🔍 Our brand new Guide to SEO | TikTok for brands

Apr 14, 2020

Good morning search marketers, you're the first to hear:

We've just released a completely updated version of our Guide to SEO, the companion piece to the Periodic Table of SEO Factors. In it you'll find deeper looks at the elements that will help your website succeed in organic search, pro tips from leading search experts and resources to dig in further.

Have you tested the TikTok waters? It's not just for teens, you know. I've now spent, well, hours of my life on TikTok's "For You" tab. We explore how brands like Chipotle and E.l.f are marketing on the fast-growing mobile video platform in our TikTok primer for brands.

On the news front, late last week, French antitrust authorities ruled that Google must pay to display news content in France. This is the latest in a long-running battle between media publishers in the EU and Google over copyright fees and the right to show news content in Search and Google News. Search Engine Land's Greg Sterling sees potential for U.S. new publishers to call for similar compensation mechanisms.

If you're working in commerce, mark your calendar for this Friday at 2:00 p.m. I'll be hosting the next Live with Search Engine Land and talking commerce challenges and channel strategies during this time with:

Groove Life CMO Bryant Garvin
SEM strategist at PMG Kaitlin McGrew
Vice President of E-commerce at The Integer Group Anthony Verre

Keep reading for a Pro Tip on using GSC for featured snippet optimization and whole lot more.

Ginny Marvin,
Editor-In-Chief

Pro Tip

Find opportunities in Search Console to optimize featured snippets

"With the transition to the new Search Console, Google seems to have opened the floodgates when it comes to data that would be important to our overall SEO strategies. I highly recommend becoming familiar with all the reports Search Console has to offer," explains SMX speaker Joe Robledo of 97th Floor. "In the performance report found in Search Console's dashboard, you can zero in on a query's click, impression and average search ranking data. To isolate possible featured snippet opportunities you want to do the following."

Use a query filter to isolate the common beginning of question-based queries (how, when, do, where, does, etc.)
Add a filter for the average position to isolate the queries with an average rank of 2 and below
Spot check the queries that come up in this filter to verify that they are snippets worth going after
You can also repeat this same process but only look at the queries that only have an average ranking of 1 in order to look at the possible featured snippet opportunities where you are currently winning

Learn more »

Webinar: How to create a 360° customer view

Everyone wants that elusive 360° view of their prospects and customers — but it's harder to achieve than you think. Nearly 60% of marketers surveyed say the biggest obstacle to their marketing success is creating a single customer view. Yet the CDP space is like the Wild West, with more than 60 vendors vying for a projected $1 billion in potential revenue. How can you accurately assess your company's data needs to find the right CDP partner? Join our webinar and hear our expert panel sort fact from fiction to tell you what you need to know.

Register now »

Search Shorts

Google & Apple to do contact tracing.

Contact tracing. Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, said on Twitter, "to help public health officials slow the spread of COVID19, Google & Apple are working on a contact tracing approach designed with strong controls and protections for user privacy. Tim Cook and I are committed to working together on these efforts."

AMP page different. Is your AMP page different from the normal web page? John Mueller from Google said, It's not a matter of ranking, but rather usability: the AMP version should be equivalent to the legacy version, otherwise users will get confused. One way to not have to worry about this is to just make your normal template AMP.

Conversion reporting fixed. Google Ads said a reporting issue that affected Search and Shopping conversions between April 9 and 10 has been fixed. It impacted advertisers using last click attribution models. If you downloaded reports during that time, it's best to pull that data again.

What will marketing look like in a post-coronavirus world?

Join nearly 4,500 senior-level marketers online April 21-23 for Discover MarTech: three days of free, virtual, expert-led learning that will prepare you for what's coming next in modern marketing.

Register now! »