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Weston Riesche is the Marketing Manager at SEO Solutions Inc. Weston is a Graduate of Roosevelt University and holds two Bachelors in Integrated Marketing Communications and Economics. He has been an integral part of the SEO Solutions management team, developing insights into the world of Search Engine Optimization. Social Media and Internet Marketing. Weston works closely with clients to engage their companies with unique, effective and exhaustive Internet Marketing campaigns that leads them to the top of the major search engines.

Google My Business To Soon Add Queries & Keyword Report

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Google My Business is rolling out a new report in the Insights section of the console that is designed to show businesses how people are searching within Google Maps or Google Search to find your local business listing. It’s called the “queries used to find your business” report, and it shows the most popular queries for your business by unique users within a time frame.

Mike Blumenthal was the first to spot this and posted the screenshot below on his blog.
A Google spokesperson confirmed this is rolling out more widely. However, we haven’t noticed it yet for any accounts.

Here is the screenshot of the report.

Google also recently added subjective attributes reporting within the Insights section. This section will help you learn what your customers think of your business with the new ‘what your business is known for’ report.

Google announced this on Twitter – “We’ve launched subjective attributes to provide more information in your insights tab! Customers of restaurants and cafes can submit subjective attributes to help you and their fellow customers.”

Need more details? Please connect with our sales rep.

Sign up for the SEO Solutions Newsletter and read up on all the latest Google updates.

ALERT! Google Chrome Will Now Flag Non-Encrypted Websites as “Not Secure”

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Google’s Chrome browser will soon flag every site that doesn’t use HTTPS encryption. Google was working on it for quite some time and now they have finally decided to launch it this month. Here’s how it will look to users who visit a non-HTTPS website.

Furthermore, they will stop highlighting “SECURE” and would rather focus on marking the non- encrypted sites as “Not Secure”. The reason being, they want to make it a norm to have an encrypted site. They are planning to launch it in September 2018. It is reported that other major browsers like Safari and Firefox might also follow suit.

Why should you be serious about this?

Google Chrome has the highest browser market share with close to 60% users worldwide followed by Safari and Firefox. These 3 take up more than 80% of browser user share i.e. most of your users are using these browsers to visit your website. And if they get this warning message on your website, you’re likely to lose out on potential leads.

Long story short – your site will get the short end of the stick if your website is not secure.

If you have been already made the switch to an encrypted site, you will have a huge advantage over your competitors who haven’t opted for HTTPS.

So, how to ensure you don’t get this message and protect your business?

You can either get this done at your end OR let our experienced team handle it for you at a nominal rate.

Need more details? Please connect with our sales rep.

Noticed a Drop in Your Google Business Reviews? Google Has Something To Do With It

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Well, Google has decided to remove reviews from anonymous users.

So, what are anonymous reviews? – Reviews that had been left by profiles marked “A Google User” are termed as anonymous.

Google has been struggling to keep its reviews authentic for a long time and anonymous users posed a big threat to it. So Google finally decided to remove it, all of them. Many business owners saw a sharp drop in their business ratings and most of the negative reviews & ratings were from anonymous users – which is a sign that either competitors or someone totally unrelated to business were posting it, using anonymity.

When contacted, Google just gave this simple statement: “We do not allow anonymous reviews today and we’ve removed legacy anonymous reviews.”

If you have lost reviews that were NOT from “A Google User”, possible reasons could be:

Having paid for or incentivized reviews, either directly or via an unethical marketer.
Getting too many reviews at once.
URLs, prohibited language, or other objectionable content in the body of reviews.
Reviewing yourself, or having employees (past or present) do so.
Reviews were left from same IP address.
The use of review strategies/software that prohibit negative reviews or selectively solicit positive reviews.
Any other violation of Google’s review guidelines.Since reviews and rating affect your business rankings in Google, it’s crucial to keep them authentic. One way to do this is to use our proprietary review widget.

It’s a small piece of code which is placed on your website and helps you get positive reviews on Google, Yelp and Facebook. In addition, it helps to filter out negative reviews too, thus ensuring positive experience to website users.

Need more details? Please connect with our sales rep.

Facebook Rolling Out New Metrics and Tools That Will Change The Way We Approach Video Marketing

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Facebook is about to roll out a new feature that will help you understand how your videos are performing.

