Archive for the ‘seo news’ Category
Thursday, December 7th, 2023
Google Analytics 4 has updated its explorations feature and data retention settings.
When you save an exploration with a preset date range (like the last 28 days), GA4 will now display data from the last 28 days from when you opened the exploration, not from when you initially created it.
Regarding data retention, if a GA4 property becomes large, event-level data retention will automatically reduce to two months when exceeding 25 billion (for standard) or 250 billion (for 360) billable events in the last 31 days.
The updates were announced on the Google Analytics Help Center.
Why we care. Marketers will need to take note of the explorations update to ensure accurate reporting, and those with large GA4 properties will need to take action to prevent data loss.
What is an Exploration? Explorations is a set of advanced tools that go beyond regular reports, allowing you to discover deeper insights into your customers’ behavior. When you want to explore data in more detail, you can use explorations to:
- Quickly make ad hoc queries.
- Easily configure and switch between techniques.
- Sort, refactor, and drill down into the data.
- Focus on the most relevant data by using filters and segments.
- Create segments and audiences.
- Share your explorations with other users of the same Google Analytics property.
- Export the exploration data for use in other tools.
Adjusting the timeframe of an exploration. To change the time frame of an exploration, follow these steps:
- At the top of “Variables”, click the currently selected date range.
- Select a preset date range (e.g., “Last 28 days”), or use the calendar to select a custom date range (e.g., May 1st to May 31st).
- Click “OK”.
Data retention update. In the future, if a standard property becomes Large or a 360 property becomes XL (collecting over 25 billion and 250 billion billable events in the last 31 days, respectively), the event-level data retention setting will automatically decrease to 2 months. Event-level data older than 2 months will become inaccessible and permanently deleted. This adjustment will affect only a small number of Google Analytics properties.
Warning email. If your property is approaching these limits based on weekly event volume, Google will send a warning email to all property administrators. Once the limit is reached, another email will be sent to all administrators, informing them that the data retention setting has been lowered.
Between receiving these two emails, you can decrease the number of billable events sent to the Google Analytics 4 property, to ensure compliance with the current limits for your property size and to maintain longer event-level retention. If the warning is for a free property, upgrading to 360 is an option to access higher limits.
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Deep dive. Read Google’s Explorations guide or Data Retention documentation for more information.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, December 6th, 2023
Google Analytics 4 audiences can now be easily created and applied directly within Google Ads.
Marketers now have the capability to build Analytics audiences, including predictive audiences, using the Audience Manager feature and during the campaign creation process
Why we care. This new capability helps marketers understand their audience better through Google Ads. It allows them to make smarter decisions, tailor their efforts to connect with their audience, and optimize their strategies for better performance.
What is a predictive audience? A predictive audience is a group defined by at least one condition related to a predictive metric. For instance, you might create an audience named ‘likely 7-day purchasers’ consisting of users predicted to make a purchase in the next 7 days.
New dimensions. Google announced that it is also rolling out additional dimensions across GA4. Dimensions are descriptive texts that help explain your data, such as audience names, user locations, and transaction IDs. The new dimensions are being added to the following GA4 features:
- Audience builder.
- Segment builder.
- Custom reports builder.
- Data API.
Google has stated that the additional dimensions will enable you to “measure and activate using both pre-defined and custom item-scoped dimensions.”
What are pre-defined dimensions? Pre-defined dimensions are dimensions that are already available for use, such as “age”, “country” and “browser”, and usually don’t require additional code for data collection.
What are custom dimensions? Custom dimensions allow you to track and report on specific details about your users and their interactions with your website or app. They’re useful when the data you want to analyze isn’t available through the predefined dimensions and metrics, for example, “item-scoped custom dimensions”.
Additional custom dimension on GA4. Google announced that it is also adding item-scoped custom dimensions to GA4’s:
- Audience builder.
- Segment builder.
- Custom reports builder.
- Data API.
An item-scoped dimension is a descriptive text specifically about a product or service sold on your online store.
The following predefined item-scoped dimensions have been added to the segment builder on GA4:
- Item ID
- Item name
- Item brand
- Item variant
- Item affiliation
- Item category
- Item category
- Item category 2
- Item category 3
- Item category 4
- Item category 5
- Item promotion name
- Item promotion creative slot
- Item promotion creative name
- Item list ID
- Item list name
- Item list position
- Item location ID
The following predefined item-scoped dimension have been added to the audience builder on GA4:
- Item list ID
- Item list position
- Item location ID
- Item promotion creative name
- Item promotion creative slot
- Item promotion name
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Deep dive. Read Search Engine Land’s complete GA4 guide for more information on creating audiences and general best practice advice.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, December 6th, 2023
Generative AI is revolutionizing SEO, especially for large websites dealing with complex technical challenges.
AI’s exceptional capacity to analyze data, forecast trends, aid content creation and automate tasks can help shift your SEO approach from reactive to proactive.
