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Samsung devices won’t get Android’s new Instant hotspot feature

Administrator — Fri, 31 May 2024 11:18:23 +0000

Android is getting a new ‘Instant hotspot’ feature that should make it more seamless to connect an Android tablet or Chromebook to your phone’s data connection. However, Samsung devices won’t get the feature.

Instant hotspot will roll out as part of the recent Android feature drop and will allow people to easily and quickly share their Android phone’s hotspot with tablets or Chromebooks. The feature will save people time by skipping steps like turning on the hotspot on your phone or entering a password on your Wi-Fi-only device.

However, Android Authority spotted fine print on an image of the feature saying it’s “not available on Samsung devices.” It’s not immediately clear why, but the publication speculates Samsung might have opted out of Instant hotspot since it already offers its own version of the feature, but exclusively for Samsung phones and tablets.

Samsung’s hotspot feature, coupled with the fact that Chromebooks already have an ‘Instant Tether’ feature for easily connecting to a phone’s hotspot, means not getting Instant hotspot won’t be a huge loss for Samsung users.

Still, it’s a bit odd that the feature isn’t coming to Samsung devices since it’s part of Google Play Services, which is available on all Android devices certified by Google.

Distributed also on: Android Authority

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7 New Features are Coming to Android, Your Devices: Google Messages, Home, More

Administrator — Fri, 31 May 2024 10:16:57 +0000

Pixel owners know about feature drops, because they are Google’s way of continuously adding value to devices. With each big quarterly update, Google tosses out new software ideas onto Pixel phones and tablets to keep things fun and fresh. For those who don’t follow closely, Google does this for the Android platform too. We get regular Android feature drops for Samsung, OnePlus and other Android devices, just like we’re about to talk about below.

In this latest Android Feature Drop, Google is adding improvements to Google Messages (editing!), Google Home, and Wear OS, while bringing new features like digital car keys, more Emoji Kitchen combos, and the ability to instant hotspot to Chromebooks.

GOOGLE MESSAGES EDITING: That’s right, you can now edit a message you’ve sent in Google Messages. Google is rolling this feature out and will give users a 15-minute window to edit group or one-on-one messages once they have been sent. To do so, you’ll long-press on a message and then tap the little pencil/edit button up top to adjust your words. This only works with RCS messages.

GOOGLE HOME FAVORITES WIDGET: The Google Home app is getting a fun new Favorites Widget that can be added to home screens. This widget lets you do everything from changing temperatures to viewing doorbells and adjusting lighting. The widget is also advanced enough that it can be resized to various shapes to show additional favorites if you have more than a couple.

To get access to this new Favorites widget, Google says that you need to be signed-up for the Public Preview of the Google Home app. You can sign-up here.

INSTANT HOTSPOTS, CALL SWITCHING: Coming soon, you’ll be able to connect to an instant hotspot from your phone to your Android tablet or Chromebook. That’s cool and all, but Google is also going to let you seamlessly transfer Google Meet calls between phones and tablets by pressing the Cast button.

Google appears to be setting this feature up through a Devices & Sharing area in your phone’s settings that will have an option called “Cross-device services.” Within this area, you’ll be able to choose the devices you want to group together and can then decide if they should share call casting and internet sharing.

GOOGLE HOME ON WEAR OS: Beyond the new Favorites widget for your phone’s home screen, Google is also rolling out a Favorites Tile for Wear OS that allows you to easily adjust your smart home devices from the wrist. Like the widget, you can customize the shortcuts on this tile.

WEAR OS GETS PAYPAL: Speaking of wrists, Google Wallet on Wear OS can now make payments with PayPal in the US and Germany.

EMOJI KITCHEN EXPANDS: Emoji Kitchen, which is Google’s silly emoji mash-up tool, has added new combos that involve the disco ball and headphones.

MORE DIGITAL CAR KEYS: Finally, Google is rolling out digital car key support to more vehicles, starting with select MINI models. They plan to further expand “soon” to select Mercedes and Polestar vehicles too. We’ll try to get a list of the cars for you.

Some decent stuff in there, right?

// Google

What Makes Makita's Starlock Oscillating Tool Different From Its Other Options?

Administrator — Fri, 31 May 2024 10:14:55 +0000

Compared to the regular and 12V multi-tools offered by Makita, the Starlock multi-tool is designed to provide the utmost in quality and comfort features. The namesake of the Starlock is the StarlockMax accessory system, which allows users to swap multi-tool heads and blades on and off the device without the need for specialized removal tools. You can snap a fresh blade on with just one hand, though it is worth mentioning that the Starlock system requires specialized Starlock blade heads, which can’t be used with the regular or 12V models.

