Google made an announcement on August 22, 2023, stating that they were commencing the rollout of their latest core update. This update process wrapped up on September 7, 2023, spanning a total of 16 days to reach completion. 

This marks the second significant algorithm update in 2023, with the preceding one having been initiated in March 2023.

How To Recover

• Make sure your web content is of the utmost quality with valuable information that aligns with the interests of your target audience. Moreover, it is essential to continuously deliver new and relevant content to maintain engagement and interest.
• To rank higher on Google, create valuable and trustworthy content that follows the E-E-A-T guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). This will help your content be recognized as reliable and shown to users when they search related queries.

Additional Insights

• It’s evident that enhancing your website may not result in an immediate shift in your rankings. However, you need to look for opportunities to continually improve.
• A decrease in rankings could be attributed to modifications made during the core upgrade, rather than being indicative of issues with your website’s structure or content. It’s important not to make any drastic changes to your site just because your site’s traffic has declined after the update.
• Brands who observed declines in their rankings should focus on enhancing the quality of their websites rather than seeking immediate technical remedies. If low traffic persists, then consult an expert.

Further Reading

• Google Downgrades Visibility of FAQ-rich and How-To Results
• A Beginner’s Guide To Local SEO
• How To Optimize SEO For Future AI-Driven Search Engines

The post Google August 2023 Core Update appeared first on NetElixir.

FAQ-Rich Results:

We will see FAQ-rich results less frequently with Google’s latest update. FAQ-rich results will now only appear for well-known, authoritative government and health websites that Google deems eligible and trustworthy to share this information. For all other sites, this rich result will no longer regularly appear. 

Google says marketers can drop the FAQ schema from their sites; however, we believe that there is no harm in keeping your FAQ schema as of now. 

We recommend maintaining your FAQ schema for now; although a rich result is not guaranteed, it can still help search engines to understand your content more efficiently and answer direct queries your customers have about your products, services, brand, or industry.

How-To-Rich Results:

Only desktop searches will display how-to-rich results moving forward. Mobile searches will no longer activate how-to-rich results. 

Although this update isn’t a direct ranking adjustment, its potential implications on website traffic and engagement are noteworthy. Websites that heavily rely on these rich results for generating traffic and brand awareness might experience a significant impact on their real estate and click-through rates. You should keep a close eye on these metrics.

Supercharge Your Search Strategy With Generative AI

These adjustments to FAQ-rich and how-to-rich results are the first steps Google is taking to create its Search Generative Experience (SGE), which will roll out more concretely next year. As generative AI can answer the majority of FAQ and how-to queries, it makes sense for Google to reduce the visibility of those schemas now in preparation. 

As we continue to monitor the latest SEO changes in Google and other search engines, we will keep you informed on how to gain more real estate in SERPs and optimize your AI growth marketing strategy. 

Recap Of Other SEO News

• How To Optimize SEO For Future AI-Driven Search Engines
• How To Stay On Top Of The Search Engines
• A Beginner’s Guide To Local SEO
• Benefits of International SEO

The post Google Downgrades Visibility of FAQ-rich and How-To Results appeared first on NetElixir.

Move To A Conversational Search Engine

The theme throughout GML is the idea that AI initiatives and new innovations will supercharge the search experience. Google’s announcements show that the company is moving more toward directly integrating ads into the Search Generative Experience. The Search Generative Experience is Google’s new frontier in the AI-powered future that takes search to a whole new level as it integrates search and shopping ads.

Search will become increasingly more conversational, as Google unveiled its new concept to allow users to drill further down into their search query. The engine will remember previous search queries to supply context for subsequent queries to deliver a refined and curated result specifically for that user. Your content strategy should include multimedia assets, as the search results will showcase images and videos more seamlessly alongside text for a comprehensive experience delivered right to the user. People’s behavior will change as they ask different questions or prompts to get their answer, which will in turn continue to refine and reshape the search experience.

While AI will generate responses, it has to pull that information from somewhere. A robust content strategy is still important to delivering essential information to prospective customers. 

