We’re recapping 2021 and the remarkable shifts that made for an excellent year for the mortgage industry and 50% growth for LenderHomePage!

As the year draws to a close, we’re seeing mortgage rates inch away from the record–lows of 2020 and early 2021. However, when we look at them from a historical perspective, rates are still ultra-low. Three years ago, December’s 30–year rate averaged at 4.75%, and December 2019 averaged around 3.75%. 

According to Freddie Mac, there was also a 33% increase in refinances when comparing the first half of 2020 to the first half of 2021 – amounting to an astounding $1.6 trillion in first-lien refinance originations. This also translated to borrowers saving an average of $2,800 a year. 

Applause all around!

For LenderHomePage, 2021 was a pivotal year of product improvement, integrations, and company growth.

Check out all the advancements that we made and that our clients benefitted from:

Early 2021 marked the deadline for the much anticipated and compulsory URLA Mismo 3.4 compliance. Although the industry was warned of the impending change, many originators were slow to transition and faced significant disruption to their business. Fortunately, our Loanzify POS was well prepared ahead of time, and those who rushed to comply were able to do so swiftly when they implemented our software. 

April 2021, we launched v.4 of Loanzify Mortgage Mobile App. The mobile app fully integrates with Loanzify POS, simplifying and reimagining the digital mortgage acquisition and process. It provides a simple yet intelligent consumer-facing UX with engagement tools plus powerful loan management for Loan Originators.

June 2021, we announced all-new “Personal Brand” mortgage website templates. This all-in-one website solution highlights the loan officer’s brand and supports their career growth and longevity in the industry. 

July 2021 brought a new partnership between Loanzify POS and Insellerate, delivering lead management, sales enablement, engagement, and data intelligence to help maximize the loan officer’s productivity and enhance the borrower’s digital mortgage experience.

Late summer 2021, we simultaneously released our Spanish language digital 1003 and CreditConnect, our self-pay credit pull for Loanzify POS. These breakthrough features help mortgage professionals to serve the diverse real estate market better, exponentially expand revenue opportunities and minimize the costs associated with creditworthiness analysis. 

In September 2021, we announced integration between Loanzify POS and Integra LOS, helping to facilitate the mortgage operation from origination to closing seamlessly. 

That same month, we also shared the new partnership with LeadMailbox, aiding mortgage companies to streamline and enhance their lead management process.

LenderHomePage also made waves in the industry by being featured in industry-leading news outlets, expanding its leadership team, and winning several industry awards. 

CEO Rocky Foroutan was featured in California Business Journal and BankingCIO Outlook Magazine and was awarded 2021’s Lending Luminary Award and MPA’s Housing Industry Icon in Mortgage Technology –as voted by industry peers.

LenderHomePage was also honored with MPA Magazine’s “Top Mortgage Employers 2021” award and “2021’s Top Lending Management Solution Provider Award” from BankingCIO Magazine.

Rounding out a year of big wins was bolstering our leadership team. In 2021, we welcomed Brandon Salisbury as the new Director of Sales & Marketing and Brian Dugan as the newly appointed Director of Customer Success. We also had the strategic transition of Bryan Skitt to Chief Creative Officer, where he oversaw the launch of our new Creative On Demand service.

The ability to save product filters has been spotted in Google Merchant Center. We’ve reached out to Google for more details about this feature but have not received a response at the time of publication.

Tip of the hat to Kirk Williams of ZATO Marketing for bringing this to our attention.

Why we care

This nifty, albeit minor, update can save marketers some time that might otherwise be spent fumbling through data to find what they’re looking for. Being able to save product filters enables marketers to more quickly analyze different product categories, such as clearance items, for example.

