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Category: Industry Trends

  • Google Antitrust Case: How DOJ Case Against Google Impacts Digital Marketing

    Google Antitrust Case: How DOJ Case Against Google Impacts Digital Marketing

    The Future Of Google + Digital Marketing

    The United States Department of Justice recently proposed a solution to the ongoing monopoly that Google has on web search in the country. As many know, Google holds an astounding share of the search traffic in the US, upwards of 90% of the market when it comes to people searching anything from a singlular factoid to emergency home repair services.

    While there is nothing imminent as to the adoption of any specific recommendations or Google being broken into smaller pieces, it is an important thing that the DigitalParc team is keeping up on as the process moves. The main reason is that this change could have the potential to cause significant changes within the search landscape for years to come. When Core Algorithm updates are usually the largest singular change that can occur in a defined period for web design, marketing and SEO, a change to the structure of Google with search queries would be far and away one of the most impactful things in our industry in a decade.

    What’s exactly happening?

    As Search Engine Journal notes, the popular phrasing is that the DOJ is trying to break up Google. While that can be a somewhat accurate summary statement, the reality is much more complicated with recommendations, sell-offs, limitations for future business actions and more.

    As for the specifics, the DOJ has indicated that Google has been holding illegal monopolies of search and search ads for years. They’ve proposed ending revenue sharing agreements between companies influenced to use Google search, limit exclusive search distribution deals, require Google to share its search index and data models with competitors.

    The DOJ is also recommending ways to increase competition in search advertising and increase transparency in ad auctions through its service.

    What does this mean for search and SEO?

    This change could have a variety of effects. From a consumer’s standpoint, it would give you more search options that are less Google-centric and revolving around the Google algorithm, along with others. With developments like Google’s AI features being permanent features that users cannot disable, it has turned many users sour on Google’s experience.

    For businesses looking to market themselves on the web and companies providing those services (DigitalParc), it has the chance to change the landscape of search marketing. Instead of having to worry about one major source of traffic, sites would need to be partially optimized towards each algorithm for search engines that deliver on major sources of traffic. Also, if companies currently enjoy a good standing with rankings on Google and search results, this could be altered by a drop-off in traffic searching their key terms or a shake-up in the algorithm that tanks a website’s rankings.

    What does this mean for paid search advertising?

    There could be a number of side effects for the paid search sector. If the market were to be fractured, it would require advertisers to divide budgets between new emerging platforms and compete most where it makes sense. New strategies, technologies and potentially higher budget needs could all result from Google’s stranglehold on advertising platform being diminished.

    Cautious Approach, Fast Action

    DigitalParc has been following these developments as they have come to be, and we’re evaluating what this means for our valued clients and their marketing plans. While the changes can be a daunting sight, our team is committed to taking the challenge of a new search landscape and establish our clients’ websites for the future of search. The future of SEO and paid ads will certainly involve more diversification of platform as Google will likely face similar actions in the future, even if the most current suit doesn’t radically change things for businesses and marketers alike.

    When more of these recommendations and guidelines become actions, DigitalParc will move fast to ensure our clients’ websites are ahead of the curve to adapt, securing additional rankings and continuing success through search advertising.

    As this is certainly not the end of the matter for Google’s ongoing monopolistic approach, we will be following up with updates in the weeks, months and years ahead to share our expertise on the direction of search and digital marketing.

  • Google’s August 2024 Core Algorithm Update | The Followup

    Google’s August 2024 Core Algorithm Update | The Followup

    Google embarked on it’s second core algorithm update of 2024 in mid-August, which took roughly a month to roll out, finishing in mid-September 2024. Now that we’ve seen the effects of what it changed about the world of search and SEO, we can lay out the details of those effects and what they will mean for websites in the long-term. What made this core update unique and very different from traditional core updates is that it was more of a hybrid between a traditional core update and one of Google’s ‘Helpful Content’ updates that began popping up in recent years.

