Synup Office Hour #8 - 7th May 2024 | No more coupons, green hours, AI answers, tips and more

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Okay, good morning, everyone for joining us today for another session of office hour. This is the eighth episode. I'm Niladri and I have Akshita, my colleague with me, coordinating this entire effort from each sending out emails, to requests, to registration, and taking notes.

Okay, so let's jump right into it. I was reading a study recently, this was a study based on data from 2022 from a company called Capital One Shopping, that revealed the growing importance of discount coupons and shopping habits. It mentioned close to around 177 million people across the U.S. have redeemed some kind of a digital coupon in 2022 and the number started growing.

But as digital offers proliferated all different channels like social media, aggregator sites, shoppers. Shoppers are now facing a different challenge where they find a lot of fraudulent coupons. And the problem has increased many folds because of this parasitic SEO practices that we see.

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So, if you're looking for a shopping coupon for a brand, it's more likely that you will come across one of the major news sites, unfortunately, like maybe USA Today, LA Times, CNN, Forbes, and the likes. So, what Google did as part of its efforts to control this menace was, they issued a warning couple of two months to most of these news sites who carried on these practices. And so, Google started tightening the regulations and all these third-party coupon sites which had minimal oversight and control, they have started removing them from the search results.

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We have noticed, people have noticed that thisis part of Google's effort to combat site reputation abuse, as they called it,and to ensure a safer online experience. So, a lot of these large news sites,if you notice now, CNN, USA Today, LA Times, Forbes, etc., some keep showing upas random queries, but they have basically de-indexed parts of the website orsubdomains or subfolders. In some cases, their entire coupons folder or onlinevouchers folders are gone.

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They no longer show up in search results.People reached out to Google thinking that this could have been done bychanging Google's algorithms. Apparently, Google responded back saying thesewere all manual penalties that these sites have been hit with.

These were not algorithmically done. And theystarted doing this last Sunday, 5th. I know a lot of people, SEOs, I know a lotof SEOs that I know were waiting for this to happen, some fear that their ownsites might get hit.

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But the only sites that seem to have impacted from this update on Sunday was these major news sites who carried on with this couponing and parasitic SEO practices for money. The second update for the week, as we all know, SGE, that was on the anvil from Google, basically sort of generative experience from Google or AI search. Google has started labelling these SGE experience as AI answers.

Earlier, there were a lot of talks about that they will be known as AI overviews, AI overviews are experimental, etc. But now they are clearly labelling it as AI answers. So, some of the search results that we have seen where we would see traditional search snippets, in the absence of snippets, we have started noticing AI answers.

It has been rolled out only in limited geography. So, you may or may not come across this. We'll send across a few examples that we have gathered.

Now, the other thing that I noticed is not sure if you can see my deck properly is for certain business queries, what I've started noticing is that the hours in Google map results have been highlighted in green. I searched for lawyers and anything related to laws or attorney or personal injury lawyers or employers, etc. I noticed this for certain segments only, but other segments will remain the same.

Hours have a growing influence on search results, especially during peak hours, or during the opening hours. I'm sure that some of these attorneys are not available 247. But as I said earlier, I will reiterate it just because opening hours are a favorable ranking factor.

Don't just go in and mark a business as open247. You never know when Google will start penalizing such practices. So be onthe safe side if legally or if you're talking to a client and think it's a goodidea to maybe keep their business open a couple of hours later than thecompetitors or open an hour or half an hour early than the competitors thatgives your business advantage, then do it, talk to them.

Just do not randomly mark it as open 247 ifthey are not operating 24 by seven. So that's enough for industry updates.Let's move on to the tips of the week.

So, I've been talking to a lot of people, I'vetalked to a lot of customers, talking to a bunch of agencies, talking to a lotof people on forums, and a lot of people keep asking the same question againand again. Apparently, Google came out recently saying that, oh, links are notthat important. Whatever Google says, I'll take it with a pinch of salt.

