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🔍 UGC comes to Google Shopping | Bing's slick recipe UX

Good morning, search marketers, have you seen a lift from UGC?

Google Shopping advertisers in the U.S. are now eligible to show user-generated photos alongside their product reviews. It's rolling out now and open to advertisers who are working with one of the reviews partners currently in the program: Yotpo, PowerReviews, Bazaarvoice and Influenster. It's too early to know what kind of impact the photos will have on click-through and conversion rates, but UGC can give that signal of authenticity that professional shots just can't. 

Bing is testing a new UX for recipes that is pretty slick and worth checking out from an experience and design standpoint even if you don't run a recipe site. A streamlined carousel features three recipes and options to filter related recipes by total prep and cooking time and by specific nutrition criteria. The recipe comparison tool for up to four recipes is still available once you select a filter. If your site does feature recipes, you may already be on top of all the recipe-related schema, but Bing's recipe filters and comparison tool are reminders to make sure you're taking advantage of all supported markup. 

Barry Schwartz stopped by the Path Interactive offices in NYC last week to chat with Search Engine Land author and SMX speaker Lily Ray about working with sites that have been hit by a search algorithm update. Watch Barry and Lily's conversation, which is part of his new video interview series.  

Are your campaigns routinely limited by budget? Read on for a Pro Tip on accelerated versus standard ad delivery settings. 

Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief

 
 
 
Pro Tip
 

When budgets are limited, switch to standard delivery in Google Ads

"In the world of Google Ads, there's a choice for each and every campaign's ad delivery method: standard or accelerated. If your campaigns are limited by budget, you should update your ad delivery settings as soon as possible – right this very second, even," cautions Matt Lawson of Google. "Standard delivery is better."

"To start, there's no guarantee that the first part of the day is the best time for you. If you're spending an entire day's budget by 8 a.m. on a given day, think about the geographic effects of that. If you're in the U.S., your ads might only be seen by night owls on the West Coast and early risers on the East Coast. Also, if certain auctions have a number of advertisers on accelerated delivery, CPCs may even be higher in the morning. When you and your other accelerated peers all jump in en masse at midnight, competition is hotter than it otherwise would be. By accelerating your budget you might be saving your competitors money. If you're only present at the start of each day, CPCs are likely to be lower in the afternoon hours for them when your budget is exhausted and there are fewer competitors."

More On Ad Delivery »

 

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Search Shorts
 

Wimbledon, the moon, slashes and typos...

Trailing slashes. You can choose to use or forego trailing slashes after your URLs, but pick one method and be consistent about it, Google says.

Play tennis on Google. Go to Google and search for Wimbledon, then find the little tennis ball, click it and you will be able to play a game of tennis right on Google search.

Fix typos. When it comes to robots.txt syntax, fix those typos and be strict with the format even if Google may listen to typos anyway, Google's John Mueller said.

To the moon. Google is celebrating the 50 year anniversary of Apollo 11's journey to the moon with a new Google portal.

 
What we're reading
 

We've curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader

Bringing the Power of Knowledge Graph to Custom Search – Google Custom Search

Capture the attention of sports fans with Display & Video 360 – Google Blog

Explore your world with these new Google Maps features – Official Google India Blog

Google contractors are secretly listening to your Assistant recordings – The Next Web

Google Translate's instant camera translation gets an upgrade – Google Blog

Google's 4,000-Word Privacy Policy Is a Secret History of the Internet – New York Times

How Google May Handle Question Answering when Facts are Missing – SEO By The Sea

Instagram SEO – 8 Proven Tactics – State of Digital

Most SEOs Feel Site UX Impacts A Sites Google Rankings – Search Engine Roundtable

What's Most Important for SEO? – SuccessWorks

 
 
 
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