IGNITE SEARCH WEEKLY WRAP –
17TH FEBRUARY 2021
100% CURATED SEO/ONLINE MARKETING GOODNESS:
HELPFUL STRATEGIES, TIPS & TRICKS:
SEO: The relation between ecommerce, SEO and SEM
Every brand’s needs will be different and require a unique combination of SEO, SEM and ecommerce. What is the magic element for a successful marketing mix.
SEO: How to audit Core Web Vitals
A step-by-step process to identify problems and prioritise fixes ahead of the Page Experience Update.
SEO: What Are SERPs? Search Engine Results Pages Explained
Learn what SERPs are, how they impact you, and how you can improve your chances for digital success.
SEO: A comprehensive guide on using Google Trends for keyword research
Google Trends is a powerful tool for digital marketers. 11 Ways you can use it to find relevant, trending, and related keywords that boost traffic.
SEO: The 11 Best Image Search Engines
Need to find a source for an image? Want a high-res image to use in your next marketing campaign? Find a list of image search engines here.
SEO: Using SEO, User Experience & Accessibility to Improve Search Results
It takes marketers with complementary SEO & UX skills to ensure website accessibility not only for search engines but for all.
SEO: How to Use SEO Keyword Ranking Insights Across the Enterprise
SEO data is useful beyond marketing, at every level of the enterprise. Learn how to use keyword ranking and other SEO insights across the organisation.
SEO: Market Analysis Done in Under 60 Minutes
Read this quick guide to uncover how to run a preliminary market analysis to evaluate new markets and understand if you need to invest in further research and a go-to-market strategy. From deep-diving into market growth dynamics to key marketing success drivers within a select niche, this ‘crash’ approach to market analysis will help you save time and resources when trying to get a general understanding of the industry landscape.
SEO: Get Your Complete Guide to Law Firm SEO [Ebook]
Want to grow your legal practice’s online presence? Learn how to boost your law firm’s visibility and generate a steady flow of new leads in this SEO guide.
Paid: 5 Expert-Identified Reasons to Advertise on Instagram
This post explores five key benefits of advertising on Instagram as well as how to leverage the platform for optimal results—from growth opportunities to easy ad creation, Stories ads, and more.
Paid: 4 PPC Myths To Let Go for Paid Search Success
Let’s dispel these four PPC myths and their underlying assumptions that cause paid search campaigns to fail and give the channel a bad rap.
Paid: Psychographic Marketing for PPC: A Beginner’s Guide
Brands have rich ad targeting options, but where do you start? Learn about psychographic marketing and how to use it on Google Ads, Facebook & more.
Paid: Modified Broad Match Is Going Away: What You Need to Know
Google has made yet another short-notice announcement that the modified broad match type in Google Ads will be phased out in February 2021. This post covers what the change means, what Google says about it, what the community says about it, as well as expert tips on how to navigate the change.
Paid: Top Tips to Improve Your PPC Lead Quality & Follow-up [Webinar]
Struggling to keep up with leads from various sources? Join this webinar and learn how to ensure a strong lead follow-up, regardless of the channel.
Content: How to Write an SEO-Focused Content Brief Your Writers Will Love
The right content brief can help you maximise organic search traffic. Learn what to include in your content briefs, what to avoid, and tips for getting your writers bought in.
Social: A Breakdown of Facebook Ads Budgets (+ Free Budget Calculator)
Having trouble translating your Facebook marketing goals into a real Facebook ads budget? Here’s how to pick the perfect budget every time.
Social: Using Facebook Ads to Move Leads Into Sales
In this article, you’ll discover a process for using Facebook ads to turn leads into paying customers.
Social: How to Use Socialbakers Social Listening to Tune Into Customers
Learn what you should look for in a social media listening solution, how to use social listening to engage with audiences and set up social listening queries.
Social: Facebook Ad Library: How to Model Your Competitors
In this article, you’ll discover how to use the Facebook Ad Library to see how other brands are advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
Local: Google My Business & Local SEO in 2021 [Podcast]
Search Engine Journal Show LIVE, Loren Baker and Greg Gifford will be going over what’s important and what’s changing for Google My Business and Local Search in 2021.
