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Google started rolling out Questions and Answers (Q&A) feature for local search in the
beginning of August. As with all the testing, it was initially available, exclusively for
Android users via the Google Maps App, but eventually, they made it available to
everyone searching from a mobile device using either Safari or Chrome browsers.

The main motto behind introducing the Q&A into local search is to get the most
updated and relevant data about businesses and places. Q&A has always been one of the
best sources to get fresh content. Amazon has already tested it and employing it the
way it should be.

Here’s what it looks like on mobile device.

However, the fear of spamming is real! The competitors, or even just a single angry employee can ruin the entire Q&A section. Also, if a business has the authority to edit it, then it’s going to be as genuine and real as the “testimonials and reviews” that they put on their own website.

Here's what Google says:

"To make sure “Questions & answers” contains the most accurate and useful local info possible, business owners can add frequently asked questions and answers as well. In addition, when you (a customer) ask a question about a place, we notify the business owner and other in-the-know users to see if they have knowledgeable answers to contribute. When your question is answered, we notify you too."

Let’s see how Google is going to tackle these issues. Meanwhile, you might want to start writing content for the Q&A section. Reason being, Google has just launched it and is hungry for content (data), they will hardly filter it out and will most likely accept just about anything you post. You can actually benefit from the desperation of Google and ignorance of your competitors. 

Remember, the early bird gets the worm!
 

YouTube, has introduced a “Breaking News” section on its homepage, it shows a collection of videos pertaining worldwide news and events. The feature appears on both mobile, as well as desktop.

Barcelona attack being the very recent major incident happened across the world, the Breaking News section was showing the videos related to it. The section shows region-specific videos displayed in horizontal scrollable format, the section includes options like ‘Recommended’, ‘Watch It Again’, and ‘Recently Uploaded’.

If users do not wish to see the Breaking News section, they can remove it from their homepage, by clicking on ‘X’ if using a desktop or ‘Not Interested’ if using mobile.

Still, it is not clear if the ‘Breaking News’ will appear daily or only when some major incident occurs. The feature is live on live on the iOS and Android YouTube apps, as well as the desktop site.
 

You can now add videos to local listings in the Google Maps using any Android device. 

Google is rolling it out slowly, so you might or might not see it right away. This feature is not only good for the business owners but the users as well. Because pictures tell altogether different story while video remains close to reality. “Close” because of all those filters available for the videos.

Meanwhile, if you are a local guide and willing to earn some extra points, while helping the folks out here, start uploading videos of the business and local places. It is available only for local guides and Android users but can be seen and searched by any one. You can take a 10-second video from the Google Maps app or can upload a 30-second video.   

You can add videos:

•    From a place’s page
•    From “your contributions”
•    Via Google photos and Gallery app

How to upload a video you’ve already shot:

•    Search and select a place on Google Maps
•    Scroll down and tap “Add a photo”
•    Tap “Folder” and select a video. Only the first 30 seconds of a video can be added.

Visit the Help Center to learn more about sharing videos.
 

You can now add quick links to your local results, thanks to Google My Business’s latest update! They have recently announced that local business owners will now be able to add quick links to their local listings. Currently, it is visible only to select categories of business.

But those who will be able to enjoy it can add the quick links using their Google My Business account. It can prove to be a boon to those who directly serve the customers. From the limited categories that will be able to avail this new feature, the restaurant owners will reap the maximum benefits from it, since they can add direct links to online ordering menu, reviews and much more.

Google posted the news about it on their release notes page saying:

Add links to specific actions like online orders or reservations. Make it easier for customers to take action directly from your listing.

This new update is to make it easier for the users to take actions. By cutting short the process from Google —> Website —> Action to Google —> Action.

The help center article has been updated to explain the steps for businesses to take to add these URLs. Some of the actions include:

•    booking an appointment
•    placing an order
•    reserving a table
•    searching for items
•    viewing the menu

Here’s a screenshot

Google is testing more ad opportunities in local knowledge panels. Although they have been testing ads on knowledge graphs for quite some time now.

Here’s the ad spotted in the Knowledge Graph: 

Google spokesperson said that the paramount goal of Google is to provide the users with most updated, useful and relevant information. So we are searching out for new ways to surface useful local information. If this new feature adds to the user's experience, only then we will fully launch it.

We will keep a close eye on this as usual and keep updating you with more information in this topic.
 

When it comes to ads, relevance plays a vital role. Google has provided many tools that help advertisers ensure that they are targeting the right people. They just have to evaluate the quality score & it’s components. Recently Google has launched seven new quality score reporting columns. 

The biggest highlight is that advertisers will now be able to access the historical quality score data.  This data will be available via 4 new columns “Qual. Score (hist.),” “Landing page exper. (hist.),” “Ad relevance (hist.)” and “Exp. CTR (hist.)

​

Keep in mind that they only reflect the last known score for the selected date range.

Also, you can segment data by day and see how end of day quality score changed over time.

Also, the new columns will display breakouts for: 

• Expected Click-through Rate
• Ad Relevance
• Landing Page Experience

When it comes to traveling, pre-planning can make all the difference. Most important of them all is booking a good hotel. It really takes a lot of efforts to find a good hotel within your budget. Google is planning to make it a bit easy. 

Google is planning to roll out a new Hotel Review Interface. The new interface provides more detailed information about the hotel including cartoon like graphics that will show how other guests have rated their specific amenities.  Also, there will be a collection of third party reviews to increase the credibility. Google will also provide an option to easily filter the hotels based on their reviews. 