Creating Campaigns Using Conversational AI

Within Google’s new conversational experience, marketers will be able to build more effective search ads more quickly.

Google’s new chat experience can help you create Google Ads campaigns, including keywords, headlines, descriptions, and assets. All you have to do is respond to a prompt for a preferred landing page and describe the product or service you want to advertise. From there, Google AI will help create the necessary assets.

What’s great about this feature is that it’s completely optional. You can still rely on your in-house or agency team to write all necessary content and assets.

Performance Max Continues to Be AI-Driven

When Google first launched Performance Max (PMax) campaigns, they were designed for the AI-powered future. PMax campaigns rely on machine learning to continually showcase the right combination of assets to the right audience at the right moment along their journey. PMax will now leverage even more AI-driven tools, as generative AI will help marketers generate creatives for image and video campaigns for an even greater automated experience.

The refined asset creation process will allow brands to more easily scale their creative potential to maximize revenue and audience reach from PMax campaigns.

Throughout the 2023 holiday season, NetElixir saw that Performance Max campaigns accounted for 48% of paid search orders during Cyber 5. PMax campaigns are set to be the standard campaign structure moving forward, so having more offerings and creative options will allow for better, more personalized ads.

AI-Generated Images

Google’s new Product Studio tool allows marketers to edit, enhance, and sharpen product photos for higher-quality promotional images. Marketers can even add dynamic backgrounds — let’s say a beach or with a pet playing in the back — or remove unappealing backgrounds so the product itself pops more. 

When using AI-generated image tools, it is important to continually test image creation prompts to ensure brands are getting and using ownable imagery; as NetElixir’s Director of Marketing Keith Levitt reminds us that you don’t want the same generic backgrounds as your competition.

“Pay attention to consistency: once you find background imagery you like and that is on brand, try to capture these prompts and continue to use the same prompts so you get consistent images moving forward,” Keith continues.

To capture these brand-specific images, experiment with prompts that include your specific brand colors and use language from your brand guidelines document to align with your brand tone, look, and feel.

New Campaign Types

Google announced two new campaign types, video views and demand generation, to drive more results on YouTube.

Video view campaigns, as the name suggests, will drive the most views for your videos by combining skippable in-stream ads, in-feed ads, and Shorts ads. Video content is an increasingly vital component of your overall content marketing strategy, so more options to drive results across video campaigns is important.

Demand gen campaigns will be available across YouTube Shorts, YouTube in-stream, YouTube in-feed, Discover, and GMail to drive more conversations and expand the brand’s reach. 

Key Takeaway: The Role Of AI Continues To Expand

A crucial takeaway from GML 2023 is that the role of AI will only continue to expand. AI innovations will help digital marketers scale and grow more effectively by reaching audiences with personalized and curated content.

However, AI is only as good as the foundation of data on which it’s built — better data means more optimized assets and insights. Continue to test and experiment with AI generation and prompts to train the algorithm as well as learn for yourself what works and what doesn’t.

Use Google’s AI Essentials checklist to supercharge your Google Ads strategy. Talk with a NetElixir expert today on how to redefine your AI-first strategy.

Further Reading

• How To Optimize SEO For Future AI-Driven Search Engines
• Benefits of Google Analytics 4
• The Future of Digital Marketing

The post Google Marketing Live Recap: A Digital Marketer’s Perspective appeared first on NetElixir.

How Should Retailers Respond to this Google Update?

First, stay calm and try not to overreact to any Google algorithm update. Keep in mind that the search engine is constantly tweaking and improving the hundreds of small signals included in their ranking factors to provide the best – most relevant – results to users. When it comes to web spam and backlinks, the best advice is to take a steady, measured approach to reviewing your website’s backlink profile. This can be done with the help of experts like the NetElixir SEO team who can dive deep with a backlink toxicity audit. If, and only if, a significant amount of potentially harmful links are found in such an audit, the website can submit a disavow file through Google’s own search console. This should always be done with expert help and advice as it is irreversible and can be fraught with unintended consequences. Remember, if you disavow a linking domain – good or bad – you will eventually lose the authority that is passed to your site. Be careful not to disavow a good link by accident. It is also important to note that the technical functionality of such a link disavow doesn’t disappear. Just the transmitted site authority.

