Good morning search marketers, pop quiz time: two businesses appear on one local profile; whose profile is it?
If you're a local business owner, you might want to run a search on your company's name to see whether Google is showing competitor ads on your local business profiles. These ads appear on Google properties (like Search, Maps, GDN and YouTube), are fully automated and you cannot pay to remove them — a sobering reminder that we don't actually own our GMB profiles; Google does. And, hey, if you're buying ads, you might be showing up on your competitors' profiles as well.
Bing is decreasing the friction of getting your properties set up on its Webmaster Tools by allowing site owners to skip verification and import directly from Google Search Console. The option, which is still in beta, appears after you log in. When I speak to other marketers about Bing, a common gripe is that there just isn't enough traffic to dedicate more time or resources to it, which is understandable if you're already at your limits. However, if you're a major brand, where even minor traffic fluctuations can have an impact on revenue, adding Bing to your workflow may move the needle in a positive direction for your business.
Keep on reading for a Pro Tip on how doubling down on your Amazon ads during the Black Friday build-up can boost organic sales on the day of, your daily dose of Search Shorts and more.
George Nguyen,
Associate Editor
