Breaking Digital Marketing News (Updated Every Friday)

Digital Marketing News 3/21/2022 – 3/25/2022

This week: a new Google algorithm update takes aim at product reviews, YouTube offers new features for livestreamers, and Instagram enables product tagging.

Here’s what happened this week in digital marketing.

New Google Algo Update Takes Aim at Product Reviews

This past week, Google started rolling out a new product algorithm update. Its purpose is to identify quality product reviews.

It’s the third product review update. The first two happened last year.

“Today, we’re launching another update that builds on that work to enhance our ability to identify high-quality product reviews,” Google said in a statement. “This will make it easier for us to get sound purchasing advice in front of users, and to reward creators who are earnest in being helpful.”

Google also released updated guidance on product reviews. They should:

• Include specific details, including the benefits or the limitations of the product.
• Come from actual users who can describe how they used the product.
• Provide specific details not offered by the manufacturer.
• Cover related products from different vendors and explain what sets the product apart.

Google says the update will roll out over the next several weeks. It will impact the rankings of sites with English reviews.

YouTube Adds New Features for Livestreams

YouTube recently announced five new features for livestreams.

Some of them are already in testing. YouTube will roll out the others later this year.

Here are the new features:

• Go Live Together – Collaborate with other livestreamers using your mobile device. Viewers will see you and the other streamers on a split-screen.
• Live Rings – Display a ring around your profile when you’re live.
• Cross-Channel Live Redirects – Redirect viewers to a livestream hosted on another channel.
• Split-Screen Viewing on Mobile – Offer your audience a couple of different viewing experiences. One option, called lean-in mode, displays the live chat panel to the right of the screen. The other, called lean-back mode, displays the video in landscape mode while showing chat stats in the lower, right-hand corner.
• Live Q&A – Allow viewers to submit questions based on your prompt.

Merchant Center Now Links With GA4

You can now link your Google Merchant Center account with Google Analytics 4.

And when you do so, you can see your conversions from free product listings. That will help you gauge the impact of your product data.

You can link the two accounts by clicking the blue Link button on the right-hand side of the screen in the Merchant Center tab in GA4.

Just make sure you turn on auto-tagging.

Google: GA4 Won’t Be a Ranking Boost

If you think you’ll get a ranking boost by switching over to Google Analytics 4, think again.

The subject came up this past week on Twitter. Somebody tagged Google’s John Mueller with the following tweet: “If Google wants everyone to implement #GA4 then they just need to give indirect signal/statement via @JohnMu that is might impact rank… LOL”

Mueller replied: “That’s not going to happen.”

In case you’re wondering why the topic even came up, it’s because Google just announced that it’s phasing out Universal Analytics in favor of GA4.

If Google wants everyone to implement #GA4 then they just need to give indirect signal/statement via @JohnMu that is might impact rank… LOL

— Shekhar Suman (@Y2K_SUMAN) March 16, 2022

Meta Files Lawsuit Over Fake Reviews

Fake review operators, beware.

Meta (the parent company of Facebook) is coming after you.

The company recently filed a new lawsuit in California. It alleges that somebody named Chad Taylor Cowan sold fake reviews via a source called Customer Feedback Score Solutions.

Now that Meta (along with pretty much every other popular social media site) operates as an ecommerce channel, it’s important that customers get quality reviews when making purchasing decisions. So the company is taking a page out of Amazon’s playbook and going after fake reviewers.

It’s all good news for consumers. But bad news for sellers who want to break the rules.

Meta Launches Ray-Ban Stories

Speaking of Meta, that company is taking the Stories concept to a whole new level with camera-equipped smart glasses.

The glasses are offered by Ray-Ban. Meta launched the promo in a partnership with EssilorLuxottica.

If you want to pick up a pair, you’ll have to fork over a cool €329.

Yeah, Euros. Unfortunately for those of us who live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, the glasses are only available in Spain, Austria, and Belgium as of now.

But if you’ve got a pair and you’d like to make a social media statement, all you need to do is tap a button on the top of the arm. Then, you’ll record what you’re seeing.

The glasses offer enhanced audio, support for voice commands, and open-air speakers.