Additionally, while all three models have a degree of ergonomic design and vibration reduction, the Starlock is the only one with this special Makita tool technology behind it. The Starlock is equipped with Makita’s proprietary AVT (anti-vibration technology), which utilizes the same kind of counterbalancing system used for absorbing seismic shocks during earthquakes. The Starlock also features XPT (extreme protection technology), a series of special seals that protect it from water and dust, and STAR Protection Computer Controls for better, safer connections between the tool itself and its attached battery pack. To top it all off, the Starlock is actually lighter than the regular model for even more comfort.

Compared to the regular and 12V models, the Starlock is the top-shelf contender — the Rolls-Royce of oscillating multi-tools. This is a professional-grade tool designed to deliver the utmost in both user ease and consistent performance, hence the chunkier price tag.

First Galaxy Z Fold 6 Image Reveals Refined, Squared Design

Administrator — Fri, 31 May 2024 10:12:55 +0000

Samsung is continuing its trend to move away from the overly round hardware design aesthetic. We saw it with the Galaxy S23 Ultra into the Galaxy S24 Ultra and now it appears that we’re going to see it on the Galaxy Z Fold 5 into the Galaxy Z Fold 6.

The image above is the first supposed real look we’ve had of the device. Before this, we have seen only 3rd-party renders. Thankfully, the Z Fold 6 photo is alongside a separate photo of the Z Fold 5, allowing us to see the major difference in design from the frontside.

We can see that the Z Fold 6 is much more squared off, especially at the hinge compared to last year’s model. The bezels, while still noticeable, are certainly a bit smaller. The overall size of the hinge has also seemed to go down considerably, making the device appear much more compact. In fact, I’d argue that the hinge becomes hardly noticeable with this improved design. For those who carry this device in a front pocket instead of a purse, satchel or crossbody bag, this is welcomed news.

We’re expecting this device to be detailed in full in Paris this July ahead of the Olympics, alongside the Z Flip 6, Galaxy Ring, and lineup of new Galaxy Watch 7 models. It’s going to be a most excellent 2H for Samsung fans.

Thoughts on this device and Samsung’s new squared design?

// @UniverseIce

This 1908 Harley-Davidson Strap Tank Set A Million Dollar Record At Auction

Administrator — Fri, 31 May 2024 10:10:56 +0000

When this Strap Tank was brought before Mecum Auctions, just about everyone knew right away they had a proverbial unicorn on their hands. The bike still had its original tank, wheels, engine belt pulley, seat cover and muffler sleeve, plus an era-accurate gray finish with a red accent stripe. It was as though the vehicle had rolled right out of a time machine from the 1900s.

This wasn’t the first Strap Tank to go through Mecum Auctions, with another model from 1907 going to auction for a modest $297,000 in 2021. Compared to that Strap Tank, though, this newer Strap Tank was the most complete and correct instance the auctioneers had ever seen. As soon as the bike went on stage at the auction, bids for hundreds of thousands of dollars started flying left and right.

After only a couple of minutes of bidding, the gavel ultimately fell on a bid for $850,000. Factoring in auction fees, and the grand total for this piece of automotive history came out to $935,000, the largest price tag for a motorcycle ever seen at Mecum Auctions.

Today's NYT Connections: Hints To Help Solve Today's Game, May 31, 2024

Administrator — Fri, 31 May 2024 10:08:34 +0000

Each Connections puzzle features a 16-word grid from which you’re supposed to make four groups of words that share something in common. These categories are as random as they come, and could be anything from a synonym or music genre to “a word that sounds like it hurts.” New York Times insiders explain, “Typically, categories involve trivia or the meaning or structure of words.” They also often add “red herrings” — words that seem like they could be in more than one category, so that makes it trickier (and more fun, depending on who you ask). Yet each puzzle has only one solution.

Each group is color-coded according to its difficulty level. The yellow group is the easiest and most obvious connection, green and blue are medium, and purple is the trickiest of the bunch. Technically, you only need to figure out three groups — the fourth will naturally be left over after 12 words are eliminated. If you’re finding it difficult to make a connection, you can shuffle the board to make it easier to spot one.

