Pure SEO’s This Week In Search series takes a look at the top SEO and SEM news stories from the week.
This week Google unveiled the top queries of the year, added more ways for businesses to target their customers, updated its SEO Starter Guide and added a price tracker to flight and hotel search results. Bing Ads decided to allow advertisers to import call conversions.
Google’s Year in Search: Top Queries in 2017
Google has released its annual Year in Search report, which reveals the top queries from the year across 15 categories. The overall top searches worldwide in 2017 are as follows:
- Hurricane Irma
- iPhone 8
- iPhone X
- Matt Lauer
- Meghan Markle
- 13 Reasons Why
- Tom Petty
- Fidget Spinner
- Chester Bennington
- India National Cricket Team
You can view the full report here.
AdWords Advertisers Can Use Phone Numbers & Addresses for Google Customer Match
Not all businesses have a generous customer email list, so many will be excited to hear that Google has added more ways for businesses to target their known customers with AdWords campaigns. Now advertisers can upload phone numbers and mailing addresses for Customer Match re-targeting and similar audiences.
Google will attempt to match phone number and mailing address information with user-provided information in Google accounts, just like they do with email addresses. To see a visual explanation of how this process works, you can view the full report here.
Google Updates its SEO Starter Guide
After seven years, Google has updated its SEO Starter Guide to include more relevant insights on how to create search-engine friendly websites in this day and age, including ways to optimise for mobile and how to add structured data.
The new guide acknowledges the growth of digital marketing and advocates hiring SEO experts. You can read the full report on our blog.
Bing Ads Allows Advertisers to Import Call Conversions
Bing Ads is now letting advertisers import call conversion data, which can help connect phone sales back to the initial ad campaign that prompted the call. Call conversion imports are facilitated through Bing Ad’s Offline Conversion Import tool, and any call-tracking system can integrate with it.
CallTrackingMetrics is the first call-tracking system to support Bing Ads’ new call conversion. It can automatically send call conversion data to business’ Bing Ads campaigns.
Google’s Flight Search, Hotel Search & Google Trips Are Now Price Tracked
Google has added a price tracker to help travelers plan their trips, flights and hotel stays. Google Flights now has a ‘tips’ tab under the search results to show ways to save money for that particular trip, and tips may also be displayed above search results for hotel rooms when rates are higher than usual, or if the area is busier than usual. A price slider for hotel search filters is also available on both desktop and mobile.
For more information on these new features, you can view the Google Blog.