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Podcasts: A content guide for beginners

Written on February 13, 2023 at 6:51 am, by admin

If writing isn’t your forte, good news: Content marketing isn’t limited to written formats.

Any type of content that your audience can consume, learn from, and enjoy is fair game. And that includes podcasts.

Podcasting is a popular and fast-growing medium – 79% of Americans aged 12 and up are familiar with podcasting, and 62% have listened to a podcast at least once.

Podcasts exist for every topic under the sun: movies, music, fashion, beauty, news, culture, gaming, true crime, cooking, mental health, books, marketing, the environment, fiction, self-help, education, finance, comedy – and more.

No matter your industry or expertise, you can create a podcast about it.

And there’s a lot of room for newcomers: Only about 4 million podcasts exist. Compare that to the number of blogs – nearly 600 million – and you’ll see that the competition is far less stiff.

In other words, creating a podcast is a smart move for brands looking to differentiate and build trust and authority with their audiences.

Let’s dive deeper into this great content type, including how to start a podcast.

What is a podcast?

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’ve listened to at least one podcast in the past year but want to know more about them.

To define it as simply as possible, a podcast is an audio program focused on a specific topic and split into multiple episodes. Podcasts are pre-recorded, so listeners can download or stream episodes at any time through their preferred podcast channel, like Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Additionally, most podcasts feature people talking – whether they’re people telling stories, experts sharing knowledge, or a host interviewing interesting guests.

Some podcasts are nothing more than two people having a conversation in every episode. Some feature one person talking directly to the listener. There are even scripted podcasts with a continuing story like a TV show – but only dialogue and sound effects convey the fictional plot.

Whatever the format, podcasts are an audio experience that connects creators directly with listeners’ ears.

Why start a podcast?

Anyone can create a podcast – anyone.

Whether your brand is tiny or sprawling, the start-up costs are low and the equipment needed is minimal.

Plus, the continued and growing popularity of podcasts means that you’ll most likely have an audience out there who will be interested in what you produce.

For example, 50% of Americans ages 12-34 listen to podcasts monthly, and 43% of 35-54-year-olds.

Source: Buzzsprout

All that said, don’t forget the most important reason to start a podcast: a more intimate connection with your audience.

Podcast content allows you to speak directly to them and prove your expertise in a much more direct way.

Generally, podcast listeners give more time and attention to a podcast than a written article. You may have their undivided attention for 30 minutes, a stark contrast to the 90 seconds they might spend scanning a blog post.

This makes podcasts more intimate than written content and may build trust and brand awareness faster. Plus, a podcast is a fantastic demonstration of E-E-A-T, which adds to your credibility in both the eyes of searchers and search engines.

Lastly, if you publish your podcast episodes on your website with helpful show notes or transcriptions, those episodes can rank in search engines for queries your audience is searching for.

Bottom line: Podcasts are great for your brand and great for SEO.

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7 best practices for starting a podcast

Interested in starting a podcast? Start here.

1. Start small, then invest

The second after you decide to start a podcast, don’t run out and immediately buy expensive equipment.

Instead, start small. Use your smartphone and an inexpensive microphone to record your first episodes. Test how your podcast is received and determine whether you can grow it.

If the answer is yes, you can slowly invest in better recording equipment (like a smart microphone that can hone in on your voice and filter out background noise, a headset, and audio editing software), creative help (like a sound mixer or editor), and fancy graphics for cover art.

2. Choose a topic and format

One of the first tasks for creating a podcast is to choose a topic and format.

Topic: What will your podcast be about? What will you cover?
Format: How will your podcast be presented? One host? Two or three? Will you tell stories? Do interviews? Share knowledge?

The best way to uncover your main topic and format? Research.

Audience research

What do they want to hear from you? What are they interested in?

What problems or pain points do they have that you could address in your podcast?

Topic research

Find a broad overarching topic that ties into your expertise and overlaps with your business.

If you publish other content, like blogs, consider choosing the same topic area for your podcast. This gives your podcast cohesion and ties it to your other content.

You can even repurpose blog content for podcast episodes, and vice versa, if they’re thematically and topically linked.

Competitor research

Do your competitors have podcasts? What podcasts exist out there on your topic?

Look at what the competition is doing, how they format episodes, and what information they share. How can you differentiate?

3. Outline or script episodes

Before you jump into recording, you need a rough idea of what you’ll cover in each episode and how you’ll do it.

Start by brainstorming topics for at least your first 10 episodes. This will give you an idea of the mileage you’ll get out of your podcast topic/theme and help you keep each episode cohesive and relevant.

(If you struggle to come up with podcast episode topics after the first 10, that might be a sign that you need to broaden your theme or tweak it.)

Then, after your first few episode topics are set, you can write a brief outline of talking points for episode one. You don’t have to script every word you say (unless that helps you!), but you should give yourself a roadmap so you don’t get lost while recording.

Remember, each episode should have a main topic and a goal attached. You need to give listeners a reason to stay with you. Just talking randomly for 20 minutes won’t provide any value.

4. Push through initial discomfort – just press record

With your first episode outlined or scripted, you can press record.

If you’ve never podcasted before, you may have a few false starts before you get into a groove. It may feel strange or unnatural.

The best thing to do is push through and just get your recording done. Over time, you’ll get more comfortable. Don’t give up just because things didn’t go perfectly the first time you tried. You will get better at this the more you do it!

