This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
Apple’s Spotlight Search Now Compatible with Google Maps
As part of its continued effort to make Maps more popular for iOS users, Google has added compatibility for Maps with Apple’s Spotlight Search in its most recent update. Now, instead of having to open Google Maps directly, iOS users have the ability to search for businesses or places they are interested in and navigate straight to that place within the Maps app. Source: Search Engine Land
Landing Page Description Lines Caused by Bing Ads Annotations
Last week advertisers were noticing that a handful of ads on the Bing search results page were pulling content from the ad’s landing page into the description lines. It has been discovered that this is being caused by Bing’s Dynamic Description Annotation. The annotation will only appear when Bing feels that it could increase ad performance and advertisers can simply opt out of using this annotation if they don’t want to use it. Source: The SEM Post
Google Recommends Using Different URLs for Pages with Language Variations
In recent Google Webmaster Office Hours chat, John Mueller was asked about best practices when it comes to setting up different language versions of a web page. Mueller’s recommendation was that webmasters should make “the language clear per URL.” Mueller continued by explaining that it is a lot easier for Google to recognize what content is meant for which audience when the language pages are separated by URL. Source: The SEM Post
AdWords Undergoing Redesign
Google announced Monday that they will be redesigning the AdWords interface while addressing issues and concerns brought up by Advertisers. With AdWords now being over 15 years old, Google has been collecting information from advertisers to fuel this impending redesign. This update will be focused more on the way data is displayed rather than changing the functionality of the interface. Google stated that the redesign would be a long process and will ideally be released by the end of 2017. Source: Search Engine Land
Former Head of Google’s Web Spam Team Matt Cutts to Launch New Search Engine
After a two year hiatus from Google that was shrouded in mystery, Matt Cutts has revealed that he is launching his own search engine. It is believed that his extended leave to “spend time with family” was really an excuse to focus on creating his new search engine. There has been no official announcement as to what the search engine will be called, but some have speculated it will be named The Cutting Edge. Source: SEONews4U
AdWords Ads at Top of Page Being Removed and Placed Between Organic Results
That’s right, all AdWords ads currently at the top of the search results page will be removed and placed between each organic result starting April 1. Now, for every organic result you see, you will see a paid ad directly beneath each one. Google stated that this way “Organic and Paid results can stick together like peanut butter and jelly, peas and carrots, fries and ketchup, pancakes and syrup, shampoo and conditioner, life and death.” Source: PPCNews4U
Additional Commentary
How are Businesses Using Google Posts?
The new, unofficially named Google Posts has taken the world of local SEO by storm as of late, and in this examination of the feature, Rebecca Sentence uses real-life examples to show how some businesses are already taking advantage of it. In these examples, Sentence highlights the fact that Posts could potentially have a huge impact as they essentially allow businesses to post content directly to the SERPs. Analysis: Rebecca Sentence, Search Engine Watch
Benefits of Using Google Tag Manager
Joe Martinez shares several ways Google Tag Manager can benefit your PPC accounts. First, being able to add HTML tags yourself means less time talking with developers. Second, GTM can give you insight on where users may be getting distracted when visiting your landing pages. It can also help you prove value to lead gen specific clients when tracking things like company name in the forms that are used. Finally, you can also use the event tracking to build out custom audiences to implement into your remarketing campaigns. Analysis: Joe Martinez, PPC Hero
