Digital Marketing News 12/20/2022 – 12/26/2022

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Google Analytics 4 Launches Built-In Landing Page Report

The new GA4 functionality enables personalized reports with your preferred metrics in addition to automated reports.

Universal Analytics (UA), which will be phased down in July 2023, has been replaced by GA4, which was officially published in mid-October 2020.

The reports for landing pages had to be manually created prior to this change, which is being made available to users progressively. This method was tedious and involved numerous clicks.

Landing Page Reports Accessible in Dashboard

The landing page report is located in the Engagement area of your GA4 dashboard's left navigation.

Metrics for Views, New Users, Average Engagement Time per Session, Conversions, and Total Revenue are included in the automated report's default settings. These fields can be altered and tailored to suit the specific requirements of any webmaster.

Here’s how you can create custom reports:

1. Click the “Custom Report” icon in the upper right.

2. Press on “Metrics” and add or remove the ones you want in your report.

3. Hit “Apply” and generate your report.

GA4 Has More Functionality Than the Previous Platform

The capacity to mix web and app data into one property was one of the key advancements from UA4 to GA4. Screen views for mobile-specific properties were tracked separately under Google's prior analytics program.

UA4 has a far smaller number of standard reports than UA, which supplied a large variety. 

It has typically taken more effort to analyze data in GA4, whether it be through the production of an individual "Exploration" report or by exporting the data.

GA4 Put User Data And Data Sources Front And Center

The gathering of data and privacy were two other key changes between UA and GA4. GA4 does not gather or save IP addresses, in contrast to its predecessor.

Along with giving customers choices about how long their data is stored and whether or not their location is recorded, it also made the process of erasing data simpler.

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Meta Rolls Out Better WhatsApp Calling Features

Meta has announced new WhatsApp features for improved video and voice calling on the app to support and manage bigger group calls.

Three key elements that improved the calling experience on the chat platform, according to Meta, include 32-person video calling, the option to message or mute users, and call connections. 

You can start a video or voice call on your mobile device with up to 32 individuals using 32-person calls.

The option to message or mute participants is also quite useful because it enables you to magnify the video or audio stream and allows you to communicate or mute each individual participant independently while the call is still in progress.

By providing a call link, the instant chat messenger now makes it simple to invite individuals to a group call.

Source: Meta article

Meta also updated WhatsApp's functionality to enhance the calling experience. You can now see when a new caller joins a group call on WhatsApp thanks to new in-call banner notifications. 

The WhatsApp beta version for iOS makes it simple for users to multitask while on a call thanks to the minimized in-call video panel. Last but not least, Colorful waveforms make it simple to identify who is speaking even if the camera is off.

Additionally, Meta offers end-to-end encrypted messaging, ensuring the security of all your calls. Meta shares it will keep releasing new features in order to deliver high-quality, private calling to WhatsApp.

Social

Instagram Rolls Out New Features: Notes, Candid Stories, and Group Profiles According to Meta

Meta continues to improve the user experience and build connections by introducing new features like Notes, Candid Stories, and Group Profiles to Instagram.

On December 13, 2022, Meta officially announced the newest set of sharing features on Instagram: Notes, Group Profiles, and Candid Stories.

Express Your Ideas Through Notes

Notes, which allow short posts of up to 60 characters, functions as another avenue to express yourself through text and emojis. 

To use Notes, go to the top of your inbox, click on followers you follow back or people on your Close Friends list, and write your note. Your note will appear at the top of their inbox for 24 hours. DMs will show up in your inbox as responses to notes.

Notes give people a comfortable and spontaneous way to express themselves and connect with each other, from seeking recommendations to sharing what they're up to.

Make The Moments Count

Aside from enabling sharing Stories throughout the day, Meta is testing out two new features where users can easily create content with other users and build stronger connections: Candid Stories and Add Yours. 

Source: Meta Article

Candid Stories is a brand-new way for you and your friends to document and share what you're doing right now in a story that only those who have shared their own can see.

Take a Candid from the stories camera, the multi-author story at the beginning of the feed, or from the daily notification reminder that starts after your first candid.

Currently, Instagram is testing the Add Yours feature where you can invite friends to engage by tapping pass it on when you see a prompt that reminds you of them.

Work Together and Keep Track of Groups

Instagram is experimenting with new features that will let users connect and work in groups with their peers. Group Profiles and Collaborative Collections are some of these features.

When you post something to a Group Profile, it will be posted there rather than on your personal profile and will only be visible to other members of the group.  Tap the + and choose Group Profiles to start a new group profile.

Another way users can bond over shared interests with friends is through Collaborative Collections. 

By storing posts to a collaborative collection in your group or 1:1 DMs, users can interact with peers over common interests. You can create or add to a collaborative collection by saving a post directly from feed or sharing a post to a buddy via DM and saving it from there. 

Instagram empowers users to create, connect, and collaborate with other users through its recent updates like Notes, Group Profiles, and Candid Stories.

Search

Google Releases a Visual Manual for Search Elements

Google releases a visual manual that includes explanations and examples of the most popular search results features.

The many sections on a search results page are visualized and defined in Google's new guide to search features. In essence, Google’s new guide helps you spot the exact search element you need help with, so you can get more answers related to your search.

Inside the Visual Elements Gallery

The newly created Visual Elements Gallery was created to make it easier for you to recognize the most prominent and effective visual components on a search results page. 

