Welcome to the latest instalment of our weekly DW Roundup blog, where we catch up on all of the latest and greatest news from around the tech world! It's been a busy week this week in terms of news and announcements, so let's get straight into it...

Google adds bulk review management to GMB listings 

In an attempt to help businesses save time, Google has added a new feature to Google My Business, which allows a business that has multiple listings to see their reviews on one single page. This can be seen by visiting the reviews section at https://business.google.com/reviews. The announcement given by Google is as follows; "Businesses can view reviews for multiple listings at once. With bulk reviews, you’ll be able to view, reply to, and flag reviews for multiple listings from one place.”

This is a very useful update for businesses that manage more than one location or listing. This allows you to quickly view all of the reviews under your GMB account, without the need of clicking into each individual listing to see its reviews. 

Twitter testing feature that allows users to follow topics of interest

Shortly, Twitter will allow its users to follow interests, the same way they would follow accounts. When the new feature goes live, users will be able to follow specific topics such as television shows, sports teams and celebrities, with a selection of tweets about the topic inserted alongside tweets in the timeline. 

Topics will be curated by Twitter, with tweets being identified through machine learning rather than editorial curation. For now, only sports-related interests can be followed by users. This feature represents Twitter's attempt to help users find the best content on the platform even if they don't know which accounts to follow. Users will also be able to mute topics that they do not wish to follow (perfect for avoiding spoilers for your favourite tv show). Other features that Twitter plans to incorporate include searchable DM's, the ability to re-order photos in a tweet after they've been attached and support for Apple's Live Photos.

Instagram face filters now available for everyone

The tool used by Facebook to create augmented reality effects, Spark AR, is now open for anyone who wishes to make custom face filters and other effects for Instagram Stories. The tool was previously limited to just approved creators, but the latest update allows anyone to create and upload their AR filters to Instagram. This has led to Instagram adding an Effect Gallery tab on artists' profiles, allowing them to display their creations to other users.

Google shares more details on its recent indexing issues 

Over the past few months, Google has experienced several issues with indexing. Whether it's new context not getting indexed, or old content being dropped as a result of part of the index being lost. All of this has led to Google releasing a blog post, discussing their indexing problems, how it fixed them and the lessons it has learnt.

Going forward, Google has stated three key decisions it has made for communicating about indexing issues:

1. Explore more ways to quickly share information within Search Console about widespread bugs and have that information serve as the main point of reference for webmasters to check.
2. Post more promptly to Search Console data anomalies page. 
3. Continue to tweet as quickly as possible about issues to quickly reassure webmasters Google are aware and that the issue in on their end.

To keep up with further news and updates from around the tech and digital marketing world, be sure to follow us on Twitter!

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Welcome to the second instalment of our weekly DW Roundup! For those of you that didn't see our previous Roundup, this is a weekly blog post that you can follow every Friday to find out the latest and greatest news in the digital marketing, PPC, SEO and tech worlds. So, what's been happening this week? Let's find out. 

Hotel Reservations and AR Navigation Coming to Google Maps

If you're someone who loves to travel then this announcement is sure to excite you! Google Maps is starting to roll out new features that allow you to book your flights & hotel reservations directly through the Google Maps app. Store all of your information in one,  easy-to-access platform so that you're not fiddling between apps as you check-in at the airport or head to your hotel.

The reservations tab will show you all the information about your upcoming reservations and can even be accessed while you're offline! Incredibly handy if, for example,  you want to check your hotel reservation details while you're on your flight.

As if this wasn't cool enough, Google is also bringing the beta version of their augmented reality walking navigation feature "Live View" to Android and IOS devices. If your phone supports ARCore or ARkit software then keep your eyes peeled for this! The arrows and directions are laid directly over your view of the real world, making it even easier than ever to find your way. 

Search Marketing is Becoming More 'Human'

According to PPC expert, Mark Irvine,  digital marketers should be working towards a more real-time marketing strategy. What does this mean? Irvine explained by demonstrating the effects of trending on Twitter: 

Within one hour of trending on Twitter, Google searches had doubled and after 6 hours they'd increased fivefold. Irvine makes a strong argument suggesting that users 'discover on socials and search on Google'. Based on Irvine's findings, he suggests that after years of perfecting page copy and posting perfect images across social media, perhaps a more human-to-human approach is better. This means we should be keeping up to date with social trends and customer insights more than ever!