More Google Merchant Center news

• Google Merchant Center shows relative visibility, page overlap rate, higher position rate metrics
• Google Merchant Center now automatically displays badge eligibility for products
• Google introduces new ‘Deals’ features for the Shopping tab and Merchant Center

The post Google Merchant Center allows retailers to save product filters appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Advertisers aren’t just competing against other brands for their audience’s attention. “Nowadays, the digital environment is so busy, we’re also competing against our best friend’s new babies and puppies and really great pictures of food,” Rebecca Debono, creative director at Jump 450 Media and formerly director of creative strategy at 3Q Digital, said at SMX Create.

With so many platforms, technologies and distractions available, it can be incredibly difficult to make ads that actually engage consumers. At SMX Create, Debono and Julia Thiel, VP executive creative director at 3Q Digital, shared their considerations for creating visually stunning ads to help brands cut through the noise and address customers’ motivators as well as barriers that may be clogging your sales funnel.

Design for the part of the funnel you’re targeting

Using different ads to address each part of the sales funnel ensures that you’ve got a pipeline that speaks to all potential audiences, regardless of whether they’re totally new to your brand or are on the tipping point of converting. Below are some goals that Debono associated with ads at different stages of the funnel.

• Top of the funnel: Introduce your brand and generate audience interest.
• Middle of the funnel: Educate audiences about your brand/product and entice them with your offerings.
• Bottom of the funnel: Encourage the audience to take action.

“Starting at the top, it’s got clear logo placement, that really helps to build brand awareness,” Debono said, referring to a top-of-funnel ad example (shown above). The logo is also prominent on the product itself, which is made more eye-catching by an on-brand background pattern. The background of the ad might also stand out on a white or black website background and uses the company’s brand colors.

The text elements clearly showcase the product’s value proposition and encourage potential customers to move further along the funnel with a strong CTA. Advertisers can also use movement or animation and text overlays to capture people’s attention, Debono added.

“As we start to move down from the top of the funnel and into the middle, I want to talk about how to really speak to certain audiences,” Debono said, noting that the typical creative process might involve iterating on a top-performing creative asset so that it can be used to target a broad audience.

“It’s not a wrong process, but we find that, as we start to get more mid-funnel, this process is often missing a step,” she said, “And that step is what motivates people, what is going to get them to buy or what is their barrier to entry?” Digging into customer personas can help advertisers address customers’ motivators as well as barriers, Debono said.

“Maybe the barrier is that there won’t be a flavor for me,” she provided as an example, “And so we could hit them with a message that there are 36 flavors that they could try.” Likewise, your messaging could help build a stronger connection with audiences by appealing to their motivators (with messaging like “freshly picked ingredients” for health-conscious consumers) or eliminating barriers (such as local availability, with incentives like free shipping).

As examples of successful bottom-of-funnel ads, Debono showed a collection of assets for Kombucha brand Suja (shown above). She called out the following factors behind successful performance ads:

• The product is prominently displayed for more visual impact. This also informs audiences of what they’re potentially buying.
• Offers to save money might nudge bottom-of-the-funnel customers to convert.
• Strong CTAs give customers a clear idea of what to do next.
• The text and visuals are simple, because bottom-of-the-funnel customers are likely already familiar with your brand and products.

Differentiate your brand by differentiating your ads

“Being different and standing out in a sea of sameness, especially if you’re in a crowded category, is super important,” Debono said, adding that customers may not understand what brand an ad is from if every brand appears visually similar, as it does in the image above.

In the example below, she highlighted an ad that disrupts the pattern: Instead of focusing on the product itself, the ad seeks to relate directly to the target audience by highlighting the lifestyle that the brand wants to associate with the product. It’s also accompanied by a unique CTA (“Follow your gut”), which also helps the ad stand out.

Although showcasing product imagery is typically best practice, distinguishing yourself from competitors may help increase conversions, so advertisers should keep an eye on the landscape they’re advertising in to know which type of creative to use.

“Being disruptive doesn’t mean you have to completely throw your brand guidelines out the window and do something that doesn’t even look like it’s from your brand,” Debono said, pointing to another example (below) in which a company used the same fonts and colors to create a sense of cohesion.

