As I’m sure you know by now, Google Ads retired one of their original metrics (average position) back in September of 2019. This was a significant change, as many advertisers found average position to be a critical metric during optimization efforts. For some, average position was a simple way to determine where your ads appeared amongst your competitors. While it was valuable in that regard, it was also a flawed metric as it didn’t tell you exactly where you were appearing on the SERP. You could have an average position of 1.3, but you may have been showing for only 20% of available impressions and missing out on plenty of opportunity.

In this article, we will discuss why we won’t miss average position (and why you shouldn’t either) and what critical metrics we should focus on moving forward.

Out with the Old, in with the New

Average position is gone, so no need to bore you with its definition and how it was calculated. Time to move on! The focus now should be on these four metrics:

• Search top impression rate – Search top impression rate “Impr. (Top) %” is the percent of your ad impressions that are shown anywhere above the organic search results.
• Search absolute top impression rate – Search absolute top impression rate “Impr. (Abs.Top) %” is the percent of your ad impressions that are shown as the very first ad above the organic search results.
• Search top impression share – Search top impression share “Search top IS” is the impressions you’ve received in the top location (anywhere above the organic search results) compared to the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive in the top location.
• Search absolute top impression share – Search absolute top impression share “Search abs. top IS” is the impressions you’ve received in the absolute top location (the very first ad above the organic search results) divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive in the top location.

So what does all that mean? When Google originally made this announcement, they included the following graphic to help illustrate how we should be evaluating these metrics moving forward. See here (image from Google):

References to Top speak to ads that appear above organic results and Absolute Top speaks to ads that appear as the very first ad above the organic results. Knowing the percentage of time you are showing above the organic results or as the number one ad is extremely valuable. These metrics should be used every time you or your account manager is evaluating bid optimizations or campaign performance.

Now What? Show Me the Numbers!

Let’s evaluate keyword performance alongside the four visibility metrics we discussed. To apply this to a real-life example, assume your Google Ads campaign needs to be optimized towards a $45 CPA. How aggressive should you be with bids? By leveraging the visibility metrics for impression rate and impression share, you’ll have a much clearer picture of how aggressive your bid optimizations should be. Please find some sample keyword data below:

In this example keyword 2 and keyword 3 seem like great opportunities for bid increases considering their current CPA are under goal (28% headroom and 47% headroom respectively). Upon a closer look, you’ll see why the opportunity for one is greater than the other.

While keyword 2 is well under goal (by about 28%), top impression share (94%) and top impression share (89%) indicate we are already plenty aggressive on this term. Any additional increases will likely cause self-inflicted harm by inflating our CPCs. Keyword 3, on the other hand, is a whopping 47% under goal and is sitting at just a 59% top impression share, indicating plenty of opportunity for traffic and lead volume growth.

Final Thoughts

While no one likes change, especially within Google Ads, this one appears to be harmless. With the additional top and absolute top metrics, we get a much deeper understanding of where our ads are appearing, and how often. Leverage these moving forward to make sure your best performing ads are maximizing their visibility on the SERP.

If you’re looking for assistance managing your Google Ads and/or other performance marketing campaigns, please contact us by email at sales@synapsesem.com  or by phone at 781-591-0752.

One of the most commonly asked questions when presenting a PPC proposal to a new a client is “why should we waste money bidding on our own branded keywords?” What is the purpose of bidding on brand when you are already showing at the top of organic listings? Brand can be a core component to any paid search strategy whether you are a massive well-known retailer of a small business start-up B2B company. To some, brand may seem like a “no-brainer” and easy strategy at that. Pop a few exact match keywords into the account, advertise a demo request and let it ride. However, there are actually numerous SEM strategies that can greatly improve your brand performance. First, let’s start off with answering the question on every client’s mind.

Why Bid on Brand When You Have Strong Organic Listings?

There are several reasons why devoting account budget to a brand campaign can be a worthwhile strategy for paid search.

1. Brand ads will help beat out Competition:
   1. It may seem obvious, but many fail to realize the impact that competitors can have on your own brand name. Consider the image below of a branded search (domains have been masked). There are four PPC ads listed (none being the brand searched). The organic listing is shown at the bottom of the page with no meta description above fold. Not only will running a branded ad help win back traffic from competitors, but the keywords will naturally have strong quality scores, due to relevance, and will likely be inexpensive.

2. Brand ads can help improve overall conversion rate
   1. As mentioned above, objectors to brand bidding claim the organic listing will suffice. Brand organic listings will commonly send users to the site homepage. However, in using paid search ads, you will have the opportunity to send that user to a conversion optimized landing page.
3. Brand often makes up a small percentage of budget
   1. Across numerous clients, as an agency, we find that brand campaigns tend to make up only 10% – 20% of account spend usually due to strong quality score and low average CPCs. Because spend can be low, testing out brand can be a cost-effective strategy that will not significantly impact cost KPIs.