It includes some 22 visual components that are most likely to show up on search result pages and are important to website owners and SEOs, like:

• Attribution- The features that assist users in immediately identifying the source of the search result by using visual cues such the site's name, URL, and favicon.

• Video and image results- The video and image search results are based on the relevant media that has been indexed within the context of the relevant landing pages.

• Text results- The text of the pages that are indexed.

• Exploration features- These visual components, sometimes referred to as "People Also Ask," enable users to expand their search processes.

With labels indicating what each element is called and where you can get additional information about how you could influence or enable it for your website, each element group is accompanied by an abstract depiction of what the visual element might appear like on the search result page.

Additionally, the abstracted design aids in maintaining the consistency of the manual throughout the 18 languages that Search Central supports.

Search

Google’s E-E-A-T And Major Updates to Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines

The most recent update of Google's search rater guidelines provides information on the criteria used to assess first-hand experience.

For Google Search rankings, proving first-hand experience is more crucial than ever. Google's search quality rating standards have been updated to include the criteria it uses.

Google is improving the concept of E-A-T with an additional ‘E’ for experience. The new E-E-A-T acronym now represents Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

A description of how Google directs quality raters to assess a content creator's skill has been added to its search quality rater guidelines in response.

With this change comes more explicit guidance throughout the rules highlighting the significance of content generated to be unique and beneficial for individuals and describing how beneficial information can originate from a variety of sources and in a variety of formats.

Google is reiterating its emphasis on trust in addition to introducing experience as a criterion.

According to Google, trust is the most important element of E-E-A-T since untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T regardless of how Experienced, Expert, or Authoritative they may appear to be. Experience, expertise, and authoritativeness qualify a rater’s trust assessment.

How E-E-A-T Is Evaluated By Google’s Quality Raters 

Multiple chapters of Google's search quality rater guidelines evaluate E-E-A-T on a scale of high to low.

• Chapter 4.5.2:Lowest E-E-A-T- If a page on YMYL subjects has a low level of expertise, it should be ranked Lowest as Untrustworthy. Use the lowest grade if the webpage or website has a very poor reputation and the person who created the content is widely regarded as being unreliable.

• Chapter 5.1: Lacking E-E-A-T: Poor quality pages often don't have the right amount of E-E-A-T for their subject or purpose. Unfortunately, a positive reputation cannot overcome the lack of E-E-A-T for the topic or purpose of the page.

• Chapter 7.3: High Level of E-E-A-T: High E-E-A-T pages are trustworthy or extremely trustworthy. Experience is valuable for almost any topic. Discussions on forums and in social media are often of high quality. First-hand knowledge can improve the quality of a social media post or discussion page, from writing symphonies to reviewing household appliances.

• Chapter 8.3 Very High Level Of E-E-A-T: Highest quality pages can be identified by their extremely high E-E-A-T scores. A website or content producer with a very high E-E-A-T rating is an authoritative, go-to source for that topic. When it comes to subjects where experience is the main determinant of trust, a content producer with a lot of experience may be regarded as having very high E-E-A-T.

Search

Google’s December 2022 Link Spam Update Has Begun to Roll Out

On December 14, 2022, Google started rolling out a new link spam upgrade known as the December 2022 link spam update. 

In contrast to previous updates, this one employs SpamBrain AI to "identify both sites purchasing links, and sites used for sending outbound links," rather than merely "detecting spam directly," according to Google.

The upgrade, whose rollout might take up to two weeks, began one week after Google's ongoing rollout of its December 2022 helpful content update.

What’s Inside The December 2022 Link Spam 

Google is enhancing its spam detection algorithm so that it can now locate links that have been purchased and recognize domains that are primarily used to transmit links to other websites.

The December 2022 link spam upgrade eliminates unnatural links by using Google's AI-based SpamBrain spam-prevention system.

In addition to immediately detecting spam, Google claims SpamBrain can now recognize websites used for link building and websites that buy connections.

Should You Worry About Your Site?

Google warns that rankings could change as a result of the December 2022 link spam upgrade, which would remove any signals sent to the linking domain by unnatural links and neutralize them.

All languages' search results are impacted by this upgrade, which could have a significant effect.

Depending on how you build links and how you link out to other pages, this upgrade may or may not affect your website.

Social

The Video Insights API Now Includes Reels Metrics

Meta followed up its rollout of the Facebook Reels API in September with December 16, 2022's addition of Reels metrics to the Facebook Video Insights API.

Reels performance data include average minutes viewed, comments, plays, minutes viewed, post reach, responses, and shares. Developers can acquire and analyze these information for any individual video on a Facebook page during the course of the content's lifecycle.

Additional resources

Here are some helpful tools and tutorials to get you started on Reels API for Facebook:

• FB Reels API Developer Docs 

• FB Reels Sample Apps on GitHub 

• IG Reels API Developer Docs

• Other reels resources

The improvement to the Video Insights API will be accessible for both the current and all previous versions of the Graph API, where it will immediately become accessible to developers who have access to the relevant APIs and won't necessitate the need for extra App Review.

What you can do next:

• Explore and familiarize yourself with GA4's new and improved functionality and generate custom reports whenever needed.

• Try out the new WhatsApp features, such as  32-person video calling, the option to message or mute users, and call connections. 

• Test your creativity and try out Instagram's recent updates like Notes, Group Profiles, and Candid Stories to connect and collaborate with other like-minded users.

• Review the best practices on insights APIs and apply these to your content for optimal performance.

• Emphasize E-E-A-T, meaning Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness to meet or even exceed Google’s quality rater guidelines.

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