Google has rolled out an integration with BigCommerce, the company announced Thursday. Similar to Google’s integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, GoDaddy and Square, which were announced earlier this year, this partnership will enable BigCommerce merchants to show their products for free on Google, create ad campaigns and review performance metrics from their BigCommerce store.
Why we care
The new integration provides BigCommerce retailers with an easy way to make their listings more discoverable across Google properties, which can help drive traffic to their products. This may be especially helpful for merchants that can’t or aren’t able to dedicate extra staff or enlist the help of an agency.
For Google, all these integrations may mean more product listings it can show to users, which strengthens it as a shopping destination and helps it compete with other e-commerce platforms. If Google is able to generate value for merchants via these integrations, then merchants may also be inclined to try the platform’s advertising tools, which is also good for Google.
If sales and leads are what our leadership teams, whether internally or externally, care most about, what does this mean for PPC marketers?
Such preferences can lead to a level of expectation that marketers are going to create a magic sales faucet, a fountain of fortune, or that there’s a secret Google leads button hidden in our toolbox somewhere. And hey, PPC marketers can help make some pretty magical things happen, but we’re definitely not magicians, at least not in the Gandalf the Grey or Albus Dumbledore kind of way.
There can also be a limiting belief that there is no value in marketing components and efforts that don’t have a direct correlation to exact dollars, and by some sort of wizardry, it’s somewhat expected a visitor will just magically appear on a business’s website and then (poof) become a customer. Such bloated misunderstandings of reality are great examples of expectations that may lead to conversations where we hear things like “Facebook doesn’t work”, “We just want the most bang for our buck”, and “Focus only on low funnel”.
Expectation vs. Reality
Most consummate marketers know consumers are not mythological robots that you one simply puppet into a magical fountain of money. In actuality, consumer behavior is the farthest thing from linear, constantly evolving.
Understanding customer journey for reporting
We know customer journey is a complex process but getting a baseline understanding can positively impact our marketing reporting and data measurement. Start by asking: What data do we know? What is assumed based on what we know?
Why customer journey matters: When as marketers and their stakeholders we scrutinize reporting needs we can then attribute longer timelines to different types of attribution models. Studying marketing reports does not need to be perfect math but conceptual understanding can improve cross-channel performance attribution and understanding of what marketing tactics are driving success within your reporting funnel.
What is our customer lifetime value?
What is our average customer retention?
What is the typical sales timeline to close?
What is our average order value?
Additional Considerations: Emotional investment of the purchase, the purchase price (average buyer’s journey for purchasing a yacht is 5 years), timeliness (is this something that is urgent they need to purchase or is there risk in making a quick purchase).
The more your customer value and complexity of purchase is, the more challenging it can be for reporting and data management. More fastidious use of data can also help teams overcome the “Facebook doesn’t work for sales” argument when you can show longer attribution and the multiple touchpoints of your customers.
Set up reporting and get to what matters
Here is a list of questions you can ask to get started on wrangling the data and reports that are going to matter most for your teams and stakeholders.
Who are the reporting stakeholders? Who needs to see the data? What do they care about?
There is so much time wasted when you are constantly making changes to marketing reports. One classic method to limit marketing report spew and churn is to segment who your key reporting audiences are and create dashboard views and reporting formats specifically tailored for reporting consumer segments. Think of it like audience targeting with summary data.
Understanding what matters to each stakeholder’s role involved in the reporting process is crucial for success: marketers, executives, sales teams and other stakeholders.
What business questions do we want to try to get answers to?
What questions do you need to answer for executives?
What reports are you using today? Where do they come from?
What questions are you asking today that you wish you had answers to?
Are there any dots you are hoping to connect?
As we start mapping reporting frameworks it’s important to determine success criteria, and what success looks like at each level of the organization: business, brand, and marketing. This will help define not only what’s desired but also what is actually possible.
