What will you find in October’s edition?
SEO
The right place at the right time
Changing page layout can affect rankings
Indexing outages
SEO takeaway tips
Paid Media
Facebook Removes the 20% Text Limit on Ad Images
Facebook Ads to Remove 28-Day Attribution Model
Google Shopping now free globally
PPC takeaway tips
Content Marketing
New content to get stuck into
Content takeaway tips
Digital marketing support
Getting creative & client wins
Cofton Holidays PR campaign
Let’s talk SEO updates…
The Right Place at The Right Time
Google’s Danny Sullivan published further information about how featured snippets work recently, explaining the importance of time, place and freshness in getting a featured snippet. He explained how Google’s algorithm uses both the time and physical location of a user to return featured snippets, as well as “Critical Context”, which is related to content freshness and relevance. He went on to explain Critical Context further, saying:
“Critical context, like time and place, also helps us understand what you’re really looking for. This is particularly true for featured snippets… We’ve made improvements to better understand when fresh or local information — or both — is key to delivering relevant results to your search”.
This is particularly useful for fast moving topics, such as emergencies and where important information needs to be relayed to the user quickly – for example, recent wildfires and changes to rules regarding Covid-19.
Changing Page Layout Can Affect Rankings
During a Google Office Hours hangout in late September, Google’s John Mueller confirmed that changing a webpage’s design can affect the rankings – even when the content and URL stay the same. He said:
“Changing the layout of your pages can affect your search results. This is something that some people work on actively as well with regards to on-page SEO. So, things like figuring out how to use titles properly on a page, how to do internal linking properly, how to provide more context for the article itself. All of this can definitely affect SEO”.
This solidifies the role of UX and less fundamental SEO practices in helping your pages rank. This doesn’t mean you should be scared of changing webpage elements, but it shows that you should do so with careful consideration and make sure that you track performance before and after significant changes.
Indexing Outages
Over the past week or so, Google has confirmed that they’ve had a few issues around indexing. These have affected mobile indexing and canonicalization. This has resulted in some URLs being removed from the index or being shifted in positions. If you’ve been seeing volatile results and varying traffic recently, this might be the problem.
While the issues are currently still persisting, Google has said they’ve identified the problem and are working to solve this.
SEO Takeaway Tips
SEO Tip #1: Keep your users up to date through your news or blog section. By creating articles and providing up to date information on your services you help users and stay in their minds.
SEO Tip #2: Track important interactions on your site for future design & development changes. Tracking after is fine, but you need to set up benchmarks first.
Moving onto Paid Media updates…
Facebook Removes the 20% Text Limit on Ad Images
In the past, Facebook have outright disapproved ads where the images contained more than 20% text. The long-standing rule had been shifted to less stringent over the years, with this week marking Facebook’s complete abandonment of the 20% text rule. Images are no longer being disapproved and images with a lot more text are being allowed to run.
What does Koozai think?
This is good news as it gives us a lot more freedom with our creative. It also eliminates painful discussions around how much text can be allowed on images and frequent tweaks to reduce the amount of text under the 20% mark. However, just because we can cram loads of text on our images, doesn’t mean that we should. You’re still likely to get penalised in terms of quality rating if perceived to have too much text on an image. Your ads won’t get disapproved, but they will be limited in how often they show, so that’s definitely something to bear in mind. We therefore recommend that text should be limited on images and USPs communicated in the text section of an ad. Of course, it’s a good idea to test different variations to see what works best for you and your business.
Facebook Ads to Remove 28-Day Attribution Model
Facebook Ads also announced that it’s retiring its 28-day attribution window option. After they do, the longest remaining attribution window will be their already-existing 7-day option. According to their official announcement sent directly to advertisers, “Upcoming digital privacy initiatives affecting multiple browsers will limit business’s ability to measure people’s interactions across domains and devices. Among those limitations is the ability for businesses to attribute conversion events back to an ad over longer attribution windows”.
What does Koozai think?
This move will impact the results that we see driven through our Facebook Ads campaigns. For example, businesses that have a longer path to conversion will see results plummet as conversions won’t be counted after a 7-day window. FMCG aren’t likely to be impacted too much, as typically a purchase will occur soon after the ad is clicked.
On the whole, we believe this will push up CPAs as fewer conversions will be recorded in the shorter window. How will advertisers react to this? Will they see a rising CPA and pull spend from the platform and invest elsewhere?
Google Shopping now free globally
You’ll remember earlier this year we reported on a story that Google is to introduce free Google Shopping listings. We even wrote a blog about it. Well, the time is near. In October, these listings will be available in the UK!
What does Koozai think?
As we discussed earlier this year, it’s a big change for the shopping listings page on the SERPs. In order to appear in the shopping carousel on the main search results page, you’ll still need to apply budget and pay for those clicks, but this is going to completely change the way the shopping tab looks. More advertisers will rush to get their products on the Merchant Centre to benefit from these free listings. It may even lead more people to start paying for shopping ads if they start to see good performance from the organic side.
PPC takeaway tips
PPC Tip #1: Now that we can use more text on our images on Facebook Ads, we should try some new variations to see what works best. Our recommendation is to not have lots of text on your images, but we can now get away with a bit more text, so try it out and see how it performs.
PPC Tip #2: Analyse different attribution windows for your campaigns now to see what impact this change will have. You’ll be able to see the difference in your conversion figures for a 7-day and 28-day window, so this should prepare you for what to expect when the change happens.
PPC Tip #3: If you haven’t already done so, get your product feed uploaded to the Merchant Centre to benefit from these free listings. Businesses who already advertise on Google Shopping need not take any action currently, but it will be interesting to see if sales start to show through the organic shopping listings.
Our Content Marketing segment…
We’ve always got some new blog content to cast your eyes over. Our Koozians have been busy putting blog content together so you have a great source of information for any SEO, Paid, Content or PR queries and questions. We’ve recently published the following:
The beginner’s guide to designing display ads
Organic SEO & branding – building your brand online
What is a Robots.txt file?
Remember to keep checking back as multiple new posts go out each month.
Takeaway content tip: FAQ pages are a fantastic way to help bolster content on your site and help your audience all at the same time. In the age of voice search and personal home assistants such as Alexa, good, informative FAQs are crucial in answering search queries.
Get digital marketing support as and when you need it
If you’re in need of some ad hoc support or an expert to help out with a project or digital strategy work, we have a digital marketing offering which might be precisely what you’re looking for. Explore how Koozai can help through our Brand Support Package.
Getting creative & client wins
Cofton Holidays
A social distancing duck whistles PR campaign took off for one of our holiday clients based in South Devon, whereby our PR team managed to achieve a total reach of over 36million! Alongside the coverage in local and national publications, our client was featured on BBC News South West too. Read some of the duck whistles coverage in the Daily Mirror.
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