They also might represent a future phase of marketing. That’s why I mentioned them here.

Duplicate Sitemap Bug in WordPress SEO Plugins

Even the best get it wrong sometimes.

This past week, we learned that the same bug exists in both the RankMath and Yoast SEO plugins for WordPress.

The bug generates duplicate sitemap files.

If you’re new to SEO and unfamiliar with sitemaps, they’re digital readouts of the contents on your website. They make it easier for search engines to find and index pages.

But you only need one per site.

Both companies are aware of the problem. But as of now, there’s no update for the fix.

Google: Alt Text Only Matters for Image Search

You probably learned in SEO 101 that you should add alt text to your image tags. That’s how you tell Google about the contents of the image.

But that’s only a valuable strategy for image search.

Here’s what John Mueller had to say about the subject this past week: “[F]rom an SEO point of view the alt text really helps us to understand the image better for image search. And if you don’t care about this image for image search, then that’s fine do whatever you want with it.”

Mueller also advised SEOs to use alt text for accessibility purposes.

Google: We’ve Reduced Irrelevant Search Results by Half Over the Last 7 Years

In a recent announcement, Google claims to have reduced irrelevant search results by 50% during the last seven years.

The stat comes from quality rater data. But that’s internal to Google.

As far as I know, there’s no third-party source for that kind of info.

Google also says it’s seen a 60% increase in users putting natural language queries in the search box.

That means if you write content like people normally speak, you should get a decent rank.

Instagram Allows Users to Tag Products in Feed Posts

As part of its ongoing effort to fully embrace ecommerce, Instagram now allows users to tag products in their posts.

In the past, that feature was only available to approved creators.

Here’s what Instagram said about product tagging:

Scored a new pair of earrings from a small business you love? Tag the product in your Feed post so your friends and followers can learn more about the earnings and shop them!! People come to Instagram to share and discover trends and inspiration. Product tagging will make it possible for anyone to support their favorite small businesses, share how they styled their looks along with the products they used, and more.

If you have a business or creator account, you can also tag products in Stories and Reels.

Instagram Launches Algorithm-Free Feed to All Users

Speaking of Instagram, it’s launching an algo-free feed for all users.

In other words, the feed will show posts in reverse chronological order. Just like social media apps did back in the old days.

Instagram now offers two feed options:

• Favorites – Displays posts from accounts you included in your “Favorites” list.
• Following – Shows posts from all accounts you follow.

Both options display posts in reverse chronological order.

Unfortunately, though, you’ll need to specify that you want to view posts in reverse chronological order every time you open the app.

Homework

Spring is here! But before you get back in the garden, take care of these action items:

• If you’re in the ecommerce space, think about ways you can convince loyal customers and brand evangelists to tag your products in Instagram.
• Make sure you keep your alt text attributes up to date if you’re serious about ranking for image search.
• Think about post-contemporary marketing with Ray-Ban Stories.
• If you’re purchasing fake reviews, you’re going to get caught. Put a stop to that immediately.
• Link your Merchant Center account to your GA4 account. That will give you better insights into product data.
• If you’re a YouTube live streamer, take a look at those new features and decide which ones you want to use.

Digital Marketing News 3/17/2022 – 3/18/2022

This week: Adobe makes it easier for you to get insights on the entire customer experience, WordPress found a couple of vulnerabilities, and Instagram has some good news for marketers.

Here’s what happened this week in digital marketing.

Adobe Adds New Features to Customer Journey Analytics

This past week, Adobe announced a number of enhancements to its Customer Journey Analytics tool.

In a nutshell, the new features offer actionable insights gleaned from the entire customer experience. You can think of it as split-testing with an emphasis on the whole journey.

The tool now gives you the ability to conduct experiments. For example, you might like to see how a change in your mobile app reduces calls to customer service. Or how a change on your website leads to more mobile app installs.

“Often, we’re seeing now people starting in digital — where they may not have before — but they’re still engaging in multiple channels through multiple devices for a singular outcome,” said Nate Smith, director of Product Marketing for Adobe Analytics “Ultimately, this has driven up the priority of omnichannel analysis for a lot of brands with that focus on lifetime value and retention. What has been a problem is the way that that type of analysis is done.”