Discover 10 ways to enhance your SEO using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Bing Chat and Claude by Anthropic.
1. Improving information architecture
An internal linking structure optimized for the customer’s buying journey and search behaviors captures top- and mid-funnel search traffic. It also improves user experience to drive engagement and conversions.
Generative AI can help organize inventory, content and demand data to create the optimal internal linking structure.
Inventory structuring for an SEO-friendly taxonomy
- Use generative AI to examine the current content on a website, whether it’s product listings on an online store or the entire collection of articles for a web publisher.
- Extract a clear and detailed organizational structure that mirrors the site’s content.
- This structure should cover various user intents and needs throughout the purchase process.
- Cross-reference it with demand and internal search data to ensure that taxonomy category names align with the vocabulary commonly used by users who search for these items.
- Use this taxonomy as the backbone of the site structure to improve user experience.
- For example, when used to extract a taxonomy for an online antique bookshop using unstructured book description data, AI can easily produce logical, granular categories and attribute taxonomies based on genres, subgenres, authors, editions, themes, moods, publishing houses, eras, etc.
Adaptive navigation
- AI can improve the website’s navigation when used to analyze how customers browse and search.
- It creates a more user-friendly experience by considering the right mix of supply and demand data and user preferences, ultimately boosting user engagement.
2. Content enrichment
Don’t be afraid to leverage generative AI to elevate your content strategy. AI can become your trusted companion and a go-to tool for content gap analyses, content enrichment opportunities and more.
Predictive content planning
- Utilize AI to analyze internal and external search behaviors and sales data to identify emerging trends.
- The online bookshop from the previous example might monitor Google, Amazon or other marketplaces to detect increases in search volumes and chatter around specific literary genres, books, or authors, which could signal opportunities for new content creation.
Seasonal content alignment
- Leverage generative AI to develop a content calendar that aligns with seasonal occurrences, literary events, book launches, or writing competitions.
- This helps ensure that the sites’s content marketing remains relevant and timely.
Dig deeper: 17 tips to improve your AI-assisted content creation process
3. Enhancing data analysis
AI can be a valuable tool for understanding your audience, its search patterns and on-site behaviors – use these insights to evolve your SEO strategy.
User engagement insights
- Use generative AI tools to analyze user engagement data, such as page views, time spent on pages and click-through rates, to identify the most engaging content and winning page types.
- Understand how users interact with different content types and what captures their interest the most, then build on these insights.
Behavioral pattern recognition
- Utilize AI to detect patterns in user behavior, such as common exit points or frequently browsed sections.
- Evaluate findings to zero in on user experience issues or SEO content gap opportunities.
Key audience segments
- Go beyond GA affinity categories to pinpoint specific customer segments that are most engaged, such as those interested in historical fiction or rare collectibles.
- Use these insights to expand related content offerings or product inventory to capture organic demand.
4. Elevating keyword strategy
Use generative AI technology to go beyond traditional keyword research by analyzing competitors and predicting high-value, popular and relevant keywords for your business.
While many existing SEO platforms like Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz and others already rely on some AI capabilities to enhance their tooling, AI-powered Bing Chat can help take keyword research to the next level.
SEO query simulation with Bing Chat
Identify key themes and topics
Start by identifying the main themes and topics relevant to your niche. For an antique bookshop, this could include phrases like “victorian literature,” “rare first editions,” or “antique poetry collections.”
Formulate potential customer queries
Use the initial list of topics and phrases to create an expanded list of seed search queries that your customers might use, such as “best victorian novels,” “where to find rare first editions,” or “antique poetry book recommendations.” (You can use ChatGPT here.)
Engage with Bing Chat
Access Bing Chat through Microsoft Edge and simulate the customer search process by feeding the chatbot the formulated queries.
Analyze the results
Analyze the search results provided by Bing Chatbot for each query. Pay attention to the types of content – blogs, product listings, articles – that rank well and note down recurring themes or keywords that appear within the top results – these are likely to be top SEO performers in your niche.
Apply insights to your SEO strategy
Use the insights to shape your content strategy. For example, if top results for “victorian literature guides” contain book recommendations, analyses of key themes and authors of this era, or poetry collections, consider optimizing existing content or investing in equivalent new content that could compete with these formats.
Bonus: Use Bing Chat for keyword contextualization
Convert key topics and queries into questions, such as “What are popular Victorian novel genres?” or “How do people collect rare first editions?” to understand the broader context in which these keywords are used and discussed.
Note patterns in how these keywords are used and see if some terms tend to occur in specific contexts or alongside particular topics.
For instance, if you find that “rare first editions” are commonly discussed in collecting and preserving, consider tailoring your content to this need.
5. Schema optimization for SERP features
Google’s SERP has come a long way since the days of “10 blue links.”
