Episode 321 of the award-winning EDGE of the Web podcast features the latest digital marketing news covered by Site Strategics CEO Erin Sparks and Creative Studio Producer Jacob Mann along with special guest Kirk Williams of ZATO Marketing. Here’s the news roundup:
Google Ads Editor v1.1 and Keyword Planner Adds Most Relevant Keywords
From Barry Schwartz on Search Engine Roundtable we learn about Google Ads Editor v1.1 and Keyword Planner Adds Most Relevant Keywords. “The Google Ads team released upgrades to both the Google Ads Editor and Keyword Planner tool. Google Ads Editor is now at version 1.1 and added a bunch of new features. The Keyword Planner tool now can show the most relevant keyword ideas right in the tool.”
- Erin Sparks: Kirk, do you use these tools regularly?
- Kirk Williams: Yes. We use Editor all the time, and Keyword Planner when working on new builds. I’m always delighted whenever Google or Bing releases and Editor update because it means they’ve not decided to kill it off yet. I keep thinking this might be coming, eventually.
- Erin Sparks: Agreed, it’s one of the few tools outside of the SAS browser box they have. And it’s always been very useful to have that software right on the desktop. It’s honestly one of the best ad editor engines when you compare ad management to a number of different platforms.
- Kirk Williams: Yes. If people listening don’t use it, you’ve got to check it out. You’ve got to download it. Because the stuff that you can do in bulk will save you so much time in Editor. It’s done a good job with it. And the features they’ve dropped or deprecated are ones my team and I haven’t been using much lately.
Google Publishes Core Algorithm Update Guidance
According to Roger Montti on Search Engine Journal, Google Publishes Core Algorithm Update Guidance. “Google has published official guidance on Core Updates that goes beyond anything published before. The guidance covers four areas of content and recommends becoming acquainted with Google’s Quality Raters Guidelines to learn how to judge your own content. The guidance additionally mentioned that updates could affect Google Discover.”
- Erin Sparks: Now this is a precedent-setting thing. Google has stayed behind the webmaster guidelines for the longest time. And they also have the continued Google Web Masters Forum. But this guideline is fantastic. They’re actually jumping into it and really contributing into understanding how to navigate the Quality Raters Guidelines.
- Kirk Williams: I’m primarily PPC, so I think that it’s pretty cool and I don’t think I have much more to add beyond that.
- Erin Sparks: Are you seeing a growth in Google’s commitment to communication with the different practitioners of their platforms?
- Kirk Williams: I do keep up with some of the SEO news and developments, and I think it does seem like Google is doing better about communicating what it’s doing and why to SEO people. But it feels like the exact opposite with PPC. It feels like Google’s PPC people have pulled back from communication and conferences and so forth. I’m not complaining about it, just noting it.
- Erin Sparks: It does seem strange, especially when you consider how much money we send their way on behalf of clients.
Google launches a new algorithm to better understand useful and timely information
On Search Engine Land, Barry Schwartz reports Google launches new algorithm to better understand useful and timely information. From Google: “As part of our ongoing efforts to make Search work better for you, a new algorithm update improves our systems’ understanding of what information remains useful over time and what becomes out-of-date more quickly. This is particularly helpful for featured snippets, a feature in Search that highlights pages that our systems determine are most likely to have the information you’re looking for. For queries where fresh information is important, our systems will try to find the most useful and up-to-date featured snippets.”
- Erin Sparks: This is another example of Google doing better at communication with SEO people about what they’re doing and what they’re trying to fix.
- Kirk Williams: I like this kind of thing more from a user perspective than a digital marketer. I like to hear about this because to me, “fresh” and “quality” obviously is a big deal for SERPs. And I don’t mind having a lot of stuff right there on the SERP, which I know a lot of people don’t like because it feels like too much control by Google of what you get to see. But if it’s accurate and good and meets user needs, who cares? Like, if I search to find the temperature right now in Arizona, I don’t want to have to click through a result and go to another page for the answer. Just show it to me right there on the SERP and be done with, right?
- Erin Sparks: And it will certainly keep you on your toes, too, right? If you get into one of those lucky zero positions, you’re not going to stay there long if you’re not keeping things fresh and pumping out new relevant quality content. And for simple things like the temperature, it does make total sense. But when the content needed gets a little more complex, what kind of biases on the part of Google come into play for what gets shown? That’s where it gets trickier and makes people nervous.
Connect with Kirk Williams of ZATO Marketing
Twitter: @PPCKirk (https://twitter.com/PPCKirk)
Facebook: @PPCKirk (https://www.facebook.com/PPCKirk/)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ppckirk/
Instagram: @ppckirk (https://www.instagram.com/ppckirk/)
Website: https://www.zatomarketing.com
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