Google announced last month that they are launching a new Google My Business App that provides a host of features that can help small business owners to easily manage their online presence and respond to customers.
Following are the biggest features and highlights:
Profile Tab
Google has made it extremely easy to upload photos, create offers and add events by providing a post button. You can also update information of your business from the profile tab and it will instantly appear on the search as well as Map.
Customer Tab
People can connect with you in many ways. They can message you, follow you, book a service or leave a review. From now on, you can see all of these customers in one place – The new customer tab. You can not only see but also respond to the reviews & post offers. Not to mention that you will get a notification when you get a new customer connection. Also, you will soon be able to respond to messages directly from the app.
See your Progress in Real Time
The data that matters to you the most is now on the home screen itself. So you can now check how many new people interacted with your business, new connections & more in one place.
Takeaway
Google My Business App is a very powerful tool that every business owner and SEO professionals must have. It’s easy to use and offers a lot of tools that make tracking, analyzing and making changes easy.
The other big news is that Google is about to launch a chat feature for Maps. So users can directly chat with business owners directly after searching for their business. Having a GMB app will help you with this feature as well.
80% of All the WordPress Websites will be Vulnerable to Hacking at the End of this Month
If you have a WordPress site or manage one for others, then you need to stop everything & check the PHP version of the site. The PHP version 5.6 & 7.0 will no longer receive security patch from 31st December & 3rd December respectively, which makes them very prone to hacking.
WordPress has released data which shows that most of the sites are built on these two or even older version of the PHP. Only a limited few sites are using 7.1 or higher version of the PHP.
If you are not sure how to check the version of the PHP your site is built on, you can simply contact your hosting company. Alternatively, you can also install this PHP plugin to see.
Be informed that updating PHP is not that complicated. However, the outdated plug-ins & themes can make it a bit daunting. So we advise you to back up all your website before making any changes.
Not all the Plug-ins that you are currently using would be compatible with the latest version of the PHP that is 7.1 & higher. So before you even start to upgrade, make sure you identify all the plug-ins and themes that can be updated and, remove those that are not compatible with the latest version of the PHP. And The PHP compatibility checker will help with just that.
It’s vital that you remove any plug-ins that are not compatible with the latest version of PHP because they pose a security threat. So upgrading your site’s PHP version will go like this:
- Create a full backup of your WordPress site.
- Check the PHP version.
- Plugin Compatibility With New PHP Versions
- Find an alternative to those plug-ins that can’t be updated.
- Go to your web hosting control panel & click on the PHP section.
- Update the PHP version.
In case you are stuck anywhere between the whole process, make sure to reach out to your hosting provider and ask them your specific question. Alternatively, you can also reach out to us. Our expert team we will be more than happy to assist you.
Google has Released its Own SEO Tool: Web.Dev
Yes, you read that right. Google has indeed released a new SEO & site metrics tool that helps site owners to get an overall picture of their SEO efforts & overall site performance. However, it’s in beta mode and as a result is kind of buggy, but overall, it’s a useful tool.
Since Google already has all the data in the world, it was not a surprising move that they launched this tool. However, some SEO “experts” are arguing that whether Google should be deciding the definition of SEO or not. Smh.
We would say that it is a very useful tool that is developed by “GOOGLE” itself. So it’s a no-brainer that you should try your hands on it. Here’s how it works.
Once you enter the URL of your page, it will rate the website for the following metrics.
- Performance
- Progressive Web App
- Accessibility
- Best Practices
- SEO
The new SEO score gives you information about the page crawlability, but the overall SEO score is based on just 10 VERY BASIC On-Page elements, which makes it easy to score 100%. But, in reality, SEO is much more complicated than that.
Many would argue that when GOOGLE itself says that my site is doing good on the SEO part, why would I need your expertise? The simple difference is the level of detail that an agency works on. Google is just telling you about basic things and not about the competitive stuff, where the real game begins.
So any site can score 100% on SEO web.dev and still rank on the 10th page of the Google. Because ranking for specific keywords and “money” phrases is the main purpose of SEO.
PPC Updates for December 2018
- Google extending call and message reporting to more places.
- Facebook has just released Facebook Attribution that tracks engagement with Facebook ads to give advertisers a clearer picture of their customer journey across multiple channels and devices.
- Now You Can Shop Instagram via Collections, Video, & Business Profiles
- Drive more holiday sales with promotions on Shopping Actions
- With the season finally turning and the holidays upon us, there is no better time to dig into Smart Shopping as a strategy and see if you can convert some of that good old-fashioned seasonal mania into revenue for your business.
- 3 Smart Ways to generate more sales with Google Ads
- Last month, Google announced a major change to its keyword match types. Here’s a good article that explains how & to which extent it impacted ad performance.
- Google releases Target Impression Share, its latest Smart Bidding strategy.
- Bing recently announced changes to the way Enhanced CPC bidding works in their interface
- You can now add a 3rd title & additional description on Bing Ads
- Google has redesigned the workflow in order to help advertisers create goal oriented campaigns in Google ads.
- You can now track your campaign goals with AI-powered Performance Targets in Bing Ads.
- Google has introduced four new search ad position metrics. Make sure to read about it as it will come handy.
- LinkedIn has introduced public Beta of Objective-Based Advertising in Campaign Manager
- Want to know more about the all new Google Shopping Promotions? Click here.
- Google Ads’ Ad preview tool gets two new features
- Google’s newest Detailed Demographics targeting option enables you to target your campaigns to different users based on their Education, Marital Status, Homeowner Status, or Parental Status. Learn more
- Google is beta testing the possibility to add up to 5 Videos to creative assets for Responsive Display Ads
- Guide to Facebook Ad Placements: Everything you need to know.
Reach out to me at Brian@CustomerFinderMarketing.com if you have questions.
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