Your Google My Business Page is the epicenter of all your local online marketing for your brand or business. Now, Google is making it easier to see how users find your GMB page with enhanced insights that show where your visitors are coming from.
The biggest question the new insights help answer is where your GMB page visitors are coming from. Specifically, are they coming from Google Maps or Google Search? With enhanced insights, you can now see a simple breakdown of how many visitors are coming from each source straight from your GMB dashboard.
The new insights also help you understand how people are finding your page. Some may be searching directly for your brand or business name, but others are likely to find you by searching for a related keyword.
You can now view a comparison of who found your page by searching for your name and who searched for a related keyword. Don’t expect to be able to see which keywords they were searching for, however. Those are currently ‘not provided’.
While these new insights are being added, Google is also removing the Google+ statistics from the GBD dashboard.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2016-08-10 13:50:472016-08-10 13:50:47See How People Are Finding Your Business With New GMB Insights
Facebook operates one of the largest ad services on the internet and they claim they have finally figured out how to beat ad blockers with two new changes to their ad platform.
To start, the company has announced they have created a way to get past ad blocking extensions on desktop to show ads to everyone who visits their site – even if they don’t want to see them. The company was unwilling to say how they have accomplished this, but most likely they have created a way to ‘cloak’ their ads so they are not able to be targeted and blocked by popular ad blockers.
While Facebook is blocking ad blockers on desktop devices only, they are most likely working to do the same on mobile in the near future.
To compensate for this, Facebook is trying to make sure the ads users see are more relevant and useful to their lives by giving new control over what ads are shown in their news feeds.
The new ad control tool was released today and lets users add or remove interests from an “ad preferences” list to show what topics they are most interested in.
“When they’re relevant and well-made, ads can be useful, by helping us find new products and services and introducing us to new experiences—like an ad that shows you your favorite band is coming to town or an amazing airline deal to a tropical vacation,” Andrew Bosworth, VP of ads and business platform for Facebook, wrote in a blog post. “But because ads don’t always work this way, many people have started avoiding certain websites or apps, or using ad blocking software, to stop seeing bad ads. These have been the best options to date.
To help refine their ad service, Facebook commissioned research firm Ipsos MORI to survey users from around the world to determine why users are ad blockers have become so popular. The majority of those surveyed said the main reason they started using ad blockers was because advertising often disrupted their browsing experience.
“While people want a personalized online experience, they dislike ads that are disruptive, however personalized,” wrote Adam Isaacson, research director of Ipsos Connect. “Those that block the content on the page, that pop up with sound and that slow the content on the page were all seen to be disruptive by our qualitative sample.”
The hope of the new changes to Facebook’s advertising service is that giving people more control will make users more interested in the ads their shown and provide a more seamless browsing experience. While many will complain about the move to thwart ad blocking software, the ability to choose what you’re shown will hopefully make the change easier to swallow.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2016-08-09 15:44:452016-08-09 15:44:45Facebook Blocks Ad Blockers While Giving Users More Control Over Ads
Since the launch of Accelerated Mobile Pages, Google has indexed over 150 million AMP pages from over 650 thousand unique domains. You probably wouldn’t know that from looking at the search results, though. Instead, searchers have only been shown the small number of AMP pages featured in the “Top Stories” carousel on some search results.
That is starting to change. Google is giving a preview of search results with considerably more Accelerated Mobile Pages in the organic search results. The pages are still marked with their usual blue lightning bolt, but now they aren’t restricted to carousels.
You can see for yourself what the expanded AMP support looks like in Google’s demo showing what their search pages will look like as AMP pages become more common in search results in the near future.
Google makes it clear the inclusion of AMP pages in organic search results doesn’t mean they are implementing an algorithmic change to how they rank sites. Ranking will work as it has been, but with these faster pages included in the possible results.
The change makes AMP pages considerably more attractive to a number of new markets, including e-commerce. For example, Disney, Genius, and Reddit have all used AMP pages, but they were unlikely to ever be found through search because they were not likely to be included in the “Top Stories” carousel.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2016-08-04 14:52:502016-08-04 14:52:50Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages Are Coming To Organic Search Results
Instagram is launching a new feature, but many are saying the new feature seems inspired by another popular social photo app – Snapchat. The new feature called Instagram Stories lets users and brands share a collection of moments that disappear after 24 hours.
If that sounds familiar, it is because the feature is very similar to Snapchat Stories. Not only does it allow users to easily package their best moments of a day into one easy-to-view collection, but Instagram Stories also includes the ability to draw on photos or videos to make them even more exciting.
“With Instagram Stories, you don’t have to worry about over-posting,” an Instagram rep told AdWeek.
The new feature is already available on iOS and Android mobile operating systems. It can be found at the top of Instagram feeds, where you can either share your own stories or tap icons to look at what others have shared in the past day.
Unlike most Instagram videos, clips included in stories are limited to 10 seconds. There are also no likes or comments on stories.
