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Updates from Search on Google 2020 presentation

Hello, and thanks for listening to SEO tips today.

Today we will talk about the SEO updates unveiled in Google’s Search on 2020 presentation, which you can see on YouTube.

The first most significant one is their announcement of “Passages ranking,” which (for SEOs that have been paying attention to mobile indexing) is what Cindy Krum’s labeled“Fraggles” that she has been talking about for the past couple of years.

Here’s the summary:

Google can now rank individual passages from HTML pages (BTW, they can also do this with audio, video, and .pdfs).

Google is still indexing whole HTML pages but can rank just a section.

Barry Schwartz has done an excellent review of the Passages announcement here that you might want to check out: "It is a ranking change, not an indexing change."  This will improve 7% of search queries across the board.

Spelling: 

Google has continued to improve its ability to understand misspelled words, and for a good reason: one in 10 queries every day is misspelled. Google is introducing a new spelling algorithm that uses a deep neural net. 

Subtopics:

Google has applied neural nets to understand subtopics around an interest, which helps deliver a greater diversity of content when you search for something broad.

Key moments in videos: 

Google can now understand the deep semantics of a video and automatically identify key moments. This is also an example of them surfacing a “Fraggle.”By the end of 2020, Google expects that 10% of searches will use this new technology. You can trigger these with timestamps in your YouTube descriptions. 

Data Commons now included in Google’s Knowledge Graph

Google uses natural language processing to understand your search intent and map it to the Data Commons’ information. Then Google is presenting the information/answer in a visual format in Google search. 

So that’s you’re tip for today is to study up on Cindy Krum’s Fraggles and start thinking about structuring your HTML pages strategically so that they rank for the overall topic and the subtopics included in that broad topic. 

Thanks for listening. Come back tomorrow for another SEO tip.

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

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There is no more request indexing feature in the Google Search Console.

Hello, and thanks for listening to SEO tips today.

Google has Temporarily Disabled the "Request Indexing" feature of the URL Inspection Tool.

In case you go to the Google Search Console and can't use the "request indexing" feature, it's now not there because it has been temporarily disabled. Here’s what Google has said about the feature:

 "In order to make some infrastructure changes. We expect it will return in the coming weeks."

As a side note, if you’re heavily relying on the request indexing feature from Google, perhaps there are some issues with your content or the crawl control on your site.

Here are some other ideas around how to nudge Google to index your content:

• Have a clean XML sitemap with all of your 200 status, canonical, indexable URLs in it. 
• Update your XML sitemap as you publish new content
• Have a launch plan for new content where you:
  • Share it on social media.
  • Have an embargo with the press (and lift it on launch date).
  • Have a pitch plan to drive links to the content.
  • Send a note to your email list to notify them of the new content.
  • Use a Facebook chatbot that delivers your content via RSS feed to your chatbot followers…
  • Launch a YouTube video that talks about the new content.
  • Talk about the new content on a podcast.

The ideas here to get visibility on your content are endless.

So that’s your tip for today - and FYI that the request indexing feature with Google is gone, but there are still ways you can budge Google to find and index your new content. 

Thanks for listening. Come back tomorrow for another SEO tip.

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

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Learn more about Google's mobile indexing deadline and how to find any content that might be dropped from the index in today's SEO tip.

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

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Struggling to persuade as an SEO? It might be your interpersonal communication skills. Learn more in today's SEO tip.

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode. 

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Hello, and thanks for listening to SEO tips today.

Most of this comes from a  super informative  Kalicube Tuesday interview with Tim Schmoyer from VideoCreators.com. 

Here are my crib notes:

I think the most insightful bit was when Tim answered this question:

Should you ask for subscribers? And can you get subscribers with your video strategy without directly asking for subscribers?

He started off with a quick reminder: 

YouTube looks at the following related to your video:

• What is the video watch time?
• How does this video contribute to the overall viewing session on YouTube?
• How satisfied do your users feel at the end of the view session? Youtube measures this with how likely your viewers are to come back to YouTube the next day, or with a satisfaction survey to users. 

But here’s the real eye opening nugget (at least for me):

At the end of your video, you want to make sure you don’t give the user any signal that your video is almost over as it impacts your overall watch time. You want them to keep watching your videos to extend their YouTube session time. 

So, they recommend:

• At the end of your video, use the end screens while you’re still delivering value - quickly give a 10 second pitch for the next video you want them to watch. Or a playlist. 
• And say: “I’ll see you in the next video”. Don’t say goodbye.

Tim from VideoCreators sees a normal click through rate on end screens of  .7% and he has seen (with this new approach) a CTR get as high as 42% on that end screen link.

And what if the “next” related video is not published?

Here’s his recommendation:

• Do a verbal and visual call to action, but on screen put a “coming next Thursday” note in the end screen box. 
• Then when the video is published, put it in that end screen spot on top of that box on the video.

And a note that YouTube has a “best for viewer” option on the end screen, but it's not as high as if you do a verbal pitch and pick something strategically. 

Also, you can put up someone else’s video if you don’t have a relevant video as it still increases the YouTube viewer session.  Great stuff!

So that’s your tip for the day. Make sure that you don’t say “goodbye” to your YouTube viewers and instead entice them to watch another video by saying something like “I’ll see you in the next video” and link that video in your end screen card. 

Thanks for listening. Come back tomorrow for another SEO tip.

Here are the ways you can support the SEO Tips podcast.

You can send me a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katherinewong. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our newsletter so that you don't miss a future episode.