This Week’s Industry News
Compiled by the Rocket Clicks Team
Top Stories
Google Tips for Switching to m-dot to Responsive Design
Recently, Google provided best practice recommendations for sites that want to migrate away from their m-dot URL to a responsive design. The tips are designed to give your site the best chances of performing well. Once the responsive site is up and running set up 301 redirects that point to the new pages; remove the mobile-URL conditional redirects and for good measure, set up self-referential canonicals for the responsive URLS. Source: Google Webmaster Central Blog
Bing Implements Account Level Ad Extensions
With a recent update, Bing Ads is now allowing users to add ad extensions for all campaigns at the account level. Once created, the account level ad extensions will apply to all current and future campaigns. Bing also noted that these extensions apply to all variations except for call and sitelink extensions. Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Query & Content Can Affect Ranking Algorithms
A conversation between Google’s John Mueller and Barry Schwartz revealed that Google ranking algorithms can be affected by the specific query and some industries could have links that are weighed less because they are prone to spam. Mueller admits that this information is coming from his “limited point of view,” but the is no one-size fits all approach to ranking signals. Source: Search Engine Journal
AdWords Makes Call-Only Ads Eligible for Extensions
As of Thursday, September 21st, Google has made it possible for advertisers to use ad extensions in their call-only ads, a feature which was previously unavailable for this ad type. In this update, Google is now allowing location, callout, and structured snippet extensions to be placed in call-only ads. In addition, Google is reporting an average Click-Through-Rate improvement of 10 percent for companies that have tested these extensions so far. Source: Search Engine Land
Community Updates Added to the Local Tab
Google launched a new local feature to help you stay in the know with what’s happening in your community. Community Updates, which are found under the “Local” tab in Google News allow you to filter news that is relevant to your area, but is specifically designed to seek out content from local sources like school newspapers and hyper-local bloggers. Websites that publish localized content will need to apply for inclusion in Community Updates. Source: Search Engine Journal
Analysis
Client Communication Strategies as an Art
PPC Hero Lara Lowery understands that client communication is like a battle. In fact, she likens the process to military general Sun Tzu’s combat guide The Art of War. She refers to how the novel guides soldiers to subdue their opponents without fighting, which can also apply to client communication. When facing things like weekly calls or daily emails with a client, Lowery notes six important steps: Organization, Documentation, Notation, Communication, Reiteration, Summarization. By following these six steps you can, as the author puts it, “Make a treaty with your client so that you can have a relationship of comradery and not animosity.” Source: Lara Lowery, PPC Hero
Prepare Your Strategy… the Holidays are Coming
Andrew Waber, a columnist from product content management platform Salsify dug into eCommerce retail search activity and discovered three behavioral stats to help maximize seasonal marketing strategies. 2016 saw a 30% increase in top retail search terms as well as a much wider variety of related queries. Brands push more content to their site during the holidays, up 76% from average, which reverts to normal as soon as January hits and some of that content incorporates holiday terminology which is done in November. Source: Andrew Waber, Marketing Land
