Technology News and Industry Knowledge

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Customers can shop through editorial stories about product inspiration, designer collections and the season's trends via the digital experience. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/neiman-marcus-replaces-fall-book-with-digital-content-campaign/584433/

Google’s “licensable” badge in Image results is now out of beta. Google also changed the “Usage rights” search filter to let users search for images with creative common or other licenses to address concerns about digital images being commodified and used for free. Licensable badge. Google began testing the badge in February after working with the Center of the Picture Industry (CEPIC) and other news and image associations on ways to increase awareness of image licensing and help image owners sell and get credit for their photos. “For results where the publisher or image creator provided licensing information, we will display a ‘licensable’ badge over the image,” Google said, “When you select a badged image to view, we will show a link to the license details of the image, and if provided by the publisher, you’ll also find a link to where you can purchase or license the image.” Here is a screen shot of what this looks like: The “licensable” badge appears on images via license met...

Verizon, Subaru and State Farm also have signed exclusive deals with NBCUniversal for access to interactive commercial pilots. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/unilever-target-partner-for-voice-powered-ads-on-peacock/584395/

Calling attention to the 6 billion tampons that fill landfills every year, the DTC company customized a garbage truck and had it visit New York landmarks. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/knix-tells-women-to-stop-trashing-their-periods-in-new-ooh-digital-ad/584249/

Last week, I published the last vlog interview I conducted before the lockdown in New York. This week, I have part one of the first one I conducted after New York opened up again. I was lucky enough for Kevin Lee, who helped cultivate the search industry in so many ways, to come out to my house and do an interview in a socially-distant manner. Kevin Lee is the CEO is the Executive Chairman and Founder of full-service marketing agency  DidIt and also the President of Giving Forward . Didit has been around since 1996 — a couple of years before Google was even founded. Kevin has seen a lot over the years in the search space, and in part one of the interview we got caught up for the first ten minutes and then dove into the importance of digital public relations (PR) for SEO. How you can dominate the search results by leveraging online PR? Lee said some call it barnacle SEO, the strategy of creating articles to dominate the search results for specific keyword sets. We also talked br...

You could wager a hefty bet that Apple is going to launch a search engine in the very, very near future. Here’s why it seems obvious: There have been significant changes to Spotlight Search on iOS and iPadOS 14 beta 5, a fairly large update was made to the A

The generation's brand awareness "bucket is leaking," Morning Consult found, while digitally-oriented companies are seeing their favor rise with the fickle cohort. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/gen-z-remains-elusive-and-cause-driven-under-pandemic-putting-legacy-lagga/584218/

Posted by Cyrus-Shepard If your websites are like most, they include a fair amount of extra "stuff" in the title tags : things like your brand name or repeating boilerplate text that appears across multiple pages. Should you include these elements in your titles automatically? To be fair, most sites do. Alternatively, could it help your SEO to actually include less information in your titles? (Or at least in specific circumstances?) We know from a handful of studies that titles of a certain length tend to perform better. A now-famous study from the engineers at Etsy showed how shorter titles performed better than longer ones . SEOs speculate that this could be because shorter titles can have more focused relevancy (by focusing on core keywords), might earn higher click-through rates, or some other reason we can't imagine. When choosing which part of a title to shorten, brand names and boilerplate text are obvious choices. But how do you determine if this is somethin...

This story is developing. Some search marketers reported Friday that the “Text ad” option is not available from the Ads dropdown for Search campaigns in the Google Ads interface. Instead, the ad options from the Ads dropdown are limited to Responsive search ad (RSA) and Call ad. Frederick Vallaeys, CEO of Optmyzr, is among those seeing this change in his own account. The ability to create manual text ads (AKA expanded text ads , or ETAs) isn’t gone altogether in these cases, though. On the RSA creation screen, there is a link to “Switch back to text ads,” as shown in the screenshot below that Dan Thies, CIO of ResultFlow, shared with Search Engine Land. Screenshot: Dan Thies. What does it mean? At this point, we can’t say if this is a bug, a test or a change that will be rolling out more broadly. I haven’t been able to replicate it in any accounts. We have reached out to Google for more information and will update when we learn more. Why we care . While reiterating that we d...

