This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
Google’s Deal with Getty Images
Google is getting rid of the “view image” button from the search results to make pictures harder to steal. This button allowed you to open the image to full size but users will now have to click on the “Visit” button to see the image on the webpage. Google also removed the “search by image” feature that showed up after clicking on an image. These changes were announced as a part of the newly-formed partnership with Getty Images. There are some chrome extensions that you can use to bring back these features if you are missing them. Source: The Verge
Bing Adds Labels for Dynamic Search Ads in the Bing Ads Editor
Bing has recently announced the ability to use labels in the Bing Ads Editor for Dynamic Search Ads which were rolled out in October. This will now allow advertisers to effectively label their DSA efforts and create rules to enable and pause them automatically based on the name of the label, which could potentially save some time in the long run. Source: Search Engine Land
Google Adds Mall Directory to Local Knowledge Panel
A Mall Directory option has been added to the Overview tab and in a new “Directory” tab for many shopping malls in Google’s local panels. This new feature allows you to search for a store name or use one of the bubble filters to find places inside of that mall. Stores are sorted alphabetically and if you click on a specific store it will show a description saying, “located in”, with a hyperlink to the mall directory website. This feature has been available on Android Maps but is showing for the first time in the local panel. Source: Search Engine Land
Keyword Planner Overhaul Appearing in New AdWords Interface
Google’s Keyword Planner appears to be updated in the new AdWords interface with an overhauled design. The workflows appear to be much more streamlined than the current version as the start screen now is condensed down to two options: “Find new keywords” and “Get metrics and forecasts for your keywords”. The Keyword Ideas chart still shows monthly search volumes like the old version, but it has been updated to include mobile search volume in the main chart as well. The Forecasts section has also been updated to show total estimated performance impact including a max CPC from the keywords. Source: Search Engine Land
Trending Carousel Added to Bing
Bing added a “Trending” search feature for some of the more popular websites. This appears after the sitelinks and is a click through carousel showing pages from those sites. The carousel contains 10 blogs and stories. It is not clear how they are determining what pages to include. Some of the most recently published stories can appear at the end of the carousel. When you click on one of the results, you are taken directly to that page. Google also wanted searchers to know that a term is trending by adding a Trending tag next to those terms in the knowledge panel. Source: The SEM Post
Analysis
Automation Opportunities With AdWords Scripts
Frederick Vallaeys shares his top opportunities to automate your account with scripts. First are budget scripts, particularly a script for pausing all campaigns when an account’s spend is too high for the month. This could easily prevent an account from going over budget and potentially an unhappy client. Implementing a maintenance script or fixing capitalization errors can also come in handy if an ad gets rejected by Google for excessive capitalization. Of course bid management scripts always come in handy to automate bid changes for you, though Vallaeys does point out an interesting script provided by Google for weather-based bidding. If weather does affect your business, then Google has a way to automate bids based on Mother Nature’s unpredictability. Source: Frederick Vallaeys, Search Engine Journal
Creating Good Quality Google My Business Posts
GMB Posts stay live for seven days and then are archived and show up at the bottom of your site’s current post in the knowledge panel. Ben Fisher from BrightLocal explains that publishing content that connects with users will gain your posts more traffic. There are 7 types of posts that you can create including: book an appointment, order online, buy, learn more, sign up, get offer and events which all display a button that leads readers to your site. Posts have a limit of 300 words but only the first 100 will appear in the knowledge panel so it is best to give a quick summary of your blog post and include a link to the actual blog. Source: Bright Local