Good morning, welcome to a new decade of search,
We hope you had a rejuvenating holiday and are excited to dive into 2020. I started in search in 2005, so is it a stretch to say I’m entering my third decade of search? Whether you’ve been in search marketing for one year, one decade, or more (Danny Sullivan published “A Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines” back in 1996!), thank you for reading and pushing us to bring you the freshest news, analysis and voices in the industry.
I heard from several paid search marketers over the holidays about the changes that have had the biggest impact on their campaigns this year. Topping the list of aggravations were close variants changes and poor Google customer support. On the plus side, smart bidding, new audiences and Bing search ads were among the shout outs.
For local marketers, there were so many changes in Google My Business to keep up with. Greg Sterling captured them along with local experts’ perspectives on what was most significant. For one, machine learning is now being used to auto-generate content such as Posts and reviews in carousels based on the query and the user’s context.
We’ve got more dives into the big PPC, SEO and voice search changes and trends here:
- SEO year in review 2019: Zero-click searches, BERT, local spam and more
- The 2019 search engine patents you need to know about
- Nine voice search stats to close out 2019
- The big comings and goings in PPC 2019 that will shape how we market in 2020
Read on for a Pro Tip on page load time and, once again, your daily dose of Search Shorts and reading suggestions.
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief
