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, can you imagine a search engine without a results page?

That’s what Neeva, the ad-free, private search engine, introduced yesterday — a feature called FastTap Search that enables users to bypass the results page via a list of direct links that are generated when the user puts a query into the URL bar or the Neeva app (learn more about the feature below).

It is very interesting to see what kind of features are possible when a search engine isn’t reliant on ad revenue. Neeva is supported by its subscribers, meaning that the company has no skin in the game when it comes to whether users spend time on their properties or head directly to another site.

Of course, Neeva is not on the same plane as Google, but neither is its strategy.  Google has a similar feature (the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button that takes users straight to the top result for their query), but appears to be moving towards more robust results pages. In fact, its MUM-related announcements from Search On in September gave us a preview of results pages that lead to even more search results, with featured snippets that may resolve queries without users having to click through to another site.

Will Neeva’s new feature change the way we optimize for search? Unlikely, but I’m hoping this spurs even more innovation among search engines. That kind of competition is important because it often provides marketers with more opportunities, like the free product listings Google introduced last year (and Bing also launched shortly after), which help it compete against e-commerce platforms like Amazon.

George Nguyen,
Editor

Neeva’s ‘FastTap Search’ feature presents direct links instead of a results page

Neeva is launching a feature that enables searchers to type queries directly into the URL field of their browser or the Neeva app to be shown a drop-down menu with direct links. Dubbed “FastTap Search,” the feature allows users to bypass traditional search results pages and head directly to a site via the list of links generated based on the query. As Neeva’s founder and former SVP of ads at Google, Sridhar Ramaswamy, said in the announcement, this type of feature is made possible by the search engine’s unique business model, in which users pay $4.95 per month for an ad-free, customizable search experience.

Why we care. This feature may take on more significance if Neeva is able to increase its share of the search market or if Neeva is popular with your particular audience. While this is a reimagining of the search results page, it is still a list of results and there is still a top position, which means algorithms have to determine relevance and award that position to a page, just as they do on other search engines. However, since FastTap Search only presents a few results, the brands or publishers that are able to earn that top spot stand to gain significant visibility, which can be important if you operate in a highly competitive sector.

Read more here.

Facebook changes how it measures users for advertising purposes; Instagram introduces notifications for outages and a new Account Status tool

Facebook changes how it measures accounts for advertisers. “If someone does not have their Facebook and Instagram accounts linked in Accounts Center, we will consider those accounts as separate people for ads planning and measurement,” Facebook announced Monday, adding, “Facebook and Instagram accounts that are connected in Accounts Center will continue to be counted collectively as a single person.”

Previously, if someone used the same email address for both their Facebook and Instagram accounts or accessed both platforms using the same device, the company counted them as one person when they interacted with ads. As this new methodology rolls out over the next few weeks, advertisers should expect increases in pre-campaign estimates such as estimated audience size, “but for most campaigns we do not believe this will have a substantial impact on reported campaign reach,” Facebook said.

Instagram launches notifications for outages and a new Account Status tool. Instagram is testing Activity Feed notifications to inform users when the platform experiences outages (like the one from last week), technical issues and when those issues are resolved. “We won’t send a notification every single time there is an outage, but when we see that people are confused and looking for answers, we’ll determine if something like this could help make things clearer,” the company said. The test will run in the U.S. for the next few months.

Alongside that announcement, the company also unveiled a new tool called “Account Status.” The tool is designed to inform users about whether their account is at risk of being disabled. Within the tool, users can see if their content has been removed and why. They can also appeal a removal by requesting a review from their Account Status menu.

For the visual learners among us

“Short Videos” carousel spotted on desktop. First appearing as a test in mobile search results in November 2020, Brodie Clark has spotted a “Short Videos” carousel in Google’s desktop search results (shown above). The screenshot even includes a video from TikTok. Search feature junkies might also want to bookmark Brodie’s timeline of Google SERP features, which is sure to become even more handy as the company experiments with more features.

I heard you like flowcharts. Aleyda Solis has published her 10 favorite flowcharts to support SEO decision making. The charts can help you avoid the “it depends” answer with stakeholders, they may be easier to understand for non-SEOs and can make the criteria for various decisions more transparent.

Shipping delays mean Santa’s got some bad news this year. Marketoonist Tom Fishburne addresses supply chain slowdowns with the help of Santa and a young child wondering whether a year of good behavior was even worth it. Fishburne’s take is especially pertinent since so many businesses pivoted to e-commerce over the last year and a half. If you’re looking to learn how shipping delays might affect your advertising, check out Fred Vallaeys’ post on the subject over at Optmyzr.