    Here are some highlights from what the Google August 2024 Core Update aimed to improve upon from previous iterations:

    • Build on feedback from the reality of the much maligned September 2023 helpful content update that had a negative impact on many smaller sites across the web.
    • Improve the algorithm’s ability to read content that is made for humans and helpful to finding/learning about products, services and information.
    • Promote the algorithm to be more proactive and nimble in understanding improvements made to sites to make their content truly more helpful, when transitioning old or unhelpful content to be optimized for humans.

    Google was diligent in its review of feedback from the past two major updates within the last 12 months. Both updates were not met with rejoicing from publishers and websites looking to crawl up the rankings, as they did not favor smaller, local sites across the web as much as they intended. Now, with this latest update, Google continues to get better at understanding helpful, human-forward content and promoting smaller websites that do a good job of keeping their sites optimized to gain views and conversions.

    Sites that previously manipulated search tactics to drive traffic with unhelpful and junk content will begin to feel Google squeezing them out in favor of properly optimized websites.

    Thankfully for DigitalParc’s clients, we do not engage in unhelpful content, even before Google began deliberately updating the algorithm to discourage bad content. In the past month, we have seen a majority of SEO clients not only retain rankings but also see new improvements across the board in new keywords, keyword improvement and more organic presence collectively.

    Though this is good news now, there may be another core algorithm update in the works. Even though the last one worked largely as intended, there’s no telling what effect it could have on individual sites once it happens. Regular SEO maintenance can help sites capitalize on good gains and negate negative impacts quicker than no action.

    Interested in getting your site ahead of the competition? Contact DigitalParc today to get starterd.

  • Digital Marketing + SEO Trends For 2024

    Digital Marketing + SEO Trends For 2024

    As 2024 is underway, DigitalParc has been hard at work formulating new plans and strategies for all of our clients’ success into the new year. Analyzing Google trends, site design standards and more is always the matter of focus around the turn of the new year. Being on the cutting edge of these developments ensures we serve our clients and maintain their competitive edge on their industries.

    What are some of the top Digital Marketing trends to look out for in 2024 and beyond? Read more below to see what your business needs to be focusing on to stay atop the rankings and generate more leads this year.

    Helpful Content Revolution

    For the past few years, Google has been pushing updates to its search ranking algorithm to be better at recognizing content that is actually helpful for users, rather than filler content that historically was good for SEO but not great for real people to find what they need. This old practice is sometimes referred to as keyword stuffing which worked back when Google’s algorithm was much simpler. Now, the game has gotten tougher to rank with those simpler practices. Google’s algorithm has really grown up before our eyes and frankly become more human-like. It has become very good at identifying content on websites that will be helpful to real users looking for goods, services or information on the web.

    For hard-working and dedicated business owners, this is a good thing. As this emphasis on helpful content continues, businesses that are legitimately good at what they do will be rewarded — as long as they can properly showcase what they do. That’s where a digital marketing firm like DigitalParc comes in to manage your presence online, both on-site and off-site, helping you get more leads to do what you do best: serve your clients.

    Helpful content at its most fundamental level refers to the idea of providing the most clear and concise description of what your business does for its clients. The basics of:

    • What you do.
    • Where you conduct business.
    • What sets you apart from competitors.
    • What tips and insights you can offer that will help users decide to do business with you or learn more about the industry.

    Frequent Site Updates

    It doesn’t matter what size your business is, where you’re located or what industry you are in, updating your site frequently is a must. This isn’t a completely new development in SEO, but the emphasis has never been greater with the amount of competition plus the more deliberate nature of Google indexing crawls being less frequent.

    With Google reducing the frequency of crawls to index pages on websites, frequent site updates can help give additional signals to Google that your site is one worthy of being indexed. With robust content that is up-to-date, Google’s view of your website as a current and authoritative voice in your niche will be beneficial for organic rankings leading to new business.

