Below is the official transcript and audio recording of The SEO Drewsletter, an Amazon Alexa Skill for the latest digital marketing trends and SEO news. To listen to The SEO Drewsletter on your Alexa device, simply enable The SEO Drewsletter, and ask Alexa: “What’s my flash briefing?”
Introduction
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of The SEO Drewsletter. I’m your host Drew Marlier (Senior SEO Specialist at L2TMedia), and this week’s SEO Drewsletter features updates to Google AdWords, new policies in Google Analytics, and—of course—highlights from Google IO 2018.
Let’s dive into the latest SEO trends and digital marketing news with this week’s SEO Drewsletter.
From Search Engine Land:
Old AdWords interface will be phased out by year-end
Out with the old and in with the new.
Google announced Monday of this week that the old AdWords interface will be no longer by the end the year. The new AdWords, called the new AdWords experience, is expected to officially take over by October of this year.
From Search Engine Land:
Google Posts now accepting videos for local businesses
Very solid update here for GMB and local businesses out there.
You can now add videos to Google Posts, which—previously—businesses have only had the ability to upload pictures. If you don’t know about Google Posts, it’s a feature that allows businesses to add content directly in SERPs in the Knowledge Graph.
If you’re an agency or a small business and haven’t heard of Google Posts, I highly, highly recommend updating them regularly with events, sales, or whatever is going on at your organization.
And now as it was you can add videos to promote your business in Google Posts.
From Google & Information from Digital Debrief:
New Data Retention Policies in Google Analytics
Did you notice the blue bar on the top of Google Analytics this month? Just in case you didn’t, Google is changing its data retention policies. Starting on May 25th, new data retention policies for Google Analytics will take effect,
What does this mean? Data retention is the term used to describe the amount of time (in months in this case) that Google Analytics will retain property data beyond standard reporting—standard reporting meaning generic term that refers to the aggregated reports available in Google Analytics.
Data retention periods in Google Analytics range from “14 months” to “do not automatically expire” and are at the control of account admins. As a business or organization, you should decide what data retention period makes sense for you and your business and make your settings selection accordingly.
From Google I/O 2018:
Highlights for SEOs and Webmasters
Not much—if any news—directly tied to search at Google I/O, but Google announced many AI developments and upgrades to Google Assistant during Google I/O.Here are some of the highlights I found most interesting:
- Google Assistant upgrades: will see a couple upgrades that were announced at Google I/O
- Google will add six new voices to the Google Assistant—one is actually John Legend, which will be available by the end of the year.
- Google will add a smart display with Google Assistant in July of this year.
- Google Duplex: Google’s new phone calling AI, which had many people amazed at Google I/O. Google previewed this capability at Google I/O, and it has a lot of people talking. Check out this video demonstration of Google Duplex.
- Google Maps upgrades:
- Google is adding a “For You” tab that follows specific neighborhoods to see new restaurants and business that are trending among other users.
- Google also added augmented reality directions.
Conclusion
That’s it for the SEO Drewsletter for the week. If you’ve enjoyed the Drewsletter or found it useful, please leave a review on The Drewsletter home page. Thanks for listening, and as always we’ll Drew it again next week!