Digital Digest: July News Roundup

In our upcoming digital marketing newsletter, we'll explore the newest trends and developments in SEO, Digital PR, Paid Media, Online Marketplaces, and E-commerce. Stay tuned for our monthly newsletter to stay informed about the latest updates in digital marketing, where we'll highlight the importance of digital marketing and its evolving trends. AYKO stands out as a premier agency specialising in E-commerce solutions on Magento and Shopify platforms, providing exceptional marketing strategies to enhance your business.

SEO

Google URL Best Practices Updated: Don't Use Fragments To Change Page Content

Google has now confirmed that this is an outdated practice

#jumptocontent is no longer recommended, even though it can be considered helpful when you’re reading a long article and just want to find the bit that’s relevant to you

Why? The way Google reads URLs means that it can result in duplicate content issues or canonicalisation and data errors in GSC and GA4

Is AI Coming For SEOs?

In short: not quite…?

AI without a doubt is a great tool to prompt ideas and get the ball rolling, however, AI will never replace SEO completely because AI will never be able to fully think and act like we can.

Machine learning or Natural Language Understanding only goes so far. A machine might be able to predict what humans might be thinking and what we want to see based on behavioural pattern recognition, but it will never truly be able to mimic our behaviour and nuances.

Need more reassurance ? AI isn’t fully developed enough to analyse keywords, SERPS and be able to prioritise and understand Technical SEO tasks… Google doesn’t understand the ‘it depends’!

5 Ways to Incorporate Google Trends into Your SEO Strategy

1. Create Timely Content:

• Focus on current trends to capture immediate interest with less competition.
• Social media algorithms reward quick responses, boosting visibility.

2. Optimise for Emerging Trends:

• Update existing content with trending keywords to maintain and improve rankings.

3. Plan for Recurring Trends:

• Use historical data to predict and prepare for trends, ensuring timely content delivery.

4. Leverage Trends in PR and Marketing:

• Combine trends with digital PR and influencer marketing to gain media attention and build authority.

5. Drive Trends:

• Identify industry interests and popular topics to create related content that aligns with your products.

OpenAI Is ‘Going To Build A Search Product’

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has expressed his ambition to transform the search landscape with a new product that integrates traditional web search with large language models (LLMs).

While the "search" capabilities of ChatGPT are still somewhat restricted for certain queries, it achieved a record-breaking traffic milestone in June, drawing in 2.9 billion visits, as reported by Similarweb. This marks a staggering 96% increase compared to the previous year.

Could OpenAI emerge as a formidable competitor to Google?

Pro Tip: How to Handle Permanently Out-of-Stock Products?

When to Use a 301 Redirect:

• Redirect to a closely related , in-stock product. Ensure the redirected product is similar and can serve as a good alternative to the original item.

When to Use a 404 or 410 Status:

• If no closely related product is available, use a 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) status to indicate that the product is permanently gone and not coming back.

Considerations:

• Redirecting to an irrelevant product can harm user experience and conversions;?
• Properly handling out-of-stock products helps maintain a healthy SEO profile and user experience.

Pro Tip: How to Handle Temporarily Out-of-Stock Products?

Enabling Backorders and Subscriptions:

• Allow customers to place orders for out-of-stock items to secure customer interest
• Offer back-in-stock notifications via email or SMS to create anticipation. This can lead to increased repeat business when the product becomes available.

Provide Alternatives:

• Suggest similar or complementary products when the desired item is out of stock.?

Optimise Product Pages:

• Ensure product pages are optimised even when items are out of stock to help maintain search rankings and traffic for when products are available again.

Structured Data:

• Update product pages with structured data to indicate out-of-stock status to help search engines understand the product’s availability and display status in search results.

Google Search Console Now Lets Advertisers Set Shipping And Return Policies

Search Console shipping and return settings take precedence over other methods, like structured data.

Google's order of precedence for shipping and return policy information (ordered by strength, with feeds being the strongest) is:

• Product-level feeds submitted in Merchant Center
• Return settings in the Content API for Shopping
• Settings in Merchant Center or Search Console
• Organisation-level markup
• Product-level merchant listing markup

Does your business need a foolproof SEO content strategy? Get in touch with our experts today!

Digital PR

PR Red Flags: ‘Guaranteed Links’

?? “We pay for links”

?? “We rely heavily on syndications”

?? “We outreach to blogs and niche news outlets that post literally anything”

?? “Our staff are under enormous pressure to perform”

It’s not about guaranteeing links , it’s about producing relevant results through relevant content that is aimed at a specific audience. It takes time to understand the true intent of a Press Release and who may be interested in it.

It is always quality over quantity -? you may get fewer links, but the links you do get are way more likely to have a genuine impact on your rankings and traffic.

Curious how our PR team can collaborate with your brand or business to secure links in national publications? Reach out to us today, and let’s explore the potential opportunities and how we can help your business reach millions of readers through targeted and impactful stories. Connect with our PR team today!