Click on four words and hit Submit to see if you’ve guessed a group correctly. If you’re right, those words will be removed from the board and displayed in a color-coded bar above, along with the key to the category. You might get a message telling you that you’re one word away from a connection if you’ve selected three correct words, but it’s up to you to figure out which one to swap. If you’re wrong, that counts as a mistake, and players lose the game if they make four of those. The hints below might help you prevent that from happening.

How to Calculate Your SEO ROI Using Google Analytics

Administrator — Fri, 31 May 2024 09:18:06 +0000

The author’s views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

You’ve spent hours learning the most effective SEO tactics, but they won’t be useful if you can’t measure them.

Measuring SEO return on investment (ROI) involves two factors: KPIs (key performance indicators) and the cost of your current SEO campaigns. Tracking these key metrics monthly enables you to tweak and optimize your strategy, as well as make educated business decisions.

To get the most bang for your buck (or time), consider using Google Analytics (GA) to calculate your ROI. With GA, you can pinpoint where your audience is coming from, set goals to stay on track, and incorporate the most attractive keywords to rank better in search engines.

Ways to calculate your SEO ROI using Google Analytics
#1 Page value

Page value is an important aspect to consider when talking about ROI.

Think about it like money. In the US, paper money has been dated back to the late 1600s as a way of symbolizing the value of something. Instead of bartering, citizens began attaching a value to a 10 dollar bill or a 100 dollar bill to obtain an item they needed that was worth the equivalent value.

Page value assigns an average monetary value to all pages viewed in a session where a transaction took place. Specifically for e-commerce sites, it helps assign a value to non-transactional pages such as articles and landing pages. This is useful to understand because although a blog didn’t necessarily produce revenue, that doesn’t mean it didn’t contribute to a customer’s buying decision in the future.

With lead generation pages, a value can be assigned to a goal like the contact form submission, so you can more accurately measure whether or not you’re on track.

Below is a visual that depicts how page value is calculated according to Google:

In the first example, Page B is visited once by a user before continuing to the Goal page D (which was assigned a value of $10) and Receipt page E (which generated $100). That means a single pageview of Page B generated $110, which gives us its Page Value.

In equation form, this is how it looks:

Page Value for Page B =E-commerce Revenue ($100) + Total Goal Value ($10)Number of Unique Pageviews for Page B (1)= $110

But not all pageviews lead to a conversion. That’s why it’s important to keep track of data and recalculate your Page Value as more information comes in. Let’s see how this works with the second example.

Here we see two sessions but only one converted to an e-commerce transaction (session 1). So even if we have two unique pageviews for Page B, the e-commerce revenue stays the same. We can then recalculate our Page B’s Page Value using this new information.

Page Value for Page B =e-commerce revenue ($100) + Total Goal Value ($10 x 2 sessions)Number of Unique Pageviews for Page B (2)= $60

With more sessions and more data, you’ll get a better idea of which pages contribute most to your site’s revenue.

#2 E-commerce settings

If you’re not managing an e-commerce business, skip this section. For those of you who do, there’s a more advanced feature on Google Analytics that can prove extremely useful. By turning on the e-commerce settings, you can track sales amounts, the number of orders, billing locations, and even the average order value. In this way, you can equate website usage to sales information and better understand which landing pages or campaigns are performing the best.

How to turn on e-commerce settings

In your Google Analytics left sidebar panel, click on ADMIN > under the VIEW panel (rightmost panel), click on “E-commerce Settings” > Enable E-Commerce > Enable Enhanced E-commerce Reporting.

To finalize this go over to where it says, “Checkout Labeling” underneath the Enhanced E-commerce settings, and under “funnel steps” type in:

Checkout view

Billing info

Proceed to payment

Below is a picture to better explain these steps:

If you have Shopify or Woocommerce, make sure to set up tracking over there, too, so that Google Analytics can communicate and relay this crucial information to you.

Once you have the E-commerce tracking setup, you’ll have access to the following data:

An overview of your revenue, E-commerce conversion rate, transactions, average order value, and other metrics

Product and sales performance

Shopping and checkout behavior

These give you a better understanding of how your customers are interacting with your site and which products are selling the most. In terms of calculating SEO ROI, knowing the steps that your customers take and the pages they view before making a purchase helps you analyze the value of individual pages and also the effectiveness of your overall SEO content strategy.

#3 Sales Performance

Again, this is for e-commerce only. The sales performance feature shows sales from all sources and mediums. You can view data for organic traffic only and identify its revenue.

