There are many ways to use social and media data to inform your marketing decisions. But the most successful brands depend on data-driven insights to shed light on their overall brand health, analyze trends, anticipate consumer behavior and monitor the competition to ultimately grow their revenue.
Join experts from Netbase Quid, who unveil how brands like Tesla, Lululemon and Nike found the secret of social and media data success by applying these insights to their business strategy and programs for maximum impact.
If you’re searching for actionable tactics to drive more paid and organic conversions you can’t afford to miss SMX Convert — happening onlinetomorrow, August 17, from 11:00am – 5:30pm ET.
At just $149, your All Access packs a tremendous amount of value:
Discuss common CRO challenges and creative solutions with like-minded attendees during community meetups.
Soak up inspiration from expert-led audits of peer-submitted assets during live clinics.
Get your specific questions answered during Overtime, live Q&A with all of the SMX Convert speakers.
Here’s another way to look at it…
Because all sessions are available live and on-demand, you’ll get 12 hours of SEO and PPC conversion optimization tactics. That’s just $12 per hour of expert-led training!
You’ll attend presentations from 21 of the world’s leading search and conversion optimization experts. That’s just $7 per expert. (You’d spend more buying each a cup of coffee!)
Attend a track in its entirety to earn a personalized “Certificate of Completion”, a wonderful way to demonstrate your worth when asking for a promotion or a salary bump.
Hearing what industry experts are up to will help validate your ongoing initiatives and confirm you and your team are on the right track. That kind of peace of mind is priceless.
The button to access the reporting tool, as it appears at the bottom of the URL inspection help document and indexing coverage report document.
Intended use. The tool enables SEOs and site owners to report an indexing issue directly to Google. It is designed for those who need further support with indexing issues outside of the Google community forums and support documentation.
How to report indexing issues. Below is a screenshot of the form.
As the form is filled out, follow-up questions are generated so that the SEO or site owner can add more details about the issue. “We may follow-up for more information if we confirm an actual indexing bug,” Google says on the form instructions, “We will not respond to other kinds of issues.”
Why we care. Indexing issues in Google Search are fairly common. In fact, we’ve reported numerous confirmed indexing issues with Google over the years. Now that this tool is out of the pilot program, SEOs and site owners in the U.S. have a way to escalate these indexing issues, which should help them get closer to resolving them.
Content has been king for a while now, but just because you wrote something doesn’t mean it’ll drive qualified traffic to your site. In fact, it doesn’t even guarantee that your content will show up in search results: 90% of content on the web gets no traffic from Google, according to 2020 data from Tim Soulo of Ahrefs.
The key to effective content is planning. I’m sure there are some people who just type out bangers from their stream of consciousness, but those writers are definitely few and far between. The rest of us rely on planning and thoughtful execution. So how do you plan SEO content that actually ranks?
Aja Frost, head of English SEO at HubSpot, went over just that at SMX Create this year. One of the highest-rated sessions at the event, her top suggestions are covered here to help you get your content higher in search engine results.
How to identify measureable metrics for your content goals
Frost recommends picturing a chart like the one below and asking, “What do I want to see on the Y-axis?”
Step 1. “Figure out what would make your boss [or] your client over the moon on the Y-axis,” she said. It’s likely not traffic, but something more like leads, appointments, purchases—which should be your ultimate goal. The traffic goals will lead us to those end targets. “This is why we start with demand goals and back those into our traffic goals by [dividing] by your historical or expected conversion rates.”
Note: The formula above has been adjusted to correct for a typo in the presentation slides.
At this point you may be like, that’s great but I have no idea what my expected conversion rates are. Here’s how to figure it out: “Take your demand actuals from the last 12 to 24 months… and then compare them to your traffic actuals from the same time period,” Frost said. “Sum up the demand metric of your choice divided by your organic traffic, and there you go. You’ve got your CVR.”
If you don’t have this data, you’ll likely have to get creative and figure out a comparable conversion rate. For example, if you’re creating a new product or service, you can use comparable CVRs from other assets you’ve been working on (say a blog or an online community, etc.).
Step 2. Next, figure out the demand you want to drive in the next 12 months and divide those by your historical or expected CVR. That gives you traffic goals.
Once you have these goals, you should also calculate where you’d land if you did absolutely nothing. “Unless you have zero content right now, your traffic is going to grow regardless of what you do,” advised Frost. “So by figuring out where you’d land if you did nothing, and the gap between that and what you need to grow, you can figure out how much additional traffic and conversions you need to generate.”