Now that we have emphasized why brand bidding can be critical to any PPC program, we have a few strategies to help ensure that your brand campaigns will be a worthwhile initiative if you decide to implement.

1. Register Your Trademark:
   1. It may seem like an obvious next step, but many new organizations put off registering for a trademark. Using the registered trademark symbol in a branded ad is a great credibility booster but more importantly, not having a trademark allows other competitors to use your company name in their ads. “An XX Alternative” or “We’re Better Than XX” are just a few examples of competitor ad copy strategies we have seen. The ability for a competitor to use your brand name in their ad immensely helps with their Quality Score and lowering CPCs, allowing them to run competitive ads cost-effectively.
      1. To remedy this immediately, one you have a trademark, you can fill out a trademark complaint form within Google. All you need is the trademark owner’s name, the registration number, and examples of competitors using your name, and Google will quickly disapprove ads inappropriately using a registered trademark. This is something that you should always be monitoring. In many cases, competitors can simply upload a new ad that will be approved. It is important to be persistent in submitting complaint forms to Google.

2. Robust Ad Copy:
   1. Since brand is often the most successful and consistently strong element of a paid search campaign, it can be easy to ignore the optimization tactics that you practice within non-brand campaigns. It is equally important that your ad copy is robust and utilizes all relevant ad extensions. Ad extensions result in robust ads that take up more real estate in the SERP. Testing is also important in brand campaigns. For example, our agency found through testing across numerous clients, that the use of “Official Site” within headline 1 i(.e. “Client Name – Official Site”) yields higher CTR.

3. Dealing with Aggressive Competitors:
   1. In some cases, like the image above, competitors can be aggressively bidding on your branded terms, driving up CPCs. Organizations can sometimes be forced to bid to position 2 because they cannot afford to pay the inflated CPCs it takes to maintain position 1. One strategy you can take, in order to knock out the competition, is to temporarily artificially inflate your max CPCs. This will force the competitors to have to bid more aggressively and significantly worsen their efficiency. Our agency has implemented this strategy with great success after just one week of inflated bids.

4. Negating Brand in Non-Brand Campaigns:
   1. To best optimize your account, we always recommend breaking out brand and non-brand campaigns. Many times, brand names can still match out to your non-brand broad or phrase match keywords. For example, the query “buy [client name] clothes online” may match out to the broad match keyword “buy clothes online.” For the best reporting, you need to make sure you add in all brand keywords as phrase match negatives to non-brand campaigns.

As paid search marketers it is critical to emphasize and importance of bidding on brand. Not only do we need to be aware of its importance, but we also need to understand the key strategies for brand campaigns. For more information about brand bidding please contact us by email at sales@synapsesem.com or phone at 781-591-0752.

Google, Bing, and other major search engines have been encouraging webmasters to use structured data for years now. Still, only 17 percent of marketers are using structured data markup on their websites today. With incentives like enriched organic search results, it’s a wonder why so many websites have yet to take this step.

Or maybe, it’s no wonder at all. Structured data, most commonly known in the form of Schema.org markup, can come with quite the learning curve. Even the most successful marketers and CMOs might not know what structured data is, let alone its benefits. Quite frankly, even some SEO and web development teams do not know what correct Schema or structured data looks like, or how it can impact a website’s organic visibility. That’s why we’re here to break down the basics.

What is Structured Data Markup?

Generally speaking, “structured data” refers to any data that is organized or well-defined. In terms of search engine optimization, structured data involves organizing your web content with specific code or “markup,” so that crawlers can find and process your information more accurately.

Simply put, structured data is HTML code that provides search engines with a better understanding of a webpage and its content, which ultimately can enhance how that page is displayed in the search results. It tells search engines exactly what specific content relates to, so that they can then serve the most accurate and relevant information to users.

Have you ever Google’d a recipe for dinner and come across very enhanced looking search results? Right in the organic listing, you might have seen star reviews, cook time, as well as the meal’s calorie count. Or maybe you’ve searched for real estate listings, and come across a SERP filled with rich, robust results including open house times and listing prices – without clicking through to a site. These results are called “rich snippets” (rightfully so) and are a potential outcome of structured data markup.

Below are some examples of rich snippet results (driven by Schema.org):

There are all types of structured data vocabulary – for recipes, reviews, movie times, online products, even how-to articles and company information. You can put markup around your logo and contact number or your specific business location (down to the geo-coordinates), as well as the prices and reviews of products you sell online. Google’s Search Gallery features many examples of rich results prompted by structured data.