5. Include an intro and outro

Almost all professional-sounding podcasts include a short introduction, where listeners may hear a snippet of music and the host welcoming them to the podcast and introducing the episode topic.

Then, to give listeners a satisfying sense of completion, include an outro (a.k.a., conclusion) that mirrors the intro but instead signs off and sets up expectations for the next episode.

These two bookends help your podcast sound more polished and organized, which listeners enjoy.

6. Optimize

Optimizing your podcast gives it the best chance of being found by listeners. There are a few key areas to focus on for optimization:

Podcast title: Keep it short, sweet, and relevant to your brand and chosen theme.
Podcast category: Choose the category that best fits the content of your podcast.
Podcast description: This description is what potential listeners will read to discover what your podcast is about and whether they want to listen. Keep this user-focused and make sure to include relevant keywords.
Podcast cover art: Keep it simple, clear, and eye-catching. Don’t try to cram too much text on your cover art. If you can, invest in a graphic designer to create this for you. If you don’t have the means for that right now, try using templates on Canva.

7. Choose a podcast hosting platform

Finally, when it’s time to submit your podcast to platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, know that you need to have a separate host for your audio files first.

Your podcast hosting service stores your podcast episodes and generates an RSS feed, which is what you’ll submit to podcast platforms.

You’ll only have to do this once, as the RSS feed should update automatically when you upload new episodes to your host service.

Hosting services to check out include Podbean, Buzzsprout, or Transistor.

5 great podcast examples

Now that you understand the basic steps to starting a podcast, it’s time to get some inspiration.

Here are some excellent examples of brands, creatives, journalists, and businesspeople doing this medium justice.

Branded podcast: Inside Trader Joe’s

Trader Joe’s is a grocery chain known for its unique products and seasonal items.

On its podcast, hosts go inside stores and behind the scenes to give you the scoop on cult products and how the company works.

Advice podcast: Not Another Anxiety Show

Host Kelli Walker is a registered nurse, certified health and wellness coach, and former agoraphobe.

This anxiety-focused podcast offers guidance, tips, and resources for working through the disorder from Kelli and a myriad of experts.

Fictional podcast: Limetown

This fictional podcast tells the story of the strange disappearance of over 300 people from a small Tennessee town.

It plays out like you’re listening to a real investigative podcast, which makes it even more immersive. This podcast was so popular it was turned into a TV show.

Finance podcast: Money Girl

The Money Girl podcast is hosted by a personal finance and business expert, Laura D. Adams, who breaks down complex financial and small business topics for listeners, making them fun and easy.

Investigative podcast: In the Dark

This award-winning podcast features in-depth investigative journalism on true crime stories gone awry. Each season focuses on one case and dives into every detail. As it happens, the second season was instrumental in helping free a man from prison.

Note: True crime podcasts have exploded in popularity since “Serial” was released in 2014. The best of them are great examples of storytelling and are worth a glance for inspiration.

Ready to start your podcast?

If by now you’re excited to start your podcast, that’s a great sign.

The best thing you can do is dive in with enthusiasm because that passion will show up in your end product.

Any person, brand, or creator can start a podcast.

Just remember to start small, research and plan your topic based on what your audience would love to hear, roughly outline what you’ll say in each episode, and take the time to optimize.

Happy podcasting!

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Overcoming the paradox of personalization to meet consumer expectations by BlueConic

Written on February 13, 2023 at 6:51 am, by admin

With growing privacy concerns, consumers are rethinking what data they’re willing to give to brands, and over 80% of CMOs say privacy has changed their perception of personalization.

Join the webinar featuring BlueConic’s Khurram Moiz, principal customer success manager, and special guest, Forrester Senior Analyst, Jessica Liu, as they discuss the state of consumer personalization and outline the strategy, data and technology needed to successfully design and execute personalized experiences.

Tune in to find out:

• When consumers want personalization throughout their lifecycle.
• Why highly technical teams are not required.
• Real-world examples of how first-party data can unlock innovation.

Reserve your spot today.

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This day in search marketing history: February 13

Written on February 13, 2023 at 6:51 am, by admin

Google AMP stories launch

In 2018, Google launched a new, visually rich mobile content format designed to generate more engagement from users.

Breaking with previous guidance, Google didn’t intend for this type of AMP content to match your non-mobile content. Instead, this mobile-only content was supposed to be unique.

Specifically, Google said AMP Story content should be “fulfilling and standalone.”

In addition to Hearst and The Washington Post, Google worked with CNN, Meredith, Mashable, Mic, Vox and Condé Nast to develop and roll out AMP Stories.

Dig deeper:

Also on this day

Google: ‘We do updates all the time’ — somewhat confirming February update rumors

2020: Google’s Danny Sullivan referred to the company’s advice given around “several updates” in November 2019.

Big Google Partners program changes are coming: What you’ll need to qualify

2020: There were new requirements for agencies to achieve and maintain Google Partner status starting in June.

Google backtracks on using (relevant) keywords in your Google My Business description

2020: An update to the help page about adding keywords to improve visibility in local search results was disputed by local SEOs and quickly removed.

TechTarget cites technical SEO issues as reason for 25% decline in Google traffic

2020: In TechTarget’s recent earnings report, the company said unpaid traffic represented 94% of overall traffic in the quarter.

Business owners can now reply to reviews on Google Maps desktop

2019: Business owners with verified Google My Business listings could reply to reviews left about their business directly in Google Maps on desktop.