     

    Local Rankings Have Never Been More Important

    Depending on the scope of your business, local rankings will have a different weight to them. If your business specializes in selling goods or services within a defined local area, local pack rankings are something you absolutely need to focus on in 2024, if you aren’t already. Google reviews have a significant impact on giving the map-style results at the top of SERPs (search engine result pages). Given the value Google puts on these rankings vaulting ahead of organic rankings, it’s imperative for businesses to find a place in these results.

    The statistics don’t lie, either, as 44% of local searchers clicked the local pack results, compared to 29% of the organic results and 19% for paid ads. Sites listed in the top-3 local pack results receive 126% more traffic than businesses in the organic results below.

    If your business provides local goods or services, it’s imperative to start driving Google reviews, presenting an updated Google Business Profile listing and showing up on the map.

    Site Update Designs

    As 2024 rolls around, that means there’s more hackers and bad actors across the world cracking their knuckles and rolling up their sleeves to wreak havoc on good websites to promote their own, shadier sites and businesses. We’ve noted an uptick in spam and hacking attempts, which often prey on vulnerable website plugins and outdated site infrastructure.

    A fresh website build can help mitigate these problems drastically. With a new website, not only do you get the support of updated and secure infrastructure, but you get an updated design and the latest user experience (UX). Both Google and real people take site design very seriously. If load times are slow for a website, which older ones nearly always have problems with, Google cannot properly crawl a site, or will devalue it in rankings for being a waste of time for users. Twofold, if a user gets to a site that is slow, hard to navigate and looks untrustworthy for being outdated, it can push someone to look elsewhere for the goods or services your business provides.

    Conclusion

    Another new year with new expectations and new trends for the world of digital marketing. This may seem like a lot to focus on, but it’s important that your digital marketing be taken seriously. The digital marketplace is more crowded than ever, with businesses vying for supremacy in all industries and realizing that there are plenty of opportunities to gain new customers thanks to organic searches, paid ads and more. Make sure your business can not only keep up in 2024, but have your best year yet by getting ahead of the trends.

    DigitalParc can help you get ahead of the curve, as we do for our numerous clients who have trusted us with their digital marketing efforts for the past 15 years. Reach out to us today to see how we can take your business to the next level and drive more leads.

  • October Google Core Algorithm Update + September Helpful Content

    October Google Core Algorithm Update + September Helpful Content

    Some parts of the year, Google stays relatively quiet. The usual, daily changes to the search algorithm come and go with little fanfare and subtle changes over time. For SEOs and their strategy for clients, that is a good thing, meaning the process can be monitored and implemented steadily.

    October has certainly not been one of those quiet times. After a surprisingly significant Helpful Content update released in late September and finishing with more impact than industry expectations in early October, Google announced a Core Algorithm Update in early October set to roll out over a period of a few weeks, which has proved volatile only a few days into the rollout. This is mainly unusual because of the timing and the observed scope of the helpful content update that came just prior to the broader update.

    What Happened?

    Helpful Content updates exist to continually improve the search result experience through re-evaluating websites to ensure they properly present information, services and products to searchers in a straightforward way. These usually involve some small updates to the ranking system to influence various ranking factors and help sites that are set up well for added user-friendliness of search engine crawling bots being smarter than ever.

    Broad Core Algorithm updates exist to not just re-evaluate the marketplace, but ensure that best practice for search results are being followed. Rather than just focusing on user-friendliness of content, Broad Core updates often reflect a more holistic review of websites and presenting them to searchers. Overall function, usability, content navigation and more factors are strongly considered and evaluated in these algorithm updates.

    What To Do If Impacted

    If your site was impacted by the Helpful Content update, it’s important to ensure your site is actually built with people in mind. Your goal is to get people interested in your business and eventually convert with an appointment, purchase, or lead. Having a site that is ‘over-optimized’ for the sole purpose of crawling bots is the opposite of the right plan. Your site needs to simplify content, increase the visibility of your core content and streamline navigation to a human level.

