Although he had to head offline for the holiday of Shavuot, he was able to share several tweets with images from his early testing. I’ve compiled most of those in this article so you can get an early look at the experiment that is Google SGE.
The Google welcome email
It’s Barry’s turn to try Search Labs! This is the “you’re in” email Google sent.
Getting started
Yes, we’re ready to get started experimenting with Search Labs.
But first you’ll need to agree after reading this crazy long SGE Privacy Notice:
Search [when does Shavous start?]
Google didn’t show the time, but Barry likes how you can expand the answers.
Also, look at all those snackable organic/free links you can click on.
Barry called the follow-up answers “pretty good”:
Search [where to get a haircut near me]
Onto local search. We’ve got a 5 pack:
And a 3 pack:
Search [where can I learn about SEO]
Where can you learn SEO? Well… here’s what you get from Google:
Search: [who writes at Search Engine Land?]
Some “how to” queries
How do we tie shoes or change tires, Google?
Some Your Money, Your Life queries
Some have AI-generated answers, and some do not, as Google said would be the case:
Mobile interface
Here are a couple of tweets from Barry with GIFs showing off the SGE on mobile.
Editor’s note: I will update this article later with more screenshots. Until then, you can find a lot more searches around politics, shopping, sports and more in Barry’s Twitter thread, which you can find here.
TikTok is testing an AI chatbot in select markets. Called Tako, the AI-powered tool is meant to help TikTok users with search and discovery.
Why we care. Google has acknowledged that TikTok is a threat. So we’re watching closely as TikTok makes moves to improve search on its platform, as well as testing search ads.
What it looks like. Here’s how TechCrunch described it:
“It will appear on the right-hand side of the TikTok interface, above the user’s profile and other buttons for likes, comments and bookmarks. When tapped, users can ask Tako various questions about the video using natural language queries or discover new content by asking for recommendations.”
Here’s a screenshot:
Image source: TechCrunch
What TikTok is saying. TikTok confirmed the AI chatbot is being tested with select users in the Philippines, via Twitter:
“We’re in the early stages of exploring chatbot tools with a limited test of Tako with select users in the Philippines. Tako is an AI-powered tool to help with search and discovery on TikTok. Tako is powered by a third-party chat assistant and is designed to help make it easier to discover entertaining and inspiring content on TikTok. No current plans for this beyond these early tests, but we’re excited to hear your feedback!”
Google’sTikTok threat. Google revealed a surprising stat last year: that 40% of young people go to TikTok or Instagram (not Google Maps of Search) when searching for a place to eat lunch. That was according to Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan, citing internal research of U.S. users between the ages of 18 and 24. He also noted these newer Internet users search differently.
TikTok is not a search engine like Google, which crawls the entire web. TikTok is basically an internal search engine – like YouTube, which is often called the second biggest search engine. And this new AI chatbot, if rolled out globally, could let TikTok users discover content via chat rather than typing in a search box.
Under budget constraints but also under pressure to generate growth, marketing and marketing ops leaders have been taking a close look at the ROI on martech solutions.
We want to know what conclusions you have been reaching. Have you been consolidating your existing stack? Have you been gambling on promising new tools? Are you perhaps reducing your tech holdings?
The needfor better features. The 2022 survey showed solutions being replaced in a quest for better features, in particular:
Better integrations/open API.
Improved data capabilities.
Ability to measure ROI.
Better customer experience.
Those were all higher on the list than cost. What, if anything, has changed?
We’re in a very different place than we were just a year ago. The world opened for business again. Many people returned to the workplace. It was no longer necessary to do almost everything – from shopping to hanging out with friends – digitally.
That doesn’t mean we’ve abandoned our multi-faceted digital environments. We discovered that many virtual experiences worked just fine. There was, however, something of a deceleration in digital transformation (after the insane acceleration of 2020), arguably leading to the retrenchment we saw in a number of marketing tech companies that had perhaps grown too fast.
