We are in the midst of a transformation in local advertising. Google has a new form of trusted answers that are revealed through a unique and compelling sponsored ad unit. The advertisers that participate in this new layer of trust are proudly displayed next to a green, check-mark badge. This designation is quickly becoming the…
SMX is back and taking place online December 8-9. We’re planning a full editorial program focusing on what search marketers need to know now to be successful in the COVID and post-COVID era. Things have changed over the past five months and will continue to do so. With limited ad budgets, every dollar counts and…
Google announced at the start of September it would reduce the visibility of search terms shown in reports for advertisers. Privacy was the reason cited by Google but advertisers quickly called the motives into question and complained about the loss of transparency into a large amount of ad spend. A few well respected PPC influencers…
“No, you don’t get a special bonus from having a keyword like that in your top-level domain,” John Mueller, webmaster trends analyst at Google, said about generic top-level domains such “.jobs” on an episode of AskGoogleWebmasters. Mueller’s explanation harkens back to guidance that was first published in 2015, in which Google explained that, overall, its…
Have you done everything you can think of to optimize your site, but you just can’t seem to crack the top 5 for certain queries? This is a familiar challenge that faces website owners and SEOs alike – a plateau of sorts that can develop into a stagnating cycle of repeating the same thing even…
The game has changed. On average, 15-20% of your URLs are not indexed by Google. This is on top of partial indexing issues for pages that are actually indexed. Partial indexing is when your URL is indexed by Google but some of the content of the page isn’t indexed for numerous reasons. The larger your…
Apple delayed one of iOS 14’s most controversial new privacy features: consumer opt-in permission to track. The rule requires apps to get consent from users to access the device’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) and transmit data to third parties. Publishers bracing for impact, sigh with relief — for now The announcement of Apple’s quasi-deprecation of…
While 2020 will be remembered as a year of disruption across so many areas of our world, the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, as well as the recent shooting of Jacob Blake, have caused our community and our country to reckon with the systematic racism, prejudice and lack of equality that…
Google has introduced a new set of “health & safety” business attributes tied to COVID-19. This follows earlier introductions of similar features by Yelp and TripAdvisor. These attributes started appearing yesterday for some, in the Google My Business (GMB) dashboard. They haven’t shown up yet in Search and Maps but presumably will soon. The new…
If your brand has been creating content for some time, you’ll likely reach a point where some of your newer content overlaps with existing content. Or you may have several related, but relatively thin pieces you’ve published. Since many people have been sold on the idea that more content is better, the potential problem here…