How to view your sales performance

This gives you an overview of your revenue and a breakdown of each transaction. Tracking this through time and seeing how it trends guides your content strategy.

What is the average transaction amount and what does it tell you about your customers? Does tweaking your copy to promote up-sells or cross-sells have an impact on your per-transaction revenue?

Another set of data that helps you calculate your SEO ROI and optimize your content strategy is your customers’ shopping behavior.

How to see your customers’ shopping behavior in-depth

At a glance, you can see how effective your purchase funnel is – how many sessions continue from one step to the next? How many people went to your page and didn’t purchase, or added to the cart but didn’t follow through with payment?

This helps you identify areas that need more SEO attention. This also helps you draw projections on how much your revenue can increase by optimizing your copy and implementing SEO to boost organic traffic, which helps you get a better idea of your SEO ROI.

For instance, if there’s a high percentage of users visiting your page but not going through the buying cycle, maybe you need to tweak your copy to include searchable keywords or copy that resonates better with your audience.

Additionally, it’s worth remembering that while this does show organic sales, you can’t identify the keyword that led to that sale, but organic traffic can be an indicator of holistic marketing efforts working. For example, PR may increase brand searches on Google.

Quick tip: you can get an idea of which keywords bring in the most traffic to your website with Google Search Console and then follow the navigation history from Google Analytics in order to connect specific keywords with sales.

Overall, to truly measure the ROI of your SEO you need to discover which keywords are working for your business, because although people may be interested in your business due to some amazing PR exposure, they might not actually be interested in your services. To really hit this one home, select keywords that have purchase intent. That way you can attract more qualified leads to your site.

#4 Engagement Events

If you’re not working on an e-commerce site (hint, hint, my fellow B2B marketers), here’s where you’ll want to pay attention. Both e-commerce and lead generation sites can make use of engagement events.

Align with your sales team to assign a value to a goal based on average order value, the average number of sign-ups, and conversion rate. Although useful for e-commerce, these analytics are likely to be most beneficial for lead generation sites who have longer sales cycles and transactions that occur off-site or after multiple sessions (for example, B2B SaaS or a marketing agency).

Examples of engagement events include:

Newsletter sign up

Contact form submission

Downloads

Adding to a cart

How to view your campaign engagement data

Below is an image so you can follow along:

This type of tracking gives greater insight into how people are interacting with parts of your website, and how engaged they are at different parts of the journey. Use it to set goals for your lead generation and investigate whether or not your SEO efforts are paying off.

Let’s say you find that your website gets a ton of traffic to your services page, and a high percentage of those visitors download a case study. This means they’re interested in what you have to offer and would like to see more case studies from you.

Use ROI calculations to make better strategic decisions for your business

Ultimately, when using Google Analytics for SEO, you should work to align business goals with specific measurable metrics so that you can create a long-term plan for sustainable growth. It’s no secret SEO is a powerful tool for your business, but putting it into an actionable and personalized plan to get the train continuously going uphill is what counts.

3 ways to optimize your marketing funnel for driving revenue and leads

Administrator — Fri, 31 May 2024 09:04:20 +0000

How should marketers approach the daunting task of reining in and improving the marketing funnel? Recently at The MarTech Conference, two marketing leaders discussed this precise task. (Free registration to view the entire program on-demand.)

Below are some of the highlights of the conversation between Adam Altmark, senior manager, solutions engineering, at security technology company CHEQ and Alex Schutte, senior director, marketing demand generation for human resources software company Paycor.

What they discovered was that marketers need to understand all facets of the funnel and have data ready to make decisions. Beyond that, marketers can use that data to test and improve specific touchpoints and stages in the customer journey. And through it all, keeping aligned with sales helps establish a feedback loop for continued optimization.

Here are some of the details on these three important points.

Understand and analyze your marketing funnel

To optimize your marketing funnel, you need to have a good idea of where your customers engage with your brand. You also need to look at the data to see how these channels are performing.

For most businesses, this begins with your company’s homepage. As Alex pointed out, there should be a steady stream of traffic coming in, and it can be analyzed with GA4.

Here he explained more about starting with the homepage to identify “low-hanging fruit” and moving out from there to better understand the events your business will want to optimize moving forward.

Improve experience to optimize the marketing funnel

After looking at the data, you might find that traffic to a particular touchpoint in the marketing funnel is high, but the conversion rate is low. What could be the cause? Often it has to do with the experience that customers encounter when they arrive there.

