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Showing posts from December, 2016

Google AdWords Tests Capitalizing First Letter In Display URL?

Gordon Campbell posted images on Twitter of Google testing making the first letter of the display URL in the AdWords ad results capital. He said that in the AdWords backend, ad management area, the display URL is completely lowercase. In fact, he saw this across many different ad units and clients. Here are screen shots showing the before and after: He said it did go back to normal eventually. I wonder if this is more of a bug fix than a Google test to see if capitalizing the display URL would matter or not. source

Content Relevance Becomes Key Factor For Ranking in Google

Searchmetrics has conducted a study on Google ranking factors which shows that content relevance and user intent are the prime focus and backlinks are losing importance. Also technical factors have become the prerequisite to achieve top position in Google rankings. Here are the key highlights of the study: The URLs with the highest content relevance are those on position 3 to 6. Almost half of webpages in the top 10 now make use of HTTPS encryption. Factors such as loading time, file size, HTTPS encryption (for shops), internal links, page architecture and mobile-friendliness are elementary pieces of this puzzle. The pages occupying positions 1-3 have an average CTR of 36%. Internal links are one of the most important ranking factors, helping search engines and users alike to understand the page and to find relevant URLs. The increasing prominence of apps and app rankings in organic search is also contributing to the decline of backlinks’ importance. Depending on the top...

New Google My Business Insights

As of December 15, insights are now available for photos in Google My Business. Insights are not only available for photos in your own business listing, you can compare the performance of your photos against those of similar businesses. This change was documented in the Google My Business changelog, and there’s also a new section dedicated to insights for photos in this help center document. Photo insights can be easily found by navigating to your Google My Business listing and clicking on the Insights tab on the top navigation bar. At the very bottom of the insights screen you’ll see a line graph that looks like this Data can be segmented by the past 90 days, past 30 days, and past 7 days. As you can see, the insights are vague about the businesses you’re being compared to, but the competitive analysis can still be used to help you improve your GMB listing. Source

Facebook Announces More Metrics Fixes

Facebook announced more metrics updates Friday, this time affecting estimated reach, Reactions counts on posts and a discrepancy involving its like and share buttons. The social network said it is changing the methodology it uses to calculate the estimated reach of their ad campaigns, and advertisers should see changes of less than 10 percent either way in the audience sizes generated by the tool, adding in a Facebook for Business post: To help advertisers get a better view of the number of people they can expect to reach with ads, this week we are updating how we calculate the numbers that appear in our estimated reach tool–found when creating an ad. When an advertiser begins creating a campaign, the tool provides them with an estimate of both the potential overall reach and the estimated daily reach of their ad campaign. Note that this tool does not reflect reach for campaigns that have already run, nor does it affect any other reach metrics. We’re improving our methodology for sa...

Tips for Improving Online Sales Using Social Media

Want to improve your online sales process? Looking for tips to connect with prospects and customers on your social channels? With the right plan, you can enhance people’s social media experience and generate more sales. In this article, you’ll discover seven tips to improve your ecommerce using social media. #1: Provide Sales Support With Native Chat Native chatting (or “conversational ecommerce”) is using the messaging services within each social network to automate, customize, and personalize your communication. With higher retention and engagement rates, these apps have quickly become the go-to choices for customers who want to connect more directly with businesses. In other words, if you’re not using chat apps to automate confirmations (and yes, even to sell), you’re missing a huge social ecommerce opportunity. However, approach automated chat apps (like Facebook Messenger Bots) with caution. It’s too easy to cross over from the human to the inhuman side of conversatio...

YouTube has added support for 4K live video.

YouTube enabled support for 4K video on its site back in 2010, and today it’s bringing that same capability to live streaming. Both standard videos and 360 videos will be able to be live streamed in 4K, the company announced this morning. One of the first live streams to feature the new 4K support is the Game Awards, which kicks off tomorrow at 6 PM Eastern on YouTube. Delivering higher-quality video is something that can give YouTube an edge in the growing market for live streaming, where rivals like Facebook and Twitter (via Periscope) also compete. Facebook Live publishers can stream up to 720p at 30 fps, for example. And while Periscope is generally used from your smartphone, its pro software Periscope Producer also allows for 720p at 30 fps. YouTube on the other hand, supports 4K video at up to 60 fps – something it began experimenting with last year. As the company explains in its announcement, 4K video is big l...

6 Ways to Protect Your Business Reputation With Social Media

Do you want to increase trust with your fans and followers? Want to avoid making mistakes on social media? There are easy ways to avoid potential problems that could negatively affect your business and reputation online. In this article, you’ll discover six ways to present your business in the best light possible on social media. #1: Use Humor Appropriately You might think something is funny, but will it be funny to your followers? Or is it outdated? Is there a chance it might offend someone? Incorporating humor in your posts can help engage your followers, but you need to know your audience and keep jokes relevant to your topic. If you’re not 100% sure, ask someone you trust for an honest opinion. In this tweet, the Atlanta Hawks cleverly used emojis to represent the teams on their 2016 NBA schedule, knowing their fans would get the joke. When you incorporate humor in your own posts, try to be clever but not too esoteric, or you run the risk of your humor falling flat with your...

Google Retires Feature-Phone Googlebot & Feature Phone Tools in Search Console!

Google has announced tat they have removed feature-phone user-agents for crawling for search and crawl error reports from Search Console. “Most websites don't provide feature-phone-compatible content in WAP/WML any more. Given these developments, we've made changes in how we crawl feature-phone content (note: these changes don't affect smartphone content).” Sites which provide content for feature-phones through dynamic serving, based on user agent of the user, should ensure their desktop and smartphone pages have a self referential alternate URL link for handheld devices. <link rel="alternate" media="handheld" href="[current page URL]" /> “This is a change from our previous guidance of only using the "vary: user-agent" HTTP header. We've updated our documentation on making feature-phone pages accordingly. We hope adding this link element is possible on your side, and thank you for your help in this regard. We'll continu...