While there’s a lot going in the world with the COVID-19 pandemic, the design world is also reacting. You’ll notice that some of the newest tools and resources for designers are for working through or with the virus’ impact or are inspired by this change to our lifestyles. Here’s what new for designers this month. Snapfont Snapfont[1] is a browser extension that lets you test any font on any website in a snap. You can preview differences in body...
30-second summary: Digital marketing is hard to organize, even in perfect conditions. There are hundreds of micro-tasks involved which are hard to report and account for. It is incredibly hard to handle it all from home, where there are dozens of distractions to deal with. Working from home will take some time adjusting. So take some time. It is a stressful time for everyone, don’t take extra stress by trying to be as productive as you used to...
30-second summary: A great way to practice your headlines is to find a subject, article idea, or ad online, and write headlines for it, and try to write a better headline than the one that’s already there. Don’t let style overcome content – we all need to infuse a little personality into our copy, but don’t let it become so over-styled that your audience loses interest. Take one of your finished pieces and rewrite it for a different audience....
About The Author Blessing Krofegha is a Software Engineer Based in Lagos Nigeria, with a burning desire to contribute to making the web awesome for all, by writing and building … More about Blessing …[1] In this tutorial, you’ll learn what a skeleton screen UI is and some types of skeleton screen libraries, along with their pros and cons. We’ll build a YouTube-like skeleton screen UI using React Loading Skeleton[2]. Then, you can experiment on your own with...
What started out as a simple alert panel has evolved[1] into the most prolific set of direct information the Google SERP has ever seen. Google’s on-the-SERP coverage of COVID-19 isn’t only an easy-to-access beast of a data source, it’s also a peek at what could be coming to the SERP… permanently. The uniqueness of the COVID-19 SERP The SERP Google shows for many queries directly related to COVID-19 (i.e., anything from coronavirus to COVID-19 cure) is unique in...
On my super short vacation to Israel a few months ago, I had the opportunity to interview several SEOs including one named Ari Nahmani from Kahena[1]. We spoke about two topics; hyperlocal SEO and managing e-commerce in Google search. On the local SEO front, he explained how local SEO can be a bit more complex than normal SEO because of the proximity factors, amongst other things. When it comes to multinational brands with numerous locations, things can...
Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News[1] site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past...
[embedded content] “I’ve been working almost 100% of my time on corona-related stuff,” said Daniel Waisberg, search advocate for Google, “As part of the search engineering team, we kind of see what’s going on and try to understand what are all the initiatives [and] how they align.” “When it comes to webmasters, [we] hope you all saw the [Schema] event stuff,” he provided as an example of how the search engine is helping site owners and users navigate...
[embedded content] Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Ginny Marvin will host our next session of Live with Search Engine Land[1] this Friday, and this time we’re going to be digging into digital commerce. Ginny will be joined by PPC experts and Kaitlin McGrew,[2] SEM strategist at PMG; Bryant Garvin, CMO of Groove Life; Anthony Verre vice president of e-commerce at The Integer Group. All three have been speakers at our SMX events[3] in the past. The panel will discuss digital...
Not long ago, Google started allowing “chains”[1] (businesses with more than 10 locations) and partners to publish COVID-19 Google Posts at scale using the Google My Business (GMB) API. That also became possible for non-COVID Posts as well. This is a big deal for brands, but will it last? Google Posts[2] have not been widely adopted by business owners and brands. But for those using them, they can be a very effective way to convey important information...
SMX Overtime is part of our speaker series from conference presenters who answer questions from SMX attendees on a variety of topics. Before we dive in, a quick refresher on these ad formats. YouTube’s TrueView Discovery ads can appear in YouTube search results, watch pages and even the homepage. They include an image thumbnail, headline, view count and (sometimes) a description. When a user clicks on a TrueView for Discovery ad, they’re taken to the YouTube watch or...
There’s nothing better than finding a new design tool that will make your life a million times easier. After all, we all want to get our work done as quickly and efficiently as possible, and if there’s a tool for that, then I want it. And I did find some tools that I absolutely love that come in handy, and that’s why I want to share my life of new favorite design tools. 5 Design Tools You Have to...
30-second summary: The COVID-19 crisis is affecting everyone, and every business is dealing or at least trying their best to deal with it. According to Statista, the advertising industry is looking at a $26 billion loss in revenue as of early March 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak. Ad spend declines up to 50% are expected across all channels, according to advertising professionals. The impact is big and there’s a lot to unpack, so let’s take a look at ad spend and...
