Saturday 25 November 2023

The Process of Laptop Screen Replacement

 When it comes to laptop repairs, one of the most common issues users face is a broken laptop screen. This can be both frustrating and hinder productivity, but luckily, the process of laptop screen replacement is not as daunting as it may seem.

Understanding Laptop Screen Repair

The time it takes for a laptop screen replacement primarily depends on the intricacies of the laptop model and the proficiency of the professional handling the task. Generally, the process of laptop screen replacement takes about 2 hours. It is crucial to note that while it might seem tempting to attempt this task on your own, the complex nature of the inner workings of a laptop makes it advisable to consult with expert professionals.

Choosing the Right Service

When looking for ‘laptop repair near me’, you should ensure and validate the computer shop you choose. Check if they are government registered and have a trademark to run the laptop repair business. It is also advisable to consider how long they have been in the business, as experience often translates to expertise in handling a wide variety of issues, including laptop screen repair.

The Process of Laptop Screen Replacement

The process of laptop screen replacement involves several stages. First, the laptop has to be safely disassembled to access the screen. The broken screen is carefully detached, then the new screen is fitted and connected to the internal display cable.

Once the new screen is in place and connected, the laptop is reassembled and powered on for testing. This step is necessary to ensure that the new screen displays correctly and responds to the laptop’s graphic signals without issues.

Post-Repair Considerations

After the process of laptop screen replacement, it’s crucial to dispose of the old screen properly. A professional repair service will generally handle this, keeping the environment into consideration.

Conclusion

While a broken or malfunctioning laptop screen can be a source of stress, the right laptop repair service can easily alleviate these concerns. Remember, the key to a successful laptop screen repair is choosing a reputable, professional repair service. Their expertise and experience will ensure that your laptop screen is replaced quickly and efficiently, guaranteeing minimal downtime and maximising your laptop’s lifespan.

Please, adapt the content as needed to match your own tone and style. This piece is aimed at guiding users experiencing issues with laptop screens, steering them towards available professional repair solutions.

Wednesday 24 May 2023

Boost your visibility in search with online reviews by Digital Marketing Depot

Customer reviews

The “New Business Guide to Google Reviews” by GatherUp is an essential resource for growing businesses looking to attract more customers through the power of Google search.

This comprehensive guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to claim and optimize your Google My Business profile, how to solicit and respond to customer reviews, and how to deal with Google and their overall review process.

With real-world examples and expert advice, this eGuide is a must-read for any business looking to build a better review strategy and improve their online reputation. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download your copy.

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Google Search bug caused a drop in video traffic

Google has confirmed a bug in Google Search that resulted in a drop in traffic to video content between the dates of May 4 through May 17, 2023. This was not just a Google Search Console reporting bug, but a bug with Google Search.

What Google wrote. Google posted, “A bug caused a drop in video traffic from May 4 to May 17, and has since been resolved.”

I asked John Mueller of Google if this was just a reporting glitch, and he said no, it was beyond reporting. “It was not just reporting,” he told me on Mastodon.

Search Console reports. If you go to Google Search Console, click on the search performance report, and filter it by “video” content, you will see an annotation added to the chart on May 4:

Why we care. If you noticed a drop in traffic between May 4 through May 17 and you publish a lot of video content, it may be related to this bug.

In this case, the reporting was not the issue and the reports should be accurate. There was a bug with Google Search that resulted in less videos showing up in the search results.

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3 key trends impacting search marketing today

Marketers have relied on paid and organic search to deliver steady results time and again over the past decade. Changes occurred gradually, giving marketers ample time to adapt their strategies. 

But today, the pace of change in search marketing is accelerating, with more shifts expected in the next two years than in the past eight combined. 

Evolution in search has been a slow march toward automation and consolidation. To get ahead of the curve, we must stay current on what’s changing and learn the reason behind it.

Here’s a rundown of events that have a significant ripple effect on the search marketing industry. 

1. Privacy legislation and signal loss 

In May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enforced across Europe. GDPR gave EU citizens many rights over personal data, including access to correct, delete, and port data.

Organizations that violate the GDPR can be fined up to €20 million or 4% of their global annual turnover, whichever is greater. 

Another important date for internet privacy is September 2020, when iOS14 launched on Apple devices. The update included a new feature called App Tracking Transparency (ATT), allowing users to opt out of being tracked by apps.

