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Search marketing software company WordStream acquired by Gannett for $150M

WordStream, the paid search software company that helps advertisers manage their PPC campaigns, has been acquired by the Gannett Company for $150 million. The deal is $130 million in cash, plus up to an aggregate $20 million earnout payable in 2019 and 2020 based on achieving certain revenue targets, according to the announcement.

WordStream was founded by Larry Kim, a high profile personality in the search marketing industry, back in 2007. In August of 2008, the company was able to secure a $4 million Series A investment from Sigma Partners, and in 2010, it secured a $6M Series B investment led by Egan Managed Partners. The company currently has over 2,000 customers. Larry stepped down as CEO a year or so ago, but he remained on the board of directors.

“This acquisition marks another critical milestone in Gannett’s digital transformation, enhancing our ability to support businesses and agencies in our local markets with the intelligent, data-driven marketing solutions they need to drive growth,” said Robert Dickey, president and chief executive officer of Gannett. “WordStream’s technology, extensive data and analytics capabilities together with an experienced executive team will bring tremendous value to Gannett’s expanding digital marketing services business.”

“WordStream is very excited about the opportunity this acquisition provides our customers and employees,” said Howard Kogan, chief executive officer at WordStream. “We see tremendous opportunity to leverage our companies’ combined data, analytics and marketing technologies to enhance the capabilities that WordStream brings to the DIY market, thereby accelerating our ability to drive further success and growth for our customers.”

The post Search marketing software company WordStream acquired by Gannett for $150M appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Google Lens improvements ready visual search and AR for mainstream adoption

Google Lens, the company’s visual search tool, was announced last year at I/O for Google’s Pixel devices and later rolled out for iOS and other Android devices, awkwardly through the photos app. You could take a photo and then run Lens against the photo rather than through the camera in real time.

This year at Google I/O, Lens’ distribution is expanding to a range of new devices and directly through the camera app as intended. The company also announced some updates:

Lens can analyze text and provide explanatory pictures or background information. Google points out that this involves semantic understanding of meaning and context of words and phrases.

Lens will now show you lookalikes. You see shoes you like or furniture out in the world; Lens will get more information about that item (assuming recognition) but can now also show you lookalikes (see below).

Google also says that Lens now works in real time “just by pointing your camera.”

In a related vein, Google Maps now has new Lens-like features. You can use the camera in navigation for improved walking directions and information about places. The same computer vision and machine learning technologies are behind these features in Lens and Maps, as well as a new app for the visually impaired called Lookout.

Together with Apple’s ARKit, what all this means is that augmented reality is poised to go mainstream, while virtual reality looks increasingly like a lucrative vertical or niche application.

The post Google Lens improvements ready visual search and AR for mainstream adoption appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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SearchCap: Google Maps, ads, AMP & search updates

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Google asking dissatisfied searchers to submit questions manually in the search results May 9, 2018 by Barry Schwartz

If Google doesn’t have content for your query, it may ask you to help content creators to make content that will eventually rank for your query.

Save the date: SMX East returns to New York City in October May 9, 2018 by Chris Sherman

Search Engine Land’s SMX East search marketing conference is returning to New York City Oct. 23-25. If you’re involved in marketing, PR, social media or any other customer-facing activity, you owe it to yourself (and your company’s or client’s bottom line) to attend the show. SMX East delivers cutting-edge tips and techniques you’ll put to […]

Google updates mobile-friendly test, rich results test tools to better support JavaScript sites May 9, 2018 by Barry Schwartz

Is your site heavily built in JavaScript? No worries. Google just updated two of its popular tools to support it.

A time-saving free script to keep Ad Grants accounts out of trouble May 9, 2018 by Frederick Vallaeys

When your free Ad Grants money is in on the line, contributor Frederick Vallaeys recommends an AdWords script that will keep track of your account and keep you from getting slapped with an AdWords account suspension.

Demoed at Google I/O: AMP cache URLs showing publisher’s URL instead of Google AMP URL May 9, 2018 by Barry Schwartz

Want to see how the new AMP URLs work in search? Google demoed showing the publisher’s URL over the Google AMP cache URL.

Google announces ads updates for app developers at Google I/O May 9, 2018 by Ginny Marvin

Google says 94 billion apps were downloaded from Google Play last year.

Google Assistant takes center stage at I/O, search takes a back seat May 8, 2018 by Greg Sterling

Search only mentioned twice in a nearly two-hour keynote that saw a long list of announcements.

