We are leaving the summer of 2021 behind on a high with many exciting updates from the Digital Marketing Industry. If you manage social media accounts, own an eCommerce business, or are just generally interested in the digital world, this one is for you.
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Instagram is Removing Swipe-Up Links for Stories, Replacing the Function with Link Stickers
As part of its consistent efforts to improve Stories interaction, Instagram is soon on the way to ensure external links are shared within Stories frames, with the current ‘Swipe up’ links to be replaced by its new ‘Link’ sticker option instead.
The update might be a good improvement as it will enable more prominent placement of links within your Stories frames. This will help experiment with more ways to entice click-throughs and focus more on driving CTA within your Story.
Pinterest Launches New Insights Series to Help Guide Your Pin Marketing Approach
Getting started with Pinterest? If you are looking for tips on how you can leverage ‘Pins’ to boost your overall marketing efforts, this might help you!
Pinterest has launched a new content series that aims to provide key insights from both experienced Pin creators and internal staff as to how you can use the platform to gain myriad benefits. From new content ideas to adding text overlays to your pins and using Pinterest trends, the guide offers valuable insights that’s worth a read!
Twitter Announces New Features to Help Users Celebrate the Paralympic Games
Twitter has announced a new set of features to help users engage with Paralympic Games.
Twitter is adding a new ‘hashflag’ for tweets that use the #Paralympics hashtag to increase engagement across the platform. The micro-blogging platform has also launched a series of custom emojis for specific sports, which unlock when people Tweet #Gold, #Silver or #Bronze.
In addition to this, Twitter’s also looking to help amplify the #WeThe15 campaign, which aims to highlight the 1.2 billion people globally who live with a disability.
New Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing recently released their new Webmaster Tools. The tool has many features that may be familiar for those of you using Google Search Console. The new responsive design gives users the convenience of using the tool on a range of devices more comfortably. Also included are some new features for site owners to keep on top of SEO. These include a URL Inspection Tool, Site Scan, and Robots.txt tester.
URL Inspection Tool – Provides details on the coverage of a particular URL on Bing and flags any issues along with SEO issues.
Site Scan – Provides an overall health check of your website which will benefit visibility on all search engines, not just Bing. This includes errors, warnings, and notices with advice about the issue and how to fix it.
Robots.txt tester – Allows you to text and view the robots.txt find identify errors.
Google Spam Link Update Complete
Google has now completed the Spam Link update rollout, although it has taken twice as long to do, taking 4 weeks instead of 2 weeks to complete.
The rollout, described by Google as “a new link spam-fighting change”, is an algorithm update designed to be more effective at identifying and nullifying link spam. It’s important to note that Google is nullifying or not counting spam links rather than punishing or penalising rankings.
Amazon Has Overtaken Walmart and Announced New Store Locations
New York Times has just announced that Amazon has officially overtaken the US giant Walmart in retail sales. Buyers have spent $610 billion at Amazon in the last year. Are we surprised? Nope, Amazon’s growth over the past few years has been increasing so pretty much everyone saw this coming.
And like this wasn’t enough, Amazon has announced that they will be opening up brick-and-mortar stores in a department store format, which will be slightly different from the stores they currently have. What do you think about Amazon’s future? What other announcements are we going to see from them?
Google Changes the Way it Displays Page Titles in its Results: Here’s How it Could Affect You
2021 has been full of challenges for SEO specialists due to the successive changes that Google has included in its search engine. Following this trend, and to end the month of August, the internet giant has decided to change the way it displays page titles in its results.
“Last week we introduced a new system for generating web page titles,” Google announced in its press release. Let’s take a look at how this change might affect the way search results are presented.
What Google shows in page titles: the importance of headings
“One of the main ways people determine which search results may be relevant to their query is by reviewing the titles of the web pages listed. That’s why Google search works hard to provide the best titles for documents in our results to connect searchers with the content that creators, publishers, businesses, and others have produced.
Last week, we introduced a new system for generating titles for web pages. Prior to this, titles could change depending on the query issued. In general, this will no longer be the case with our new system. This is because we believe our new system is producing titles that work better for documents in general, to describe what they are about, regardless of the particular query”.
