This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
Neighborhood Info Added to Knowledge Panel
Joy Hawkins recently posted screenshots on her website of neighborhoods appearing in the knowledge panel for businesses. Currently there is no way for business owners to add their neighborhood via Google My Business, but Hawkins noted that Google appears to be pulling neighborhood data from MapMaker. Source: Joy Hawkins
Expanded Text Ads Now Live for AdWords
Google’s new Expanded Text Ads has recently proceeded into closed beta, meaning you can now test this new feature with access from your Google rep. With new ad test, advertisers can now create text ads with doubled headline space and an 80 character description line. Experts believe this is one of the first steps to monopolize on the new space available since the removal of the sidebar ads. They also believe that this new feature will come out of beta soon. Source: The SEM Post
Websites with a Thriving Community See a Small Ranking Boost
When asked about the effect that user comments have on a site’s overall authority and ability to rank, Gary Illyes revealed that “in general if we see that there’s a healthy, thriving community on a site, that can help a lot.” With that said, Illyes also took the time to reiterate that quality content and backlinks are still more impactful than a thriving community could ever be. Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Bolded Keywords Test in Bing Ads
Bing has recently launched a new test appearing on ads on the Bing search results page. This time, they are testing bolded black search query keywords in the ads instead of the typical darker gray. With this change, it may become more important to ensure your keywords appearing in the description lines. This is a rather limited test that appears to be only running for paid ads and not organic results. Source: The SEM Post
Additional Commentary
Beyond Local SEO: Greg Gifford on How to Win the Visibility Race
Rebecca Sentance details what must be done to gain a greater foothold in local results in this recap of local SEO expert Greg Gifford’s presentation at the Brighton SEO conference. Gifford’s key point in the presentation was that local SEO needs to be part of a more comprehensive visibility strategy, but followed that up with several recommendations for optimizing for local search. A few of the most notable recommendations are to make your blog a local destination, tagging Google My Business links, and using Wistia instead of YouTube. Analysis: Rebecca Sentence, Search Engine Watch
Study Finds 50% of Adults Don’t Recognize Ads in Google SERPs
Graham Charlton at Search Engine Watch shares with us a study from Ofcom’s Adults’ media use and attitudes report. The report found that 50% of adults viewing the Google search results page actually didn’t recognize the difference between paid and organic listings. The data was also split between new and established users: finding that new users were less likely to recognize the top listings as paid ads. The author sees this as a bizarre statistic, but concludes that Google has recently been taking steps to make paid ads blend in more with organic results. Analysis: Graham Charlton, Search Engine Watch