This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
AMP Adds New Features
In an effort to make things easier and more customizable for publishers, the AMP project has added support for social sharing, a sidebar, accordion menus, and dynamic CSS classes. These features are available right now but probably still in the testing phase as Google is requesting feedback from publishers on any issues or bugs. Source: The SEM Post
Google Officially Rolling Out Expanded Text Ads for All Devices
Google Officially announced that Expanded Text ads will be rolling out for all advertisers. These ads will be able to run across all devices and will have two 30 character headlines with a description line of 80 characters. Google recommends all advertisers start planning for this change prior to its roll out later this year. Source: Search Engine Land
New Property Sets in Search Console Allow for Easy Monitoring of Multiple Properties
Up until now, there hasn’t ever been an easy way to combine the data in Search Console from all properties. Now, after years of clamoring for it, webmasters have a way to combine this data after Google announced its new “property sets” feature. This new feature will allow webmasters to combine all of their properties together into one easy to manage group. Source: Google Webmaster Central Blog
Google Announces More Device Bid Control
Google announced Tuesday that advertisers will be getting more control over their device bidding. This means that the relationship between Desktop and Tablet is finally over since users can now set separate bids for both devices. Also, campaigns can also be set solely for mobile devices since advertisers will soon have the ability to set a -100% bid for tablet and desktop. Currently, there is no official release date for these changes. Source: Search Engine Land
Third Party Reviews Popping Up in Local Map Results
Many SEOs have reported seeing third party reviews showing up in the local map results on Google. The third party sites are organized in tabs with the corresponding reviews showing up below. Right now, most are seeing Booking.com and Priceline reviews for hotels, but since this is likely a test, this feature could potentially roll out for different business types. Source: The SEM Post
Additional Commentary
Tips to Outsmart the Competition
Larry Kim shares his strategy for outsmarting the competition on different platforms. Do your competitors have videos on YouTube? Target your video ads specifically on those videos so they see your ad prior to watching the video. On Facebook, you can target users based on the brands they liked. This means you can target your campaigns to hit users with ads that have shown interest in competitor brands. With Gmail ads, you can keyword target competitor terms so that whenever a user receives an e-mail from a competitor your brand will appear as well. Analysis: Larry Kim, PPC Hero
Answer Boxes Are Personalized And Brands Should Capitalize On It
In this enlightening post for Local SEO Guide, Dan Leibson reveals that Google’s answer boxes are personalized to the searcher and stresses that big brands should take full advantage of the opportunity. Leibson argues that large ecommerce businesses “could easily take an ecommerce category and build an answer box strategy around it.” He then lists and explains the three steps that would make up this strategy process: Find Money Category, Compile List of Related Products/Terms for Money Category, and Create content around these ancillary products. Analysis: Dan Leibson, Local SEO Guide
