truly understanding what the searcher is looking for, beyond siloing each search as informational, transactional or navigational, this is not a people-first approach. 3. Lack of E-A-TClosely related to the risk of Google algorithms devaluing your content, Google’s quality rater guidelines assess how content appears for expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-A-T). This is separated as another con to AI-writing tools given the significance that Google uses E-A-T criteria to help it evaluate good content, and the lack of E-A-T that AI content gives. Readers are inherently skeptical of online content, due to numerous factors including the rise of misinformation. Showcasing the expertise of the writer of the content, their professional certifications or years of experience are invaluable in terms of overcoming this. Since AI-written content lacks these credentials, quality raters (and users) will have issues trusting you. 4. Missing creativity, originality and other nuancesAdding creativity to content is what makes articles engaging and shareable, which are two key metrics for success. Because AI does not have emotional intelligence and the ability to understand nuances in the local language, quality human content should continue to outperform AI content. Again, AI relies on existing content and data for the development of “new” content. Combining this with the lack of creativity, AI is unable to understand search query intent nor plant the seeds for an evergreen content strategy. AI should be a writing assistant, not an outsourcing solutionAfter evaluating all of the pros and cons of AI-generated SEO content, there is scope to use these tools for writing assistance. The ability to quickly develop cost-efficient draft articles is enticing, especially when AI tools can help you overcome writer’s block and spark creative ideas. However, be careful not to become overly reliant on such tools for content generation. Use it to source content suggestions, help paraphrasing short passages, check grammar and spelling and support your research. Even before drafting content, research:
Lastly, always proofread, edit and humanize your content. The post The pros and cons of using AI content writing tools appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-using-ai-content-writing-tools-387519 Google’s Core Web Vitals show that website speed and user experience are intertwined. Users will leave your site if a webpage takes too long to load. That’s nothing new. Google stated years ago that going from a 1 to 5-second load time will result in 90% of users leaving your site without interacting with it. So, even if your website ranks high on Google, a slow site will impact your performance. Why? Because as user experience declines, people will exit your site without buying your products, reading your content or interacting with the site. That said, speed goes far beyond just user experience impact. Core Web Vitals make it clear that speed is an essential factor. What are Core Web Vitals?Core Web Vitals (CWVs) are a set of metrics used to evaluate user experience. They measure the following for both desktop and mobile users:
CWVs were introduced in 2020 to provide user-centric, real-world metrics that SEOs and site owners can use to measure usability. The three main elements of CWVs include:
CWVs work to offer a technical SEO aspect with a focus on page experience and usability. Understanding page experiencePage experience – which includes Core Web Vitals – is a ranking signal that Google uses to understand “how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page.” The search engine aims to offer the best results for search queries. If a site is slow, isn’t responsive or accessible, and doesn’t perform well on mobile, then it may not be the best result to deliver. Multiple signals make up page experience, including:
Google states:
Where page speed fits into page experience and SEOGoogle’s statement on page experience shows that if everything else is created equal, page experience may improve visibility in the search results. So, while page experience is certainly not the only thing you want to focus on, it’s one more element in your control to improve your site’s visibility on the SERPs. Page speed is a significant element because it hits heavily on Core Web Vitals and will improve all three components. To find areas of improvement, make sure to run a PageSpeed Insights report. Here are a few ways to eliminate page speed issues. 1. Minify codingYou can optimize CSS, JavaScript and HTML. Various tools can help with minifying your coding, such as HTMLMinifier, CSSNano and UglifyJS. 2. Remove unused codingIf you have unused JavaScript or CSS code, remove them. Every little bit helps to reduce file sizes and speed up your site. 3. CachingInstalling caching on the application level can help. WordPress and most other CMS options have caching plugins that will reduce the load on your site’s database and can improve CWVs dramatically. If your site hits a database often, this may be a bottleneck for your site, so something like Memcached may be needed. 4. Optimize videos and imagesA major part of LCP is images and videos. It’s best to compress all image and video files. In most cases, GIFs should be replaced by videos. If your images or videos are large, consider a content delivery network or third-party hosting. 5. Use lazy loadingOne way to improve the loading of an image-heavy site is to have asynchronous loading, also called lazy loading, to help speed up your site’s first render. 6. Use a content delivery networkIt’s recommended to place images, videos, CSS, JavaScript or any static files on a content delivery network (CDN). A CDN is an ultra-optimized network with servers worldwide that hosts your files, improves delivery speed and reduces the load on your site’s server. 7. Reduce redirectsYour site may have redirects, and they’re 100% natural in a site’s evolution. However, you ought to remove any redirect chains, where one page redirects to another that redirects, because they will impact your site’s speed. 8. Audit your pluginsIf you’re running a popular CMS, it’s not uncommon to have dozens of plugins installed. You should review all of these plugins and replace those that are not used or can be replaced under one plugin. 