Google Maps redesigns ‘Explore’ tab, launches ‘Your match,’ ‘Group planning’ and ‘For you’ section May 8, 2018 by Barry Schwartz

Google Maps has announced a whole set of new features at Google I/O around their mapping product.

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Facebook reorganizes internal teams, moves existing executives into new leadership roles

Nanigans, releasing a survey showing that retargeting is ‘broken,’ pitches its solution

Two kinds of video ads help break through the dilemma of interruptive marketing

IAB’s Newfronts: Online program makers pitch action, cross-platform mini-brands and the shape of the new TV

Beyond keywords: What really matters in SEO content

Ask the SMXpert: Keyword research and copywriting

Registration for MarTech is open!

Search News From Around The Web:

Google announces an update to its website optimization tool Lighthouse, TechCrunch

8 smart ways to release the untapped potential of your existing backlinks, Majestic Blog

Early Results from Google Local Search Experiment Campaigns Look Promising, Merkle

Ethical Paid Search – How to Be Ethical in Today’s Climate, Hallam Internet

Evaluating and Restructuring Campaigns Efficiently, PPC Hero

Google bans Irish abortion referendum adverts, The Guardian

How to Discover and Monitor Bad Backlinks, Moz

Improve Your SEO Performance Using PPC, SEM Rush

Why Does Google Want To Limit Organic Results?, RankRanger

The post SearchCap: Google Maps, ads, AMP & search updates appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Google asking dissatisfied searchers to submit questions manually in the search results

Google has confirmed it’s testing a new feature in the search results that asks searchers to submit a more detailed question to the company directly in the search results box. The box says, “Get the answer that you’re looking for added to the web,” and it feeds the information to Google. In exchange, Google tells us it may pass the question along to content creators who may be able to publish articles on their properties to better answer these questions.

Google is looking to create more content that it can index and ultimately return to searchers, which will help more searchers find what they are looking for.

This feature was spotted by Manashjyoti Athparia and posted in an online forum. Here is his screen shot of the user interface for this “small scale experiment,” as Google put it to us:

A Google spokesperson told us that this is a “small scale experiment designed to continue surfacing high quality, relevant results for our users by supporting a healthy content ecosystem.” This surfaces when Google thinks the searcher is not finding what they are looking for. Then Google will “experiment with ways to highlight these questions to content creators who may be able to publish articles on their properties to better answer these questions.” One such way is demonstrated above.

Google added that the “goal is to enrich the entire web ecosystem and thereby improve search results for users who may search for the same question in the future.” Google said it does “not plan to create that content,” nor does the company plan to pay others to create the content. Google also told us it does “not share any information with third parties beyond the actual text of the question typed by the user into the box provided.”

After the user submits the question, the box thanks them and closes automatically. Nothing more is shown to the searcher. This is a screen shot of the “learn more” content for this box:

The post Google asking dissatisfied searchers to submit questions manually in the search results appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Save the date: SMX East returns to New York City in October

Search Engine Land’s SMX East search marketing conference is returning to New York City Oct. 23-25. If you’re involved in marketing, PR, social media or any other customer-facing activity, you owe it to yourself (and your company’s or client’s bottom line) to attend the show.

SMX East delivers cutting-edge tips and techniques you’ll put to work immediately to harness opportunities and cope with challenges. It’s your survival guide to the dynamic and tumultuous world of search marketing.

SMX East: Something for everyone

SMX East is one of the ehree large Search Marketing Expo events that Search Engine Land’s publisher, Third Door Media, runs each year in the United States. The others are SMX Advanced, which takes place in Seattle on June 11-13 (early bird rates expire Saturday, so register now!), and SMX West held in San Jose, California.

Whether you’re a web designer or developer, in public relations, advertising or traditional marketing, search is such a crucial marketing medium that you should maintain an ongoing education about it. And as organizations integrate online and offline marketing, it’s crucial to understand how search fits in with the “big picture,” not only contributing to enhanced brand exposure, but in many cases paying for itself via measurably improved ROI.

We’ll post the agenda, including our editorial sessions, the Learn With Google and Excel With Bing classroom experiences and in-depth preconference workshops early next month. Meanwhile, if you register today, you can take advantage of our lowest Super Early Bird Rates.

Looking forward to seeing you in NYC this fall!