Dozens of SERP features make up today’s universal results. While not all are designed to funnel traffic to the publisher’s website, increasing visibility across SERP features is critical for building brand and top-of-mind awareness.
Tools like ChatGPT can greatly help identify rich snippet and SERP feature opportunities for various content and page types (i.e., book listings, reviews, question-answer pages, or images) and generate the right schema markup.
Featured snippet listing placements – the coveted Position Zero – often see CTRs of over 30%. Maximize your organic CTR opportunity by leveraging ChatGPT to suggest formatting options that will help optimize your high-ranking pages for featured snippet placements.
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6. Unlocking insights from off-site data
Off-site signals, brand sentiment, ratings, reviews and user feedback that appear across social media and other platforms can offer valuable insights for product improvements and reveal tremendous opportunities for building brand authority and trust, which are critically important in the age of E-E-A-T.
While many great platforms and tools leverage generative AI for brand sentiment analysis, it’s possible to accomplish the task with ChatGPT, Bing Chat, or similar tools.
Data aggregation
Use Bing Chat to search for recent news articles, blog posts, social media posts and forum discussions about your brand. Compile this data into a document or a database for analysis.
Initial analysis with ChatGPT
Input the aggregated data into ChatGPT, prompting it to summarize the overall sentiment expressed in the data provided.
Ask the chatbot to identify key themes and topics that are frequently mentioned in relation to your brand.
Contextual understanding with Bing Chat
Use Bing Chat to understand the broader context of the sentiment. For example, if there’s a negative sentiment, it can help explore the reasons behind it by providing related news or social media posts.
Use it to analyze the data in bulk to identify user sentiments, find patterns and issue actionable recommendations that can be used to improve online reputation, adjust product inventory, or highlight other areas of concern or opportunity.
7. Trend prediction
Use generative AI to identify and capture emerging trends before the competition does.
From freely accessible Google Trends to more complex and tailored solutions using TensorFlow or Keras to build tailored predictive models, the market is saturated with AI-driven predictive models.
While AI can also be leveraged for trend prediction, it requires a more creative approach involving information aggregation, summary and analysis.
Prompt the tool to compile recent news articles, blog posts and other relevant data on a given topic and request summaries of this information with an overview of current market trends to collect relevant insights.
8. Streamlining SEO analysis
Use generative AI to automate essential yet repetitive analytical SEO tasks, enhancing efficiency and allowing you to focus on strategic growth.
Google Sheets and ChatGPT can provide simple, intuitive, budget-friendly solutions for ongoing data analysis, tracking and more.
Automate data exports
Automate data exports from GA, GSC, MySQL, or a range of SEO platforms directly in Google Sheets using existing Sheets add-ons, a third-party tool, Google Apps Script, or a built-in integration.
Use GPT for Sheets or a similar add-on
Connect to your OpenAI API using GPT for Sheets or a similar add-on and prompt analysis of the data directly in Sheets, streamlining your workflow.
(Reminder: Always exercise caution and common sense when leveraging AI models to analyze proprietary data.)
9. Creating content that resonates
Understanding the emotional needs of your audience can help create more relevant content that resonates with your users’ interests, increasing engagement.
Leverage tools like Claude by Anthropic for feedback interpretation, extraction of emotional triggers, and underlying user preferences.
Regularly re-evaluate and adjust your SEO content strategy using new insights from Claude to ensure that your content remains relevant and engaging.
10. Enhancing SEO storytelling
See your SEO strategy come to life using AI to transform SEO data into compelling narratives for more effective stakeholder presentations, strategy pitches and quarterly check-ins.
Data storytelling
- Utilize AI to analyze and present SEO metrics as engaging stories, illustrating your digital journey and its successes.
- Map the story to the traditional and recognizable three-point narrative structure for optimal effectiveness.
Presentation enhancement
- Use generative AI to create matching visuals for clearer, impactful and consistent decks.
Audience analysis
- Knowing your audience and their triggers will help you set your SEO presentation up for success. AI can help you understand your audience and its internal dynamics based on known data and inferences.
- Evaluate AI-generated insights and suggestions and use them where appropriate to make small but impactful tweaks to your pitch.
Using generative AI to streamline your SEO efforts
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Bing Chat and Claude by Anthropic provide immense opportunities to optimize and enhance virtually all aspects of an SEO strategy.
AI can drive efficiencies, uncover insights, predict trends and better help websites align with search intent and user needs.
By embracing AI’s multifaceted applications, SEO professionals can shift their approach from reactive to proactive, gaining a competitive edge and the ability to continuously refine and improve performance.
Dig deeper: How to integrate generative AI in your SEO
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, December 6th, 2023
Google today announced Gemini, a multimodal large language model, and confirmed the AI model will be added to Search and Ads in the coming months.
