The Best Websites
April 20, 2018
The Best Websites
Today, Google launched a free app for Android and iOS devices for AdWords Express, the simplified version of Google’s search advertising platform designed for small business. The app has all the features of the web version, allowing advertisers to edit ads and set targeting parameters more easily from their mobile devices. Google is also making
This afternoon, Apple notified us of a new self-service portal to add or edit local business listings: Apple Maps Connect. It’s intended for small business owners or their authorized representatives (though not agencies) to be able to quickly and easily add content directly into Apple Maps. The service is free and the listings (or corrected listings) appear
Facebook has launched a new Places Directory, which is really an emerging local search site. Right now, it’s more accurately like “guided browsing.” It was first brought to our attention by Matteo Gamba. The new Places mixes up Graph Search, the Page Locations API and other elements to make the directory a worthy supplement for
Once dismissed as the exclusive concern of small businesses, brands and national advertisers are recognizing the importance of location data and local search. Often, however, they have trouble operationalizing local SEO and other tactics. YP has built a new PPC platform to appeal to these national-locals called “ypSearch Marketplace.” It’s a paid-search, bidded marketplace that
Google is introducing a program it’s calling Let’s Put Our Cities on the Map. This new portal (Get Your Business Online) is not unlike Facebook’s Blueprint and Learn How sites launched this week. It offers resources to business owners (and potential partners) to help them get online or correct and complete their online presences. Each
Barry Schwartz Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land’s News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on social media at @rustybrick, +BarrySchwartz and Facebook. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio and
Google debuted a new display ad format on the Google Display Network this week to showcase local business information. The new location extension ad format rolled out in AdWords on Tuesday. The new ad format shows photos, store location and business hours, as well as an ad headline and copy as shown in the ad below. The
Bots are coming to Bing in a big way. Through its Bot Framework, Microsoft is starting to integrate chatbots into search results — to make search more interactive and transactional. In April, Matt McGee spotted the appearance of chat functionality for selected Seattle-area restaurants. That is now rolling out officially (still only to restaurants) through Bing
Post IPO, Yext is evolving from a business listings management company into an enterprise data platform. Evidence of that comes in the form of the company’s just-announced “App Directory,” featuring 26 launch partners including Hubspot, Zendesk and others. The new partnerships expand the use cases for listings and review data. The integrations push data back and forth
Bing Ads has announced the rollout of an automated bid strategy aimed at maximizing the number of clicks advertisers can receive within their budgets. In August 2016, Bing Ads added the Enhanced CPC bid strategy, which automatically adjusts bids up or down based on the determined likelihood that a click will convert. How to use
Starting today, Bing Ads is rolling out a more streamlined and intuitive mechanism called “Multi-Linking” for linking one account to another. The new system allows advertisers to link accounts without having to classify itself as an agency, as advertisers had to do previously. In addition, accounts can have up to five managing entities, and billing responsibility
Few SEO nightmares can compare to the horror of waking up to a sudden drop in rankings — and worse, traffic — and discovering that your site has been penalized by Google. A variety of factors impact rankings both positively and negatively — schema/rich snippets, links, and mobile user experience — to name just a few.
To gear up for the holidays, Bing announced today an expanded list of delivery services it supports for package-tracking searches. It’s also bringing back its Black Friday flyer ads. Now, in addition to USPS, UPS and Fedex in the US, Bing says it supports several markets outside the US, including myHermes in Great Britain and
Google announced it is launching a new Google Finance experience today that brings many of the finance features directly into Google Search on desktop and mobile. With this launch, Google has dropped the portfolio, the ability to download your portfolio, and historical tables — which we saw coming a couple of months ago. In search, there
Apple says it will bring more installs with less effort “at a predictable cost.” That’s how the company is pitching its new Search Ads Basic offering. Apple rolled out Search Ads for the App Store in September 2016. Since that time, Apple has seen significant adoption by developers seeking to drive app downloads. Search Ads Basic
[This story has been updated with more details on which ad systems these ads can be executed in.] Yahoo launched its version of product ads on Thursday. The ads can appear in search and display on mobile, tablet and desktop devices. Kohl’s, Wayfair and Overstock are among the retailers that have piloted the new ad formats, announced
Thursday, YouTube announced a version of product listing ads are coming to retailers’ video ads with TrueView for Shopping. Google Shopping’s technology and infrastructure have been booted up on YouTube, and the ads are powered by an integration with Google Merchant Center. The ads are delivered in cards alongside retailers’ video ads on mobile and desktop. Clicks on
It’s been well known that Google has been working on a solution to tie clicks on search ads back to in-store traffic and sales as part of Estimated Total Conversions in AdWords. Today, the company announced the initial roll out of a new “Store Visits” metric in Estimated Total Conversions (ETC). While e-commerce continues to
After months of testing, Product Ads are now available through Bing Ads in the U.S. Like AdWords Product Listing Ads (PLA), Bing’s version are powered by merchant product feeds. The ads display on the Yahoo Bing Network for commerce-related searches and feature a product image, title, price and merchant name. Also similar to the Google
At first blush it wasn’t impressive to me. I assumed from a quick look that FindTheBest was just a collection of links and “best of” lists. It thus seemed strange that DoubleClick founder Kevin O’Connor would come out of quasi-retirement to launch a basic directory site. But as we got into it a bit more
The Google Checkout blog announced that they have launched Google Checkout Trends. Google Checkout Trends is a flavor of Google Trends, but limits the data to that collected from Google Checkout merchants. It basically shows you what people are buying and selling online via Google Checkout. You can plug in one keyword or several keywords
Product search engine Krillion has launched a feature, called “Stock Check,” that enables consumers to see if products (starting with TVs) are in stores locally, buy them online and pick them up at a range of major U.S. retail chains, including Sears, Best Buy, Circuit City, and others. Krillion had been using “click to call”
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