9. Upgrade your hostingFinally, if you’ve done everything else and page speed won’t improve, you may want to upgrade hosting. Some hosts have slow older systems, but most will allow you to add more RAM and CPUs to help improve site speed if traffic is causing the server to hang. If you’re running an Apache or Nginx server, you can install the PageSpeed Module on your server. The benefit of this module is that it works on the server level to improve speed, meaning your site’s application will not be altered. Note: You may need to work with IT or server administrators to implement some of the changes above to improve site speed. Tips to improve page speed furtherOn top of just focusing on speed, you want to improve page experience using the tips below. Mobile-friendlinessIn 2022, your site needs to be mobile-friendly. There’s no excuse for not using a responsive design on your site that will improve user experience. Next, if you follow the speed tips above, you’ll improve mobile site speeds, too. Finally, consider:
Safe browsingSafe and secure browsing are two elements of a site that you should already be offering. You’ll want to:
Routine monitoring is also essential. If your site is compromised, it will be quickly flagged by Google and cause many would-be visitors to the site to abandon it altogether. Non-intrusive interstitialsInterruptions are never good for user experience, but they may be necessary to generate revenue or add subscribers to your newsletter. However, you’ll want to do your best to:
Mobile devices have limited screen space, and if your site has a lot of pop-ups and interstitials, it can make it difficult or impossible to interact with the site, creating a poor page experience. Review ad networksIf a site is displaying ads, there’s another element of page experience impact that needs to be considered. Ad networks will require you to put coding on your site to serve the ads, but if the network is slow to load, it will cause a significant drop in page speed. You should review:
If an ad network, script or service impacts site speed, it will hurt your page experience. Wrapping upWhile page speed’s impact on SEO shouldn’t be the only thing to focus on, it’s an integral part of optimization that is mostly in your control. Using Core Web Vitals as a guide, your site speed and page experience should improve along with a potential boost in rankings. The post Page speed and experience in SEO: 9 ways to eliminate issues appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/speed-page-experience-seo-387478 Google has added a new Content Guidelines section to its help document on Education Q&A structured data. The new guidelines. Here are the new guidelines Google has added:
Why Google added this. Google said these guidelines were created to “ensure that our users are connected with learning resources that are relevant.” Failure to comply. If Google finds you are violating the guidelines, Google could either:
What is this page? Google released the Education Q&A structured data help document in May. This help document provides guidance on how to add Why we care. The Education Q&A structured data could help improve your visibility in Google results and also potentially get click-throughs. Now that Google has more specific guidance, make sure to follow it so you maintain eligibility for this feature and avoid possible manual action from Google. The post Google adds 3 new content guidelines for Education Q&A structured data  appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/google-education-qa-content-guidelines-387545 Effective digital transformation can accelerate organic marketing growth—and maintain that growth despite future economic or regulatory challenges. Join search experts from Conductor in an upcoming webinar and learn:
Register today for “Beyond the Buzzword: Transform Digitally to Drive Organic & SEO Growth,” presented by Conductor. The post Webinar: Why digital changes drive SEO growth appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/webinar-why-digital-changes-drive-seo-growth-387542 Google has just announced digital out-of-home ads for Display & 360. The new ad formats help to engage shoppers when they’re “out in the real world” in front of screens in public places such as stadiums, airports, bus stops, shopping centers, elevators, taxis, and more. How they work. With digital out-of-home ads in Display and 360, brands can harness the same power of traditional advertising with placements on public screens, all in one dashboard where they can control strategy, reporting, and optimization. Digital out-of-home ads also allow brands to run multiple versions of their message and can be based on location and time of day. Google’s programmatic partners. “Display & Video 360 already partners with exchanges Hivestack, Magnite, PlaceExchange, Ströer SSP, VIOOH and Vistar Media. These exchanges give access to large media owners around the world like ClearChannel, Intersection, JCDecaux, Lamar and Ströer. All of this inventory can be secured via programmatic deals.” Limited targeting and personalization. Google says that digital out-of-home ads are not personalized and no unique identifiers are used, as well as no user location data. However, advertisers are able to reach people based solely on contextual information such as the screen location. For example, Google says a fast food business can quickly advertise on a billboard in a busy spot during lunch hour. Later that day the same billboard can promote a concert or event. Early testing. Retailer ASOS used digital billboards in heavy footfall areas to generate awareness for their brand and drive passersby to visit their online store. Their marketing team arranged Programmatic Guaranteed deals with leading publishers like Intersection in the U.S. and JCDecaux in the U.K. and booked hundreds of digital billboards, generating 22 million viewed impressions across the two countries. Learn more about digital out-of-home ads. You can read Google’s announcement here. If you’re interested in purchasing out-of-home inventory you can visit the Display & 360 help documentation. Why we care. Digital out-of-home-ads are similar to traditional billboards, but instead of paying to have your ad shown in one location, all the time, you can elect to have your ad shown at certain times, in multiple locations. These new ad types may work well for national