Gemini in Search. Gemini will become available in Search, Ads and other products in the coming months. But Google Search is already testing Gemini, which has reduced the latency of Search Generative Experience responses by 40% for English in the U.S. and led to unspecified quality improvements.
What is Google Gemini. Officially known as Gemini 1.0, it is a large language model that can work with all types of information – text, images, audio, video or code. Gemini is meant to compete with OpenAI’s GPT. Three “sizes” were announced:
- Ultra, for highly complex tasks.
- Pro, Google’s “highest performing model” for a broad range of tasks.
- Nano, for on-device tasks.
Gemini in Bard. Google Bard now is powered by a “fine-tuned version” of Gemini Pro. Bard now has more advanced reasoning, planning and understanding, Google said. Calling this Bard’s “biggest upgrade” since launch, it is now available in English in more than 170 countries, with plans to expand further in “the near future.”
A new version, called Bard Advanced, will debut early next year, Google said. Google DeepMind also shared a report that found Gemini outperformed GPT-3.5 for six of eight industry benchmarks.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, December 6th, 2023
The purchase journey of a B2B buyer differs greatly from that of a B2C shopper.
With the proper strategy, SEO can become a strong acquisition channel for any organization in the B2B space.
Below are top tips for ensuring your SEO strategy is set up for success across every stage of the B2B buyer’s journey.
Understanding the B2B buyer’s journey
The buyer’s journey can still be viewed through the traditional purchase funnel lens of awareness, consideration and decision.
However, in recent years, B2B purchasers have increasingly been exploring solutions and performing research well into the funnel.
Awareness stage
- The beginning of the B2B buyer’s journey.
- At this point, potential customers are just starting to recognize a problem or need and are seeking informational content to gain insights or answers.
- SEO should focus on targeting broad, informational keywords that align with the general inquiries of your target audience.
Consideration stage
- Potential buyers have clearly defined their problem or need and are now exploring different solutions, products, or services.
- In this more focused time period, they compare options, read reviews, and delve deeper into the specifics of each solution.
- SEO content should be crafted to highlight the unique selling points of your products or services and how they compare to competitors, leveraging case studies, reviews, and testimonials.
Decision stage
- The buyer has all the necessary information and is ready to purchase.
- This stage is characterized by specific, high-intent searches that could include specific product names, pricing information, or implementation details.
- SEO is critical in capturing high-intent searches and directing them to conversion-optimized pages.
The post-pandemic world has seen a rise in digital events and communities (think webinars and social media groups) replacing in-person gatherings like conferences where B2B sales traditionally occurred.
The result is an increased reliance on content consumption when making purchase decisions, underscoring the need for a strong SEO strategy.
Dig deeper: Mapping the customer journey for SEO and marketing success
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B2B SEO tips for the Awareness stage
1. Begin your keyword research at the top of the funnel
Developing an effective B2B SEO strategy begins by identifying your target audience and understanding their needs, search behaviors and personas.
As you begin to tailor your content marketing and SEO initiatives to the B2B customer journey, it’s crucial to understand the kind of information they seek before they’ve even begun to think about your brand or the type of solution they want.
Once you gain this solid understanding, explore how your buyer conducts online searches with keyword research.
Identify broad informational keywords within your category and match your content (i.e., pricing information, product demos or category explainers) with the most relevant and popular user queries.
If you’re an SEO professional working for an agency, now is the time to get to know your client’s products and industry-specific language if you haven’t already.
Understanding the intent behind prospective buyers’ searches – whether they aim to know, go, do or buy – is key in determining the appropriate type of content to provide at each stage of their journey.
Dig deeper: B2B keyword research: A comprehensive guide
2. Understand the B2B difference
The sales funnel for B2B purchases is often longer and more complicated than its B2C counterpart. There are multiple C-suite stakeholders and a greater focus on ROI and the bottom line.
Additionally, keyword search volume and qualified leads are generally lower in B2B. This highlights the significance of quality top-of-funnel traffic over quantity.
Even at these early stages, create relevant content that:
- Speaks to your product or service efficiencies and effectiveness.
- Is easily translatable to decision-makers who might be removed from the immediate process.
The content focus at this stage should be building visibility and trust, which can be accomplished via blog posts, guides and introductory videos.
You can also demonstrate your expertise within the field with whitepapers and ebooks.
3. Create content that guides buyers
When creating and optimizing content, keep your end-user in mind and envision their purchase journey. Topic clusters are an excellent way to move visitors from the awareness to the consideration stage.
Structuring your website information like this lets you showcase deep expertise in a specific area. This is vital for B2B businesses, especially those operating in specialized or niche markets.
By thoroughly covering a topic, you provide valuable information to your audience and increase the likelihood of dominating search engine results pages (SERPs) for a range of related queries, not just isolated keywords.
For example, let’s consider a CRM software provider for small businesses.