“You can tell that both of these ad themes are from the same brand, but they’re just discernibly different and that’s what makes a really great disruptive ad,” she said.

Using original graphics and photos, as opposed to stock images, can also help your brand differentiate itself. “There’s nothing wrong with the stock image . . . except that the whole world can use that same image if they want to,” Thiel said, adding that the same goes for stock video footage, stock illustrations and stock icons.

For advertisers that may be bound to using stock images (perhaps due to budget constraints, for example), “one solution could be to at least put your own spin on it and overlay your brand colors on the image, maybe you use a different crop,” or add your logo to it, she recommended.

Consider the elements of your brand kit

Determining the right colors to represent your brand often comes down to the psychology of each color and what you want to associate your brand with. The colors your competitors are already using and the right mixture of colors to ensure that your ads will attract your audience’s gaze (usually by including a brighter color) are also important factors.

“Your logo is your storefront — you want it to stand for everything you do,” Thiel said, “So the first step here when designing a logo is to think about what your brand should say.”

Using her agency’s logo as an example, she pointed out that the intertwining of the “3” and the “Q” are meant to convey partnership. She also pointed to the blend of strong and contrasting colors as well as unique iconography to create a visual signature on your ads. “Lastly, but not the least important, is the typeface should always compliment your logo and, in the digital ad context, it also really needs to be highly legible,” she said.

“At a minimum, in your ads, you should always use your logo, your brand font and your brand colors — not all of them at once, but some of them,” Thiel added.

Factor in the format

“There are some challenges when working with RDAs [Responsive Display Ads],” Thiel said, “For example, when it comes to the image and on-image text, some of the banners are very, very small, and they leave very little room for your image.”

Because the placement is responsive, the cropping of your banner might be out of your control as well. “In my opinion, it is not a good idea to have on-image text on RDAs, period,” she said, noting that on-image text can impede your visual branding.

“Headlines and descriptions in RDAs are mixed and matched when served,” Thiel said, “So all of the combinations have to make sense. The banner image can also be matched with all the different combinations of headlines and descriptions, so the visual has to work with all the combinations as well.” Additionally, the copy can be served without the banner image, “so it [the ad copy] really needs to speak for itself,” she emphasized.

When designing for Responsive Display Ads, Thiel recommends:

• Being concise with your copy rather than cramming all the content into the visual part of the banner.
• Keeping in mind that the copy is just as important as the banner.
• Creating strong on-brand headlines and descriptions that can be mixed and matched.
• Filling the image space with bright, eye-catching imagery that is really easy to understand at first glance and at a very small size.

Don’t overlook the creative — it’s one of your biggest levers

As the PPC industry becomes increasingly reliant on signals and automated systems, advertisers may feel like there are fewer ways to differentiate their brand or directly influence campaigns.

“It used to be that the best bidding strategy or the best targeting strategy would kind of win out, but in a world of automation, truly, creative is one of the biggest levers that we have to pull in order to stand out and make a great campaign,” Debono said.

The post 4 tips for creating visually stunning display ads appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Google is testing a new announcement bar or tab at the top of the Google Search Console interface. The bar does not yet seem to function properly but has three levels of announcements depending on the urgency of the information.

Types of announcements. Google Search Console shows these three types of announcements bars:

• Informational announcement
• Minor issue announcement
• Major issue announcement

What it looks like. Here is a screen shot of what it currently looks like, although, clicking on them currently does not do anything:

Why we care. It seems Google will be able to use this to communicate issues with Google Search directly to site owners. Again, this is not fully functioning right now but I suspect it is rolling out soon.

The post Google Search Console testing announcement bar appeared first on Search Engine Land.

From an SEO perspective, 2021 can be summed up as stressful — not just because of several algorithmic updates throughout the year but also possibly because of the timing of some of those updates. With the COVID vaccine rollout, some businesses began returning to normal, but then the Delta and Omicron variant threw everything for a loop — was it just too much to handle for some?