The post Save the date: SMX East returns to New York City in October appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Google updates mobile-friendly test, rich results test tools to better support JavaScript sites

Google has updated the mobile-friendly test and the rich results test tools to support JavaScript sites better. Google posted on Twitter that you now will see rendered HTML, console log, exceptions and stack traces.

This means those who build sites in JavaScript, AJAX and other forms of JavaScript frameworks can better debug their sites with these tools.

Here is a screen shot from Google showing how the mobile-friendly test tool renders JavaScript:

The mobile-friendly test tool shows you how easily a visitor can use your page on a mobile device. While the rich results test shows you search results that go beyond the standard blue link, they may include a carousel, image or other non-textual user interface elements for your page.

Google also announced they have a session tomorrow at Google I/O named deliver search-friendly JavaScript-powered websites that they recommend you watch.

The post Google updates mobile-friendly test, rich results test tools to better support JavaScript sites appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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A time-saving free script to keep Ad Grants accounts out of trouble

Google updated its policies for Grants accounts at the start of 2018 and introduced a 5 percent click-through rate (CTR) criterion that has to be met for two months in a row to keep accounts from being suspended.

With four full months of the new policy now behind us, I’ve heard a few cases of non-profits that lost all their free search advertising because they were not paying close enough attention to the new policy.

This seems like a perfect use case for an AdWords script that continuously monitors whether all the criteria are being met and alerts advertisers before they get slapped with an AdWords account suspension.

The beauty of scripts is that there are often already partial pieces of the solution out there that you can leverage to create the exact solution you need.

And that’s the case here, too.

There are plenty of audit scripts that answer questions about ad extension coverage, ad group sizes and declines in CTR performance. I was about to combine all these elements into a new script but then found that a client of my company Optmyzr, recently wrote a script that checks most elements of the new Grants policy.

I suggested a few tweaks to the code, and you can grab a copy of their code below to start running your own Ad Grants account audits.

A Google Ad Grants audit script

What’s needed to keep Ad Grants accounts from being suspended is a mix of account structure requirements and account performance.

The idea is that the structural requirements enforce best practices that should, in turn, make it easier to meet the 5 percent CTR performance threshold. Scripts can check both of these types of things regularly so that advertisers can focus on other tasks while resting easy that they’ll get notified if there are potential issues.

Here’s what is checked by the script and for those who are new to AdWords, a little bit of the rationale behind each of the policy requirements.

Account structure requirements

First I’ll cover the structural elements of an account that the script checks.

Campaigns must use geotargeting

Even nonprofits that operate in multiple markets should use geotargeting, a setting that’s maintained at the campaign level. Each campaign can target users located in or searching for something in different places.

Operating a single campaign that targets too many locations causes advertisers to forego the ability to craft different messaging for each region, and that’s detrimental to getting a good CTR.

For example, if your ads are to support a homeless shelter, it’s probably more likely you’ll sign up new volunteers who live within a short driving distance. People who live farther away may still want to support the shelter but are more likely to donate money than time.

By running two separate campaigns, it becomes possible to prioritize ads with different objectives depending on where the user is located.

Campaigns must have at least two ad groups

Once your campaigns are set up, it’s time to create at least two ad groups in each one.

Ad groups in AdWords search campaigns are where you specify which ads should be shown for different keywords. The more closely the text of the ad matches the keyword, the higher the chance a user will understand why the ad is relevant to them, click on it and help you inch closer to the 5 percent CTR threshold to keep the account running.

The rationale behind having multiple ad groups is that it forces advertisers to split up long keyword lists. When an ad group starts to have more than 20 keywords, chances are that there is an opportunity to split that up into multiple ad groups with different themes that could get a more finely tuned ad.

Two Sitelink extensions

Ad extensions are a way to add more information to ads. Sitelinks are about giving users multiple landing page options to choose from, which can be useful to promote lesser-known aspects of a non-profit or to help users more quickly find the right page when they see your ad when doing a brand search.

Ad extensions are a fantastic way to boost your CTR and help maintain the 5 percent threshold Google now requires. In fact, their requirement of adding just two sitelinks is probably a bit too low, given how much these can help boost performance.

As long as you have enough interesting and unique landing pages, I recommend adding at least four sitelinks. Below is an example of an advertiser using more than two sitelinks, and as you can see, it helps them be more relevant for a search on a generic query like “donate.”