The old-school way of aggregating data, says Smith, is just too complicated for today’s businesses. Marketers need quick answers while software developers can take weeks to put requirements into code.

But Customer Journey Analytics is built on top of the company’s own Experience Platform. So the tool gives you the ability to aggregate, isolate, and crunch the data in short order.

WordPress Releases New Performance Plugin

If you run a WordPress website, you might have noticed how difficult it is to meet the Core Web Vitals thresholds.

WordPress developers understand that. That’s why they developed the Performance Lab plugin.

It not only speeds up your website but also diagnoses problems that may contribute to slow load times.

Like many other tools on the market, it’s modular. That means you get to choose which feature you want to be implemented on your site.

The four modules include:

• WebP Uploads – converts JPEG files to faster-loading WebP files.
• WebP Support – ensures the webserver supports WebP
• Persistent Object Cache Health Check – checks for the use of object caching
• Audit Enqueued Assets – identifies unnecessary CSS and Javascript files

The Audit Enqueued Assets module is experimental as of now.

WordPress Identifies Two Vulnerabilities

Speaking of WordPress, the company recently identified a couple of vulnerabilities. One of them could make it easy for hackers to take over your site.

First up: the Stored Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability. It enables attackers to upload malicious scripts.

Then, when an admin logs on, the script can take over the site.

The next vulnerability is called Prototype Pollution. It was found in the Gutenberg module and in jQuery. 

However, it’s difficult for hackers to exploit that vulnerability.

The good news, as usual, is that WordPress released a patch to fix these issues. Upgrade to v5.9.2.

Google May Display More Short-Form Videos in Search

You know the era of short-form videos has reached its peak when Google might start surfacing them in search results.

In a recent Search Off The Record podcast, Google Product Manager Danielle Marshak said that the Big G is working on ways to do that.

Marshak defines short-form videos as under five minutes in length. They also must appear in vertical aspect ratio.

In other words: smartphone videos.

Google also says it might be able to index TikTok videos.

Google: User-Engagement Isn’t a Ranking Factor

I think we’ve been here before.

Google’s John Mueller said, again, that Google’s search engine doesn’t use engagement as a ranking factor.

He went on to say: “But it is the case that usually pages within a website are interlinked with the rest of the website and through those internal links across the website we do forward some of the signals.”

In other words: the rest of your website can benefit from a high-quality page. That’s nothing new.

Google Will Sunset Universal Analytics Next Year

The old version of Google Analytics, known as Universal Analytics, will go away in July of 2023.

UA properties will get an extra few months of data processing. That will end on October 1, 2023.

Google says it’s getting rid of UA due to its inability to handle cross-platform analytics.

Basically, UA can’t handle apps.

“Universal Analytics was built for a generation of online measurement that was anchored in the desktop web, independent sessions and more easily observable data from cookies,” Google said in a statement. “This measurement methodology is quickly becoming obsolete.“

Google also said that GA offers more privacy protections.

Instagram Launches Creator Lab

Instagram is launching the Creator Lab Initiative. It’s designed to help you get the most out of your Instagram marketing.

The Creator Lab includes videos from established Instagram stars who share their experiences on topics such as:

• Channel growth
• Monetization
• Safety
• The Instagram Algorithm

You can visit the Creator Lab here.

Google Rolls out Related Search for Content Ads

Google AdSense now offers a new ad unit: Related Search for Content.

Here’s how it works: when people visit your site, Google will show an ad that looks a lot like the “Related Searches” section you often see in search results. Users can click one of the links in the box.

“Related search for content is a contextual navigation unit that shows users search terms related to the page they’re viewing on a publisher’s website,” said Google in a statement about the new ad unit. “When they click a search term, they’re taken to a search results page on the publisher’s site where they can explore other relevant topics, including search ads. As a result, Related search for content can help publishers increase site engagement – including site traffic, pageviews and ad impressions – and drive incremental revenue.”

Google also says that the new ad unit preserves the privacy of your visitors.