Taking the temperature. Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, our hunch is that there’s still a thirst out there for innovation, for tech-enhanced efficiency, and for better-supported data-based decision making. After all, marketers have hardly hesitated to get their hands on generative AI.
But we need data to see whether our hunch is right. So please take about three minutes or so to complete our Replacement Survey and let us know how your martech world is evolving.
What do craft beer, food delivery and B2B buyers have in common? A call for more personalization because of younger, more digitally native buyers. These themes are explored in episode one of The MarTech Podcast: Data Makes the Difference series.
Sponsored by:
Kim Davis, editorial director at MarTech and Chris Garza, regional vice president, field and inside sales at Dun & Bradstreet, discuss how the buyer’s journey has transformed significantly in recent years, forcing marketers/sellers to reach customers in new ways.
Data will be the key to achieving success in this new reality.
Tune into the podcast and learn:
Where sales and marketing teams are finding success in this evolving landscape
The role data plays in pivoting strategies to reach prospects
Where the buyer’s journey is headed and how that will impact you
Guest
Chris Garza
Chris Garza is an experienced sales leader with over 12 years of successfully leading B2B-focused sales teams through transformation and growth. His experience leading inside, mid-market, and enterprise sales teams gives him a broad perspective of what it takes to succeed in an inside sales environment while also understanding how to build pipeline and relationships with the largest, most strategic customers. Garza has spent the last 15 years at Dun & Bradstreet, where he has held various different senior sales leadership roles. He currently leads the new business sales organization at Dun & Bradstreet, focused on selling across D&B’s Field and Inside Sales channels.
Moderator
Kim Davis
Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London but a New Yorker for over two decades, Davis started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. Prior to working in tech journalism, Davis was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication and as a music journalist.
Sponsor
Dun & Bradstreet, a leading global provider of business decisioning data and analytics, enables companies around the world to improve their business performance. Dun & Bradstreet’s Data Cloud fuels solutions and delivers insights that empower customers to accelerate revenue, lower cost, mitigate risk, and transform their businesses. Since 1841, companies of every size have relied on Dun & Bradstreet to help them manage risk and reveal opportunity. For more information on Dun & Bradstreet, please visit www.dnb.com.
Google has updated the badges some merchants display for their product listings in Google Search to say “Top Quality Store” instead of the original “Trusted Store” badge.
Google posted “We’re updating the “Trusted Store” badge, so now when you score an excellent rating on your Shopping experience scorecard, the badge will say “Top Quality Store” instead.”
No impact. Google said this is just a name and title change and this won’t have any impact on anything else. “There’s no action you need to take, and the update will not affect your performance metrics at all,” Google added.
What it looks like. Here is a screenshot showing this badge:
More history. Google had the trusted store badge for years now, and now has decided to rename it slightly. We don’t know why Google renamed it, you or I can speculate if we want. Earlier we reported about the Google Shopping experience scorecard where Google said it would reward merchants that provide an “excellent customer experience” with “a boost in rankings,” “a badge” and “other benefits that will help consumers find your business,” within the Google Shopping tab in Google Search.
The badge increases engagement. Google said the trusted store badge, “based on our early testing,” drive more clicks to the merchants listings, Google said they are “more likely to receive clicks.” Google also said the search company is “seeing stronger traffic to lesser-known merchants.”
How to earn the badge. Merchants receive a Trusted Store badge based on their performance across metrics relative to other merchants, including but not limited to shipping speeds, shipping and return costs, and return windows. We documented a lot of these metrics over here in our earlier coverage, but here is Google’s help document as well.
Rings a bell. Does this trusted store badge ring a bell to you? Well, yes, a decade or so ago, Google had a free trusted store badge for merchants as well. This was more on the search ad side of the coin, whereas this new badge is for free product listings.
Why we care. Badges can help you generate more clicks on your listings, so it is worth looking into and gaining a badge if possible. Will the slight change in the name of this badge impact click-through rates? I doubt it but you should be aware of this change.