Ad Groups must have at least two ads

It’s hard for even the best marketer to write the single best possible ad for every keyword so that’s why AdWords encourages advertisers to submit multiple ad variations. Their machine learning algorithms can then match the best one based on what they know about each user, like what searches they might have done leading up to the one that triggered your ad.

Whether you’re doing ad testing manually, through a third-party tool or leaving it to Google with automatic ad optimization, having multiple ad variations is a must for any account.

Most one-word keywords are forbidden

The final requirement related to account structure is that no ad group should have single-word keywords unless they are the advertiser’s own brand or are on the exception list published by Google.

This is because these keywords tend to be overly generic and hence not very relevant to the majority of searchers. Even non-grants advertisers should be very careful about buying one-word keywords because these can have a high volume of queries that could quickly destroy the quality score of the account by racking up lots of impressions with very few clicks.

For example, if your non-profit is an animal shelter, the keyword “dogs” may seem relevant but the vast majority of people who type “dogs” in the search box are not looking to make a donation or volunteer at their local shelter. Better keywords would be multiword keywords like “volunteer work with dogs” or “dog shelter near me.”

One nice benefit of the script below is that it allows one-word keywords from several languages and has compiled them so that this script will work equally well in English as in many other languages.

Performance requirements

Next, the script also checks that performance requirements are met.

No keywords should fall below Quality Score (QS) 3

If all the structural requirements have been followed, meeting the performance requirements should become easier, like having at least a quality score of 4 for all keywords. Quality Score is Google’s assessment of the relevance of a keyword, so make sure to stay away from keywords that are too broad or that could mean different things to different people.

Account CTR must be at least 5%

All the requirements ultimately boil down to helping Ad Grants advertisers write relevant ads that Google’s users will like, and that’s measured through the account-level CTR.

The 5 percent threshold is pretty arbitrary, especially since Google doesn’t say this is a position-weighted CTR. This is an important distinction because ads that consistently show at the top of the page should easily get more than a 5 percent CTR, whereas ads rarely shown on page 1 may struggle to reach even a 2 percent CTR. So let me share a trick to help boost the rank of your ad which should help make the 5 percent threshold easily attainable.

A trick for meeting the minimum CTR threshold

Historically, it’s been challenging for Grants advertisers to be competitive with the $2 max cost per click (CPC) Google enforces for these accounts.

A $2 bid is often too low for the ad to rank on page 1 of the results, let alone at the top of that page, and that in turn causes big problems when trying to comply with the requirement that accounts maintain at least a 5 percent CTR for two consecutive months. But with the new policy, it’s possible to set higher CPCs by using the “Maximize for Conversions” automated bidding strategy.

But this bidding strategy is only available when there are at least 15 conversions for the past 30 days, and that can sometimes be hard to reach.

The simple workaround is to define a conversion as a click. Remember that with conversion tracking, the advertiser gets to pick what should be counted as a conversion. So, by simply counting a visit to the landing page as a conversion, you’re effectively calling each click a conversion, and now the threshold of getting 15 per month is very attainable.

With the maximize conversions bid strategy, Google will bid the right amount to get you as many clicks as possible, and in examples that we’ve heard from some of our clients, the effective average CPCs have been as high as $13, a big improvement over the $2 they were limited to in the past.

Conclusion

Auditing accounts can be time-consuming, but when your free Ad Grants money is in on the line, you absolutely have to stay on top of it.

Scripts are awesome for doing this routine, tedious task. So, rather than wasting precious hours digging through various reports and spreadsheets, now you can get all the results compiled in a spreadsheet and an email.

The script

Simply copy and paste this script into your Ad Grants account, make a copy of the spreadsheet where the results are compiled, and update the script with the uniform resource locator (URL) to that copy of your spreadsheet.

Then run the script to get a quick audit of how your account is doing. You’ll also get an email if you update the script with your email address.

The post A time-saving free script to keep Ad Grants accounts out of trouble appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Demoed at Google I/O: AMP cache URLs showing publisher’s URL instead of Google AMP URL

In January, Google announced a solution for the AMP cache URL problem where Google would show and allow you to share the Google AMP URL instead of the publisher’s URL. Google at I/O demonstrated an early beta of how this would look like for a publisher.

For example, instead of showing the URL http://google.com/amp, Google will show the publisher’s real URL — in this example, foodnetwork.com. Here is a GIF of this in action:

You can see a searcher coming from Google search mobile, clicking on an AMP page and not being served the google.com/amp URL but instead being served a URL on the publisher’s site, foodnetwork.com.

