Google Maps Adds 4 New Local Shopping Features

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Ahead of the holiday shopping season, Google Maps is launching four new features aimed at improving the in-person shopping experience for consumers and driving more sales for local businesses.

The updates not only make it easier to plan your shopping trips ahead of time but also bring many shoppers new ways to order from local businesses online.

Let’s explore these four new features:

New Local Shopping Features for Google Maps

1. Area Busyness

Everyone dreads the idea of getting stuck in a massive holiday shopping crowd when you are just trying to pick up a few things. Now, you can see an estimate of how busy a specific area is before you leave.

For this new feature, called Area Busyness, Google analyzes recent traffic data from local businesses nearby to gauge how many people are shopping in the area.

To see the Area Busyness information, simply open Google Maps and tap on a general area to see how busy it is.

Notably, Google says shopping malls tend to be least busy on Tuesday evenings, while Saturday is unsurprisingly the busiest time to shop.

2. Expanded Directory Tabs

Google Maps is expanding the existing Directory tab globally for all airports, malls, and transit stations on Android and iOS devices.

The Directory tab details the stores in a shopping center, as well as showing airport lounges, car rental agencies, and other services in a building.

The tab also includes other helpful information pulled from local listings, such as whether specific stores are open and their Google reviews.

3. Grocery Shopping on Google

After testing the feature with some stores earlier this year, Google is expanded its grocery shopping feature to over 2,000 stores in 30+ states across the US.

Now, shoppers can order groceries from several large companies in the country, such as Kroger, Fry’s, Ralphs, and Marianos.

Once ordered, Google Maps tracks your order status and allows you to share your location info with the store so they will know when you arrive.

According to data from the tool before the expansion, Google says that customers who shared their ETA typically waited less than five minutes to pick up their order.

4. Additional Restaurant Info From Customers

Google Business Profiles for restaurants will now include more information provided by reviewers.

When leaving a review, Google now prompts customers to estimate the restaurant’s price ranges and note any amenities the restaurant offers – such as curbside pickup, delivery, or outdoor seating.

For more information about these updates, read the blog post from Google Maps Director of Product, Amanda Leicht Moore.

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Google My Business is Getting Relaunched as “Google Business Profiles”

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Say goodbye to “Google My Business” and say hello to “Google Business Profiles” as the search engine streamlines its tools for businesses.

Though much will stay the same for businesses listing their services on Google, the rename marks some significant changes – such as where and how your businesses can claim their profile. Starting now, your brand can claim its profile directly from either Google Search or Google Maps.

Below, we will talk a bit more in-depth about how you can claim your listing and what this means for existing listings.

How to Claim a Google Business Profile

When signed into the Google account associated with your business, the fastest way to claim your listing is to simply search for your business name. 

This will bring you to a prompt that will allow you to verify your listing or challenge someone who has already made a claim for your listing. 

Once claimed and verified, you will be able to edit any information shown and add additional details like photos, videos, unique services, and Google Posts.

Is Anything Else Changing?

For the most part, everything else is staying the same regarding local business listings on Google. Their appearance will stay the same, as will the optimization methods to ensure your business appears for relevant searches. 

What will change is where you are editing this information. 

For example, the search engine says it is no longer necessary to use the specific Google My Business website or app to update your listing.

The app will be phased out in early 2022, though you can still use the website if you are managing multiple listings. It will simply be renamed to “Google Business Profile Manager.”

For now, this is all the news we have about the relaunch of Google My Business and Google Business Profiles. More info will be coming in the coming months as the relaunch rolls out.

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LinkedIn announces features to attract and retain new hires

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It is no secret that the hiring market has gotten considerably more competitive since the onset of the Covid pandemic. Now, LinkedIn is giving companies new tools to better attract new talent, improve communication, and compare yourself against your competition.

Especially in the wake of “The Great Resignation” (or, as LinkedIn is apparently calling it – “The Great Reshuffle”), the professional social network says it is “excited to introduce a few new LinkedIn Pages features that are designed to help your brand share more about your organization and culture to more quickly attract top talent while retaining your current employees.

Let’s explore exactly what these features are, how you can access them, and how they can help you solve your hiring challenges starting right now. 

Expanded My Company Tabs

For starters, LinkedIn is updating the My Company tab to make it easier to keep your employees connected, share data, and encourage employees to share branded content to their network. 

If you are unfamiliar, the My Company tab is a feature exclusively for brands on the platform with more than 201 employees, which is designed to connect coworkers even when they are working remotely. 

In the upcoming weeks, LinkedIn will be updating this tab with these new features:

  • Easily curate content from your Page Feed to the My Company tab with the simple click of a button.
  • Notify employees as soon as new content is curated and drop them right into the resharing experience.
  • Show employees how their re-share matters with a dynamic visualization of the content that others at the organization are sharing.