That's what 20 years of practice has taughtme. If Google says links are not important, read between the lines andunderstand what they're trying to say. Links may not be as important as it usedto be a few years ago, maybe 10 years ago or five years ago, but still animportant ranking factor.

Need to understand what links came into effect. Links, they will keep depending on links to determine relevancy of apiece of content or a website to a given query. So, if you read between the lines, you will understand the links need to be relevant more than ever before.

Earlier you could go and get a high-quality link from a non-relevant, by relevancy I mean if topical relevancy. If your website is about marketing or anything related to marketing, then try and get links from a forum or a blog or a content that is about marketing. Google will start devaluing content that links out to non-irrelevant content.

So, the gain you get from building links from such content is going to be minimized. So, there are a few practices that have been part of the industry for years. For example, we used to have something called article redistribution or article rewriting services that no longer work.

People used to; I've seen a lot of people still wasting time doing press releases for links. They stopped working. If you're just randomly doing press releases and the content is not worthy of a link, then you're not going to get links.

Do a press release only if you have something news worthy or something unique. I know it's difficult to come across, but if it's something newsworthy and unique, then you can get local journalists to cover the news, pick up the news. Then you might maybe be able to get a link from them or even get an unstructured citation.

A mere mention of the business in the proper channel can do wonders for local business or for any kind of business. Trying to build links from forums. They stopped working.

They never worked. Forum links, in my opinion,can work if it's a genuine forum and it's relevant to your business. A meremention of your business would help, but just don't link out from them.

Chances are moderators are anyway going toremove your link if you just drop links in every random forum. There will becertain threads and conversations that are relevant to your business. So,mention that name and let people find out organically.

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Don't just add links everywhere. I was talkingto my colleague today about this company reached out to us for a link exchange.Not super relevant, but reciprocal links have been a practice for ages.

You scratch my back, I scratch yours. You giveme a link; I'll link back to you. Does it work? Maybe.

In my opinion, not really. They might havebeen devalued because it's very easy to get and very easy to detect. Unless ifit's a natural process, for example, you have a business partner and you'reengaging in some kind of a co-marketing effort.

Say sign up ties up with one of our agencypartners and we co-market a service or a product. Then it makes sense for us tonaturally link to each other via post or contact and it's good. It's not goingto be devalued or looked at.

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Google is not going to have any suspicionabout it. But if you're just naturally, unnaturally linking to each other andtrying to build links and think that you're going to gain something out of it,not going to work. Links are worth it if it's relevant or if you can gettraffic out of it.

If you're just doing links to increase SEOvalue, as we say, then think hard. Quality will still trump quantity. Youcannot just build random links and get anything out of it and move the needleanymore.

Those days are far gone. Secondly, videoverifications. I was talking to Jane a couple of weeks ago about some issuesthat she was facing with video verification and I started doing this on behalfof some of our clients to understand the problems we face.

I came across three usual issues with it. Onewas if video verification is the only option being displayed without anyalternative and you try to go verify your business. If it's a single locationbusiness, sub or non-sub service area or a brick-and-mortar local business thatyou're trying to verify and you come across video verification is the onlyoption.

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People keep asking, can I reach out to Googleand ask them for an alternative? You can, but it's not going to help. If Googlehas determined that video verification is the option for that location, youhave to use that. There's no way out.

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There was one time I faced an issue while uploading the video, but it mentioned no more ways to verify. I just reached out to support and they gave us an alternative way to verify. Google says that the video file needs to be of a certain size.

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More often than not, you might face an error. The video upload will fail. There are two situations that I came across where we got an error.

The video upload failed. In the first situation, we just restarted the computer and we were able to upload the video. On a different case, we were able to upload the video by reducing the file size.

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The file size was much less than the recommended file size from Google. Nothing else works. I would suggest do not waste time reaching out to the Google Business Forum.

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Google Business Forum people cannot help you with video verification at all. There's a comment from Jane. Google video verification applies to the very region where you move the request for information such as business license.

This will get you suspended from now finding so many locations will not have a current business license. Correct. You are absolutely right, Jane.

