Lab Weekly: Instagram, Adwords, HTTPs and Pigeon

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Technical SEO

 

HTTPS Report

Last month Google announced that they would give a ranking boost to sites that are using HTTPS. In order to take advantage of this small boost you need to add a 2048 bit key SSL certificate to your site. It is important to note that Google pointed out that it carries less weight than other signals such as high quality content. SearchMetrics have produced a report stating that they have found no relation between https and a rankings increase:
“In a nutshell: No relationships have been discernible to date from the data analysed by us between HTTPS and rankings nor are there any differences between HTTP and HTTPS. In my opinion therefore, Google has not yet rolled out this ranking factor – and/or this factor only affects such a small section of the index to date that it was not possible to identify it with our data.”
Interestingly enough we have worked on moving some across over the last few weeks. Overall we haven’t seen any noticeable indication that https has given any of the sites a ranking boost. Something else I think highlights the fact that there is little weight being placed on this signal is the fact that major digital marketing sites such as Search Engine Land and Moz are all still http.
 

Pigeon Update and Advice

In July Google rolled out their Pigeon Update which targeted local search results. There has been much talk and speculation around this update in the media. Miriam Ellis, the local search specialist over at Moz has spent time talking to numerous Top Local SEOs in order to find out what they think about Pigeon. One overriding factor that is important with Local SEO, especially since this update is to make sure you are listed in local directories especially any that are or have become more prevalent since this update. Miriam also ends this insightful post with a very good point that everyone trying to rank well locally should keep at the forefront of their mind:
“Become a vital local resource to your neighbours and you’ll be standing in a strong place, no matter what updates may come your way.”
 

Adwords

 
Free Call Conversion Tracking
Google will now offer advertisers the ability to use unique numbers on your website to see which campaigns are driving calls to your site. Call extensions have been around for some time but they have only been in the advert at the top of the search results. Now, there will be a tracked phone number on the site depending on the Adwords Campaign that leads to the click through. This will help you see which ads generate calls and which keyword was used before calling.

Close Variant Matching is now compulsory

The AdWords community have another new change to consider… Google announced last Thursday that as of September, you will no longer be able to disable close variant matching of all phrase and exact match keywords. According to Google, 7% of all search queries involve a misspelling. This will now give the advertiser the opportunity to take advantage of these previously missed opportunities.
 

Social Media

 

Twitter Vine

Video has always been a strong medium to work with for marketers and anyone that has been following the meteoric rise of social media platforms like Vine and Instagram Video will understand that mobile is making it stronger than ever.
Recently Vine introduced an upgrade to their already popular service that has totally changed the platform. Up until now users had to create their Vines within the app itself, but with this newest incarnation the landscape has changed as one of the big announcements was that you can now import your video from any source.
With this and many other new tools that have been brought to this popular platform we can only see Vine growing from strength to strength.

Instagram

We are advising our retail clients to get onto Instagram. It is a rapidly developing platform for these key reasons:

• It combines video and imagery but cuts out the waffling and mundane text posts that dilute some social media platforms appeal
• Teenagers particularly see it as the cool and creative alternative to what everyone else is doing
• It is designed for smartphones and has a simplicity to it
• It is not a polished platform but rather a casual, post what you see and share great moments/snaps platform – like the ideal ap to record your road trip in life

Instagram has also been a huge asset to people selling directly to their audience. Photographers in particular have had great success by posting their artwork to relevant groups using the crucial # key.
We get the impression that this is very much the beginning of something so getting on-board now will put you in good stead for when it takes off!

Twitter

In more recent news there are rumblings in the community that changes are coming to the Twitter newsfeed that will start to change how our tweets are surfaced in some instances in similar ways to Facebook. Currently your tweets have always been displayed in reverse chronological order so users see the most recent tweets first, Twitter have now muted that this ‘isn’t the most relevant experience for a user’ and that ’Putting that content in front of the person at that moment in time is a way to organise the content better’. Obviously a lot of users are not happy with the idea and took to the Twitterverse to vent their anger so it will be interesting to see how this develops.
 

Content

 
Leading on nicely from a salute to Instagram and Twitter Vine it is clear to see that content is getting creative. A key takeaway for you here is that Vine video and Instagram video responses that tap into Social TV conversation around top shows and events can add real entertainment value for viewers and fans. Linking to big moments and big events will lead people to your brand. To give you a spectacular example Evian achieved this by singing tweets in Vine video at the close of Wimbledon: https://vine.co/evianwater. But they have a huge budget I hear you protest. Yes, they do but we all have access to twitter vine and we can all tweet big sporting events and get in front of massive audiences on Twitter. Oh!
Evian have done miraculous things before with video. The most viewed video add of 2013, Evian “Baby and Me” received 67.2 Million Views.
And they did something special this year following on from that theme which shows Spiderman dancing with Spiderbaby. Oh you have got to watch this one – it’s epic:
https://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyV57QlGUGI.
This week’s content news is probably the same as it could be every week – but I tell you what, it will always be relevant.
 

BE CREATIVE!

 
That’s all from us this week…same time same place next week…see you here!

A great insight from the team at SEO Traffic Lab looking at Instagram, Adwords, Https and Pigeon #digitalmarketing #seo – Tweet this