Dig deeper: Optimizing digital experiences: Don’t focus on just one metric

Your business should take a data-driven approach to improve the experience. This means A/B testing the design of a website or form that customers are engaging with — or A/B testing specific design elements within the overall design. Compare the conversion rate with the old design against the conversion rate, or other desired KPI, with the new design.

At the top of the funnel, advertising is an important part of demand generation and driving leads. The team at Paycor took a look, specifically, at the ad experience on major digital platforms. Here’s what they found and how they improved this experience.

Align with sales teams

To fully optimize the marketing funnel, changes made in demand gen and other top-funnel stages have to carry over to sales. That means marketing has to be aligned with sales by establishing common metrics and regular communication.

At Paycor this alignment begins at the top, with the senior vice president of marketing reporting to the chief revenue officer. The CRO oversees marketing, sales and revenue ops.

Dig deeper: Generative AI use explodes for RevOps

When annual and monthly goals are set, the marketing team signs up for a percentage of overall revenue that is sourced from marketing efforts and campaigns. This includes marketing opportunity goals and sales goals that the marketing team aims to achieve monthly. Marketing uses lead scoring and other metrics to measure the quality of leads (MQL). Paycor’s marketing team also breaks down the metrics by channel and campaign so that they can see which efforts are delivering high quality and volume of leads, and which channels and campaigns need optimizing.

Beyond all the metrics, Alex also finds it important to maintain communication with sales through regular meetings. Here he explains how metrics and communication with sales teams help create a “feedback loop” to ensure further optimization and revenue growth.

With data at hand and the goals in mind, marketing and sales can work together to continue to optimize the marketing funnel and make a real impact on the business.

Email:

Business email address

See terms.

The post 3 ways to optimize your marketing funnel for driving revenue and leads appeared first on MarTech.

How To Find Competitors’ Keywords: Tips & Tools

Administrator — Fri, 31 May 2024 09:02:19 +0000

This post was sponsored by SE Ranking. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Wondering why your competitors rank higher than you?

The secret to your competitors’ SEO success might be as simple as targeting the appropriate keywords.

Since these keywords are successful for your competitors, there’s a good chance they could be valuable for you as well.

In this article, we’ll explore the most effective yet simple ways to find competitors’ keywords so that you can guide your own SEO strategy and potentially outperform your competitors in SERPs.

Benefits Of Competitor Keyword Analysis

Competitor keywords are the search terms your competitors target within their content to rank high in SERPs, either organically or through paid ads.

Collecting search terms that your competitors rely on can help you:

1. Identify & Close Keyword Gaps.

The list of high-ranking keywords driving traffic to your competitors may include valuable search terms you’re currently missing out on.

To close these keyword gaps, you can either optimize your existing content with these keywords or use them as inspiration for creating new content with high traffic potential.

2. Adapt To Market Trends & Customer Needs.

You may notice a shift in the keywords your competitors optimize content for. This could be a sign that market trends or customer expectations are changing.

Keep track of these keywords to jump on emerging trends and align your content strategy accordingly.

3. Enhance Visibility & Rankings.

Analyzing your competitors’ high-ranking keywords and pages can help you identify their winning patterns (e.g., content format, user intent focus, update frequency, etc).

Study what works for your rivals (and why) to learn how to adapt these tactics to your website and achieve higher SERP positions.

How To Identify Your Competitors’ Keywords

There are many ways to find keywords used by competitors within their content. Let’s weigh the pros and cons of the most popular options.

Use SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a complete toolkit that delivers unique data insights. These insights help SEO pros build and maintain successful SEO campaigns.

Here’s the list of pros that the platform offers for agency and in-house SEO professionals:

Huge databases. SE Ranking has one of the web’s largest keyword databases. It features over 5 billion keywords across 188 regions. Also, the number of keywords in their database is constantly growing, with a 30% increase in 2024 compared to the previous year.
Reliable data. SE Ranking collects keyword data, analyzes it, and computes core SEO metrics directly from its proprietary algorithm. The platform also relies on AI-powered traffic estimations that have up to a 100% match with GSC data.

Thanks to SE Ranking’s recent major data quality update, the platform boasts even fresher and more accurate information on backlinks and referring domains (both new and lost).

As a result, by considering the website’s backlink profile, authority, and SERP competitiveness, SE Ranking now makes highly accurate calculations of keyword difficulty. This makes it easy to see how likely your own website or page is to rank at the top of the SERPs for a particular query.

