Monthly Archives: December 2018

PPC Updates for December 2018

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Google extending call and message reporting to more places.
Facebook has just released Facebook Attribution that tracks engagement with Facebook ads to give advertisers a clearer picture of their customer journey across multiple channels and devices.
Now You Can Shop Instagram via Collections, Video, & Business Profiles.
Drive more holiday sales with promotions on Shopping Actions.
With the season finally turning and the holidays upon us, there is no better time to dig into Smart Shopping as a strategy and see if you can convert some of that good old-fashioned seasonal mania into revenue for your business.
3 Smart Ways to generate more sales with Google Ads.
Last month, Google announced a major change to its keyword match types. Here’s a good article that explains how & to which extent it impacted ad performance.
Google releases Target Impression Share, its latest Smart Bidding strategy.
Bing recently announced changes to the way Enhanced CPC bidding works in their interface.
You can now add a 3rd title & additional description on Bing Ads.
Google has redesigned the workflow in order to help advertisers create goal oriented campaigns in Google ads.
You can now track your campaign goals with AI-powered Performance Targets in Bing Ads.
Google has introduced four new search ad position metrics. Make sure to read about it as it will come handy.
LinkedIn has introduced public Beta of Objective-Based Advertising in Campaign Manager
Want to know more about the all new Google Shopping Promotions? Click here.
Google Ads’ Ad preview tool gets two new features.
Google’s newest Detailed Demographics targeting option enables you to target your campaigns to different users based on their Education, Marital Status, Homeowner Status, or Parental Status. Learn more
Google is beta testing the possibility to add up to 5 Videos to creative assets for Responsive Display Ads.
Guide to Facebook Ad Placements: Everything you need to know.

For more information on these PPC updates and latest SEO Trends

Connect with us to learn more!

Google Has Release Its Own SEO Tool : WEB.DEV

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Yes, you read that right. Google has indeed released a new SEO & site metrics tool that helps site owners to get an overall picture of their SEO efforts & overall site performance. However, it’s in beta mode and as a result is kind of buggy, but overall, it’s a useful tool.

Since Google already has all the data in the world, it was not a surprising move that they launched this tool. However, some SEO “experts” are arguing that whether Google should be deciding the definition of SEO or not. Smh.

We would say that it is a very useful tool that is developed by “GOOGLE” itself. So it’s a no-brainer that you should try your hands on it. Here’s how it works.

Once you enter the URL of your page, it will rate the website for the following metrics.

• Performance
• Progressive Web App
• Accessibility
• Best Practices
• SEO

Here’s how the reports look like:

The new SEO score gives you information about the page crawlability, but the overall SEO score is based on just 10 VERY BASIC On-Page elements, which makes it easy to score 100%. But, in reality, SEO is much more complicated than that.

Many would argue that when GOOGLE itself says that my site is doing good on the SEO part, why would I need your expertise? The simple difference is the level of detail that an agency works on. Google is just telling you about basic things and not about the competitive stuff, where the real game begins.

So any site can score 100% on SEO web.dev and still rank on the 10th page of the Google. Because ranking for specific keywords and “money” phrases is the main purpose of SEO.

For more information on how to utilize Google’s Web.Dev SEO Tool

Connect with us to learn more!

80% of All WordPress Websites Will Be Vulnerable To Hacking At The End Of This Month

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If you have a WordPress site or manage one for others, then you need to stop everything & check the PHP version of the site. The PHP version 5.6 & 7.0 will no longer receive security patch from 31st December & 3rd December respectively, which makes them very prone to hacking.

WordPress has released data which shows that most of the sites are built on these two or even older version of the PHP. Only a limited few sites are using 7.1 or higher version of the PHP.

If you are not sure how to check the version of the PHP your site is built on, you can simply contact your hosting company.

Alternatively, you can also install this PHP plugin to see. To know the life cycle of the all the PHP versions, please see the below table:

Be informed that updating PHP is not that complicated. However, the outdated plug-ins & themes can make it a bit daunting. So we advise you to back up all your website before making any changes. Not all the Plug-ins that you are currently using would be compatible with the latest version of the PHP that is 7.1 & higher. So before you even start to upgrade, make sure you identify all the plug-ins and themes that can be updated and, remove those that are not compatible with the latest version of the PHP. And The PHP compatibility checker will help with just that.

It’s vital that you remove any plug-ins that are not compatible with the latest version of PHP because they pose a security threat. So upgrading your site’s PHP version will go like this:

1. Create a full backup of your WordPress site.

2. Check the PHP version.

3. Plugin Compatibility With New PHP Versions

4. Find an alternative to those plug-ins that can’t be updated.

5. Go to your web hosting control panel & click on the PHP section.

6. Update the PHP version.

In case you are stuck anywhere between the whole process, make sure to reach out to your hosting provider and ask them your specific question. Alternatively, you can also reach out to us. Our expert team we will be more than happy to assist you.

