🔍 Data resources to help you market during COVID

Jun 15, 2020

Good morning Search Marketer, a happy Monday to you.

This feels odd to write, but Google's ad policies are catching up to Facebook. The company announced it will soon no longer permit housing, employment or credit advertisers to use demographic or zip code targeting. The company will start rolling out the new policy in the U.S. and Canada by the end of the year at the latest. Facebook took the same action more than a year ago. If this change is going to affect you, expect to hear from Google about the potential impact in the coming weeks.

To help marketers better understand shifting behaviors as local economies begin to reopen, we've rounded up a number of data resources. From consumer behavior to audience insights to PPC trends, these resources can help you contextualize your performance and inform your content and messaging, campaign segmentation for targeting, as well as personalization and merchandising strategies.

Registration is open for SMX Next, our free virtual event happening on June 23 and 24. Check out the agenda here.

Got a hot tip for your fellow marketers? Do you have an insight, practice or tool tip? Advice on communication, reporting or team-building? Let's get the word out! Tag your insight w/ #SELProTip on social media, and we may feature it in the newsletter and on our channels.

Keep reading for a Pro Tip for retail brands from Duane Brown and more.

Ginny Marvin,
Editor-in-Chief

Pro Tip

Life beyond Google Shopping: Give Snap a try

"If you are not looking at opportunities beyond Google Shopping, you are leaving tons of money on the table. People spend a lot of time outside of Google, Facebook and Instagram," explains Duane Brown of Take Some Risk, Inc. "For instance, many people think of Snap (formerly Snapchat) as a chat and messaging platform for generation Z. However, it is not just a platform for those currently under 18 years old. In fact, roughly 25% of the platform's users are above 25 years of age and that is not slowing down. Snap reaches 90% of all 13-24 year-olds and 75% of all 13-34 year-olds in the US. Like Pinterest, usage is high as an average of more than 4 billion Snaps are sent each day. People are joining at a faster rate as the platform has seen an increase of 39 million users (or 20% increase) year-over-year. Video ads do really well on the platform. If your brand goes heavy on video, Snap is worth a test."

Learn more »

The Complete Guide to SEO On-Page Content Optimization

Digital marketers know that optimization is crucial in a site's ability to rank for high-value keywords, but many still fail to fully optimize their on-page content. In this guide from Linkgraph, you'll find everything you need to know about SEO on-page optimization, including keyword research, writing optimized landing page copy, and optimizing your site's HTML tags.

Get your copy »

Social Shorts

Guest blogging and one-hit wonders.

Guest blog posts. Google's John Mueller again said to make sure to nofollow links in guest blog posts, it doesn't matter if they are paid or not.

Mobile friendly vs indexing. Mobile-friendly doesn't mean that it's ready for mobile-first indexing. For example, if a page is missing a big chunk of content, it can still be mobile-friendly. I'd double-check things like content, images, videos (for both also prominence, alt-attrs), structured data, …, John Mueller of Google said.

One hit wonder. There is really no such thing as a one hit wonder for Google search rankings. John Mueller of Google said on Twitter "finding good topics to cover, and growing your site & its reputation, takes time, patience, and a lot of work. It doesn't come from one good blog post – keep working at it, keep improving what you do."

Free search marketing training next week!

Join 8,000+ fellow search marketers next Tuesday and Wednesday, June 23 – 24, for SMX Next… a free virtual event that will equip you with actionable SEO and SEM tactics that can help drive more traffic, leads, and sales.

Register for free »