Happy Holidays!
Wishing all our clients, subscribers, blog readers and everyone else a peaceful Christmas and a joyful New Year.
There have been many developments in AdWords and SEO that have had the Search Scientist office talking in 2014. These include the Pigeon update to the Google algorithm that affected local search, and developments in mobile search.
Let’s take a look at a few of Search Scientist’s favourite talking points from 2014:
Louise’s Stand Out Topics:
The End of Authorship Photos in Search – This one was a pretty big surprise in the industry. Many SEOs and Webmasters had optimised Google authorship for ranking and CTR purposes. This also made us think about where the future of Google+ lies.
The Growth of AdWords Remarketing – Done correctly remarketing is a powerful form of advertising. It gives you the chance to reach out with a tailored message to people who visited your site already. Google AdWords is currently beta testing remarketing for Google Shopping campaigns. As more options become available within remarketing it becomes all the more promising.
Barry’s Favourite Articles:
The Decay and Fall of Guest Blogging for SEO – Back in January Matt Cutts, Head of Search Quality for Google, announced that using guest blogging as a way to gain links would no longer work for SEO purposes.
Search Engine Land name the Latest Google Update – A significant algorithm update from Google affecting local search was released in July. Search Engine Land named it “Pigeon” and the rest of the world got on board with that.
How to Recover from a Google Penalty – If your website rank has dropped suddenly or you have lost a lot of traffic in a short period of time, chances are your website has been hit with a Google Penalty. The key lies in identifying what the penalty was for and knowing how to fix it.
Stephen’s Top Picks:
Will One Popular Facebook Post affect the Reach of Future Posts? – Two updates to the Facebook algorithm in December 2013 and February 2014 left organic reach on the social network site at 6%, dropping from 49% 6 months previous. We conducted our own experiment to try an increase our organic reach.
Local Search Demand Increases Significantly in 2014 – More and more consumers performed local search on Google using mobile devices. This seen the need for localised search ads and mobile responsive websites.
Google Shopping Campaigns Replace Traditional PLAs – New format Shopping campaigns replaced the often complex and often tricky traditional PLA format. With this update came in-depth reporting, competitive data and custom product groups.
Please share any 2014 stand out moments in search marketing that have taken you aback. We always like a good office chat on search industry ongoings.
No comments yet.