Google Had Indexing Issues

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Google was having indexing problems that meant new content wasn't being shown in search results. This was most noticeable in news results, where no amount of refreshing was pulling recent stories through. Articles were stunted at around 3 am Thursday morning. Luckily, Google confirmed that they'd resolved this problem, so all of your new content should be indexed as normal! Hooray!

To keep up with further news and updates from around the tech and digital marketing world, be sure to follow us on Twitter and check back next week!

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In this blog, we bring to you all of the major talking points from across the world of SEO, PPC, digital marketing and tech to ensure you're kept up-to-date and not missing out on anything important! This will be the first edition of a weekly DW roundup blog, so be sure to keep an eye out each week! So, what are we waiting for? Let's get into it...

Google launches a new algorithm to better understand useful and timely information

The Vide President of Search at Google, Pandu Nayak, announced that the tech giants have released an update to how their search algorithms to keep featured snippets up-to-date with fresh and relevant information. 

This latest release aims to make sure that Google provides searchers with answers that are not just accurate but also timely. Here is what Google said in their announcement:

"As part of our ongoing efforts to make Search work better for you, a new algorithm update improves our systems’ understanding of what information remains useful over time and what becomes out-of-date more quickly. This is particularly helpful for featured snippets, a feature in Search that highlights pages that our systems determine are most likely to have the information you’re looking for. For queries where fresh information is important, our systems will try to find the most useful and up-to-date featured snippets." 

Google adds 'get a quote button' to Google business local knowledge panels 

Google has added a new call-to-action button to service-level businesses in the local knowledge panel for listings that have Google My Business messaging turned on. The reason behind this addition is clearly to make more searchers use Google's messaging feature. By making this button more noticeable, businesses are bound to get more messages via Google Messaging. Remember to get this feature, you will need to have messaging enabled. Click here for instructions.  

Apple is reportedly releasing three 5G iPhones in 2020

With more and more networks beginning to roll out 5G networks, phone manufacturers are starting to release phones that will be able to access them. One of these manufacturers is of course Apple. Many reports have previously stated that Apple is set to release a 5G-compatible phone in 2020, however, according to new reports, all three of their 2020 mobile devices are set to support the 5G network. 

Google temporarily banned from listening to voice recordings 

Regulators in Germany have ordered Google to stop listening to voice recordings from people using its Assistance software in the EU. The ban will last for three months while Germany's data watchdog conducts an investigation. 

 A small percentage of voice recordings made into Google's Assistant service are heard by human workers and third parties, with the intention of better understanding people's search queries and improving the software. Those recordings, however, have the potential to include private and sensitive information. Other tech companies such as Amazon have also come under fire for how they use their voice data.  

To keep up with further news and updates from around the tech and digital marketing world, be sure to follow us on Twitter!

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Each year, Google hosts its I/O keynote event where they share their upcoming innovative hardware and software updates with the world. This year, the keynote was held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre of Mountain View, California and yet again, Google unveiled a whole host of changes and updates across their product line and operating systems.

Introduction  

The event kicked off with speaker Sundar Pichai reiterating Google’s mission to ‘organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’ and how this translates into what Google does and what they’re trying to do. He mentions that Google has transformed from a company that helps with finances to a company that ‘helps you get things done’, and how they are achieving this new rhetoric with the help of their new products and services. Sundar moves on to say that building a more helpful Google starts with search, the core aspect of Google, and demonstrates some of the changes coming to search, starting with more detailed news and podcast results. Sundar claims that what’s most helpful and understanding in the world is ‘visual information’, which leads onto the first major highlight of the event!

Visual information – AR in search

The first innovative feature shown off was the inclusion of augmented reality right into search results. Now, you can get 3D models within search results that can be brought into the real world with the help of your device’s camera. Google’s AR and Google Lens VP Aparna Chennapragada demonstrated the new feature to watching crowd where she brought to life a human muscle, a pair of shoes and a terrifying great white shark! These 3D models aren’t just to play with however, they can be used to help with shopping (seeing how a pair of shoes look with a particular outfit), or with education (seeing how a certain muscle flexes and extends). Google has partnered up with many organisations such as NASA and New Balance to integrate these AR images into your results.