Another important exercise for you to conduct is to think about your previous marketing efforts. Could you have engaged in campaigns in previous years that led to old, out-of-date backlinks that are no longer relevant? If so, it may be time for a review. You and your team may have some standard SEO hygiene to perform, which can help to uncover other good clean-up items like broken backlinks. Consider content that may have been unsolicited, that you published, or paid for in the past.

Keep Backlinks Organic

This algorithm update adds to the ideas behind the Penguin update, which first rolled out in 2012 and has continued to roll out several versions as part of core updates since then. The goal of Penguin is to keep backlinks less spammy and more natural.

Moving forward, it is also helpful to note that most benefits from link building arise through the simple act of creating valuable content and establishing real-world partnerships (e.g. working with an established expert on a topic to submit a quote or other valuable information) and asking that expert to backlink to your site. Then your team returns the backlink. This type of backlink is more contextual and seen as more organic in the eyes of Google.

Consider also the value of sharing good content to existing and core audience members through social media channels. Loyal audience members, seeing this content (and possibly with trusted and relevant websites of their own) may backlink on their own without solicitation.

Taking this approach of encouraging naturally occurring links and building partnerships will keep your backlink profile in SEO-ready order. 

NetElixir Is Here To Help

If your team needs help with your link building or auditing efforts, our SEO team here at NetElixir is always ready to provide assistance and recommendations for how to get the most authority out of your backlink profile. 

The post Google’s “Link Spam Update:” What You Should Know appeared first on NetElixir.

• Gradual rollout began in mid-June this year, with final impact at its completion in August
• From June 17th onwards, Google has started using page experience signals as a ranking factor for the top stories carousel and section.
• The update will consider several page experience signals, including the three Core Web Vitals metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
• A new Page Experience report will be introduced in Search Console

What is Google’s Page Experience Algorithm Update?

Google’s Page Experience Algorithm update aims to better measure aspects of how online shoppers interact with a web page by placing more emphasis on user experience in determining ranking. With a gradual roll-out plan, Google is giving websites time to continually refine their website with page experience in mind. This page experience update is meant to ensure that the top-ranking websites are those that users are happy to engage with. 

At a quick glance:

• The page experience algorithm update includes using existing Google Search signals such as mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitial guidelines.
• It also includes metrics in Google’s Web Vitals that have to do with a site’s loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
• For site owners and others, understanding these signals and making the necessary changes should be a priority.
• Necessary updates include optimizing for mobile, improving page speeds, CTAs, and alt text for images.

The new report in Google Search Console will look like the one shown in the image below:

Jeffery Jose, Product Manager at Google, tweeted that the page experience update will also impact desktop ranking, though the roll-out will start on mobile.

Overall, while this update should not drastically impact rankings, it is important to optimize your site for easy navigation and with your online customer top of mind.

How Will The Update Impact E-Commerce Websites?

Google is adapting its algorithm to show first the sites that users love the most, which is quantified by a good, frictionless user experience. The page experience update will place more emphasis on a website’s user experience.

For an e-commerce site, it is important to make sure that the user journey — beginning with the search for a specific product or brand and ending in the final checkout — is seamless and as frictionless as possible. Analyze your web pages, starting with the most popular pages such as the homepage, main category, and product pages, to identify any gaps and fix them. 

Some of the focus areas you should check are:

• Page load time — make sure your website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly
• 404 errors — ensure there are no 404 pages
• Website design — analyze your website design and make it intuitive, especially to those who are new to online shopping (if you’re unsure exactly what is intuitive, consider surveying your customers for what they like and don’t like about your site)
• Competitor’s experience — check out your competitors’ website and compare them with yours to find areas of improvement

As always, you can reach out to the experts at NetElixir for assistance in optimizing your page experience. Our SEO Team approaches your SEO channel with a hyper-focus on attracting new users to capture user intent (UI) and buyer behavior along every touchpoint of the funnel.