If you do not provide the documentation, they will suspend your business and they're doing it more often to service your businesses nowadays. We came across six instances in the last 10 days. So yes, do not waste time reaching out to the Google Business Forum for looking for a solution about video verification option.

Video verification is the only option and for some reason the video upload fails. You tried other options; it did not work. Just open a ticket with Google Business Support.

Forum people cannot help you with Google videoverification at all. Save some time. Very important study.

I will link you guys to the podcast when wesend over the notes. There was a study done and there was a report releasedlast month, I think. There were these specific behavioural patterns that werenoticed from searches across verticals.

So, each industry exhibits typical behaviourswhile interacting with Google search results. The search results vary becausethe layouts vary. In certain layouts, you will have the local services ad.

In certain layouts, you won't have local services ads. Just as an example that we cited earlier, in certain industries, you will see a green hour’s path position changes. You will have far more ads in certain results.

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Other elements can vary significantly depending on the vertical or the industry that influences the user's interaction and final behavior. So, what was the methodology? The study involved setting up a panel of actual consumers or customers who were given tasks of solving a certain problem on Google or finding something on Google,like finding a restaurant or hiring a doctor or finding a lawyer, etc. And their interactions, clicks, comments were recorded to provide insights into actual search behavior patterns of people.

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So, there was a huge impact of local services ads on the search behavior. Local services ads significantly alter behavior because they are positioned that way. They get a very prominent placement at the top, where we earlier used to have Google ads.

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And the nature of the ads itself look veryauthoritative due to the appearance of checkboxes. And iconography reviews,etc. So even people who generally avoid ads were observed to interact withlocal services ads.

So, it kind of highlighted the power of Googleto influence user behaviour through ad placement and changing the type of ads.Vertical specific understanding, the research underscored the necessity ofunderstanding specific verticals. By that, it means we need to optimize basedon the vertical and user behaviour.

For example, how Google structures results,because no two results are the same. If you're searching for a lawyer or adoctor versus a service area business or home services businesses, the elementsare going to be completely different. I would suggest take your top fivevertical and make a list of what you see, what kind of pattern you see, patternacross industry, pattern across location, and determine how you want tooptimize them.

Because customers' trust and engagement are going to be different. How people trust a healthcare business will be far different for how customers trust and behave with the home services business. Certain type of businesses would get a lot more website visits to check the authenticity and credibility of the business.

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For example, storage facilities as an example. People prioritized proximity and pricing with reviews kind of servicing primarily to exclude options rather than to select them. If you're a storage facility business, optimize for proximity and price.

Display pricing prominently on the website and give an indication with your service and product pricing within the GPP profile. Healthcare practitioners. People value reputation and reviews heavily when it comes to healthcare.

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This is a big problem for a lot of healthcare practices that we work with because doctors are well known for avoiding asking for reviews. We work with large hospital chains. I've seen this problem across the board.

But people, if your consumers are valuing the reputation and reviews heavily and if you're not garnering reviews and not asking for reviews, then they won't select you. They will go to a different provider. Healthcare searchers also use local finders more extensively than they look for organic search results.

Legal services, lawyers, advocates. People arelooking for signals of credibility and expertise with heavy emphasis on reviewsand organic search performance. If they're looking for credibility andexpertise, I would say there are three things that you need to focus on whenyou're talking, working with lawyers on anything related to the legal servicesreviews.

Prominently displaying your maybe some kind ofaffiliation logos and also prominently displaying how many years you have beenin the business, your experience. When it comes to restaurants, people look forreviews and immediately after that they want to look at menus. If you'reworking with restaurants or food businesses, make sure those are prominentlymarked into your listings and in your content.

Significance of reviews. Reviews remaincrucial but are interacted with differently based on industry. For example,healthcare.

I started doing recent reviews influenceconsumer trust and decision making significantly. So please, if you're workingwith doctors, hospitals, drive home this message. You may not like reviewsbecause there's this fear of getting bad reviews.