As Google explained in a statement, page titles have always been relevant to the SEO world, but until now Google adjusted them based on the text the user used in the search. However, Google says this will change from now on.
The internet giant said it is “making use of the text that humans can find visually when they land on a web page”. This means that it now considers “the main visual title or headline displayed on a page”. This is the content that publishers typically place within <H1> tags in their text editor, among other heading and subheading tags within the post.
Recall that organic search results usually consist of three elements: the title, a short, explanatory text extract (snippet) and the URL of the result. There are many possible variations on this format, but usually what you see is something like this:
Thus, Google says that for 80% of search results, HTML title tags are still the primary form in which it produces titles, but “other text contained on the page, such as text within links, could be considered”.
In any case, Google has explained that the title tag will not always be used because it sometimes does not adequately describe a page, i.e. Google will improve the title tag when it is:
- Too long.
- “Crammed” with keywords, “because creators mistakenly think that adding a lot of words will increase the chances of a page ranking better”.
- Lack title tags altogether or contains standard repetitive language. As an example, Google refers to home pages that are simply called “Home” or sites where all pages are called “Untitled” or simply have the name of the site.
“In general, our update is designed to produce more readable and accessible page titles. In some cases we may add site names where it is deemed useful. In other cases, when we encounter an extremely long title, we might select the most relevant part rather than starting at the beginning and truncating the most useful parts,” Google said in its statement.
TikTok Moves Into eCommerce With Test of New Shopping Tab For Shopify Shops
Social commerce or eCommerce on social networks is a trend that has proven to be successful, as it provides businesses or brands with a more direct and effective way to project their product and reach new users.
For this reason, TikTok announced earlier this year a partnership with Shopify, one of the world’s most popular platforms for creating online shops, to boost the development of businesses and brands within its social network, through the optimisation of its advertising strategies. Now, the social network has announced a new step in this partnership, which will bring the social network even closer to becoming an eCommerce platform: integrating a new shopping experience with Shopify into its app.
With this new integration, the social network plans to offer a new eCommerce experience to its users, which will come in the form of a new shopping tab. This tab will be a dedicated section in the brand or business profile, where there will be a drop-down list of the products that the seller has available in their Shopify shop. From this listing, users will be able to click through and be taken directly to the website to make their purchase.
To use this new feature, merchants will need to have a profile within TikTok Business and, of course, a Shopify-developed shop of their own. Despite this limitation, as not all entrepreneurs or small businesses have both, it offers a very interesting business opportunity for those who can use it.
According to what the company confirmed in its announcement, this tool will be deployed as a pilot test in a select manner. Thus, during the following weeks, it will only be available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, unlike the first part of its alliance that had a wider launch in different European countries, such as Spain. However, these countries are expected to expand in the coming months as more feedback on the tool is received.
The first phase of Shopify’s integration with TikTok, which has been live since February, included:
- New “1-click” pixel: Shopify merchants can install or plug in their TikTok pixel, a small snippet of code that businesses can place on their website to find new customers, optimise campaigns and measure ad performance, at the click of a button, making it faster and easier to track conversions.
- One-stop shop for TikTok campaigns: marketers can create campaigns, target audiences and track performance all in one place.
- Simplified creative: Everyone has a story to tell on TikTok, a channel that allows Shopify merchants to create native, shareable ads that resonate with the community. TikTok’s creative and intuitive tools help turn merchants’ products into high-quality TikToks in minutes.
- New advanced matching feature: This new functionality allows Shopify merchants to more effectively retarget their audiences, to better match TikTok ads to website conversions and enrich audiences for retargeting.
- Free ad credit: Shopify merchants on the Trial and Basic plans will get €82 in ad credit after signing up and connecting a new TikTok For Business account to Shopify, and spending €20 within two weeks.
As Blake Chandlee, president of Global Business Solutions at TikTok, explained, “Our community has transformed shopping into an experience based on discovery, connection, and entertainment, creating unparalleled opportunities for brands to engage consumers. TikTok is uniquely positioned at the heart of content and commerce, and these new solutions make it even easier for businesses of all sizes to create engaging content that drives consumers directly to the digital point of purchase. We are thrilled to expand our partnership with Shopify and make TikTok more accessible than ever to its merchants.”
