We all forget to periodically check in and keep up-to-date on important news in our industry. But don’t worry! That’s what updates from Carousel30, a Capitol Communicator sponsor, are here for. Keep reading to find out what you may have missed during the past few weeks.
Digital Marketing News: Social Media, Paid Search and Google’s SEO Updates
With so many releases and updates pushed daily, it can be hard to keep up with the hustle and bustle in the marketing and communications industry. For the past few weeks, various social media platforms and Google have been releasing updates like there’s no tomorrow. As a result, social media, paid search and SEO are still hitting the headlines as more and more happens.
Bridging the Gap Between Social Media and Users
Social media platforms have continued to expand their reach and influence amongst users. Social media updates indicate that the industry is heading towards a more tangible relationship with its users, rather than a digital world of impersonal interaction between usernames and handles. Chat apps such as WhatsApp, Kik, and Tango are growing in popularity and are surpassing social networks. To give you an idea, the amount of total users that utilize the top-four chat apps is larger than total users of the top-four social networks. In addition, emoji usage amongst brands has increased by 777% since the beginning of 2015 as a means of digitally connecting with individuals on an emotional level.
Facebook is also connecting emotionally with users by bridging the gap between separate apps with a potential Bot Store that enables brands to create chat app “bots” that allow users to shop online, pay bills and complete other day-to-day tasks within the app. Twitter is also connecting with a new realm of users by adding image descriptions of up to 420 characters to help the visually impaired. And for those who are looking to take your swipe right to the next level, Tinder has acquired Humin, a start-up that focuses on connecting people on college campuses who are near each other by tapping on a phone twice while in the app. For those who tend to veer away from swiping right, try out LinkedIn’s new App that helps college graduates find jobs.
Paid Search
Paid Search has come a long way since Google began AdWords in 2000. Now that its 2016 and time for growth, Google redesigned the paid search layout as seen on Google’s search engine. In doing so, prices for advertisements increased, but so have CTRs. While you’re trying to analyze this data, you may also notice changes in the way the AdWords interface appears. That’s because Google redesigned AdWords to better showcase data and trends to those who are unfamiliar with analytics. Google AdWords is also testing their “Ad” tags color for 5% of users from yellow to green. If you’re looking to target those in the UK with marketing-related terms, you may want to develop a new strategy. It was recently announced that the most expensive PPC keywords on Google UK were all related to Big Data and were priced at about $100 per click. Now, if you’re looking to target consumers via Paid Search on mobile channels, you may have success as this was just found to be the top channel for improving ROI.
Google’s Most Recent Updates
Google is now punishing bloggers for using buying links connected to reviewed products. Google has also recently stopped providing PageRank information to the public, meaning we should keep a lookout for changes to the importance of inbound links as a ranking signal. Google also published on their Research blog that registering a website with Google Search Console helps increase the probability of fixing a hacked or compromised site more so than if websites are not registered with Google Search Console. You can also now track packages directly within Google’s search bar by typing “My packages,” “My purchases,” and “My orders.” While you search, you could be coming across ‘trending searches’ identified with a line graph line rather than ‘most searched terms’ as seen previously. And as for SEO, footer content has a neutral effect on SEO where footer content is not penalized, but not seen as primary content which is good news for link and redundant copy-heavy footers.
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