In the fast-paced industry that designers and developers work in, it’s important to stay up to date as much as possible. Don’t worry, we’ve got your back with monthly updates to help you stay on top of things. This is the first monthly update that the Smashing team will be publishing, to highlight some of the things we have enjoyed reading over the past month. Many of the included posts are sourced from the most popular links...
As a finalist for the Google Premier Partner awards, I recently had the chance to visit Google’s campus in NYC. There, I spoke to a Googler about the state of agencies and he lamented the fact that a large wave of PPC agencies that got their start during the last economic downturn in 2008 are still managing accounts like they did 10 years ago… hardly a strategy for success when we might be on the verge...
Google has experimental reports in Google Search Console for the new speed reports[1]. We covered it when Google announced it back in May, but very few had access it then. Now, some of us at Search Engine Land, have access to these new experimental speed reports. Larger roll out. Some people at the Search Engine Land team now see this new speed report listed under the “Enhancements” section. It is named “Speed (experimental).” Maybe Google has pushed...
It goes without saying that the world of SEO is becoming ever more technical, and over the past decade, webmasters, SEOs, and in-house teams have been widening their knowledge and skillsets to help their sites compete in search engine results pages. One of these areas, which has seen the most development since its launch in 2011, is, of course, schema.org markup. Although it has been eight years since the data schema was introduced, whether due to lack of...
Conversions by time columns now available in Google Ads.Google has rolled out[1] new conversion reporting columns that capture when a conversion actually occurred. Reporting conversions by time. The six new columns are: Conversions (by conv. time) Conv. value (by conv. time) Value / Conv. (by conv. time) All conv. (by conv. time) All conv. value (by conv. time) Value / all conv. (by conv. time) What the columns reflect. The standard conversion column data reports conversions based on the time of the ad click....
One in five searches are now made via voice[1] with digital assistants, which are becoming an increasingly prominent feature in our homes and on mobile devices. How are brands optimizing for voice search? In fact, there are now more than one billion voice searches per month, and this number will only rise over the coming years. But just how big an impact is voice having on search in real terms? What are the specific strategies brands need to apply...
Facebook will soon be transitioning advertisers to campaign budget optimization[1] (CBO), which automates budget optimization across the ad sets in a campaign. Originally scheduled to happen in September, the company pushed the move to February, giving advertisers more time to test it. “With this shift, the budget will be set at the campaign level, much like search campaigns are now,” said Michelle Morgan, director of client services at Clix Marketing, “Facebook will then, in real-time ‘optimize’ the...
Creating accurate projections of your future paid search spend is a really important part of your overall media buying plan. How often have you been asked, how many leads would we get if we increase media spend by X. Or considering that our conversion rate is 19% better year on year, how many more leads will we get this year. The truth is though that putting projections together is tedious and time consuming. So as we do with any boring,...
Bing is testing a new image carousel featuring a preview of the image accompanied by the page title and domain name on its main search results page. “We’re experimenting with it on a set of image answer queries,” the Bing Images team said. The test was spotted by digital marketing consultant Frank Sandtmann, who is based in Hamburg, Germany but noticed it showing in U.S. results. Left: Bing’s current image carousel. Right: The experimental image carousel with page...
What happens if a new client comes to you with a website they want redesigned, but because analytics show that very few people visit or convert from mobile on the website, they want you to prioritize for desktop? Your data tells you this is wrong, but theirs suggests otherwise. As a web designer, you may be starting with little to no data of your own. It’s not until a website has launched (or relaunched) that you can...
About The Author Leonardo Losoviz is the creator of the API + component-model for PHP + framework for building sites called PoP. He lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. More about Leonardo Leonardo …[1][2] Even though Gutenberg is currently at its best ever, many people still do not welcome it into their projects, due to the frustrating experience suffered when it was launched with WordPress 5.0. This is unfortunate, because, as a product, Gutenberg is outstanding. Let’s do a...
The future of search begins with a “v” — as in voice and visual search. While “voice search” (on smart speakers) hasn’t taken off, as we enter the era of “ambient computing,” it’s clear that voice will be the universal interface for an increasingly diverse array of connected devices. Not 50% but closing in — eventually. The oft-cited stat, “50% of all searches in 2020 will be voice searches,” has been discredited[1]. However, in 2016 Google said[2],...
Google has released a sound recording application for its newly released Pixel 4 smartphone. Simply called Recorder[1], the app recognizes speech and uses artificial intelligence to produce a written transcription of the recording. Users can search for words and phrases as well as other sounds such as music and applause in recordings. The new Recorder app uses speech recognition and AI to transcribe lectures, meetings, interviews and more—and makes them easy for you to find later. (English only...