What We’re Reading: Leaked documents suggest Amazon has been doing exactly what some merchants and regulators have suspected for years

“Use information from Amazon.in to develop products and then leverage the Amazon.in platform to market these products to our customers” — That quote comes from an internal Amazon document that details the strategy for Solimo, a private brand Amazon created in India. Reuters reporters have analyzed thousands of internal Amazon documents showing that, in India, the e-commerce platform ran campaigns to create knockoff products, undercut the original brands and promote them using manipulated search results.

“The documents show that two executives reviewed the India strategy – senior vice presidents Diego Piacentini, who has since left the company, and Russell Grandinetti, who currently runs Amazon’s international consumer business,” wrote Aditya Kalra and Steve Stecklow for Reuters.

The documents are about as damning as it gets: There are specific instructions on identifying which brands to “replicate,” a strategy for partnering with the manufacturers of the original item, there’s even a designated term for the practice of placing Amazon’s own newly launched private brand items in the top three ASINs in search results — “search seeding”; seedy indeed. Focusing specifically on the above-mentioned Solimo brand, Amazon matched or exceeded the quality of competing products but were 10–15% cheaper, the documents from 2016 revealed. 

This is bad news for merchants who have reached a high degree of success selling their own products on Amazon: “It is third-party sellers who bear the initial costs and uncertainties when introducing new products; by merely spotting them, Amazon gets to sell products only once their success has been tested,” Lina Khan, now-chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, wrote in a 2017 paper for the Yale Law Journal. “The anticompetitive implications here seem clear: Amazon is exploiting the fact that some of its customers are also its rivals.”

“As Reuters hasn’t shared the documents or their provenance with us, we are unable to confirm the veracity or otherwise of the information and claims as stated,” Amazon said in a written response. “We believe these claims are factually incorrect and unsubstantiated.”

The post Search results, but without the search results page; Thursday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Keeping that pipeline filled with new qualified leads is one of the biggest challenges that brokerages face daily, and marketing plays a critical role in making that happen. However, many mistakenly hand this crucial task to their LOs or office staff, thinking that it’ll be just as effective (or cost-efficient) to do so. 

But having your LOs take responsibility for mortgage marketing could be costing you more than you realize. 

If you want your LOs to increase their loan volume, you must take marketing off of their plate and pass it on to a professional marketer. Here’s why:

1. A professional marketer will free up LO time so they can focus on processing loans
2. A professional marketer will modernize your lead gen strategy
3. A professional marketer is easier to manage and will deliver better results.

In this age, it’s no longer a question of whether a brokerage needs to do digital marketing but rather how serious they are at getting results. A healthy benchmark for effective marketing would be that it accounts for about 20-30% of your total pipeline. Are you near that benchmark? How much time are you willing to have your LOs dedicate to reaching that goal? 

By answering those two questions, you’ll start to get a better idea of how significant and costly the problem is to have your LOs take responsibility for your business marketing. Let’s take a deeper look at why you need to remove marketing from their to-do list, and give it to the capable hands of a professional mortgage marketer. 

Mortgage Marketing Powered by LenderHomPage

A professional marketer will free up LO time to process More loans.

Many business owners have a “Do-It-Yourself” type of mentality. While admirable and essential to business start-ups, requiring your LOs to have this same mentality regarding marketing will end up backfiring, and here’s why. Firstly, marketing takes knowledge of how marketing works, how to design a marketing strategy, and how to execute it. Essentially, when you require your LO to take on marketing, you make them take on a second career. 

How well do you think they’ll execute? 

How long do you think it’ll take them to complete the necessary tasks? This leads us to our second point…

Even with an experienced marketing team at the helm, implementing the strategy takes time. Considering the 40-hour workweek, how many of those hours are you willing to take away from lead nurturing and loan processing to have your LO make a rudimentary effort in mortgage marketing?

A professional marketer will modernize your lead gen strategy.

The rise of the digital age has reinvented many aspects of marketing, and with algorithms constantly evolving, competitors altering their campaigns, market changes, and consumers shifting their online behaviors, your approach must also adapt. 