A smarter Google Lens

Google Lens is the AI assistant that works with your smartphone camera provide users with ‘visual answers to visual questions.’ Google has made improvements to the Google Lens so that it can now leverage Google’s extensive amount of data to help you choose what to eat at a restaurant for example, simply by pointing your smartphone’s camera at the menu. Here, Google Lens will display the most popular dishes, images of what they look like and customer reviews. It can even help with splitting the bill! Further demonstrations are shown in the integration of Google Lens with Translate. Here, Aparna demonstrates how Google Lens can help with translations of unfamiliar text with providing not just text translations but with audio, highlighting each word as it’s read out to give you more context on what the text means

Assistant becomes more helpful

Thanks to developments within recurrent neural networks, Google has been able to create new speech recognition and language understanding models to make Assistant perform locally on your smartphone. This has resulted in speech procession at near zero latency and transcription in real time, even completely offline. The new and improved Assistant will now understand your questions and queries and provide you with answers up to 10-times faster. Multitasking across several apps is now possible with Continued Conversation, where you can make a number of requests in a row without the need to say “Hey Google” every time. The Assistant will now use what it learns about you to better understand the context of what you say and offer more personalised suggestions as it learns your daily routine and preferences in entertainment, style and food. A new ‘Driving Mode’ will also provide hands-free assistance when you’re navigating the roads with Maps or Waze.

Duplex can now use the Internet

Google introduced Duplex to the world last year in extraordinary fashion, in which Google Assistant was able to make phone calls for you to perform services like book a table at a restaurant or a hair appointment. This year, Google announced that Duplex has learned to use the Internet! Demonstrated on stage where we see Assistant book a rental car, Duplex will filter through the booking site, entering all of your details as it navigates – there goes the ‘I am not a robot’ defence!

Auto-delete Google’s data collection

With the recent hysteria and spotlight over privacy and data, Google has made an attempt to curb the user’s worries by allowing them to micro-manage what data Google holds. Coming in the not so distant future to Location History and Web & App Activity is the new ability to select a time limit for how long you want your activity data to be saved (3-18 months) and any data older than the selected time will be automatically deleted from your account.

New low-budget Pixels

Despite the popularity of the Google Pixel range, Google realised that the pure Android smartphones ended up being priced above the affordable levels that made so many customers fall in love with the Nexus phones many years ago. As a result, Google is going back to its Nexus roots with new low budget Pixel devices. In addition to the new devices, Pixel owners will also benefit from the new features such as the anticipated AR directions in Google Maps, robocall screening and enhanced battery life.

Google Home and Nest combine

One of the final announcements of the event saw the introduction of the new Google Nest device, which sees the power of the Google Home and Nest combine. Here, your Google and Nest accounts will combine to give you greater control and security over your smart home devices. As part of this merger, the Google Home Hub has now become Google Nest Hub.

And there it is! All of the major announcements from this year’s Google I/O event! For more information and details, visit the official site dedicated to the event here - https://events.google.com/io/schedule/events/

For any business that relies heavily on web content and online activity, the importance of SEO cannot be overstated.

Poor SEO can make even the most engaging content underperform and, in some cases, seem virtually invisible to the outside world.

Think of it as painting the world’s most beautiful picture…on the underside of a chair. Regardless of how brilliant it may be, what good is it if no-one can see it?

On the other hand, top-notch SEO tactics can see your website soar, clocking up more traffic than the M25 in rush hour – so its well worth keeping abreast of the trends.

Luckily, here at Designer Websites, we have a few handy hints and tips to ensure your content doesn’t get lost in the shuffle this year, allowing your site to get the love and attention it deserves.

Google Algorithm for SEO

When it comes to SEO performance, much of your site’s success hinges on the Google algorithm – Google’s way of determining how to rank web pages. If your content plays nicely with the GA, the higher in the rankings you will be; if it doesn’t – sayonara.

To make matters even more complicated, the guys and gals at Google HQ love to keep us on our toes by throwing the odd SEO curve ball our way. In fact, for SEO strategists, it's fair to say that Google has thrown more spanners in the works than an angry mechanic on the verge of a meltdown.

Over the course of a year, it’s not unusual for G-Team to make over 500 changes to the Google algorithm, proving that their algorithm is a dancer and a damn hard one to keep up with on the digital dance floor.