Structured data can also be applied almost anywhere on your website, and on any type of website. Whether you are a multi-location business trying to reach more consumers, an eCommerce site looking to enhance product pages, or a B2B company looking to increase brand awareness, structured data can work for you.

Many search engines parse and process structured data, which is why webmasters must use standardized implementations (i.e. formats or syntaxes), such as JSON-LD (Google’s recommendation) and Microdata. Webmasters must also use consistent, standardized vocabulary to classify their data. The most commonly used taxonomies are those outlined by Schema.org.

What is Schema.org Markup?

Schema.org is the most commonly used type of structured data markup on websites today. It was developed in 2011 by the big search engines (including Google, Bing, and Yahoo) in efforts to help webmasters categorize important information on their sites, and to further serve users the most relevant information on the web. According to the Schema.org website:

“Schema.org focuses on defining the item types and properties that are most valuable to search engines. This means search engines will get the structured information they need most to improve search,” while “users will end up with better search results and a better experience on the web.”

Essentially, Schema markup is a taxonomy of code formats that major search engines will use to understand a site. While there are other forms of structured data out there – including Open Graph (used by Facebook) and Twitter Cards (used by Twitter) – Schema vocabulary is used by major search engines, and is a key component to any modern SEO strategy.

SEO Benefits of Schema Markup

As Google evolves their algorithm to provide users with quality and relevant content, they recommend webmasters leverage Schema markup to more accurately understand websites. This has clear SEO benefits, including a stronger relevancy signal for Google and enhanced search result listings. Enhanced search results via Schema markup may come in the form as:

• Rich search results, which include styling, images, and other visual enhancements
• Enriched search results, including interactive or immersive features
• Rich cards (a variation of rich search results), designed to provide a better mobile UX
• A Knowledge Panel, which includes information about a brand and takes up significant real estate in the organic search results
• Breadcrumbs, which make your navigation or URL easy to digest in the SERP
• Carousels, which are a collection of multiple rich search results in a carousel style

Now, there are two disclaimers in all of this. Number one, implementing Schema markup does not mean your data will show as rich snippet results. While structured data is needed to qualify for rich snippets like the above, there is no guarantee that Google will immediately show these for your site. This doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong, however. This is just a choice made by Google. And as Google evolves and expands its rich snippet results (we’ll get to that in a minute), we believe it’s an effort worth making.

Secondly, it’s important to recognize that Schema markup does not directly benefit organic rankings. Even though it was created by Google, Schema.org is not a ranking signal. That said, using Schema correctly can contribute to a stronger relevancy signal, which Google will use to better rank your site for the right queries. In addition, rich snippets can improve the organic click-through-rate (CTR) of a webpage – which can also lead to better rankings indirectly – and lower bounce rates, as users see a preview of the content right in the search results. They can also help you establish more real estate in the search results.

Will Schema Markup Become an SEO-Must?

While Schema markup is not a ranking signal, recent releases from Google suggest it is becoming more important. (Just a few months back in May 2019, Google announced several updates involving structured data, including new “How-to” and “FAQ” Schema markup, as well as a new “Enhancements” report in Search Console that helps webmasters identify issues with their structured data.) Not to mention, as Google moves towards a mobile-first web, the search engine is increasing its usage of rich results in the SERP, to create a more visual and engaging UX.

Right now, 83 percent of marketers do not use (or plan to use) Schema markup in the near future, and 99 percent of all sites on the web today do not have Schema.org markup in place. If you fall in this majority, know it’s not too late to step out. While the learning curve seems steep, it really only takes a few basic steps to get Schema started on your site.

How to Use Schema.org Markup

When considering implementing Schema on your website, it is important to first consider the Schema markup that is most relevant to you. What type of content will you be highlighting on your website, and what is your goal in doing so? As Google explains, businesses can use Schema.org markup to:

• Increase brand awareness, by highlighting content such as their business logo, store locations (if applicable), and contact information. This content may pull into Google’s Knowledge Panel, which outlines brand and business information for users.
• Highlight specific content on your website, such as FAQ pages, Events, Job Postings, Reviews, and Articles, among many more.
• Highlight product information, such as the price of an item, its name and description, as well as its availability and review ratings.

Once you decide what you are looking to mark up on your website, you can start exploring the potential Schema.org vocabulary and identifying which is most relevant to your business. Your dev team can do this via Schema.org, or can obtain more color through Google’s list of structured data examples here.

There are also free tools to help out with structured data implementation. These include:

• Google’s Data Highlighter within Search Console, which allows you to tag data fields on your site using your mouse
• A free Schema markup generator (such as this one), which makes it very easy to choose the Schema you want, and to transform it into the proper code
• After implementation, use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to check your markup is accurate and can be interpreted by Google

If you would like help in implementing Schema markup on your website – or simply to learn more about the SEO benefits of structured data – you can also contact Synapse SEM. Complete our contact form online or call us at 781-591-0752 today.

