The Latest with Google AdWords: September 2017

The AdWords landscape as we know it is an ever-changing playground. Google strives to provide a better experience for the user and a more robust, effective way for advertisers to target and engage with their audiences.

Main Street ROI, as always, has you covered with a roundup of some of the latest news and updates over the past month.

1. Changes to Google Shopping Mobile product listings

Google has started testing a different variation of mobile product cards in the Google Shopping format. The product appears at the top, within a carousel that you can swipe for information, as well as filtering options underneath.

This can help retail owners immensely; providing all the information an online shopper needs (prices, reviews, product description etc.) before they even click through to the advertisers website to purchase the product.

With this update, retailers can ultimately expect higher conversion rates from mobile users — especially those who provide competitive prices and a fantastic mobile shopping experience. Shoppers will have more buying intent before clicking through due to the additional information.

With this growing culture of impatient web users, Google is striving to satisfy the modern online shopper; people in general are now expecting instant information (over 65% of smartphone users now expect to get immediate information while using their smartphone) and this is exactly what the new mobile product cards provide.

2. Google Call Only Ads Now Support Ad Extensions

Google announced that “for the first time, you’ll be able to show ad extensions with call-only ads to promote more relevant information about your products and services, and give people more reasons to choose your business.”

Google is allowing advertisers to use Location extensions (highlight new information about your locations for customers looking to visit your store), Callout extensions (unique benefits, such as 24 hour call line), and Structured snippets (more specific detail about your products / services).

These ad extensions are reportedly increasing click through rates by 10% on average. So, the question you may be asking yourself is: “Should I be updating my call-only ads with ad extensions?”

The answer is a resounding yes. With out a doubt. Absolutely. Get ahead of the game before your competition.

3. AdWords has introduced a new way in which mobile sitelinks are displayed.

Sitelinks help you send people to specific pages on your site directly from your ad, like your store hours page, product pages and more. Going forward, Google is simplifying how mobile sitelinks will show by using both horizontal buttons and larger vertical links.

According to Google, early results have shown that people are twice as likely to interact with your sitelinks in this new format.

The interactivity alone will intrigue people to engage with your ad — and again, we highly recommend implementing sitelinks with your mobile ads if you haven’t already!

4. Google Chrome to show all non HTTPS sites as ‘Non Secure’

This is an important update applicable to both SEO and PPC. Google Chrome will soon (October 2017) mark all non-secure pages as ‘Not Secure’ if you have any password fields or credit card fields present on a non-secure page on your website.

People are becoming more web-savvy these days, and visiting a website which triggers the ‘not secure’ label in the URL bar should send off the warning sirens to most. This will negatively affect the bounce rate of visitors, which would lead to lesser performing AdWords campaigns and potentially lower rankings in the search engine results.

So now, more than ever, it is vital that your website uses the HTTPS security. If your site isn’t secure, don’t be surprised if your rankings and traffic begins to decrease over time as this is fully rolled out.