Google tests ads in Assistant results

2019: With the Assistant on a billion devices, the move was inevitable.

Google enables ‘join waitlist’ for restaurants

2019: Clicking on the join waitlist button opened a screen that identifies the current wait time and enabled users to input their party size.

Google launches new look for ‘people also search for’ search refinements

2018: The suggestions either loaded on delay or when a user clicked on a result and then clicked back to the search results.

Spotted: Links to competing shopping engines in UK Google Shopping results

2018: The new “inclusive” look was in response to the European Commission’s antitrust ruling against Google.

Google: No comment on possibility of a Feb. 7 algorithm update

2017: Many webmasters and SEOs were noticing some significant changes in Google’s search rankings algorithm.

Google’s ‘people also ask’ search feature officially gains dynamic loading

2017: Google’s people also ask feature gained a new way for searchers to explore topics in the desktop and mobile search results.

Google Maps new feature lets users create lists of saved places that can be shared & accessed offline

2017: Users could keep track of saved places and share lists with others via text, email and popular messaging apps.

Google Webmaster Tools Data Stopped Updating Almost A Week Ago

2015: The data and tools had stopped updating Feb. 7.

Search In Pics: Google Disco Ball, A Cacoon & YouTube Cafe

2015: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Google Offers Advice On Faceted Navigation & Infinite Scroll Web Pages

2014: Techniques to make infinite scroll pages and faceted navigation more search engine friendly.

Will 11th Hour Objections Derail The Google-EU Antitrust Settlement?

2014: EU Commissioners were considering forcing additional discussions or preventing the settlement from becoming final.

Bing Ads Expands Mobile Sitelinks Coverage In US, Will Roll Out To EU Markets

2014: Bing Ads had enabled over 60% of the mobile traffic on the Yahoo Bing Network to run sitelinks in the U.S.

Green Ribbon, Minimum Wage, Climate Changes: Google Searches For The State Of The Union

2013: Some of the interesting trends we saw on Google due to the State of the Union address.

Panic Flu Searches May Have Tricked Google Flu Trends Into Thinking Things Were Worse

2013: Google Flu Trends overshot the percent of the U.S. population with influenza-like illness by nearly double what the CDC reported.

A “Cool” Google Rich Snippet For Snow Conditions

2013: It contained snow depth statistics, new snow stats within 24 and 72 hours, the conditions of the snow, the lifts open on the mountain, the current weather and more.

Google Hits 67 Percent Market Share Again, Bing Hits Another All-Time High [comScore]

2013: Search activity was up 11% in January over December, to almost 19.5 billion “core” searches.

Google Fixes Bug That Required Cookies To Search

2012: Google also initially reconfirmed that requiring cookies “is not something we’re testing or rolling out.”

Where’s It Hurt? After You Search For A Symptom, New Google Health Search Results Suggest Causes

2012: Google introduced improved results that shortened the time from symptom-related search to the discovery of potential medical causes and conditions.

Google Apologizes, Continues To Tweak Buzz

2010: Google announced three tweaks to Buzz (including changing auto-follow to auto-suggest) and offered an apology for what it called a “challenging week.”

Google: ‘Don’t Blame Us For Terrorism’

2009: Google said it shouldn’t be blamed for terrorist use of Google Earth.

Google Analytics On The iPhone: 3 Apps Reviewed

2009: The good, bad, and ugly of Google Analytics apps on the iPhone (Analytics App, myAnalytics and Analytics Pro).

Newspapers, Google And The “Devaluation” Of Content

2009: “Google is great for Google, but it’s terrible for content providers, because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively.”

Android Paid Apps Launch: “It’s Business Time”

2009: developers can start charging for their apps and consumers will start gaining access to and paying for selected apps on Android phones.

Yahoo Discontinues MyWeb, Pushes Delicious

2009: MyWeb launched in 2005, as part of Yahoo’s vision for a “very individual Web.”

Google AdWords To “Strictly Enforce” Display URL Policy

2008: The policy was remaining the same, but starting April 1, Google would begin “strictly enforcing” it.

Google Study: 1.3% Google Searches Return At Least One Malicious Result

2008: They checked 66.5 million URLs and found that 3.4 million were “suspicious” and 3.4 million were malicious, pointing to 181,699 landing sites.

News Corporation A Potential Partner For Yahoo In Avoiding Microsoft, Google Interest ‘Wanes’

2008: Antitrust realities were likely at the heart of Google’s diminishing interest in a search deal.

Third Annual Yahoo Searchlight Awards Happen Against Surreal Backdrop

2008: As Yahoo was laying off its promised 1,000 workers.

Microsoft adCenter Says No To Spanish Landing Pages For US Traffic

2008: The landing page was targeting U.S.-based Spanish-speaking customers.

WPP To Consolidate Search Agencies Under GroupM And Outrider Brand

2008: This consolidation created a global search agency with offices on multiple continents.

Google On Centerfold Of Marie Claire

2008: The 12-page piece was named Fashion for Work at the Google Headquarters and highlighted model Britni Standwood throughout the Googleplex.

Google Maps Adds “Report Incorrect Data” Link

2007: For any unverified business listing, Google would show a “report incorrect data” link that took you to a page to easily notify Google of the problem.