Share Your Workplace Policies

One thing made very clear by the current state of the workforce is that skilled workers are looking for more than a stable paycheck. They are looking for an employer that understands their needs and implements workplace policies that encourage a positive working place.

For example, LinkedIn says employees who are satisfied with their employer’s work schedule or location flexibility are:

  • 3.4x more likely to balance work and personal obligations
  • 2.6x more likely to be happy working for their employer
  • 2.1x more likely to recommend working for their employer

By sharing your company’s policies, you can help attract talent with a similar vision for their personal and work-life balance. 

Notably, the social network is giving this info a very prominent place on company pages, with policies being displayed directly in the LinkedIn Page header. That means it is one of the first things potential applicants might see when checking out your company.

See How You Compare To Your Competition

The last big update coming to LinkedIn is an addition to its Analytics tab which allows you to directly compare your page’s performance to up to nine competitors. 

In this new tab, called “Competitor analytics”, you can see how many followers your competitors have right now, along with how their latest content has performed compared to yours.

To find out more about these updates, read the full announcement from LinkedIn here.

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Instagram Finally Lets You Share Links In Stories

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Instagram is finally giving almost all accounts a new way to share links with their followers through Stories, after previously limiting the feature to verified or influential accounts.

Before now, the only way for most accounts to share links on Instagram was on their profile page. This made it difficult to use the platform to drive traffic to a website or online store. Often, brands were forced to resort to third-party tools to share links with their content, typically to lackluster results. 

This all made Instagram a tricky prospect for brands considering marketing their products or services on the platform. 

While this is bound to be a step in the right direction, Instagram is yet to allow links to be shared in feed posts – a common feature on most social networks.

Here’s how to start sharing links on your own stories.

Adding Links To Your Instagram Stories

Sharing links in your Instagram stories is still a fairly unique process. Rather than just copy and paste your link into a description, the platform is introducing “Story Stickers”. These function like any other sticker, except you can add a destination link that sends users to the desired page when tapped.

To add Story Stickers with links to your stories, follow these steps:

  1. Record or upload your story content
  2. Select the sticker tool from the bar at the top of the screen
  3. Select the “Link” sticker and add your desired link.
  4. Tap “Done”
  5. Customize and place your sticker.

Who Can’t Use This

Although this makes sharing links possible for a great number more users than before, there are still some restrictions. Specifically, Instagram notes that Story Stickers are not available to “brand new accounts.” 

Presumably, this is intended to prevent spammers from creating fresh accounts to share low-quality or malicious links on the platform, though it is unclear exactly what constitutes a “brand new” account. 

Additionally, the company says that accounts found to repeatedly post hate speech, misinformation, or other content that violates Instagram community guidelines will have access to link stickers revoked. 

If you’d like to find out more about the new linkable Story Stickers, check out Instagram’s announcement here.

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What Is “High-Quality Content” According to Google

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When it comes to ranking a website in Google, most people agree that high-quality content is essential. But, what exactly is quality content? 

For a number of reasons, most online marketers agreed that Google defined high-quality content as something very specific: text-based content which clearly and engagingly communicated valuable information to readers.

Recently, though, Google’s John Mueller shot down that assumption during a video chat. 

While he still emphasizes that great content should inform or entertain viewers, Mueller explained that the search engine actually has a much broader view of “content quality” than most thought.

What Google Means When They Say “Quality Content”

In response to a question about whether SEO content creators should prioritize technical improvements to content or expand the scope of content, Mueller took a moment to talk about what content quality means to Google.

“When it comes to the quality of the content, we don’t mean like just the text of your articles. It’s really the quality of your overall website, and that includes everything from the layout to the design.

This is especially notable, as Mueller specifically highlights two factors that many continue to ignore – images and page speed. 

“How you have things presented on your pages? How you integrate images? How you work with speed? All of those factors, they kind of come into play there.”

Ultimately, Mueller’s response emphasizes taking a much more holistic view of your content and focusing on providing an all-around great experience for users on your website. 

There is an unspoken aspect to what Mueller says which should be mentioned. Mueller subtly shows that Google still prefers text-based content rather than videos or audio-only formats. While the company wants to integrate even more types of content, the simple fact is that the search engine still struggles to parse these formats without additional information.

Still, Mueller’s statement broadens the concept of “quality content” from what is often understood. 

“So it’s not the case that we would look at just purely the text of the article and ignore everything else around it and say, oh this is high-quality text. We really want to look at the website overall.”

