🔍 Fresher GSC data for Discover and Search results

Dec 18, 2019

Good morning search marketers, who doesn't love fresh data?

Google Discover has become a valuable traffic source for many publishers. The reporting has been a bit underwhelming, though. Data for Discover performance reports in GSC used to be updated about every three days. Now, publishers can get a fresher picture of how their content is performing with data as recent as less than a day old. You'll also find more recent data in the Search results performance reports.

I was not surprised by a recent survey that found many business owners do not have a good understanding of SEO. I've had enough anecdotal discussions to believe this. However, I was surprised to see that less than 20% said that SEO was "very important" to the health of their businesses. Just over 26% don't see SEO as critical to their success. The remaining 55% believe SEO is important but aren't quite certain how important. When you're routinely heads-down in SEO or PPC campaigns, it can be easy to take your knowledge and the value of your efforts for granted. These findings show we still have a ways to go to educate and demonstrate the value of search to business owners who are juggling any number of priorities.

Read on for your daily Pro Tip — this time on YouTube ads from Joe Martinez, Search Shorts and industry links.

Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief

Pro Tip

TrueView Discovery ads are great when content isn't suitable for in-stream

"With an in-stream ad, we are disrupting a user's experience. They were not on YouTube to watch your ad. They were there to watch a music video, a cat video, a TED talk, etc., so our in-stream ads have to be more like TV commercials," explains Joe Martinez of Clix Marketing. "If you are using the skippable ads, you need to make sure you are capturing the user's attention within the first five seconds otherwise they will skip your ad. With TrueView video discovery ads, the user chooses to watch your video. If they have already shown an interest in your content, you can elect to try and keep that user engaged as long as possible with longer video content."

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Get inside the buyer's brain to increase conversion rates

As with any online experience, you need to keep your customers at the forefront of your mind as you architect your e-commerce site and landing pages. Concordia University St. Paul Online shows how you can apply scientific psychological principles to influence consumer behavior on your site to be in tune with the way people make their purchase decisions.

Then, take your learning a step further and get additional tips to create highly personalized segment-of-one experiences when you join Resulticks tomorrow for a webinar. There you will learn about the five new pillars of customer engagement that will help your brand create more compelling omnichannel experiences, drive conversions and accelerate revenue growth.

Search Shorts

Google Analytics bugs and concerns

Google Analytics bug. Yesterday morning there was a lot of concern from the industry because Google Analytics seemed to have a bug with reporting. Just know, you are not alone.

Google News site command. If you go to news.google.com and try a site command, it won't work. You need to go to Google, do a site command there, and then click on the news tab. Google said they hope to bring it back in 2020.

Python. John Mueller from Google jokes that python is not a ranking factor, it is an inside SEO joke.

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Treat yourself (and your career) to an enriching training experience: Attend Search Marketing Expo February 19-20 in San Jose. You'll access 60+ SEO, SEM, and digital commerce marketing sessions loaded with tactics to help you boost awareness, drive traffic, and increase sales. Book by THIS Saturday, Dec. 21 to save up to $700 off on-site rates… and put that leftover 2019 budget to good use while you're at it! What are you waiting for?

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