That includes modernizing every aspect of your inbound mortgage marketing strategy. Below is a partial list of tasks that entail a “modern marketing strategy”:

• Website development or redesign
• Branding
• Graphic design
• SEO/keyword research
• Content development
• Social media marketing
• Email marketing
• Local market research
• Mobile marketing integration
• Print marketing development and production
• Paid advertising
• Metrics and data analysis
• Public relations
• Video creation and marketing

While this is an extensive list, it’s not exhaustive. Remember that innovative technology, apps, and marketing disciplines are constantly being created. It’s challenging enough to train an LO into a top producer –do you really want her also to try to keep up with the latest in marketing? 

A professional marketer is Easier to Manage with better results.

When you hire a mortgage marketing agency, you get access to a team of expert copywriters, graphic designers, social media marketers, SEO professionals, PPC strategists, web designers, plus managers to coordinate it all. Is this something you want your loan officers or business to take on?

While some are tempted to take their marketing in-house, that’s not always the best way to go, especially for mortgage businesses. For mortgage businesses, the cost of recruiting and training a new marketing department could be prohibitive. And that rings true for both individual and multi-branch firms. 

So unless you’re in the business of marketing, it’s best to focus on lending and leave the marketing to the experts.

The Bottom Line

Marketing is both essential and a necessary expense. That’s right –there’s a cost for marketing and lead generation. Some falsely believe that they can eliminate or reduce the cost by their LOs do the marketing. But as you now can see, you’ll end up paying much more. When you shift the responsibility of marketing from your LO to a marketing professional, you’ll have beefed up your revenue streams from both your lead generation side and your lead nurturing side. 

Ready to make that happen? Click here to schedule a conversation with our redesigned mortgage marketing services. 

Learn More

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, if you are as obsessed with tracking the Google search results as I am, you may have noticed Google has been busy.

Forget about all the confirmed updates that we have covered here (if you can). The unconfirmed updates are just as fast but also sometimes furious. One of my passions is tracking these updates, especially the unconfirmed ones. And let me tell you, it seems as if we are seeing at least one, but often two, updates per week from Google. 

Sure, it can be normal pages just coming into the index but I don’t think there is anything normal about it. It seems like real algorithmic tweaks, which I guess you’d expect — Google even said it made over 4,500 changes to search in 2020. It is also interesting to see how many of these fall out on the weekend, I charted it here:

Weekend

• October 9th
• October 2nd & 3rd
• September 24th & 25th
• September 9th – 12th
• September 4th
• August 11th

Weekday

• October 6th & 7th
• September 16th & 17th
• September 9th – 12th
• August 6th

This doesn’t mean you should worry about these updates, I just find it fascinating to follow — but, as search professionals, you should be focused on the bigger picture, not all these minor and rapid Google updates.

Barry Schwartz,
Google algorithm chaser 

NerdWallet cites Google ranking declines in S-1 filing

NerdWallet, the popular personal finance company, cited Google as a concern for financial growth and said the company saw a Google Search ranking decline in 2017. The company’s S-1 filing specifically cited Google as a factor that “could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.” 

We dug into what happened in 2017 with NerdWallet’s rankings, reviewed the statements they made in the S-1 filing and showed how their Google traffic has exploded since. By the way, NerdWallet would not speak to us about this topic when we asked.

Why we care. If anything, this shows you that no matter how big or small your website or business is, everyone is at risk of suffering a ranking decline in Google Search. 

Those ranking declines can make or break businesses of all sizes and are clearly cited by NerdWallet as a factor that “could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.” It has been cited by other businesses as well over the years. No modern business is immune, which is why it’s important to diversify the sources of traffic to your website.

Read more here.

Yelp adds custom search filters, a new review flow and themed ads

Yelp announced new features for services businesses and the users that may be looking for them, including custom search filters, a new review flow, themed ads and Project Cost Guides.

Why we care. Custom search filters for services can help users save time by showing them the businesses that specialize in what they’re looking for. Themed ads, which are available to advertisers at no additional cost, may provide more visibility for businesses that fall into one of the themes offered. Reviews are crucial for most local businesses and the new review flow may help reduce friction when it comes to writing reviews. Some of these features are unique to Yelp, which may differentiate it as a reviews platform for users — at least, with regards to local services businesses — and help it continue to compete against Google and other reviews platforms.

Read more here.

Google vet and director of R&D, Peter Norvig steps back from Google

Peter Norvig the director of research and former director of search quality at Google is joining Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute as a Distinguished Education Fellow. Peter Norvig joined Google in May 2021 after a prestigious career at NASA and Sun Microsystems. He said he is still affiliated with Google but will be spending most of his time at Stanford going forward.