It may have been a bit too much to handle for Google as well: The search engine launched Page Experience update late, never hit its deadline for the mobile-first indexing this year and seemed to rush out two late. big algorithmic updates towards the end of the year.

RELATED: SEO 2021 in review: Endless updates, title rewrites, GMB becomes GBP and more

Google’s June, July and November core updates rocked the SEO industry

June 2021 core update. Google took a while to release its first core update of the year, the June 2021 core update, which began rolling out on June 2, 2021. That update finished rolling out about ten days after it started, on June 12, 2021. This core update seemed to have been a slow rollout that had a bunch of mixed results based on the data given to us by several data providers.

July 2021 core update. Shortly after the June core update, Google released the July 2021 core update on July 1, 2021 — this was kind of like part two of the previous June core update. This update took about 12 days to roll out, completing on July 12, 2021. Unlike the June core update, the July core update was fast to roll out according to the data providers.

November 2021 core update. Then several months later, Google hit us with the November 2021 core update, that started right before the big holiday shopping season on November 17, 2021. That update rolled out through Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday and completed on November 30, 2021, 13 days after it started. The November core update hit hard and quickly according to the data but many SEOs felt blindsided by the timing of that update.

well, they did do one around this time last year as well but at least it was after black friday https://t.co/VYypG5bHpj

— Sarah (she/her) (@SarahBlocksidge) November 17, 2021

Google’s April and December product reviews updates were new to SEOs

Not only did we have three core updates in 2021, we also had two product reviews updates. The product reviews update was a new kind of update, focused on content written around products and making sure Google only ranked the best and most useful product reviews in the search results.

April 2021 product reviews update. Google’s first product reviews update touched down on April 8, 2021. Google made a point to tell us this is not a core update and only impacted English content, but much of the same recovery advice reflected that of a core update. Google effectively finished rolling out that update on April 22, 2021, but there may have been some edge case tremors later, so it took approximately two weeks to rollout. That update was a big update but not as big as a typical core update, said the data providers.

December 2021 product reviews update. If the first product reviews update in April wasn’t enough, Google ran a second product reviews update named the December 2021 product reviews update that started on December 1, 2021. That update took about three weeks to rollout, and completed just days before the Christmas holiday, on around December 21, 2021.

The update felt bigger than the April product reviews update, according to the data providers. Of course, timing a product reviews update three weeks before Christmas might also put Google into the category of being out of touch with the e-commerce ecosystem.

Google’s spam and link spam updates provided some transparency for SEOs

Google also released a few spam related search algorithms updates, which Google was upfront and transparent about in terms of timing but, for obvious reasons, didn’t give too much technical detail on.

June 23, 2021 spam update. Google released a spam update on June 23, 2021, which began and finished on the same day. It was a 24-hour update target spam efforts in Google Search.

June 28, 2021 spam update. Then the following week, Google released part two, the June 28 spam update. That update also started and finished on the same day, a 24-hour roll out.

July 2021 link spam update. The following month, Google released a July link spam update that started on July 26, 2021. Google said that rollout would be done in about two weeks but it was completed after about four-weeks, two weeks longer than expected. The rollout finished on August 24, 2021 and target spammy links that tried to manipulate the Google search results.

Google’s page experience update was a bit delayed but went live

Google postponed the launch of the page experience update by a couple of months, but it did go live on June 15, 2021. That rollout took a long time — it rolled out for a few months and finished rolling out around September 2, 2021. As a reminder, you should not have seen huge ranking changes in Google Search for this release. This was a slow rollout and Google originally advised not to expect drastic changes.

Google did say that next year, in February 2022, the page experience update will be brought to desktop search.

Google’s local update in November

Not to be outdone by the web search algorithmic updates, Google also confirmed after the rollout was complete that it performed a local search update in late November. That update started on November 30, 2021, and ran through December 8, 2021.

This update seemed to focus on proximity factors and was code-named the Vicinity Update by the local SEO community.