Google Search Results Now May Display Malware Warnings

2007: Google’s “This site may harm your computer” message linked directly to a Google help document explaining the message in more detail.

Google Ads Getting New Google Checkout Badges

2007: The icon would be updated to a badge format similar to the Google Checkout buttons used by merchants since the program started.

Google Loses In Belgium Newspaper Case

2007: A Belgium court found that Google did violate copyright when including material from several Belgian newspapers in its search index.

InfoSpace Joins Forces With FAST For Mobile Search

2007: It sought to marry InfoSpace’s carrier relationships and content expertise with FAST’s search technology and PPC platform on mobile devices.

Wordtracker Adds UK Keywords Option To Keyword Tools

2007: Those wanting to target the UK region would have an option to specify UK keywords only and be shown related keywords based on that data.

SingingFish.com Now Redirects To AOL Video Search

2007: AOL purchased SingingFish.com in November 2003.

Special Valentine’s Day Cards For SEOs

2007: Messages included “I love you more than links from Google itself,” “Roses are red, violets are blue, link bait is fun and so are you.”

Eurekster Adds More ‘Wiki’ To Swickis

2007: Eurekster added Q&A functionality to Swickis (social site-search widgets) and the ability for site users to add links directly into the site’s index.

From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)

SMX West ’09 Day Three Recap

Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

< February 12 | Search Marketing History | February 14 >

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This day in search marketing history: February 12

Written on February 12, 2023 at 2:45 am, by admin

Google penalizes JCPenney for link scheme

In 2011, JCPenney was caught engaging in link schemes and, as a result, found itself on the receiving end of a Google penalty.

The New York Times was apparently perplexed by how well jcpenney.com ranked in organic search for practically everything the retailer sold. So they asked someone familiar with SEO to look into it.

What they found: JCPenney’s site had thousands of peculiar links pointing to it with very descriptive anchor text. The Times shared its findings with Google – and Google took manual action. The JCPenney website was nowhere to be found on Google for the queries they had previously ranked number one for.

JCPenney said they knew nothing about the links – and subsequently fired their SEO firm.

Read all about it in New York Times Exposes JCPenney Link Scheme That Causes Plummeting Rankings in Google.

Also on this day

New chart annotations make Google Ads’ change history reports much easier to navigate

2020: Annotations were available in campaign-level change reports in the Google Ads UI.

Video: Ann Smarty on the history of guest blogging & the future of link building

2020: Smart ran MyBlogGuest, which got hit hard when Google cracked down on guest blogging.

For retail advertisers, Shopping ads continue to overshadow text ads

2019: Fourth-quarter reports from Marin and Merkle highlighted the importance of Shopping ads for merchants’ search advertising strategies.

Analyst: 8 billion voice assistants by 2023

2019: Analyst firm Juniper Research predicted “nearly 8 billion digital voice assistants to be in use by 2023.”

Google, Getty Images enter a multi-year global licensing partnership

2018: The deal effectively ended Getty’s European antitrust complaint against Google.

Google Won’t Provide SEO Certifications To Webmasters Or SEO Companies

2016: Google discussed internally if they should add an SEO certification program and decided not to do so.

AdWords Automated Bidding Gets An Overhaul: Welcome, Portfolio Bid Strategies

2016: Terminology changes came with some new functionality, including the ability to set different CPA targets at the ad group level within the same bid strategy.

Google Mobile Image Search Adds Drop-Down & Other UI Changes

2016: Google added a drop-down menu on the image search result page for mobile devices and tweaked some more user interface features.

Streetmap Loses Anti-Competitive Lawsuit Against Google In UK

2016: Streetmap had sued on grounds that putting Google Maps at the top of search results was an “abuse of competition.”

Search In Pics: Google Jedi Master, Aerial Silks Class & Sundar Pichai Meets NFL’s Ronnie Lott

2016: The latest images showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

Google’s Search Impact Report Goes Live For Select Few Webmasters

2015: Google released the alpha version of their new search queries report in Google Webmaster Tools to a small number of Webmasters for feedback and testing.

Now It’s Expedia Vs. Priceline As Orbitz Swallowed For $1.6 Billion

2015: After buying Travelocity the previous month, Expedia grabbed Orbitz in competitive bidding.

Google’s Matt Cutts On Being A Spam Fighter: Looking For Patterns & Always New Spam Efforts

2014: He answers the question “What’s it like to fight webspam at Google?”

5 Times Google Penalized Itself For Breaking Its Own SEO Rules

2014: When Google took action against itself – Google Chrome, Beat That Quote, Google AdWords (2x) and Google Japan.

Microsoft: We Don’t Censor Search Outside China

2014: An article asserted that Bing search results for Chinese language speakers in the U.S. were radically different than those in English for controversial terms such as “Tiananmen Square” or “Dalai Lama.”

Report: Mobile To Drive A Third Of Paid-Search Clicks By Year End

2013: The company said that as of December 2012, mobile devices accounted for 23.4% of all US paid-search clicks.

Bing Ads Updates Pro Accreditation Training; Exam Is Now Free

2013: Among the changes, Bing transitioned the training segments from video based to text based content.

Foursquare Improves Android App, Makes Search More Prominent

2013: An “Explore” search box was added at the top of the screen.

Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me: “I Search Google. So Does Bing”

2011: NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” quiz show did a funny send up over Google’s accusations that Bing was copying Google’s search results.