Why we care. Peter Norvig is the latest big name at Google to step back from his day-to-day role. He has set a lot of the groundwork for the mega search company and it looks like he is ready for his next big thing now.

Read more here.

Absolute vs relative URLs, mind reading and gambling ads

Absolute vs relative URLs. Google released a short SEO video saying there is no difference ranking-wise or SEO-wise in using an absolute URL vs a relative URL in your code.

Gambling Google ads. Google now allows certified, state-licensed entities in Connecticut to place gambling-related ads for sports betting, online casinos and daily fantasy sports.

SEO mind reading. Here is another good one-liner from John Mueller of Google “SEO is all about not requiring search engines to read your mind.”

We’ve curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader.

• 2021 Local SEO Holiday Success: A Ready Response for Each Customer – Moz
• Big Tech to be forced to hand over data on political ads – POLITICO
• Google Local Screened Ads Showing More Often & Scrollable Local Reviews – Search Engine Roundtable
• Make Google TV more you with personalized profiles – Google Blog
• Soaring prices, weaker targeting push companies to rethink digital ads – Axios

The post What is with Google Search updating all the time?; Wednesday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Neeva, the ad-free, private search engine is launching a feature that enables searchers to type queries directly into the URL field of their browser or the Neeva app to be shown a drop-down menu with direct links, the company announced Wednesday.

Named “FastTap Search,” the feature allows users to bypass traditional search engine results pages and head directly to a site via the list of links generated based on the query.

What is Neeva? Announced in June 2020 and officially launched about a year later, Neeva was founded by Sridhar Ramaswamy, former SVP of ads at Google. Unlike public search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.) that generate revenue by showing ads to users, Neeva operates under a subscription model in which users pay $4.95 per month. In exchange, Neeva provides an ad-free, customizable search experience.

RELATED: What would it take for new search engines to succeed?

FastTap is made possible by Neeva’s unique business model. “A feature like FastTap Search cannot co-exist with a search platform that relies on advertising revenue,” Ramaswamy said in the announcement.

This is because most search engines rely on advertising for revenue: Keeping users on the results page — for example, by adding search features that make it unnecessary to click on a result to find the desired information — typically means that search engines can show more ads and, in turn, bring in more ad revenue.

Since Neeva doesn’t show ads and users directly support the search engine, Neeva is free to create features like this without hurting its bottom line.

Why we care. This feature may take on more significance if Neeva is able to increase its share of the search market or if Neeva is popular with your particular audience. While this is a reimagining of the search results page, it is still a list of results and there is still a top position, which means algorithms have to determine relevance and award that position to a page, just as they do on other search engines. However, since FastTap Search only presents a few results, the brands or publishers that are able to earn that top spot stand to gain significant visibility, which can be important if you operate in a highly competitive sector.

As it stands, this feature is unlikely to impact our workflows or challenge the leading search engines in a meaningful way. But, FastTap Search does represent a new, simplified take on how users can search and how results can be presented. Google has attempted something similar with the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button that takes users directly to the top result for their query, however, the company’s strategy now seems to be on the opposite end of the spectrum. Its MUM-related announcements from Search On in September gave us a preview of search results pages that lead to even more search results, with featured snippets that may resolve queries without users having to click through. If the two search engines were similar in market share, we might get to see whether users prefer a simplified experience, like the one offered by Neeva’s FastTap, or a more robust search results page, which is the way Google appears to be headed.

The post Neeva’s ‘FastTap Search’ feature presents direct links instead of a results page appeared first on Search Engine Land.

As a mortgage broker, one of your most important responsibilities is to consistently generate leads for your loan officers. Once you have identified and made connections with quality leads, your talented team can close a good percentage of deals by providing excellent customer service and a streamlined experience. 

But getting these leads in the first place can be quite challenging, especially if your site is not drawing in enough traffic.

If you find yourself facing this issue, it is time to reevaluate your search engine optimization (SEO) tactics. SEO refers to the process of making your site more appealing to search engine algorithms, like the ones used by Google. 

If your site is SEO-friendly, it will rank higher, which means that users can easily find your content. 

With this in mind, below, we have outlined seven proven SEO strategies that you can begin using right away to increase search traffic.

1.   Assess Your Site’s Performance

Your first step should be to assess your current site performance. Find out what areas you are struggling in so that you can better understand how to improve your content. Google Analytics is a free tool that you can use to review key metrics about search traffic. 