Static print and OOH visuals show a Big Mac and fries assembled from home goods, subtly telling Quebec residents' stories about the 270-year-old tradition of Moving Day. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/campaign-trail-mcdonalds-canada-moving-day-minimalist/584212/

Only six retailers are advertising this year, compared with 100 in 2019, and the creative's tone has changed to highlight personal safety and logistics. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/kantar-back-to-school-advertising-drops-70-on-national-tv/584306/

We’re excited to have interviewed San Diego SEO expert John Lincoln from Ignite Visibility for the next installment of our Featured SEO Expert Series! Ignite Visibility is one of SEOblog’s Top SEO companies in San Diego. John Lincoln (MBA) is

Posted by DiTomaso Contrary to popular belief, SEO and PPC aren't at opposite ends of the spectrum. There are plenty of ways the two search disciplines can work together for benefits all around, especially when it comes to optimizing your Google Ads. In this informative Whiteboard Friday episode from last Spring, MozCon speaker and Kick Point President Dana DiTomaso explains how you can harness the power of both SEO and PPC for a better Google experience overall. Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab! Video Transcription Hey, Moz readers. My name is Dana DiTomaso, and I'm President and partner at Kick Point . We're a digital marketing agency way up in the frozen wilds of Edmonton, Alberta. Today I'm going be talking to you about PPC, and I know you're thinking, "This is an SEO blog. What are you doing here talking about PPC?" But one of my resolutions for 2019 is to bring together SEO and PPC people,...

As marketers adapt to meet shifting consumer behaviors and new market demands, search plays a critical role in digital marketing strategies. Paid search advertising has always been a stalwart of performance in economic downturns. Brands that invest efficiently in search during challenging times are positioned better to increase market share, expand into new categories and enter new markets. Search Engine Land’s Editor in Chief, Ginny Marvin, and Adthena’s VP of Marketing, Ashley Fletcher, will discuss why search continues to hold MVP status in today’s “new normal” and how to use search to inform your organization’s broader marketing strategy into 2021. Don’t miss this webinar! Register today for “How to Make Search the Driving Force in This ‘New Normal’ ,” presented by Adthena. The post How to make Search the driving force in this ‘new normal’ appeared first on Search Engine Land . Via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1BDlNnc

The post SEL 20200827 appeared first on Search Engine Land . Via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1BDlNnc

Google’s COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports show how visits and length of stay in various place categories have changed compared to a baseline period before the pandemic. The reports, which are published on an ongoing basis, illustrate movement trends over time with respect to geography (including country, state and county) over a six-week period, with the most recent data representing approximately 2-3 days ago (the amount of time it takes to produce the reports). Mobility changes over time for California. The graph appears on Google News’ coronavirus portal ; the data is sourced from Google’s COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports. Place categories. Community Mobility Reports present trends in the following place categories: Retail & recreation. Grocery & pharmacy. Parks (refers to official national parks, not the general outdoors found in rural areas). Transit stations. Workplaces. Residential. The categories bundle together destinations with similar characteri...

Part of Google’s mobile search success relies on the fact that it’s the default search engine for the iPhone. The company has paid billions for that privilege over the years. But there’s evidence that Apple might be building a search engine to take on Google – for real this time. First the evidence. As Coywolf’s Jon Henshaw pointed out in a blog post, Apple has recently been listing more job announcements for search engineers (including for Apple Maps). Then there’s the apparent fact that, in iOS 14, Spotlight Search de-emphasizes or entirely bypasses Google results. The company has also updated its webcrawler support page (Applebot) with new information on how it ranks results . And Applebot has reportedly started to crawl sites more regularly. In Europe there has recently been a lot of antitrust and regulatory activity around default search on Android devices. Google was compelled to create a “ search choice” screen for Android users upon setup of a new device. This has been...

If it takes place, the deal has the potential to seriously shake up the digital media sector, as Walmart will gain access to a powerful wedge against rivals like Amazon. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/walmart-teams-with-microsoft-on-tiktok-bid-eyeing-e-commerce-advertising/584282/

In an internal memo obtained by CNBC, Kevin Mayer said "we expect to reach a resolution very soon," a potential nod to the platform getting acquired. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/tiktok-ceo-resigns-after-3-months-as-app-nears-inflection-point-in-us/584263/

CEO Bernard Acoca explained how the restaurant brand revitalized its marketing after spending 98% of its media budget on TV and print just a few years ago. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/how-el-pollo-loco-tripled-digital-sales-in-2020-by-modernizing-its-marketin/584147/

A choose-your-own-adventure audio experience from the Oscar Mayer brand shares tips for washing hands, wearing face masks and social distancing. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/lunchables-back-to-school-hotline-teaches-personal-safety/584221/

Google has added new search developer documentation for the home activities structured data. Home activities structured data is primarily to be used for activities that you can do at home such as watching videos and online events. It appears in the Google Search results as special rich results. The rich results will give searchers more details on the video or online class that you offer, including more details such as a description of the activity, how to register or watch. What it looks like. Here is what it looks like in Google Search as a rich result: How can you see it. Google said that home activity rich results are “currently only available in English in the US” and only work on mobile searches right now. This is currently only showing up for fitness-related searches such as “online exercise” or “yoga at home”. The content types. Here are some examples of home activity content types that Google supports: Upcoming video livestream Already recorded video An online event...