Read More on SEO

• Update to Your Core Web Vitals
• SEO Strategy to Responsibly Engage Your Customers
• Preparing for the Cookieless World With Google Analytics 4

The post Google’s Page Experience Algorithm Explained appeared first on NetElixir.

What The Match Type Update Means

The change starts phasing out support for Broad Match Modifier. Most of the Broad Match Modifier traffic will be captured by Phrase Match going forward, while the remaining traffic will be mainly covered by Broad Match (we SEM managers sometimes call Pure Broad to keep the purpose separated from Broad Match Modifier).

Google says, “Starting mid-February, both phrase match and broad match modifier keywords will begin to transition to this new matching behavior. [ …] In July, once the new behavior has been rolled out globally, you’ll no longer be able to create new broad match modifier keywords.”

Below is a quick blurb from Google that helps us understand the change better:

So essentially, the order of words in the query matching a Phrase keyword will remain unchanged while some new words may find place between two subsequent words. 

Why Is Google Making This Change?

The easy answer is ‘Simplicity’. According to Google, “We’ve seen that phrase match and broad match modifier often serve the same use cases, and that you can reach more of the right customers through a combination of the two.”

The change will save time and efficiently streamline keyword management. Google has been making a lot of changes to get rid of complex account structure for a while now. Be it pushing for hybrid campaigns or using smart bidding for pure Broad, Google prefers simple campaign setups that are aligned with automated bidding solutions. 

“So, Why Do We Use Keywords”?

Advertisers use keywords for reach, relevance, and performance. Based on feedback and data from past few years, Google understood that advertisers would not need multiple options to define an optimal keyword mix when smart bidding, as modern search features and audiences are taking care of better targeting. That’s why Google will now have the following keyword match types for simplicity’s sake: 

• Exact match for precision
• Broad match for reach
• Phrase match and broad match modifier for a balance of both

Customer Experience Is The Top Priority 

Google made an array of changes to all match types to prioritize the intent and semantic match over syntactic match (where words in queries have to match more closely with exact wordings in the keyword). Changes were made not just on the ads side, but on the SEO front as well, starting with Rankbrain and most recently BERT. Google cares about user experience and is the most popular search engine in the world for a reason. To continually improve a user’s experience, such changes are always in the works. Updates are purpose driven to ensure users are finding the most relevant results for their searches. 

Is This A Push For More Smart Bidding Coverage?

Maybe Google wanted to reduce the liberty that advertisers had with using BMM over pure Broad. Advertisers were skeptical about pushing Pure Broad hard while keeping the targeting restricted using BMM. As a result, Google had to roll out Smart Bidding for a Broad Match. Google felt that adoption might remain low as long as advertisers have the option to use BMM over pure Broad. Smart Bidding with Broad will capture more contextual signals including Landing Page, other keywords in the ad groups, etc. to drive better returns. However, we recommend running some experiments before rolling out this bid strategy fully. 

Next Steps 

Google shared a host of match type best practices here. That said, NetElixir has also curated a few important next steps below:

• Stop using BMM match type for any new keyword.
• Don’t change the match type of an existing keyword from BMM to Phrase. This would reset history. Google will automatically apply the new behavior to BMM.
• Keep analyzing search queries to see what queries are now matching phrase matches over BMM. Add or negate queries accordingly. 
• Remove redundant keywords as suggested in the Recommendations tab.
• Phrase matches are likely to see an increase in volume while BMM may see a drop. Adjust budgets accordingly. 
• For tROAS/tCPA smart bidding, targets don’t need to be adjusted if your performance goals are the same. Spend may increase as the strategy drives more volume at your target CPA or ROAS. If you want to optimize within a daily budget instead, you can use Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value.
• For Max (conversions or conversion value) smart bidding strategies, increase the daily budgets to accommodate more volume if you see a spike. 

As always, NetElixir is here to help. If you have any questions about this update, please don’t hesitate to contact our experts. 

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