- A pillar page with the topic “Comprehensive Guide to CRM for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses” might capture awareness searchers with the relatively high volume “crm software” and “crm software small business” keywords.
- From there, links to cluster pages like “Choosing the Right CRM for Your Small Business: What to Look For” and “Maximizing ROI from CRM: Strategies for SMEs” offer additional insights and product-specific information while moving the reader closer to purchase.
B2B SEO tips for the Consideration stage
4. Target comparison and evaluation keywords
At this stage, focus on identifying keywords that potential customers use when comparing products or services. These keywords often include terms like:
- “Comparison”
- “Versus” or “vs.”
- “Features”
- “Benefits”
- “Reviews”
Use keyword research tools to find the specific phrases your target audience uses in the consideration phase. Subsequently, develop content that directly addresses the comparison queries.
Comprehensive comparison guides, blog posts that compare features of different products or services, and detailed cost-effectiveness analyses could perform well for an audience that is inching closer to converting.
5. Leverage case studies and testimonials
These content types are powerful tools for demonstrating the effectiveness of your product. Optimize these case studies with relevant keywords, especially those your potential customers are likely to use when looking for real-world examples of your product or service.
Users might also be drawn to interactive and product-specific features, like an ROI calculator, which can help develop a business case for stakeholders. This stage is where you might begin incorporating long-tail keywords alongside broader queries.
Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines matter – especially “experience.” Your content should be unbiased, informative and valuable, helping readers make informed decisions.
Real verified user reviews, guest posts from subject matter experts, and thought leadership-style pieces from company executives can all help connote experience to visitors.
6. Enhance your onsite experience for users and search engines
Ensure each product has a dedicated landing page optimized for search engines and users.
These pages should be informative, easy to navigate, make logical sense within your greater site structure, and include clear calls to action (CTAs). Use targeted keywords in the page titles, meta descriptions, headers, and content.
Improve the site structure and navigation to make it easy for users and search engines to find relevant content.
Follow the same organizational structure as your pillar and cluster content: as visitors learn more about your offerings, they should be logically guided toward a conversion event.
When it comes to evaluating the success of your efforts, focus on engagement metrics like:
- Time on site.
- Bounce rate.
- Pageviews per session.
B2B marketers often place a greater emphasis on “micro-conversions” compared to those in the B2C sector.
SEO is pivotal here by steering potential customers to different stages of the funnel, where they can interact through actions like downloading an ebook or viewing a product demo.
These interactions are incremental steps toward a high-value and hopefully long-lasting purchase relationship.
B2B SEO tips for the Decision stage
7. Focus on high-intent keywords
At this stage, it’s necessary to identify and target your bottom-of-funnel keywords with a concentration on queries that indicate a readiness to purchase. These include more specific branded terms, product names, or service-specific queries.
Optimize your content for featured snippets, “People also ask”, or knowledge graphs which can provide immediate information and enhance visibility.
8. Streamline conversion paths
Your landing pages should be finely tuned to encourage conversions. They should:
- Load quickly.
- Display well on mobile devices.
- Provide all the necessary information at a glance.
Consider A/B or CRO testing to land on a clean and effective design, focusing on the product and driving conversions without unnecessary distractions.
CTAs should be clear, compelling, and strategically placed. They should naturally guide the user toward taking the next step, whether filling out a contact form, downloading a trial offer, or completing a purchase.
9. Build trust with valuable and validating technical content
Develop content that caters to visitors making the final decision and those looking to validate their purchase. This includes:
- Detailed product comparisons.
- Reviews.
- How-to guides addressing different use cases.
Third-party reports or reviews demonstrating how well your offering stacks up to competitors can be especially effective here.
Pay special attention to addressing popular branded queries. Searchers here are likely already deep in the decision stage, so you can capture attention (and get ahead of any potentially negative third-party pages) by posting your own reviews, comparisons and product feature guides.
The accuracy and authority of your content are paramount for buyers in the decision stage. Regularly review your onsite technical information to ensure it is up-to-date, accurate and reflects the current state of your offerings.
SEO’s role in the B2B buyer’s journey
Each stage of the B2B buyer’s journey – awareness, consideration, and decision – demands a distinct approach, blending traditional SEO techniques with a deep understanding of the B2B purchasing process and a given business’s specific offering.
Use these strategies to guide B2B buyers to make informed decisions effectively. Staying agile and informed will help you maintain a competitive edge and drive meaningful engagement with your target audience.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, December 5th, 2023
Google has rolled out impression share data for Local Service Ads (LSAs).
Impression share is the percentage of times your ad shows up compared to the total number of times it could potentially appear.
This data became available on LSAs in November, Ginny Marvin, Google Ads liaison officer, confirmed on X.
Why we care. Impression share is a key metric for assessing the visibility and effectiveness of an ad campaign, enabling marketers to better understand performance and optimize more efficiently.