Google AdWords Now Offering “Bid Ideas”

2010: The feature gave suggestions on if you should increase or decrease your bids on certain keywords.

Google Tweaks Mobile Search, Adds Olympics Onebox, Yahoo Offers Dedicated Mobile Olympics Site

2010: Google made some subtle changes to its mobile homepage and searchbox.

Google May Offer Buzz Independently From Gmail

2010: “It’s clear that interest in Buzz may extend beyond the current Gmail base, and we’re open to serving that community.”

Google Offers Beta Features In New “Maps Labs”

2010: So that people could get a look at new functionality and Google can get early feedback on potential new features to introduce.

Google’s Sergey Brin Talking China At TED

2010: A transcript of an impromptu Q&A with Google cofounder Sergey Brin on Google’s decision to leave China.

Nielsen: Bing Regains December’s Losses In January

2010: Bing’s January share wiped out its drop from December.

Yahoo Founders To Sell Up To 5 Million Shares

2010: Jerry Yang, the former CEO, would be selling 3 million shares and David Filo would sell up to 2 million shares.

Google, Yahoo & Microsoft Unite On “Canonical Tag” To Reduce Duplicate Content Clutter

2009: The birth of the rel="canonical" link element. The search engines would use this as a hint, not as a directive.

Google Turns Off Radio Ads

2009: Google Audio Ads and Google Radio Automation wasn’t as successful as they hoped

Google Buys Paper Mill In Finland For New Data Center

2009: It cost $51.7 million.

Google “My Tracks” Uses Android GPS To Capture Outdoor Performance

2009: It helped runners, skiers, bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts capture their routes and performance using the phone’s GPS chip.

Microsoft Continues Peeling Off Yahoo Search Talent

2009: Yahoo executive Larry Heck would be working on Microsoft search.

Internet Ads Grow; Google Sees Slight Decline

2008: IDC reported that overall Internet advertising had grown 27% year over year to $25.5 billion in 2007.

Google Maps Adds Street View Photography For Several New Cities

2008: 30 cities had the street views feature.

Mobile Musical Chairs: Google Befriends Nokia; Yahoo Snags T-Mobile Europe

2008: Yahoo appeared to have replaced Google as the search provider for T-Mobile in Europe, while Google became a major search partner of Nokia.

Tech Companies Go After Yahoo Employees In Wake Of Microsoft & Layoff News

2008: The companies were seeking developers, project managers, and key executives who may have wanted to jump ship ahead of a possible Yahoo-Microsoft merger and upcoming layoffs. Related: Updated: Yahoo Layoffs Happening Now

MSNbot 1.1: Live Search Implements A More Efficient Crawl

2008: Microsoft announced changes to their Live Search crawler intended to reduce bandwidth resources during the crawl of a site.

Google Accused Of Profiting On Film Piracy: Discussions Continue

2007: Google is said to have supported two websites that allegedly offered pirated movies in part by an ad rep suggesting they bid on terms like “bootleg movie download.”

What Are Google Sitelinks?

2007: Many more people were reporting seeing Google Sitelinks update.

Yahoo Signs Mobile Advertisers; Google Partners With Vodafone On Maps, Live Search Mobile Leaving Beta

2007: A variety of expected mobile announcements ahead of 3GSM World Congress.

Search Love Triangle: Ask.com Wants Those Looking For Yahoo.com On Google.com

2007: We’ve never heard of a search engine advertising for those seeking another search engine on a third search engine. Until now.

Ironically, You Need A Map To Find Google & Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Map Apps

2007: It was an incredible challenge.

Yahoo Go For Mobile Goes “Gamma,” LG Partnership Announced

2007: It featured the ability for consumers to search directly from maps and share oneSearch results, news articles and the service directly with friends.

Microsoft, Google & Others To Build New Wireless Device?

2007: Was this a way for these companies to offer mobile services without having to work with mobile carriers?

Ask.com Chooses Central Washington For New Data Center

2007: In related news, it seemed like Google’s North Carolina deal was going to be reviewed by the Senate Finance Committee.

Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

< February 11 | Search Marketing History | February 13 >

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This day in search marketing history: February 11

Written on February 10, 2023 at 10:33 pm, by admin

Yahoo officially rejects Microsoft

In 2008, rumor became reality as Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s $45 billion bid to buy Yahoo.

The company concluded that the proposal substantially undervalued Yahoo and was not in the best interests of Yahoo and its stockholders.

Microsoft basically rejected Yahoo’s rejection, calling it “unfortunate” and pledging to “pursue all necessary steps” to get what it called its “full and fair” proposal to be accepted.

In other words, this wasn’t the end of the story.

Dig deeper:

Also on this day

Google Ads issue results in missing conversions from data-driven attribution

2022: The company was working on recovering the data.

Google ad label experiment makes it easier to distinguish paid results

2022: The design was a throwback to 2017’s green, boxed ad labels.

3 changes coming to Google Ads automated extensions

2022: Automated and manual extensions could be shown together, Google Ads added a report and they could be added at ad group, campaign, or account level.

Google passage ranking now live in US English search results

2021: Google said it could have a 7% impact on search queries.

Google Image Search update reduces duplicate image results

2021: Google wanted to display images that were relevant yet visually distinct.

Google My Business adds messaging to desktop interface

2021: Businesses could message customers through their web browser, not just the mobile app.

Google Search dark theme mode expands but search ads are hard to distinguish

2021: Light mode showed a black ad label on a white background but on dark mode, it showed a gray ad label on a black background.