30-second summary: A brand awareness campaign that includes paid search can result in more organic search traffic with an increase in branded search terms. With a large number of the world’s population now confined at home, people have turned to social media as an outlet to remain connected with family, friends, and work. This online behaviour is the intersection of paid, earned, shared, and owned marketing, or the PESO model. So, what happens when a company decides to increase...
30-second summary: The far-reaching AI applications in ecommerce allow businesses to increase their profits by optimizing and automating decision-making, right from web design to customer support. Right from identifying patterns from unstructured data sets to enabling businesses to offer a personalized experience. Here’s how AI is empowering the ecommerce industry. The global revenue from artificial intelligence will reach $36 billion by 2025. A lot of that is because of the contribution of AI in empowering ecommerce including UX that directly impacts...
Google’s Ads Data Hub, the analytics and measurement platform for Google campaign data, announced[1] upcoming enhancements Thursday. It also confirmed it is beta testing audience activation for display campaigns. The company said it has been updating the infrastructure that underpins Ads Data Hub (ADH) to be able to scale it to more customers and simplify querying. Closer to real-time analysis. Google said it has reduced latency from 24-48 hours down to 6 hours for display and YouTube ads...
[embedded content] The coronavirus has impacted search behavior[1] in ways that might’ve been unimaginable until now, and the swings have created uncertainty for our clients and web properties. “I also think that search behaviors are going to change drastically,” said Path Interactive’s Lily Ray, adding, “The last two weeks aren’t necessarily indicative of what we’re going to see over the next six months.” Safety precautions are keeping people home, which has greatly influenced what they’re looking for as...
Marketers are using call analytics platforms to identify the rich data and consumer insights hidden in the growing volume of inbound calls. Call analytics platforms are one of the few martech systems that can track both online and offline leads. Call tracking – following a call from source (e.g. website, click-to-call search or display ad) to sales representative (e.g. based on geographic location or product line) – has been a core use case. However, call analytics platforms...
It’s no longer news that coronavirus has upended the way we live our day-to-day lives. Unprecedented unemployment rates, emptied shelves where toilet paper and Lysol wipes used to sit, an innumerable amount of people working from home – this has become our new reality. We know the ways it has impacted our lives personally, but how has consumer behavior and the way people search changed as a byproduct? What we’ve seen across our clients at 3Q Digital...
SMX Overtime is part of our SMX speaker series from conference presenters who answer questions from attendees on a variety of topics. Q. Is it worth implementing schema if there are no visible changes to the search result on the SERP, just to help Google better understand your content generally? A. Yes, it can definitely be worth implementing structured data, even if there is no direct impact for rich results in the SERPs. As we know, Google is constantly...
TikTok is having a moment. Whether you use the app already or have spotted TikToks popping up on other social platforms, it’s clear that TikTok isn’t just another fleeting trend. It’s here to stay. Yet it’s easy to see how someone not familiar with TikTok (ahem, your boss) might dismiss it as a Snapchat reboot. Worse, they might assume content from Snapchat can be repurposed on TikTok. The two platforms share similar features (and yes, similar audiences) but...
About The Author Juggling between three languages on a daily basis, Iris is known for her love of linguistics, arts, web design and typography, as well as her goldmine of … More about Iris …[1] A month is a long time to stay on top of things. Here you’ll find an overview of everything we’ve been working on and have also enjoyed reading over the past month. Of course, you can always find us on Twitter[2], Facebook[3] and...
When you sit down to build a new website, you probably have a strict process you follow with checklists for everything that needs to get done. But do those checklists include anything about web standards? And, if not, should they? Today, we’re going to look at what web standards are, why we have them, and what you actually need to do with them as a web designer. What Are Web Standards? When we talk about web standards, what we’re...
About The Author Philip Kiely is a developer, writer, and entrepreneur. He is an undergraduate at Grinnell College (class of 2020). More about Philip Kiely …[1] The admin panel is one of the most powerful, flexible features that the Django web framework provides, combining instant off-the-shelf functionality with infinite customization. Using an example project based on a library inventory system, we’ll use the admin panel to learn about creating models and interacting with relational databases in Django. Before we...
Google debuted its Popular Products section[1] in mobile organic search results in the U.S. and India in January 2020. It is just one component of the search engine’s broader effort to (re)assert itself as a product search destination. With greater competition coming from marketplaces like Amazon[2], Google is adding more product discovery features to its search results pages. Here is everything you need to know about Google’s Popular Products section. What is Popular Products? This is a mobile-only showcase...