Define some common vocabulary:
Creating a report glossary can be especially important working with sales teams. Make sure said teams are on the same page with the what and how behind the categorization of certain labels. Below is an example of a sales/marketing vocabulary list:
Contacts – New contacts added into the system (First name, last name, email address)
Subscriber – A contact who has opted in to receive content
Lead – Someone who has provided you more information about themselves
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) – A lead that is deemed ready for marketing messages, they have deemed themselves interested in our product and services, given additional information and opted into marketing
Sales Qualified Lead – A lead that is deemed ready for sales messages
Opportunity – Someone who is ready to buy and ready to receive sales correspondence
Customer – Someone who has purchased a product or service
Brand advocate – Someone who is actively advocating for your brand
Data integration and KPIs, setting up for success
As PPC marketers, we love to talk about our access to data, reporting tools, and everything shiny that’s new in the industry. But, the reality for most geeky marketers is, in our day-to-day working lives we manage data with our hands tied behind our back in a box. Yikes!
Managing the data can be complex and most of the time dots are not easily connected. Data ambiguity exists at all levels of sizes of companies. The larger, more complex, the messier it can be. Often we have to answer questions like why and how Facebook calculates views vs. YouTube, versus what analytics is reporting, and then define if there is ROI attached.
And, the reality is this is extremely difficult at times because our foundations are sometimes flawed, nearly every system, channel etc. can be calculating things a bit differently, and the systems don’t always connect and talk to each other properly. So, what the heck do we show what we need to and report on it? Similar to getting on the same page for vocabulary, we have to determine common ground for tracking.
These are some questions to ask to get you started:
What can we actually track (example if we can’t actually track sales, we can’t optimize for it)
What data do we truly have? What is currently being tracked? What else is possible to track?
What tools do we have?
What is trackable?
What is not trackable?
What blind spots do we have? Are there any ways we can remove those?
What third-party constraints exist?
Is there anything we should not track? (Example: exclusion list for IPs, etc.)
If it’s a missed opportunity that cannot be changed, note the disconnect, put it in your reporting framework. Determine what is going to be counted as what and for where and why. If there’s a way to integrate data not currently integrated, note the omission, see if it’s possible to integrate missing data and if it’s not possible, note the short circuit and make sure all stakeholders are on the same page.
Drilling down: What to actually put in reports
What marketing process questions do we seek answers to? What is the most valuable information? What campaigns, KPIs and overall metrics do we want to measure? And does this look different for any of the below?
What benchmarks do we have and wish to use?
What marketing questions do we want to summarize? What elements do we need to track and measure?
Campaigns
Websites
Third Party Channels or Websites
Social Channels
Audiences
What else?
Once we’ve put lists together, summarize key talking points in a brief and share findings with teams and stakeholders. Give other players a chance to contribute ideas and ask questions to help alleviate changes and challenging conversations once you start generating reports.
Presentation; it doesn’t have to be fancy
Presentation is important but the style doesn’t need to be fancy. It needs to be in a way that those using the data can understand. Sometimes the best reports are simple spreadsheets or diagrams, or for C-suite, it may just be a funnel image with a few bullets on performance that make it easy to digest.
Here are some examples:
Below is a funnel report that shows an increase in lead to MQL and SQL performance for a C-Suite leadership team.
Below is a simple spreadsheet report that was created in collaboration with a sales team leader to report to a sales team using a Google Spreadsheet (the team’s preference).
Or when you need to explain digital marketing reports to someone who hasn’t done digital marketing before:
Or when you have an engaged ecommerce team who wants to report on ongoing ROAs performance. This is an automated Power BI report.
Or an ecommerce team evaluating website performance to Revenue. This is also an automated report using Power BI.
A creative team report who is running CRO testing on a website landing page that needs to improve FTD Rate (conversion rate – free trials and demo submission rate).
Iterate and test your reporting effectiveness
Find the formats that work best for you and your team. It is also a good idea to treat the first round of reports as a draft, this is a good time to get feedback or make adjustments. Once you’ve done this, it will make the ongoing reporting process easier.
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, tomorrow night commemorates the 9th anniversary of the death of my mother. In the Jewish world it is called a yahrzeit and it got me thinking about change and the change we experience with death and of course over the past year and a half with COVID.
Often, SMX East fell on the same week as the yahrzeit and this and last year, we didn’t have an in-person SMX event. In fact, last year, the Javits Center was a makeshift hospital for COVID patients. In 2019, the last time the show was in-person, I was thankful for several Jews who helped me hold a small prayer service in memory of my mother at the show. Who would have thought, just a few months later, that venue would be transformed into a hospital?
