Brendan Tully0 Comments
August 4, 2022
We’ve just published a new Business Marketing Show episode on all things keywords and the keyword research approach we’re using with clients – scroll down to the bottom of this page for more.
Google have been rolling out a bunch of changes lately, there are three that you should probably be aware of:
1. Four ads now showing in Google search results
Four ads now show in most cases before the organic (free) search results. Often this means that even if you’re in the traditional “number 1” spot in Google you could easily be halfway down the page or even at the bottom of the page after all the ads. If you’re not currently running Google Adwords it might be time to rethink them.
As a general rule if you have an organic or SEO strategy that’s working for you an Adwords ad strategy will likely work equally as well.
Here’s a great example of our photography partner Perth Product Photography – they rank in the number one spot for the search “commercial photographer perth” but because there are at least 4 competitors advertising their number 1 spot is now at the bottom of the page.
A Google search for “commercial photographer perth” – click to enlarge
2. New Adwords ad format called “expanded text” Adwords
There is a new Adwords format that makes the ads bigger and more prominent which makes the impact of the first change even more pronounced as the ads are bigger.
If you’re running Adwords you’ll see some advantage with changing over to the new format (if we’re running your ads for you we’ll do this automatically over the next week or two).
3. Google is now showing social profiles in the search results
You might have seen that Google is now showing social network links in the Google Maps results (screenshot below). It’s worth doing a quick Google of your business name to see what’s showing and to make sure those social profiles are up to date!
Google has been testing new Youtube channel layouts over the last few weeks and they’ll likely go live soon.
If you haven’t taken the time to create a custom header and add in a featured video your Youtube page will likely look quite poor when they make the changeover.
The below image is a great example for DidgeridooBreath.com’s Youtube channel in the new format. At a minimum you need a featured video and a channel header image:
That keywords field in your CMS admin console that you’ve been diligently filling in….well that’s probably a waste of time. Unless the field is used by the CMS to analyse the content on your pages it does nothing and is ignored by Google.
Pumping a page or a website field full of keywords is an SEO approach that is 10 years out of date, at best it’s a waste of time, at worst it’s doing damage.
We recently recorded a Business Marketing Show episode on keyword research and the approach to keywords in today’s environment that works. This episode is one worth listening to if you’re looking at redoing your website or pursuing an SEO strategy. Click play on the player below or check out the full episode at http://www.businessmarketingshow.com/keywords/
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