Step 3. After that, you need to determine how much monthly search volume you have to target to make up the difference between your projections and how your content would grow if you did nothing. Frost recommends a CTR curve analysis and creating estimates by SERP positions 1-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10th position on the first page of search results. “You can multiply your weighted CVR by the traffic you need to generate to find your MSV [monthly search volume] estimates by positions,” said Frost.
How to perform keyword research based on personas
First, create or refine your personas. “When I talk to advanced SEOs, this is often a step they skip,” said Frost. But she implores SEOs of all skills levels not to forego this step. “The more deeply you understand your personas and the more detailed your insights, the more comprehensive and accurate your list of seed keywords will be.” All of your target keywords in the research process stem from these personas.
Some of the basic persona questions you need to answer include what their industry is, how big their department within their company is and what tools they need to do their jobs. So, if you find out that your target persona is in the hospitality industry with a team of two people and a company of 24 and that they typically use tools for hotel reservations and accounting, you’ll know that “hotel management software” is a seed keyword.
From there, develop your list of seed keywords and expand it out to related short-tail keywords and down to long-tail keywords. Along with the standard tools (Ahrefs, Moz, Semrush), Frost also recommends a few other keyword research tools that SEOs may not know about. Using different tools also means that you’ll get insights that other SEOs researching this space may not have. Her recommended tools include Keyword Keg, Bing’s keyword research tool and seedkeyword, which lets you ask your target audience how they’d search for a particular topic.
After that, clean the list up based on what you know about each persona and determine what’s relevant and what may not be worth your time. “Filter, categorize, and group your keywords together so you can efficiently create content,” recommended Frost.
Once you’ve got your list of seed keywords, upload them into the tool of your choice and download search suggestions.
Next, Frost categorizes queries by intent: informational, transactional, and navigational. “Informational queries contain modifiers like ‘who, what, where, when, why,’ transactional queries contain questions related to price, cost, and promotion, and navigational queries are specific to the brand or product you’re doing research for,” advised Frost.
Build an editorial (or content) calendar
Find the editorial calendar tool that works best for you and that you’ll actually use — whether it’s Trello, Asana, Monday, or just plain Google Sheets. From there, Frost recommends adding the following to your content calendaring tool of choice:
The basics: Like target keyword, URL recommendations, headers and more.
Internal linking opportunities: Products, offers or signup pages.
Level of effort: The average of keyword difficulty of target keyword(s) multiplied by competitor content quality score.
Expected traffic: Multiply search volume by the CTR of your expected position.
Competitive advantage: Something that will differentiate your content (original data, a strong point of view, etc.).
You can also group keywords by theme (as opposed to persona) and sum up how much search volume you’re targeting for each theme. Finally, you get to writing your next-level content based on these goals and data points.
Learn more from SMX Create on demand
This is just a taste of what’s available on-demand from the super popular SMX Create event. Check out Aja Frost’s full presentation and the rest of the SEO content creation journey including…
Creating compelling content for SEO with Alli Berry from The Motley Fool,
Optimizing your content for increased findability with Niki Mosier from AgentSync and
Alternative content strategies to increase organic traffic and tracking success in 2021 with Maria Amelie White from Floristpro and John Shehata of Conde Nast.
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, and do you set it and forget it?
I saw one of those viral, hustle-culture tweets the other day that made me do a double-take. I won’t link to the original, but someone wrote that YouTube/Google SEO is one of the best set it and forget it businesses. “Once you set them up they are completely passive,” wrote the OP.
As an SEO, my first reaction was, “Sure, Jan.” But I think so many businesses believe that SEO is one and done. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times: “Can you just SEO it for us?” And while you can set up the foundations of solid SEO for a website, it’s not something that’s ever “done.”
The same is absolutely true for PPC, too, of course. It’s especially critical to always be monitoring and adjusting in paid search as the platforms are adjusting toward automating processes and away from sharing data.
The tweet bothered me half because I know better and half because I know there may be some followers who don’t. I’ve got no great solution here except that we just have to keep evangelizing our craft and educating our clients and stakeholders as best we can!
Carolyn Lyden, Director of Search Content
Is FLoC switching from cohorts to topics?
With the rollout of FLoC delayed until 2023, there may be indication that Google is adjusting how the privacy-focused ad-targeting system may work.