2.   Optimize Your Content

After you have reviewed the analytics data, start navigating through your site page by page. Read through your existing content to make sure that it is digestible. It should also incorporate relevant keywords. Lastly, verify the word count. Most blog and landing page content should be between 700 and 1,000 words. 

You should also make sure that your meta title and meta descriptions include target keywords for that page. Once you have made the necessary updates, it is time to move on to the next step! 

3.   Enhance the UX

Google’s algorithms no longer focus on written content and keywords alone. They also assess page performance and load speed, as well as a variety of other factors. 

To ensure that your site ranks highly and draws in more traffic, you need to enhance the user experience (UX). Talk to your in-house IT team or consider partnering with a digital marketing agency that offers these services. 

4.   Optimize for Mobile

When was the last time you or one of your loan officers tried to access your site from a mobile device? What was the experience like? Was it user-friendly or tedious and unenjoyable?

If your site is not optimized for mobile access, then you might be missing out on a ton of potential business for your mortgage brokerage. Many consumers access the internet primarily from their smartphones, so you need to make sure that your content is in line with this trend. 

5.   Incorporate Long Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are phrases that are between four and seven words long. These phrases are usually less competitive on search engines. Identify some long-tail keywords that are relevant to your services and strategically work them into your blogs, landing pages, and other kinds of content. 

6.   Throw in Long-Form Content Occasionally

While most of your content should be around 700 to 1,000 words, you can occasionally publish long-form articles. These articles should act as “pillar pieces” that reference and link to your shorter blogs. A few examples include an extensive home-buying guide or a breakdown of different types of mortgages.

7.   Utilize a Top CRM with Automation Tools

Putting in the effort to make your site SEO-friendly is useless if no one sees your new content. That is why we recommend advertising your blogs and written materials on social media platforms and other channels. 

Time is at a premium for mortgage brokers. That’s why you should use automated marketing software to make the most of your advertising efforts. 

At BNTouch, we offer a comprehensive mortgage CRM platform that is perfect for mortgage brokers, large firms, and multi-location enterprises. Our software includes automated marketing tools, lead distribution, and resources to help you stay connected with your clients. Contact us to book a free demo today!

The post Top 7 SEO Strategies to Spur Your Mortgage Business appeared first on .

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, let’s rewind the clock just a few days.

Sunday, October 10 was World Mental Health Day. I typically don’t mention such days after they’ve passed, but it was also my birthday so I’m hoping you’ll let it slide — and, perhaps sharing my experience may help others prioritize their wellbeing.

I’ll keep it short: I never explored therapy as a younger person, but once 2020 came around, I found myself more frequently frustrated and overwhelmed by even the most minor inconveniences. And I’m not alone. Data from the 2021 Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey reveals 40.2% of the 2,453 respondents surveyed say lockdowns, COVID worries, and working from home has had a “somewhat negative” or “very negative” impact on their mental health.

This summer, I enrolled in weekly therapy sessions. For me, the experience has been a mixed bag but knowing that I’ve shaken off the inertia and sought help has been enormously comforting. And, in general, I feel slightly less anxious because I know there’s always someone I can reach out to.

The first step can be the hardest. If you’re trying to get started, Mayo Clinic has a solid list of tips for finding a mental health provider and the National Alliance on Mental Illness has some great questions for you to ask potential therapists. Thank you for allowing me to share that message — keep on scrolling for the latest search news.

George Nguyen,
Editor

Google Search Console testing tools to match URL Inspection tool

Google Search Console’s public-facing testing tools (specifically, the AMP, Mobile-Friendly and Rich Results testing tools) are being updated with new features to more closely align with the URL Inspection tool, the company announced yesterday. The update will bring the following fields to the public-facing tools:

• Page availability – Whether Google was able to crawl the page, when it was crawled or any obstacles that it encountered when crawling the URL.
• HTTP headers – The HTTP header response returned from the inspected URL.
• Page screenshot – The rendered page as seen by Google.
• Paired AMP inspection, Inspect both canonical and AMP URL.

This should help you align what you are reporting on between the various Google tools. Just yesterday morning Google said a discrepancy between the URL inspection tool and the crawl status reports may cause confusion. Having all these tools more aligned may lead to less confusion and a more efficient use of your time.

Read more here.

