This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
Google Gives Search Results a Slight Makeover
Over the last few months, Google has been testing a few slight changes in the user interface of its search results. And, earlier this week, Google made those changes permanent. Some of the more notable changes include a significantly larger Google logo and a totally different font (Roboto) for Chrome users. Source: The SEM Post
*Bonus: When reached for comment as to why they made the style changes, Google responded with “just like 50 would say: we switched the style up – and if they hate then let ‘em hate and watch the money pile up.”
*At least this is what we’d like to think they would say 😉
Audiences Can Finally Be Added at Campaign-Level in AdWords
Google has recently announced a big change that is now available to all AdWords advertisers. Audience can now be implemented at the campaign level which will save advertisers precious time. Of course, audiences can still be set at the ad group level. Source: Search Engine Land
Google Experimenting with New Card Style Layout
Searchers on Google have begun spotting a test that is moving the “Top stories” cards above both the local pack and first organic listing. This test has also surfaced “Top stories” cards with and without photos. Either way, if this test layout is eventually made permanent, it could be another tough blow to businesses hoping to capture above-the-fold real estate in the SERPs. Source: The SEM Post
AdWords Editor Ironically Not Available for Chromebook
A twitter user’s dreams were crushed when she reached out to Google AdWords via tweet earlier this week. She had hoped to download the Google AdWords Editor on her Chromebook, only to find out it’s not even available for Google’s own OS. She vented her frustrations to them only to be met with an uncommitted “We appreciate your feedback, we’ll have someone look into it” response. The demand may just not be high enough, but if complaints continue to arise we may see the Editor inevitable released for Chromebooks. Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Additional Commentary
Optimizing Limited by Budget Campaigns
PPC Hero Alka Du Mont’s PPC campaigns are limited by budget and so are yours. There are good at bad reasons that this can happen and Du Mont’s approach is to reduce the bad as much as possible. When reviewing spend caused by keywords, good relevant keywords may never get a chance to show if others are overshadowing them and leading to a limited budget, so Du Mont placed them into their own campaign with their own budget to give them a chance to shine. The author’s other strategy was to review account settings like device modifiers and ad scheduling to reduce overspending. Source: Alka Du Mont, PPC Hero
Tactical Keyword Research in a RankBrain World
In this detailed blog post for Moz, Dr. Peter J. Meyers examines what effect RankBrain should have on the approach SEOs take to keyword research. Dr. Meyers core argument is that while we’ve shifted away from exact-match keywords to the concept-based approach brought on by RankBrain, it’s still imperative to find the right keywords to support the concept. Ultimately, he proposes an approach to keyword research that focuses on finding similar-but-different-enough natural language phrases and ensuring that the content you’re writing can adequately address these phrases or questions. Source: Dr. Peter J. Meyers, Moz blog
