Google Experiments With Cards For Local Businesses In Search Results

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Google is experimenting with a new change that could up the profile of local businesses in the search results. The search giant is conducting a limited test featuring a new card carousel of results and content from local businesses near the top of search results pages.

Mike Blumenthal first noticed the test, but it has since been confirmed by Google. The “Local Business Cards” use the same functionality as Candidate Cards, which were recently launched. The main difference with this new test is how limited it is.

Currently, Google is only including a “few dozen” hand-chosen local businesses in the experiment. Instead of pulling the content being used to fill the cards from search engine content or Google My Business listings, Google is also using custom content for the cards.

This test is also notable for being the first time Google has allowed animation or GIFs on the search results pages.

On desktop, you can see the Local Business Cards directly adjacent to the Knowledge Panel featuring that business. On mobile, it is shown below the Knowledge Graph. You can see an example below:

The idea behind the new test is to allow businesses to stand out more in search results and highlight content or information about the business’s products or services in ways not quite possible through the Knowledge Graph. With this in mind, Google has also made content directly sharable from within the carousel.

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Most likely this is an early test since Google chose such a small number of businesses and is using custom content to fill the cards. There’s no telling when or if Google will roll out the feature to a wider audience. Hopefully, the cards come soon, as they could be a huge benefit for local businesses that depend on organic search traffic.

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Google Finally Explains The Removal Of Right Rail Ads … Kind Of

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AdWords In Store Visits

When Google recently removed all text ads from the right rail of search engine results pages (SERPs), it caused quite a stir among both advertisers and webmasters who rely on organic traffic for their business. The change in design and the number of ads on SERPs pushes even more organic results below the fold and makes the competition even fiercer for both top ad spots and top organic listings.

Google has been overall fairly tight-lipped about the changes, only confirming that it has occurred and implying the change was largely aimed at bringing the desktop search experience more in line with the mobile search experience.

While it’s not an official statement, Google employee Matt Lawson recently went into depth on why Google decided to cut text ads from the right side of search results and how it could affect your pages and advertising account.

It largely confirms what was already suspected: Right side ads performed poorly and they wanted to bring mobile and desktop search closer together. However, Lawson provides data to show exactly how they expect the change to affect advertisers and steps you can take right not to mitigate any changes in your CPCs and ad performance.

Read what Lawson had to say about the change in his column for Search Engine Land.

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Facebook Announces ‘Your Business Story’ and Advertising Milestone

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YourBusinessStory

Facebook announced a new video offering for small businesses called Your Business Story, which would allow Pages to easily create and share montage-videos incorporating still images and music. At the same time, the company let slip that it now has over three million advertisers.

Your Business Story is a simple tool similar to the previously announced SlideShow offering. The company didn’t say anything about ads being included in the platform, but the note about their recent advertising milestone suggests the new offering will eventually work its way into Facebook Ads.

In the announcement, Facebook said:

To celebrate the businesses that use Facebook to grow, we created Your Business Story — a tool that makes it easy to create a video that shows what your business brings to the world. Because we believe the best way to tell the story of three million businesses is to empower each one to share their own.

Three million advertisers is a significant milestone for the social media platform. In September, the company announced it had reached 2.5 million. Before that, it claimed two million advertisers in February 2015. That means Facebook has been bringing in about half a million advertisers every six months for about the past year.

The announcement also said the majority of the businesses that use Facebook’s ad services are small businesses, also saying “50 million small businesses now use Pages on Facebok.”

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