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, that was quite a reaction.

On Tuesday, I asked for your thoughts on a four-year degree specifically for PPC or SEO. Thank you to the many professionals who responded — you should’ve received a reply from me!

“My first reaction to your question was to say that a PPC/SEO degree would be useless, because everything you learned in the first year would be obsolete by the second or third year,” Rachel J. said, putting forth an opinion that was shared by many of you, “But then, as I reflected on my own marketing degree, I realized that the things I was taught weren’t tactical, they were evergreen concepts that would help build an understanding of marketing as a practice.”

Colin C. pointed out that updates from platforms and top-down government legislation would also impact the value of such a specific degree — “A digital marketing degree that includes the whole package, including need-to-know technical competencies is, to my mind, more worthwhile.”

And, I felt like Joseph J.’s take would resonate with the SEOs among us: “You go through the course and 8 Core Updates already got pushed live on Google, now you have to relearn a few things unless it was taught to you during the courses.”

What I uncovered, that I wasn’t expecting, is the desire for a curriculum that encompasses the day-to-day campaign work that we do and marketing principles that can prepare us for the next step in our careers. As someone who programs SMX, your responses are noted.

George Nguyen,
Editor

Users can now leave more detailed restaurant reviews on Google

Google has expanded restaurant reviews to enable users to include price range, the type of meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.) and whether they got take out, delivery or dined in. This feature is now available for mobile users on Android or iOS, and it is live for all restaurants in the U.S., with more countries and categories rolling out in the future. 

While this is a user-oriented feature, restaurant owners can also use these expanded reviews to improve their customer experience and identify competitors that also offer delivery or operate in the same price range, for example.

Google has told us that filtering searches using this information isn’t possible right now, but that doesn’t mean that capability won’t eventually roll out — I have a strong hunch it will. If it does, users will have a new way to find the exact dining experience they’re looking for. And, Google has said that it plans to extend expanded reviews into more categories, so the impact this has on the restaurant industry will eventually be felt across other local business sectors.

Read more here.

Say goodbye to the standalone Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value strategies

In April, we reported that later this year, advertisers would only see the Target CPA (tCPA) and Target ROAS (tROAS) Smart Bidding strategies as optional fields bundled with the Maximize Conversions and Maximize Conversion Value strategies, respectively. Well, we’re not quite at that point yet, but we are a bit closer.

“Advertisers will soon only see the updated fields Maximize conversions with an optional target CPA, or Maximize conversion value with an optional ROAS,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land. “We have not yet and will not be switching existing Target CPA and Target ROAS strategies to these new fields (that will happen next year with much advance notice). This will have no impact on bidding behavior.”

So, if you don’t see the standalone Maximize conversions or Maximize conversion value strategies, this is why. There’s no word yet on when Google will switch advertisers’ tCPA and tROAS strategies to the new fields, but we’ll keep you posted when we find out.

Google announces new deals sections, promotional tools and expanded reporting ahead of the holiday shopping season

Ahead of the holiday shopping season, Google is launching new sections in its search results to showcase deals, rolling out tools to highlight promotions and expanding reporting capabilities in Google Merchant Center.

“Deals related to your search” is a new section within the Shopping tab that shows discounted or competitively priced products. And, when users search for deals during major retail sales events, like Black Friday, Google will show a new carousel that highlights relevant deals (shown above). When uploaded via Google Merchant Center, these promotions and deals are automatically shown to users on the Shopping tab, even if the retailer or manufacturer isn’t running ads on Google.

The company also rolled out the ability to indicate that a promotion is only available to first-time customers, and promotions can now be highlighted in the Shopping tab — this can be done through Google Merchant Center. And, the best sellers report in Merchant Center is getting expanded to include historical best seller data and relative demand data, both of which can be used to help retailers decide what to stock as they prepare for major shopping holidays.

Read more here.

The reviews are fake but the threat is real

“One would therefore assume, with Google’s world-leading AI that can translate 109 languages  and identify poison ivy in the wild from a photo, the company should be able to spot obvious fake reviews,” wrote Mike Blumental, co-founder of LocalU and GatherUp, for his publication NearMedia, “And if that’s in fact the case, they should then be able to create a review environment that doesn’t help bad businesses look good.”