MUM, passage ranking and subtopics

Passage ranking. Google spoke about passage ranking in 2020 but it wasn’t until February 2021 where Google actually started to use passage ranking. Passage ranking is a way of Google ranking specific passages from a web page in search; it is not a visual update to the search results but a ranking update.

MUM. Google also showcased MUM, Multitask Unified Model, which is 1,000 times more powerful than BERT.

It was first used this year for understanding the hundreds of variations of COVID vaccine names. Google has lots of ambitious plans for MUM in Google Search and beyond and has already expanded its use cases later in 2021.

Sub-topics. Google launched another AI-based ranking system named sub-topics rankings in November 2020. But Google didn’t tell us it went live until 2021 came around.

Mobile-first indexing delayed again

Google’s mobile-first indexing initiative, which started in 2016, was delayed again and scheduled to be completed in March 2021. Google decided to do away with the deadline this year and said this will get done when it gets done. So, if your site has not moved over yet to mobile-first indexing yet, hopefully sometime in 2022 it will be but Google won’t be giving us any more timelines on this initiative.

Other Google algorithm changes, updates, tweaks or topics

It has been a busy year. Google confirmed in 2020 that it released over 4,500 changes to search. I suspect that number will be higher for the 2021 year.

Google also released a predator update, as I like to call it, that demoted libelous content within its search results.

The company also released an image search update in February that reduced duplicate images in its image search results.

Google’s title tag changes caused a stir in the SEO industry. The company confirmed after the change went live that it made changes to the title snippet and what Google uses to show the title snippet. It also explained why it made the changes and a month or so later, made some tweaks to that title snippet algorithm.

Finally, data has shown that the Google search results were more volatile this year than all previous years. SEOs have been working hard with all these changes and there has been more awareness around work-life balance in this space.

I’d expect more to come in 2022, so hopefully, this crazy busy 2021 prepared you for it.

Catch up on the biggest PPC news of the year or zoom out to see how 2020 unfolded for the SEO industry:

• PPC 2021 in review: Privacy and automation force advertisers to adapt
• SEO 2021 in review: Endless updates, title rewrites, GMB becomes GBP and more

The post Google algorithm updates 2021 in review: Core updates, product reviews, page experience and beyond appeared first on Search Engine Land.

The ability to exclude undesirable ad placements for Smart Shopping campaigns has been spotted in the Google Ads interface. Placement exclusions can be applied to the Google Display Network and YouTube, according to the screenshot (below).

We’ve reached out to Google for more details about this feature but have not received a response at the time of publication. Tip of the hat to Davey Stokkers and Fabio Antichi for first spotting this feature, and Gianpaolo Lorusso for bringing it to our attention.

Why we care

More and more consumers are seeking to purchase from brands that align with their ethics and values. Being able to control what your ads appear alongside can help you prevent unwanted brand associations, which can, in turn, affect your conversion rates.

Additionally, Smart Shopping and Local campaigns will be bundled into Performance Max campaigns sometime in 2022. It’s not clear whether placement exclusions will still be available when that occurs. We will update this article with more details when we receive a response from Google.

The post Google rolls out placement exclusions for Smart Shopping campaigns appeared first on Search Engine Land.

In 2021, SEOs faced a flurry of Google updates (including the highly anticipated yet possibly-overhyped Page Experience update), new search results page features like continuous scrolling and countless other updates that could potentially affect visibility for their brands — all while operating amid the second year of the COVID pandemic.

From core updates and title change fiascos to improved shopping options and new ways of tracking data, this year was full of surprises. Here’s our look back at the most impactful SEO news, tactics and tools of 2021.

RELATED: PPC 2021 in review: Privacy and automation force advertisers to adapt

Google algorithm updates

Core updates. Google released three major core updates — one in June, one in July and one in November. The first caused a lot of search volatility, with tools like MozCast reaching a temperature of 107.3°F on June 3. The July update continued this spike until it all died down around July 12.

