Are You Ready for Google's Badge of Shame?

As we look back at the evolution of digital and journey into a new decade, one thing remains clear. Change is inevitable. Darwinian principles apply to the digital world just as much as they do to the biological world. This is evident with the imminent death of the cookie that has failed to evolve under the barrage of pressure from government regulation and manipulation by not so transparent entities.

Both organic and paid search is undergoing change too. Google’s mission is to make its search engine present users with even higher standards. This year Chrome will begin to give a “badge of shame” to websites that are of poor performance and slow load times on desktop and mobile devices. Clearly the message here is invest in your SEO or risk a slow extinction from Google’s top pages which will lead to a strangulation of web traffic due to a very public badge of shame being associated to your brand.

At JAA, my team performed an SEO audit on all of our client’s websites. This ranked them against Google’s speed metric recommendations indicating whether their website will be black marked. This has allowed us to open up conversations on how our client’s current site can be improved. As your site is the public face of your brand in the populous digital world, can you afford to be stigmatised by Google?

Paid Search has not been immune to major changes either – ranging from the re-defining of what exact match is (introducing close variants) to the eradication of average position metrics being replaced with top percentage and absolute top percentage. Such has been the evolution of digital strategy in the last decade, it is no longer possible to get away with poor PPC skills and account management. For example, it is unacceptable to have a mix of branded and generic keywords all thrown together in one campaign with several match types all lumped into one ad group. The competition in the market has increased so much that competitors will simply crush your ads and bids through their superior ad ranks via a combination of holistically improving their quality scores – thus needing even lower bids to outbid you. Utilising the latest automated technology, machine learning insights, rigorous scrutiny of creatives and relentless optimisation of what works and what doesn’t we can transform an account to become competitive. 

This all requires:

-         eyes on your account every day.

-         a passion to understand the dynamically changing market.

-         a sharp analytical mind to decipher.

-         a creative mind to write ad copy that stands out from your competitors.

-         an ability to challenge the status quo to create inventive digital strategies.

Those who want to succeed in this pivotal marketing channel in 2020 must learn to adapt and grow their skills or use agencies that do. At JAA we work and learn with the best and are entering this new decade with confidence. 

Zach Shah - Head of Search at John Ayling and Associates.

07/01/2020