SEO & SEM News-Recap of July 2019 — Kubix Digital
Another month passed. Another bunch of new Google updates. Another round of features and improvements launched. And of course: another 30 Days In Search news-recap ready for you. July went by fast — but there are some updates that just can’t go by unnoticed. We’ll tell you all about it in our SEO & SEM news roundup. Enjoy.
Search Inventory On iOS Expands For App Campaigns
When running a Google app campaign, your app ads will now show up for more related mobile web browser searches on iOS devices. With this, you are able to “ reach more people who are looking for what your app has to offer “, Google says. You can track the installs and in-app conversions that took place on iOS browsers in the campaign’s reporting section; found in the “conversion” column. Everyone who currently runs an app campaign or starts one in the future automatically accesses the new inventory — no further action is required from your side.
Google My Business Bugs
In April, Google My Businesses included a new feature that allowed businesses to create short names and custom URLs. This month, however, numerous companies claimed that their Google My Business listing got suspended, or even removed from the SERPs, after adding a short name — and seems to be back online again, when removing the short name. Others have been saying that after applying a short name, some of the GMB reviews disappeared. According to Google, the bug causing the disappearance of the reviews and the suspensions of the listings are not connected, saying “ the business listings were not suspended, but instead were not being shown as visible due to a technical issue.” This ‘technical issue’ seems to be resolved on July 15th; if the case of the missing reviews is fixed already, is still a question.
YouTube Masthead Ads Are Now Available To All Advertisers
July 23, 2019
YouTube Masthead ads used to be available as a ‘reservation buying ad’ only — but Google has made the ad type available to all advertisers. Prior to the update, advertisers bought the masthead on a per-day basis, allowing their ad to be shown for a full 24 hours on YouTube’s homepage to anyone visiting the page. Though this option is still available, you can now also buy the ad on a CPM basis; and the best thing: you can use advanced audience targeting options. This will allow you to display the masthead ad to the audience you want it to be seen by, rather than ‘everyone’.
Google My Business Adds A Big Blue ‘Get A Quote’ Button
July 24, 2019
Searchers viewing your services business via Google My Business are now able to request a quote from you directly — without even visiting your website. With the new obvious blue “Get a Quote”, “Request a Quote” or even “Book a Room” button, Google helps users to ‘gets things done’ straight from the SERPs. This button only shows up when you opted-in for GMB messaging, and for now is limited to certain businesses (and perhaps certain countries: we for example, do not have this button showing up on our GMB listing, nor can’t seem to have it appear in the search results from businesses that confirmed to have it).
To get this button pop up on your listing you need to have the ‘messaging’ feature turned on. For this go to your GMB account. Click ‘messaging’ in the panel on the left, and tick ‘turn on’.
‘Swipe To Visit’ Feature On Google Images
July 25, 2019
Google has made it possible that when you open a Google Images photo on your mobile device, all you need to do is swipe up to load the page where the image is located on. However: this swipe-to-visit feature is only available to websites that have the AMP-feature enabled. If so, you will see a small pop up at the bottom of your screen with at the top the URL, followed by the site’s name and logo. Once swiping up, you’ll see that the page is already fully loaded — thanks to AMP.
With this new feature also (soon) comes a new search performance report on Google Search Console, to review the traffic that you gained through AMP, named: “AMP on image result”.
SEO/SEM Events
In July, it was time for the annual edition of the 3-day SEO & digital marketing conference MozCon. This year, MozCon was full of tactical SEO sessions, growth marketing hacks, content marketing talks, analytics lessons, local search super-tips and much more — brought to you by exceptional industry leaders. Couldn’t attend? Luckily MozCon shares all presentations with you, so you do not have to miss a thing. (But make sure to be there next year! Mark your agenda: July 6, 7 & 8, 2020).
Editor’s Choice: Web Search In 2019
Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz, founder of SparkToro, and author of the book Lost & Founder, takes us through the changes in search over the past couple of years, during his speech on MozCon. With his slides full of data and ideas on how to find ‘ opportunities for traffic, branding and marketing success ‘, it’s a must read for all marketers.
News From The Kubixers
Another 30 Days In Search news-recap also means another month full of Kubix achievements, fresh new content, and updates. See what we were up to, wrote about, and catched-up with:
Originally published at https://kubix.digital.