“A lead engineer helping guide Google’s Privacy Sandbox development has revealed signs of what may be next for the firm’s most advanced cookieless ad targeting method. The potential update of the Federated Learning of Cohorts targeting technique detailed at a recent engineering research event would involve assigning topic categories to websites and people rather than assigning opaque numerical cohort IDs to them,” wrote Kate Kaye with Digiday.
This may be a response to evidence that the previous method of FLoC (which did not pass muster with GDPR) might enable fingerprinting, which means bad actors could still track individuals — something FLoC is expressly created to prohibit. “Topics have a number of advantages over cohorts. Users can see what’s being said about them and understand it,” said Josh Karlin, a tech lead manager of Google’s Privacy Sandbox team in its Chrome browser division at an Internet Engineering Task Force meeting.
“We are always exploring options for how to make the Privacy Sandbox proposals more private while still supporting the free and open web. Nothing has been decided yet,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land.
Why we care. While Google is buying itself more time (testing for the latest version of FLoC ended July 13 and it’s taking feedback from the advertiser community into consideration too), this pivot could potentially be better for everyone involved. “Adopting a topic-based approach could give advertisers, ad-tech firms, website publishers and people a clearer understanding of how ads are targeted through the technique,” said Kaye.
The SEO Periodic Table: HTML success factors
These elements encompass the HTML tags you should use to send clues to search engines about your content and enable that content to render quickly. Are you describing movie showtimes? Do you have ratings and reviews on your e-commerce pages? What’s the headline of the article you’ve published? In every case, there’s a way to communicate this with HTML.
Search engines look for familiar formatting elements like Titles (Tt) and Headings (Hd) to determine what your page’s content is about, figuring that these cues to human readers will work just as well for them. But search engines also utilize particular fields like Schema (Sc) markup and Meta Descriptions (Ds) as clues to the meaning and purpose of the page.
As Google has removed the AMP requirement, we’ve gotten rid of that element and added two new ones: Image ALT (ALT) and Content Shift (CLS). ALT text for images improves accessibility and image SEO. Screen readers use ALT text to help those with visual disabilities understand the images on the page. ALT text for images can also help with image search — surfacing your site in image search results. Content Shift (CLS) focuses on the elements of visual stability.
Cumulative Layout Shift, which is part of the Core Web Vitals and overall page experience update, refers to unexpected changes in a page’s layout as it loads — it’s annoying for users at a minimum and can cause real damage depending on the severity of the shift and content of the page.
Search Shorts: Get more GMB photos, remote working SEOs and automation advice
Google My Business ‘Photo Updates’: A new way to get customer pics. Another solid local SEO piece by one of our faves, Claire Carlile. “It is now possible to add a photo update without leaving a review if you click… on ‘Add a photo update.’”
Remote forever? Kelvin Newman asked his SEO and digital marketing Twitter followers if they were back in the office yet. Over 60% said no (with 19% saying they’d always been remote). Many replies and QTs expect that trend to stay for a while.
“Definitely don’t do this.” That’s what Kenny Hyder said in response to a Google Ads tweet about Smart Bidding. Just another case of ads automation vs. ads consultant.
What We’re Reading: Reddit’s new round of funding will go toward driving new users and expanding advertiser options
Reddit announced that it raised $140 million in venture capital which increased the company’s valuation from $6 billion to $10 billion. While initially not planned, the fresh capital gives Reddit more time to figure out how to IPO eventually.
“The company makes most of its money selling advertising, which appears in the feeds of users who browse the many ‘subreddits,’ or topic-focused forums, across the site,” said Mike Issac for The New York Times. But this also means “Reddit must compete against digital advertising giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon, as well as other ad-based social networking sites, including Twitter, Snap and Pinterest.”
But the company has been steadily improving its metrics, according to the NYT article:
Reddit surpassed $100 million in revenue in a single quarter for the first time this year, up 192 percent over the same period in 2020.
More than 50 million people now visit Reddit daily.
The site has more than 100,000 active subreddits.
The company has also been working on moderating subs recently, as well, including banning ‘The_Donald’ and other subreddits that degraded into forums of hate speech and violent conspiracy theories. Many of the other major players competing in the space (Facebook, Twitter) have been trying to do the same.
So what’s next for the cash? The latest round of money means that the forum/social media platform can figure out new ways to garner more users and continue to build its business, especially internationally. Plus they plan to explore more options for video ads and opening their system up to be easier for small businesses looking to take advantage of the niche and targeted advertising.