On November 17, Google announced a third, somewhat surprising core update, just days before the Thanksgiving holiday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. According to many tracking tools, this update had higher volatility than June and July’s. Due to the speedy rollout and widespread ranking shifts, many SEOs rightfully wondered why Google chose this time of year to release such a large update.

Page title rewrites. Of all the algorithm updates from this past year, the changes to Google’s page title rewrites in the search engine results pages (SERPs) were the most controversial. Marketers began noticing significant changes to their SERP titles around mid-August.

Following a slew of feedback claiming huge decreases in result quality, Google rolled back some of these updates later in September. But many sites still experienced major ramifications in the following months, including our own properties.

RELATED: Navigating Google’s title changes: The rollout, what’s happening now and what you can do about it

Spam updates. Google released a number of major spam updates throughout the year. The first set rolled out on June 23 and June 28, although there wasn’t much of a noticeable impact on rankings.

The second update, released on July 28, targeted link spam. Rather than penalizing sites with bad links, Google stated that it focused on ignoring those signals.

The final spam update rolled out in November. Google didn’t offer much detail on this update, but search volatility skyrocketed following the release.

Product reviews updates. This year, Google launched two updates to help combat spam and/or thin product reviews. The first update was released in April and the follow-up came in December. Both of these were designed to prioritize reviews with in-depth research, including “content written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well.”

Passage indexing. Google introduced passage indexing, an algorithm tweak that ranks segmented pieces of content on a page, to the SERPs in early February. Google now displays these passages as featured snippets and links users to that particular part of the page.

The year in SEO news

The SERP. Google added an “about this result” box to the SERP in February, giving searchers more information about their results. It expanded this feature in July.

In a similar fashion, Microsoft Bing launched Page Insights in November, which features a lightbulb icon next to each search result that gives searchers more details about them.

Google added free listings to its Hotel search in March. Later, in December, it allowed hotels to use Google Posts in a limited manner to extend their local reach.

Google also rolled out continuous scroll on mobile search in October, which seemed like it would encourage more clicks on results past page one. SEOs are still measuring what impact this change has had on CTR.

In November, the search company added features designed to give more visibility to local news content.

On the Microsoft side, Bing Search gained a new interface to make its results more appealing, including an infographic-like search panel and expandable search carousels. It also introduced “Make Every feature Binary” (MEB), a new algorithm model designed to help improve search relevance. And in October, the company released IndexNow, a cross-search engine collaboration with Yandex to set a protocol that would index any new content instantly.

COVID-related updates. As many marketers know, the pandemic has spurred on more interest in SEO as businesses search for new ways to connect with customers. This interest in SEO has remained high over the past year, but there were a number of additional trends. These included an increase in searches for local businesses and pandemic-focused topics.

In April Google announced that additional COVID-related travel advisory information would be shown in Google Search to assist with trip planning. It also expanded its Explore section for its travel site.

In December, Google began rolling out a search feature that lets users see if a doctor or healthcare facility takes their insurance — no doubt spurred on by the increased number of COVID cases worsened by holiday gatherings and the Omicron variant.

Yelp introduced “Proof of vaccination required” and “Staff fully vaccinated” profile attributes. It also added a health and safety measures community feedback feature to help consumers learn more about local businesses’ health and safety compliance. And, to help prevent customer confusion, it added a virtual restaurant attribute.

RELATED: Fearing Omicron wave, marketers less likely to attend upcoming in-person conferences

SEO documentation. Google published updates to its search documentation throughout the past year, though some of those changes weren’t officially announced.

The company quietly published new manual actions targeting News and Discover penalties in February. In June, Google offered an SEO guide to address HTTP status codes, network issues and DNS errors. And in October, it refreshed its search quality guidelines to expand on the concepts of YMYL content and lowest-quality content.

Microsft also published a list of Bingbot IP addresses in November to better alert users when it was crawling their sites.

Diversity and inclusion. In response to the growing amount of hateful rhetoric and attacks against people of color, women, and other minority groups, industry leaders — both search professionals and brands — made pushes for change.