Broad feature set. Beyond conducting competitive (& keyword) research, you can also use this tool to track keyword rankings, perform website audits, handle all aspects of on-page optimization, manage local SEO campaigns, optimize your content for search, and much more.
Great value for money. The tool offers premium features with generous data limits at a fair price. This eliminates the need to choose between functionality and affordability.

Let’s now review how to use SE Ranking to discover the keywords your competitors are targeting for both organic search and paid advertising.

First, open the Competitive Research Tool and input your competitor’s domain name into the search bar. Select a region and click Analyze to initiate analysis of this website.

Depending on your goal, go either to the Organic Traffic Research or Paid Traffic Research tab on the left-hand navigation menu.

Here, you’ll be able to see data on estimated organic clicks, total number of keywords, traffic cost, and backlinks.

Upon scrolling this page down, you’ll see a table with all the keywords the website ranks for, along with data on search volume, keyword difficulty, user intent, SERP features triggered by keywords, ranking position, URLs ranking for the analyzed keyword, and more.

What’s more, the tool allows you to find keywords your competitors rank for but you don’t.

To do this, head to the Competitor Comparison tab and add up to two websites for comparison.

Within the Missing tab, you’ll be able to see existing keyword gaps.

While the platform offers many benefits, there are also some downsides to be aware of, such as:

Higher-priced plans are required for some features. For instance, historical data on keywords is only available to Pro and Business plan users.
Data is limited to Google only. SE Ranking’s Competitor Research Tool only provides data for Google.

Use Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a free Google service, which you can use to find competitors’ paid keywords.

Here’s the list of benefits this tool offers in terms of competitive keyword analysis:

Free access. Keyword Planner is completely free to use, which makes it a great option for SEO newbies and businesses with limited budgets.
Core keyword data. The tool shows core SEO metrics like search volume, competition, and suggested bid prices for each identified keyword.
Keyword categorization. Keyword Planner allows you to organize keywords into different groups, which may be helpful for creating targeted ad campaigns.
Historical data. The tool has four years of historical data available.

Once you log into your Google Ads account, navigate to the Tools section and select Keyword Planner.

Now, click on the Discover new keywords option.

Choose Start with a website option, enter your competitor’s website domain, region, and language, then choose to analyze the whole site (recommended for deeper insights) or a specific URL.

And there you have it — a table with all keywords that your analyzed website uses in its Google Ads campaigns.

Although Keyword Planner can be helpful, it’s not the most effective and data-rich tool for finding competitors’ keywords. Its main drawbacks are the following:

No organic data. The tool offers data on paid keywords, which is mainly suitable for advertising campaigns.
Broad search volume data. Since it’s displayed in ranges rather than exact numbers, it might be difficult to precisely assess the demand for identified keywords.
No keyword gap feature. Using this tool, you cannot compare your and your competitors’ keywords side-by-side and, therefore, find missing keyword options.

So, if you want to access more reliable and in-depth data on competitors’ keywords, you’ll most likely need to consider other dedicated SEO tools.

Use SpyFu

SpyFu is a comprehensive SEO and PPC analysis tool created with the idea of “spying” on competitors.

Its main pros in terms of competitor keyword analysis are the following:

Database with 10+ years of historical data. Although available only in a Professional plan, SpyFu offers long-term insights to monitor industry trends and adapt accordingly.
Keyword gap analysis. Using this tool, you can easily compare your keywords to those of your competitors using metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, organic clicks, etc.
Affordability. It’s suitable for businesses on a tight budget.

To explore competitor data, simply visit their website and enter your competitor’s domain in the search bar.

You’ll be presented with valuable insights into their SEO performance, from estimated traffic to the list of their top-performing pages and keywords. Navigate to the Top Keywords section and click the View All Organic Keywords button to see the search terms they rank for.

Yet, this free version provides an overview of just the top 5 keywords for a domain along with metrics like search volume, rank change, SEO clicks, and so on. To perform a more comprehensive analysis, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

When it comes to the tool’s cons, it would be worth mentioning:

Keyword data may be outdated. On average, SpyFu updates data on keyword rankings once a month.
Limited number of target regions. Keyword data is available for just 14 countries.

Wrapping Up

There’s no doubt that finding competitors’ keywords is a great way to optimize your own content strategy and outperform your rivals in SERPs.