First spotted. The impression share data for Google LSAs was first spotted by Google Ads expert, Ben Turner, who shared a screenshot of his findings on X:
As shown in the screenshot above, three new metrics can now be seen for Google LSA accounts:
- Ad impressions: How often your ad showed up in search results within a chosen time frame
- Top impression rate on Search: The percentage of your impressions displayed above unpaid results within a chosen timeframe.
- Absolute top impression rate on Search: The percentage of your impressions that appear as the first ad in search results with a specific time range.
Commenting on the screenshot, Turner wrote:
- “Seeing IS metrics in selected Google LSA accounts – could be useful. Metrics seem wildly different to an LSA ranking tool I briefly used. One of them must be off.”
- “If you’re looking at anything other than November 2023 there is no data.”
Reactions. Digital marketing expert Anthony Higman commented that the rollout of impression share data could help improve the accuracy of reporting. He explained on X:
- “[I] have been screaming for this. My whole thing since the intro of LSA is how can I accurately report on Google ads when LSA is in the mix and you have no idea how or when. I doubt this will actually help solve it but it’s a step in the right direction. Only took them 3 years.”
- “Also what’s cool is that these are metrics I haven’t been able to see before. You can see a lot of data in LSA accounts from the account level if you are creative but haven’t been able to see positioning metrics before.”
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Deep dive. Read the Google Local Service Ad guide for more information on how this product works.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, December 5th, 2023
Google is expanding its video requirements where the video must be the main content of the page to show up as a video result in Google Search to also have that requirement with Google’s “Video mode” in search. Google said, “extending this change to search results in Video mode to better connect users with the video content they’re looking for.”
The change can take about a week to fully rollout but once it is done rolling out you should only see videos in Google Search and Video mode from pages that make their video the primary part of their content.
What changed. Google said it will only “show video thumbnails next to results on the main Google Search results page when the video is the main content of a page” and that it expanding this requirement for “video mode.”
Google explained “with this update, clicking a result in Video mode will only take users to a page where the video is the main content.”
What is video mode. The videos that show under the video tab are generally what is video mode. Google shared this illustration of video mode in the Google Search results:
Not primary video content. Google posted some examples of page types where the video is supplementary to the textual content, and not the primary focus of the page, they include:
- A blog post where the video is complementary to the text rather than the primary content of the page
- A product details page with a complementary video
- A video category page that lists multiple videos of equal prominence
Search Console changes. Google said this change may have an impact on your video reports within Google Search Console. “You’ll see the impact of this change in your Search Console video indexing report,” Google wrote. Videos that aren’t the main content of the page will appear as “No video indexed” in Search Console.
“Since these videos will no longer be shown in Video mode, you can expect to see a decrease in the number of pages with indexed videos,” Google added. This decrease will also appear in the number of video impressions in the performance report, video indexing report, and the video rich results report in Google Search Console.
Google will also add a new reason to the report to explain why these videos are not indexed: “Video is not the main content of the page”, which simplifies the report by replacing the following issues:
- Invalid video URL
- Unsupported video format
- Unknown video format
- Inline data URLs cannot be used for video URLs
- Video outside the viewport
- Video too small
- Video too tall
Why we care. If your pages have been ranking in video mode within Google Search, you’ll watch to watch the performance of those pages heading forward. This change also has implications for the video metrics you see reported in Search Console.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, December 5th, 2023
It’s hard to believe it’s only been a year since ChatGPT burst onto the scene and captured the world’s attention with its remarkably adept chatbot that generates human-like text on command.
Once users moved on from trying the chatbot for silly things like writing jokes or letters in Shakespeare’s voice, more useful applications emerged.
- Teachers figured out how to use large language models to teach complex topics to students.
- Hollywood writers negotiated new contracts to continue earning a living when genAI could use their ideas to create new plot twists.
- And software companies added genAI to their tools to simplify mundane tasks.
For PPC marketers, ChatGPT also unlocked game-changing potential. Here’s a look back at ChatGPT’s first year and what we can expect next from this transformative technology.
Looking back at ChatGPT’s debut
ChatGPT launched on Nov. 30, 2022, offering free access to what seemed like an impossibly smart AI chatbot. Built on OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 language model, it showcased an unprecedented ability to understand context, follow logical reasoning, and respond to prompts with coherent, convincing text.
Almost overnight, people began using it to write emails, blog posts, code, and ad copy. The hype amplified as users realized this wasn’t some narrow AI but a foundation for the next wave of computing revolution with implications across countless industries.
Since the introduction of ChatGPT and other genAI models a year ago, several industries have undergone significant transformations.
Our industry is among those impacted as generative AI has streamlined the process of producing various content, from blog posts and social media updates to landing pages, keywords, and ad copy.
The technology’s ability to quickly generate high-quality text has been a boon for marketers, saving time on ideation and execution of projects.
