This past month has been a busy one in the digital marketing world. Summer is in full swing and Google has been making some big changes to their suite of products and of course, their search engine.
From an AdWords rebranding to Twitter cracking down on fake accounts, read on below for the rundown of July’s digital marketing news.
It’s Official: Speed Matters
Source: Webmaster Central Blog
Google has been warning us that this would come, and it’s now it official has. July 2018 marks the month when Google will be ranking websites according to their speed. Does this mean if your site doesn’t score A’s on PageSpeed and YSlow on GTMetrix, it won’t ever rank well? No.
According to Google, “The Speed Update,” as we’re calling it, will only affect pages that deliver the slowest experience to users and will only affect a small percentage of queries. It applies the same standard to all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.”
It’s all about user experience. As long as your website loads at a decent speed and you provide information your target audience wants, your site will be okay through this newest update. Just do your best to speed it up as much as possible, and keep adding content your users will love.
Google AdWords Gets a Makeover
Source: Google AdWords Support
Google has announced they are re-branding their advertising platform.
With the updates, their mission is to introduce artificial intelligence into their advertisements along with many other new features. The new Google Ads, as it will now be called, seeks to “represent the full range of campaign types available today, including Search, Display and Video.” This should make creating ad campaigns easier and more profitable.
The new and improved Google Ads debuted on July 24, 2018.
Anyone who had Google AdWords campaigns before the switch will continue to see their ads running and performing for them. As the new branding rolls out completely, users can make adjustments accordingly utilizing the new features for better results.
Non-HTTPS Website Will Be Called Out
Source: Chromium Blog
Effective July 2018, Google Chrome will mark all insecure (non-HTTPS) websites as ‘not secure.’
This will likely scare any user who lands on an insecure website, which could severely cripple a website’s conversion rate.
This news was announced a few months ago, and many websites are making the switch to HTTPS. Some website owners haven’t though, so they will be scrambling when they see their site take a nosedive in rankings and conversion rates.
(If you need help updating your website to load with HTTPS, we can help as part of our SEO services. Request an SEO quote.)
Facebook Allows Cryptocurrency Marketers to Advertise
Source: Marketing Land
Facebook temporarily banned cryptocurrency ads on its social network in January. They have recently reopened the gates to cryptocurrency marketers, as long as they qualify.
According to Facebook’s product management director, Rob Leathern, “Advertisers wanting to run ads for cryptocurrency products and services must submit an application to help us assess their eligibility — including any licenses they have obtained, whether they are traded on a public stock exchange, and other relevant public background on their business.”
Facebook simply wants to ensure ads are not misleading and deceptive. They believe in the future of cryptocurrency, but they are careful not to support any of the scams that have come out of the industry.
Twitter Cleans Up Fake Accounts
Source: Washington Post
Twitter has been busy this summer cleaning up accounts on their platform. Their battle against fake accounts continues, as they work to delete millions (over 70 million so far) of accounts on the social network.
This cleanup comes after The Post reported that a micro-blogging service told Congress that Russia harnessed about 50,000 bots to affect the 2016 US presidential election. These bots highlighted social, racial and economic tensions.
It’s not only about what is being tweeted, but how it’s affecting users. Twitter wants to gain control over the abuse of its platform.
With the deletion of fake accounts, Twitter will likely see a significant decline in monthly users when reports come out on social network’s growth. While Twitter hasn’t commented on this, it is expected and will be a blow to its great history of user growth year-over-year.
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That’s it for the July 2018 Digital Marketing News round up. We’re excited to see what else this summer has in store for us. Make sure to check back in for August’s News Roundup!
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