For now Instagram isn’t saying whether marketers will be able to take advantage of stories by promoting them like normal posts, however, businesses can still use the feature to engage with the community and build recognition for their brand and products.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2016-08-02 16:05:212016-08-02 16:05:21Instagram Draws Inspiration From Snapchat With New ‘Stories’
Facebook and Twitter aren’t the only social media platforms you can advertise. Smaller, more niche social networks like Reddit, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Tumblr have all gotten in on social advertising with innovative ad formats and placements. Now, two of those sites have both announced new ads on their networks that directly give back to their users.
Tumblr and Reddit have announced two separate plans for ads that will run on their networks and compensate users for allowing their blogs or content to be included.
In the case of Tumblr, the service is rolling out ads that will be shown across their blog network. Users can opt out of having the ads shown on their specific pages, but those who decide to be included can receive compensation just for allowing the ads.
Details on how much users will be paid and how have yet to be released, as Tumblr says they are “still working out the details of the partner program, but as soon as we have details to share, we’ll make announcements.”
While Tumblr says they will be outright paying users for participating, Reddit’s new ad service isn’t quite so direct.
With the launch of Promoted User Posts, brands can now take advantage of content being posted on the site by promoting it for more to see. This means you can spot a post organically shared on Reddit by a user and boost it to the front page or user feeds with the original poster’s permission.
However, instead of paying users for allowing their content to be used by brands for promotion, Reddit is opting to reward them with a lifetime of “Reddit Gold.” Reddit Gold is the site’s premium membership program which costs $29.99 a year and can be gifted to users by others.
“There are car enthusiasts on Reddit,” CEO and founder Steve Huffman told Ad Age. “Makeup addicts, people who discuss movies, books and video games where these commercial relationships are already developing with our users. It is not a stretch for the advertiser to come in here and engage with our audience.”
These innovative ads are a smart way to involve the communities that already exist on the social networks and make them feel invested in the ads they are seeing. It also presents an opportunity for brands to take advantage of things already being shared to better promote their brand and products.
“This isn’t traditional display advertising,” Huffman told Ad Age. “This is different and more personable. You have to bring your A game here and if you do, it works amazingly.”
Twitter’s ad revenue and engagement may be going up, but Twitter’s advertising platform is struggling to maintain growth as they see fewer advertisers using their service to promote their content.
According to Twitter’s latest shareholder letter, ad revenue grew 18 percent year-over-year, reaching $535 million in Q2. Similarly, ad engagement shot up 226 percent and the cost per engagement dropped by 64 percent.
That’s the good news. The bad news is Twitter is “seeing a continuation of the trends discussed last quarter with less overall advertiser demand than expected. This is reflected in both our Q2 performance and Q3 outlook.
The social media giant says there are two reasons their number of advertisers is dwindling while earnings are growing:
First, there is increased competition for social marketing budgets, which requires us to continuously raise the quality bar on the advertising solutions we bring to market.
Second, while we have worked to drive higher ROI for advertisers (by leveraging our current user base, ad formats and innovations in targeting, creative and measurement), we’re still priced at a premium CPE relative to others. This has proven to be a headwind in growing Twitter’s share of overall social budgets and in our ability to grow faster in both video and performance advertising.
Ultimately, Twitter is going through growing pains and it is reflected by the loss of advertisers. While Twitter is charging more than most social platforms, it is struggling to maintain its active user base who have been largely unimpressed by newer features and changes to the interface on mobile and desktop.
Instead, advertisers are following users who are turning to platforms like Snapchat, which already has more active daily users than Twitter.
The company announced several new ideas to help recapture their audience’s attention and incentivize advertisers to use their service. Among them, it showed off a “new look and feel” to its marketing efforts that emphasize that Twitter is “where you go to see what’s happening everywhere in the world right now.”
Twitter is also heavily investing into live sports streaming with agreements to stream games from all the biggest sports leagues in the U.S., including the NFL, MLB, and NBA. The only question is if these decisions will reignite the spark that originally made Twitter one of the most popular social networks in the world.
Facebook Live is going to become even bigger in the coming weeks. Facebook has been heavily pushing their live video streaming service and now they have announced several new features that will expand how users can livestream their lives.
Some of the new features are already available and the rest will be rolling out in the next few weeks. Let’s go through what you can expect to see from Facebook Live in the near future:
Longer Streams
Facebook Live users have been limited to 90-minute streams in most circumstances since the launch of the service, but Facebook is extending that limit substantially. Now, broadcasters are able to stream continuously for up to four hours when using the Facebook app or the Live API. If you desire, you can also stream continuously indefinitely, but your followers won’t receive notifications and there is no archive of your stream. You can’t share it with followers later or rewind.
Hide Reactions & Comments
Comments and live reactions can sometimes turn into a mess when you have a large enough audience. It can be hard to weed out spammers and trolls on the fly, but Facebook is making it easier to keep things under control by allowing you to hide reactions and comments by enabling a video-only mode. All broadcasters have to do is swipe right on their screen. You can always swipe left to re-enable them.
Full-Screen
Viewers don’t have to watch your streams from the small box in their feed anymore. Finally, you can watch live broadcasts full-screen from any iOS device. Unfortunately, Android users will have to wait until this summer to be able to view streams full-screen.