    As for the Broad Core Algorithm update, we will not know the true scope of the impact for many businesses for weeks. The worse part about this is that even sites set up to thrive in the continually hybrid environment of appeasing bots while remaining user friendly can see traffic and ranking downturns. That’s exactly why a digital marketing firm like DigitalParc is nimble and ready to move quickly for our clients entrusting us with their organic rankings and website lead generation. As we begin to notice changes, we can quickly pivot and research why the site could have been impacted and take action.

    Strong SEO Strategy From Day 1

    DigitalParc doesn’t engage in so-called “black-hat” SEO strategy or methods that go against best-practices. We are always understanding the latest guidance Google has to offer and adding that context to each SEO campaign we engage in. Largely, when these core updates come around, our clients notice little sudden change, with a few exceptions in isolated cases. Most often, the sudden changes are balanced out in the subsequent weeks and months after an update completes. Detailed, ongoing management of these campaigns to follow up-to-date best practices in the SEO industry is important.

    By setting your website up for success with robust SEO strategy now, you reduce the chance of being negatively shaken by a core algorithm update or helpful content update, or worse — both events in a span of three weeks.

    If your website is looking to keep up and eventually dominate your competition, reach out to DigitalParc for not only SEO needs, but our full-service suite or digital marketing expertise.

  • August 2023 Google Algorithm Broad Core Update: What To Know

    August 2023 Google Algorithm Broad Core Update: What To Know

    Google is making changes again, and it’s time to announce another significant “Broad Core” update.

    As you may know, Google makes subtle updates to its search algorithm multiple times per day every single day of the year, but from time to time it releases much more impactful and significant broad core updates. On August 22, Google released such an update, the second broad core update of 2023.

    Early Fast Facts:

    While SEO professionals are still learning about the update and what it has in store for websites a few days into its rollout, here’s what we know now:

    • It began on August 22, 2023.
    • It will take roughly two weeks to roll out completely.
    • It is affecting all types of content on the web.
    • It is intended to reward well-designed and properly optimized websites with valuable content.

    While this update doesn’t come with a specific focus for improving the search experience, it will have the ability to create volatility — both positive and negative — surrounding website keyword rankings. Since this larger update is intended to fundamentally improve the entire Google Search experience, there will likely be fluctuations in each website’s search performance. To be clear, pages that experience prolonged drops in ranking are NOT being penalized, rather sites that weren’t taken fully into account since the last broad core update are now being recognized. In short, if your pages lose ranking, it may not be because anything is wrong, but more a reshuffling of helpful content across the web.

    How DigitalParc Can Help

    DigitalParc has experienced every Broad Core update Google has thrown our clients way since 2010 and taken each website we work with to heart to improve dropped rankings, stabilize volatile ones and maintain great rankings. As this core update begins to make an impact for every website regardless of industry across the web, our team is continually learning more and evaluating ways to pivot for sites that were negatively affected.

    Your company needs digital marketing partners that are on top of the ever-changing landscape of the internet. Driving new traffic, new leads and eventually new customers is our top focus, to bring real results to your business. Contact DigitalParc to get an SEO evaluation and help your business stay well positioned through the next Google Algorithm Updates.

  • Tips To Remain Effective With Email Marketing

    Tips To Remain Effective With Email Marketing

    While it may seem like a simple task on the surface, creating, planning and  executing  an effective email marketing campaign that will drive quality leads to your business takes a lot of diligence to do right. If email campaigns aren’t conducted correctly, they can often lead to existing and potential customers losing trust in your business or even result in flags for violations of spam laws. Whether it is as serious as breaking CAN-SPAM Act laws, pushing content that is irrelevant to the user or even not asking permission to send the emails, it’s important to be aware of the risks before you begin to make a campaign that is beneficial to your business.