By following the step-by-step instructions described in this article, we’re sure you’ll be able to find high-value keywords you haven’t considered before.

Ready to start optimizing your website? Sign up for SE Ranking and get the data you need to deliver great user experiences.

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by SE Ranking. Used with permission.

Responsive Search Ads: 5 Best Practices for Google Ads PPC Search Campaigns

Administrator — Fri, 31 May 2024 08:58:23 +0000

The author’s views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

What are responsive search ads?

Responsive search ads are very flexible ads that automatically adapt to show the right message to the right customer. You enter multiple headlines and descriptions when creating the ad. Google’s machine learning systems will mix headlines and descriptions and test different combinations of the ads to learn which performs best over time. The most relevant message will be shown to the customer.

Responsive search ads are the default ad type in Google Ads Pay Per Click (PPC) search campaigns as of February 18, 2021. This change isn’t surprising, considering Google’s increased focus on automation in Google Ads.

Since responsive search ads adapt their content to show the most relevant message to match customer search terms, they help you reach more customers and may help to increase conversion rates and campaign performance. According to Google, advertisers who use responsive search ads in their ad groups can achieve an increase of up to 10% more clicks and conversions as compared to standard text ads.

But responsive search ads have many more benefits:

Here is an example of a responsive search ad from Google search results:

How to set up responsive search ads in your Google Ads PPC search campaign

Sign into your Google Ads PPC account and select Responsive Search Ad from the Ad menu:

Select Ads and extensions in the left menu

Click on the blue plus button on the top

Select Responsive Search Ad in the menu

Now you can enter the headlines and descriptions and the landing page for the responsive search ad:

Select a Search Campaign

Select an Ad Group

Enter the Final URL ( this is the landing page URL).

Enter the display paths for the Display URL (this is optional).

Enter at least 5 unique headlines. The minimum is 3 and the maximum is 15. The tool will suggest keywords from the ad group to include in the headlines.

Enter at least 2 unique descriptions. The minimum is 2 and the maximum is 4.

As you create the ad, an ad strength indicator will indicate the ad strength.

As you type the ad, you will see a preview of the Ad in different combinations in the preview panel.

Save the ad

Follow the best practices below to optimize responsive search ads for better performance.

5 best practices when using responsive search ads in your Google Ads PPC search campaigns

These tips will help you optimize your responsive search ads in your Google Ads search campaigns and increase clicks and conversions.

1. Add at least one responsive search ad per ad group with “good” or “excellent” ad strength

Google recommends adding at least one responsive search ad per ad group. Use the ad strength indicator to make sure the responsive search ad has a “good” or ”excellent” ad strength, as this improves the chances that the ad will show. Remember, the maximum number of enabled responsive search ads allowed per ad group is three.

It’s best to create very specific ad groups based on your products with at least three quality ads, as recommended by Google. This enables Google’s systems to optimize for performance and may result in more clicks.

2. Add several unique headlines and descriptions

The power of the flexible format of responsive search ads lies in having multiple ad combinations and keywords that can match customer search terms. This helps to increase search relevance and reach more customers.

When building your responsive search ads, add as many unique headlines as you can to increase possible ad combinations and improve campaign performance.

The headlines and descriptions in a responsive search ad can be shown in multiple combinations in any order. It’s therefore important to ensure that these assets are unique from each other and work well together when they are shown in different ad combinations.

When creating a responsive search ad, you can add up to fifteen headlines and four descriptions. The responsive search ad will show up to three headlines and two descriptions at a time. On smaller screens, like mobile devices, it may show with two headlines and one description.

Here are tips for adding headlines and descriptions:

1. Create at least 8-10 headlines so that there are more ad combinations to show. More ad combinations helps to increase ad relevance and improve ad group performance.

To increase the chances that the ad will show, enter at least five headlines that are unique from each other. Do not repeat the same phrases as that will restrict the number of ad combinations that are generated by the system.

You can use some headlines to focus on important product or service descriptions.

Include your popular keywords in at least two headlines to increase ad relevance. As you create the responsive search ad, the tool will recommend popular keywords in the ad group to include in headlines to improve ad performance.

Make sure that you DO NOT include keywords in three headlines so that more ad combinations are generated. Instead you can highlight benefits, special services, special hours, calls to action, shipping and return policies, special promotions, taglines, or ratings.

Try adding headlines of different lengths. Do not max out the characters in every headline. Google’s systems will test both long and short headlines.

There are 30 characters for each headline.