Typically, 2019 is no different. That’s where we come in…

What is the Best SEO Strategy for 2019?

With so many changes to the algorithm throughout the year, creating content that abides by the wants and needs of Google can be like trying to appease a hysterically crying baby.

Does it need its content changed; does it want to be fed with more delicious keywords; or shall I just throw the laptop in the car, take it for a drive around the block and hope it goes to sleep?

Before you completely lose your mind to an SEO migraine, take a handful of these healthy hints to help you shake off the stress and stay ahead of the curve.

1. Back to basics

There are a number of tech-savvy ways you can optimise your website to perform at a high level, from adding breadcrumbs and prioritising pages in your site navigation to implementing tracking and making your site mobile friendly.

However, when it comes incorporating SEO friendly content to your site – such as blog posts, web copy and product descriptions – there are a few simple tactics that can have a profound effect on performance, without the need for an IT degree.

Before you tackle the nitty gritty, make sure the following basics have become second nature.

Keywords and phrases

Keywords and phrases are naturally the starting point for most SEO strategists. Once you’ve uncovered the best performing keywords for your subject, be sure to incorporate these organically into your copy, including your titles, headings and alt text when relevant.

Interlink with anchor texts

It’s also a good idea to interlink web pages within your site using anchor texts. Links are a crucial factor when it comes to page rankings; internal links to other pages on your site can help spread link equity and prolong site view times.

Optimising images

Compressing and optimising images within your pages can also increase your site speed. Slow loading times can have a negative effect on conversions and, by proxy, a negative effect on SEO. The quicker the site speed, the more likely you are to retain your visitor.

2. Fit for re-purpose

If your back catalogue of content runs deeper than the Coronation Street archive, you could be sitting on a goldmine of useful blogs and copy. After all, why let all that history go to waste – especially if the content is still relevant.

Recycling content can be a great way to make the most of what you already have. Updating pre-existing copy to include new keywords and updated information can instantly make it relevant again, enhancing the performance as a result.

Alternatively, you could repackage your text in the form of a video – which brings us nicely to our next top tip…

3. Video killed the SEO star

For content providers, video is the ultimate ace up the sleeve for SEO in 2019 and beyond. If you’re not already a dab hand with a digital camera or a wizard with Adobe Premiere Pro, now is the time to knuckle down and sharpen those skills.

According to veteran tech kings, Cisco, online video is set to grow exponentially in the coming years, with projections indicating that video will account for over 80% of all consumer IP traffic by 2022. In light of that info, neglecting video wouldn’t just be bringing a knife to a gunfight, it’s veritable content suicide.

Bulletproof your content by integrating video across your site, while you can also bolster existing videos by updating the titles and descriptions to ensure they remain SEO relevant. Meanwhile, optimising audio/video quality can enhance the user experience, further endearing your site to the gods of SEO.

4. SERPs up, man!

Whether you’re penning something completely new or attempting to breathe life into old content, Google itself can be a great resource for keywords and phrases.

If you’re looking to rank for a particular term, Google it and check out the search engine results page in the “People also ask” box for insight on things to include in your content.

Similarly, keep an eye on the “Searches related to…” results at the bottom of the page. Both are great ways to cherry pick a few golden terms for H1s and H2s.

Think of it as a being sat next to the smart kid during a particularly tough test; all the answers are there for the taking, it’s up to you if you take a look and use them.

5. Go evergreen with authority

According to Worldometers, well over 4 million blogs were posted via WordPress.com on the day this very blog was written. Multiply that by 365 and that’s a whole lotta content to compete with in 2019.

Needless to say, online content is quickly become an extremely crowded arena, suffering from the effects of over-saturation.

The dramatic rise in content competition has naturally hindered performance, while changes to social media have also seen sharing figures drop dramatically in recent years. However, you can avoid these pitfalls by actively taking your content in a different direction.

Evergreen content is essentially content that maintains its relevance over time, immune from becoming dated (a fact ironically stated in a blog titled “SEO Tips for 2019”). Keep your content from becoming yesterday’s news and tomorrow’s garbage by creating authoritative content that lasts.

Quality evergreen content based on research and reference has been proven to gain backlinks, building traction over time and ranking higher as result. Originality backed by linked references could well be your ticket to the big time.

So, there you have it – five simple ways to ensure your SEO content in 2019 is A-OK, not DOA.

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