U.S. businesses can now get up to 500 Google Career Certificate scholarships for free via Coursera, as part of Grow with Google. Google says this is the equivalent of $100,000 in workforce training.

What are Google Career Certificates? Google launched career certificates in 2018 and describes them as “rigorous, online programs with hands-on experience that can be completed as part-time study, 5-10 hours a week for 3-6 months.” 

More than 70,000 people have graduated in the U.S. and 75% reported a positive career impact (e.g., a new job, higher pay, a promotion) within six months of completing certification. Google also noted that 55% of graduates identified as Asian, Black or Latino.

Google offers five professional certificates, including a new one.

New certificate: Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce. If you have employees in need of digital marketing or e-commerce training, this new certificate may be one to explore. 

Google’s description of the certificate: “Whether your business sells to customers or other businesses, your online presence matters. Employees will learn to attract and engage people online, grow customer loyalty, and build successful e-commerce stores.”

People who train for this certificate will learn how to find customers online, sell products or services and do marketing analytics and measurement. They will also get hands-on experience with digital marketing tools like Canva, Constant Contact, Hootsuite, HubSpot, MailChimp, Shopify, Twitter, Google Ads and Google Analytics. 

Google’s certificate for digital marketing and e-commerce can be used to train employees for roles such as:

• Digital Marketing Specialist
• SEO Analyst
• Paid Search Specialist
• Email Marketing Specialist
• Marketing Coordinator
• E-commerce Specialist

The Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Certificate was developed by Google, with input from leading e-commerce companies. It is endorsed by the American Advertising Federation (AAF) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s).

In addition, Google offers these career certificates:

• Google IT Support
• Google Data Analytics 
• Google Project Management 
• Google UX Design 

How to claim your credits. Visit Grow with Google and click on the blue Get started button. This will take you to a landing page, where you’ll find a form that an administrator (the business owner or an “employee with authority to make decisions regarding supplementary learning for employees in the organization”) will need to fill out.

This offer expires Dec. 18, 2024. Also make sure to read the FAQ for more details on the program.

Why we care. If you need to reskill or upskill an employee, now you can get Google’s free training to teach them about digital marketing, ecommerce and other areas. Providing employees any needed training could also help improve your business results, and potentially could help with employee retention and engagement.

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Was the meta description for this article written by Google? Or a human editor at Search Engine Land?

You can’t tell, can you? That’s how far machine learning has come. Read on the learn the “shocking” truth.

Auto-generating content summaries. Earlier this year, Google started automatically generating content summaries for Docs users. Google explains the technology behind how it works in this blog post if you want to dive into the natural language understanding (NLU) and natural language generation (NLG) of it all.

In short, based on the text of your document, Google will suggest a summary for you. You can choose to use the summary if it looks good to you, or you can edit the summary to be more to your liking.

This was interesting news because if there’s one thing I know from editing for 20+ years, it’s that people – even some great content writers – have a hard time condensing 1,000+ words into one or two short sentences or ideas that are optimized for search and act as a teaser to entice clicks (without giving away everything). 

Testing out Google Docs summaries. I was curious to see how good Google Docs is at generating summaries, so I looked at my five most recent articles. 

In short, Google Docs is surprisingly good at generating summaries. It’s by no means 100% perfect – but it’s at a level you’d expect from Google. I’m sure you already have seen Google’s intelligence at work in Gmail, offering responses to an email or suggesting how you should finish a sentence as you’re writing it.

Here are the summaries Google Docs suggested for my articles:

Facebook warns publishers to avoid ‘watchbait’ tactics

Human: These tactics will result in fewer recommendations, less views and limited ranking. Learn how to avoid what Facebook considers watchbait.

Google: This article is about how to avoid watchbait in your videos. It’s important to know what Facebook considers watchbait and what you should do to avoid it.

Google’s is slightly long – and I’m not personally a fan of starting any meta description with “this article”. But this is pretty accurate. Swap “Learn” for “This article is about” and you’ve got a serviceable meta description. Thanks, Google.

TikTok testing search ads

Human: Many brands already know TikTok drives sales. TikTok search ads could help attract qualified traffic (and get valuable keyword data).

Google: This is a big deal. TikTok is testing search ads, and it’s a big opportunity for brands to attract qualified traffic.

