Weekly Digital Breakdown – 1.24.20

Google Helps Businesses With Indexing

Google has made updates to their mobile-first indexing guidelines to better assist brands in improving their indexing score. Tips for  leverage crawling, structured data, visual content and overall best practices to improve success were provided. Indexing previously used the desktop version of a page’s content when being evaluated for relevance but was shifted to a mobile-first index focus in Summer. 2019.

The updated guide focuses on creating the best user experience to boost brand indexing scores. Google listed out tips for Googlebot to be able to better access and render content, emphasized the importance of desktop and mobile consistency, and ways to structure site data to improve performance. Google also suggested ways advertisers can check visual content to create a uniform experience as well as tips to troubleshoot errors that could cause a drop in rank.

Mobile-first indexing is now a default for all websites, driving the need for change for many site developers. The inability to determine which site, mobile or desktop, is crawled and index has created urgency for brands to be mobile optimized to remain competitive.

https://searchengineland.com/googles-mobile-first-indexing-guide-update-emphasizes-the-same-content-across-site-versions-328067

Streaming Is Scoring Big

The teams are picked and fans are preparing for a clash of the league’s best. But how they access the game is changing. According to our annual Super Bowl Viewership and Consumer Streaming Trends Survey, viewers continue to opt to stream the game, 24% for 2020, rising 3% over 2019 over watching on traditional television.

So what is causing the shift? Accessibility and access are the main culprits. Viewers are dividing their attention between screens with 69% of viewers planning to engage with Super Bowl content on multiple devices to interact with other fans and get game updates. Many are also more excited about the commercials than the scoreboard, making streaming a more ideal option. Of the respondents, 62% say they are enthusiastic about watching the commercials while 58% are anticipating the gridiron action.

The game is just a small view of a bigger picture. Streaming is continuing to take more of the market as consumers have more options and more control over when and where they watch programming.

https://www.adtaxi.com/blog-roll/2020/1/21/super-bowl-to-be-streamed-by-1-in-4-viewers-says-new-study

CallRail Improves Google Metrics

Call tracking capabilities are used by many marketers to get more data from incoming calls. By implementing a call tracking number, you can filter calls and track those who may have seen the click-to-call ad but called directly. 

CallRail, one of the leading call intelligence companies, has announced a partnership with Google My Business to allow brands to better track user actions and provide measurable metrics. By using a call tracking number, marketers will be able to see which keywords drove calls to properly attribute the source along with other call data. 

Previously, Google My Business (GMB), would only report clicks on click-to-call mobile devices with no additional insight. Now, marketers can better break down performance, separate paid versus organic traffic, and obtain ‘personal level data’ such as the  customer name, phone numbers, call duration, and how many times a prospect called before converting.

Brands will have additional metrics for better understanding of campaign performance and optimization opportunities. The reporting will be particularly beneficial for those who rely heavily on phone calls for business and need to better understand their customer base.

https://searchengineland.com/callrail-adds-call-analytics-integration-with-google-my-business-327889