Here’s a screen-shot of the new metrics.

This new metric lets your track the reach, retention rate, page insights, view and ads reporting view. The best part is that it will be available for paid and organic videos.

Facebook is also launching new live tools for publishers. These tools will redefine Live Video making and watching experience.

Persistent Stream Keys: This key will simplify the broadcast experience for those who often use Live API. Since the key can be sent in advance, it can prove to be a boon for production teams who have to collaborate while shooting on different locations.
Crossposting: Crossposting allows you to post a single video on multiple pages as an original post. You will not have to share it and reduce the charm. This cross-posting feature boosts the reach & provide you results that are beyond expectations. A Facebook user who was broadcasting his surfing show live on 3 different pages got a whopping 1.5 million views.
Live Rewind: Although it’s still in testing mode, but will soon be available & will change the entire live Video experience. This feature will allow you to rewind a live video & re-watch your favorite parts.

If you’d like to learn more about Facebook’s new video metrics and tools sign up for the SEO Solutions Newsletter and read up on all the latest updates.

Now You Can Add Videos To Google My Business Posts

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GMB Posts have the immense power to boost the bottom line of your business. Those who know how to utilize it to the fullest have seen a huge boost in sales. The latest addition to the Google post is VIDEO. Now you can upload videos of your business or any topic that revolves around it. It’s already proven that video marketing is EXTREMELY beneficial for your business, and now with the ability to add videos to Google My Business posts, it further enhances the benefits.

For those new to it, follow the steps below:

Access Google Posts by logging into your Google My Business account.
Now you will see the “Posts” option right below the Home.
Click on it and upload the type of content you want to share.

After uploading, you will have the option to preview it and once you are satisfied, hit the Publish button.
After publishing, actively monitor the conversions and see how your targeted audience is responding.

The best way to find out which type of videos work best for you is to TEST. Analyse your audience reaction to different videos to figure out what type of audiovisual content really clicks with your audience.Here are some facts that will encourage you to create and upload more videos:

63% of businesses use video as a marketing tool.
76% of businesses said that video has helped them increase traffic to their website.
84% of consumers have been convinced to make a purchase after watching a brand’s video.

If you’d like to learn more about how adding media to your Google My Business posts can boost sales sign up for the SEO Solutions Newsletter and read up on all the latest Google updates.

Page Speed Will Officially Become a Google Ranking Factor, Starting July 2018

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Google announced that they will be making page speed a ranking factor within mobile search results starting July 2018. However, this page speed update affects only the pages with extremely slow load times, since the intent of the query is still one of the strongest signals. So slow pages can still enjoy higher ranking if they offer relevant content.

BUT, it’s not just about Google. Speed is a huge factor when it comes to user experience as well.

A 2017 Google study revealed that 53% of the visitors abandoned sites that took longer than three seconds to load. It might be a mark that’s hard to achieve, especially if you have high-quality images and videos on your site but you can still work on the aspects that can be improved.

You can use Google’s Test My Site to check your page load time, the approximate percentage of visitors you are losing and other aspects of your site that need improvement. It’s quick, comprehensive and FREE.

It’s worth mentioning that AMP will not enjoy any additional benefits, although it’s very nature allows it to fly high on the page load time and naturally gives it an advantage. But other than that, there will be no special “rewards”.

Here are some tools and resources web developers can utilize to evaluate a page’s overall performance. Use these tools to gain a better understanding of how a website’s page speed affect’s user experience of a website.

Chrome User Experience Report offers indispensable insights from real user measurement of key user experience metrics from all over the web.
Lighthouse is a great automated tool that is part of Chrome’s suite of developer tools. Developers can use Lighthouse to audit the performance, accessibility, and overall quality of web pages.
Page Speed Insights is an incredibly useful tool for evaluating a web page’s performance on the Chrome UX Report. The tool offers valuable insights and provides suggestions for optimizing web site performance.

Need help with improving page speed? We can help. Just reach out to our reps and let us do the rest. Please connect with us to learn more about improving page speed and optimizing load times.

Reviews Boost The Bottom Line of Your Business – Study

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A recent study shows that more review stars translate into higher paid search conversation rates. Businesses with an average of 3.31 stars managed to get 10.42 percent conversion rate, whereas, businesses that had 4.5+ stars achieved a remarkable 12.83 percent conversion rate.