Fake reviews undermine all of the hard work that business owners and staff put in to improve their products, experiences and service. In articles and blog posts, the harm that these reviews inflict is usually an abstract concept — but in Blumenthal’s piece, entitled “The High Cost of Fake Reviews,” he opts for a concrete example of one business, Kelly Lift Equipment, that has defrauded customers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Having a 4.2-star rating, 123 reviews and a GMB listing with an address, hours of operation and phone number, Kelly Lift Equipment passed the at-a-glance legitimacy test for many, including Bill Scalise, whose experience was the basis for this article. Scalise, and many other victims, didn’t bother to dive deeper into the reviews or cross-reference the business’ BBB page prior to engaging with it — an oversight that would’ve revealed the scam he was walking into. Ultimately, it cost him nearly $18,000. Another victim said she was scammed for $120,000. That’s money that they no longer have, and money that doesn’t go towards supporting a reputable business.

Blumenthal’s takeaway was that, while buyers can and should be aware, platforms have a responsibility to ensure that their reviews can be trusted, especially when the platform regularly boasts about how capable its AI is.

The post Why search marketers don’t think a dedicated four-year degree is necessary; Thursday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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, do you love or hate change?

If one thing is constant in the search marketing industry, it is change — and a lot of it, very often. Just in this newsletter, we are reporting about new changes Google made to its mobile results and Google Ads’ new policy violation rule that will go into effect in the coming months.

The search results, both paid and organic, are constantly changing. Sometimes it is the algorithms that cause them to change. Sometimes it is the competition causing the change. Sometimes it is something you do that causes them to change.  But if there is one guarantee in our space – it is change.

We’ve seen the strategies, especially the quick win strategies, change drastically over the years. We’ve seen the link-building industry turned upside down numerous times. We’ve seen the content marketing space adapt countless times. We’ve seen AI, automation, and machine learning touch all aspects of what we deal with.

Embrace change and it’ll make your job easier.

Barry Schwartz,
Change management consultant

Google Ads to try three-strikes and you’re out policy

Starting in September 2021, Google Ads will begin testing a new three-strikes pilot program for accounts that repeatedly violate ad policies. Well, it might be four-strikes; it starts with a warning but then an additional three-strikes after that warning – your Google Ads account can be suspended. 

Strikes expire after 90 days, according to Google. If you’ve had two strikes, fix the issues, send an acknowledgment of the issues and fixes, and then do not violate another policy for 90 days after the fix, your account resets, in a way, and the next violation will be the initial warning again. As always, search marketers will be able to appeal any violation and enforcement decisions.

Google may expand this three-strikes rule beyond just the Enabling Dishonest Behavior, Unapproved Substances and Dangerous Products or Services policies areas in the future. 

Why we care. The new ad policy pilot program provides clear actions and consequences for advertisers. While Google is testing this program for the Enabling Dishonest Behavior, Unapproved Substances and Dangerous Products or Services policies, it will likely eventually roll out to other policy areas in the coming year. The initial warning gives you the benefit of the doubt, but penalties are increasingly stringent after that. Many advertisers are worried that the new policy will penalize those whose ads get mislabeled or mistakenly violate policies.

Read more here.

AMP labels gone for Google mobile search results

After five years of Google showing the AMP icon in the mobile search results, it is now retired. Google is no longer showing the AMP label even for AMP pages in the mobile search results.

Google was thinking of showing a page experience label instead, but we have yet to see Google show the page experience label that they tested for a short period of time last December. Instead, Google shows no label for either AMP-enabled pages or for pages that meet the page experience update factors – at least not yet.

Why we care. It is unclear what impact this change may or may not have on your click-through rate to your AMP content from Google Search. Keep an eye out for those changes in your analytics and reporting tools.

Read more here.

Google illustrated what different types of traffic declines look like

Daniel Waisberg of Google came up with illustrations of what six different categories of organic search traffic drops look like when you are looking at your performance report in Google Search Console.  It is broken down into these categories:

• Site-level technical issue
• Page-level technical issue
• Manual action
• Algorithmic changes
• Seasonality
• Reporting glitches

So if you see these types of traffic drops, you may want to dig in and figure out what is the cause.