Change is not always bad. In fact, virtual conferences have given the opportunity to many professionals that were unable to fly to an event to showcase their knowledge. As someone who has been involved in the search conferences for almost 20 years, it is amazing how the industry has adapted to change — for the better. Oh, and even for my mother’s yahrzeit — we went virtual by offering a jewish app in her memory.
How do you embrace change?
Barry Schwartz, The good son
Google search quality guidelines updated
Google has finally updated the company’s search quality raters guidelines, this update comes after over a year of the document not being updated. This time Google expanded on the YMYL category, it clarified what constitutes lowest quality content, simplified the definition of upsetting-offensive and the overall document has been refreshed and modernized with minor updates throughout. In fact, the old document was a 175 page PDF, the new one is 172 pages.
Why we care. Although search quality evaluators’ ratings do not directly impact rankings (as Google clarified in the document), they do provide feedback that helps Google improve its algorithms. It is important to spend some time looking at what Google changed in this updated version of the document and compare that to the last year’s version of the document to see if we can learn more about Google’s intent on what websites and web pages Google prefers to rank. Google made those additions, edits and deletions for a reason.
Microsoft Advertising is introducing Health insurance ads as a pilot program, the company announced Tuesday. The new format is now eligible for advertisers targeting U.S. customers.
Why we care. Health insurance ads can help health insurance providers get in front of searchers, which may be especially important given the upcoming annual enrollment period. Additionally, Health insurance ads are dynamically generated, which may help advertisers save time. This is the fourth vertical-specific ad type Microsoft Advertising has introduced this year and they are all similar in that they’re intent-triggered, appear on the right-hand rail of results and are dynamically generated based on a feed. Maintaining this formula across ad products can also help PPC professionals, particularly those at agencies, more easily get this ad type going for different clients since the requirements and placements are all the same.
Would you want an ad free Google Search for a monthly subscription fee?
Would you pay a monthly subscription fee to remove all the ads from the Google Search results? Neeva thinks so but so far, Google has not gone down that route. But Google is asking some users via a Google opinion rewards survey if they would like such an option.
Eli Schwartz spotted this survey and posted it on Twitter. The survey asks, how interested would you be in paying a reasonable price for a search service with that feature. The feature is “Results show no ads at all.”
Google does offer a premium service for YouTube without ads – so I guess it would be feasible for offer this for Google Search. But honestly, I’d be shocked if Google ever did this in search. The only way I can see this happening is if government regulation pushed Google to a point where this might make sense for their revenues.
Announcing the winners of the 2021 Search Engine Land Awards
The competition was fierce for the 2021 Search Engine Land Awards. The pandemic caused lockdowns and shutdowns, which affected many businesses’ main income streams. Not only that but it forced many consumers almost completely online.
As such agencies, in-house marketing teams, and individual marketers had to get creative, think on their toes, and often make a little go a long way. We are, as always, ever thankful to our amazing roster of Search Engine Land Awards judges who brought their keen expertise, provided thoughtful input, and donated their time.
Eighty-five percent of temporarily closed businesses in the U.S. since the onset of the pandemic have reopened as of September 30, 2021, according to Yelp. Overall new business openings nationwide have flattened out, despite the leisure, hospitality and beauty industries driving growth. And, consumer interest in nightlife, fitness and entertainment has largely exceeded 2019 levels.
Image: Yelp.
New business openings flatten in Q3. In Q3, new business openings across categories held steady, reaching 142,328 — an increase of 1% YoY.
Business openings by month on Yelp. Image: Yelp.
However, total new business openings for the first nine months of 2021 (439,094) still exceeded pre-pandemic levels for the same period in 2019 (433,243).
Leisure, hospitality and beauty drove new business openings. New business openings in leisure and hospitality on Yelp increased in Q3 2021 compared to Q3 2020, which was to be expected as the vaccine became widely available earlier this year.
In Q3 2021, hotels accounted for 3,514 new openings (up 32% YoY), nightlife saw 2,570 new openings (up 30% YoY) and businesses in the beauty sector grew by 11,029 (up 7% YoY).
