What happened to September? It seems like yesterday we were all waving goodbye to summer, and now here we are — the end of September.

This past month, Google sent out a lot more mobile-first indexing announcements, and there’s also been a good amount of social media news. YouTube launched vertical video ads, Twitter is giving more control to users, and Facebook is letting Pages join and interact in Groups.

Let’s dive in to see what this all about…

More Mobile-First Indexing Notifications Roll Out

Google hit the mobile-first notification button and MANY webmasters got a message like this in September:

Mobile–first indexing enabled for https://xyzwebsite.com/

This means that you may see more traffic in your logs from Googlebot Smartphone. You may also see that snippets in Google Search results are now generated from the mobile version of your content.
Background: Mobile–first indexing means that Googlebot will now use the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking, to better help our (primarily mobile) users find what they’re looking for. Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking systems have historically used the desktop version of your site’s content, which can cause issues for mobile searchers when the desktop version differs from the mobile version. Our analysis indicates that the mobile and desktop versions of your site are comparable.

As more people’s sites become mobile friendly, and as more people search with mobile devices, mobile indexing will need to be updated regularly.

According to Dave Davies from Beanstalk Internet Marketing:

“I think it’s either their final or close-to-final big push. If sites aren’t carried over after this batch I think they’ll want to look closely at the reasons why. What tech they are using will be the main thing I look at. It’s just a guess but it seems too big to be anything else.”

Google has not officially announced anything regarding the mobile first notifications.

Source: Search Engine Journal

 

YouTube Launches Vertical Video Ads

People don’t always turn their phone horizontally when they are watching YouTube, which means ads don’t make the impression most advertisers prefer. To solve that, YouTube has launched vertical video ads.

This doesn’t only benefit advertisers, though. It’s also providing a more seamless experience for mobile viewers.

The vertical video will look larger than a landscape video. It will cover about 75% of the screen. When the user clicks on full screen, the video will cover 100% of the screen when the device is in portrait mode.

This YouTube feature will make it possible for users to watch what they want in the way they want while allowing advertisers to take advantage of the viewership.

Source: Google Ads Help

Twitter Lets Users Switch to a Chronological Feed

YouTube wasn’t the only social network to give users more control, Twitter did the same.

This past month, Twitter made it possible for users to have a reverse chronological feed. This setting shows popular tweets users may have missed since their last session, and then some recommended tweets from people they don’t follow.

The benefit of this new setting is that it gives people insight into what is happening in the Twittersphere beyond the people they follow.

The other algorithmic setting remains, which simply shows tweets from followers.

Twitter released this after releasing the update:

“We’ve learned that when showing the best Tweets first, people find Twitter more relevant and useful. However, we’ve heard feedback from people who at times prefer to see the most recent Tweets.”

 

Facebook Pages Can Join and Interact with Groups

Facebook is giving Pages some of their power back.

Pages were not allowed to join Groups before because of the fear that the actions would turn into another way to freely market a brand, products, and services. However, Facebook has had a change of heart and is now allowing Pages to join and interact in Groups.

If Page managers do not abuse this privilege, it may stick around. Hopefully this feature will stay for at least a little while since it is a great way to expose a brand to relevant communities on Facebook. By having the brand name and image with every comment in Groups, more people will see it and may decide to follow the Page.

The setting is active by default. As a Page manager, all you have to do is go to a Group and click to join. The Group owners and managers will decide whether or not to let the Page join.

We shall see what happens next month with this and if it is something that will help Pages grow on Facebook.

Source: Social Media Today

 

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That’s it for the September 2018 Digital Marketing News round up. We’re excited to see what else this year has in store for us. Make sure to check back in for October’s News Roundup!