Google explained technically how this is working. Again, this is an early beta:

The Chrome team has built enough Signed Exchange support for developers to try it out. Starting with Chrome 67 on Android — in Beta channel at the time of writing — you can enable the experimental “Signed HTTP Exchange” flag under chrome://flags to use Web Packaging’s signed exchanges. In parallel with this experimental implementation, the Chrome team has also been collecting feedback from members of standards bodies, other browser vendors, security experts, and publishers and web developers to refine and improve the Web Packaging specifications.

Last, to tie everything together, the Google Search team has implemented a version of Google Search that illustrates the end-to-end flow. When a signed exchange is available, instead of linking to an AMP page served from Google’s AMP Cache, Google Search links to a signed AMP page served from Google’s cache.

Follow all of our Google I/O 2018 coverage here.

The post Demoed at Google I/O: AMP cache URLs showing publisher’s URL instead of Google AMP URL appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Google announces ads updates for app developers at Google I/O

With the kickoff of the annual Google I/O developer conference today, Google announced updates for app developers buying and selling ads via AdWords and AdMob, respectively.

Google added that Android users downloaded 94 billion apps from Google Play last year. That’s up from 82 billion apps downloaded in 2016. There are more than 2 billion active Android devices, Google announced last year.

In a new beta, advertisers will be able to show more content within their app promotion ads in Google Play. As one example, a shopping or e-commerce app can connect their product catalog feeds to AdWords to show a carousel of product images and descriptions in their ads. Google says this test will be available in the coming months.

App developers can show content dynamically in app promotions ads.

In March, Google introduced Google Play Instant for users to be able to try out a game app from an ad before downloading it. That format is now being tested in AdWords to make it available via Universal App Campaigns, which provide distribution to inventory across Search, Google Play, YouTube and the Google Display Network.

View-through conversion (VTC) reporting will be available for app advertisers in AdWords later this month. VTC reporting reflects when a user has been shown a viewable impression and also converted. VTC reporting uses the Media Rating Council (MRC) definitions of ad viewability. For display ad impressions to count as viewable, 50 percent of the ad’s pixels need to be in view for at least one second.

To help developers that sell ads on their apps report on viewability in a more streamlined manner, Google is integrating the IAB Tech Lab’s Open Measurement SDK with its own Google Mobile Ads and Interactive Media Ads SDKs. App developers using DoubleClick AdExchange and DoubleClick for Publishers can ask to join the beta as of this week.

A new rewarded ads report in Google’s mobile app publisher network, AdMob, shows estimated earnings, engaged users and daily activity metrics from rewarded ads, which users watch in exchange for in-app incentives like more lives or coins or access to content that would otherwise be behind a paywall.

[This article originally appeared on Marketing Land.]

The post Google announces ads updates for app developers at Google I/O appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Google Assistant takes center stage at I/O, search takes a back seat

Google Assistant has fast become one of Google’s marquee products and a critical component of Google’s competitive strategy versus rivals Apple and Amazon. Today, at Google I/O, the company announced a long list of new features, capabilities and improvements.

First, the obligatory impressive numbers. The Google Assistant is now on 500 million devices globally, including TVs and cars, in 80 countries and 30 languages by the end of 2018. It also works with 5,000 connected home devices. Apple, Microsoft and Amazon all have large numbers they can cite, though other than Apple, not as much distribution.

Here are the highlights of the Assistant-related announcements this morning:

New voices for greater personalization Google said there will be six new Assistant voices, as well as some limited voice content from musician John Legend. The latter points to more celebrity/character voices and more customization. The company also said that they can create new Assistant personas in a compressed time frame because of AI technology and WaveNet.

Google Assistant has been “cold” compared to Siri and Alexa, and this new personalization will make it more appealing to more people.

Continued conversation without ‘Hey Google’ Amazon recently introduced the ability to ask follow-up questions without invoking the assistant with “wakewords.” Today, Google did something similar, allowing users to have a more natural conversation, including follow-ups, without punctuating that conversation with “Hey Google” or “OK Google.” The company also touted improved natural language understanding generally.

Custom routines, scheduled routines Routines combine tasks and are invoked with a single command. The company today announced “custom routines” that combine actions in a string (e.g., turn on lights, music, turn off TV). These routines can have customized names to initiate them. Routines will also be capable of being scheduled later this year, so that they automatically happen at a specific time.