Google is by far the dominant player in search advertising in the U.S., but Amazon and others are eroding that lead. Amazon’s share of the search advertising market is expected to grow as Google’s shrinks over the next two years, according to estimates released Tuesday by research firm eMarketer. Amazon seeing double-digit revenue growth. This year, eMarketer forecasts Amazon’s paid search revenues in the U.S. will increase nearly 30% over last year to $7.09 billion. (In 2018,...
You’re no ordinary search marketer… so why settle for ordinary search marketing training? Join us at Search Marketing Expo — SMX® East, November 13-14 in NYC — the only industry event that’s programmed by the Search Engine Land editors. The hand-crafted agenda (featuring 100+ search marketing presentations[1]!) is designed to deliver proven, actionable tactics you can implement immediately to help generate leads, boost revenue, and grow your business. And because you deserve a conference that’s tailored to your...
You can think of Tobiko[1] as a kind of anti-Yelp. Launched in 2018 by Rich Skrenta, the restaurant app relies on data and expert reviews (rather than user reviews) to deliver a kind of curated, foodie-insider experience. A new Rich Skrenta project. Skrenta is a search veteran with several startups behind him. He was one of the founders of DMOZ[2], a pioneering web directory that was widely used. Most recently Skrenta was the CEO of human-aided search...
We live in a world where a large number of people like to engage with their favorite brands online, and business owners are understanding that now. Today, a chunk of people find new products online and also place the orders online. However, a paradigm shift can be observed in how they approach this which is how we see more and more people searching for information on the web using voice-commands rather than textual queries. 1. Brand voice AI has...
Google seems to be having issues showing new and fresh content from web sites and publishers. This seems to be impacting both large and small publishers, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN and even this site, Search Engine Land. Confirmed. At 6:18pm ET, Google has confirmed there is an issue posting[1] on Twitter “We’re aware of an issue that may be causing slight delays in indexing fresh content. We’re looking into it and will...
In today’s post I’m going to show you exactly how to promote your blog in 2019. In fact: These are the same strategies that I used to grow my blog to 449,759 monthly visits. Let’s dive right in. 1. Guest Post Bonuses If you’re just starting out, guest posting[1] is a GREAT way to grow your blog. There’s only one problem: It’s REALLY hard to get people from your guest post to your website. In fact, one industry study[2] found that the average guest...
Google introduced audiences to Search ads over seven years ago with the creation of RLSA. A whole[1] bunch[2] of improvements[3] have happened since then. If you want to be at the cutting edge of using audiences, you need to familiarize yourself with the latest additions to Google’s audience portfolio, which will be coming at the end of this month to all advertisers. Get to know your new audiences In case you missed the announcement[4], here’s a quick recap...
SEOs have been adapting to the ranking shifts that occur when Google’s now roughly-quarterly core algorithmic updates[1] roll out. While Google has told us in the past that there is “no fix” for a site that is negatively impacted by these types of updates, good SEOs don’t sit idle. They make site changes to help their clients not just fix issues but realize more positive results from these ongoing updates. The last core update Google released was...
Google announced[1] Wednesday that it will be rolling out the two new audience targeting options for advertisers over the coming weeks. Afiinity audiences. These interest audiences have been available for Google Display Network and Video campaigns for years. The audiences are built around interests determined by browsing behavior. Advertisers can drill into broad interest areas like Banking & Finance and Food & Dining to select audiences. Cooking Enthusiasts, Do-It-Yourselfers, Technophiles are some examples of the affinity audiences...
It’s becoming increasingly expectant that SEO’s become more flexible and holistic in their approach to website optimization. In that spirit, taking time out to find better and more efficient ways of doing day to day tasks is something I find myself doing regularly. I’ve tried tons of tools, worked with dozens of fellow SEO’s and I still firmly believe that bookmarklets have a place in a search marketer’s repertoire. So, I’ve hunted through the mass of useful and...
About The Author Sandrina Pereira is a web lover that helps turn ideas into accessible products. Currently she’s doing that at Farfetch as a Senior UI Engineer. Besides being a … More about Sandrina Pereira …[1] As a frontend developer, I want to apologize to the designers out there for all the misunderstandings that have happened in the past. I think it’s time for us developers to improve our awareness of the designers’ role and show them that...
Dan Shure[1], a piano teacher gone SEO, spent some time chatting with me about some SEO topics. We talked about how he went from being a piano teacher and petty much broke, to an SEO that makes a nice living. Dan talked to me about his theories around Google core updates. Specifically about how to structure your content on its pages to make it more human-readable, while also improving your rankings for core updates. He said, it...