Beginning on September 21, Google will enforce new requirements for podcasts to show in recommendations on the Google Podcasts platform, the company told podcast owners via email on Thursday. Podcasts that do not provide the required information can still appear in Google and Google Podcasts search results and users can still subscribe to them, they just won’t be eligible to be featured as a recommendation.
The new requirements. Starting on September 21, to be eligible to show as a recommendation, podcast RSS feeds must include:
A valid, crawlable image: This image must be accessible to Google (not blocked to Google’s crawler or require a login).
A show description: Include a user-friendly show description that accurately describes the show.
A valid owner email address: This email address is used to verify show ownership. You must have access to email sent to this address.
A link to a homepage for the show: Linking your podcast to a homepage will help the discovery and presentation of your podcast on Google surfaces.
The podcast author’s name: A name to show in Google Podcasts as the author of the podcast. This does not need to be the same as the owner.
More details can be found in the accompanying forum post.
Why we care. Recommendations in Google Podcasts provide greater visibility, which can help the podcasts that are able to appear there attract more listeners. Following the new requirements will help to ensure that your podcasts are eligible for those free, highly visible placements.
In addition, recommendations in Google Podcasts are personalized, so there’s a higher likelihood that, if your podcast appears as a recommendation, it’ll be more relevant to a listener’s interests, which may benefit your marketing goals.
Visitors to your website come from an investment in search marketing. Failing to convert them is a missed opportunity. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) plays a significant role in ecommerce. Improving your conversion rate from 2% to 2.1%, for example, represents a 5% increase in online sales.
How can you improve your Google Shopping conversion rates? In this guide from Bidnamic you’ll learn about:
Ecommerce conversion rate benchmarks, including average, poor and exceptional conversion rates in the major ecommerce sectors
Top tips to personally enhance your website for CRO
Technologies used by leading ecommerce companies to personalise the shopper experience and drive up conversion rates
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, Google Trends is 15 years old!
Well, it’s actually about 15 and 3 months, but the company decided to publish a few posts about it yesterday. That inspired me to look back on the top trending searches of the last few years. I hope you like nostalgia because here they are.
2020: “Election results”
2019: “Disney Plus”
2018: “World Cup”
2017: “Hurricane Irma”
2016: “Powerball”
2015: “Lamar Odom”
2014: “Robin Williams”
Every time I look at historical Google Trends data, I’m always surprised (yet still somehow not surprised) at what captured our interests and how those priorities have changed over the years. I’ve got my fingers crossed for trends worth fondly reminiscing about in 2021.
Nostalgia trip aside, Google Trends can be a very useful tool for marketers — if you’re unfamiliar, the company has posted an article with tips on how to get themost out of it. And, I’ve included a link to an interview with the person who led the team that launched Google Trends back in 2006, you can find that at the top of the Shorts section.
George Nguyen, Editor
Instagram is adding more e-commerce support with ads in the Shop tab
Instagram is now testing ads in the Shop tab, TechCrunch first reported on Monday. The ads, which are rolling out now to mobile users in the U.S., can include a single image or a carousel of images, and the test is currently only open to a handful of retailers.
Why we care. Ads in Instagram Shops may provide retailers with a new way to target audiences that are ready to shop. This is especially valuable as the industry moves away from cross-app tracking and third-party cookies, which may be less of an issue in this context since all of the user’s activity happens in the app.
Google Ads will soon block ad targeting based on age, gender or interests of people under 18
With virtual schooling (and the general digitization of life), kids are more online than ever. That’s one of the reasons Google provided for implementing its new ad targeting restrictions. In the coming months, the company will expand safeguards to block ad targeting based on the age, gender or interests of users under 18. Google will also prevent age-sensitive ad categories from being shown to teens.
In addition, the company is introducing a new policy that enables users under 18 years old (or their parent or guardian) to request removal of their images from Google Image results and is defaulting YouTube uploads to private for kids between 13-17. Instagram knocked over the first domino when it made similar policy changes late last month, so we might see other players do the same. While advertisers should not be drastically affected, you may see changes in your ad metrics as audiences are potentially taken away from your targeting.
Instagram introduces the ability to limit comments and DMs from accounts that don’t follow you
Image: Instagram.
Instagram is introducing Limits, a feature that will automatically hide comments and DM requests from users who don’t follow you (or your brand) or who only recently followed you, the Facebook-owned company announced yesterday.