Here's a screenshot of the new interface.

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Google has recently published a blog stating that those who are leveraging guest post as a link building technique should reconsider their strategy. They are specifically focusing on the spammy links, that are tagged as guest post, contributor post, partner post, etc.

Below is the list of things that you should avoid according to Google: 

• Stuffing keyword-rich links to your site in your articles.
• Having the articles published across many different sites; alternatively, having a large number of articles on a few large, different sites.
• Using or hiring article writers that aren’t knowledgeable about the topics they’re writing on.
• Using the same or similar content across these articles; alternatively, duplicating the full content of articles found on your own site (in which case use of rel=”canonical”, in addition to rel=”nofollow”, is advised).

As of now, Google has just warned those who are using these techniques, and they are not taking any actions. But as we all know, all the warnings are followed by a mass initiative to counter it. So in case you are employing these techniques, then you might want to reconsider it. Review all the posts, links and remove those who might cause problems in the near future.

How to future proof your websites

Link Diversification – Sites performing well in Google have good link diversity. Build backlinks / citations from diversified sources such as:

• Local and niche business search engines, directories and review sites
• Informational content sites
• Guest blogs
• Press releases
• Videos
• Infographics
• Coupons
• Image sharing sites
• Social profiles
• Q&A sites and more.

Since Google prefers a diversified link profile, we recommend getting links from these sources. 

Different Class C IPs – Having different Class C IP address for your backlink sources definitely helps with SEO rankings. 

Maximum Uptime - Since our network of sites are hosted with premium hosting plans, there are minimum chances of website downtime. Again, we are notified immediately of such instances which helps us get the sites back on track.

Different Domain Registration – Not only Class C IPs, having different registration details also helps. 

Different Registrant Details – Google itself being a Registrant, it has access to the Whois information of domains at a global level. 

Penalty Detection – All the sites within our network are included and verified in Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools). We constantly monitor all websites and make sure they are free from any Google Penalties. 

Fresh Content – Google loves fresh content. Since the content is updated on almost a daily basis, this ensures that the websites are indexed frequently and pages are latest pages are included in the Google database.

Google is big, like really big, like civilization level big! So when a company this big introduces something, even the most apathetic person gets excited. And this year at annual I/O, They introduced a lot of cool new things, but the one that got everyone’s attention was the “Google Lens”. 

Although there have been several unsuccessful attempts in the past to launch the same technology, this time it looks that the image recognition technology will finally be able to take off. Since the Google’s AI has become more sophisticated, it seems that now the Camera lens can be used in many more ways than just taking the selfies.

The main highlights of the Google Lens are: 

Business Details: Just point your mobile camera at store fronts and Google will provide you with knowledge graph and other vital details about that business. 

Connect WiFi: No need to manually enter the password, just click an image of the default username and password and your phone will automatically connect to the WiFi.

Image Recognition: Now you can get results based on what you are seeing. Just take a picture of the flower you want to know more about, and Google will provide you with all the details.

Exciting, isn’t it! Here’s the video.

Watch this crazy insurance lady!

She didn't advertise. She didn't do social media. She focused solely on RELATIONSHIPS and won! Big time.

Here is a transcript of what she has to say:

most recently i just sold insurance agency 0:05 and retired and I wanted to take a 0:07 minute or two to tell you about how we 0:10 utilize send out cards and the teachings 0:13 of cody Bateman in that insurance agency 0:16 and so what we did for the last six 0:19 years I've been a customer of send out 0:21 cards and we utilize that system in our 0:23 agency to send about 850 Birkett cards a 0:27 year we also had a referral program so 0:30 if someone refer business into our 0:32 agency we would acknowledge the referral 0:35 and send out i think you know with a 0:37 starbucks card and we did that right 0:38 from our send out parts website or we 0:41 can do it from our phone and so it made 0:44 it really easy to act on our promptings 0:46 to appreciate when people refer to us we 0:51 also taught our staff to basically 0:55 listen to the customer and by building 0:58 the relationship we were asking them 1:01 about what was going on in their life 1:02 and we listened about babies or 1:04 celebrations or we acknowledge people 1:07 and they got sick with cinema get-well 1:09 card or maybe if we heard someone had a 1:11 death in the family we would send a 1:13 sympathy card and so we just wanted them 1:16 to know that they matter to us as a 1:19 person we wanted to build that 1:21 relationship and that they mattered 1:23 beyond the insurance transaction and it 1:26 was our number one mode of marketing we 1:30 did not use email marketing we did not 1:32 use facebook we did not use twitter we 1:36 only use send out cards to touch our 1:38 customers and some of those customers 1:40 i've never met i had 1500 + customers so 1:42 them around the country I've never met 1:44 them but I could still effectively build 1:47 the relationship to send out cards i 1:51 didn't have to see them every day I had 1:52 this powerful tool that I could send 1:55 them something and let them know that I 1:57 cared you can definitely make a 2:00 difference and you can be unique in a 2:03 noisy world and send out cards is that 2:06 powerful tool so i hope this helped 2:09 and I hope you have a great day.

Here is how YOU can get signed up.

When you sign up - I will gift you about $500 in bonuses! What are they? When you sign up for a marketing bundle or business bundle I will create your first custom brand manager card back. I will put your logo and contact information together in a graphic and send it to you to upload to your custom brand manager.

I will also transfer a set of 12 custom cards to your account that you can customize with your information and photo/headshot and start using the system right away.

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