This change has made it more difficult for advertisers to track users across apps and websites, reducing the effectiveness of targeted advertising. This iOS update changed the landscape of digital advertising.

Another watershed event – albeit forthcoming – is on July 1, 2023, when CPRA (California Privacy Rights Act) becomes fully enacted. CPRA applies to businesses that collect personal information about California consumers, regardless of the company’s location.

The CPRA has the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of the law, and it can impose fines of up to $7,500 per violation. CPRA has some legislative teeth with heavy penalties for non-compliance.

Google has announced that it will phase out third-party cookies in Chrome by the second half of 2024. This change will significantly impact online advertising since third-party cookies are crucial for targeting ads. They enable advertisers to target specific audiences and track online advertising performance.

Google aims to improve privacy by phasing out third-party cookies, often used for tracking and advertising. By phasing third-party cookies, Google makes it harder for websites to track users across different sites. 

The browser market share in the United States looks is as follows: 

  • Chrome: 49%
  • Safari: 35%
  • Edge: 8.5%
  • Firefox: 3.5%

By the end of 2024, third-party cookies will be effectively retired, as Chrome, Safari and Firefox represent almost 90% market share of web traffic in the United States.  

Google Privacy Sandbox is developing alternative methods to target audiences and track ad performance without third-party cookies. These initiatives from Privacy Sandbox include:

  • FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts): FLoC proposes replacing third-party cookies with a more privacy-friendly way to group users based on their interests. FLoC would allow advertisers to target ads to groups of users with similar  53gb interests without being able to track individual users across different websites.
  • Topics API: The Topics API is a proposal to allow websites to request a list of topics a user is interested in. Advertisers can use this information to show the user more relevant ads.
  • Trust Token API: The Trust Token API is a proposal to allow websites to verify the identity of users without the need for third-party cookies. Trust Tokens can be used to prevent fraud and improve the security of online transactions.

Performance measurement and audience targeting have been the cornerstone of digital marketing.

The evolution of digital privacy has forced ad-serving platforms such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and others to develop new modes of targeting and measurement.

As the ad serving platforms change, marketers must also modernize their strategies to stay competitive.


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2. Machine learning and automation 

Machine learning algorithms have advanced significantly in recent years in parallel with signal loss caused by advancing privacy legislation.

As a result of these two changes, advertising platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are overhauling their ad platforms to rely on automation and artificial intelligence. 

Google is always playing the long game. Historically, they have known that marketers needed support with cross-campaign attribution.

In addition, Google has known for a long time that data is going to become restricted due to privacy advancement. Finally, this foreknowledge is coming to fruition with automation and consolidation. 

Google Ads introduced data-driven attribution (DDA) in September 2021.

DDA is a machine learning model that uses your account's historical data to determine how people interact with your various ads and decide to become your customers.

DDA can help you improve your Google Ads campaigns' performance by providing a more accurate view of how your ads contribute to conversions.

Bid algorithms aren’t exactly new in paid search advertising. Google introduced Smart Bidding in 2013 with the launch of target CPA (tCPA) bidding. The ability to bid to dynamic values such as revenue and ROAS was introduced in 2017. 

As with most changes, the adoption of these features was slow. Many advertisers did not want to relinquish control of bidding to the platforms.

Loss of control and expanded reliance on machine learning will be a continued theme for digital advertising. 

Over time, Smart Bidding algorithms have improved significantly, and they are now the preferred method of bid management. Manual bidding still occurs for some aspects of campaigns, but the usage continues to dwindle.  

As data and automation evolve, the core functionality of keywords is changing too. Google Ads changed the functionality of exact match in 2021. Previously, exact match keywords would only trigger ads for searches that matched the keyword exactly.

However, now exact match keywords can also trigger ads for searches that are close variants of the keyword. This change means ads may show for searches that include misspellings, synonyms, and other close variants of keywords.

It is no secret that Google and Microsoft have aggressively encouraged advertisers to expand into the broad match. However, many advertisers, including myself, had a negative perception of broad matches. The query matching was too general, and traffic quality was often subpar.

Over the past two years, we have expanded our broad match usage. Broad match can provide additional search coverage and revenue growth when paired with well-crafted bid algorithms. Consider testing it again if you have shied away from broad match. 