Pinterest Allows Users to Share Idea Pins on Other Platforms

Pinterest will now let you download and share your Idea Pins on other social media sites.

If you’re unfamiliar with Idea Pins, they’re a multi-page canvas that you use to share tutorials, passions, and innovations.

And they don’t just include images. You can add video clips as well.

In the past, Idea Pins were limited to just the Pinterest platform. Now, you can share them with new audiences.

The catch is that you have to share them in Story format.

As of now, you can only share them as Instagram or Facebook Stories.

Homework

If you’re celebrating St. Patrick’s Day all weekend, make sure you take care of these action items before grabbing that first pint of Guinness:

• Think about how you can use Idea Pins on other platforms to further promote your brand.
• Take a look at that new AdSense unit and decide if it’s right for your website.
• Head over to the Instagram Creator Lab and get some marketing insights.
• Make sure you upgrade to the latest version of WordPress to get away from those vulnerabilities.
• If you’re an Adobe user, take a look at Customer Journey Analytics and further optimize your marketing strategy.

Digital Marketing News 3/7/2022 – 3/11/2022

This week: Google says internal linking is still awesome after all these years, Yoast refuses the IndexNow integration, and Twitter has a new monetization dashboard.

Here’s what happened this week in digital marketing.

Confirmed: Internal Linking Is Still Really Important

Some of the best SEO strategies that worked a few years back still work today.

Take internal linking for example. It’s an oldie but a goodie.

This past week, somebody asked Google’s John Mueller if internal linking is still a good idea.

“Yes, absolutely,” Mueller replied. “It’s something where internal linking is supercritical for SEO.”

He went on to say that it’s one of the biggest things you can do on a website. Internal linking acts as a guide for both Googlebot and visitors alike.

Mueller also said that internal links help Google determine what’s important.

“And what you think is important is totally up to you,” he said.

WordPress Plugin SEOPress Now Integrated With IndexNow

There’s yet another WordPress plugin that integrates with IndexNow: SEOPress.

If you’re unfamiliar with IndexNow, it’s an SEO tool that pings search engines when content is added or changed on your website. That means your pages get indexed quickly.

And here’s some more good news: you get the IndexNow integration for free with SEOPress. But you still have to activate it.

Yoast Founder Explains Why His Plugin Doesn’t Integrate With IndexNow

Speaking of IndexNow, you might be wondering why Yoast, considered by many the best WordPress SEO plugin, doesn’t yet include support for IndexNow.

Well, the founder of Yoast is here to answer that question.

Joost de Valk gave two primary reasons for rejecting the IndexNow integration:

• He’s not seen evidence that it helps site owners get more traffic
• He’s not seen evidence that it reduces crawling or improves crawl efficiency

But, noticeably, he didn’t deny that IndexNow helps webmasters get their pages indexed more quickly.

Something is going on behind the scenes here. And I’m not sure what it is.

Google: Recipe Pages Might Be Getting Too Long

Ya think?

This past week during a Google Search Central SEO office-hours hangout, John Mueller stated the obvious: maybe there’s just a bit too much fluff on recipe pages.

And you can probably relate. Perhaps you’ve searched for a recipe on chicken primavera only to find that you have to scroll through a 500-word thinkpiece on what to do with the leftovers before you actually get to the ingredients.

Mueller, for his part, advised SEOs to create one page that focuses on a recipe and other pages with supporting content (like what to do with the leftovers).

But will Google release an algorithm update that “punishes” hyper-verbal recipe pages? That remains to be seen.

Google Desktop Page Experience Rollout Complete

Google’s desktop version of the page experience update has fully rolled out.

The update began on Feb. 22 and was completed on March 3.

So if you’ve noticed some of your keywords doing the Google Dance over the past week or so, you might want to check your page experience scores for desktop platforms.

By the way, if you’re unfamiliar with the page experience update, it’s all about assigning scores to your page based on user-friendliness. In this case, “user-friendliness” means how quickly the page loads and how little the elements shift around as it’s loading.

Google Search Central Virtual Unconference Returns

Confirmed: you’ll get the opportunity to participate in a Google Search Central Virtual Unconference this year.