Google took things further and introduced a generative AI campaign creator in May.
Announcements like this reinforced the question that’s been on digital marketers’ minds for years: what will our roles look like as AI continues to do more of what we used to do manually?
To help answer that, let’s first look at what chatGPT has done for search marketers.
Early uses for GPT-3.5 in PPC
Naturally, PPC experts wondered how we could harness ChatGPT’s talents. Even in its initial form, I found plenty of uses:
- Generating keyword ideas from seed keywords or landing page URLs.
- Classifying long keyword lists into coherent ad groups.
- Composing compelling ad headlines and descriptions.
- Providing landing page optimization suggestions.
- Analyzing search query relevancy for improving ads targeting.
To do some of these tasks at scale in spreadsheets, I started using GPT extensions for Google Chrome. Also, I played extensively with the OpenAI API Playground, where all the settings that impact performance can be dialed in.
For example, the temperature setting can be used by advertisers to make the system more or less creative, something that is important in regulated industries where more creative ad text ideas could violate regulations.
These early applications demonstrated the immense potential for ChatGPT in PPC account management and campaign optimization. But they were just a taste of what would soon become possible as the AI advanced.
Dig deeper: How to use ChatGPT to boost your PPC efforts
GPT-4 is a better but more expensive writer
In March 2023, OpenAI introduced GPT-4, which brought meaningful improvements. The model was trained on more input parameters, 25 times more than Meta’s Llama-2 model and five times more than Google’s PaLM-2 model. As a result, it produced higher-quality writing.
It was also better at math, which matters greatly in PPC, where optimization decisions depend on a correct mathematical or statistical data analysis.
Image from author’s presentation at SMX Next.
While earlier versions adequately handled simple PPC tasks like keyword generation, GPT-4 proved particularly useful for long-form text, like that used for email campaigns, blog posts, and landing pages.
The downside was that it was significantly slower and more expensive than previous models. But as more models become available, it opens the door for optimizations. People can evaluate each model’s strengths and weaknesses and decide which LLM and version to use for various tasks.
I found that GPT-3.5 is equally adept as GPT-4 at suggesting keywords. Hence, deploying that model for keyword-related tasks is more cost-effective and faster.
GPT-4 performs better for writing, so the extra cost and latency are worth it when I need to write a landing page copy or a report to be shared with a client.
Image from author’s presentation at SMX Next.
Dig deeper: ChatGPT for PPC marketers: 15 strategic prompts to use today
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ChatGPT launches beta features
In July 2023, OpenAI introduced new beta features for ChatGPT, like Code Interpreter – which was later renamed Advanced Data Analysis. These made entirely new PPC use cases possible.
Advanced Data Analysis helps advertisers gain new insights
A huge upgrade for the sometimes mathematically challenged GPT-4 was its new capability to write and execute Python code.
By uploading campaign performance files directly into ChatGPT prompts, we can now have it do a statistical analysis and create graphs to provide new insights and optimizations.
Plugins let advertisers connect GPT with live data
One of the most powerful upgrades ChatGPT has gained is support for plugins, which are special add-ons that greatly expand its capabilities. Plugins allow ChatGPT direct connectivity with external datasets, documents, and live websites rather than just its own fixed indexed knowledge.
This means you can feed ChatGPT a raw .csv file of PPC campaign statistics for advanced analysis, upload your entire catalog of product descriptions to improve copywriting relevance, or even have ChatGPT scrape and summarize a landing page you’re optimizing in real time.
Would these new capabilities start humans down the path of irrelevance in digital marketing? Not quite.
Generative AI as an assistant, not a replacement
It’s easy to envision generative AI wholly automating digital marketing tasks. But in practice, these tools function best as assistants augmenting human capabilities, not replacing them.
As I first explored in 2017, well before the dawn of generative AI, humans play three essential roles in digital marketing:
- The teacher.
- The doctor.
- The pilot.
Even though AI has changed from mere pattern recognition to generating content, I believe these roles still apply.
- The teacher curates data and fine-tunes models like ChatGPT to align with an organization’s objectives and industry context.
- The doctor prescribes solutions, like the right LLM for the business challenge.
- The pilot vigilantly monitors performance, intervening when generative AI goes off course.
Generative AI takes over tedious tasks like writing repetitive ad copy and landing pages. This frees up teachers, doctors, and pilots to operate more strategically.
For instance, an account doctor can now invest time previously spent copywriting into data analysis and consultation. Or they can prompt ChatGPT to summarize key account insights in client-ready reports. The tool generates content, while the human provides creative direction and quality control.
So, don’t view generative AI as a threat. See it as a collaborative assistant amplifying human strengths. The marketing teams that embrace this human-AI partnership will pull ahead of the competition. But it requires accepting that the future remains human, with AI merely lending a helping hand.
