Your Web Site Menu Is Hurting Your Conversions

Today In Digital Marketing is a daily podcast showcasing the latest in marketing trends and updates. This week, Tod touches on:

• CRO: Your Web Site Menu Is Hurting Your Conversions
• SEO: Core Web Vitals Are More Important Than We All Thought
• SCAMS: Instagram Bans For Hire
• SCAMS: Google Closing the Google Maps Spam Loophole
• AGENCIES: Twitter and Facebook Update Agency Guides
• COVID-19: Yelp Introduces Vaccination Labels

Below is the transcription from this weeks topics

CRO: Your Web Site Menu Is Hurting Your Conversions

There is an outstanding thread on Twitter today by Mathias von Appen Schrøder, an e-commerce marketer in Denmark.

It's all about fine-tuning the menu on your website. And let's start with a reminder that almost all web traffic comes from mobile devices.

I want you to hold your phone right now. Or if you're driving, think about where your hand is when you're holding it. At the bottom, correct? Now, if you're right-handed, think about the areas of the screen your thumb can easily get to.

If you're like most people, you've got a comfortable range from the bottom-left of the screen, to the middle, then to the middle-right. Some areas are just completely out of range, yes? Like the top-left. Or, depending on the size of your phone, anything at the top.

SEO: Core Web Vitals Are More Important Than We All Thought

One of the biggest changes in the last year to how Google decides how high up the search listings your site appears has been a relatively new metric called Core Web Vitals.

Core Web Vitals is actually three metrics: How fast the biggest element of a page loads, how soon someone can interact with the page, and how much the layout jumps around.

While SEO pros have been talking this up, and third-party tools have been integrating measurement tools into their platforms, Google themselves somewhat downplayed the importance of the metric.

It's not that it wasn't important — having good scores is good for a user experience, after all — but they said the only way they'd use it as any kind of ranking factor is in a tie-breaker situation. For instance, the ranking of two web pages with roughly the same content and relevancy would be decided in that case on which had the better Web Vitals score.

Now, Google seems to be adjusting that advice. You can find the thread in the r/SEO subreddit under the discussion called "Anyone else not buying Core Web Vitals?"

SCAMS: Instagram Bans For Hire

If you wake up one morning to find your brand's Instagram account has been banned for some reason, you may have fallen victim to the latest scam circulating around the dark web.

Basically, people are offering account-ban services for as little as $60. You give them an account you want banned, and they'll get it removed. How?

1. Either they'll take an existing verified account, change the name and photo to the victim's account, then report the victim's account as a copycat.
2. Or, they'll just get a bunch of accounts to report it as promoting self-harm and suicide — apparently, Instagram's automated enforcement bot are so tuned to that particular report that they just shut accounts with lots of reports down.

One scammer The Verge spoke to said it was so lucrative that it was basically a full-time job.

All that to say if you run a brand account, do everything in your power to get it verified, if you can. You'll find the option in the Instagram app under Settings, then Account, then Request Verification.

SCAMS: Google Closing the Google Maps Spam Loophole

Speaking of scams, Google is apparently working on fixing a particularly nasty one, though I don't know if it's fair to call it a scam.

Basically, it involved someone putting up a Google My Business profile for some kind of service — like HVAC repair, or window tinting, or plumber... but these companies didn't actually do that work. Instead, they ran a very simple website that looked like they had a local business, but in fact were just collecting leads, which the site owner would then sell to an actual local service business.

A couple of weeks ago, one real business owner noticed his business category in Google My Business changed from “tire store” to “wheel shop”. In fact, this appeared to be happening on every similar business that didn't have an actual storefront address displayed.

Turns out, this is by design. Google said businesses that are set up only as service-area businesses, and not necessarily actual storefronts, will not have access to certain categories — all this to help cut down on this strange local spam on Google Maps.

AGENCIES: Twitter and Facebook Update Agency Guides

Both Twitter and Facebook this week offered updated advice for agency people.

In Twitter's case, they updated their Agency Playbook, with advice on creating more effective Twitter ad campaigns, including new usage insights, revised ad specs, case studies, and so on.

Their original Agency Playbook had been around since 2019.

Some of the data inside shows that ad engagements are on the rise, and younger users are making up more of the audience talking about big issues.

They also have a section about how to write good tweets — and I'm a little wary of this. Culturally, in the last year or two, Twitter has been leaning toward more informal language, quicker tweets, even tweets that look like they've just been hastily bashed out by an overworked intern.

COVID-19: Yelp Introduces Vaccination Labels

Yelp is introducing two new profile attributes: “Proof of vaccination required” and “Staff fully vaccinated.”

Attributes are little labels you can put on your profile. Others include Black-owned and LGBT-owned, and so on. And yes, users will be able to filter their searches for just those locations with that vaccination status.

Interestingly, they also made a note in their announcement to say that they'll be keeping an extra close eye on businesses that apply these attributes to their profiles — in an attempt to watch for any hateful and harmful content on those business profiles.

They say customer reviews that criticize a business’s vaccination requirements violate their Content Guidelines. So far, they've deleted almost 8,000 reviews for violating those rules.

This does seem to be more a consideration for American businesses, since out here in the rest OF THE 96% of the world's population, we consider vaccines a good thing. But, I guess if you're in the U.S., there's a political layer you've got to consider as well.

Credit to Tod Maffin and the Today In Digital Marketing podcast, Produced by engageQ.com