or global brands like ASOS, Nike, Mcdonald’s, or Facebook, but small and local businesses may have a tougher time justifying their use. If you can’t specify the audience you’re targeting, and can only adjust their location or screen type, it’s likely not a solution for brands hyper-targeting a certain demographic or audience. But if you have the budget, it may be worth it to test a few cities where you operate. The post Google out-of-home ads available for Display and 360 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/google-out-of-home-ads-available-for-display-and-360-387530 The all-important Q4 holiday shopping season is nearly here. SEO will once again be a critical channel for brands to increase their visibility and sales. Ahead of the 2022 holidays, enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge has shared its latest research with Search Engine Land on what retailers, brands and publishers should know. The insights are based on tracking 6,000 ecommerce keywords in 10 categories, which the company has been doing for the past three years. Here’s what to know: 1. Brands and publishers are big competition for retailers. Retailers are no longer just competing for visibility with other retailers. Now they’re competing with brands that have adopted direct-to-consumer models. Plus, publishers that provide reviews and product overviews have made significant gains in Google’s search results. For top ecommerce keywords:
2. Content-driven ecommerce. While it remains to be seen how impactful Google’s helpful content update will be, one thing is clear, according to BrightEdge: the time is now for retailers to differentiate their content so it will rank in search results. In other words, offer more than a product description. Retailers that ultimately will win are those that will provide better content experiences. How? By:
3. Blue links matter. There’s been a lot of discussion in the past decade or so about how Google is much more than 10 blue links. For key ecommerce terms, however, 70% of all clicks are going to those classic blue links, according to BrightEdge’s data. It’s still common to find the local three-pack for ecommerce search terms on Google. However, the prominence of local packs has declined from 25% to 19% in the past two years. Also in decline: videos and image carousels. Meanwhile, People Also Ask has grown slightly. 4. Schema usage is growing. Schema is more aligned with shopping than ever this year. Brands, retailers and publishers are increasingly adopting various schema types to markup their content around shopping experiences, such as.
5. Article and category pages dominate ecommerce. Category pages have the highest click-through rate 70% of the time. Also of note: articles about products have higher click-through rates than product pages themselves, according to BrightEdge. Why we care. Google search – and the way people search – are always evolving. In ecommerce SEO, it’s critical to monitor what’s happening and understand what you can influence now for the upcoming holiday season, while always evolving your SEO strategy to provide the types of content and user experiences Google is likely to reward in the future. The post 5 ecommerce SEO trends to know for the 2022 holidays appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/ecommerce-seo-google-holiday-2022-trends-387532 Google has just started to roll out the new helpful content update that it pre-announced last week. As a reminder, the helpful content update targets websites that have a relatively high amount of unsatisfying or unhelpful content, where the content is written for search engines first. In short, did you write that piece of content to rank on Google or did you write it to help users? The announcement. Google said on its update page on August 25, 2022, “released the August 2022 helpful content update. The rollout could take up to two weeks to complete.” Rollout started this morning. Google started this helpful content update rollout at about TIMEGOESHERE and Google will update us when this update is done rolling out. We do expect the update to finish rolling out in a week or two. Google said we can also check the search updates page for updates on when this is finished rolling out. What to do if you are hit. Google has provided a list of questions you can ask yourself about your content. Read through those questions as we posted over here, and in an unbiased manner, ask yourself if your content is in sync with this update. Note, if you were hit by this update, it can take several months to recover, if you do everything right and make changes to your content over time. More on the helpful content update. Google explained this new helpful content update specifically targets “content that seems to have been primarily created for ranking well in search engines rather than to help or inform people.” This update aims at helping searchers find “high-quality content,” the search company told us. Google wants to reward better and more useful content that was written for humans and to help users. Content written for the purpose of ranking in search engines, maybe called search engine first content, has been a topic coming up more and more across social media and other areas. In short, searchers are getting frustrated with landing on web pages that do not help them but rank well in search because they were designed to rank well. This algorithm aims to downgrade those types of websites while promoting more helpful websites, designed for humans, above search engines. Google said this is an “ongoing effort to reduce low-quality content and make it easier to find content that feels authentic and useful in Search.” This targets content written for search engines over human-first content. Why we care. If you notice any ranking and visibility changes in Google Search over the next few days, especially if those were big changes, you can likely attribute it to this update. Read Google’s advice, make the necessary changes, and hope for a recovery in the upcoming months. We hope you all benefited from this update and if not, we hope you recover quickly. The post Google releases August 2022 helpful content update appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/google-releases-august-2022-helpful-content-update-387291 |
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