New restaurant and food business openings remain steady nationwide. Similar to how new business openings across the board have flattened, new openings of restaurant and food businesses increased by 2% YoY, adding 19,892 new businesses in Q3 2021.
Image: Yelp.
Growth in this category looks different when analyzed at the state level, quarter-over-quarter: Numerous states experienced an increase in restaurant and food business openings from Q2 to Q3 2021, including Alaska (up 36%), Connecticut (up 25%), Hawaii (up 19%), Maine (up 33%), Montana (up 13%), New York (up 12%), Rhode Island (up 24%) and Wyoming (up 22%).
As for reopenings, 83% of restaurant and food businesses that were temporarily closed between March 2020 and the end of Q3 2021 have reopened as of September 30, 2021.
People were very interested in nightlife, fitness and entertainment. In Q3 2020, nightlife businesses in many states were forced to close due to pandemic restrictions. A year later, consumer interest (measured by Yelp through interactions with businesses on its platform, such as viewing business pages, posting photos, reviews, etc.) in this sector has risen substantially — interest in dance clubs (up 67%), piano bars (up 58%), comedy clubs (up 79%), speakeasies (up 80%) and gay bars (up 38%) have all seen an uptick compared to Q3 2020 levels.
Image: Yelp.
Gym and fitness classes experienced a similar surge in interest. In Q3 2021, pilates (up 54%), pole dancing classes (up 56%), aerial fitness (up 74%), yoga (up 41%), barre classes (up 42%) and saunas (up 55%) all surpassed Q3 2020 consumer interest levels.
Additionally, increased consumer interest in bowling (up 116% compared to Q3 2020), waterparks (up 115%), axe throwing (up 107%), stadium arenas (up 96%), indoor play centers (up 204%), laser tag (up 77%) and amusement parks (up 70%) may indicate less hesitancy among consumers to engage in activities where social distancing is difficult or impossible.
Why we care. These statistics give us a general idea of how local businesses are operating and what’s top-of-mind for consumers. Business reopenings have decreased, which may mean that temporarily closed businesses are becoming less common and that local economies are adapting.
While leisure and hospitality drove new business openings, these businesses may still be navigating a labor shortage, which can severely impact the ability to serve customers and undermine marketing efforts. The restaurant and food industry is facing a similar labor shortage, along with rising food prices, which may explain the diminished growth nationwide.
In the nightlife, fitness and entertainment industries, consumer interest has exceeded 2019 levels across the board, save for movie theaters. This shift might be driven by the availability of the COVID vaccine and pent-up demand carried over from 2020 and earlier this year.
These statistics can be interpreted as generally positive, but it’s important to remember that it’s historical data. The pandemic is still here and so are its side effects: Inflation is at its fastest rate in 13 years, there is a labor shortage in certain sectors, mask mandates remain in effect in some states, certain cities have vaccine requirements for indoor businesses and supply chain difficulties are trickling down to customers. In addition, we are approaching the holiday season, which saw a substantial spike in COVID cases last year — business owners and marketers should have a plan in place should history repeat itself.
If you want to generate more leads, you need an innovative digital marketing strategy. But creating your advertising campaign can be a challenge.
To jumpstart your efforts, we’ve compiled a list of the tactics used by top mortgage professionals. By implementing these proven methods, you can generate more leads for your loan officers and accelerate the growth of your organization.
Getting Social
Social media is much more than just a popular trend. It has evolved into one of the most powerful digital marketing tools available.
As a mortgage broker, you can use social media to advertise your services, share past client experiences, and connect with prospective customers.
With that said, we don’t suggest blindly creating social accounts and sporadically posting content. Instead, you should identify one or two channels that are most useful for loan officers. Instagram and Facebook tend to be some top options.
After you create accounts on a few platforms, begin to strategically grow your following with engaging content.
Crafting Great Content
Any great digital marketing strategy involves SEO content. Check out the websites of leading mortgage brokers and you will see extensive blog content, organized service pages, and strategic use of keywords.
If you want to compete, your site has to incorporate high-quality content.