Local: A small business’ step-by-step guide to dominating local search in 2021
Incorporate local SEO techniques into your marketing strategy to increase online visibility for local search. We walk you through the process in this blog.
KEY INDUSTRY UPDATES:
SEO: Google On The Worst it Can Do Against Black Hat SEO
Google’s John Mueller answers: “what’s the worst Google can do to a website if caught using black hat SEO tactics?”
SEO: Google: Stop Worrying About Stop Words Just Write Naturally
John Mueller of Google said not to worry about stop words at all and just write naturally.
SEO: Google’s John Mueller On Google Search Spam Penalties & Quality Issues
Google’s John Mueller posted one of the more detailed responses I’ve seen from him on the topic of overall search spam, penalties, quality algorithms and more.
SEO: Google Discusses Impact of Tags on Rankings
Google’s John Mueller answers whether there’s a ranking benefit in the use of “tag” links in articles
SEO: Google Passage Ranking & Scroll To Text/Snippet Are Unrelated
Danny Sullivan of Google said “It’s not going to look any different. It’s just a way to better identify web pages that are relevant to a query.”
SEO: Google Search Console Adds AMP Error Disallowed !important CSS Qualifier
Google has added a new AMP error to the Search Console AMP enhancements report for disallowed !important CSS qualifier. Google explained since it added this new AMP issue type, “as a result, you may see an increase in the total number of AMP issues reported for your site.” “This doesn’t necessarily indicate new errors on your site, only that we are now checking for this error,” Google said.
SEO: Google: Shorter Domains Are Not Better For Ranking Or SEO
Google’s John Mueller said that having a shorter domain name or a shorter URL is not going to benefit you in terms of your SEO and ranking in Google Search.
SEO: Google SEO Advice On Temporarily Removing Site Functionality In Support Of Action
Google’s John Mueller shared specific SEO advice around what to do when you remove or disable functionality of parts of your website or your whole website in order to encourage users to take action on an issue. So maybe you replace your home page with a message or something else, you want to avoid any SEO issues with doing that.
SEO: Google Won’t Penalize Your Site For Missing Logos, Menu Links Or Footers
Google’s John Mueller said Google does not have manual action penalties for building sites that are missing logos, or missing the menu links at the top or even the footers at the bottom.
SEO: Google Image Search update reduces duplicate image results
Google said this launched in November, so it seems Google is November but is just announcing this now. Google has made an improvement to Image Search to reduce duplicate images, so that we can display others that are relevant yet visually distinct.
Related Articles:
SEO: Google Video On Image SEO In Detail With 12 Tips
Google’s John Mueller released an almost 10 minute long video on image SEO best practices and tips. It is one of the more detailed image SEO presentations I’ve seen from Google. He lists off 12 specific actionable tips and then talks more about implementation and measurement.
SEO: Google Search Tests Dark Mode Theme Controls
Google has been testing a dark mode theme in the Google Search results. Now Google is testing a toggle to turn on and off the dark mode theme.
Related Articles:
- Google Search Dark Mode Makes Ads Harder To Distinguish From Organic Listings
- Google Search dark theme mode expands but search ads are hard to distinguish
- Google goes dark theme and passage ranking sees the light: Friday’s daily brief
SEO: WordPress Gutenberg Improved Site Performance
WP Rocket redesigned site with WordPress Gutenberg and experienced remarkable performance gains. But there are a few things to watch out for
SEO: WordPress 5.6.1 Introduces Bug Into Post and Page Windows
Bug warns publishers from leaving editing window in WordPress 5.6.1. Triggers false warning: “Changes you made may not be saved”
SEO: Google Search Console Page Experience Appearance Filter In Performance Report
It looks like Google is preparing to upgrade the performance report within Google Search Console to show a page experience update appearance filter.
SEO: Microsoft Bing: 15% Of Searches Are Misspelled So Speller100 To The Rescue
Microsoft posted on its research blog that is has launched Speller100, spelling correction models, to help Microsoft Bing Search do better at spelling corrections. Microsoft said 15% “about 15% of queries submitted by customers have misspellings” so this is needed.
Related Articles:
SEO: Bing Search Recommends Queries & Sites Based On Activity & What’s Popular
Bing is now recommending additional search queries to try out and websites to check out based on your activity and what’s popular.
