Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®

What the Future of Google Search Means for B2B Marketers

Lane Ellis
Lane Ellis on Aug 5th, 2019
B2B Marketing, Business of SEO, Google

Low angle shot of modern glass city buildings looking up image.

The future of search at Google includes fascinating changes that will deeply affect the course of B2B marketing.

Google’s search and other services jointly hold vast influence over what people see and do online, a powerful position that isn’t likely to significantly change anytime soon.

Like ocean waves, search always changes at Google, and whether it’s through tiny incremental shifts or explosive changes of course, the future this tech giant is enthusiastically creating is one savvy B2B marketers can’t afford to ignore.

Let’s explore some of Google’s future plans and most recent search changes, while also looking at what they mean for B2B marketers.

Google Search & The Sands of Time

Blowing sand dunes image.


What the Future of Google Search Means for B2B Marketers

Google Game Changers: 5 Recent Updates and How They Affect Marketers

Anne Leuman
Anne Leuman on Jul 25th, 2018
Google, Search Marketing, SEO

2018 Google Updates & What They Mean for Marketers

Since the inception and rise of digital marketing, marketers have been keeping a watchful eye on Google — the ruler of the kingdom of search.

From research project to technology giant, over the last two decades Google has cemented itself as the dominating force in internet search. And while there are other rising contenders in the space, as of June 2018, Google owned 72.21% of all desktop searches. And the domination continues if you look at mobile, with Google owning a whopping 90.20% of searches.

Of course, Google’s market (and marketing) domination isn’t because of their speed to market in the late 90s, but rather the company’s dedication and investment in evolving the platform. And some of the latest evolutionary tweaks and new features are hitting soon — or have just recently arrived.


Google Game Changers: 5 Recent Updates and How They Affect Marketers

How to Find the Stories in Your Data for Compelling Reporting

Our hyper-connected digital world is defined by an overabundance of data. Everything’s measurable, trackable, and quantifiable. Want to know how many people died on screen in your favorite movie? Or how much ice cream the average American eats per year? The data’s at your fingertips.

The ready availability of data is great for marketers. It helps us optimize performance, personalize content, and prove our value to the business.

But data in a vacuum isn’t informative or useful. It’s not about the facts and figures themselves; it’s about how we shape that data into compelling stories.

As an Analytics Advocate at Google, Adam Singer has years of experience finding and revealing the meaningful narrative in datasets. His presentation at Content Marketing World 2017 was all about how to create clean, informative, compelling data visualizations.


How to Find the Stories in Your Data for Compelling Reporting

Why HTTPS Matters for Content Marketers: Website Security, SEO, and Customer Trust

Joshua Nite
Joshua Nite
Google, Search Engines

Full disclosure: As a content marketer, I’m still trying to round out my technological knowledge. The complex inner workings of the internet might as well be some combination of elves, gnomes, and unicorns. As long as it delivers my content (and a steady stream of memes and status updates), it doesn’t matter how the internet works, right?

But it’s time for all content marketers to get at least a little technical. There are new marching orders from our overlords at tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Apple, and they’re going to directly affect your content marketing strategy.

The issue is a web security protocol called HTTPS (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol Secure). Other terms you might encounter are SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security).  Or you may just know it as the little green padlock in the top corner of your web browser:


Why HTTPS Matters for Content Marketers: Website Security, SEO, and Customer Trust

Understanding the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on SEO

Kevin Cotch
Kevin Cotch
Google, Search Engines

artificial-intelligence-SEO

Artificial intelligence and machine learning sound like concepts from the future. In reality, it has been used by search engines for a decent amount of time now. Most people have probably heard of Google’s RankBrain by now, but if not, RankBrain is a machine learning artificial intelligence system. RankBrain came upon us quickly, and a Google representative claims that RankBrain is the third highest ranking factor it uses now.

Artificial intelligence will change, and has been, changing how search marketers should be optimizing websites. It should make us think differently on what to optimize on a website and what experience we are providing our users. In order to optimize our websites, we need to first understand how artificial intelligence is impacting SEO.


Understanding the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on SEO

TopRank Marketing’s Online Advertising Predictions for 2016

2016-Online-Advertising-Predictions

As 2015 draws to a close, it’s time to begin thinking about what is on the digital marketing horizon in the coming year. Marketers with budgets large and small are often unsure of which investments will reap the biggest benefits.

To help inform you of the options available, we’ll be publishing a series of prediction posts for different areas of digital marketing. Starting off the series is this post, stock full of paid advertising predictions for the coming year. Below you’ll find insight into some of the key topics and trends that are building steam at TopRank Marketing and will only continue to increase in 2016.