While the concept of RLSA campaigns (Remarketing Lists for Search Audiences), Customer Match, and Similar Audiences have been key SEM strategies for some time now, Google has recently introduced the ability to use existing in-market audiences for search. These audiences were traditionally only available for GDN campaigns.  This gives paid search marketers the opportunity to further test and optimize search campaigns using audience strategies and boost keyword performance in a cost-effective manner.

What are In-Market Audiences?

An in-market audience is designed to connect your campaigns to individuals who are actively searching on terms heavily related to your industry. Google analyzes millions of users, looking at search history and site behavior. They even consider previous conversions, looking at what the users have (and haven’t) purchased. Ideally, these individuals are closer to making a purchase, and are past the research stage. These users are divided into audiences that can later be applied to your campaigns. For example, consider the scenario below.

• Joe wants to plan a trip to Florida with his family
• Joe looks at hotels
• Joe purchases plane tickets
• Joe looks at tickets for Disney World

Based on his search history, Joe would be a prime candidate for the travel audience. When you couple intent with the current keyword set, you can hone in on the right audience (see details below). The categories of in-market audiences range from things like software and financial services to dating sites and babies. Once you select a major theme, you have an option to narrow down your selection even more. Below depicts the multiple selections users can choose under the Travel theme.

In-Market Audiences in Display vs. Search

In-Market audiences are not new. Google announced this targeting option in 2014. Yet, the ability to use them within search was announced back in May 2018. Our agency has tested using in-market audiences for display campaigns in observation mode, and consistently saw poor results. Consider our findings below.

Using in-market audiences for search is a different story. Here, the keyword set can be used on individuals that are proven to be relevant. Instead of risking “opening the flood gates” to this audience, like in the GDN, we are still ensuring their relevance through the “searched” keyword. In the chart below, you can see that the in-market audience drove in a stronger click-through-rate as well as a stronger conversion rate when testing in a search campaign.While the in-market audience drove in significantly more traffic while in observation mode, it had a much lower conversion rate compared to the previous visitor audience. We found this audience to be high spending and hugely inefficient across the board. This makes sense. Google-generated audiences can be filled with irrelevant users. This is a common factor and risk with anything using “machine learning.”

How to Apply an In-Market Audience to a Search Campaign:

1. Sign into you Google Ads Account
2. Navigate to the Audience tab in the left-hand panel
3. Click the pencil icon to create an audience
4. Select which campaign and ad group to edit
5. Click the browse tab
6. Select “what they are actively researching or planning”
7. Choose your desired audience

When to Use In-Market Audiences:

The answer is always! For search campaigns, you should always be using in-market audiences, or any audience for that matter. Just because you apply an audience to a campaign, does not mean that you need to increase bids on these audiences. For search campaigns, you can overlay audiences, in observation mode, and then analyze performance of these audience segments. This is a great way to test out if in-market audiences, and which in-market audiences, work best for your campaign.

At first glance, it may seem that in-market audiences are only beneficial for eCommerce, consumer-based businesses, but that is not true.  In-Market audiences provide a great opportunity for B2B business to exclude irrelevant searchers. Applying an in-market audience as a negative to a campaign can help to create a more targeted audience, boost conversion rate, and most importantly save money. Software based companies may find that their conversion rate is weaker for specific audiences bucketed into the travel and lifestyle related audiences like beauty, apparel and hotels.  That being said, negative audiences are not limited to B2B companies. For example, it is pretty safe to assume that a wedding venue is not interested in targeting users whose search history has been focused on dating sites. Again, these assumptions can all be confirmed through testing.

Test, Test, Test…

Before you make any bid adjustments or create targeted campaigns using these audiences, it is crucial that you overlay all relevant audience types to your campaigns and analyze the results. The audiences will gather data over time, and then you can factor in conversion rate and click-through-rate numbers to help aid your decisions.

You may be surprised with the results, which is why we always recommend testing as many audiences as possible. There are obvious assumptions. For example, it is likely that a rental car service, would benefit from targeting users who have previously been interested in booking a hotel. However you may find that users who have a previous interest in beauty and travel convert better for your luxury watch website.

The Future of In-Market Audiences:

As Google announces more and more new features, we can see a common theme evolving. Google is moving toward “machine learning” which ultimately is causing marketers to steer away from the strong reliance on the keyword, and shift gears to focus on utilizing on this user intent data provided from Google. We can expect more and more announcements based on “automated learning” to come from Google. We are keeping up with the trends and determining what works and does not work with these new features.