In fact, it’s happening at the end of this month.

Google hosted unconferences in 2020 and 2021. Apparently, it’s back by popular demand.

The Unconference is more of a free-flowing discussion than a formal series of presentations. If you decide to attend, you’ll break out with like-minded folks into Google Meet rooms and chat.

Google employees will begin returning to the office next month, so it’s likely that Google will begin hosting in-person conferences next year.

Google: Ranking Quotas Don’t Exist

No, there is no maximum number of keywords you can rank for. That’s according to Google’s John Mueller.

The subject came up on Twitter this past week. Jamie Belcher asked the following question: “Is it still true that Google will limit the number of times a domain can rank for a keyword? Especially for competitive KWs.”

Mueller replied by saying, “There’s no hard limit for how many pages we show from a site.”

So feel free to rank pages for every word in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Twitter Adds Dashboard to Help Creators Track Monetization Efforts

This past week, Twitter launched a Creator Dashboard that enables you to track the revenue you’re earning with the platform.

That’s important because Twitter allows you to earn money through various types of income streams. For example, you might earn some revenue via ticketed spaces and other revenue thanks to super follows.

You’d love to see it broken down, wouldn’t you? That’s why the dashboard exists.

Google Offers Blog Series About Search Console and Data Studio

Interested in learning more about the connection between Google Search Console and Google Data Studio? There’s a blog series for that.

The first post got published this past week. In it, author Daniel Waisberg explains how to connect data with geographical regions.

He highlights the importance of a Search Console/Data Studio integration with this line: “Google Search Console gives you insight into your website performance in Google Search, but understanding your data can be a challenge. If you set up a custom dashboard with data visualizations that work for you, it might help you make better decisions that are supported by data.”

In subsequent articles, Google will explain how to create different types of dashboards.

Homework

Before you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day make sure you take care of these action items:

• Follow that Google blog series about Search Console/Data Studio integration. You might uncover some great ways to optimize your number-crunching.
• If you’re using Twitter monetization options, familiarize yourself with that new dashboard. That’s how you’ll see which income stream is boosting your bottom line the most.
• Think about attending the Google Virtual Unconference this year. You might learn a lot about how to better optimize your website for search appearance.
• Get into Search Console and check your desktop page experience scores. See if there’s room for improvement.
• If you’re not doing a lot of internal linking as part of your SEO strategy, start doing it now.

Digital Marketing News 2/28/2022 – 3/4/2022

This week: Google tells us how consumer trends change with the times, Clubhouse has a chat feature, and be careful about changing hosting providers.

Here’s what happened this week in digital marketing.

Google Search Data Shows How Consumer Trends Are Changing

A new report from Google highlights how consumer trends are changing now that we’re moving out of the new normal and back to the old normal.

According to data gathered by Google Ads Research and Insights, you can expect to see trends in expectations and events.

Among expectations:

• “Late night shopping” search is up 100% year-over-year
• “24/7 customer services” is up 500% YoY
• “Dog friendly restaurants” is up 100% YoY

And among events:

• “Cinema near me” is up 300% YoY
• “Seating chart” is up 600% YoY
• “Spring break” is up 100% YoY

But alas, the more things change the more they stay the same. Some of the so-called pandemic-related trends are still with us:

• “Makeup game” is up 700% YoY
• “Best movies to stream right now” is up 300% YoY

Meta Expands Facebook Reels to More Than 150 Countries

Continuing with the theme of its “Reels-focused” marketing campaign, Meta is expanding Facebook Reels to more than 150 countries.

As of now, Reels is available in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and India.

Additionally, Meta is rolling out new editing features for Reels, including:

• Draft Reels
• Video clipping so users can test different formats
• Reels that are 60 seconds long

All in One and RankMath WordPress Plugins Integrate With IndexNow

Bing recently announced that the All in One SEO plugin for WordPress supports the IndexNow protocol. Along the same lines, RankMath also supports IndexNow.

The IndexNow protocol lives up to its name by indexing web pages in the Bing search engine very quickly. Once they’re indexed, they can be discovered by people searching for content with relevant keywords.