Start by reviewing your existing pages. Make sure that each page includes the keywords that you are trying to rank for. Then, focus on expanding your blog.
Modern consumers enjoy visiting sites that add value to their lives. To fill this need, create content that is both informative and relevant to your industry. Content may include home-buying guides, an explanation of how mortgages work, and similar kinds of relevant material.
Refining the Website Experience
The most innovative mortgage brokerage websites include great content, but they also function well. Each page loads quickly, and it’s easy to get from one page to the next. Virtually all pages and content direct users back to a “contact us” form or another data collection tool.
When you’re striving to emulate the most successful mortgage pros, focus on refining the website experience. Make sure that your pages are optimized for both computers and mobile devices so that you can reach the widest audience.
Taking Advantage of Free Resources
Mortgage professionals take advantage of free online resources like Google My Business. This platform is one of the easiest ways to start climbing the search rankings and generating more leads. All you have to do is register your organization with Google.
Once you do so, you can input data, such as your hours of operation, email, services, address, and phone number.
Utilizing Innovative CRM Software
High-quality CRM software for mortgage brokers is a valuable tool. This comprehensive solution provides loan officers with various technologies that can help them generate leads and engage in digital marketing.
If you want to take advantage of this kind of software, it’s time to contact BNTouch. Our platform is one of the most innovative mortgage CRMs on the market. We even offerfree demos so that you can see our product in action for yourself. Try it out today!
We’re elated to announce the winners of the 2021 Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Search Marketing. This year we’ve chosen an individual and an organization as winners for exemplifying the very best in inclusion in the search community.
Rejoice Ojaiku: Individual
Rejoice Ojaiku received multiple nominations for her work in founding B-Digital, “a digital marketing platform aimed at showcasing and inspiring Black talent.” Her nominators lauded Rejoice for working tirelessly to help Black marketers break into SEO, find jobs, and be a part of the B-Digital community:
“Rejoice is a brilliant SEO who has spent her time on creating BDigital… She is kind, helpful, talented and pioneering, and has shown passion and determination in bringing Black people towards the front in SEO.”
“Reji is continually working towards helping the digital marketing industry recognise that there is a wealth of Black talent out there. Her tireless work in this area makes her a deserved nominee for this award.”
“She’s the #1 supporter of promoting POC and women SEOs. She stands up for what she believes in. She’s also incredibly intelligent when it comes to keyword clusters and teaches us something new in the industry.”
Our guest judge and last year’s Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion winner Areej AbuAli said, “Rejoice is so deserving of this award, the impact she’s had on the industry over the past year is massive. The work she’s doing with B-DigitalUK is truly inspiring and her passion and perseverance in spreading her message on equality and inclusion is admirable. Looking forward to seeing all the brilliant initiatives coming from her community. Keep doing YOU, Rejoice, and a huge congratulations!”
hasOptimization: Organization
hasOptimization is a small marketing agency based in New Hampshire. Their marketing work is complemented by their work for both inclusion and diversity across many areas of focus.
Not only are they helping small businesses but are working hard in “attempting to advance accessibility, prioritizing minority-owned businesses, their LGBTQ+ leadership, as well as consistently employing a range of effective neurodiverse staff members who may or may not have chronic conditions. hasOptimization is not a large business, but is growing over time. I have seen a consistent line of communication regarding a range of broad and diverse ideas from staff members, many of which include new ways to make the web more accepting and accessible to others from all walks of life,” said their nominator.
“I have so much respect for the work that hasOptimization are doing. They are setting the standard for what an agency should focus on when it comes to web inclusion and accessibility. With a brilliant team and a diverse clientele, their mission on making the web a better place can be seen through the services they provide and the clients they serve. Congratulations team, well deserved recognition!” added AbuAli.
Congratulations to this year’s very deserved winners!
This year’s class of winners for Search Marketer of the Year demonstrates that leadership, community, empathy, and giving back are keys to being a person of excellence in our industry.
Your Search Marketers of the Year for 2020 are:
Frederick Vallaeys, CEO at Optmyzr
Kristen Seto, SEO Manager at Trusted Media Brands, Inc.