What’s next: OpenAI Dev Day Announcements
At OpenAI’s DevDay on Nov. 6, 2023, they revealed major upgrades that give a glimpse into the future potential for PPC professionals.
Most notably, OpenAI launched GPT-4 Turbo, which supports much longer prompts of up to 128,000 characters. That means you can now submit the equivalent of around 300 pages of text to better help the AI understand what you want – to give it in-context learning: the data it should use to formulate its response to your prompt.
This massively expanded context window could empower ChatGPT to handle more advanced PPC analysis and optimization tasks.
From whiteboard to ad script
Additionally, OpenAI announced new modalities like vision, allowing GPT-4 Turbo to ingest images.
In one cool example illustrated by PPC scripts expert Nils Rooijmans, he gave GPT a photo of a whiteboard sketch of an optimization decision tree and asked GPT to write a script to handle that use case.
It understood the logic from the whiteboard drawing and suggested the relevant Google Ads Script code to automate that task.
Reduced pricing for GPT
OpenAI also reduced pricing across the board. Input tokens for GPT-4 Turbo are now 3x cheaper at $0.01, while output tokens are 2x cheaper at $0.03.
Broader access to lower-cost capabilities like fine-tuning could help PPC managers train custom AI tools tailored to their unique accounts.
Between upgraded foundation models, new modalities like vision, and more affordable building blocks, OpenAI’s offering paints an exciting picture.
The next level of PPC optimization will be AI-assisted, thanks to innovations in the tools you already use that can leverage the latest innovations in generative AI.
The future of generative AI for PPC
The future looks incredibly bright if ChatGPT can accomplish so much in just one year. Here’s what I expect next:
- Improved accuracy in analytics and math computations.
- Integration with PPC platforms through plugins for simplified access to account data.
- Capability to dynamically write scripts and rules compatible with your PPC tool of choice to streamline optimization.
- Easier access to personalization through GPT, “fine-tuning,” and longer prompts to help align responses better with your goals.
- Low-code tools for building custom AI models tailored to clients’ businesses.
ChatGPT in PPC: A year of innovation, integration and impact
The past 12 months have transformed our expectations of what AI can do. As the algorithms continue advancing, our job is to push the boundaries of AI to boost PPC performance beyond human limitations.
In a world of AI assistants, the answer should never be that you can’t do something but rather that you haven’t yet tried something. AI can teach and help you execute your projects faster than ever.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, December 5th, 2023
Google has officially sunset the Google Search Console Mobile Usability report, the Mobile-Friendly Test tool and the Mobile-Friendly Test API today. Google told us back in April 2023 that this would happen on December 1st and Google announced today on December 4th that it has been done.
“Today we’re sunsetting Search Console’s Mobile Usability report, Mobile-Friendly Test tool and Mobile-Friendly Test API. We believe these tools helped website owners make the web a better place – thank you for working with us on this journey,” Google posted on X.
What Google wrote. Google posted back then, “Also starting December 1, 2023, we’ll be retiring Search Console’s “Mobile Usability” report, the Mobile-Friendly Test tool and Mobile-Friendly Test API. This doesn’t mean that mobile usability isn’t important for success with Google Search. It remains critical for users, who are using mobile devices more than ever, and as such, it remains a part of our page experience guidance. But in the nearly ten years since we initially launched this report, many other robust resources for evaluating mobile usability have emerged, including Lighthouse from Chrome.”
Access removed. When you try to find the Search Console mobile usability report within Search Console, you won’t be able to. Also the mobile friendly testing tool, which is accessible over here, has been redirected to Lighthouse. And the API should no longer be returning results.
Why we care. If you have been using these reports for clients or internal SEO work, you will no longer be able to use them, as they are gone. Ensure your sites and webpages are mobile-friendly using other tools, such as Lighthouse.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Friday, December 1st, 2023
Meta is reportedly planning to launch Threads in the EU before the end of the year.
The news comes after X’s biggest advertisers – including Disney, Paramount and Sony Pictures –boycotted the Elon Musk-owned platform following his endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory
Why we care. Although Threads isn’t serving ads just yet, brands can still grow their audiences on the platform through influencer partnerships. It’s worth noting that ads on Threads are inevitable and will likely be a significant contributor to the app’s overall revenue when they do launch.
EU regulation difficulties. Threads was not rolled out to EU countries upon its global launch in July because of the EU’s strict privacy regulations. To comply, Meta modified its product to enable users to use the app without creating a profile. A profile is required if the user wishes to publish posts, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Threads users can now delete their Threads profiles without having to delete their associated Instagram accounts, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said.
Active subscribers. Threads now has just shy of 200 million monthly active users, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He predicted that figure could rise to one billion within the next few years.
By rolling out to EU countries, Threads could see up to 40 million extra monthly active users, according to independent tech analyst, Aho Williamson.
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Deep dive. Read our Threads FAQ guide for more information on how the platform works.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