The All in One WordPress plugin offers assistance with on-site SEO. RankMath offers a similar service. 

And now, thanks to the integration with IndexNow, you can also use either one of those plugins to get your pages indexed in a jiffy.

That will get people to your site more quickly. And may give you an edge over your competitors.

Bing is the second most popular search engine in the world behind Google.

YouTube Adds Analytics Data

YouTube is giving you more info about video views and revenue.

On the views side, you’ll now see info about views by type of video. 

Here, “type” means whether it’s a regular video, Short, or Livestream.

“We want to give you an overview of the different formats,” YouTube said in a statement. “So, for example, how much you uploaded and how much you live-streamed. Tell you about the views for each format, tell you about the overlap in audience between these different formats, and then let you dive into each format individually. So you can see the right analytics, whether it’s for regular videos or shorts or livestreams.”

Additionally, YouTube will give you more info about revenue sources. That is, revenue by video type and how the revenue got generated.

Finally, YouTube is also working on a report that will give you inspiration for new videos. The report highlights popular search terms and which topics have a noticeable lack of video content.

Yes, Changing Hosting Providers Can Impact SEO

This past week, Google’s John Mueller addressed the question of whether you can take an SEO hit when you move your website to a different hosting provider.

In short: yes, you can. But it might be temporary.

Mueller pointed out that Google will slow down crawling. At least in the beginning.

But standard crawling will resume once things “settle in.”

Also, your website load time might increase. That’s especially the case if the lion’s share of your visitors are farther away geographically from the new server than they were from the old server.

Of course, longer page load times mean lower Core Web Vitals scores. And that could hurt your rank as well.

Mueller suggested that you should host your website in multiple locations with a content delivery network (CDN) to prevent that from happening.

Google Unveils AdSense for YouTube Homepage

This month, Google will release the AdSense for YouTube homepage that you can use from within YouTube Studio.

As of now, that page is “accessible to a small number of creators,” but you should see it soon enough if you don’t see it already.

Until it fully rolls out, you can view your income in your AdSense payments account.

But there’s a downside to this change. At least if you’re not rolling in the earnings with your YouTube content.

You now have to hit the $100 threshold for YouTube income only before Google will issue a payment. Same thing with AdSense for web content.

TikTok Says 10-Minute Videos Are on the Way

And it seems like I was saying just last week that TikTok couldn’t compete when it comes to long-form videos.

Well, TikTok is going to put that prediction to the test. It’s rolling out 10-minute video uploads.

The point is monetization. It’s much easier to run mid-roll ads on longer videos. And it’s less disruptive to run pre-roll ads.

In short: TikTok doesn’t want to go the way of Vine.

Here’s TikTok’s statement on the subject: “We’re always thinking about new ways to bring value to our community and enrich the TikTok experience. Last year, we introduced longer videos, giving our community more time to create and be entertained on TikTok. Today, we’re excited to start rolling out the ability to upload videos that are up to 10 minutes, which we hope would unleash even more creative possibilities for our creators around the world.”

Time will tell if this new strategy works.

Clubhouse Adds In-Room Chat

Clubhouse just added another way for you to join in on the conversation.

Now, the audio-only app is no longer audio-only. It’s allowing text-based chat in a room.

All listeners in the room can “tune in” to the chat. They can also contribute to it.

Here’s what Clubhouse says about the new feature: “Today we’re introducing in-room chat which will allow users – from the mods to the listeners in the audience – to communicate with each other via text during a live room. Don’t want to miss your moment to share a killer joke? Want to put in a song request? Want to react with an emoji? You can now drop it in the in-room chat.”

The app notifies you that chats are available by displaying a chat icon in the lower, left-hand side of the screen.

Homework

It’s March! So before the first quarter of the year is in the history books, take a look at these action items:

• Think about how you can use long TikTok videos to promote your business on the platform (or earn revenue with ads).
• Think about using enhanced conversions for leads with Google AdSense to get more info about people in your target market.
• Take a look at that new analytics data and decide how you can use it for targeting purposes.
• Check out that Google report on how customer trends are changing. Update your business model accordingly.