Disregarding search engine optimization (SEO) is a bad move even if you have the best website and a flawless offering. This is when website optimization helps rank your business high on the search engine results pages (SERPs) and improve your store visibil

Google My Business (GMB) optimization has become critical for brands and small businesses alike as the gateway to offline and, increasingly, online conversions. Google Search and Maps (especially) is often first point of contact for millions of consumers with businesses that have physical locations, as well as service-area businesses. Percentage of owner-verified listings One of the questions I’ve asked repeatedly over the past few years is: how many businesses have verified their listings on GMB? Places Scout in 2019 analyzed 2.4 million business listings in over 30 categories and came up with an answer: 62.2%. A 2020 analysis of 800,000 listings by Whitespark found a lower number: 49%. The Places Scout study contains a wealth of valuable GMB benchmarking information. Here are some of the numbers. Basic profile information According to the study the average GMB profile is 72% complete. Sixty one percent have business hours posted and 93% feature a business phone number. Seventy...

Let’s say your site was flagged by Google Search to have a security issue, be it malware or maybe your site appear to be hacked? Google is now testing a feature to let you request that Google review the site and the specific security issue, if you think Google mistakenly labeled your site as having such a security issue. The announcement. Google said on Twitter “we’re piloting a new reporting system beginning with security issues.” There is a new “Report a Security Issue” button on the security issues help page where site owners can report potential false positives or to request a re-review of the security issue. Google provides many support mechanisms, but we recognize there can be situations where site owners may wish to report urgent bugs or other issues in a timely manner. To help, we’re piloting a new reporting system beginning with security issues. — Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) August 26, 2020 What it looks like. Here is a screen shot of the button: Might not ...

With more than 80 million customer calls a month being driven by Google search ads, there’s an enormous opportunity to leverage call analytics to maximize that engagement into conversions. The technology can also eliminate wastes of time, resources and money. “We’re talking about eliminating underperforming campaigns, those campaigns that are not driving the outcomes that you’re interested in,” said Bill Hyatt, senior director at call analytics provider Invoca, speaking at SMX Next . “We’re talking about suppressing unnecessary ad spend so that we’re not wasting our marketing budget.” Eliminating those campaigns can drive down cost-per-conversion, cost-per-lead, cost-per-sale and more, he said. Watch Invoca’s SMX Session: How Call Tracking Can Eliminate Waste In Your SEM Campaigns “Then we flip the page. How do we increase revenue?” Hyatt asked. “Well, leveraging the insights that we received from speech analytics and pushing those back into our digital marketing agenda, we can...

As virtual events are expected to stick around, including in the marketing sector, the tech giant could be carving out a bigger part of an emerging market. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/apple-acquires-vr-startup-focused-on-virtual-avatars-for-videoconferencing/584180/

A new video and print ads feature four women who deliver messages about the industry's gender gap that are coded within scientific formulas. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/olay-extends-stem-focused-mission-in-womens-equality-day-campaign/584119/

However, Microsoft, LVMH, Expedia and Sprint are among the brands that didn't return to advertising during live sports. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/marketers-spend-100m-on-ads-as-live-sports-return-to-tv/584139/

The New York Fashion Week tie-in suggests how new Lowe's CMO Marisa Thalberg might boost the brand's lifestyle positioning, a strategy she also applied during her Taco Bell tenure.  source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/lowes-hits-the-runway-with-fashion-show-streams-curated-home-decor/584177/

In our ongoing coverage of  Bing’s search ranking factors , which the company listed out when it published its  new webmaster guidelines , I asked the search company about its indexing benchmarks: Does Bing index everything or does a site or a page have to meet a specific quality threshold for it to be indexed by Bing? This is from our interview with Microsoft’s Christi Olson and Fabrice Canal, on  Live with Search Engine Land  about  What SEOs need to know about Bing Webmaster Guidelines . We already dug into the fact that  Bing uses user engagement metrics in its search ranking factors and we did a deeper dive into some of Bing’s ranking factors . Now, we cover a topic I find interesting — whether Bing will index a page that does not meet a specific quality mark. What Bing does not want to index Canal, principal program manager at Bing, Microsoft, said it is 100% the case that Bing does not want to index all the content on the web. “For instance...

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial method to promote your online domain. This technique involves using the search engine algorithm to benefit you.  The user types a phrase and the search system scans all websites. Next, it redirects the us

Back to school can often look different state by state and school district by school district, but one thing we know is this year’s back to school season will not be anything like what we have seen in the past. With COVID-19 cases increasing across the United States, states and local school districts are responding in various ways. Some are requiring masks and moving desks six feet apart, some are staggering days children come in person and many are opting to go fully virtual. Search is unique in that search queries offer a unique view into the people’s sentiment and what is top of mind. When it comes to back to school, with all these unknowns about the new school year, parents and teachers are turning to search to get advice, look for answers, shop for materials and find humor through the uncertainty. Here are some of the trends we are seeing: What is ‘virtual school’ anyway? Online education has been gaining popularity in the past few years, but traditional K-12 education still...