Google announced in February that it would be changing its policies toward diversity research, following its questionable firing of AI ethicist Timnit Gebru. Due to criticism of how the situation played out, the company said it would tie business goals more closely to inclusivity and diversity — and change how it handles employee exits.

In April, Yelp rolled out an Asian-owned business profile attribute in response to the recent rise in anti-Asian violence and xenophobia. Later, in May, the company introduced an LGBTQ-owned attribute option to celebrate pride month.

Third Door Media (the parent company of Search Engine Land and SMX) held the second annual Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Search Marketing. The previous winner, Areej AbuAli, served as a judge, with Rejoice Ojiaku and hasOptimization earning the accolade in 2021.

We also put together a list of inclusive marketing resources to help marketers highlight their brand values. Besides being the right thing to do, becoming a more inclusive organization has been shown to be better for your brand.

RELATED: Actionable ways to drive diversity, equity and inclusion in your marketing organization

Image and YouTube. In February, Google provided documentation on image SEO best practices. The advice was focused primarily on ranking well in Google Images, but marketers can apply many of the suggestions to image ranking in general.

YouTube, seeking to assist creators with their reach, added video chapter previews and auto-translate captions. And in December, it launched a new feature that automatically linked to places mentioned in videos, giving users even more context.

Structured data. In May, Schema.org launched its schema markup validator tool in response to Google deprecating its structured data tool. It’s for more “general purpose” use than Google’s Rich Results tool.

In August, Google updated its Article structured data help document to reflect changes to its author properties. It added an author URL property to more easily identify authors of articles.

Industry and legal news. After postponing the mobile-first indexing deadline — first moving it from September 2020 to March 2021 — Google decided to leave the deadline open-ended. It said that there are still many sites not ready to shift over due to unexpected challenges they’re facing.

Mozilla tested Bing as the default search engine for 1% of Firefox users, leading many SEOs to reconsider the importance of optimization for non-Google search engines.

DuckDuckGo pushed past 100 million searches in a single day on January 11, showing how important private search experiences are to a growing number of users. And in December, the company announced that it’s working on a desktop browser, further signaling their support for greater privacy in search.

The battle for data privacy continued throughout 2021 with additional legal actions brought against Google. On March 12, a California judge ruled that Google must face a lawsuit claiming it tracks users in Incognito mode. In response, Google released a court filing saying that it makes clear that “Incognito” does not mean “invisible.” And in November, Google managed to win a dismissal of the U.K. Top Court’s data privacy suit relating to iPhone users.

Google’s run-ins with policy hit issues across the board. In October, the tech giant faced allegations from 17 state attorneys claiming it throttled non-AMP ads to give AMP a boost. This, along with Google’s decision to remove the AMP requirement from Top Stories, led many publishers to reconsider using the format.

Google was also fined €500 million ($589 million) by the French Competition Authority for failing to comply with negotiations with news outlets. Later, it lost a key appeal against the EU’s €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion) fine against the company from 2017, which found that Google broke an antitrust law in how it promoted its search engine regarding shopping.

In December, the company came under investigation for alleged harassment and discrimination against Black female workers. The report said the regulator began looking into the company’s practices after formal complaints.

RELATED: The onus of diversity should not fall to Black marketers

Reporting, analytics and tools

Google Search Console (GSC). In April, Google released a pilot tool in Search Console that allowed users to report indexing issues; it was fully rolled out in August. Google also added practice problem rich results data, providing more insights for education content publishers. We also saw an upgrade to the AMP debugging section, which now links users to the AMP page experience guide.

To improve accessibility and user experience, Google introduced a new design for Search Console in November (shown below).

On December 14, the Review Snippets rich results report was updated, reducing the number of review objects; namely, the top-level schema.org/Rating objects.

Google Analytics 4. Google announced changes to Google Analytics 4 that included integration with Search Console, new machine learning models and data-driven attribution features. Interestingly, the language in this update suggests that the company may be considering sunsetting Universal Analytics in the not-too-distant future.

