Google has launched Reach Planner, a new planning tool specifically meant for use for video campaigns. Presently in beta, Reach Planner in AdWords has been designed to assist media planners and advertisers to predict the frequency and reach of video campaigns on YouTube and video partners on Google Display Network.
Google has expanded the capability of more businesses to add their services to their menus.
This comprises not only restaurant owners, which they added a couple of months ago, but also many other service-based businesses ranging from florists to plumbers and health care. In order to access this, you will have to log in to your Google My Business Listing, click on info tab before selecting edit or add services icon. After clicking you can add your services to the pop-up so that it is visible on your profile.
Google has announced on Twitter that website owners can now add a business description on their Google local listings directly inside Google My Business. The business description can be shown either in local knowledge panel in search or in a business’s Google Maps results. Experts had predicted the launch of this feature and now it has been fully rolled out for use by website owners.
In order to add your business description, you will need to log into Google My Business, click on the “Info” button in the menu bar. Then you will come across one new section which has been labeled “Add business description.” You will have to click on the pencil icon which is next to the field and a menu will appear allowing you to enter a short description.
Google has rolled out an improved version of Keyword Planner, which is available with the new AdWords experience. Keyword Planner has been streamlined and offers new features to enable advertisers to collect more data from search campaigns.
The new features include the ability to add keywords in a bulk and acquire an overview of forecasts at one place. The most notable upgrade to Keyword Planner are aesthetic changes, which are in sync with the look and experience of new experience on AdWords. You can view the new design, along with the new forecasts section in the example given below:-
Google has made an official announcement regarding roll-out of mobile-first indexing. This is the first acknowledgment they have made through their own channels. Google’s representatives had earlier stated that many websites had already migrated to mobile-first indexing.
Google has once again stated that it is only migrating those individual sites which follow the best practices prescribed for mobile-first indexing. Sites which use dynamic or responsive web design are most suitable for mobile-first indexing. When websites have AMP as well as non-AMP versions of content, Google will give precedence to mobile versions of non-AMP page.
Google has rolled out many visual updates to Search Console which are designed to offer more context to data which is included in reports. The visual update comprises:-
- Annotation Cards: Fly over bullet points in the error report to learn more about the problem detected on that specific date.
- Difference Column: It shows how data has changed over a time period.
- Filter/Compare: This has been redesigned with a new look and pre-populated values
- Overall improvements to the date picker and comparison window
As a response to Amazon, Google’s new umbrella program will widen existing relationships with retails. It will also enable comprehensive checkout across platforms and devices. Google has been focusing on retail challenges for some time. The major issues are:-
- How to make mobile shopping through its properties like Search quicker?
- How to maintain market share for product search in a breaking mobile landscape of digital assistants and applications?
- How to compete with Amazon, the major threat to product search coming from Google.
All these factors relate to how to make more money from product searches.
Recently, Google announced a new effort known as Shopping Actions which builds on existing programs and pairs its product search, mobile shopping, inter-device transactions and voice search initiatives. The program indicates Google’s existing partnerships with Target and Walmart in order to support shopping through Google Express and Google Assistant. Google extends it to other retailers also.
In the recent SMX conference held in Munich, Google’s John Mueller stated that Google Search Console will send FYIs to websites which have moved from desktop-first to mobile-first index. This will enable those website owners who are trying to find out whether their websites have switched over by verifying server logs or viewing Google’s cache to see whether each page is cached with the mobile or desktop version at present.
Mueller also mentioned that Google plans to include an annotation in Google Search Console in Performance Report to be an extra visual changeover for the website. This will certainly help those who witness fluctuations in their reporting data. This can be explained by Google once the site switches from desktop to mobile indexing.
Google has confirmed that a major core algorithm update was released last week. Such an update occurs many times in a year which might bring one or more changes to search results. Google didn’t specify as to what changes had been implemented since it could be anything from changes aimed at specific enhancements, to broad changes which can affect all search results.
Sights can witness or improve as a result of the changes which have occurred which Google says is normal. It sounds as though rankings can fluctuate according to the way pages should be ranking before this update. In case your rankings drop after this update, Google states that there is no particular “fix” other than to keep “building great content”.