 To learn how Synapse SEM can help improve your audience marketing strategy, you may complete our contact form or call us at 781-591-0752

Today, consumers are putting mobile first. Increasingly (and habitually), more of us are turning to our smartphones during moments of need – to ask a question, find a solution, reach a local business, and even to book travel or search for a new home. According to Google, 96 percent of smartphone owners today use their mobile device to get things done, with the average American spending 3-plus hours a day on their smartphone. As we move further into 2019, these numbers are only expected to climb.

Fact of the matter is, people prefer mobile. It’s fast, efficient, and always at our fingertips. Google sees this, and is taking major steps to serve users a better mobile experience. The search engine giant, which now receives the majority of its search traffic from mobile devices, is putting mobile-first.

You may have heard of Google’s mobile-first index, which began rolling out in March 2018. Since then, about 50 percent of websites have been switched over to Google’s new mobile-first index, leaving half of websites to go. Which half are you in? If you have questions regarding mobile-first indexing – what it is, how it might affect your online presence, whether your site has been switched – you are in the right place. Below we answer common questions regarding mobile-first indexing.

What is Mobile-First Indexing?

Mobile-first indexing means that Google will predominantly use the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking. The search engine spiders will first crawl a company’s mobile content – to determine how relevant a webpage is and how it should rank in the search results – before analyzing the desktop version. A website’s organic rankings, both desktop and mobile, will be informed by this mobile crawl. Simply put, it means that the mobile version of your website is now the most important one.

Historically, Google evaluated and ranked web content based on its desktop version. Their index solely contained the desktop iteration of websites, serving any alternate, mobile versions for smartphone and tablet users. Now that most users conduct searches on mobile, the dynamic has changed. Google will primarily base a website’s rankings on its mobile content. If you do not have a mobile (or mobile responsive) website, however, Google will continue to index your desktop content.

It is for this reason that the new index is called “mobile-first.” Google isn’t switching over to mobile indexing completely. It’s simply prioritizing mobile websites first, to serve mobile users the most relevant, valuable, and optimized experiences possible. As Google explained at the beginning of the mobile-first roll-out, “Mobile-first indexing means that we’ll use the mobile version of the page for indexing and ranking, to better help our – primarily mobile – users find what they’re looking for.”

Have You Been Switched to Mobile-First?

If you are unsure whether your website has migrated to mobile-first indexing, check your Google Search Console property. Google is notifying webmasters via a Search Console message. You may also notice a significantly increased crawl rate from Smartphone Googlebot in there, as well, which is an indicator of mobile-first. If you do not have a Search Console account, well, set one up! You can also manually check out Google’s Search Results and cached pages to see if your mobile site ranks.

Most websites included in the first wave do not need to stress over this change, however, as they have been deemed ready for mobile-first indexing. Many of Synapse’s clients who have been migrated, for example, have a mobile-responsive website in which the desktop and mobile content are exactly the same, with the same HTML code. With a responsive site, there are typically no separate versions – instead, the site responds to screen size. More on this in a minute.

If your website was not included in the initial roll-out of mobile-first, do not panic. Google explains sites that have been migrated do not have a “ranking advantage” over mobile content that’s not yet gathered in the mobile-first index. This also doesn’t mean that your website is not mobile-friendly. Google assures that the mobile-first index is independent from their mobile-friendly tests, and many mobile-friendly sites have yet to migrate to mobile-first. Still, site owners should continue to optimize with mobile in mind in preparation for the next wave.

How Will Mobile-First Indexing Impact Your SEO?

As Google notes above, the mobile-first index will not give certain websites a ranking advantage – mobile-first is just a change in the way they crawl and gather data, after all. That said, however, mobile-first indexing may reward websites that have made mobile optimization their priority. So if your website is not mobile optimized yet, you might see a negative effect as the mobile-first index rolls out.

There are a few considerations to keep in mind as Google moves to mobile-first. Perhaps most importantly, consider how your website is set up today. Do you have a mobile website? Does your website use a responsive design for different devices, or do you have separate URLs for each?

If you have a responsive website design, in which your mobile content is the same as your desktop content, you will likely not experience any impact when migrating to the mobile-first index. Google explains that websites using responsive design or dynamic serving are “generally set for mobile-first indexing.” However, if your website has separate mobile and desktop content, there are certain steps you should take to prepare.

Separate Mobile Websites: What to Do About Mobile-First

Does every desktop URL on your website have an equivalent, alternate URL serving mobile-optimized content – for example, www.website.com and m.website.com? With the mobile-first index, Google will no longer index www.website.com as your primary site. Instead, it will prefer the m-dot version of your webpages for ranking and indexing.

