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Industry Update for March 22nd, 2019

This Week’s Industry News

Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team

Top Stories

New Seasonal Google My Business Guidelines

Google My Business added a new step to its guidelines for how to set business hours during off-season months. Prior to this change, users could simply delete their hours during the off-season; now they’ll need to mark it as “Temporarily Closed”.

To do so, the listing owner will need to contact GMB Support to request the temporarily closed setting. This is not something the user can do themselves. The only other option is marking the business as permanently closed during the off-season.

When the business reopens, the user can simply set the regular business hours again, and the temporarily closed setting will automatically be removed. During the open season, Google suggests listing regular business hours and including that the business is seasonal in the description.

Source: Search Engine Journal

Amazon Introduces Video Ads in Mobile App Search Results

Amazon.com is starting to roll out video advertising on its smartphone apps. Currently, nearly every search result yields a graphical ad unit at the top of the SERP. According to Bloomberg, video ads for relevant products will start to appear in those same positions. There is evidence though that marketers are shifting budget from search and social, according to a recent Amazon advertising survey. Amazon has now become the third largest ad platform in the U.S., behind Google and Facebook. More people start product searches on Amazon than Google.

Source:Search Engine Land

New Actions to Sitemap Report in Google Search Console

Google added new actions to the sitemap report section of Google Search Console giving users the ability to do the following:

Example of errors that you may see include: RSS sitemap can be read but has errors, URL not allowed, general HTTP error and missing XML attribute.

To access the sitemap report, log in to Search Console and select a property. Users will need to verify their site in Search Console before they’ll be able to see the sitemap report if they have an uploaded XML sitemap. Similar to the old version of Search Console, site owners will now have more control over their XML sitemap files.

Source: Search Engine Land

Facebook Removing Targeting Options

Facebook is taking steps to stop discriminatory advertising practices by removing targeting options that were used to exclude people. Housing, employment, and credit ads can no longer be targeted by age, race, or gender. Advertisers offering housing, employment and credit opportunities will have a much smaller set of targeting categories to use in their campaigns overall. In addition, Facebook has agreed to build a tool that will allow users to search for and view all current housing ads in the US, regardless of whether the ads were shown to them.

Source: Search Engine Journal

Analysis:

How to Create SEO-friendly Heading Tags

Creating user-friendly heading tags within your content helps to improve overall visibility on search engines, which increases the possibility of users discovering your content. Heading tag optimization is key to making your content effective. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when creating SEO-focused heading tags:

Overall, heading tags should be brief, clear, and keyword-focused. Having solid heading tags sends a strong signal to search engine bots, which in turn increases visibility in SERPs.

Source: Content Marketing Institute

Dos & Don’ts of Search Audiences

Source: Daniel Gilbert, Search Engine Journal

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