A Google Ads setting allowed advertisers to exclude people of ‘unknown gender’

2021: Employers, landlords and credit providers could keep their ads from showing to people of “unknown gender,” enabling discrimination against nonbinary individuals.

The onus of diversity should not fall to Black marketers

2021: Keys to diversity and inclusion include mentorship and promotion of Black search marketers.

Unconfirmed Google Search ranking update feels big

2020: It seemed like Google had pushed out some ranking algorithm change over the weekend, resulting in a large shift in the rankings of many websites.

Google resolves rejected Posts problem

2020: New Posts would publish after the “fix” and rejected Posts would go live that week.

Conditional IF functions now available in all Microsoft Advertising accounts

2020: Scale expanded text ad messaging by device or audience – and it worked with Google import.

Yelp launches ‘Showcase Ads’ and store visits attribution

2020: The products were intended for national and multi-location brands.

Warner Bros. renamed the Harley Quinn movie for better SEO

2020: After a disappointing opening weekend, the film’s new title began showing up on movie ticket booking sites last night.

How Google will shift resources to media search and other tidbits from Gary Illyes’ AMA on Reddit

2019: The Google webmaster trends analyst also touched on topics like the possibility of an Indexing API, whether internal over-linking penalties exist and how the clustering of duplicate pages works.

Google Ads bringing click share to Search campaign competitive metrics

2019: The rollout of click share could be seen as a follow-up to the position metrics Google introduced the prior fall, as average position had become less useful.

Bing Ads multiple language targeting: What you need to know

2019: Bing Ads issued additional guidance for advertisers wanting to target multi-lingual users who may search in multiple languages.

Is Google Maps what augmented reality has been waiting for?

2019: Google was actively testing augmented walking directions with select Local Guides.

Retailers: GTINs Required By May 16 For Google Product Listing Ads

2016: GTINs would be required for brand name products sold by multiple merchants.

Google Says There’s No Whitelist To Save You From Panda Or Penguin

2015: Google’s John Mueller said there was no whitelist (or “exception lists”) for the Penguin and Panda algorithms.

Bing Ads Offers Search Insights For Mother’s Day Marketers

2015: A $20 billion holiday in the U.S., Mother’s Day-related searches started rising roughly a month in advance, though search habits varied by gift category.

Google Showing Restaurant Menus In Card-Style Search Result

2014: Google started showing complete restaurant menus in its search results when a query specifically looked for menu information.

Google In Trouble Again Over Racist Search Suggestions In UK

2014: Google was suggesting racist terms when users searched for a number of UK cities, including Bradford, Leicester and Birmingham.

Bing Ads Updates Reporting Capabilities, Chiefly Conversion Performance Insights

2014: Bing Ads introduced the full set of conversion fields to all Performance reports.

Yelp Supersizes Its Local Profiles, Makes Them Less Busy

2014: Business profile pages were changed to emphasize images, featured user reviews and key pieces of local content.

Google’s Cutts On How To Locate Unnatural Links Pointing To Your Web Site

2013: Cutts answers: “How do I know which links to remove when I get an ‘unnatural links’ message?

Financial Analyst Affirms Google’s $1 Billion In “Default Search” Payments To Apple

2013: It was believed that Google paid Apple roughly $3.20 per iOS device, which would avoid the accounting issues arising from a revenue-sharing agreement.

Google Still World’s Most Popular Search Engine By Far, But Share Of Unique Searchers Dips Slightly

2013: Google led in the number of searches, but had seen a marked drop in unique searchers over the past few months.

Google Now (And Nexus 4) Featured In Grammy Show Commercial

2013: The Apple-like ad showed people around the world getting useful and “just in time” information from Google Now.

Bill Gates On Google: “Bing Is The Better Product”

2013: Although Gates never really said which search engine he used.

Google’s Recent Domain Registrations: Labs, Screenwise & AdWords

2012: Google registered 14 domains.

Bing Sees 13% Spike In Searches In January

2011: Google dropped from 66.6% to 65.6% share, still way in front of Bing, Yahoo, and their combined numbers.

US Lawmakers Voice Concerns Over Google-ITA Deal

2011: Critics argued that once Google became a participant in the travel services market, it might use its advertising dominance to steer consumers to its services, further limiting competition.

Google Promotes Hotpot, Places In Austin In Advance of SXSW

2011: Google representatives would meet with local businesses to talk up the benefits of promoting their goods and services through Places.

Nokia Is The New Yahoo: Microsoft OS, Bing To Power Its Smartphones

2011: Nokia would build and distribute Windows Phones as its primary competitive offering to go head-to-head with the iPhone and Android.

January 2011: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories

2011: Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from January 2011.

SEO Industry Cries Foul Over Google SEO ‘Services’

2010: A vocal contingent of SEOs were up in arms over Google “offering SEO consulting services.”

Aardvark Acquired By Google

2010: For $50 million.

Sergey Brin Might Do Google Buzz

2010: Brin and other Googlers either needed to be enabled to tap into the public version of Google Buzz or open new accounts.

Google AdSense Using Search History In Contextual Matching

2010: If you searched for something and clicked through to a site with AdSense ads on them, Google would store the query that led to that website and use it 2 or so hours later, when you visited another website with AdSense ads on them.