In July 2021, Google Ads retired broad match modified (BMM). Microsoft Ads followed suit by retiring their BMM offering in March 2023. This is the beginning of keyword match type consolidation.

(This is pure speculation, but Google/Microsoft will retire another match type within 12-18 months.) If I had to make a prediction, phrase match would be phased out in favor of exact (for control) and broad (for reach). 

These changes directly result from machine learning advancement within ad-serving platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. 

3. Campaign consolidation 

Data-driven attribution was an essential element for campaign consolidation within Google Ads. Google’s ad serving algorithm mastered user intent on their core search product.

The algorithms needed to understand how ads performed across channels within the Google ad ecosystem. 

Once the algorithm understood how to optimize across Google properties, that opened the door for further consolidation. Campaign consolidation first came as Smart Shopping on Google and Microsoft.

Google Smart Shopping was a campaign that allowed businesses to automatically show their product ads across Google's search network, YouTube, Display Network, and Gmail. Smart Shopping campaigns used machine learning to optimize bids and placements. 

Throughout 2022, advertisers had to migrate Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max. As a result, performance Max (PMax) is the current peak of campaign consolidation.

PMax allows advertisers to access new inventory, ad formats, and audiences across all Google channels, including YouTube, Search, Gmail, Shopping, and Discovery.

Another consolidation point will include Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) into PMax. Google has not provided a specific date for this migration, but the company has said it is working on integrating the two features and expects to make the change soon.

Staying ahead of the curve

The last five years have felt like the slow incline of a roller coaster. And it feels like the next two years will be a screaming rush of the drop.

The drop will be driven by privacy legislation, machine learning, automation, and artificial intelligence. Buckle in, folks! 

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How to convince leadership why they can’t ignore SEO

Well, it’s 2023, and we’re still trying to convince businesses that SEO isn’t just a fancy acronym for “some extra options.” 

It’s like trying to teach an old dog new tricks, except the dog is a business and the trick is “not being invisible in the search engine results.” 

Some things never change.

It’s not the company leadership’s fault. In most cases, they are aware of SEO. Still, some don’t understand the value it can bring. 

This is an issue when there’s competing budgets and the allure of other, more familiar marketing strategies.

You’ve probably heard it before, but educating leadership on SEO is one of the most important things you can do to convince them of SEO’s value. 

And that means you must show how SEO is a strategic initiative for any business – and deserves a seat at the table.

Here are steps you can take to help leadership understand why they can’t ignore SEO and why they should get excited about it. 

1. Define SEO

Depending on what type of company you’re dealing with, you may have to start with the very basics.

That means explaining what SEO actually does and how it can support basic marketing objectives.

An explanation can be something as simple as: 

  • What SEO is: SEO improves a website so that it performs better in the search engine results. 
  • The benefit of SEO: The benefit of SEO is generating more targeted traffic to the website. 
  • The goal of SEO: The goal of SEO is ultimately to make more revenue for the company by the website’s and business’s ability to convert leads coming from the search results.

2. Explain SEO’s worth

With basic concepts out of the way, you can delve deeper into why a business cannot ignore search engines as a marketing channel.

The following concepts can help:

Your target audience uses a search engine

Google processes 5.9 million searches per minute. It’s not a question of if people are on search engines. 

It’s a matter of connecting the dots between the searches that people do and the benefits to the company.

Show leadership how people search for the things the company provides (a bit of keyword data here can help). 

Then, explain how SEO supports the customer journey. For instance:

  • 71% of people turned to search engines for discovery, and 74% used them for consideration/purchase, according to Forrester research.
  • 43% of consumer goods shoppers have used search in their shopping journey to become inspired, browse or research, per Google data.

Your competition is benefitting from the search engines – and you aren’t

Have them look at the websites that appear when people search for what the company provides.

Explain to them the amount of traffic they are potentially getting from being visible in the search results.

Cite studies that demonstrate how much organic search traffic is possible from securing top spots, like this one, this one and this one.

Then explain how this traffic can amount to revenue. 

For example, across five sectors, the organic search channel contributed the most revenue at an average of 44.6%, BrightEdge research found

And B2B companies, in particular, generated twice as much revenue from organic search as from any other channel.