Microsoft announces updates to Smart Pages website builder

In February, Microsoft launched Smart Pages, a free website building service to help small businesses that may not have a website. Based on customer feedback, the company announced new features for the Smart Pages service this week.

Now, business owners can publish a standalone Smart Page site — without additional social and advertising tools from Microsoft’s Digital Marketing Center — for free, no payment info required. If business owners choose to partake in Microsoft Advertising later, they can easily sign up when they’re ready. There’s also a new reporting feature (shown above) that allows marketers to track pageviews, clicks, and more all within the platform. And, those managing a Bing Places account can now create a Smart Page site from their account and integrate the two properties.

Why we care. Many small businesses operate without a website, utilizing Facebook pages and local listings as their “hub” for customers, but having your own property is critical to controlling your messaging, optimizing to reach your target audience and driving in more critical traffic and potential customers. These updates open up the Microsoft Smart Pages website builder to help even more SMBs create an owned online presence and optimize it to drive more qualified leads and customers.

Read more here.

Google publishes new help documents on controlling titles and descriptions in search

Google has published two new documents to help publishers control what Google shows in the search results for the title and description of the listing. The company also introduced a new term for the title of a search result: “title link.”

The first document is named “Control your title links in search results” and it goes through best practices for writing title elements, how Google creates title links for the search results, how to avoid common issues and how to submit feedback to Google on this topic. The second new help document is named “Control your snippets in search results” and it covers how snippets are created, the differences between rich results and meta description tags, how to prevent snippets or adjust snippet length and the best practices for creating meta descriptions.

Why we care. These documents should provide additional clarity on how Google shows your search result snippets and how you can better control what comes up in Google Search. Also, having a designated name for titles in search results (“title link”) can help eliminate miscommunications among search marketers and Google.

Read more here.

Crawl, slide, scream

So, that’s why there was a spike in “Crawled – currently not indexed.” At the end of September, some SEOs began noticing more “Crawled, Not Indexed” types of notices in their GSC reports. Google’s Daniel Waisberg investigated and Google has explained, via Twitter, that “This is because the Index Coverage report data is refreshed at a different (and slower) rate than the URL Inspection. The results shown in URL Inspection are more recent, and should be taken as authoritative when they conflict with the Index Coverage report.” And, data shown in the Index Coverage report should reflect the accurate status of a page within a few days.

“It’s time to let [Facebook] slide.” Not as a political statement, but as a marketing opportunity for small businesses — that’s John Jantsch’s take. In his LinkedIn post, he argues that, without a decent following and substantial engagement, time spent posting on Facebook will have little impact for SMBs.

For the Trekkies among us. But, most search professionals will understand the reference. Sweet dreams, y’all.

The post Google Search Console’s public-facing tools to match URL Inspection tool; Tuesday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land.

NerdWallet, the popular personal finance company, cited Google as a concern for financial growth and said the company saw a Google Search ranking decline in 2017 within its recent S-1 filing.

S-1 filing statements. The S-1 filing specifically cited Google as a factor that “could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.” Here is the full quote:

“We are dependent on internet search engines, in particular, Google, to direct traffic to our websites and refer new users to our platform. If search engines’ algorithms, methodologies, and/or policies are modified or enforced in ways we do not anticipate, or if our search results page rankings decline for other reasons, traffic to our platform or user growth or engagement could decline, any of which would harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are dependent on internet search engines, primarily Google, to direct traffic to our platform, including our website. Search engines, such as Google, may modify their search algorithms and policies or enforce those policies in ways that are detrimental to us, and without prior notice to us. If that occurs, we may experience significant declines in the organic search ranking of our search results, leading to a decrease in traffic to our platform. We have experienced declines in traffic and user growth as a result of these changes in the past, and anticipate fluctuations as a result of such actions in the future.

In addition, Google may take action against websites for behavior that it believes unfairly influences search results. Google does not publish guidelines explaining the types of behavior that may trigger an action. For example, in 2017, Google took action against us which temporarily resulted in lower search rankings and decreased traffic to our website. Our ability to appeal these actions is limited, and we may not be able to revise our content strategies to recover the loss in domain authority, page rankings, traffic or user growth resulting from such actions. Any significant reduction in the number of users directed to our website or mobile application from search engines would harm our business, revenue and financial results.”

2017 ranking issues. “In 2017, Google took action against us which temporarily resulted in lower search rankings and decreased traffic to our website,” NerdWallet said. We reached out to NerdWallet to learn more but the company was not willing to comment. So we dug in using third-party tools including Semrush and Searchmetrics, and it appears the drop in traffic was in May 2017.