    Here are some tips to get email marketing done right so you can attract new leads and gain opportunities for your business to grow.

    Use A Platform

    “I can gather a basic list of emails and send bulk emails with blind copy fields to do this on my own, right?” WRONG. Not only would that be extremely time consuming for anyone tasked with it, but your business also wouldn’t be getting to track and see the results of truly how effective a properly run email marketing campaign can be. Email Marketing Systems like MailChimp or ConstantContact are integral to the success you want to see.

    Not only do these platforms provide a user-friendly way to create a vibrant and enticing message, they allow you to store various recipient lists, track campaign data and performance metrics and arguably most importantly — screens for compliance.

    CAN-SPAM Compliance

    The CAN-SPAM Act is the standard in the United States for federal email compliance laws that fight unwanted spam. When it comes to analysis of email lists and recipients, the Act fights messages that are unprompted solicitations, and these services can help understand if your email list is legitimate or likely to return high bounce rates. Promo emails are required to have the following to remain compliant with the anti-spam laws:

    • Clear “From” and “To” Lines
    • Clear, Accurate Subject Line
    • Physical Business Address
    • Easy to find “Unsubscribe” option
    • Ensure recipients have “opted-in” to receive your promotional email

    Create Engaging, Enticing Emails

    This is the most basic key to marketing via email efficiently. Be creative, engaging and make sure your business’s offering is well represented and something that your recipients would enjoy seeing and clicking on to go further. Think of custom branding on your templates, videos, high-quality images etc. When it comes to content, easily digestible content with other methods of conveying your message are paramount.

    Work With A Digital Marketing Agency

    Adding this task with all of this attention to detail and creative demand could be impossible for your business to add to a team member that already has their plate full. That’s where DigitalParc comes in. As a premier Digital Marketing agency, we work with successful email marketing campaigns every day. We handle all of the work mentioned above to tailor your campaign to fit the right audience. We even work with companies that assist in new audience creation and current audience curation.

    If a new email marketing campaign is what your business needs, contact the email marketing experts at DigitalParc today.

  • How To Get Your Business To Rank In Google’s Local 3-Pack

    How To Get Your Business To Rank In Google’s Local 3-Pack

    Google’s Local 3-Pack continues to increase in importance as the months and years go by. When the company made a significant shift in the way it displays local results in the map by shrinking its scope and altering guidelines on keyword-rich business names, rankings had been in flux and it continued to highlight the extreme importance the Local 3-Pack has for businesses in their SEO strategy.

    In 2022, Google’s Local 3-Pack has never been more prominent due to an increased focus on a user’s proximity and location to businesses in its recent search algorithm updates. On the vast majority of searches, the Local Pack appears above any organic search rankings. In addition, the Local 3-Pack accounts for 45% of the clicks on a given Search Engine Result Page (SERP). Paid ads make up 19% of the clicks and standard organic rankings make up another 29% of the clicks.

    Why do users have such a high trust and affinity for those businesses and websites that show up in the Local 3-Pack to click on them so frequently? For one, local results mean a lot to consumers today. Proximity to where users are located has led to the local pack becoming more important than ever.

    Not only is location and proximity highlighted in the Local Pack, but other integral information like services offered, hours and other detailed data that users love to see.

    So, how does your business show up in Google’s Local 3-Pack? The only answer is local SEO with a Google Business Profile.

    Google Business Profile

    Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is a listing on Google that your business can sign up for. DigitalParc’s expert SEO team has tremendous experience in working with your team to get the right information to register and verify this listing on behalf of your business.

    These Google Business Profile listings need various pieces of information about your business to make this listing viable such as an address customers can visit and a phone number associated with the business, but the more accurate and detailed the listing is, the better it is for potential users to contact you and become a potential customer.