Geogating
Want to make your broadcast an exclusive for a specific demographic? Now, you can limit your audience to specific users based on criteria like location, age, and gender. Facebook calls the feature “geogating”, but it basically allows you to set limits on who can see your streams. Currently, the limits are fairly broad, but they may become more refined in the future.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2016-07-26 15:43:412016-07-26 15:43:41Facebook Live Is Going Big With 4 New Features
Online shopping isn’t always a static process. Shoppers often hop from device to device freely as they browse and ultimately purchase. In fact, Google says 61% of internet users and over 80% of online millennials begin shopping on one device but finish their transaction from another.
To help you better keep track of these customers as they progress throughout your sales process, Google is making cross-device conversions more prominent in their online reports.
Introduced three years ago, cross-device conversions is finally becoming a default feature included in the Conversions column. According to Google, this will help businesses get the most complete view of their conversions possible and improve your ability to measure the full value of mobile ads.
Google also says that advertisers who have already gotten access to automatic cross-device conversion tracking have generated an average of 16% more conversions overall.
Beginning on August 16th, Google will make cross-device conversion a default feature listed in conversion reports.
As a business advertising on Google, this means you’ll gain easier access to information about how your ads are performing across all devices. That means you’ll be able to quickly see whether your mobile or desktop ads are failing to perform. You can also see what devices your customers are most likely to use throughout the sales process and better cater your ads and sales process to their needs.
Does it seem like your ‘Contact Us’ page never actually leads to contact with customers or interested consumers? These days, every business with a website has a contact page, but few are putting the time and care into these pages that they invest in other areas of their site.
I couldn’t count the number of stylish and modern websites I’ve found with contact pages that look weeks or even years old. Sometimes the web design looks distinctly dated, like a forgotten room in a house that has since undergone numerous renovations. Even more worrying, some businesses forget to update their contact information after address or phone number changes.
Any of these issues can deter potential customers from contacting you or purchasing your products or services in the blink of an eye. The good news is, they are also easily fixable. Today, I wanted to offer you some quick ways to turn your ‘contact us’ page from one of the least effective pages on your site to a consistent source of leads and customer engagement.
Be Consistent
The most important factor when listing your contact information anywhere online is consistency. Your business name, address, phone number, and all other contact information should be exactly the same whether they are on your contact page, Facebook, or Yelp. Not only does it provide huge SEO benefits, but showing consistency and a clear identity for your business helps build trust with consumers.
Try Some Variety
Just about every ‘contact us’ page lists a local address and phone number, but often there isn’t much else on the page. While these are both important, you are also missing out if these are the only ways you are encouraging consumers to contact you.
Potential customers aren’t always in a place where they can easily make a phone call and they are not always able to make it out to your physical location. Instead, they may want to drop a quick message to you over Facebook or Twitter. Providing many different ways for your customers to contact you will make you seem more available and allow more people to reach out when they need to.
Show Some Personality
The biggest problem with the vast majority of contact pages I see are that they are just plain boring and tell nothing about who you really are. If someone comes to your ‘contact us’ page, they are looking to learn more about you. If your page is just a simple list of email addresses and phone numbers, you are missing a huge chance to build your brand identity and reinforce who you are.
Don’t Ask Too Much Too Quickly
Some contact pages include forms which ask for small amounts of user information. These can be helpful for keeping messages organized, but being overzealous can drive people away. Your contact page isn’t necessarily the best place to build your email list or ask for detailed user information. Test out shorter forms that ask less of customers initially or make signing up for email subscriptions optional. Otherwise you may find your contact page is actually pushing interested people away.
For far too many businesses, a contact page is treated as an afterthought when they should really be a priority. They are one of the most important pages on your site and act as a foundation for you to start building a relationship with consumers. If you want to really start hearing from consumers, invest time in your contact page to turn it into a page that is as welcoming and informative as the rest of your site.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2016-07-18 11:09:042016-07-18 11:09:044 Ways To Fix Your Contact Us Page
Google is rolling out a new update to its Local Inventory Ads that let allows searchers to browse in-stock products when they search for a business. That means if a users searchers for your business, they could browse your inventory straight from Google.
So far, the new features are limited to a small number of retailers, such as Macy’s and Ikea. However, it is expected to continue spreading to businesses of all sizes in the coming months.
The update is not a surprise, as Google announced the expanded features utilizing their its Knowledge Graph and Google Maps back in May. However, it was first spotted this week by Nicolai Helling who captured a few screenshots of what it looks like out in the wild.
With the new features, you’ll see a new line in the Knowledge Panel underneath your NAP (name, address, phone number) information which says: “Search items at this store”. You can also find this in Google Maps underneath the store’s hours.
If a user clicks on this, they’ll be taken to a page hosted by Google where you can refine exactly what item you are looking for. If they select a specific product, they will then be directed to a dedicated page product information as well as information about where to purchase the product online or in store.
To use the feature as it rolls out, you will need to be signed up for Google’s Local Inventory Ads program and be running ads with your products and inventory information.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2016-07-15 15:16:212016-07-15 15:16:21Google Lets Users Browse Your Inventory From The Search Results