Smart displays coming in July At CES this year, several hardware makers, like Lenovo, showed off “smart displays,” screens with the Google Assistant built in. Today, it showed off a few more and talked about combining voice with a “rich visual experience.”

These devices, which can be navigated with voice but equally with a touch screen, put pressure on Amazon to improve the Echo Show or bring out new devices with screens. This is also a natural for Apple.

Google also promoted video calling (with Duo) and YouTube TV, which will be available on smart displays. (Google pushed YouTube TV in multiple contexts during the keynote today.) The first of these devices will be available to purchase in July, according to the company.

Richer visual experience on smartphones On the heels of its discussion of smart displays, Google showed off a richer visual experience for the Assistant on smartphones. In some cases, users could take action from within the results screen (e.g., adjusting a thermostat). There was also a demo of a food ordering/delivery experience from within the Assistant. Beta partners include Starbucks, Doordash, Applebee’s, Dunkin’ Donuts and Domino’s.

This is part of Google’s larger effort to make search and the Assistant a controller for all your apps.

Actions in Google Maps The Assistant is also coming to navigation in Google Maps. That will enable users to send texts and play podcasts or music from within Google Maps. Duplex: AI-driven phone scheduling for SMBs Arguably the most intriguing announcement this morning was “Duplex,” an AI-driven phone based-system for booking appointments with local businesses without online scheduling capabilities. There were two demos: one involving booking a haircut and the other a complex restaurant reservation. We heard a natural-sounding Assistant voice interact with actual humans over the phone and have a complex multi-step conversation. Turing test, take that!

Of course, these were recorded, not live. But it was very impressive — capital V. Here’s what Google says about the new “experimental” capability:

A long-standing goal of human-computer interaction has been to enable people to have a natural conversation with computers, as they would with each other . . . Today we announce Google Duplex, a new technology for conducting natural conversations to carry out “real world” tasks over the phone. The technology is directed towards completing specific tasks, such as scheduling certain types of appointments. For such tasks, the system makes the conversational experience as natural as possible, allowing people to speak normally, like they would to another person, without having to adapt to a machine.

Undoubtedly, the actual technology today falls short of the ambition, but it’s remarkable if Google is closing in on this capability.

The post Google Assistant takes center stage at I/O, search takes a back seat appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Google Maps redesigns ‘Explore’ tab, launches ‘Your match,’ ‘Group planning’ and ‘For you’ section

Today at Google I/O, Google announced new Google Maps features that are rolling out globally on Android and iOS in the coming months. The new features include a new “Explore” tab, brand-new features around “Your match” and “Group planning” and a new “For you” section.

Redesigned Explore tab

The redesigned Explore tab shows searchers who are using Google Maps dining venues, events and activities that are “new and interesting” and “nearby.” Here is a GIF of the new “nearby” tab in action:

Your match

The new “Your match” feature will show you how likely you are to enjoy a place and provides reasons you will enjoy it. So, when you click on a specific place, Google will generate a number based on “what we know about a business, the food and drink preferences you’ve selected in Google Maps, places you’ve been to, and whether you’ve rated a restaurant or added it to a list.” This all uses machine learning, Google says. Plus, Google will get smarter with this score over time based on your history.

Here is a GIF of Your match in action:

Group planning

Here is a GIF of that in action:

For you

The “For you” tab lets you choose to follow neighborhoods and dining spots and based on what you choose, Google will send you ideas for what to do next time you want to go out. Here is a GIF of that in action:

Augmented Reality

Google Maps directions is also getting AR, Augmented Reality, to help users navigate and find places. Stepping out of a subway and onto a city street, it can be confusing to know which direction to walk, especially if you are new to the area. These AR features point a user in the right direction:

By overlaying the way you should walk on top of the camera on your phone, a user can quickly see which way they should head.

The post Google Maps redesigns ‘Explore’ tab, launches ‘Your match,’ ‘Group planning’ and ‘For you’ section appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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SearchCap: Google I/O, Google Posts with videos and image search guidelines updated

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Google Image Search updates guidelines, adding structured data, speed and more May 8, 2018 by Barry Schwartz

Google has finally refreshed content for its image search publishing guidelines.

Ask the SMXpert: Keyword research and copywriting May 8, 2018 by Debra Mastaler

Contributor and SMXpert Christine Churchill answers keyword research and copywriting technique questions from attendees who participated in the SMX West 2018 Keyword Bootcamp.

