This week at SEOPartner, we’re sharing: SEO updates that can deliver significant impact to your results, exciting changes in the marketplace to watch out for, good-to-know studies and information, and tips to try based on recent findings on search, online marketing and more.
1. Google Test Platform Marries Content + Social + Search
Last July, we shared the report on the slow rollout of Google’s new experimental feature that allows “Verified individuals and organizations [to] publish content – which will instantly appear on the top page of search results.”
Recently, more details surfaced on how it works and looks like.
– The platform is still on invite-only; public figures or organizations are invited to join the waitlist.
– Becoming a verified publisher allows you to publish text, links, images and videos directly on Google.
– Your posts will appear, in real-time, in search results related to you.
– Posts can be shared on social media.
Should it becomes official, this feature can heavily impact paid and organic brand searches, reputation management and how brands & public personalities conduct their promotional campaigns.
Source: http://searchengineland.com/what-googles-experimental-content-podium-means-for-seo-260745
2. Google Search Console Gets Rid of ‘Demote Sitelinks’ Feature
In a move to “simplify,” Google has decided to shut off the “demote sitelinks” setting in Search Console. Sitelinks are the links to specific pages that Google sometimes add below search listings. Since 2007, website owners had the capability to demote unwanted sitelinks, but that capability won’t be around anymore.
“Over the years, our algorithms have gotten much better at finding, creating, and showing relevant sitelinks, and so we feel it’s time to simplify things,” Google stated in a Webmasters blog post, adding that they will only show sitelinks they deem useful to users.
The following best practices can help improve your sitelinks quality:
– Provide a clear structure for your website. Use relevant links and informative, compact anchor text.
– Let Google crawl and index important pages within your site. Ensure that they can be rendered properly through Fetch and Render [1].
– Use a “noindex” robots meta tag [2] if you need to completely remove a page from search.
Source: http://searchengineland.com/google-search-console-removes-sitelinks-demotion-feature-261002
3. Google Analytics Rolls Out Optimize 360 & Session Quality Score
Google introduced last week some interesting updates to its Analytics platform. These updates include Optimize 360 and Session Quality Score.
Optimize 360 is a landing page testing tool that enables site owners to test page layouts and copy without altering the page’s source code.
– This enterprise-level product was launched in March this year.
– Latest version is free for use for anyone with an Analytics account anywhere in the world.
– Features and functionality are similar to the likes of Optimizely. However, Optimize 360 has the significant advantage of having an automatic and direct tie to other Google products including DoubleClick, AdWords, and Audience 360.
Session Quality Score is a metric that will predict the likelihood of a visitor making a transaction or purchase on a site or app.
– To make the prediction, metrics based on past behaviour, other users’ information, and other factors will be used.
– Uses the same machine learning technology that drives Google’s Smart Goals product; seen by many as another step to Google’s aim to be a “machine-learning first” company.
– Set to be launched later this year.
Source: https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/10/05/google-optimize-and-session-quality-score-a-brief-guide
4. AMP Turns One Year Old…
The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project is now a year old.
An open source initiative from Google and Twitter, AMP intends to make it easier for web publishers to create mobile-friendly content. Google, WordPress, Bing, Reddit, Pinterest and eBay are just some of the sites that have gone AMP-friendly.
Google’s AMP Project lead David Besbris recently released a year-in review of the project’s milestones thus far, which include the following notable statistics:
– 80% of Gizmodo’s AMP traffic comes from new visitors.
– Slate observed a 44% increase in unique monthly visitors since adopting AMP.
– Wired enjoyed a 25% boost in click through rates from search results.
Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/amp-reaches-major-milestones-since-launching-one-year-ago/175771
5. …and Gets a New Webpage Tester
So you’ve set up your AMP pages and AMPed your content. How do you ensure your site is fast, your content accessible and the implementation is working as it should?
The enhanced AMP testing tool allows you to attend to all those concerns. This new webpage tester is mobile-friendly and uses the live web-search infrastructure of Google. It also makes it easier to create great AMPed content while finding and resolving issues that may appear on your AMP pages.
Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com
6. Study Shows Impact of Timely Twitter Responses
Responding faster to tweets about your brand delivers higher benefits in terms of revenue, customer satisfaction, referral rates and word-of-mouth activity.
A Twitter study, which focused on three major industries (airlines, quick-service restaurants and telecoms) revealed the following:
– Responses to their tweets increase customers’ willingness to spend.
– Any response is better than nothing; faster is better.
– Responses to both positive and negative tweets benefit the brand.
– But responses that address negative posts actually gain more. In the telco industry, for example, conversations stemming from a negative tweet end up boosting the customer’s willingness to pay — by about 3 times more than those responding to good feedback.
– When customers discover that you have responded to their tweet, they’ll most likely share their experience both online and offline (44%) and recommend your business to others 30%.
Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/twitter-customer-service-benefits/175585
7. KW Explorer Gets 3 Updates
Moz recently upgraded Keyword Explorer, adding three new capabilities to the keyword research tool.
1. Rank checking inside KW Explorer lists – Allows users to easily check whether a given domain or URL already ranks on page 1.
2. Send keywords directly from a list to Pro Campaigns – Makes the process rank tracking fast and easy.
3. Better keyword volume and coverage – Delivers higher accuracy, greater coverage and faster recognition of volume trends.
Source: https://moz.com/blog/3-new-upgrades-make-the-webs-best-keyword-research-tool-even-better
8. Good to Know: How to Create a CTR-Boosting Meta Description
An effective meta description encourages more visitors from Google to click your link. Construct optimized meta descriptions based on the traits below:
– Around 135 to 160 characters.
– Actionable, in an active voice.
– Includes a call-to-action.
– Contains structured content.
– Matches the content.
– Contains the focus keyword.
– Unique.
Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/create-best-meta-description-2/175017
SUMMING IT ALL UP
Here are the top headlines in this week’s SEO news roundup:
What’s Cooking
Google test platform marries content + social + search. Designed for businesses & public personalities, this content podium allows users to publish content, share on social media & post real-time information that will show in search results.What’s New
Google Search Console gets rid of ‘Demote Sitelinks’ setting. Google decided to retire this setting, saying website owners won’t need the capability anymore since their algorithms have become smarter & better in identifying the right sitelinks to show.Google Analytics rolls out Optimize 360 & Session Quality Score. One is a landing page testing tool. The other is a conversion prediction metric. Both are expected to help site owners make more informed, data-driven decisions.
AMP turns one year old… The people behind it takes a look back at its first year, reviewing milestones and notable statistics.
… and gets a new webpage tester, which allows users to turn in faster, better AMP sites.Good to Know
Study shows impact of timely Twitter responses. The faster you respond to tweets about your business, the greater benefits you receive in revenue and customer satisfaction.KW Explorer gets 3 updates. Moz’ keyword research tool gets an upgrade featuring three new functionalities.
How to create a CTR-boosting meta description. Construct effective meta descriptions based on 7 key qualities.