    Things that are very valuable to these listings are:

    • Your Industry
    • Services Offered
    • Service Area
    • Hours
    • Special Holiday Hours
    • Website Link
    • Store/Office Accessibility
    • Photos
    • Posts
    • Products Offered

    It’s important to know your business can also receive calls and messages directly to your Google Business Profile. DigitalParc’s SEO plans include monitoring of these listings to ensure your business is connecting with prospective and existing customers.

    Maybe the most important part beyond being located near users who search for services your business offers are reviews. Cultivating reviews to your Google Business Profile is necessary and can help Google better understand and trust your listing to make sure it ranks highly in the Local 3-Pack.

    If your business is looking to achieve a greater digital presence in the Google Local 3-Pack, contact the expert, results driven SEO consultants at DigitalParc to help your business’s digital marketing thrive.

  • Importance of Good Backlinks & Removing Bad Ones

    Importance of Good Backlinks & Removing Bad Ones

    What is the importance of auditing backlinks to your website?

    Backlinks have always been a very important aspect for SEO (search engine optimization) of a website. These can either be present on your site, or feature your site on other domains. Both are good to have, while linking to other high-authority domains can help your search engine profile in the eyes of the search algorithms. Being links on other sites can help establish further domain authority while also generating valuable traffic from a previously untapped well of web users.

    Though this all sounds like an innocent and even encouraging sign of cooperation between companies and websites, this is still the internet and there are always actors with bad intentions ready to enact some shady tactics in their web strategy.

    It’s important to audit your backlink profile or work with an experienced SEO company that can keep tabs on your backlinks to ensure your site isn’t being negatively affected by any shady, black-hat backlink practices.

    Backlink Scans 

    Auditing or scanning through your backlink profile sounds daunting or almost impossible for a single person to do. You don’t know where sites are linking to your business, a backlink mentioning your business could be anywhere. Thankfully, various SEO tracking tools like Ahrefs, Moz and SEMRush have backlink audit tools that can scour the web to find links to your website.

    These tools even evaluate the type of backlink and takes contextual data of the anchor text, the domain authority of the linking site and more. When using these sites and tools, it ends up as a great way to keep track and file each of these backlinks. One of the most important indicators that these tools provide, though, is a toxicity score.

    Toxicity Score

    On SEMRush, for instance, the backlink audit presents each non-whitelisted backlink in order of toxicity score, which is the likelihood that the link is problematic for a variety of reasons. Those could be a low domain authority for the linking site, questionable content or other factors. Higher toxicity scores reflect worse quality websites.

    Shady SEO companies can work with businesses to drive more toxic backlinks to their competitors and drive their site authority and rankings down, thereby elevating their own business. DigitalParc and other reputable, white-hat SEO companies that follow best-practice when optimizing websites don’t engage in sabotage of competitors.

    Anything with a 60 or higher is a toxic link that should be removed immediately, potentially toxic links with scores between 40 and 59 can be reviewed, but are often backlinks that your site won’t want to have.

    Removal and Disavowal

    So, how do you get these other sites to remove your company’s website in order to keep its good standing with search engines and high domain authority?

    There are a few options, including reaching out to the owners of the infracting website to remove the link to your website. While this is a straightforward solution, it rarely works, as often toxic websites don’t have the hierarchy of ownership to respond, or are even controlled by bots aimed at farming links.

    The simplest and most effective solution is link disavowal and removal. This can be a difficult process for those not in tune with every integrated product helping their SEO, but DigitalParc’s SEO strategists routinely go through this process with our clients. The process begins with moving the toxic links to a disavow list. Then, you will need to import any existing disavowed link list from Google Search Console to your SEO tracking tool. Then, take the compiled list of new and old disavowed links and upload again to Google’s Disavow Tool.

    That will signal to Google that your website disputes the presence of a link to your site on the provided domains. Essentially, you’re telling Google that you don’t approve of your website being linked on a particular domain, so it won’t factor that domain in evaluating SERP (search engine results page) rankings or domain authority scores.