If your website serves different content based on a user’s device in any means, whether via an m-dot site or dynamic serving (on the same URL), you must take action to prepare for mobile-first. Google recommends:

• Ensuring that your mobile site contains the same content as your desktop site. If your mobile site has less content than your desktop site, update it so that it is equivalent – in text, word count, images (with alt attributes), and videos in the usual crawlable and indexable formats.
• Putting structured data on both versions of your site. Make sure your mobile pages also have structured data (such as Schema markup) and that the URLs in the structured data are the mobile versions on mobile. If you use Data Highlighter for your structured data, regularly check the dashboard for extraction errors.
• Optimizing metadata on both versions of your site. Ensure that your title tags and meta descriptions are equivalent (and SEO-optimized) across both versions of your website.
• If you have separate m-dot URLs, also verify that both versions of your website can be easily crawled, accessed, and indexed. This involves using the correct rel=canonical and hreflang tags, using robots.txt directives appropriately, verifying both versions in Google Search Console, and ensuring that your mobile site server can handle an increased crawl rate.

Considering Mobile Friendly vs. Mobile Responsive Websites

With mobile-first indexing being rolled out, Google recommends using responsive web design. This means that a website serves all devices with the same code, and that code adjusts for screen size. Not only are responsive websites easy to manage and maintain, they also have benefits from an indexing perspective. Responsive design helps Google’s algorithms accurately assign indexing properties to a page, rather than needing to signal crawlers to a corresponding desktop or mobile version. This setup also saves resources when Googlebot crawls your website, using one user agent versus multiple agents to retrieve the different versions. With more efficient crawling in place, more of your site’s content can be indexed and kept fresh in the index, explains Google.

Now, let’s not confuse mobile responsive with mobile-friendly. While these concepts are generally similar, in the mobile-first index, they have major differences that can hurt your SEO. You see, responsive websites typically eliminate common mobile UX issues, such as zooming, squinting, and too small clickable links. Mobile-friendly websites, on the other hand, can still have some of those issues, even though the website will function fine on mobile. So if you’re using a mobile-friendly (but not responsive) design, you will still need to update your content in accordance with mobile best practices.

How Can You Optimize for Mobile-First?

As I’ve mentioned in a previous article, Google uses hundreds of ranking factors to determine a web page’s relevance and position in the SERP. If you have super- pertinent and high-quality content that is not perfectly optimized for mobile, your website still has a chance of ranking in the mobile-first index. However, if your competitors are creating great content, and it’s mobile-optimized too, then you better catch up. Here are some tips to stay competitive as we move towards mobile-first:

• Optimize your mobile load times. In July 2018, Google officially made mobile load times a part of their ranking algorithm, noting that slow-loading content may now perform less well for both desktop and mobile searchers. To assess your current mobile load times, you can use Google’s free Test My Site tool.
• Go Responsive. It’s clear that responsive design is preferred, and has an advantage, in this mobile-first era. On top of indexing benefits and ease of maintenance, responsive websites often offer better user experiences, faster load and redirection times, and less of those common mobile mistakes.
• Don’t ditch your desktop site. If your website is not mobile, Google will not stop crawling or indexing your desktop versions. However, you may see rankings drop as the mobile-first index rolls out (and in that case, you may just consider the move to mobile).

Mobile optimization is becoming a standard in the search landscape. We see that with voice search. We see that with purchase behavior. We see that with the constant updates being made to Google’s SERPs – featured snippets, local pack listings, “interesting finds,” and more. And now, we see that with Google’s roll out of mobile-first indexing – one more step Google is taking to develop the search platform’s ease of use and overall UX. This is their goal, after all, to deliver the best possible experience for users. And if your focus is on SEO, this should be one of your main priorities, too. It’s time to put mobile first.

To learn how Synapse SEM can help improve your mobile SEO strategy, you may complete our contact form or call us at 781-591-0752.

In both March and April 2018, Google made broad updates to their core algorithm. Then, on August 1, 2018, yet another core algorithm update – the so-called “Medic” update – was rolled out. What did they all have in common? SEO pros like Glenn Gabe speculate these algo updates all revolved around content quality and relevance.

Often, that’s the extent of what we know.

Google does not always lend much insight into their core algorithm updates. And as a business owner, webmaster, or marketing exec, that can be a bit frustrating. You may be asking, why did I see a dip in website traffic after March 7^th? Why did my rankings fall off after August 1^st? What did we do wrong that may have caused this?

More than likely, you didn’t do wrong at all. Google has said that with these recent changes, there is no real “fix.” Broad algorithm updates are not designed to penalize websites, but rather, to reward those that meet their standards for a high-quality website – one that’s user-friendly, in good technical health, and chock-full of unique and valuable content. Instead looking for a fix, Googlers continuously recommend that webmasters stay focused on creating high quality content over the long-term.

