November 2020 – SEO and Marketing News

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Nov 20, 2020 / by
November 2020 – SEO and Marketing News

So we’re back in lockdown. Again. Rather than waste time complaining about it (though it really is rather unfortunate, right?) let’s instead look ahead with relative optimism. After all, Christmas is only a month away now and with the year we’ve had, it just has to be a good one. And at least we’ve (fingers crossed) got rid of Donald Trump!

In our little corner of the world, however, whilst COVID has indeed had a major impact (as we’ll learn just below), ours is a world that exists largely online, outside the purview of coronavirus. So, without further ado, let’s see what the SEO gods have been up to this month, shall we?

COVID helps drive record ad revenue for big tech

Multiple tech companies announced quarterly earnings on the same day this month, including Google, Amazon and Facebook. Each saw significant advertising revenue growth – especially against the backdrop of COVID-19 and ad-budget pressure. Arguably the biggest single beneficiary of COVID-19 is Amazon, which has been the go-to e-commerce site for millions of consumers during the pandemic. The company reported gross revenues of more than $96 billion, representing 37% YoY revenue growth. Advertising makes up most of what is reported as “other” revenue in their earnings statement. It reached roughly $5.4 billion, up more than 50% YoY.

Google reported just over $46 billion in total revenue and $37 billion in ad revenue. Paid search contributed $26.3 billion, while YouTube brought in $5 billion, a YoY increase of 6% and 32%, respectively. Facebook generated $21.5 billion in third-quarter revenue, almost 99% of which was from ad spending. More than 90% of that revenue comes from mobile user engagement. On its earnings call, Facebook said it now has 10 million active advertisers, a majority of which are small businesses. That’s up from 9 million advertisers in Q2.

Other tech companies, including Shopify, also reported earnings on October 29. Shopify posted 96% YoY revenue growth, blowing past investor expectations. Another major beneficiary of COVID-driven online shopping, the company has been the go-to solution for small businesses and others seeking to “commercify” during the pandemic. But Google and Facebook have equally been focused on e-commerce.

Are Google set to announce a new algorithm update?

Over the past few days, there have been significant levels of chatter from within the SEO industry around a possible Google Search algorithm update. Some are saying the fluctuations in the search results are super high and some are saying nothing is going on at all though, so it’s far from consistent chatter. Plus most of the tools show nothing but some do show some changes.

It can be one of those updates that impacted only specific niches or verticals. It can be some sort of rollback from the November 4th unconfirmed update. It can be some sort of bug with specific sites or the Google algorithm. Who knows? As ever though, it would definitely benefit anyone involved in SEO in any way to keep a keen eye on further developments, for obvious reasons!

Spotify expand podcast advertising options

Spotify is acquiring Megaphone, a leading podcast advertising and publishing platform, in an effort to expand advertising options for podcasters. Megaphone is used by over 20,000 podcast publishers and advertisers including The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Vox Media, ESPN, How Stuff Works, and more.

The acquisition of Megaphone allows Spotify to offer podcast publishers more ways to earn money from their content. This includes the opportunity to easily opt-in to have content monetised, matching listeners with even greater demand from advertisers. Spotify and Megaphone will allow advertisers to activate across Spotify’s library of original and exclusive podcasts while scaling reach through the Megaphone Targeted Marketplace.

LinkedIn launches company engagement report for B2B marketers

LinkedIn’s new Company Engagement Report is rolling out now and offers data to help B2B marketers understand if they’re reaching the right audiences. The Company Engagement Report brings together a variety of metrics that show how engaged key audiences are with the business. Data is categorised by the companies which a business has identified as highly valuable to them.

LinkedIn said of the reasons for creating the Company Engagement Report: “It’s all about helping you definitively answer that age-old question — Is this working? — and take the right steps in accordance. If you find that your approach is driving high engagement with an account, you might find it’s time to take the next step by reaching out directly to primed decision-makers via LinkedIn Messaging. If not, there are plenty of tweaks to be made and levers to be pulled to get on track.”

Google Webmasters Central becomes Google Search Central

After more than 14 years, Google Webmasters Central is becoming Google Search Central, the company announced Wednesday. With the name change, some of the Google Webmaster Central properties are going to be redirected to the new location, including the blog, help forums, guidelines, documentation, social channels and more.

The name change more broadly reflects who the solution is meant to support — not just webmasters, but also SEOs, online marketers, bloggers, web developers, site owners and others. In addition to URL redirects, the social channel names are changing and content is being migrated from one location to another. All of these changes will start happening now and continue over the upcoming weeks.