5. Official: Google’s Green Outline Ad Label Replacing Solid Green Version
Search Engine Land has received confirmation from Google that they are moving away from the solid green ad label to the new outlined version.
Google has a long history of testing new labelling for their ads which is backed by their enormous amount of data. Nothing Google does in the search results is by accident, so if they are rolling this out it means one thing: better ad performance.
We first saw reports of the new label about a month ago and since then it has been steadily appearing in more and more searches.
Search Engine Land has also updated their visual history of Google ad labelling: http://searchengineland.com/search-ad-labeling-history-google-bing-254332
Full article: http://searchengineland.com/official-googles-green-outlined-ad-label-replacing-solid-green-version-269868
4. Bing rejected 130M ads in 2016, including 17M tech support scam ads
Bing Ads has reported on the things it has done to keep you safe from misleading and dangerous ads. The Bing Ads system rejected 130 million ads (down 48% from last year) and banned 175,000 advertisers (a rise of 17% year on year).
Microsoft continues their battle against phishing ads, tech support scams and counterfeit goods and more than 7,000 sites were blocked from the system.
Original article: https://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-gb/blog/post/february-2017/ad-quality-year-in-review-2016-(1)
3. Google Data Studio now connects to Search Console
If you haven’t seen this before, Google Data Studio is a fantastic dash boarding/reporting tool available to everyone with a Google account.
It’s really simple to use and utilises a drag and drop functionality similar to PowerPoint. It has pre-built templates for you to use and to get inspiration from too. Reports are shareable via email.
The only downside at the moment is that there is no ‘Export to PDF’ button making historical commentary difficult at the moment.
Its connection to Search Console makes it even more robust now and will allow marketers the ability to consolidate their existing dashboards.
Oh, and did we mention it is free?!
Full article: http://searchengineland.com/google-data-studio-search-console-connection-268940
2. Three Tactics for Hyperlocal Keywords
The main problem with any keyword research that we perform as an industry is that there is never enough volume when you boil it down to the super local terms which are going to bring in the business for your company.
Take Intergage as the example here, if you’re looking for a marketing agency and happened to search for this on Google you would be presented with a page which looks like this:
As much as we would like to, there is no way we can compete with some of the big agencies in London, Manchester and Leeds - and we don’t want to. Add in Poole to your search and things get much more interesting for us:
While this is a no brainer for our agency, what it shows is that locality and relevance play a big part in finding exactly what you want.
Original article: https://moz.com/blog/3-tactics-for-hyperlocal-keywords-whiteboard-friday
1. The Keyword + Year Content/Rankings Hack
Another gem from Moz, here Rand breaks down a nice keyword hack which should bring you a nice amount of traffic based on my general keyword research.
If your industry is based on design or technology, this is a no-brainer. New technologies and trends happen - it is only natural that your audience want the most recent and up-to-date information. Adding the current year does exactly this.
So broadly, the advice from this video is as simple as 1,2,3 – or 2,0,1,7.
Full article: https://moz.com/blog/keyword-year-content-rankings-hack-whiteboard-friday
If you want to share any of your comments why not come along to our Marketing Leaders Lunch event.