2. Include two descriptions that are unique. The maximum is four descriptions.

Descriptions should focus on describing product or service features that are not listed in the headlines, along with a call to action.

There are 90 characters for each description.

An example of creating a responsive search ad with headlines and descriptions is shown in the figure below.

3. Use popular content from your existing expanded text ads

Use headlines and descriptions from your existing expanded text ads in the ad group when writing your headlines and descriptions for the responsive search ads. This helps you get more ad combinations with keywords that have already been proven to be successful in your marketing campaign.

4. Pin headlines & descriptions to specific positions to control where they appear. Use sparingly.

Responsive search ads will show headlines and descriptions in any order by default. To control the positions of text in the ad, you can pin headlines and descriptions to certain positions in the ad. Pinning is a new concept introduced with responsive search ads.

According to Google, pinning is not recommended for most advertisers because it limits the number of ad combinations that can be matched to customer search terms and can impact ad performance.

Use the pinning feature sparingly. Pinning too many headlines and descriptions to fixed positions in the responsive search ad reduces the effectiveness of using this flexible ad format to serve multiple ad combinations.

1. If you have text that must appear in every ad, you should enter it in either Headline Position 1, Headline Position 2 or Description Position 1, and pin it there. This text will always show in the ad.

2. You can also pin headlines and descriptions that must always be included in the ad to specific positions in the ad. For example, disclaimers or special offers.

3. To pin an asset, hover to the right of any headline or description when setting up the Ad and click on the pin icon that appears. Then select the position where you want the headline or description to appear.

4. Pinning a headline or description to one position will show that asset in that position every time the ad is shown. For increased flexibility, it is recommended to pin 2 or 3 headlines or descriptions to each position. Any of the pinned headlines or descriptions can then be shown in the pinned position so that you still have different ad combinations available.

5. Click Save.

The image below shows a headline pinned in position 1 and a description pinned in position 2. The Ad will always show this headline and description in the pinned positions every time it runs.

5. Increase ad strength to improve performance

As you create a responsive search ad, you will see an ad strength indicator on the right with a strength estimate. The ad strength indicator helps you improve the quality and effectiveness of your ads to improve ad performance.

Improving ad strength from “Poor” to ‘Excellent’ can result in up to 9% more clicks and conversions, according to Google.

1. Ad strength measures the relevance, diversity and quality of the Ad content.

2. Some of the ad strength suggestions include

Adding more headlinesIncluding popular keywords in the headlinesMaking headlines more uniqueMaking descriptions more unique

3. Click on “View Ideas” to see suggestions provided by the tool to improve ad relevance and ad quality.

4. The ad strength ratings include “Excellent”, “Good”, “Average” , “Poor” and “No Ads”.

5. Try to get at least a “Good” rating by changing the content of headlines or descriptions or by adding popular keywords. If you have a lot of assets pinned to specific positions, try unpinning some of the assets to improve ad strength.

Are expanded text ads still supported?

Expanded text ads are still supported but they are no longer the default ad format in Google Ads paid search campaigns.

You can still run expanded text ads in your ad groups along with the responsive search ads. Google recommends having one responsive search ad along with two expanded text ads in an ad group to improve performance.

However, Google has removed the option to add a text ad directly from the Ads and extensions menu. When you add a new ad, the menu now lists only options to add a Responsive Search Ad, Call Ad, Responsive Display Ad and Ad variations.

You can still add an expanded text ad although you cannot add it directly from the Ads and extensions menu. Follow these steps,

In the Ads and extensions menu, click to select Responsive search ads.

This opens up the editing menu to create a responsive search ad.

Then click on “switch back to text ads” on the top to create a text ad.

The removal of expanded text ads from the Ad and extensions menu certainly suggests that Google may be planning to phase out expanded text ads in the future. However, they continue to be supported at this time.

Conclusion

In summary, responsive search ads continue the progression towards automation and machine learning in Google Ads. We have used responsive search ads in PPC search campaigns at our digital marketing agency, and have seen an increase in clicks and CTR as compared to expanded text ads.

You can improve the performance of your Google Ads PPC search campaigns by following these five best practices for responsive search ads:

Add at least one responsive search ad per ad group.

Add several unique headlines and descriptions.

Use popular content from your expanded text ads.

Pin some of the assets to control where they appear in the ad.

Increase ad strength to at least a “good” rating to improve ad performance.

Other best practices recommended by Google include:

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