Sean Kaenic, VP or Strategic Growth and Marketing at Quattro
Danita Smith, SEO Program Lead, North America and Senior Web Specialist at Scheider Electric
The continuation of the pandemic forced marketers to get creative and stretch beyond their day-to-day to help brands and clients reach their target audiences in new ways. Not only have these marketers exceeded expectations in every way, but they’ve focused on giving back to their companies, departments, and communities.
“Frederick Vallaeys is an iconic search marketer and industry influencer. He helped define the paid search industry starting with his groundbreaking work as Google’s first AdWords Evangelist and later morphing to a pioneer in PPC management software as Co-Founding CEO of Optmyzr. A search marketer to the core of his soul, Fred has been in the game since its inception and is now driven to help ALL paid search pros break barriers and reach/exceed their potential,” said Joe Thornton of Aimclear, who nominated Vallaeys.
That sentiment can be said for all our winners this year. Pioneering the way for their organizations, the teams they lead, and the community at large. Congrats to the winners, thank you to all who entered, and thanks to our sponsor, DeepCrawl, for its support of this year’s awards!
The competition was fierce for the 2021 Search Engine Land Awards. The pandemic caused lockdowns and shutdowns, which affected many businesses’ main income streams. Not only that but it forced many consumers almost completely online. As such agencies, in-house marketing teams, and individual marketers had to get creative, think on their toes, and often make a little go a long way.
Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at Locomotive
Tess Voecks, Sr. Director of Project Management at Local SEO Guide
Crystal Carter, Sr. Digital Strategist at Optix Solutions
Mordy Oberstein, Head of Communications at Semrush
Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at AgentSync
Daisy Quaker, SEO Content Marketer at Daisy Digital LLC
Chima Mmeje, Content Strategist and SEO Copywriter at Zenith Copy
Miracle Inameti-Archibong, Organic Performance Lead at Moneysupermarket Group
Henry Powderly, Vice President of Content for Third Door Media
On the PPC side:
Anu Adegbola, PPC Consultant at The Marketing Anu
Greg Finn, Partner at Cypress North
Emily Mixon, Director of Digital Acquisition at Fleetcor
Brad Geddes, Co-Founder at Adalysis.
Azeem Ahmad, Digital Marketing Lead at Azeem Digital
Brett Bodofsky, Sr. Paid Media Specialist at Elumynt
Vani Chopra, Director of Media Acquisition at Essence
John Lee, Head of Evagelism at Microsoft
George Nguyen, Editor at Search Engine Land
Without further ado, here are your 2021 Search Engine Land Awards winners:
SEM campaign awards:
Best Overall SEM Initiative – Small Business
Brandastic
Best Overall SEM Initiative – Enterprise
Block & Tam
Best Retail Search Marketing Initiative – SEM
DAC
Best Local Search Marketing Initiative – SEM
DAC
Best B2B Search Marketing Initiative – SEM
GR0
SEO campaign awards:
Best Overall SEO Initiative — Small Business
Inflow
Best Overall SEO Initiative — Enterprise
Primal
Best Retail Seach Marketing Initiative – SEO
Searchbloom
Best Local Search Marketing Initiative – SEO
sitecentre
Best B2B Search Marketing Initiative – SEO
Directive
Team, individual, and overall awards:
Best Integration of Search Into Cross-Channel Marketing
Rocket Agency
Agency of the Year — SEM
Disruptive Advertising
Agency of the Year — SEO
Primal
In-House Team of the Year – SEM
Wiley Education Services
In-House Team of the Year — SEO
DiscoverCars.com
Boutique Agency of the Year – SEO
Flywheel Digital
Boutique Agency of the Year – SEM
Block & Tam
Freelancer of the Year
Marco Lauerwald
Select winners of the Search Engine Land Awards will be invited to an AMA during SMX Next where YOU can ask these SEO and PPC experts your search marketing questions. If you’re interested in attending, choose your ideal pass and register now for Early Bird Pricing (ends October 23).
Congrats to the winners, thank you to all who entered, and thanks to our sponsor, DeepCrawl, for its support of this year’s awards!
Microsoft and Yandex announced a new initiative today named IndexNow, a protocol that any search engine can participate in to enable site owners to have their pages and content instantly indexed by the search engine. Currently, Microsoft Bing and Yandex are the two search engines fully participating in the initiative but others are welcome to adopt this open protocol.