So, if you always keep fearing bad reviews,you're never going to get any good reviews. Websites remain a vital assetdespite the prominence of Google search elements. The study found that theimportance of having a well-maintained and informative website that aligns withcustomers’ needs specific to each industry.

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For example, as I mentioned, when it comes tolegal services, credibility matters, experience matters, expertise matters. So,with the primary landing page that you're linking from on your Google profile,make sure those markers are prominently displayed. Especially lead forms.

People tend to ignore lead forms. I've comeacross websites even now where lead forms are really, really ugly or difficultto fill out or doesn't render well on mobile devices. Make sure you test frommobile.

Make sure you have those credibility markers,expertise markers in and around the lead form or on the landing page that whenthey land on from your GBP profile. The study also found apparently about halfthe businesses that they spoke to who do not work with an agency such as yoursor use a platform like Signup, they don't even optimize the GBP profile as acredible marketing channel. That was a part of the different study, I believe.

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Anyway, don't need to take notes. We'll sendout detailed notes end of the call or by tomorrow. There might be a side delayin delivering the notes as we have some issues going on with our email system.

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Okay, helpful tools for the week. AI content. So,we use AI content to draft summaries, to draft, create a roadmap of items towrite about.

We use AI content to highlight some of thethings that we do on social media. I was playing around with it earlier thisweek and late last week. I was talking to my team as well.

I found Claude's output to be, especially thenew one that they have launched, I believe, I think Opus 3. I think theiroutput was actually better than, in some contexts, Charity 4. If you want totest further, you can test it out. You can go to this link and sign up for afree account. And if you want to try out the latest version, I think theycharge about $20 a month.

You can test it out if you're heavilydependent on AI tools for content and outlines and stuff like that. Remember,we have a functionality on Signup where you can actually add UTM parameters toyour GPT profile so that you can view these on GA4 or your analytics tool. Now,I tend to use UTM parameters heavily.

We tend to use them in blogs or signature ornewsletter, different parts of the website. There's a neat little blog thatbasically emphasizes this and also shows you the different types of UTMparameters and how you can view them or see them and create reports in GA4.I'll link you to it.

I found it really, really useful. Just goahead and take a look at it. This guy does tremendous things with GA4, groundanalytics.

Actually, I still consider myself a noob inanalytics. I can't seem to wrap my head around Google Analytics 4, especiallythough I'm getting better at it. So, take a look at it.

If you are having difficulty like I do finding stuff in Google Analytics, especially things around UTM parameters, then this is something that you will enjoy using. Anyway, as usual, no need to take notes. We will be sending over everything, including the recording, and you can find them on our website as well as on our YouTube channel within a couple of days.

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Okay, that's it from me. I'm open to questions if you have any. Thanks, Nil.

If anyone has any questions, we can take the min the comments now. Okay, one question that I got, I think it's around the links that we spoke about in tips. So, the question goes, for local businesses, does the importance of citations also correlate with links? Some do different purpose.

At one time, citations were the links that youneeded for local businesses. But citations to a large extent have beencommoditized over the years. Okay, there was a time I used to build like 1,500,2,000 citations for a very competitive niche in a large city.

You don't need to do that right now. Okay. You cover the top 50, 60, 70, whatever you can cover the few niche-specific or industry-specific citations and you're done.

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Just make sure that they are updated all the time. Make updates to it because every website or these directories or large directories, they like fresh content. Links have a very different purpose.

Links will help you rank organically as well. So,you cannot do either or anymore. Excellent.

Any follow-up questions or anything else youguys want to ask? I think we can wait for a couple of minutes more. Again, noneed to take notes. We'll be sending you everything, the recordings, the eventplaybook, as well as the event deck.

You'll probably get it in your inbox within 24to 48 hours after every event. Thanks, Shane. I think we can wrap up.

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Okay. Thank you so much. I'll probably skipthe event next week.

We'll send out notification. So, we'll see you all next time. Have a lovely rest of the week.

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Bye-bye. Thanks, everyone. Bye.

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