Social Advertising


TopRank Marketing’s Online Advertising Predictions for 2016

SEO Storm or Light Shower? Google’s Panda 4.0 Update

Google Panda 4.0

The thunder clap of Google’s Matt Cutts’s Twitter post could be heard across the web this week with the announcement of the search engine’s latest update, Panda 4.0.

Of course the type of Panda I’m talking about isn’t a cute bear from China. It’s the name of an algorithm used by Google to filter out low quality content from search results.

The first Panda update in Feb, 2011 was fairly aggressive, affecting about 11% of queries on Google and millions of searchers. Panda also had an impact on more than a few website owners who fell from the search results like hail from the sky.

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable reports that this most recent Panda update is expected to affect 7.5% of English search queries and with 12.5 billion searches per month on Google, that could be a pretty big storm for the SEO world.


SEO Storm or Light Shower? Google’s Panda 4.0 Update

What Google Hummingbird Really Means and What Marketers Can Do About It

Google Hummingbird

Note from Lee: You know the phrase, kill two birds with one stone? That’s what we’re doing with this post format and the topic of Hummingbird.  Our team at TopRank is known for liveblogging conferences, but this co-created blog format is something new. At the same time, we’re covering a topic (Google Hummingbird) and search + social media that I think warrants some clarity and practical advice. In this post, you’ll see insights our team members took from the SMBMSP event followed by “TopRank Tips” from Eliza and myself.

In the digital marketing world, change is inevitable. At some point in life we are all forced to adapt, change paths, learn new skills or face something we definitely weren’t expecting.


What Google Hummingbird Really Means and What Marketers Can Do About It

What You Need to Know about Enhanced Adwords Campaigns

Enhanced Adwords Campaigns Session at #SESCHIIf there’s one thing I’ve heard non-stop lately it’s that digital marketing is becoming more customized and tailored to the wants and needs of consumers. Those creepy Eye See You Mannequins, facial monitoring at gas stations, and those social ads that somehow know that I was shopping for a watch yesterday are all proof that brands are able to cater their advertisements to appeal to something we’re actually going to be motivated to buy.

This has created a unique opportunity for marketers: enhanced Google AdWords campaigns which were launched on July 22nd of this year.

In their SES Chicago session, Michael Griffin and Lisa Raehsler reviewed what those campaigns are and how to design, segment, and optimize one. Here are some of the key takeaways from their session:


What You Need to Know about Enhanced Adwords Campaigns

Google Analytics Guide: 4 Easy Tips For Getting Started With Analytics & Website Goal Setting

Evan Prokop
Evan Prokop
Google, Online Marketing

So, you’ve taken the important step of setting up a Google Analytics on your company’s website.  Implementing Google Analytics is an essential part of gaining insight for improving the customer experience, and improving profitability for your organization.  As they say, what gets measured gets managed.

However, when you log in, you are met with a sea of data covering nearly every conceivable web metric, a lot of them which you’ve never even heard of.  You may be able to find the information you want, but it most likely involves a lot more time and frustration than it needs to.


Google Analytics Guide: 4 Easy Tips For Getting Started With Analytics & Website Goal Setting

Google Bringing You Down? Tips for Avoiding Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues – #SESNY

duplicate content and syndicationUnderstanding the way that search engines like Google and Bing crawl your sites for duplicate content is not always easy to follow.  What exactly are the rules, and what are the ramifications for not following the rules?

This presentation by a group of industry experts focused on gaining an understanding of how search engines read your content, as well as what steps you can take to avoid penalization for your content.

Peter van der Graff: Redirecting Duplicate Content

We always assume that Google knows best, but is that necessarily true?  According to Peter finding a formula that works 100% of the time is no easy task.  He opened up with a great example “If you have a 301 redirect and you tell Google to go left, they’ll probably go right.”  You could end up implementing a 301 redirect and when you request the location a cached version of the site may still appear instead of the redirect you intended.


Google Bringing You Down? Tips for Avoiding Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues – #SESNY

Stuck In A Marketing Rut? 4 Signs That It’s Time To Add Engagement To Your Online Marketing Strategy

Turn engagement problems into marketing solutions.When you ask an online marketer what frustrates them the most about reaching customers and prospects online you’re likely to hear the following:

  • Finding a way to connect with their audience
  • Moving prospects through the buying cycle
  • Growing their network and lists

Marketers often talk about their prospects being overloaded with too much information which can lead to an indecisive audience, causing marketers to miss projections and sales goals.  Lets face the facts, consumers are engaging online.  Recent studies show that over 53% of active social networkers follow a brand.  If there are that many people actively interacting and engaging with brands online what changes can be made to reach and engage target audiences?

Sign #1 – The Sounds of Silence – No One is Commenting On Our Blog


Stuck In A Marketing Rut? 4 Signs That It’s Time To Add Engagement To Your Online Marketing Strategy