IndexNow allows “websites to easily notify search engines whenever their website content is created, updated, or deleted,” Microsoft wrote on its blog. The goal is to make for a “more efficient Internet,” the company said, by reducing the dependency on search engine spiders having to go out into the web and crawl each URL they find. Instead, the goal is for site owners to push these details and URL changes to the search engines directly. “By telling search engines whether an URL has been changed, website owners provide a clear signal helping search engines to prioritize crawl for these URLs, thereby limiting the need for exploratory crawl to test if the content has changed,” Microsoft wrote.
How it works. The protocol is very simple — all you need to do is create a key on your server, and then post a URL to the search engine to notify IndexNow-participating search engines of the change. The steps include:
Host the key in text file named with the value of the key at the root of your web site.
Start submitting URLs when your URLs are added, updated, or deleted. You can submit one URL or a set of URLs per API call.
Submit one URL is easy as sending a simple HTTP request containing the URL changed and your key. https://www.bing.com/IndexNow?url=url-changed&key=your-key and the same would work by using https://yandex.com/indexnow?url=url-changed&key=your-key
They work together. If you use the Bing method, then both Bing and Yandex (or other participating search engines) will get the update. You do not need to submit to both Bing and Yandex’s URLs, you just need to pick one and all search engines that are part of this initiative will pick up on the change.
The search engines are sharing this IndexNow system, so if you notify one, that search engine will immediately re-ping each other engine in the background, notifying them all. In fact, it is a requirement of IndexNow that any search engines adopting the IndexNow protocol must agree that submitted URLs will be automatically shared with all other participating search engines. To participate, search engines must have a noticeable presence in at least one market, Microsoft told Search Engine Land.
Similar to Bing URL submission API. Is this similar to the Bing URL submission API? Yes, in that the aim is to reduce crawling requirements and improve efficiency. But, it is different in that this is a completely different protocol. If you are using the Bing URL submission API or the Bing content submission API, technically Bing will get your URLs and content changes immediately but these two APIs do not work with the IndexNow protocol, so the other search engines won’t get the changes.
Will these APIs go away if and when the IndexNow initiative becomes more popular? That is unclear. The URL submission API would be somewhat redundant to IndexNow but the content submission API is unique.
Integrations. IndexNow is gaining support among third-party websites, like eBay, LinkedIn, MSN, GitHub and others to integrate with the IndexNow API. Microsoft said many have adopted the Microsoft Bing Webmaster URL submission API and are planning a migration to IndexNow.
Microsoft said it is encouraging all Web Content Management Systems to adopt IndexNow to help their users get their latest website content immediately indexed and minimize crawl load on their websites. In fact, Microsoft provided WordPress code it can use to integrate IndexNow into its CMS. Wix, Duda and others plan to integrate with IndexNow soon as well. CDNs like CloudFlare and Akamai are also working with the IndexNow protocol and so are SEO tools like Botify, OnCrawl and others.
What about Google. We were told that Google is aware of the IndexNow initiative and the company was asked to participate but at this point Google is not an active IndexNow participant.
Why we care. Instant indexing is an SEO’s dream when it comes to giving search engines the most updated content on a site. Google has been very strict about its applications indexing API, used for job postings and livestream content only now. So while it seems Google may not participate in IndexNow in the near future, search engines like Microsoft Bing and Yandex are aiming to push this initiative hard.
The protocol is very simple and it requires very little developer effort to add this to your site, so it makes sense to implement this if you care about speedy indexing. It seems more and more search engines will participate but in terms of the big one, Google, that remains unclear.
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Good morning, Marketers, and how much TV do you watch?
Since having my daughter over a year ago, I have only been able to make time for The Great British Bake Off on Friday nights. But as a millennial and a latchkey kid, I was raised on TV. I just saw that Project Runway, one of my college TV favorites, is now in its 19th season!
In case you’re not a reality TV buff, Project Runway is a show where aspiring fashion designers face weekly challenges to create a garment based on the theme. As someone who never learned to sew well (sorry, mom) the fact that they could come up with a look, design it, create it, and have it modeled all in one week was mind-blowing.