This is probably the strongest summary of the bunch – the most “human” sounding. Also, it’s interesting that Google somehow determined this was a “big deal” because the words “big deal” never appear within the text. 

Twitter adds keyword search to Direct Messages

Human: Good news for brands and businesses who use Twitter for customer service: you can now find DMs by searching for keywords.

Google: This is a long time coming. Twitter has been working on a DM search feature for some time, and now you can search your inbox by keywords.

Google’s summary is not the best ever. It’s long and feels a bit repetitive (e.g., using the word “time” twice). But at least it’s not wrong. 

PPC salaries: How much in-house and agency search marketers make in 2022

Human: This data will help give you some bargaining power, whether you’re negotiating salary for a new role or seeking a raise from your employer.

Google: This survey looked at the median salaries for PPC specialists in the U.S. and the U.K. It was based on responses from 715 respondents.

This was easily the worst summary by Google. It’s boring. But more troubling: it’s inaccurate. 

The survey itself didn’t look at only the median salaries. That’s just what I wrote about. Also, my article didn’t mention the UK, so I have no idea where it pulled that from. The survey actually was global. 

So this one is a failure on Google’s part. The median salary issue is a “bigger context” issue that’s understandable – it can only output a summary based on what the author (me) has input. But the input/output theory wouldn’t explain the UK mention. That is just an oddball. 

Meta rebrands automated ad products, shopping campaigns coming soon

Human: Meta is consolidating its products into the Meta Advantage suite, which allows advertisers to automate part of a – or an entire – campaign.

Google: This is just a simple rebrand and making clear which of its products are automated. However, the company is also coming out with a shopping campaign later this year.

Again, not awesome, not terrible, and fairly accurate. With a few tweaks, you’d have a decent meta description. 

Why we care. I use Google Docs all the time to write content. But never have I considered it a tool for SEO. Until now. If you struggle to write compelling meta descriptions (or excerpts or summaries) for your website content, simply hit the + button next to Summary in Google Docs. Those auto-generated summaries aren’t perfect, but it is generally a great “rough draft” that can help you write a compelling meta description. 

And even if you don’t use the summary Google generates (e.g., because it’s inaccurate, long, or has some other issue), that may be a big hint that you need to give your content another, deeper review. (You may also consider asking a friend, your editor, or someone else to review it.) Does it actually say what you meant or want it to? Because if Google (Docs) can’t understand it, it’s quite possible that when it publishes, neither will Google (search). 

Wait! Who wrote the meta description for this article? I did. Google’s was just too long: 

“This is a big deal. Earlier this year, Google started automatically generating content summaries for Google Docs users. The idea is to help content writers write compelling meta descriptions for their website content.”

But good to know that Google Docs thinks that this technology is also a big deal. 

Summary, take two. The above summary generated by Google was on my rough draft version. After making my final edits, I deleted the summary from Google Docs, curious to see if it would generate a new summary, based on my revisions. It did:

“This is a pretty interesting technology that’s making its way into Google Docs. Google Docs automatically generates content summaries for you. I tested it out with five articles I’ve recently written and it was surprisingly good.”

First problem: too long. Second problem: the technology is already in Google Docs. If we delete the first sentence, it’s good. 

And that seems to be the overall pattern for these auto-generated Google Docs summaries: good, but not great. 

So, yes, Google Docs can help you write your meta descriptions, but more as a first attempt. Don’t expect Google Docs to generate a great meta description for you (you may have as much luck with a million monkeys banging on keyboards – eventually one of them is bound to produce a meta description worthy of Shakespeare). For now, anyway, human review, analysis, intuition and creativity are still essential job requirements.

The post Google Docs can write your meta descriptions appeared first on Search Engine Land.

With the wide variety of clients out there, you’re bound to run into the occasional DIY marketer. These marketers prefer that you teach them how to be self-sufficient rather than rely on you for every little question.

These clients can be a blessing but can also be dangerous. The challenging aspect of client management is finding the balance between empowering them to get the data they want without feeling like they don’t need you.

That’s where Google Data Studio tools come into play.

Data Studio is typically used for general reporting. The real beauty of Data Studio is that it can be used for so much more. 

By creating tools for clients, you enable them to do the actual research it takes to accomplish SEO while still providing that much-needed maintenance and guidance that comes with experience. 

This article illustrates free dashboard templates you can use with your clients. 