So the next question to leadership is: Would you like a piece of the pie or not?

Your digital ads are important, but what happens if you turn them off?

Digital ads are the darling of many marketing programs. More than 60% of digital spend is allocated to paid channels, a 2022 Gartner research

In search engine marketing, paid ads – if done well – can secure a top spot in the search results – and offer near-instant gratification.

And while pay-per-click (PPC) ads have their place, you’ll need to show leadership how putting all your eggs in one basket is not a smart strategy.

Explain what would happen if they had to turn off their ads (i.e., they’d disappear from the search results entirely).

Now contrast that with the results they may see from SEO. 

Yes, there is usually a bigger upfront investment to get things going, and yes, it can take months (six months on average) to see the results.

But once you start to realize those results, you own that traffic, meaning no one can take it away from you for nonpayment. 

Some webpages that have built value over time from SEO continue to bring in growing amounts of traffic to a website for years to come.

3. Dispel common SEO myths

Even if leadership initially sees the value, they may be skeptical. There are plenty of commonly held SEO beliefs that are false.

Now is your chance to address all the perceived pain points they have noodling around in their heads.

Here are a few:

Myth: ‘SEO is unreliable’

Maybe members of the leadership team are jaded by headlines of website traffic vanishing overnight because of an algorithm update.

They may be wary of investing time and resources into something perceived as unstable. That’s why reframing how leadership thinks about algorithm updates is important. 

So here are some talking points:

  • SEO’s job is not to beat the algorithm. We will never know exactly how the algorithm works, and we don’t have to. We just have to create a great website using SEO best practices and be “least imperfect” compared to our competitors. This will help us better weather any algorithmic storm. See my article on how to survive a Google core update and come out on top for more. 
  • Google typically gives a heads-up for major updates. If something really big is on the horizon, Google will usually give ample time to prepare. A good SEO strategy stays on top of all potential changes and responds accordingly.

A final note to drive home: Like investing in the stock market, SEO is a long-term strategy with inevitable ups and downs. But staying in it for the long haul allows websites to reap the rewards.

Myth: ‘SEO is a one-time thing’

Decision-makers may sometimes mistakenly believe that SEO is simply a matter of checking off a few items on a checklist and calling it a day. 

Nothing is further from the truth.

Make sure leadership knows that they are investing in a long-term strategy… as in for the entire lifecycle of a website.

As a business strategy in a complex and ever-changing environment (search results change, competition changes, economics change and so on), SEO is always on – proactively handling the things we can anticipate and expertly reacting to the things out of our control.

As ex-Googler Kaspar Szymanski says:

“At industry conferences, attendees hear people say that it is important to “get it right” to rank. This is true, yet not entirely accurate. Like any other company investment in assets, over time that very same investment will inevitably wear off.

Best practices of the past become outdated or downright obsolete. To keep up with the competition, especially in the more lucrative niches, SEO needs to be considered an ongoing effort with planned, periodic spurts of increased activity scheduled ahead of time.

Some factors such as snippet representation, directly impacting user experience and signals must be continuously monitored and improved. The same applies to page performance, which again is directly responsible for how users experience the website.

Other factors, such as managing backlink liabilities, may only require spot checks and be part of an annual on- and off-page SEO audit.”

In other words, a casual approach to SEO will not produce results.

Check out my article on how to implement SEO – even in the face of common challenges – for more.

Myth: ‘You can’t measure SEO’

Digital ads have ruined SEO in terms of where executives want to spend their budgets. 

The instant gratification of paying for an ad and seeing a direct result is intoxicating.

Earlier, I talked about explaining how traffic can turn into revenue. This is an important concept.

However, you also want to make sure that leadership understands the job of SEO and how it relates to other important concepts like turning traffic into revenue.

The best way to measure SEO’s success is by traffic to a website.

Let me repeat that: The best way to measure SEO’s success is by traffic to a website.

To measure, the company will need to track the website’s total number of visitors from organic search traffic and ensure it has seen positive growth over time.

But what about conversions? This is where it gets tricky. 

Here’s the thing: SEO’s job is to drive traffic. It’s a website’s/business’s job to convert those visitors. 

A good SEO program will:

  • Drive targeted traffic.
  • Create a good user experience so that visitors are more likely to convert.
  • Track conversion coming from organic traffic.