“Our research shows that a lot of negativity towards public figures comes from people who don’t actually follow them, or who have only recently followed them, and who simply pile on in the moment,” the company said in the announcement, “We saw this after the recent Euro 2020 final, which resulted in a significant and unacceptable spike in racist abuse towards players. Creators also tell us they don’t want to switch off comments and messages completely; they still want to hear from their community and build those relationships.” Limits is now available to all users globally.
Why we care. Over the past few years, but especially since last year, brand safety has been a major concern for many businesses. Limits can help brands on Instagram stem the flurry of comments that may come in response to their stance on polarizing topics (like mask mandates, for example). It can also prevent them from alienating their longtime followers on the platform since those users will still be able to comment or send DMs.
Behind the scenes of Google Trends, standing out from the rest of the pack and your suggestions for custom columns in Google Ads
The Google Trends origin story. As I noted in the intro, Google Trends is now 15 years old, and in recognition of that milestone, the company has published an interview with Yossi Matias, VP of engineering and research, who led the team that launched Trends all those years ago. Matias shares where the idea for Trends came from, how the tool has changed and what working on Trends in 2020 was like.
Dare to be less same.This week’s Marketoon is all about standing out in a “sea of sameness.” Even slight — and sometimes, arbitrary — distinctions can make all the difference, just look at Fiji Water’s bottles.
What custom columns would you like to see in Google Ads? Google’s Ads Product Liaison Ginny Marvin is looking for your suggestions.
On behalf of third-party sellers, Amazon will pay up to $1,000 for property damage and personal injury claims
Amazon is expanding its A-to-z Guarantee to facilitate the resolution of personal injury and property damage claims between customers, merchants and their insurance providers. This program, which will begin on September 1, includes payments of up to $1,000 per claim (that covers about 80% of cases, according to the ecommerce platform).
The resolution program is offered at no cost to sellers and Amazon may step in to pay claims for higher amounts if the seller is unresponsive or rejects a claim that the platform believes to be valid. If the seller doesn’t respond to a claim, Amazon may decide to pursue the seller separately. If a seller rejects a claim that Amazon believes is valid, Amazon may still intervene to address the customer’s concern, but the seller will still have the opportunity to defend their product against the claim.
“Wow, so magnanimous of you, Amazon!” is what some may be thinking. But, in 2019, a panel of Pennsylvania judges decided that Amazon is liable for personal injury resulting from goods bought on its platform — even goods sold by third parties. This new program may help Amazon get out ahead of potential lawsuits by resolving claims before customers lawyer up.
Mortgage company branding is more than a logo. It’s part of the entire consumer experience, how your customer perceives you and is an indispensable factor in your ROI. Everything from the individual graphics to your website and mortgage app appearance to social media posts to online chats is part of your brand.
Because branding is a critical element of your business, it’s vital that you know the fundamentals of a strong one. By the way, this is true about personal branding as well. Whether you’re a team on 1 or 100, your mortgage brand is your DNA and promise to consumers. Here’s how to do it.
Purpose
A strong brand reflects your company’s purpose. It’s the reason why your business was established and answers the key question: why should a consumer choose your business over others?
This is the starting point for your entire branding plan. The more specific you are, the more defining the difference between you and your competitors. Answer these three questions, and you’ll have the foundation to your overarching purpose that is part of your brand strategy:
What is your business best at?
What is your business passionate about?
What difference can your business make?
Consistency
Consistent branding increases familiarity. The more a consumer is familiar with your brand, the more they begin to trust –and even prefer– your brand and business. And when it comes to online consumers who are comparison shopping, consistency and trust can tip the scales in your favor, turning a web visitor into a prospect.
Graphic elements and color schemes are visual ways to create consistency but don’t forget how your mortgage business tech stack works with your branding. A similar and predictable look, feel, and tone should be apparent in the entire Borrower Experience.
Captivate
One of the hallmarks of a great brand is that it grabs the attention of consumers. That’s not to say that it must be loud or aggressive, but optimally, it should contain some pivot –enough to make a consumer do a “double-take” when they come upon it while browsing for local mortgage brokers and lenders.
Keep in mind that the double-take is more than a cool logo. Captivating with your brand also involves offering the “remarkable” with your services, such as instant quotes or self-generated approval letters.
Personality
A strong mortgage brand also has a recognizable personality that makes it relatable to its target consumer. We can see this in action with well-known brands like Nike (motivational and inspirational) or Apple (innovative and fresh).