How to change the branding

Before we dive into the specifics, you may want to update the branding and logo of your dashboard. This process could not be easier.

Right-click on your logo, and you will see a menu appear. Near the bottom, select “Extract theme from image.” You will then be presented with three different color scheme options. Select whichever one you feel best represents your brand.

This will automatically change most of the colors and get you most of the way to the finish line of designing in your Data Studio tool. However, there may still be a few charts or texts you’ll need to update.

1. Technical SEO auditing

Tracking technical SEO efforts can be difficult to visualize. Sure, you can track it in a spreadsheet, but that isn’t client-friendly. 

For years, SEOs have attempted to make dashboard trackers to help show improvements in site health over time. 

Luckily, our friends at Screaming Frog have finally cracked the case of the perfect technical SEO dashboard. The best part? The template is free. You can see it here.

How to copy the dashboard

To copy the dashboard:

1. Click on the three dots in the top right
2. Select make a copy
3. Select your data source (don’t worry, you can update later)

How to set up the technical SEO tracker tool

Screaming Frog has published a helpful guide on setting up this Data Studio tool. What they will walk you through includes:

• Setting up a scheduled crawl
• Configuring the export to a Google Sheet
• Connecting that Google Sheet to the Data Studio dashboard

You can find the full tutorial here.

2. Keyword research

The presentation of keyword research takes many forms. Most recognizable is the simple spreadsheet. Some people create keyword maps for each page or topic, while others with smaller clients have a short list of keywords.

However, Data Studio can be a powerful analysis tool for larger sites with tens of thousands or millions of keywords.

If you are working with millions of keywords, do not use Google Sheets like this example. I recommend using BigQuery to handle your keywords.

Here’s the link to the dashboard.

Step One: Setting up your source data

The first step involves importing your keyword research into a Google Sheet. To use the free template I created, you will need to include the following dimensions and metrics in your Google Sheet:

• Keyword
• Position
• Previous position
• Search Volume
• Keyword Difficulty
• CPC
• URL
• Keyword Intents

Here’s the original data source for the dashboard that you can use as an example. All data is from Semrush.

Step Two: Copy the dashboard

As we learned in the previous dashboard, you’ll want to make a copy of this dashboard and connect your data source, whether it be Google Sheets or BigQuery.

Important features of this Data Studio tool

This tool has many unique features that can be used to help drive your on-page SEO strategy. Depending on your strategy, these features can be customized to display different types of data and categories.

Boolean Buttons

The three buttons in this tool are based on custom boolean formulas, meaning they work on true/false statements. Let’s take a look at one of them.

We’re creating a function only to display long-tail queries that start with a question word in the formula above. This formula relies on regex, with two very important symbols:

• The circumflex (^) is a regex function that essentially means, “if the keyword starts with this.” 
• The pipe (|) symbol is another regex function that means “or.”

Using this formula, you can create any number of different kinds of checkboxes. I added a few keywords separated by pipes (|) to help display keywords in those categories for the SEO and PPC checkboxes.

Custom search box

The custom search box is a pretty simple but powerful feature of this tool. Not only can it quickly help you narrow down your search to identify keyword opportunities, but it can also use the power of regex to customize your search.

Intent dropdown

The keyword intent dropdown can help you filter by the intent of each keyword within the search funnel. Pretty simple, right?

Well, this filter can be easily swapped out by any dimension in Data Studio. So if you want to swap it out for other keyword categories, this can be the perfect filter for you. 

Funnel

This funnel helps visualize the true search funnel by intent. When applying other filters in this tool, the funnel and metrics above automatically update with the intents.

3. Link building tracking tool

Link building is one of the tensest topics SEOs like to avoid with clients. Links are challenging to earn and often the hardest thing to control. 

The best way to earn trust with clients and stakeholders is through transparency. Instead of dodging the data around link building, hand over the keys and let them explore the data for themselves.

This is one of the more straightforward Data Studio tools we can create. You can pair any number of dimensions and metrics to help illustrate your point. 

Here is a link to the free template.

The supporting Google Sheet I’m using is a simple backlinks analytics report from SEMrush. However, you can use your own link-building tracker to feed the report. Just make sure you add the acquisition date for the date range.

You can view the Google Sheet that’s feeding the tool here.

Conclusion

Data Studio is one of the fastest reporting tools to stand up while still having some seriously robust features. The fact that it’s also free makes it an easy platform of choice.

