A lot happened in the digital marketing world during the week of February 7, 2022, including a message from Google about calls to action (CTAs), a news feature from Bing, local SEO, and another speaking appearance by one of WrightIMC’s digital marketing experts …
One of our favorite people to follow in the world of digital marketing is Bill Slawski. Bill follows patents granted to the search engines and helps the community better understand their potential applications. Bill found a very interesting Google patent related to local information. While there’s no guarantee that anything found in a patent is actually in use, they do give us some excellent clues as to the thought process behind the algorithms. This patent seems to confirm some things that are considered best practices for local SEO:
- Images with logos and logo images themselves being optimized for the brand
- Location information citations on high-authority sites that are accurate and consistent
Bing announced a new program, PubHub, that allows news-oriented websites access to readers using various Microsoft products like Windows 10 or 11, Outlook, and the Bing Search App. Any website that produces high-quality, original, and newsworthy reporting can be eligible for the program, which has the potential to increase readership tremendously. The only other requirement is that the website is registered in Bing Webmaster Tools – something we recommend for all websites.
There is often confusion about how Google evaluates website quality, especially as it relates to above-the-fold content. Since at least 2012, Google’s algorithms examine websites to determine if there are too many ads or intrusive ad-like content that hides the main content of the page – something considered bad for user experience. John Mueller of Google answered a question posed to him on Reddit about calls to action (CTAs) that appear above the fold. The questioner had been told that Google frowns upon CTAs that appear high up on pages. This is certainly contrary to what Googlers have said in the past, and the experience of us at WrightIMC. CTAs are desirable, especially if they can be incorporated into the main content of a web page.
The Conversion Conference is scheduled to happen June 20-22, 2022 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. WrightIMC’s Elmer Boutin will be one of the speakers and will do a presentation entitled “Conversion Optimization From The SEO Perspective.” This is a must-attend event for anyone looking to improve conversions on their website. If you do attend, please be sure to say “hi” to Elmer.