    Conclusion

    Backlinks are a complicated mess when there are various bad actors at play. Monitoring these regularly can become a chore and a headache when there are disavowals in the picture. DigitalParc works with backlinks every day and ensures our clients aren’t dropping in ranking or domain authority due to toxic backlinks. Contact our SEO team today to get started with your backlink audit and get on a path to a healthy website with more traffic.

  • PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Trends To Use Heading In To 2023

    PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Trends To Use Heading In To 2023

    If your business is focusing on using pay-per-click ads to supplement your incoming leads and new customers, you certainly understand what a competitive space the digital marketplace is today. With a crowded organic space, paid ads can be just the ticket to help elevate your company higher on the search engine results pages (SERPs) to attract new business.

    Google’s search engine has major algorithm updates and changes all the time, with five or six core updates each year and more minor ones every day. But what about the trends within pay-per-click ads? What methods will work well for the upcoming year to help maximize your ad spend dollars and result in more efficient leads and loyal customers? Read below for some trends you can employ in your PPC campaigns for cost-effective, productive ads.

    Smart Bidding

    Smart bidding has become incredibly efficient in recent years. If your paid ads campaign isn’t employing a strategy that involves smart bidding, it could be falling behind your competitors.

    Bidding strategies have evolved past just maximizing clicks to generate leads. As Google’s AI has evolved, it is much better at predicting user behavior from search history of users and those who have already interacted with your business and those in similar industries. Smart bidding strategies such as Maximizing Conversions with Target CPAs or setting a Target ROAS (return on ad spend) can help Google best spend your budget. These are key to maximizing efficiency and reducing budget wasted on clicks that are less likely to proceed through the sales funnel into a worthwhile lead or customer for your business.

    Understanding Value Of Leads 

    The best trends sometimes can be the tried-and-true ones. That is absolutely evident in businesses understanding some of the basics of their leads and customer base. Google’s AI is continually getting better at understanding more context around searches on its platform. The Google Ads interface has also been making it easier to enter contextual data about your business so it can learn best where to serve ads.

    If your business has a major sales performance management software, there’s a chance it could be integrated with Google Ads to import anonymous data points that can help the system learn more about your core customer base, and therefore serve good ads to people that are most likely to convert.

    Additionally, take advantage of the various inputs like conversion value to give signals to Google on what type of leads are the best for your business. Assign dollar values to phone calls, form submissions or other types of conversions to show which bids and conversions to prioritize more than others. Are mobile users more valuable than those on desktop? That prioritization is customizable, too, so your business is using its ad spend more efficiently.

    Try New Ad Types

    If your business has engaged in Google Ads in recent years, you likely did most of your advertising via Expanded Text Search Ads. One of the most notable items of 2022 is that Google phased out that type of ad and stopped allowing those to run in June. This basic type of ad is best left in the past, though, as Google has developed much broader and effective ad types to choose from.

    The most common replacement for Expanded Text Ads is the Responsive Search Ad. RSAs offer more headline and description options and allow for more programmability for location and service to more keywords.

    To diversify your ad serving and capture a higher market share, consider adding different types of ads and compliment your existing targets. Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) are incredibly valuable in that they capture targeting related to your web content and searches that the account administrator may have missed. While your attempt is to be as thorough as possible, often search habits change faster than the data can tell you to manually adjust it. DSAs help make up that gap in your ad serving on the search network. Display Ads are important for serving on website ad space, videos and other articles online. This can help capture users on sites related to your business and videos about services or products you offer, different than search ads where there is some more initiative from the end-user to see the ad in the first place. Local Search Ads are relatively new to the Google Ads realm, helping serve ads specifically to local service searches that show up in maps and in Google’s new “screened” ads section for certain industries.

