Welcome to this month’s digital marketing news roundup! As ever the digital landscape continues to transform at lightning speed, so we go through the key elements you won’t want to miss from the last month. Whether you’re a fellow SEO, PPC or digital marketer, or a business owner, we’ll share the latest insights to keep you up to date!
So what made headlines in digital marketing in the last month? Read on to find out!
Google Business Profile updates – NEW ‘What’s Happening?’ Feature
Google has rolled out a new ‘What’s happening’ feature on Google Business Profile – So, what’s this? A great new feature for local businesses such as restaurants, bars and events which allows you to update your customers with information on special deals, events and promos. They’ve made this even better by linking it with your socials such as Facebook, so it’s automatically added to your profile! Learn more about improving your Google Business profile in our dedicated blog ‘Why optimise my Google Business Profile?’.
Search Ranking Volatility Spiked – May
Many of us thought (though perhaps a little optimistically) that the volatility from April was wrapped up, and the start of May showed very normal levels of volatility. May the 12th upset many of us as volatility levels reached very high levels – indicating something could be happening, such as yet another update, so watch this space!
Google Asks – Stop Using Different Urls for the Same Image
A rare insight into the Google rules, but a helpful one. If you use one image across your website, especially a larger website – you don’t need to use unique URLs for it! Once the crawlers have indexed it, they won’t need to again, thus saving you that valuable crawl budget!
Google themselves explained ‘If an image is referenced on multiple pages within a larger website, consider the site’s overall crawl budget. In particular, consistently reference the image with the same URL, so that Google can cache and reuse the image without needing to request it multiple times.’
Learn more about crawl budgets in our blog ‘How to manage crawl budget for larger websites’.
Google Rolls Out AI Overviews Into More Territories
Google has rolled out their AI overview to even more countries, now testing in Turkey, the Netherlands and Sweden before fully rolling out. As the tool expands we can expect it to appear in even more territories, leveling out the search landscape across the board. See a full list of countries now using AI overview.
AI Overview is Lowering CTR – What Can You Do?
Many businesses are seeing a lower CTR due to the growth of the AI overview appearing for a huge number of searches now – so what can you do?
It’s a tough time to be an SEO, the growth of AI means less people are actually clicking through to a website, rather they read the overview (prime top spot) and bounce straight off when they have what they want.
More and more people are starting to question the validity of the answers however, so here is where you shine!
One top tip, and an obvious one, is to make your content obviously human. Deliver experience and knowledge in your niche like no other to engage your audience and be authentic. While we still figure AI out and what it means for the search landscape, write your content for your users, not the search engines.
For more insight see this article from Search Engine Land that provides valuable tips!
PPC – Google introduces AI Max for Search campaigns
Google have recently rolled out AI Max, a comprehensive pack of search tools powered by AI and search intellect labelled as the future of automated search.
So, what does it do exactly? It is said to:
- Learn from existing keywords, creative, and URLs to identify new opportunities through Google AI.
- Have real-time creative – creating headlines and descriptions tailored to a user’s query and adapting these on the spot.
- It can match your ads to searches that are relevant that you’re not even bidding on.
- Automatically send users to your most relevant landing pages.
There have been lots of questions raised about this new suite of tools, to find out more info see this great insight from Search engine land.
Top Tools from the Team
This month, here are the tools our team have been utilising and raving about!
Semrush – We use Semrush on a regular basis and is for many in digital marketing, a hugely valuable resource. It’s recently had a bit of a facelift, which can take some time to get used to. It largely looks to have the same features, in the same place, thankfully!
Semrush Sensor – With a lot of keyword volatility in the last few months we’ve been keeping an eye on this through the semrush sensor. Here you can take a look at the volatility in your country for both desktop and mobile, and even segment it down to industry!
Key Dates for Your Marketing Diary
5th May – Early May Bank Holiday
12th May – Mental Health Awareness Week
18th May – World Baking day
19th May – Vegetarian Week
20th May – Rescue Dog Day
26th May – Spring Bank Holiday
29th May – National BBQ Week
Keep on Top of The Trends With Wildcat Digital
Digital marketing certainly keeps you on your toes! It can be hard to know which direction to take sometimes and that’s where we come in! Our roundups are to try and give you a quick overview of what’s changed in the digital marketing world, so if you want to see what else you might’ve missed, be sure to check out last month’s post! If you’re looking to chat about any of our services, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Paul Pennington
SEO Account Director