Google Business Profile (GBP) services might have more to do with local rankings than previously thought, according to recent tests from Sterling Sky (Disclosure: I work at Sterling Sky) and Whitespark.
Specifically, adding pre-defined services in GBP seemingly impacts local search rankings.
Before this finding, you could do little with GBP to influence local search results beyond location, categories, reviews and keywords in the business name.
Now, you can add GBP services to the list of key local SEO factors to prioritize.
Since when did GBP services matter?
GBP services didn’t majorly impact local rankings back in 2019 when we conducted the initial test.
At the time, Google was slowly and silently adding pre-defined services to plenty of GBP categories. But when we retested this in 2022, the results were substantially different.
Both tests showed that adding pre-defined services to your GBP listing significantly improves local search rankings.
But excitement over this discovery is only felt within the local SEO community. Many small business owners don’t know how to add services to their listings or where to start.
That’s because Google doesn’t announce new features as much, keeping them hidden in a new and confusing search edit interface nobody likes.
From there, you’ll see a list of your categories and corresponding services under each category.
Click Add more services, and a new screen will pop up with the current services available to select under that category. Some categories have more services, while others have none.
If you have any pending service suggestions to accept or remove, you need to do that first before you can click for more services.
Do all categories have services to add?
No. Not all categories have pre-defined services you can add. However, we have noticed that Google is constantly adding new ones.
Check your GBP regularly to see whether there are any new services that are relevant to your business.
Interestingly, I have seen examples of businesses with multiple listings with different pre-defined services under their primary category.
Plumbing business – Location 1
Plumbing business – Location 2
So if you manage multi-location businesses, ensure you’re checking services for all your locations to avoid missing out on new services.
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From tons of testing, it seems that adding services in GBP helps improve both implicit and explicit keyword rankings.
This is extremely exciting, considering how hard the Vicinity update made it to rank for implicit keywords far away from your physical location.
These services also help improve rankings for niche service-based keywords.
For example, under the electrician category, Google shows two services related to “alarm installation” and “electric car charging."
If those are services you want more leads for, then checking those off will help improve your local visibility for searches.
Sourcing unique content ideas from GBP
This is also great for getting content ideas, especially if you manage multiple businesses and accounts.
These predefined services can give you unique topics and keywords for your service pages that you probably wouldn't have thought of alone.
To my understanding, Google suggests these services based on searches users have done related to the category or the industry the business is in.
In a way, Google is telling you what people are searching for. Thus, it's worth mentioning these on your website as long as you provide that service.
Track your local search results
As with everything in local search, you should take many screenshots to track results.
Take before and after screenshots of the SERP and local finder when adding new services to your GBP listings.
Grab screenshots of top and related keywords and jot down a few notes of what you see.
Then, a few days later, after you've added these services, retake the same screenshots and compare the differences.
The ranking impact seems to take 24 to 72 hours to take effect. I highly recommend tools like Mobile Moxie’s automatic SERP tracker to do this automatically, or you can do it manually using a location-changing extension like GS Location Changer. (Tip: use incognito and the tool at the same time.)
I recommend tracking local rankings using a geogrid tracking tool like Places Scout or Local Falcon.
Both tools let you see how your listing ranks across a service area using pins to show rankings at specific markers within your city.
By tracking local rankings before and after adding services to your GBP, you will likely see a nice increase in local rankings for keywords related to the services you added.
Keep your GBP strategy updated
Local SEO is constantly evolving, largely thanks to Google's many changes to GBP. Monitor your GBP listing regularly and keep up with the latest product updates.
Google will often silently release features like pre-defined services, so stay updated with your local SEO news.
The “New Business Guide to Google Reviews” by GatherUp is an essential resource for growing businesses looking to attract more customers through the power of Google search.
This comprehensive guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to claim and optimize your Google My Business profile, how to solicit and respond to customer reviews, and how to deal with Google and their overall review process.
With real-world examples and expert advice, this eGuide is a must-read for any business looking to build a better review strategy and improve their online reputation. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download your copy.