What did Google do in May 2017. Google did not release a “confirmed” search algorithm update in May but there was a substantial unconfirmed update in mid-May 2017. I covered it on Search Engine Roundtable, and you can see there were a lot of SEOs that noticed this update too. Glenn Gabe also dug into this update back in 2017, calling this unconfirmed update a substantial one.

So it seems like NerdWallet was hit by this May 2017 unconfirmed update.

Not a manual action. I don’t think this is what Google would consider a manual action, so to say. “Google took action against us” may not be accurate. With these algorithmic updates, Google does not take actions on specific sites but rather aims to improve the overall quality of the search results. With that, some sites might rank higher for some queries and some might rank lower.

To say “Google does not publish guidelines explaining the types of behavior that may trigger an action,” as cited in the S-1 filing, is also not exactly accurate. For Google manual actions, Google specifically publishes detailed information around manual actions, including a tool to tell you if you do have a manual action, what is a manual action, how to fix your site if you do have a manual action, and the list of manual actions you can see.

What was it? I do not believe NerdWallet suffered a ranking issue related to a manual action but rather an algorithmic issue related to the unconfirmed May 2017 update.

Nerdwallet success. But NerdWallet has been super successful with its Google rankings and traffic from Google organic search. Look at this chart from Semrush showing the site going from 6M in visibility to close to 25 million in visibility over the next five years or so.

How did the company achieve such amazing Google organic search success? The Hoth offered some ideas in this detailed write-up from inside NerdWallet’s efforts.

Why we care. If anything, this shows you that no matter how big or small your website or business is, everyone is at risk of suffering a ranking decline in Google Search. Those ranking declines can make or break businesses of all sizes and are clearly cited as a factor that “could harm our business, operating results and financial condition” of NerdWallet. It has been cited by other businesses as well over the years.

No business is immune, which is why diversifying your sources of traffic to your website has always been of huge importance to all online businesses.

The post NerdWallet blames Google ranking issues in S-1 filing appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Q4 is here, and it’s time to ensure your paid search programs drive the success you need for a strong finish in 2021. 

Two short years ago, typical steep discounts and strong promotions were big factors in driving Q4 e-commerce success. Then COVID hit and upended the world. Then 2021 hit with massive strains in supply chains and escalating shipping costs. These factors mean marketers cannot assume vast inventories or even alternative products to satisfy their customers. 

Take, for example, the auto industry. Dealerships cannot get adequate inventories of new vehicles. They are pre-selling allotted vehicles before they even hit the lot, and they wish they had more cars to satisfy huge demand, including for used vehicles. It’s more crucial than ever to reduce ad waste and connect a buyer’s search with THE specific car they are searching for online. Similar challenges confront countless other industries in 2021. 

To win during Q4, your PPC campaigns need to be far more responsive to real-time inventory and other stressors that are flummoxing many marketers. Here are three tips for executing on the new game plan that can help you win as supply chains wreak havoc on your competitors’ campaigns.

The three steps outlined below won’t solve every problem in Q4, but these steps can help you conquer some of the most pressing challenges marketers are facing in the coming few months: 

Step 1: Connect your ads to real-time supply chain and inventory data

After all, you can only sell what you’ll ACTUALLY have on hand or on the way. By connecting real-time data right into a PPC workflow, marketers can pivot quickly and automatically when one line of product sells out, and a much-delayed shipment finally arrives. 

Automated ad creation instantly reflects the new inventory and makes it possible to serve up ads for only the items you can actually deliver. And when automating ads from inventory, there’s no need to stop at simple text ads. Extend the automation to also create RSAs (Responsive Search Ads), RDAs (Responsive Display Ads with images), and DSAs (Dynamic Search Ads). 

Next, use the automation to add hyper-relevant targeting criteria like keywords to serve ads against product-specific searches, including for users who are searching for attributes that align with your inventory data (in the instance of vehicles, think about make, model, color, year, mileage, etc. – or size, color, and other attributes relating to apparel or other products). 

This alignment of inventory data and your PPC programs also allows for automated creation of ETAs and DSAs along with the most popular ad extensions. With RSAs becoming the default ad format, this is a great time to add RSA to your whole account and align your inventory data with ad creation. 

Another nice outcome – when inventory is gone, ads for that product stop, which helps eliminate wasted spend (and frustration for customers). This simple first step gets you on the right track, and you should see benefits quickly. 