Bing Updates Webmaster FAQs

2010: The PDF download was 28 pages long, 82 questions and answers deep and broken out in 12 categories.

Bing Demos StreetSide With Flickr Photos, Live Video & “Bing Sky”

2010: Bing announced that in the near future, it would allow people using StreetSide to look “up” virtually and see what was in the sky.

Yahoo Search: This Is The “Dark Time” But We’ll Be Back

2010: Yahoo sought to dispel the “misconception” that Yahoo was no longer investing in search.

Google Penalizes Google Japan For Buying Links

2009: Cutts said Google.co.jp PageRank was ~5 instead of ~9 and he expected it to stay that way for a while. He also confirmed it was a paid link penalty.

Google Maps Nearly Catches MapQuest: Hitwise Report

2009: It showed the continuing ascent of Google Maps and the simultaneous decline of MapQuest traffic during 2008.

Gmail Labs Adds Location To Signatures

2009: You could append your current location to your email signature, when you used Gmail or Google Apps email within the Gmail interface.

Microsoft Beefs Up Enterprise Search

2009: Microsoft was starting to integrate FAST Search & Transfer’s capabilities into its other products and to market FAST more aggressively.

New Ask Datacenter Expands Search Capacity

2009: Ask made a bid to improve its search index and efficiency, having completed a move to a new datacenter.

Yahoo! BOSS Expands Feature Set; Adds Usage Fees

2009: In exchange for the introduction of fees, BOSS added several new features. Key among them was the ability to monetize results.

How To Track Keyword-Based Tweets Within Your Twitter Stream

2009: Twhirl to the rescue.

Google Wins Upside Down Social Security Number Privacy Lawsuit

2008: Complainant claimed when you turned his social security number upside down, it spelled Google.

SEO Makes Oprah In Roundabout Way

2008: Rand Fishkin was slated to share how he popped the question to his fiancee.

The Googliest Place On Earth: Google Takes Over Disneyland

2008: Instead of going skiing, as they had traditionally done for their annual company trips, Google went to Disneyland.

Google: We Didn’t Censor Aboutrika’s Gaza T-Shirt Photo

2008: Google Images search team debunked a rumor that Google censored an image of an Egyptian football player stripping off his team jersey during the African Cup Of Nations to show a “Sympathize With Gaza” T-shirt underneath.

Microsoft Buys Danger

2008: Maker of the T-mobile “Sidekick” device and the Danger operating system and platform.

Chipmakers Demo Android Prototype Phones In Barcelona

2008: Would Android be the success Google was hoping for?

From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)

Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

< February 10 | Search Marketing History | February 12 >

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Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) may gain more weight in overall Google Core Web Vitals or maybe not…

Written on February 10, 2023 at 10:33 pm, by admin

Google is updating its Lighthouse 10 tool to remove one of the overall Core Web Vitals metrics, Time To Interactive (TTI).

Google will be assigning the TTI weight to Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which will give CLS a total of 25% of the overall performance score.

TTI is not a Core Web Vitals metric used in Search Console or ranking, but it was used in Lighthouse, Google’s developer tool.

What Google said. Google posted on its Chrome developer blog:

“The venerable Time To Interactive (TTI) metric is being removed in Lighthouse 10, concluding the deprecation process started in Lighthouse 8. TTI’s 10% score weight is shifting to Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which will now account for 25% of the overall performance score.”

– Brendan Kenny, What’s new in Lighthouse 10

Does it matter for ranking? Technically, this might have zero impact on overall rankings in Google Search. Core Web Vitals is a minimal ranking factor in general and the current Core Web Vitals includes largest contentful paint (LCP), first input delay (FID), and cumulative layout shift (CLS). TTI is not included.

John Mueller from Google confirmed this change does not impact rankings, as we originally reported:

CWV are independent of Lighthouse scores (there might be some components that overlap, but the scoring Lighthouse does is separate).

— johnmu is a ranking factor and so are you (@JohnMu) February 10, 2023

Lighthouse 10 changing. Just the Lighthouse tool is changing. The scores you see in Google Search Console specifically likely won’t change related to TTI being removed. Now, Lighthouse 10 will assign the weights as follows:

Total blocking time 30%
Cumulative layout shift 25%
Largest contentful paint 25%
Speed index 10%
First contentful paint 10%

What are Core Web Vitals? It is a set of metrics Google introduced in 2020. Google defines it as:

“The subset of Web Vitals that apply to all web pages, should be measured by all site owners, and will be surfaced across all Google tools. Each of the Core Web Vitals represents a distinct facet of the user experience, is measurable in the field, and reflects the real-world experience of a critical user-centric outcome.”

The current set of Core Web Vitals focuses on three aspects of the user experience – loading, interactivity, and visual stability – and includes the following metrics (and their respective thresholds):

Google Core Web Vitals 1590577793 800x232

LCD, FID and CLS. Here are the thresholds for largest contentful paint, first input delay and cumulative layout shift:

LCP: measures loading performance. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.
FID: measures interactivity. To provide a good user experience, pages should have a FID of less than 100 milliseconds.
CLS: measures visual stability. To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1.

More details. Google has a help document for this specific report.

Google said that this report is based on three metrics: LCP, FID, and CLS. If a URL does not have a minimum amount of reporting data for any of these metrics, it is omitted from the report. Once a URL has a threshold amount of data for any metric, the page status is the status of its most poorly performing metric.