Authentic brand personality permeates everything from running the company to campaign messages, helping to build rapport and loyalty from your target mortgage consumer.
Emotional Hook
Consumers are often persuaded more effectively by emotion than logic. A recent collaborative study analyzing 35 years of research into emotions’ impact on decision-making revealed that emotions are a pervasive and predictable driver in decision making.
Thus, a strong mortgage brand needs an emotional hook that emphasizes the benefits to the consumer. This emotional hook (the benefits) excites consumers and motivates them to convert into borrowers.
Community
Your current and past mortgage consumers can be your most effective evangelists and be a rich resource for new mortgage leads by sharing their experience and recommending it. A strong mortgage brand is one that your consumer advocates are thrilled to share. It’s professional, clean, and trustworthy -everything they can get behind to share and go viral.
Authority
When it comes to the lending industry, authority is a must. Anything less than unshakable authority will cost you business. Ways that you can build authority with your branding include:
Mortgage content like a blog, videos, and email marketing
Consistent and active presence across the web, including review sites and social media
LenderHomePage Builds Your Mortgage Brand
A strong mortgage brand sets you up for success. It defines fundamentals like your mission and company values, rallies employees around your vision, emotionally hooks prospective mortgage consumers, excites advocates for your business, and overall helps to facilitate a thriving ROI. So when it comes to a digital mortgage partner, choose one that’s built for branding as well as scaling.
Try us out for free for 14 days and discover why top producers and enterprise originators trust LenderHomePage for all their digital mortgage platform needs.
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, over the past week I’ve been monitoring some usual and unusual activity in the organic Google search results.
This past weekend, we had a typical unconfirmed Google search ranking update. It is unclear if this is still part of the link spam update rollout or if this is something new. One thing for sure is that there are multiple signals pointing to an update. We hope you did well with this one.
More on the unusual side, we’ve seen numerous reports both documented publicly and then some behind the scenes, of Google having new indexing issues. Authoritative sites are noticing both new and old pages dropping in and out of Google’s index over the last few days. It is weird, as the pages drop out, return, drop out again, return again, etc.
Google has not confirmed any of these reports but it is something you may want to be aware of.
Barry Schwartz, Speculative Google organic search reporter
Attribution models now support YouTube and Google Display ads
Google Ads has upgraded all Google Ads non-last click models, including data-driven attribution, to support YouTube and Display ads. In addition to clicks, the data-driven attribution model also measures engaged views from YouTube. With these upgrades, the data-driven attribution model now learns even more from how users interact with your ads and convert. When used along with automated bidding strategies or updates to your manual bidding, data-driven attribution helps to drive additional conversions at the same CPA compared to last click.
Why we care. Attribution is a common issue for search marketers and continues to be muddied as more of the web focuses on privacy. The ability to model your attribution journeys through YouTube and Display will help marketers determine which channels to invest in and which channels could use a different strategy. Note the changes that will happen in your Campaigns if you make these changes, though.
Google structured data testing tool landing page is now an informational page
Google has officially replaced its structured data testing tool with a new navigational landing page to direct you to either Google’s rich results test tool or the Schema.org schema markup validator tool.
Above is a screenshot of the revised page, as you can see, it aims to direct you to the right tool for the right purpose.
Why we care. You can now use Schema.org to test generic structured data or Google’s rich results tool to test Google supported structured data. Of course, Google Search Console has tons of reporting for your structured data as well.
Google updates article structured data author URL helps docs
Google updated the article structured data help document to add new author properties to the list of recommended properties you can use in Google Search. Google said the company added a new recommended author.url property to the article structured data documentation. The author.url property is a new recommended property you can add to your article structured markup that is essentially a link to a web page that uniquely identifies the author of the article. This link can be to the author’s social media page, an about me page, or a biography page or some other page that helps identify this author.
Why we care. If your site publishes articles, it might benefit you to add these new property to your article structured data. Who knows if Google will use it more broadly than just in the author knowledge panels, and use it to try to understand the expertise of a specific author across multiple sites. Maybe, just maybe, that can help your site rank better in the long term. That is assuming SEOs spammers do not manipulate it and post fact author markup for their stories.
Google Ads Editor 1.7 live. As you know, we reported on Google released Ads Editor 1.7, but that announcement was premature, it is now officially live – so have at it.
We’ve curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader.