    In Summary

    Google’s Ads platform is evolving as fast as many other parts of the web, so it’s important to keep up on what can make a difference for your business for the better and rise above the competition. DigitalParc’s PPC experts are ready to manage your ads campaigns and help your business thrive. Our experienced pay-per-click team has more than 10 years of working with Google Ads, as well as other online ad portals, so we have the background to effectively give your ads the best shot of succeeding with users. We have also been recognized by Expertise.com among the Best Pay-Per-Click Agencies in Minneapolis in 2022.

    Contact DigitalParc today at 612-845-5590 or fill out our form for your digital advertising needs!

  • Understanding Google’s Latest Algorithm Updates

    Understanding Google’s Latest Algorithm Updates

    Google has been busy.

    As you likely already know, Google is always shifting things around internally given the company’s large scale and wide reach across the web, business and society as a whole. Recently, though, Google has been up to a lot of updates that have affected many sectors of the Google landscape across many industries. 

    Google Helpful Content Update

    The flurry of Google Algorithm Updates began in late August when it was announced Google would be overhauling how it ranks sites and webpages based on their content. Over time, as Google’s AI crawling bots have gotten smarter and better and interpreting what humans react to well, rather than a hard and fast set of factors, Google’s guidelines for content to rank well have also changed. 

    The Helpful Content Update, rolled out from August 25 to September 9, was a wholesale shift in Google’s ranking of pages with regards to their content. Now, pages that were previously solely optimized towards Google’s bots and not necessarily content that is helpful to users would be looked over in favor of sites that present well structured content that is user-friendly and relevant to the purpose of the site. While this was frowned upon in the industry before, this is a blow to sites that were “optimized” via keyword stuffing into pages and hitting word-count benchmarks without much thought to whether the content would make sense or be relevant to someone trying to get service on your website.

    Google Product Reviews Update

    While some have described this update as a core update, it isn’t that widespread. The Google Product Reviews Update for September 2022 began on September 20 and is solely targeting reviews for products purchased that get highlighted on Google search. 

    As you may know, it can be pretty easy to get fake reviews. It’s been commonplace to see nonsense or even fake reviews on Google for a long time to falsely represent a product or service. It’s important to have unique, authentic and helpful reviews for your business’s products online. This update is cracking down on those bad quality or spammy reviews to promote insightful reviews further instead. It primarily is rewarding those better quality reviews rather than those of worse quality. Therefore, products with more good quality reviews will be featured more prominently on Google for various related searches. 

    Google Core Algorithm Update

    This update was the most significant in recent memory. Google’s Core Algorithm Update began rolling out on September 12. While not much is certainly known about this update, as Google likes to remain quiet on topics like this, we know it rolled out over a period of roughly two weeks. Also, Google will announce updates it deems large enough to be noticeable to a large volume of stakeholders, i.e. businesses, users and SEOs online everywhere. 

    The effect of this update can be seen in businesses all over the web — regardless of industry — with ranking fluctuations and reshuffling taking place as Google begins to crawl and read these sites with a slightly altered perspective. These fluctuations can even hit the most optimized site, keeping SEOs (including us at DigitalParc) on their toes on how to return these sites to the rankings they had before the updates. 

    Early signs point to this core update not being as volatile as those earlier in 2022, but still extremely significant for site optimization going forward to the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023.

    Google Local Search Ranking Update… Bug?

    Early in September, Google had indicated there was a potential update into the Local Search Rankings. This turned out to be something worse than an update, but even a bug that tanked some sites’ local rankings that month. The good news is that Google began rectifying the issue to the bug near the end of September to fix the local rankings for these sites that were wrongly affected.

    The local rankings matter for many businesses, especially small ones that provide local services. What’s more, users click on results in the local rankings and local pack at a much higher rate than organic ranking positions and even advertising positions. Users click on the local pack 44% of the time, more often than the organic and paid positions. These local results are invaluable for some businesses and having Google rectify this bug is music to many sites’ ears.

    As you can see, Google is always tinkering with its algorithm, and it takes a lot to stay caught up. Contact DigitalParc today if your website is looking for a new strategic SEO direction.