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Instagram Insights Adds Demographic Data for Anyone Who Sees Your Posts

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Instagram Insights is providing businesses on its platform with a wealth of new demographic data about who is engaging with their content – as well as who isn’t engaging.

Before, the platform only gave businesses Insights about the users who were specifically following your page. 

With the latest update to Instagram Insights, this is now expanded to all the users that see your content, even if they don’t follow your page or directly engage with your posts.

Below, we’ll dig into exactly what demographic information is now at your fingertips on Instagram Insights.

New Demographic Insights on Instagram

Your Engaged Audience

If you want to find out information about the users who are engaging the most with your content, you’ll want to look in the new Accounts Engaged section. 

Here, you’ll find a range of information including:

  • Where your most engaged audience lives
  • What gender are they?
  • How old are your most engaged audience?

Additionally, you can filter the information based on followers or non-followers and see the total number of accounts that have interacted with your posts within a set time range.

Who You’ve Reached

Of course, the number of people engaging with your content or following your page is just a fraction of the total number of users seeing your content. 

The new Accounts Reached section of Instagram Insights contains details about everyone who has seen your posts, whether they liked, commented, or kept scrolling. 

In this section, you’ll find the total number of accounts you have reached, as well as demographic details similar to those found in the Accounts Engaged section.

Where To Find Instagram Insights

If you’ve never checked out your Instagram Insights before, it is located in the main menu of the Instagram App when logged into a business account. 

From there, you can browse all these details and more – like when your followers are most online.

For more about the new demographic details available in Instagram Insights, check out the announcement here.

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Yelp Releases New Features Just For Services Businesses

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Yelp may be known for being the place to go for restaurant reviews, but what is often forgotten is that the site covers a huge variety of services businesses – including salons, movers, plumbers, hotels, and much more. 

Now, the company is releasing a slew of new features for all of these businesses, like custom search filters, new ways to drive reviews, Project Cost Guides, and ads themed around what makes your brand great.

Project Cost Guides

To help consumers make informed decisions before they hire a professional, Yelp is introducing new Cost Guides which show the average cost of specific services in your area. These prices are based on data pulled from Yelp’s Request-A-Quote service, which has facilitated “tens of millions” of projects.

Along with these pricing averages, these pages provide tips and cost-saving methods for consumers.

Currently, unique Cost Guides are available for around 20 categories, more than 90 service types, and 150+ cities.

Custom Search Filters

Users can filter businesses based on their specialties or unique abilities, such as filters for:

  • Fast-responding businesses
  • Businesses who offer virtual consultations
  • Specific types of jobs or repairs
  • And more available for services including movers, plumbers, HVAC, auto repair, roofing, real estate agents, home cleaners, painters, electricians, landscaping, pest control, and flooring

Themed Ads

Services businesses that are running search ads can now take advantage of themed ads to highlight what makes you stand out from your competition.

The currently available themes include brands that reply to Request-A-Projects within two hours, businesses that have special offers, or those that provide free consultations. 

Running themed ads costs nothing extra and Yelp says it plans to introduce more themes in the future.

Automatic Review Prompts

After users submit a project with Yelp’s Request-A-Quote tool, the platform will now use this information to generate a prompt for users to write reviews. 

For example, prompts may ask a series of questions about their experience to kickstart the review process and drive more thoughtful informative reviews.

You can find out more about these new features for services brands in the official announcement from Yelp here.

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Google’s John Mueller Clarifies – Price Is Not a Ranking Factor, Except When It Might Be

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It is no secret that Google knows the price you, your competitors, and even the shady third-party companies charge for your products or services. In some cases, you might even directly tell the company how much you charge through Google’s Merchant Center. So, it is reasonable to think that the search engine might also use that information when it is ranking brands or product pages in search results.

In a recent livestream, however, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller, denied the idea.

What John Mueller Has To Say About Price as a Google Ranking Signal

The question arose during an SEO Office-Hours hangout on October 8, which led to Mueller explaining that while Google can access this information, it does not use it when ranking traditional search results.

As he says in the recording of the discussion:

“Purely from a web search point of view, no, it’s not the case that we would try to recognize the price on a page and use that as a ranking factor.

“So it’s not the case that we would say we’ll take the cheaper one and rank that higher. I don’t think that would really make sense.”

At the same time, Mueller says he can’t speak on how products in shopping results (which may be shown in regular search results) are ranked. 

Within shopping search results, users can manually select to sort their results by price. Whether it is used as a factor the rest of the time isn’t something Mueller can answer:

“A lot of these products also end up in the product search results, which could be because you submit a feed, or maybe because we recognize the product information on these pages, and the product search results I don’t know how they’re ordered.

“It might be that they take the price into account, or things like availability, all of the other factors that kind of come in as attributes in product search.”