But leadership needs to know going into an SEO program that in order to reap the most rewards, they will need to invest in making it easy for a lead to convert. 

Consider all the factors that go into converting a lead – a conversion-optimized website, the company’s sales process, the price point of products or services, the product or service features, etc. 

All of these things are out of the hands of an SEO team. And so leadership needs to clearly understand that qualified traffic is the most important metric to show SEO success. 

Yes, tey will always want to know what results they can ultimately see. 

You can come armed with case studies of similar websites or businesses to show what they might expect. 

And you can explain how to use platforms like Google Analytics to see how the organic search channel contributes to leads and sales for the business. 

There are always calculations you can use to estimate SEO results

4. Pilot a project

Sometimes, the proof is in the pudding.

Suggest piloting an SEO project if you’ve gotten far enough with the leadership team to pique their interest.

Consider starting with an in-depth, technical SEO audit. This will show them all the website’s issues hindering search engine success.

Then, have them commit to implementing the highest priority items. 

While the results of those efforts are coming to fruition, you can think about an SEO initiative that might support a key group or business goal for the company.

Maybe it’s a website redesign, a new product or service or something else. Map out an SEO strategy to help that team or initiative be more successful. 

Sometimes small wins lead to a bigger commitment to SEO in the long run.

Guide decision-makers to the right decision

In a world where marketing channels always compete for budget, you must help make the decision easier for the leadership team to invest in SEO.

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Tuesday 23 May 2023

Google Bard adds images in responses

Bard is now showing images in responses – and Bard will show the source of each image, Google announced today.

What’s new. This update continues Google’s push to try to make Bard more visual and useful – now by showing images from Google Search in responses.

Bard now includes Google Search images for visual responses, when relevant. You can also specifically ask Bard for images. Clicking on an image will show its source. This update is limited to English responses.

What it looks like. In this Twitter thread from @JackK (Jack Krawczyk, senior director of product, Google), you can see examples of it in action:

Why. In a new entry on the Bard updates page, Google explained:

Images can help you communicate your ideas more effectively. They can bring concepts to life, make recommendations more persuasive, and enhance responses when you ask for visual information.

Why we care. Google has been integrating more of Search into Bard. This new addition of imagery may offer some more benefits of image optimization, now that Bard may surface your images in Bard.

More coming soon. Google Bard plans to add:

  • Support for more languages.
  • The ability to generate images.
  • The ability to prompt Bard with images using Google Lens.

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Google Ads adds 2 new campaign types: Video views, demand gen

Two new campaign types are coming to Google Ads that help with very specific needs: video views and demand generation.

These campaigns have a specific goal and appear to be video-first campaigns, with all placements on Google-owned and operated properties.

Here’s what we know about the new campaigns announced at Google Marketing Live today.  

Video view Campaigns. This campaign type does precisely what it is named, maximize views. A study showed that with Video view campaigns, advertisers saw on average 40% more views than in-steam skippable CPV campaigns, according to Google.

Video view campaigns combine a variety of formats including skippable in-stream ads, in-feed ads, and Shorts ads to get the most out of a budget. The beta for Video view campaigns will launch globally, next month.

Demand gen campaigns. New Demand Gen campaigns will leverage AI and help to engage and drive action with consumers. These campaigns will work across:

  • YouTube Shorts.
  • YouTube in-stream.
  • YouTube in-feed.
  • Discover.
  • Gmail placements.

The calls to action shown appear to simply send traffic to the site instead of leveraging lead form assets, it was qualified that conversions can be tracked.

Within Demand gen campaigns advertisers will also be able to create Lookalike segments based on “seed lists” that can consist of first-party data and YouTube users.

The segments can be set to:

  • Narrow (2.5% reach).
  • Balanced (5% reach).
  • Broad (10% reach).

The creative will also be able to be tailored to the specific Lookalike segments

Why we care. These two new campaign types offer specific video-first options for advertisers with goals of more views, or more demand. These campaigns reach across a variety of Google inventory for more robust reach.

Lastly, the Lookalike segments will help advertisers find those like-minded customers through a custom-built Seed list. The ability to test from Narrow to Broad also gives advertisers the ability to restrain or expand reach.

The post Google Ads adds 2 new campaign types: Video views, demand gen appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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