But that begs the question, why go through all that trouble for clients and other stakeholders?

These tools help create a better sense of transparency, which can help improve trust. Thus, creating a better partnership between you and your stakeholders. 

One of the most challenging parts of SEO isn’t the work itself but the communication of value. So from now on, think of new creative ways to demonstrate value to your clients, even if it’s just making a simple tool in Data Studio.

The post 3 SEO tools to build for your clients in Google Data Studio appeared first on Search Engine Land.

SEO tool provider Semrush has announced plans to acquire competitive intelligence and sales enablement platform Kompyte.

Why we care. Semrush is a major player in the SEO tool space, and this announcement, along with its recent acquisition of Backlinko, shows that the company is serious about expanding both its audience and capabilities for search marketing as well as sales teams. 

The acquisition may also provide Semrush with a path to increasing the business it’s already doing with existing users: “Kompyte is the perfect product to upsell to our existing customers who already use our competitive intelligence features,” Eugene Levin, chief strategy and corporate development officer at Semrush, said in the announcement. “With an average ARR [annual recurring revenue] per customer of about $20,000, there’s a great opportunity for us to elevate our customers to the next level.”

More anecdotally, demand for SEO professionals has risen over recent years, especially since the outset of the pandemic. That may make SEO tools a more common part of MarTech stacks, fueling growth for tool providers.

What Kompyte does. Based in Austin, TX, Kompyte offers competitive analysis tools that help marketers track changes on a competitor’s site, ad copy, social media and more. It’s products are designed primarily for marketing, product development, and sales and enablement teams.

Why Semrush wants Kompyte. Semrush’s goal with this acquisition is to diversify its offerings from search marketing-specific tools to products for a wider audience of professionals. “We were always looking for a MarTech product that uses market data to bring other teams to the table,” Levin said.

“The acquisition will expand Semrush’s ability to help its customers beyond their marketing departments, especially considering 88% of Kompyte’s total user base falls within sales organizations,” the announcement said.

In addition, Kompyte’s technology will be used to expand on .Trends, Semrush’s existing competitive intelligence feature.

The post Semrush buys Kompyte so it can upsell competitive intelligence tools appeared first on Search Engine Land.

BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO platform, has acquired technical SEO platform Oncrawl. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Oncrawl will continue to run as its own company. Both customer bases will soon have access to additional technology without an accompanying price hike. 

What it means for BrightEdge. This acquisition mirrors the merging of SEO and data science. It will allow BrightEdge to perform sophisticated data scientist tasks in their website analysis to complement the work they are already doing on the platform, BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu said. He added that this acquisition is good news for digital marketers who want to scale campaigns with speed and precision.

SEO is creating more data than ever – too much for anyone to process without the right marketing technology, Yu said. Data analysis for SEO is complex – and most SEOs aren’t data scientists. So this acquisition means that BrightEdge users can combine Oncrawl’s “zero-code” data science with BrightEdge’s enterprise data and automation. 

“We saw a big opportunity to help SEOs be more effective at driving performance with data, without having to become data scientists,” Yu said.

Oncrawl is the third acquisition for BrightEdge, which was founded in 2007 and has more than 2,000 customers. In 2019, BrightEdge acquired Trilibis, which was crucial in developing their Autopilot offering. 

What it means for Oncrawl. Oncrawl will still run independently but under the BrightEdge umbrella, Yu said. Typically, when there is a merger, one company absorbs the other, and its customers and employees can suffer in the aftermath. Yu said that would not be the case here.

Oncrawl users will soon be able to start benefiting from BrightEdge’s advanced automation and data visualization technology. 

Oncrawl, founded in 2013, has 50 employees, more than 1,000 clients, and raised more than $4 million in funding since 2013.

Why we care. 2022 is shaping up to be a year of mergers and acquisitions in the SEO space – this is the third notable shakeup in the search market. Already this year, Semrush has acquired Backlinko, a move meant to prop up its content distribution. On the software front, Conductor recently acquired ContentKing. Plus, Moz was acquired by iContact last June. All of these changes have implications for users of these tools/platforms. In this case, for now, it seems like things will remain status quo for both BrightEdge and Oncrawl customers – we’ll have to wait until the company’s annual Share event in May to learn additional details about what the path forward looks like, and any implications or advantages for customers.  

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