Summer is in full swing, people are enjoying their holidays, but the world of marketing knows no rest.
Summer is in full swing, people are enjoying their holidays, but the world of marketing knows no rest.
Here we are again with another fresh batch of marketing news. So, if you were on holiday and didn’t find the time to be online, we are here to catch you up to speed.
End of Broad Match Modifier
Google announced via Twitter that at the end of July 2021, the broad match modifier will be replaced by phrase match. This means it will no longer be possible to add new keywords with “+” sign to campaigns.
However, according to Google, the behaviour of existing BMM keywords and phrase match keywords will be the same. Existing campaigns will continue using BMM keywords, but after editing, only phrase match will be available.
Google recommends converting BMM to a different match type. To make the switch easier, a bulk edit solution was created within Google Ads and Google Ads Editor.
Learn more about the change here.
Source: Google Ads Help
Internal Links: Sometimes Less is More
John Mueller, during a recent Google Hangout, discussed the topic of internal website links, which are a key Google ranking factor. Moreover, they provide a helping hand for search engines to better understand website structure.
According to John, the logical incorporation of internal links is essential, because if all pages are linking across each other, it might be confusing for Google to determine the most important page. Moreover, it dilutes the value of site structure.
That’s why it’s important to clearly define the most relevant pages and build the internal linking structure around them.
Watch the video here.
Source: Search Engine Journal & GSC YouTube
YouTube Shorts: A Fierce Competitor
YouTube is not giving up that easy the fight over watch time against TikTok. That’s why last year, they’ve launched YouTube Shorts in India, where TikTok was banned. Since then, YouTube Shorts has expanded to other countries. In addition, the beta version should be now globally available.
YouTube Shorts could be a relevant competitor to TikTok as it looks quite similar. Moreover, YouTube offers more advanced monetization options than TikTok, which can be financially more attractive for creators.
Will we see a shift of TikTok users to YouTube Shorts in the near future?
Source: Social Media Today & YouTube Help
Google Ads: Optimized Targeting
A new „Signal“ label started appearing in some Google Ads accounts under Demographics tab. This new label is a part of a new feature, which is gradually rolling out.
Optimized targeting helps to find new audiences that meet the campaign’s goals and are likely to convert. It uses audience and demographic signals in addition to keywords on your landing page and ads to find new and relevant audiences.
This feature is automatically turned on for all campaigns. It can be turned off in the Settings tab of ad groups.
Find out more about this feature.
Source: Google Ads Help
Google Maps. Improved Reviews and Other News
Google Maps is loaded with new features to further enhance the overall user experience by providing useful information.
First of all, the improved reviews caught our eyes. It offers more detailed info about restaurants. After giving a star rating, you get prompted to answer further questions. Specifically:
- Whether you dined in, used take out or delivery
- What food did you have (breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.)
- How much did you pay for 1 person
Personally, we really like the price estimate. This new feature is only available for Android user in the US but is gradually rolling out to iOS and other countries as well.
More Google Maps News
- Thanks to AI, data from Google Maps users and previous local trends, Google can predict transit crowdedness of public transit. For example, people will see the capacity of a bus and can decide, whether to take it or just wait for another bus. This is available to over 10,000 transit agencies in 100 countries.
- The new Timeline Insights tab offers monthly trends of activity. Users will be able to see which modes of transportation they have used and the distance and time they have driven, flown, biked, or walked. It also counts the time spent in a particular location.
For all the news, check out this blog.
Source: Google Blog
Google: About This Result
Most of us have a general understanding of how Google ranks results in organic search. We know that Google uses a bunch of signals, some more important than others.
Google is introducing a new SERP feature, which gives more information about the search results for search queries. It’s called About This Result, and it appears after clicking the 3 dots next to the search result. The feature is currently available in the US in English only.
About This Result explains 4 key factors:
- Matching keywords – whether a website contains the same keywords as the search query.
- Related items – additional terms and phrases related to the search query.
- Links – other pages linking to the page using similar keywords.
- Local relevance – considering factors like search language, country, and location.
These explanations should help people better understand the results of their search queries, so they can search even more effectively. In addition, this feature provides useful tips as well, such as quotes so the search results include the same words as the search query or minus sign to exclude words from search.
Learn more here.
Source: Google Blog
Google Link Spam Update
Google has silently announced that they’ve begun rolling out a new algorithm update called Link Spam Update on July 26th. The update should be completely rolled out within 2 weeks.
The main goal of this update is to identify and nullify link spam more broadly and even more effectively, across multiple languages. The update should mainly affect sites participating in link spam.
For more information visit Google’s blog. You can also read more about types of links that violate Google’s policies.
Source: Google Search Central
Facebook & Instagram
How Facebook’s Algorithm Works?
Last month, we brushed up on Instagram’s algorithm. Repetition is the mother of learning, so this time we’ll take a look at Facebook’s algorithm.
Facebook’s goal is to show the most relevant post for each user. That’s why each News Feed is tailored to the user. The selection and order of posts is determined by Facebook’s algorithm based on 4 key factors:
- Inventory – the number of posts from other users, pages and ads that are eligible to show.
- Signals – determining the relevance of each post with respect to the user based on mutual interactions with other users, pages or interests while considering the post format – video, image, links.
- Prediction – algorithm predicts the engagement of each post based on the mentioned factors.
- Score – assigning a number to each post, deciding their order. The higher the relevance score, the higher position.
We recommend considering these factors while creating ads. Try to create highly relevant ads to your target audience to increase the quality of your ads. This way you can influence metrics like cost-per-click or click-through-rate.
Check out this short video from Facebook.
Are you creating highly relevant ads to your audience?
Source: Facebook
Facebook is Testing a Post Type
Some users have noticed a new post type option when posting on Facebook. The original post can be now extended with another post, updating and expanding its context.
This could solve the issues of updating the post through comments or editing the original post, which is not so convenient and user-friendly. This new Threads type of post is really similar to how posts on Twitter are organised.
We’ll see whether this expands globally.
Source: Social Media Today