SEO: Google Search Prefers To Neutralize The Effect Of Spam
Google’s John Mueller said that if we can neutralise the effect of bad links, that’s enough; there’s no need to remove the site completely from search then.
SEO: Google Search Hiding Featured Snippet Label?
For the past week or so, for some queries, it seems like Google is hiding the featured snippet label in the search results.
SEO: Core Web Vitals Might Include Noindexed Pages
John Mueller explains that in some cases the Core Web Vitals ranking signal might be calculated using noindexed web pages
Related Articles:
SEO: Google Adds 12 New Types of Manual Action Penalties
Violations of Google News and Google Discover policies can now result in manual action penalties.
Paid: Google Product Search Swipe Through Results and Style Ideas
Google now lets you swipe left or right to scan through the different products.
Paid: Announcing v6.1 of the Google Ads API
Google announced v6.1 release of the Google Ads API. To use some of the v6.1 features, you will need to upgrade your client libraries and client code. The updated client libraries and code examples will be published next week. This version has no breaking changes.
Paid: Introducing Publisher Ads Audits for Lighthouse v1.4.1
Google announce the general release of Publisher Ads Audits for Lighthouse v1.4.1.
Paid: Google Search Scroll To Text On Free Product Results
Google is expanding the scroll-to-text feature it has on featured snippets and some other search elements to the free top product listings boxes.
Paid: A Google Ads setting allowed advertisers to exclude people of ‘unknown gender’
A Google Ads setting allowed businesses to potentially exclude nonbinary gender audiences, according to The Markup. The publication found examples across YouTube and search where advertisers could exclude audiences based on “unknown gender.” This form of discrimination is against Google’s own personalised advertising policy.
Paid: Google Ads Lead Form Now Triggers On Headline Click
Google said “you can now show a lead form when people tap the headline of your Search ad—rather than guiding them to a landing page.”
Paid: In-SERP lead forms convert Google Ads users without a click-through
Lead form extensions are available for Google advertisers in Search, Video, and Discovery.
Social: YouTube Launches Biweekly ‘Shorts Report’ For Creators
YouTube is launching a new resource dedicating to assisting users with the creation of Shorts videos.
Social: Twitter Eyes Subscriptions for Premium Features
Twitter is reportedly considering a subscription model for Tweetdeck and other premium features.
Social: Facebook & Instagram Shops Integrate With Shopify
Facebook and Instagram Shops are integrating with Shopify to offer Shop Pay as a payment option.
Social: Pinterest Closes In On TikTok & Snapchat with +37% Monthly Users
Pinterest continues to build its audience and add features to help marketers connect with Pinners, as monthly active use and revenue grow.
Local: Bing Local Replaces Yelp Reviews With Facebook & Foursquare Reviews
Microsoft dropped using Yelp reviews within Bing Local. Now instead, it seems Bing is using Facebook and Foursqaure and maybe others.
Local: Notice: Google My Business Auto Populating Services
Google seems to have been auto populating the services section of your Google My Business listing. It is believed that Google is pulling the services based on the content of your web site.
Local: Google Tests Find Results On Other Search Providers In US
Google may be testing showing the “find results on” other search providers in the US. This is a feature Google launched in the European Union after the anti-competitive legislation and issues they had their.
Local: Google My Business adds messaging to desktop interface
Google is rolling out the messaging functionality within the Google My Business desktop interface. This is not fully live yet, but many can see it already. Previously, messaging was available through the Google My Business mobile app, but not within the Google My Business desktop interface.
Related Articles:
- GMB Messaging for Desktop Now Rolling Out
- Google My Business Messaging Support Added To Desktop Interface
Local: Google passage ranking now live in US English search results
Google has updated us that passage ranking, as they are now properly calling it, went live on Wednesday, February 10, 2021, in the afternoon Pacific Time for queries in the US in English. Google said this can have a 7% impact on search queries – so this might feel like a big update.
Related Articles:
Local: Google officially displays years in business in local pack
Google quietly announced that the “years in business” label is now live for businesses that want to display how many years they are in business within the Google Search local pack.
Local: Google Local Pack Labeling Coworking Office Spaces
Google is now labelling some businesses that are in coworking office spaces with that label in the local pack search results.