Price Is And Isn’t A Ranking Factor

At the end of the day, Mueller doesn’t work in the areas related to product search so he really can’t say whether price is a ranking factor within those areas of Google. This potentially includes when they are shown within normal search results pages.

What he can say for sure, is that within traditional web search results, Google does not use price to rank results:

“So, from a web search point of view, we don’t take price into account. From a product search point of view it’s possible.

“The tricky part, I think, as an SEO, is these different aspects of search are often combined in one search results page. Where you’ll see normal web results, and maybe you’ll see some product review results on the side, or maybe you’ll see some mix of that.”

You can hear Mueller’s full response in the recording from the October 8, 2021, Google SEO Office Hours hangout below:

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Google Shares The Biggest Halloween Trends For 2021

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With Halloween getting closer, everyone – including Google – is getting into the holiday spirit.

As the company does every year, Google is sharing the biggest search trends related to Halloween 2021, including the most popular scary movies, haunted houses, trending costumes, pumpkin patches, and more.

While some topics like the most popular movies stay largely the same year to year, other areas like popular costumes may provide a little more insight into the current trends and interests right now.

Getting out and enjoying seasonal in-person events like corn mazes and pumpkin patches also seems to be of particular interest this year, after the more subdued (if not completely canceled) Halloween during the peak of 2020’s Covid pandemic.

Let’s recap some of the top trends for Halloween 2021:

Top Halloween Movies

Unsurprisingly, the list of top Halloween movies includes a mix of horror classics and seasonal family staples which have lasted for decades since their original release.

  • Halloween (1978)
  • Friday the 13th
  • Hocus Pocus
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street
  • Halloweentown

Top Halloween Costumes

Based on early indications, the latest movies are mixing with a Halloween classic and a beloved celebrity to fill out the most popular costumes this year. Meanwhile, the couples costumes are a mix of famous couples from both screen and history, including a fair number of cartoon characters.

Trending Individual Halloween Costumes:

  • Squid Game
  • Gorilla
  • Britney Spears
  • Carnage
  • Venom

Trending couples costumes:

  • Trixie and Timmy Turner
  • Bonnie and Clyde
  • Skid and Pump
  • Mr. and Mrs. Smith
  • Cosmo and Wanda

Trending dog costumes:

  • Squid Game
  • Race car
  • Vampire
  • Donkey
  • Lobster

Top Halloween Drinks and Candy By State

Lastly, Google highlighted the top festive treats for both trick-or-treaters and adults. Specifically, the list collected the top Halloween-related drinks by state:

For more, check out the full Google Halloween Trends and Google Maps Halloween Guides.

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Preview New Facebook Tools and Features For Marketing Your Business

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This week, Facebook teased a number of new features it is working on to help brands better connect with their customers and drive more leads across its platforms. 

The upcoming and newly released features highlighted by the company include everything from expanding its existing ad formats to creating entirely new ways to do business online. 

Let’s explore everything showcased in the company’s recent blog post below:

Click-to-Message Ads Come To More Chat Apps

For some time now, Facebook has offered an ad format designed to encourage viewers to take action through its many chat services, like Messenger or WhatsApp. 

Now, the company is updating this ad format to make it possible to reach brands on a wider range of messaging platforms, including those not owned by Facebook. 

While Facebook hasn’t provided an actual list of the messaging apps which will be included in the updated click-to-message ads, the blog post suggests it will include all major messaging apps used by consumers today. 

Start WhatsApp Chats on Instagram

Aside from dropping into someone’s DMs, Instagram has been obviously lacking the robust messaging options included on most Facebook social networks. Now, with integration through WhatsApp, that is changing. 

Now, brands on Instagram can add a click-to-chat button on their profile which will instantly launch a WhatsApp chat conversation when clicked. 

Even better, the company says it is working on ads that will also allow users to immediately start a WhatsApp chat from an advertisement on Instagram. 

Request Quotes on Messenger

Select advertisers are testing an upcoming feature that will allow brands to invite customers to request a quote within Messenger.

With the feature, brands can create a customized request form using 4-5 specific questions to ask potential customers before sending a message. 

Once completed, consumers can request a quote by completing a short questionnaire on Messenger.

Instagram Lead Generation

Though the company is keeping largely mum on the details, it also teased plans to launch free and paid tools for helping small businesses drive qualified leads on Instagram. 

“Advertisers use lead generation ads to connect with customers and connect leads in a more personal way, while reducing costs — like Seoul Spa, a Vietnamese beauty clinic, did with their Messenger campaign, lowering their cost per lead by 72%.”

To see more of the upcoming features Facebook is currently testing, check out the full Facebook for Business blog post here.

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