How to watch Google I/O 2018 keynotes May 8, 2018 by Ginny Marvin

Google I/O is underway. Tune in now.

Google Posts now accepting videos for some local businesses May 8, 2018 by Barry Schwartz

Google Posts gets richer with the ability to upload videos to your messages.

Beyond keywords: What really matters in SEO content May 8, 2018 by Jessica Foster

Going beyond keywords to write high-quality content that attracts new customers and is SEO-friendly is the way to go, says contributor Jessica Foster. Here she shares eight ways to create content that satisfies people and engines.

New AMP features announced for geotargeting content, as well as some GDPR support May 8, 2018 by Michelle Robbins

The Accelerated Mobile Pages project released a new “amp-geo” component and full support for the “amp-consent” component which may help some publishers address GDPR compliance

How to create landing pages that convert May 8, 2018 by Digital Marketing Depot

If you’re looking to gather leads for your business, you need to have a landing-page strategy. Like every other marketing tactic, this can be done well or it can be done poorly. To see the greatest return on their investment, businesses need to build effective landing pages, then test and optimize them to maximize conversion […]

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

How to turn a boring email into an irresistible link pitch

How dynamic creative will (finally) reach the tipping point

Instagram rolls out new messaging features for business profiles, expands action buttons to more third-party apps

What is ‘Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)?’ Learn everything you need to know

Facebook lets publishers cross-post Live videos across multiple Pages & tests a rewind button

Google AdWords new responsive search ads can show 3 headlines

Link building is complicated: A rebuttal

Managing martech relationships: Partnerships and agility in marketing

Search News From Around The Web:

Complete On-Page SEO Checklist for 2018, Ignite Visibility

Dealer site navigation bar best practices, DealerOn

3 Reasons to Scale Your PPC Campaigns with the Microsoft Audience Network, The AdStage Blog

4 Critical Enterprise SEO Scaling Challenges to Overcome, BrightEdge SEO Blog

7 Red Flags to Search for in Your Google AdWords Account, Vertical Measures

Google I/O 2018 – What sessions should SEOs and Webmasters watch live ?, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

Google Search Console Notifications For Improve Discovery In The Google Assistant, Search Engine Roundtable

How to Keep Google From Owning Your Online Life, Wall Street Journal

Introducing Google AI, Google AI Blog

Mobile PPC: An Absurdly Easy-to-follow Guide to Get it Right, Portent

What SEO fixes, and what it doesn’t, Pedro Dias

The post SearchCap: Google I/O, Google Posts with videos and image search guidelines updated appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Google Image Search updates guidelines, adding structured data, speed and more

Google updated the Google Image Publishing Guidelines document today, adding more details around structured data, page speed, title management and user experience details. The old documentation can be viewed in this screen shot I captured previously.

The new guidelines have updated content around creating a better user experience with your images, including adding good context, optimizing placement, embedding tips, device-friendly sites and good URL structure for your images. In addition, Google has explained how the image titles work since the change.

Google also added sections for adding structured data for product, video and recipe markup. There is a new section for speed, including information about their PageSpeeds Insights tool, AMP and responsive image techniques.

You can check out the new guidelines over here and compare them to the old guidelines over here.

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How to create landing pages that convert

If you’re looking to gather leads for your business, you need to have a landing-page strategy. Like every other marketing tactic, this can be done well or it can be done poorly. To see the greatest return on their investment, businesses need to build effective landing pages, then test and optimize them to maximize conversion rates.

This guide from SharpSpring is written for any marketer looking to initiate or improve their landing-page strategy. It will guide you through the entire process of creating and optimizing landing pages, highlighting key points along the way.

Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download “Creating Landing Pages That Convert.”

The post How to create landing pages that convert appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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How to watch Google I/O 2018 keynotes

Google’s annual developer conference kicks off today at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California.

We’ll have coverage and analysis of the big announcements coming, but in the meantime, you can tune into the keynotes livestreamed here or right here below.

There will be news about Google Assistant, Google Home, YouTube TV, app advertising and more over the next three days.

The post How to watch Google I/O 2018 keynotes appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Ask the SMXpert: Keyword research and copywriting

The Ask the SMXpert series continues the question and answer (Q&A) segment of sessions held at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) West 2018.