The best part was Tim Gunn, a mentor to the designers throughout the week who helped them course correct and encouraged them when they were on to something. His famous catchphrase was, “Make it work, designers.” I still say it now to myself and to others when things are getting weird and we just have to push through. Make it work!
Tim Gunn proves the importance having a guiding hand can be in helping up-and-comers achieve their goals. As the Search Engine Land mentorship program winds down, our group’s mentees have achieved AMAZING things (new jobs, promotions, new projects, and more). They likely would have achieved these things on their own (they are awesome, after all), but having a guiding hand to help you choose the right path for you is ALWAYS a professional benefit.
We’re lucky to have our mentors joining us for a panel at SMX Next to talk about how to be a mentor (which could be great for new managers too!), and how they balance what’d they’d do versus guiding someone along their own path.
If you’re looking to mentor or manage people, it’s a don’t-miss. Register here!
Carolyn Lyden, Director of Search Content
Podcast knowledge panels go live in Google Search
Google seems to be rolling out podcast-based knowledge panels in Google Search. When you search for your favorite podcast, you might see a new knowledge panel show up in the search results.
Why we care. If you or your clients run a podcast, check to see if you are noticing this new knowledge panel in the Google search results. If not, it might be related to the RSS feed your podcast is produced on. Sadly, there is no official documentation on how your podcast can show as a knowledge panel.
What does Google’s infinite scroll on mobile mean for advertisers?
Google’s announcement about infinite scroll has many advertisers wondering what will happen to their Google Ads on mobile devices. This change, which is rolling out over the next two weeks, “does not affect how the ad auction works or the way Ad Rank is calculated,” said Mohamed Farid, Product Manager at Google Ads. But there may be some changes in metrics.
How will my metrics change? You may see more mobile impressions and a lower CTR on Search, Shopping, and Local Ads. “We expect clicks, conversions, average CPC, and average CPA to remain flat,” added Farid in the Q&A document. “Search campaigns may see more impressions from top ads and fewer impressions from bottom ads.”
Why we care. This is an important change to communicate to clients and stakeholders who may be invested in the minutiae of campaign metrics. Google recommends reviewing your advertising goals and “monitoring your campaigns and continuing to optimize them based on your business objectives.” This change is only for U.S.-based queries right now but will roll out to additional countries and languages in 2022.
Create effective communications strategies that articulate Knoetic’s core benefits, and continually test, track, and report on results.
Consistently produce high-quality content (including articles, white papers, blogs, emails, case studies, etc.) that drive inbound interest in Knoetic’s offerings.
Lead day-to-day execution of organic search engine campaigns including keyword research, content gap analysis, strategic optimization of existing content, competitor analysis, on-page SEO factors and site architecture improvements.
Work with content leads to create SEO content strategies for each of the verticals and work on executing evergreen strategies for existing and new content.
What We’re Reading: We’re all hackers now: Journalist “decodes” HTML to find PII
A local Missouri media publication warned the state’s administrative officials that their website exposed the social security numbers of multiple teachers. The reporter did so as a courtesy before publishing the news, as the PII was publicly available for anyone to find.
The news went “viral” after Missouri Governor Mike Parsons posted a tweet thread saying the website was hacked:
“Through a multi-step process, an individual took the records of at least three educators, decoded the HTML source code, and viewed the SSN of those specific educators. We notified the Cole County prosecutor and the Highway Patrol’s Digital Forensic Unit will investigate.
Upon receiving this notice, DESE immediately contacted the Missouri Office of Administration ITSD, who programs and maintains the web application, to remove public access to the portal and update the code. This matter is serious. The state is committing to bring to justice anyone who hacked our system and anyone who aided or encouraged them to do so — in accordance with what Missouri law allows AND requires.”
Search marketers know, of course, that there’s no “decoding” source code. A quick right-click and “view source code” makes it available to all. The issue is actually that social security numbers were included in the HTML, to begin with. The Missouri administration believes it was hacked, though.
We hope the misunderstanding is cleared up and that the Governor’s office stops putting social security numbers in the HTML of their sites.
. Talking about women-led or women-owned on Google local, Google is testing 