Reviews Now Manage Your Business On The Go With New Google My Business App

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Google announced last month that they are launching a new Google My Business App that provides a host of features that can help small business owners to easily manage their online presence and respond to customers.

Following are the biggest features and highlights:

1. Profile Tab
Google has made it extremely easy to upload photos, create offers and add events by providing a post button. You can also update information of your business from the profile tab and it will instantly appear on the search as well as Map.

2. Customer Tab
People can connect with you in many ways. They can message you, follow you, book a service or leave a review. From now on, you can see all of these customers in one place – The new customer tab. You can not only see but also respond to the reviews & post offers. Not to mention that you will get a notification when you get a new customer connection. Also, you will soon be able to respond to messages directly from the app.

3. See your Progress in Real Time
The data that matters to you the most is now on the home screen itself. So you can now check how many new people interacted with your business, new connections & more in one place.

Here’s a short video:

Takeaway

Google My Business App is a very powerful tool that every business owner and SEO professionals must have. It’s easy to use and offers a lot of tools that make tracking, analyzing and making changes easy. The other big news is that Google is about to launch a chat feature for Maps. So users can directly chat with business owners directly after searching for their business. Having a GMB app will help you with this feature as well.

To learn more about the Google My Business app connect with us!

Youtube is Determined To Provide Measurements You Trust

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In order to help YouTube advertisers drive more conversion, Google added new features that combine the power of YouTube’s creative canvas with Google’s machine learning and measurement solution.

YouTube advertisers soon will be able to use a wide variety of ad extensions, so that they can provide interesting information and compel the audience to take actions.

Google now wants to encourage viewers to complete a lower funnel action, i.e.: booking flight, downloading app etc. & for that, they are testing additional use cases.

Google also wants to enable YouTube advertisers to measure the full impact of their video campaigns by evolving Brand Lift. They are also partnering with IRI so that it will get easier for the advertisers to act upon upper and lower funnel metrics.

They also have introduced new metrics:

Lifted Users: To know the estimated number of users whose perception changed after seeing your ads.

Cost-per-lifted-users: To know the average cost of the lifted users.

Google also added that in order to utilize this new measurement tools to the fullest, you should use Maximize Lift bidding.

Furthermore, Google is investing heavily in Google Measurement Partners to ensure that the measurements you receive is authentic & not exaggerated. Google said that it’s their topmost priority to provide measurements that advertisers can trust, as it is crucial to their overall advertising efforts.

Since Facebook drastically exaggerated activity reports (As much as 900%), having a measurement that you can trust is vital to the success of the ad campaigns. Google also announced their “New MRC accreditations and partners for Google and YouTube ads measurement”.

In the end, we would like to add that if you are a big brand, then you surely want to check all the new measurement tools and metrics that YouTube has to offer in order to get the most out of your YouTube ad campaigns.

For more information on Youtube’s latest and great measurement tools and how to implement it for your content, contact us!

Here’s Why You Should Opt For Google’s Local Booking Service

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Google unveiled the option to book appointments with local businesses directly from the search results in August 2017 and since then they have been pushing it to local business owners in a very discreet manner. Maybe it’s because they don’t want to appear like a pushy salesman. However, this feature didn’t receive the kind of warm welcome they were expecting. It might be because people were not sure whether they are just testing it or planning to fully launch it before putting efforts, money and time into it.

If you want to test this out (recommended), first you have to go to your GMB dashboard and check whether your business is eligible for the booking feature or not.

And if your business is eligible, you will have to choose a third party provider from all the listed options. Yes, you read that right. Google has partnered with third-party booking services for this feature and you have to shell out anywhere between $20-$80 a month. But it “might” be worthwhile for you since bookings can increase given how convenient it is to book appointments directly from the search.

Need more information on Google’s Local Booking Service? Connect with us to learn more!

Google Sends Email to Slow Loading Websites Suggesting Improvements

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Google is sending emails to site owners who are struggling with site speed via Google Search Console. The intention is to help them identify and fix the slow loading pages. Here’s the email.

“Google has noticed that your site’s performance is significantly below average. Real user measurement data from the Chrome User Experience Report shows that pages on your site are slow to become interactive. This can have a severe negative effort on your business metrics and can cause user frustration.

Speed is a ranking factor for both mobile and desktop search results. While we don’t disclose the exact factors used for ranking, we recommend using a variety f metrics to understand your site’s performance, including first content paint, time to interactive, and first input delay. In particular, 8.70% of loads on this site have a slow first input delay and 39.7% have had a slow first contentful paint.”

Our takeaway: Speed is crucial for both mobile and desktop version of your site and it is officially part of the algorithm. It not only help you with your SEO efforts but also massively boost the user experience since most of the users want a fast loading page. So site speed means better ranking and it also directly boost the conversion rate. Hence it is a very crucial aspect of your site which you should be paying attention to.

Need help with site load time? Connect with one of our Sales reps to assist you further.