All Script And Tols For Free: 🔍 Why "good" content isn't enough anymore.

Jul 07, 2020

Good morning Search Marketer, are you giving Google and users what they want?

"Everybody's content has gotten good," said Todd Friesen, director of digital strategy and SEO at Salesforce. Good content is no longer enough to stand out in search or with users.

"Make sure you know what your target audience wants and hand it to Google on a silver platter," said Carolyn Shelby, manager of SEO at ESPN. "You need to anticipate what it is they want, sometimes before they even know what they want. And make sure you have that experience ready and fast for them in exactly the format they want it in."

With your competitors likely also investing in content, it's critical to understand and tailor your content to your audience. "Don't try to reach everybody," said Eric Wu, VP of product growth at Honey Science.

The three enterprise SEOs talked content and optimization and what it takes to "algorithm-proof" sites for search during a Live with Search Engine Land session led by our own Barry Schwartz. The session followed on Barry's SMX Next keynote on the history of Google algorithm updates. Watch the full discussion here.

Yesterday morning, I heard a podcast ad from Sam Adams touting the beer maker's support of the Stop Hate for Profit campaign. It struck me because so much of its focus has been on advertisers rather than raising campaign awareness among consumers. Nearly 1,000 advertisers have now joined the Stop Hate for Profit boycott of Facebook Ads, but in our survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults, less than one-third said they were aware of or had an opinion on it. Will lack of consumer participation hurt the boycott's success? It may depend on how you measure success.

Keep reading for more on Facebook's CCPA moves and more.

George Nguyen,
Editor

Pro Tip

Heads up, Facebook Advertisers (action may be required)

With CCPA enforcement now here, "Facebook announced a new feature called Limited Data Use (LDU). As of July 1, LDU has been automatically enabled for all Facebook business accounts, limiting the way user data can be stored and processed in the Facebook ecosystem for all users Facebook identifies as residents of the state of California," writes Simon Poulton, VP of digital intelligence at Wpromote. "The feature automatically detects if a user resides in California, and applies limited data use rules (more on those later). But that feature will only stay on until July 31—then Facebook requires businesses to update their pixel to include an LDU parameter."

"Many businesses might not be aware that they need to update their Facebook pixel to avoid potential liability under CCPA because other advertising platforms (such as Google Ads) have offered centralized opt-out buttons or other solutions. At this time, the LDU parameter is not included within the Facebook pixel by default, and you need to refer to a specific developer documentation page to review the scope of requirements."

Read more about how Facebook's Limited Data Use might affect your business.

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Search Shorts

Google Search Console video reporting change

SEO quiz from Google. Gary Illyes from Google asked SEOs how Google would handle a robots.txt directive and how SEOs were split down the middle on the answer.

Search Console reporting tweak. A brief heads-up on a Search Console reporting change: If you use video structured data, our reporting is now aligned with the docs and will warn if neither embedUrl nor contentUrl is used in a VideoObject.

AMP logo. You can use any file format supported by Google Images for your AMP logo said Gary Ilyes of Google.

UK may end Safari-Google deal. UK regulators are looking at breaking up the Safari default search deal with Google, which delivers billions to Apple. The agency calls it "a significant barrier to entry and expansion" for Google's competitors. If there were a breakup, Google would likely remain dominant but without having to pay Apple for the privilege.