Paid Search

Google Abandons Plans To Remove Third-Party Cookies

Google indicates that it plans to keep third-party cookies up and running for those users who don’t disable them, ending a four-year effort to protect users’ privacy by phasing out the invasive tracking technology after pushback from advertisers and regulators.

However, to enhance user privacy while preserving advertising effectiveness, Google plans to roll out a new solution : a one-time prompt that enables users to set preferences that will apply across Google browsing experiences.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority said it is “considering the impact of this announcement and welcome[s] views until 12 August”.

Microsoft Advertising Introduces Performance Max Brand Lists

Following Google, Microsoft have now introduced brand lists, offering more granular control, and allowing advertisers to exclude ads from appearing alongside specific brands.

This PMax feature offers advertisers more control over the sites and searches they see their ads against. It allows advertisers to avoid association with competitors or brands that don’t align with their values.

Google Launches EC Assist Extension

Google has launched a useful Google Chrome Extension called EC Assist to help advertisers implement enhanced conversions with email, phone and address data from customers to understand if their setup is working as expected.

The tool allows users to debug setup issues and understand what can be auto-detected on the page.

‘Broad Match’ Is Now Pre-Selected When Creating New Search Campaigns

As spotted by Thomas Eccel on LinkedIn, 'Broad Match keywords' is now a pre-selected setting when creating new Search campaigns, similar to Final URL expansion and automatic asset creation.?

Advertisers need to be vigilant and make sure they agree with these settings first, as without proper controls in place these settings can lead to a lot of wasted spend.

Paid Social

Meta Ads Custom Offers To Instagram Ad CTAs

Advertisers will be able to highlight multiple competitive promotions (e.g., percentage or cash discounts) on the CTA, potentially increasing user engagement and click-through rates.

Key features:

• Dynamic sourcing of offer details from the ad’s website URL
• Predictive display of the offer most likely to convert
• Support for up to 20 offers per ad, with Meta predicting which one is most likely to convert

How it works:

1. Create an ad in Ads Manager with eligible objectives (Traffic, Engagement, Leads or Sales)
2. Select “Website” as conversion location
3. Enter the website URL to automatically add offers or manually input offer details
4. Review and confirm offers in the ad setup process

Meta Expands Overlay Ads To Instagram Reels

Meta has introduced overlay ads for Instagram Reels, creating new opportunities for advertisers to display banner ads while users enjoy their Reels. This initiative is part of Meta's broader strategy to monetise Reels across its platforms, following the earlier implementation of overlay ads on Facebook Reels.

Key Details:

- Overlay ads are now available on Instagram Reels.

- They come in two formats: single-image ads and image carousel ads.

- These ads appear as banners at the bottom of the screen during Reels playback.

Why This Matters : Instagram Reels is rapidly gaining popularity and boasts high user engagement. This update enables advertisers to effectively reach this expanding audience, while the option for single-image or carousel ads offers greater flexibility for delivering messages and showcasing products.

Meta Allows Users To Change Attribution Settings

Meta has introduced customisable attribution settings for advertiser accounts, enabling users to personalise how conversions are recorded.

Previously, attribution options were limited to selecting specific click and/or view time periods. With this update, users can now also select the 'conversion count' option, allowing them to view results based on 'All conversions' and 'First conversion.'

Want to make the most out of your Paid Social activity? Speak with our team today !

Marketplaces

Amazon Announces Record-Breaking Sales For Prime Day 2024 event

Amazon declared that Prime Day 2024 marked the company's largest Prime Day shopping event to date, achieving record sales and surpassing the number of items sold in any previous two-day Prime Day event.

• Amazon Prime Day 2024 drove record sales of $14.2 billion in the United States (up 11% YoY)
• UK ￡1.3 billion (up 13% YoY)
• 88% of Prime members in the US shopped over the event
• 49.2% of orders were through mobile devices

Amazon Launches Sponsored TV Ads In The UK

Sponsored TV is a self-service advertising platform tailored for brands of all sizes to engage and captivate audiences on the biggest screen in the home.

Leveraging billions of first-party shopping and streaming signals, these Streaming TV ads enable advertisers' brands to reach the right viewers at the optimal moment on platforms like Freevee and Twitch.

This service is available to brands regardless of whether they sell on Amazon.

Are you interested in exploring how online marketplaces can help grow your eCommerce business? Get in touch today and see what we can do for your business!

Data

Microsoft Launches Consent Mode Requirements

Microsoft announced plans to require advertisers to use a consent management platform that complies with the IAB transparency?consent framework .

As part of this advertisers using the UET tag must pass consent signals to the Microsoft Ads UET tag;

Are you ready to navigate the latest changes in digital compliance? Please Contact us today to further understand these updates as it is crucial for businesses striving to enhance user trust while optimising data collection.

About AYKO

AYKO is an Adobe Gold Partner & certified Adobe Commerce Specialist. Forged from the merger of two other Magento-certified agencies and one digital marketing agency in 2019, AYKO was formed to create one of the largest full-service digital, Magento eCommerce, and Shopify Plus agencies in the UK. Currently, with a team of 56 industry specialists, they specialise in design and development alongside performance marketing to accelerate your website and customer experiences.