It’s been a minute but since the last Edit, I traveled with Dennis, Megan, and Angela to my first in person IBS. Dennis summed it up nicely in his post; it was everything I heard it was and more. I came back with a full tank, ready to help our builders achieve their sales goals for 2022. To that end, this week I’m sharing articles that provide some clarity on topics like Bing, online reviews, Meta & privacy, CDP’s, and PageSpeed.
IS BING STILL A THING?
Not only is Bing still a thing, but it’s actually popular with more than just Boomers. The Verge asked its podcast listeners if they used Bing by choice and the results were surprising. Did you know that Xbox ties rewards to searching on Bing? Yeah, you can earn rewards by using Bing as your Search Engine. That means there’s a whole lot of Gen Z’s and Millennials earning points through Bing Searches. I wonder if my 15 year old daughter is one of them? The reason I share this is because, we traditionally think of Bing as a place to advertise for 55+ communities. But this article has me rethinking that stance. How much of your budget do you allocate to Bing?
ONLINE REVIEWS – A CONTINUED THORN IN THE SIDE
Nothing makes me happier than when a 5 Star review comes through for a builder on Google Business Profiles. Conversely, I cringe each time a less than stellar one comes through. And we’ve all probably been on the receiving end of a bad Yelp review before. Good luck getting rid of them even if they are full of half truths or blatant lies. And of course, we want to do all that we can to gather the good ones and prevent the bad ones but the FTC isn’t messing around when it comes to reviews.
In an effort to combat fake reviews (does anyone have any trust left in Amazon Reviews anymore or am I just that jaded?) the FTC is cracking down on platforms and businesses that it perceives to be gaming the review system. They’re outlining some clear guidelines on the collection and distribution of reviews.
There are still ways to encourage the good reviews while not preventing the bad ones and we always recommend that the best way to handle the bad ones is head on. Reach out and have the tough conversation with the unhappy customer. Your efforts can often result in positive outcomes.
META & THE FOX
Mozilla and Meta are working together on an IPA (not a tasty beer treat but rather an Interoperable Privacy Attribution). Their answer to privacy and a cookieless world amounts to their own version of a clean room which basically gathers data together so as to avoid identifying individual users. Similar in concept to Google’s replacement for FLoC’s, Topics API.
CDP BASICS
Hello and welcome back to my neverending Ted Talk about CDP’s. This latest article introduces 20 questions to ask during a CDP demo and I love it because these questions are a great way to begin the research phase too. Of these topics, which are important to you? Which aren’t you managing in a great way now and which do you think you already have a solid hand on? Go through the questions and look within your own systems now to see how a CDP might be of great benefit to you and your marketing efforts.
PAGESPEED & SEARCH RANK
Oh hey PageSpeed, long time no talk. Many in the building industry think of meta tags, keywords, and content when they think of SEO, but SEO has expanded to include user experience as a ranking factor. Core Web Vitals plays a role in how Google juges Page Speed. You can test yours using Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool. The ability for your website to load content quickly is in fact, an important part of how your website ranks in search engine results. It should be thought of and considered as much as keywords and tags when you are evaluating the SEO performance of your website.
That’s what’s important in the digital world today. Have a great weekend!