Step 2: Optimize your feed to show better ads

While structured data like that found in spreadsheets is commonly used by PPC teams, automatically turning that data into ads may present some problems, especially when the data feed wasn’t built specifically with PPC ads in mind. The problem is that data may be formatted inconsistently, incorrectly, or certain required fields to run ads are simply missing. This is when the need arises to optimize the feed data, a process that must be automated with rules if the advertiser hopes to gain the full time-saving benefits of data-driven ads. 

The data advertisers have access to usually originates from a shopping cart system and may not follow all the strict requirements for what Google needs for ads. For example, the product titles may be too long to fit in an RSA headline component or to fit the title element of a shopping ad. Or the product category data may not map cleanly to Google’s product categories. This is when you will need to optimize the feed before using it to advertise.

The Feed Optimization tool simplifies things like:

• Creating product titles that follow Google’s best practice guidelines. Many data sources are not inherently Google-friendly. Feed Optimization is designed around those guidelines. 
• Standardizing attributes such as colors and sizes. For example, simply replacing all instances of “M” with “Medium” or replacing unusual color names such as “cardinal” with more common references such as “red” result in more impression volume because your keywords are better matched to how users search. 

Think of the impact on automatic creation of relevant ads when the source data is aligned properly. Cleaner inputs = more powerful outputs. 

Step 3: Use Google’s Drafts and Experiments to explore what works best. 

With new data-driven ad strategies in place, it’s time to start testing what works best and prove to your stakeholders that the new strategy is paying off. Drafts and Experiments is a feature-rich tool from Google that offers a lot of horsepower for search marketers but isn’t the most intuitive, fluid add-on in the Google environment. For example, monitoring experiments in Google across more than one account or across multiple experiments can be cumbersome. 

Free scripts or PPC tools like those from Optmyzr can help you see all experiments across accounts in more user-friendly ways, with results and recommendations served up on a single page. The streamlined views via Optmyzr make it much easier to monitor the experiments and take actions according to the results. 

The best PPC practitioners are really good at experimenting. They test, learn, and iterate – and the faster they can do all of that, the more they leave competitors in the dust. 

Masters of automation & optimization become masters of PPC

Paid search pros benefit when they are in the greatest control of the automations at their disposal. The steps noted above can really help position PPC pros to tackle the ever-evolving challenges that confront marketers in Q4 of 2021. The challenges are big, but so are the opportunities to drive exceptional results. Approach Q4 methodically and think automation and optimization at every turn:

• Connect real-time supply chain and inventory data with PPC ads
• Supercharge your data with feed optimization tools that sanitize and standardize the info your PPC management system needs for higher-performing ads
• Experiment, test, react and optimize faster if you want to grow faster

Remember – focus on using automations to remove those task-heavy activities of PPC from your plate. Those who master the automations and then use powerful tools that further free up time and energy for more strategic endeavors are the ones who will have the advantage in the daily battle for paid search dominance. 

We’d love to talk to you 1:1 and give you a demo of how Optmyzr and Campaign Automator go beyond platform-level automations. Empowered PPC pros are the ones who will win! Talk to us about how to get that empowerment right on your desktop. We even offer free trials so you can get started without risk.

The post 3 tips for winning with real-time, inventory-driven ads appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Google Search Console’s public-facing testing tools will be aligned more closely to the URL Inspection tool, the company announced today. Google said it is updating these tools’ “designs and improving features to be fully aligned with the URL Inspection tool.”

Which tools are impacted. Google said this is impacting specifically the AMP, Mobile Friendly, and Rich Results testing tools.

What is changing. Google is updating the design and improving some of the features of these three public-facing tools. Specifically, these fields will be both on the public-facing tools and the URL inspection tool:

• Page availability – Whether Google was able to crawl the page, when it was crawled, or any obstacles that it encountered when crawling the URL.
• HTTP headers – The HTTP header response returned from the inspected URL.
• Page screenshot – The rendered page as seen by Google.
• Paired AMP inspection, Inspect both canonical and AMP URL.

What it looks like. Google shared this screenshot of the rich results public testing tool and the new design and features:

Why we care. This should help you align what you are reporting on between the various Google tools. Just this morning Google said a discrepancy between the URL inspection tool and the crawl status reports may cause confusion. Having all these tools more aligned will lead to less confusion and a more efficient use of your time.

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