Why we care. I believe this was the first time Google described visually how various issues in Google Search can impact your traffic. It gives you a way to clearly see what to expect from various SEO issues and how your traffic may be impacted. It is important to note that these illustrations are generalizations and that you do need an experienced SEO consultant to diagnose any real issues with your website.

Read more here.

Math solver rich results filter in Search Console performance report

A new search appearance filter has been added to the Google Search Console performance report. This new filter works for math solver rich results and structured data. That is, if your site shows math solver rich results in Google Search, Google can now report on your clicks, impressions and other data within the search performance report in Search Console.

The Google Search Console performance report shows important metrics about how your site performs in Google Search results: how often it comes up; average position in search results; click-through rate; and any special features (such as rich results) associated with your results.

Why we care. This gives us more data to see if using Math Solvers markup is actually helping our sites get more visibility in search. More importantly, is the markup and rich results leading to more clicks to our websites.

Read more here.

Faster AdSense code, shared hosting, Google Posts for hotels and deleting disavows

Deleting disavow files. John Mueller of Google warns against blindly deleting disavow files. He said “blindly deleting the file sounds as bad as blindly adding to the file :). Be thoughtful when making bigger changes.”

Google Posts for hotel listings. It seems Google might be testing bringing Google Posts to hotel listings in Google Search. It is unclear if this is a bug or an early beta feature, but those SEOs in the hospitality industry are excited to give it a try.

Shared hosting and SEO. Google’s John Mueller said in a video that shared hosting works fine for SEO and ranking in Google Search. He shared more details in this video, like if the shared host gets overloaded and GoogleBot may have issues crawling the site.

Google AdSense better code. Google announced it has new faster and better performing AdSense code. If you want better-performing pages and for your AdSense code to not slow down your pages as much, you can replace your old AdSense code with the new one.  Google is not doing away with the old code, so you do not need to replace the code if you don’t want to.

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

• How to Create Your Local Business USP with QUAAAC UGC – Moz
• Google Says Core Updates Can Impact People Also Ask Results – Search Engine Roundtable
• How to Succeed With Google Posts: What We Learned From Analyzing Over 1,000 Google Posts – Sterling Sky
• Ready for it? Olympics 2021 best practices for news SEO – WTF is SEO?
• Rewriting Keywords at Google for Paid Search – Go Fish Digital

The post Change is what search marketers expect; Wednesday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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, would you have pursued a degree in PPC or SEO?

One can obtain a four-year degree in marketing, but would a similar degree, specifically focusing on organic or paid search, be worthwhile? This question was inspired by a tweet from Eli Schwartz (thanks, Eli!), and in the comments, professionals have shared that they lecture or even teach courses at well-known universities.

All the resources an aspiring SEO or PPC pro may need are already available for free, but the same can be said for virtually any field. There are also many other considerations to ponder when it comes to PPC/SEO degree programs: Why don’t these programs already exist? And, if they did exist, would they add more “prestige” to our industry, and us as practitioners? Would professionals that hold such degrees be taken more seriously within their companies and with clients? Might an SEO or PPC degree become prerequisites for entry-level positions? How might this affect conferences?

One of the things I love about getting to meet people in the search industry is that we all have different backgrounds, so the question “How’d you get into SEO/PPC?” is a nice way to learn about someone’s journey. But, there are a lot of “professionals” that engage in shady tactics, and perhaps formal curriculums can help remove that element. As always, my inbox is open, send your thoughts to gnguyen@thirddoormedia.com (subject line: Kickin’ it old school)

George Nguyen,
Editor

Google officially launches SeekToAction for key moments for videos in search

SeekToAction markup is now out of beta and can be used for any site with videos. This markup allows Google to identify “key moments” (shown in the image above) from your videos.

To use SeekToAction markup, your URLs must have the ability to deep-link to a point in your video other than the start, and Google must be able to fetch your video content files. With more and more videos showing in Google Search, it’s a good idea to put in the effort to make your videos stand out from the rest. Using SeekToAction markup can help enrich your video results in Google Search, which could potentially improve click-through rates.