As Gary Illyes at Google put it, “If you publish high quality content that is highly cited on the Internet – and I’m not talking about just links, but also mentions on social networks and people talking about your branding… Then you are doing great.” Illyes has also iterated the importance of publishing “content created with care for the users.”

So, the questions you should be asking are: What is high quality content? How does Google define quality in an age where millions of websites are trying to make it to the top (of the search results)?

While Google doesn’t give us much visibility into their ranking algorithm, they have released their Search Quality Rater Guidelines to the public. And just recently, on July 20^th, these quality guidelines were updated – shedding light into some new areas for webmasters to focus.

To give you some context, the Search Quality Rater Guidelines are 180+ pages of rules that Google contractors will use to evaluate the quality of websites ranking in the search results. These guidelines do not tell us how Google’s algorithm works. And the ratings that stem from these guidelines do not have a direct impact on how a website will rank. Rather, the search quality guidelines are used to ensure Google’s algorithm is working properly, and that the best results are being delivered, with the highest quality websites ranking at the top.

Still, they give us some great information.

In the recent release of their Search Quality Rater Guidelines, Google shares a valuable list detailing the “most important” factors contributing to a webpage’s quality rating. These include:

• The Purpose of the Page
• Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness (E-A-T)
• Main Content (MC) Quality and Amount
• Website Information/information about who is responsible for the MC
• Website Reputation/reputation about who is responsible for the MC

Let’s break these down.

High Quality Content Has a Beneficial Purpose for Users

“Beneficial purpose” is a new concept in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines, as well as a key contributor to content quality. In evaluating a page’s content, Google’s raters must consider whether the page has a beneficial purpose or use to being on the website. Is the content valuable to users, and what value does it offer? Was it created for the purpose of helping users, or was it created with other intent – to make money, to rank well in search engines? Is it overly commercial in nature? This is something that we, as content creators and webmasters, must think about in the months moving forward. Great quality content has purpose.

As I wrote in a prior article, “Every piece of content created for your organization should have a purpose. It should have intent. It should be relevant – not only to your product or services, but also to what your customers are looking to read: What are they actively searching for? How often are they searching for it? How are they engaging with your website today? What is working with your current online strategy, and what is not?” This means doing some research before building your content plan, and understanding what your audience wants to read. More on that here.

When developing your content plan, also ensure that any upcoming content is specialized and pertinent to the holistic themes of your website, so that Google consistently sees you as relevant or expert in your niche. And to truly be an expert on a topic, make sure to drop the marketing lingo. High quality content is not commercial or promotional in nature, but rather, discusses topics in a neutral way. This is an important distinction, as it’s suspected that commercial content was devalued in the most recent Google algorithm update.

Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness = Quality

E-A-T is one of the most frequent and perhaps the notable acronym found in Google’s Search Quality Guidelines – and therefore should be a key ingredient in your SEO and content strategy. When evaluating the content of a website, Google raters will think about the topic of a given page and the level of expertise required to deliver that content effectively. They will then consider:

• The expertise of the creator of the main content on the page
• The authoritativeness of the content, as well as the creator of that content and the website as a whole
• The trustworthiness of the content creator, the content itself, as well as the entire domain

Google lends examples of what would make high E-A-T pages: A news article is produced with journalistic professionalism, references factually accurate content, and is published on a website with established editorial standards and robust review processes. Online legal or financial advice is yielded by trustworthy industry sources, and is maintained and updated regularly. Medical information is published and written by people or organizations with appropriate medical expertise or accreditation, such as doctors. The list goes on. There is E-A-T to be found within every industry.

Information & Reputation are Key Players in High E-A-T

In assessing the Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness of a page or website, Google wants to understand who is responsible for it. Is the creator an expert in the space, or do they have sufficient experience with the topic? It’s important to note that formal expertise isn’t always required for a high-quality rating, especially in areas like fashion or gossip, where credentials may not necessarily exist. Google’s raters may look to see if content has biographical or contact information for its authors, or whether a website has sufficient information supporting the business and user needs. For example, e-commerce websites should have helpful customer service information to help users resolve issues.

The website, company, and content creators are also gauged on reputation. A high-quality rating cannot be given to a website or author that has a convincing negative reputation, Google states. Jennifer Slegg, an expert in the Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines herself, explains that reputation of content creators is actually one of the biggest updates made in the July document:

“Google wants their raters to not only look at the reputation of the website itself, but also the content creators themselves… This is one area that many sites fall down on. They might have an ‘About Us’ page, but the bios of their authors are sorely lacking.

“If content is created by someone with a great reputation, it makes sense for Google to rank that content higher than from someone with a bad reputation since it is generally a better user experience for the searcher. But it means many will also need to brush up on their bios, too. It is also worth noting that this doesn’t apply just to written content, but other types of content as well, such as videos and social media.