RELATED: What digital marketers should know about Google Analytics 4

Google also unveiled a new version of Analytics 360, the company’s suite of products designed for enterprise-level companies, using Analytics 4 as its foundation.

Bing Webmaster Tools. Microsoft released its Bing content submission API to all users. Unlike its URL submission API, this version lets users submit content, images and HTML to the index as well.

Google Question Hub. In January, Google opened up its Question Hub for US-based publishers — it’s been available to users in India, Indonesia and Nigeria since 2018. The tool “enables creators to create richer content by leveraging unanswered questions,” according to Google.

Retail and e-commerce

In April, Google began enforcing its policy requiring merchants to show the actual price of items throughout the entire checkout phase. The company also updated Google Merchant Center’s product data specification requirements to encourage optimized Google Shopping ads and organic listings.

Google Shopping and WooCommerce partnered together in June to help retailers show their listings across Google. The search engine also released an e-commerce SEO guide to help improve retail sites’ search visibility. These updates reflected the changing landscape of retail due to COVID-19.

In an effort to put more offers in front of users, Google added a “Deals” feed to the Shopping tab and Merchant Center. It also began showing retailers when their items were eligible for badges. And, in order to show relative visibility and other metrics, Google provided Merchant Center users with a relative visibility report.

In November, Bing Shopping introduced customer-focused tabs to help shoppers find what they were looking for in one place. This update also made it easier for retailers to list their products. And later in December, Microsoft Bing launched the Ethical Shopping hub in the UK, which helps users shop for eco-friendly and fair-trade fashion items.

Microsoft also announced a partnership with Shopify to integrate Bing Shopping with the retail platform, which rolled out in December.

Local

Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business). Early in the year, Google released a tool to help businesses better manage reviews, enabling business owners to monitor the status of reviews they’ve flagged.

On November 4, Google announced it would be renaming Google My Business to Google Business Profile. Along with this update, the company released new features that would give marketers and business owners more control over their accounts, which include:

• Claiming and verifying Google Business Profiles directly in Google Search and Google Maps;
• Call history launching in the U.S. and Canada;
• Messaging directly from Google Search; and
• Message read receipts being controlled within Search and Maps.

Maps. The importance of local maps has only increased throughout the past year. We saw a deeper integration between these and local business profiles across the board.

Google Maps started showing price ranges for U.S. restaurants, adding to a rollout of new features focused on expanding indoor business directories, which included airports, malls and transit stations.

Microsoft Bing introduced a new feature that allows users to search local stores. It’s designed to enable searchers to check store stock, helping them choose whether to buy online and pick up in-store.

Later in November and early December, Google rolled out an update to how it ranked the local search pack and map pack results. Termed the “Vicinity Update,” the change drastically impacted local rankings across industries.

RELATED: How marketers can adapt to Google’s local SEO changes

Local SEO tools. Google Business Profile Product Experts worked together to help users find unique listing identifiers. Using a Chrome extension called GatherUp, they showed profile managers how to find their business’s unique CID number, which is useful to know when listings are merged or duplicated.

To help local businesses expand their reach, Yelp rolled out Custom Location Targeting, budget recommendations and other helpful local features. It also introduced custom search filters, themed ads and Project Cost Guides to support service businesses.

Looking forward to 2022

With so many algorithm and platform updates taking place this past year, many SEOs will be anxious to look at their data. Just remember: many of these updates are broad, and the most important thing for you to do is to keep your clients updated on Google’s changes.

Many brands are responding to user demand for greater accessibility and increased privacy, so be sure your websites and other properties are compliant and support all kinds of users.

Finally, we’re still a long way off from the end of the pandemic, so focus on answering your audience’s most pressing queries and making things as convenient for them as possible. Showing customers your brand’s values is more important than ever.

The post SEO 2021 year in review: Endless updates, title rewrites, GMB becomes GBP and more appeared first on Search Engine Land.