Your search marketing news round-up for July 2016

As always, there have been quite a few developments in the search industry over the past few weeks, especially on the PPC side of things. Below are some of the highlights just in case you missed them.

Expanded text ads also available in Bing

Adwords users will find Bing easier to manage as paid Bing advertising becomes more comparable to Google. Bing confirmed that expanded text adverts are coming to Bing ads, now Microsoft Ads, and you will also be able to import your existing expanded text ads directly from Google AdWords. Read the full story here.

Apple takes a step closer to a paid search model in the App store

As previously mentioned in April, Apple has now revealed the launch will be later this year and has invited developers to join the beta. Read the full story here.

Google officially rolls out green ad label globally

You may have seen this more and more frequently over the past few weeks and now, based on what Google say is positive feedback, the green ad label is being rolled out fully. Read the full story here.

Google testing click to SMS ad extension

Another test from Google – this time it is trialling a new ad extension that lets customers message businesses directly via a text. This new extension gives yet another way for people to get in contact, and it will be interesting to see if Google take this a step further, by allowing businesses to remarket to these people. Read the full article here.

Google confirmed that ads are coming to the local pack

In what is an interesting development for local search, Google confirmed that ads were coming to the local 3-pack, and they’ve already started to appear. Read the full story here.

Are SEO rankings impacted by engagement rates?

There are lots of reasons why you should optimise for the user, and pay attention to page, topic and site-wide quality metrics, including engagement rates – but, does user engagement impact rankings? According to Moz, indirectly it does. For related reading, check out this post regarding dwell time – for those metric-hunters who enjoy but underuse performance-enhancing factors, it’s a must-read.

That’s all for now, folks

We’ll be back next month with, no doubt, a whole load more developments to keep you on your toes! In the meantime, if you have any questions about how any of these changes might affect you, don’t hesitate to drop us a line on 023 9283 0281.