“Google’s focus with this addition is on wanting to ensure content that is created by creators with great reputations is ranking well, especially in a world of fake news and conspiracy theories. Great for those creators with great reputations, but does mean some work for those without a great reputation or a limited one.”

For us, this means ensuring that webpages have clear information that shows credibility and creates a strong trust factor. This may mean enhancing your authors’ biographies, creating more user-minded content about your business, or highlighting important awards or recognition that you’ve received throughout your website.

Pages Need a “Satisfying Amount” of High Quality Content

High quality content, by the Quality Rater Guidelines definition, takes a significant amount of time, effort, expertise, and/or talent/skill. Content should be factually accurate, clearly written, and comprehensive in covering its topic. The amount of content, Google explains, depends on the topic and purpose of the page: “A High quality page on a broad topic with a lot of available information will have more content than a High quality page on a narrower topic.”

When you’re creating content for your website, we recommend evaluating which websites are already ranking on page 1 in Google’s SERP. This will give you good insight into the amount of content you need to rank, as well as types of content you should be creating, on the subject.

A Note from Google on High Quality Content

Creating high quality content is a must for the organic success of your website. What makes a high-quality page? To recap, Google states that “a High quality page should have a beneficial purpose and achieve that purpose well.” In addition, content should have:

• High level of Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) – This involves citing authors and their credentials in content, as well as referencing scholarly articles and credible sources (e.g. government websites) to back up any claims
• A satisfying amount of high-quality main content – In addition to ensuring sufficient content on a topic/theme, make sure the content is consistently pertinent to the holistic themes of your website. This also includes creating a descriptive or helpful title and great content that supports it (no more click-bait!).
• Satisfying website information and/or information about who is responsible for the website – This includes having a dedicated “About” page with organizational information (contact information, address, history, etc.).
• A positive website reputation for a website or a positive reputation of the creator of the content – This may involve earning links from credible, third-party websites to build your domain authority.

Gone are the days of keyword-stuffing and creating content for content’s sake. Today, your web content must offer unique value to users, rather than be solely optimized for search engines. Today, it is high-quality, relevant, and valuable content that’s going to make your website great.

To learn how Synapse SEM can help improve your content and search engine optimization, complete our contact form or call us at 781-591-0752.

Google has recently announced yet another impactful change to their ad format. In 2016, expanded text ads were unveiled, essentially revolutionizing the basic paid search ad. With these ads, advertisers were granted a second headline, along with a longer description line of 80 characters. Now, Google has come out again and revealed that the format of newly launched Responsive Search Ads will also be available to regular text ads. Users are now allowed to create an additional headline 3 and ads can contain 2 description lines. That’s right…get excited paid search advertisers. Let the ad copy testing games begin.

What is Changing:

The goal of the new text ads is to give advertisers an opportunity to have more “real estate” in the search engine results page and to have a greater opportunity to deliver their message. The changes will entail:

• A 3^rd headline consisting of 30 characters
• A 2^nd description line
  • Both descriptions will have a 90 character limit as opposed to the historical limit of 80 characters

This means that these new ads can contain up to 300 total characters which makes them double the size of an expanded text ad. Essentially ETAs on steroids. While these additional headlines and descriptions are optional, the extra features provide a great opportunity to gain a competitive advantage in the SERP.

What Impact to Expect:

Not only will the ads be inherently larger than the original expanded text ads, but they also will likely drive stronger CTR and overall conversion rate due to the added messaging available. Back in 2016, when ETAs were first available, we saw significant incremental lifts in CTR for the new ads across various clients. Not only is CTR likely to improve, but the option for more content will help to improve quality score. With 2 description lines advertisers have a greater opportunity to enhance ad relevance by using relevant keywords and messaging.  Consider the findings below that document performance when the historical expanded text ads were launched back in 2016.

The expanded text ads drove in a 11% higher CTR than the original ads. More importantly, overall volume grew by 37% which is expected due to the incremental lift in quality score. The enhanced quality score also helped to reduced CPC by 10%.

The notion of the additional headlines and descriptions in search ads came from Google’s latest ad unit, Responsive Search Ads. Earlier in the year Google announced that users will now be able to enter multiple combinations of descriptions that will be rotated automatically by Google’s new machine learning. The idea is that, over time, Google will interchange these headlines and description to find the best optimized ad combination. Advertisers will soon turn away from A/B testing, which is becoming more and more difficult, and rely on Google to automate their ad rotation. While that may be a very scary thought for advertisers, responsive search ads are still in beta and will be rolling out slowly over the next couple of months.The New Future: Responsive Search Ads

In the meantime, users can test out the messaging on their own using the additional headlines and descriptions available within the expanded text ads.