Status metrics are evaluated against the following boundaries:

	Good	Need improvement	Poor
LCP	<=2.5s	<=4s	>4s
FID	<=100ms	<=300ms	>300ms
CLS	<=0.1	<=0.25	>0.25

Why we care. I asked Google if there will be any changes related to rankings with this change but it seems unlikely. It is worth noting that Google, in general web development, does not care about TTI anymore but does care more about CLS.

So if you see these changes in Lighthouse, just keep these in mind.

John Mueller from Google confirmed this change does not impact rankings, as we originally reported:

CWV are independent of Lighthouse scores (there might be some components that overlap, but the scoring Lighthouse does is separate).

— johnmu is a ranking factor and so are you (@JohnMu) February 10, 2023

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New updates to Google’s gambling and games policy

Written on February 10, 2023 at 10:33 pm, by admin

Google will begin to accept and run ads for online horse racing in the following states:

Maryland
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
Virginia

The Google Ads Gambling and games policy for United States country-specifics will be updated in February 2023.

Advertisers must apply for certification. Application for certification will be open to advertisers who wish to promote online gambling content in the above states on February 22, 2023.

The Gambling and games policy page will be updated when the policy goes into effect.

Why we care. If you or your clients are involved in sports betting, or your brand is in this field, will soon have the opportunity to advertise on Google and target users in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, thereby expanding your reach to potential customers.

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Microsoft: Bing saw the largest relevancy jump in search in two decades

Written on February 9, 2023 at 6:33 pm, by admin

Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President & Consumer Marketing Office at Microsoft, announced on Tuesday that Bing Search saw “the largest jump in relevance in two decades” after applying the AI model to the Bing core search ranking engine.

Much of the focus was on the new ChatGPT features in Bing Search, and while our coverage touched on the relevancy aspect, I wanted to pull it out a bit more.

What he said. “But a few weeks ago, something special happened. We applied the AI model to our core search ranking engine and we saw the largest jump in relevance in two decades. We believe we can continue to drive breakthroughs as we improve the models,” Yusuf Mehdi said. You can listen to what he said at the 19:43 mark in this video.

Chart. Yusuf showed this chart documenting the relevancy boost in Bing Search quality:

Bing ranking update. There was indeed a Bing ranking update around January 18th, as Glenn Gabe posted on the Search Engine Roundtable. That was a few weeks prior to this presentation, so the relevancy bump and the previously unconfirmed reports of a Bing search ranking algorithm update prove it.

Yes, Bing did a massive update to how it ranks search results around January 18th. “I received several reports of serious volatility with Bing rankings and traffic starting on January 18th into January 19th, and I dug in a bit across sites. And yes, it does look like there was some type of algorithm update that heavily impacted some sites,” Glenn Gabe wrote.

Why we care. Bing, while it has a much smaller market share compared to Google, is still a player in search. It may be an even larger player in search in the coming months and years if it can continue to improve relevancy and innovate with new search concepts, such as chat and other AI integrations.

We are living during such exciting times ins search right now and expect a lot more from Bing and other search engines.

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TikTok enhances organic content reach with improved ‘Promote’ features

Written on February 9, 2023 at 6:33 pm, by admin

TikTok has expanded its quick Promote ad feature with four new options, making it easier for brands to increase the visibility of their posts through a streamlined campaign creation process within the platform.

The new Promote campaigns. Brands will now be able to:

Drive more visits to your TikTok page – TikTok’s added a new Promote goal focused on driving traffic back to your TikTok page, as opposed to your website
Get more messages from potential customers – Prompt more direct interaction in the app with a new ‘more messages’ Promote goal
Boost other creators’ content – Brands can also now use Promote to amplify content from creators that they’re working with. ‘Creators can also use Promote for others to give a boost to the content, creators and businesses they want the world to see.’
Target your audience by location – Finally, TikTok’s also added location as another qualifier in its Promote targeting tools, providing more ways for SMBs, in particular, to reach relevant audiences in the app.

Dig deeper. You can read the full announcement from TikTok here.

Why we care. The Promote feature is a convenient method for boosting the performance of your top organic content, as well as the option to promote popular creator clips, offering a way to leverage trending material and optimize your advertising efforts.

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2 free tools for tracking your Google reviews

Written on February 9, 2023 at 6:33 pm, by admin

When a consumer chooses a business, one of the first things they look at is their Google reviews.

Consumers want to know what other people who have used a company previously think about that business before agreeing to give them their money.

This is why it is essential for business owners to keep track of their Google reviews as well as their competition.

Keeping track of your reviews

There are many tools on the market these days, but I have yet to find one that keeps track of reviews that get deleted. So, I think it is important to keep track of this yourself.

GMB Everywhere

GMB Everywhere is a great tool for keeping track of the number of reviews you have and your average rating.

If you keep track of the number of reviews you have in a spreadsheet you will be able to see if you are losing reviews when Google does “review sweeps.”

In addition, you can see if your average rating is increasing or decreasing.

Of course, if you realize your average rating is decreasing, you need to audit your reviews to determine what you can change about your business.

PlePer

PlePer is another great tool to help businesses know about their competition.

To use it, enter a keyword the tool will tell you the average number of reviews and the average rating based on the businesses listed.

Since we know reviews are so important, keeping track of what your competition is doing matters.

If you keep track of this, you will know if you need more reviews (compared to your competitors) and what your average rating is (compared to your competitors).