The study also revealed that the response rate also affected the paid search performance. Businesses with higher response rates saw an average conversion rate of 13.86%. While the those with lowest response rates had to settle for a conversion rate of 10.42%.

Engaging with customers & responding to their questions, comments, and reviews is directly related to improved conversion rates. This type of high-touch customer interaction builds trust among users.

Reviews not only help you improve your local search rankings, but also paid search ranking, and conversion rates. So if you are not focusing on reviews, now is the time to do so.

To help you get more reviews for your business, we highly recommend our review widget. It’s a small piece of code which is placed on your website that helps you get positive reviews on Google, Yelp, and Facebook. In addition, it helps to filter out negative reviews, thus ensuring a positive experience for website users. Need more details? Please connect with us.

GOOGLE ADWORDS UPDATES FOR APRIL 2018

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Responsiveness is very important because it holds a strong potential for traffic determination. And that’s the reason why Google removed advertisers ability to create or edit standard text for display network campaign. Here’s how you can use it your advantage.
Instagram stories are one of the best ways to catch your prospects attention because unlike ads, you get a full page to showcase your message and creativity. In a recent study, Facebook found out the best way to use the Insta stories to drive business results. Here is the link.
The new Google keyword planning tool: What’s really new and how to use it to its full potential.
Message reporting delivers new performance insights for click-to-message ads.
Quora Ads now offers List Match Audiences. You can now upload a list of email addresses and create a List Match Audience on Quora.
There are many occasions when we see a spike or dip in the performance & then have to dig into the account for an explanation. Soon it will be a hassle-free affair since Google has announced many productivity updates for new AdWords interface.
Promoting apps on Google play is not an easy task. To counter this problem, Google is releasing new ad formats. Learn more about the upcoming ad formats
Check out the new ways to fully utilize the combined power of Google & YouTube in AdWords.
Is your nonprofit organization involved with the Google Ad Grants Program? If yes then check out this article because the rules have changed.

Save time and efforts by using this Free script that automatically puts pivoted AdWords data in a spreadsheet.
Pinterest is testing shopping ads format on a much larger scale. Once rolled out, this will automatically turn your product catalog into actionable ads.
AdWords Version history lets you see the previous versions of your ads and how they performed. So you can compare all the version and use the one that yields best results.
In a bid to make the search engine result page cleaner, Bing has announced that they will soon be removing ride side ads from the SERP.
Some networks are better than others for targeting particular audience segments. Here’s how to choose the right platform.
Bing ad’s Account level association for ad extensions allows you to add and edit ad extensions at the account level.
The ADworld Experience 2018, the largest PPC only event in the world has released their detailed agenda. Have a look.

Adding Your Business Description on the Google My Business Dashboard is Easier Than Ever

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You can now add a description of your business directly within the Google My Business dashboard. It’s not a new feature though. Google removed this feature back in 2016 when they dropped the Google+ support. And now they have made it available again. This feature offers a hassle-free way to keep the information about your business updated and ultimately help the searchers.

Here’s how you can add business description:

Login to Google My business.
Click on the info button on the menu bar.
Click on the add business description
Click on the pencil icon and add info.

The character limit is 750, so make it crisp and engaging. Learn more about it here.

Google Has Started Rolling Out the Mobile First Index

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Google is now rolling out the “Mobile First Index”. The rollout is limited to sites that follow best practices for mobile first indexing.

Google previously moved a limited number of sites to mobile first indexing, but this time it’s on a much larger scale.

They confirmed that they will be informing webmasters/site owners about the migration via Google Search Console. So if you are a webmaster or site owner, you might receive a message like this:

Google added that the site owners will see a significant increase in crawl rates from the smartphone Google bot. Also, they will show the mobile version in search engine results and cached pages once the migration is completed.

What is mobile-first indexing?

Google says it is how Google crawls your site. Google will only have one index, but how Google crawls and creates the index will be based on a mobile-first experience going forward. Google wrote:

To recap, our crawling, indexing, and ranking systems have typically used the desktop version of a page’s content, which may cause issues for mobile searchers when that version is vastly different from the mobile version. Mobile-first indexing means that we’ll use the mobile version of the page for indexing and ranking, to better help our — primarily mobile — users find what they’re looking for.

Google has a detailed developer document on mobile-first indexing.