Search Engine Marketing Round-Up: July Edition

By Jason McClain | July 27, 2016 | 0 Comment

Search engine marketing is sort of the other side of the coin from search engine optimization. Once you’re optimized, what can you do to further your efforts? Why, marketing of course! We’re going to find out the latest news from the search engine marketing industry, so let’s round it up!

The Rise of PLA’s

So what is a PLA? It stands for product listing ad and it’s nothing new. It’s been around since 2011. These are ads that you would typically see in the Shopping tab of Google Search. The thing that is new about PLA’s is their exponential growth in recent years due to the e-commerce boom. Another driving factor for this search engine marketing tool is mobile. With much of the Internet emphasis switching over to mobile, it’s no surprise that clicks are up 162% in just the first quarter of 2016 alone.

If you use search engine marketing to advertise your goods and services, then PLA’s are pretty much a must for you.

Adwords Redesign Demo Scheduled

Google has a new version of Adwords coming out and they recently announced the release of the search engine marketing tool on Google+ saying the a live demo would be on May 24th at 9:00am PT / 12:00pm ET. The update apparently will be mobile-centric, and I must admit that I’m excited to see what the new Adwords looks like.

Half of the Adult Population Cannot Recognize Ads in Search Results

Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s Office of Communications, released a recent report stating that 50% of adult Internet users could not spot ads in the SERPs. While this is great news for search engine marketing, it seems bizarre that so many people can’t see the ads which Google clearly marks with a bright Ad badge. It didn’t seem to matter whether the searchers were considered new to the web or not. There wasn’t a significant difference between new and experienced searchers.

Google Says “No” to Payday Loans Advertising

Did you know that there are certain businesses Google just won’t allow you to advertise using their platform? Risky payday loans fall into this category. If you run a payday loan business, you won’t be able to advertise on Google if your business has short period payback or a high APR.

That’s a lot of power behind Google. If your business depends on search engine marketing, but you can’t advertise, you will either change your terms or go into a new industry. That is Google’s clear goal here. They are able to eradicate predatory lending by refusing search engine marketing strategies to those types of businesses. Who knew?

Insight for the Future: Prepare for Voice Search

If you use search engine marketing as a major strategy, then this insight into the world of what it will be like trying to optimize for voice search could be a real eye-opener. In December, a study by Search Engine Land showed that voice search was up in the last 6 months by 41%. This could turn into a very big problem for search engine marketing if we don’t properly prepare for the change.

Follow these action steps to get a jump on voice search preparedness:

1. Autocorrect is your new best friend. Research common misspellings of your brand and include them in your keyword strategy.
2. Consider natural language. Optimize your pages for long-tail, natural language searches.
3. Think in FAQ’s since voice queries are often in a long-form question format.

This is a great time to get this stuff figured out since voice search is on the rise, but not yet the standard. Always consider how you would search for topics as well and build your search engine marketing strategies form your own experience. Test, adjust, rinse, repeat.

Wrap Up

What kinds of search engine marketing strategies are you using? I’d love to hear how you’re planing to optimize for voice search in the comments.

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