Our latest roundup of all the Google updates you need to know about.
A New Way to Talk to Customers: Click-to-Message Ads
Google recently announced a new update coming down the pipe that will allow you to chat with customers in the most natural way today: via text message.
Google’s new click-to-message ads come with a message extension included, giving customers the opportunity to start a conversation with you when it’s the right time for them.
Here’s how it looks for users: You might have an ad for, say, a donut shop, that advertises a free one dozen batch of donuts for new customers in the month of November. At the bottom of the ad, it will give viewer an option to “Send us a text!” You can have a pre-written text message that says something like “I’d love one dozen free donuts. Please text me back with today’s flavors.”
A nifty, fast way to communicate with your prospective buyers.
The Newest Version of AdWords Editor
In early October, AdWords Editor received its latest update. Version 11.6 includes:
- Support for universal app campaigns (UAC): Find the customers that are most meaningful for you. According to Google, with UAC you can “find valuable users for your app across Google Search, Play, YouTube, and within apps and mobile websites on the Display Network. Create and edit universal app campaigns in AdWords Editor today.”
- Gmail ad templates: Hit buyers as they’re browsing their email inbox, with Gmail ads. Now you can create, manage and edit Gmail ads in bulk with AdWords Editor and Gmail ad templates.
- Expanded Text Ads and responsive ad support: Create and edit both in the new AdWords Editor.
Keyword Planner Forecasting & Trend Data
Now, you can experiment by seeing how certain keywords may impact your spend and ad budget.
Keyword Planner, in the performance forecast screen, now will show you how a change in your bid will impact the big picture. You’ll also get a snapshot of search volume trends and competitive domain data, if available.
Google to Release a Separate Mobile Search Index
In the next few months, Google plans to create an entirely separate mobile search index. This means they’re going from one master index into two—and the mobile index will lead the way.
This means the mobile index will be the first to get updates, and will serve as the primary one. It’s still a bit vague as to when this will all occur—and how it will all work, specifically. For example, will the mobile index only cater to mobile-friendly content?
However, without a doubt, Google will know be able to rank pure mobile content, versus the current system of combining mobile and everything else. Stay tuned—we’ll keep you posted as we learn more.
Goodbye, Sitelinks Demotion.
Google’s ditching the sitelinks demotion feature, entirely, from its Google Search Console feature. This feature gave webmasters the ability to tell Google not to have a specific URL to show up in the featured sitelinks section in Google search results.
So, why the drop? Google said it feels its main algorithm can handle figuring out which sitelinks are relevant.