The following Q&A is from the Keyword Research and Copywriting for Search Success Bootcamp with Christine Churchill, with an introduction by moderator Debra Mastaler.

Moderator Debra Mastaler: Well-known for her in-depth knowledge of keyword research and online marketing, Christine is one of the few well-rounded search professionals with equal knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) tactics.

She has been a working in the search industry since 1998 and has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world. Her biggest tip for search marketers today? “Be well-rounded and keep learning.” Wise words.

Question: For businesses that have multiple locations in different states across the US, how can you find keywords specific to different regions? (The assumption seems to be that we all use the same words across the country, but [that’s] not necessarily true).

Christine: My favorite tool for comparing the regional use of keyword phrases is the Google Trends tool. If you enter keyword phrases into the Google Trends tool, it will show you visually the popularity variations where the phrase is used. Google Trends lets you drill down more granularly to look at the keyword usage by the country, subregion, state or even city.

Seeing the map with keyword data is a fast, fun way to learn about the regional use of phrases — and the data comes straight from Google. In order to identify variant terms, you can use the Google Search Console or even a thesaurus or regional language dictionary, though the latter may not keep up with emerging keyword phrase usage.

Question:  What are some best practices for optimizing keywords through social media? Have you seen any success with this?

Christine: One of the best practices you can do in social media is to remember to actually use keywords! Tweets, Instagram shares and Pinterest pins are all opportunities for focused, targeted responses if one would keep their keywords in mind.

Including a keyword in a tweet or in your blog post title can increase the ease with which people find your tweet or post. People use the search box on Twitter and other social media sites, and when they use it they usually enter keyword phrases. Just like with Google, using keywords in your social media work helps you be more relevant and get found.

Question: How do B2B voice search trends compare to B2C voice search trends? Are they rising in the same way?

Christine: Excellent question! Voice search is growing fast. According to Mary Meeker’s annual Internet trends report, voice-related commands have gone up 35 percent since 2008.

Voice search is growing across all demographics, but especially younger demographics. Business-to-business (B2B) keyword text search volumes tend to have smaller overall volumes than business-to-consumer (B2C) keywords. As more people adopt voice search [in] their daily activities, the expectation is that they will use voice search for B2B much like they use it for B2C.

More information from the search engines on keyword voice search is needed, to be sure. Optimizing for voice search, whether it is for B2B or B2C, is similar. In order to optimize for voice, plan to use longer keyword phrases in conversational speech patterns and include questions and answers on your pages. Focus on making your website mobile-friendly and fast-loading as well.

Question: You mentioned a few dozen keyword research tools. So many! Can you name your top four favorites and what you like about each?

Christine: Sure! The four keyword tools I use the most are:

The Google Keyword Planner. It provides keyword data from the search engine with the largest search volume, so it is a good idea to start with this tool. That said, it is very oriented toward pay-per-click (PPC), so I usually use it in combination with other tools. The Google Keyword Planner provides keyword popularity information, which is valuable for judging the traffic potential of a keyword phrase.

Ahrefs. A keyword tool that is often overlooked, Ahref’s Keywords Explorer is handy for getting quick overviews on organic competition and trends. I also use Ahrefs as my go-to tool for linkage information.

SEMrush. I use this tool daily. You can enter a domain name or a keyword and get competitive intelligence data in seconds. They have also added a number of helpful tools to SEMRush that can scan your site for problems or give insights on competitors’ links.

Google Trends. Another tool I use in great frequency is Google Trends. I think many people overlook the importance of understanding a keyword’s seasonality and trend line. It also provides insights on the regional use of terms and upcoming related phrases. Since it does not provide an absolute popularity scale, it is best used for comparing the relative popularity of different terms.

I mentioned a number of keyword tools because no one tool is perfect, and using multiple tools synergistically is a great idea.

Have more questions for our SMXperts? Complete this form and we’ll run your question and the SMXpert responses shortly!

Interested in the rest of Christine’s program?  Click here for the full keyword research and SEO copywriting presentation.

Want to learn more in-depth SEO & SEM tactics? Join us next month at our SMX Advanced conference in Seattle, where top industry experts will share their tips, tactics and strategy around these topics and more:

SEO Ranking Factors In 2018: What’s Important, What’s Not

Solving Complex SEO Problems When Standard Fixes Don’t Apply

Optimizing For Voice Search & Virtual Assistants

Voice Assistants: Persona Design, Information Discovery and the Next Era of Search Marketing

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