Read more here.

Answer our new survey on attending or exhibiting at in-person events

Pre-pandemic life is starting to return. Travel is up. Masks are coming off. And, indoor dining is an option once more.

The relaxation in pandemic restrictions is also rippling through the business world as conferences and trade shows schedule in-person events for this summer and fall. We’re not surprised, since the last edition of our Events Participation Index showed that many marketers were ready to hit the conference hall floor as early as the third quarter of 2021.

But a sizable number of marketers still seemed luke-warm to the idea of business travel, which is why we are once again asking marketers to share their sentiments on returning to in-person events.

Please click here to take our 3-minute survey.

Video: Richard Nazarewicz, Technical SEO Manager at the Wall Street Journal

Search Engine Land News Editor Barry Schwartz and Richard Nazarewicz, technical SEO manager for the Wall Street Journal, sat down to discuss how to approach technical SEO for a publication such as the WSJ, the importance of evergreen content, the impact of algorithm updates on the WSJ and more.

“I’m not the only SEO in the company — we are all SEOs.” That was my favorite tidbit from the chat. One might assume that, since it is a major publication, that wisdom only applies to publishers, but that’s just not so: everyone in your company who touches your site can impact its SEO. Listen to Richard’s talk with Barry for more perspective that you can take back to your own teams.

Watch the discussion here.

The Marketoonist provides some perspective on what consumers really care about

For the third time, the answer is “no.” When asked if forum links work as a link-building method, Google’s John Mueller answered succinctly: “no.” This question was addressed in 2014 and in 2018, but here it is in the new decade. In all likelihood, links in forums are nofollowed, and they’re almost certainly not going to be as valuable as natural links.

Do customers really care what you do to gain their attention? “All of this corporate research — shopper decision trees, category management decks, and the like — can be valuable. But followed too closely, they can lead to marketing myopia,” said Marketoonist creator Tom Fishburne, “Consumers don’t think about brands nearly as much as the marketers of those brands think about the brands.”

“If you think smart folks have this figured out…” “​​Google’s internal meme generator is old, and one of the more active places internally for voicing opinions,” John Mueller tweeted, “Closing in on the #1 all-time spot is a black image with just the words ‘I’m so tired’ on it. If you think smart folks have this figured out & are thriving, think again.” Remembering that everyone’s just doing their best helps me be more patient — that, and telling myself it costs nothing to be nice.

“I think people were pretty noisy about quitting the Bay Area . . . But they’ve been very quiet in admitting they want to move back.”

The quote above comes from Eric Bahn, co-founder of an early-stage investment firm based in Palo Alto, and it’s in line with what the data is telling us. Only a sliver of you live and/or work in the Bay, but it’s a proxy for the overall trend that’s occurring in major metropolitan areas nationwide.

“In an area near San Francisco’s Financial District, where tech workers tend to cluster, average apartment rental prices dropped more than 20 percent in 2020, according to census and Zillow data compiled by the city,” Kellen Browning wrote for the New York Times, “That area saw the biggest price jumps in the city in the first five months of 2021.” Traffic is also making a return. 

Similar things are happening in Boston (closer to where I currently live), as well. Browning’s research indicates that a majority of those who left the Bay Area in 2020 were young, affluent and highly educated (read: likely to be tech workers). The attractions of urban life are among the reasons this demographic is moving back: restaurants, shopping and nightlife were some of the hardest-hit industries, so it’s no surprise that some folks are looking to make up for lost time.

So, now, in the second half of 2021, where is the dream of remapping the American workforce? The cost of living in these metropolitans (along with traffic) was supposed to decrease, remote work was supposed to become the new norm and tech’s high-earning tech workers were supposed to spread out across America.

While some companies, like Oracle, Palantir and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, have moved their headquarters out of California, for now, it looks like “returning to normal” really does just mean “returning to 2019” when it comes to tech and major cities.

The post Would you have pursued a four-year degree in PPC or SEO?; Tuesday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land.