June Online Marketing Roundup

We are in the middle of the year, it’s a good moment to stop for a second and take a look to the most important news so far. In this opportunity: New Google’s Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool, Facebook closer to includes ads in live videos and mor. Read our June Online Marketing roundup here!

Google Analytics Will Now Warn You About Hackers

According to its Webmaster Central Blog and following on from the launch of Safe Browsing, a service that warns users of malware or phishing attacks, Google will expand its set of alerts in Google Analytics by adding notifications about sites hacked for spam in violation of its Webmaster Guidelines.

“In the unlikely event of your site being compromised by a third party, the alert will flag the affected domain right within the Google Analytics UI and will point you to resources to help you resolve the issue.”

Google also revealed that it has seen a 180% increase in sites hacked for spam compared to the previous year, however direct contact with website owners increases the likelihood of a fix by 75%.

Search Console Adds New ‘Rich Results’ Filter

Following on from the addition of a rich cards section to its Search Console service, Google has now also added a ‘rich result’ filter to its Search Analytics.

Just navigate to Search Traffic>Search Analytics, then click on Search Appearance filter to select the ‘rich result’ option.

This will tell you how well your rich snippets and cards are doing in terms of impressions, clicks, CTR and position.

Thanks to Danny Sullivan over at SEJ for the info and screen grab.

Facebook is Testing a New Way to Make Damn Sure Your Friends See Your Posts

Facebook has been trialling out a new way of notifying your friends directly about your status updates.

Although only rolled out to a handful of people in the UK, Canada and Spain, this is an interesting experiment, that means you can nudge up to 10 of your friends and say, “Hey look at me, why don’t you pay attention to me anymore? Is it because of spammy behaviour such as this?”

We’ll see how long it lasts.

YouTube Adds Mobile Live-Streaming to Catch up to Facebook, Periscope

YouTube has had a live-streaming product since 2011. But it hasn’t been a great one. It required a lot of technical know-how and wasn’t possible to use on mobile. As a result, Twitter’s Periscope and Facebook Live have usurped YouTube as the dominant live-streaming platforms. Now YouTube wants its crown back.

YouTube is starting to enable live-streaming within its mobile apps, the Google-owned video service announced on Thursday during a keynote presentation at digital video event VidCon.

YouTube Live — not the official product name but better than “YouTube mobile live-streaming” — isn’t so different from Facebook Live or Periscope.

Now, when people click the button in YouTube’s app to record a video, they’ll have an option to record a live broadcast. If they click to go live, they’ll be prompted to enter a video title — like on Periscope and Facebook Live — and then to take a photo that will serve as the video’s thumbnail — unlike on Periscope or Facebook Live.

YouTube’s live broadcasts more closely resemble Periscope than Facebook Live. An on-screen demo showed the video taking up the entirety of the screen with comments floating up vertically from the bottom-left corner of the screen.

YouTube will make its live broadcasts available immediately after a live recording finishes, so that anyone who missed a live stream can watch it after the fact. So do Facebook Live and Periscope. And people who subscribe to a channel will receive notifications when that channel goes live. Kinda like on Facebook.

Facebook is Getting Closer to Putting Ads in Live Videos

Some publishers and creators are already making money from using Facebook Live. Facebook pays them. But Facebook isn’t going to pay everyone.

So if Facebook wants everyone — especially digital celebrities and publishers that are used to making money from their YouTube videos — to be using Facebook Live, then at some point, Facebook will need to find a way to help them generate their own revenue. And it’s getting closer to that point.

On Thursday, at VidCon, the digital video industry’s version of Comic-Con, Ana Kasparian from digital video news network The Young Turks asked Facebook’s video product boss, Fidji Simo, when the social network will introduce a way for creators to make money from their Facebook Live streams.

Simo didn’t necessarily break out her calendar or Facebook’s whiteboard, but she did indicate that ads are on their way and will likely land in the middle of live streams, as Digiday had previously reported that company is exploring.

One of those things Facebook seems poised to explore is putting ads in the middle of live streams.

Facebook did have some non-ad features for Live to announce on Thursday. Sometime later this summer, people will have the ability to use Facebook-owned mobile app MSQRD to put MSQRD’s Snapchat-like filters on their faces while they’re live-streaming using Facebook Live.

People are also going to be able to have someone located somewhere else join their Facebook Live a la Google’s Hangouts On Air, but limited to one other person.

Also like Hangouts On Air, people will be able to schedule upcoming Live broadcasts so that their friends and followers can request to get notified when the broadcast goes live or be put into a virtual waiting room ahead of the live stream in order to not miss the start.

Google Releases More Efficient Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool

Google has release a more efficient, and arguably more aesthetically pleasing version of its mobile friendly testing tool. The new tool will return your site’s mobile friendliness score, mobile page speed score, and desktop page speed score with the click of a button.

According to a Google advisor, almost half of all people will leave a mobile site that doesn’t load fast enough, which makes it all the more important to ensure your mobile scores are up to an acceptable level.

Running your site through the tool will return the scores ranging from good, to fair, the poor. In addition to the scores there is also an option to send a detailed report to your email inbox. Alternatively, you can scroll down the page to view more details about your score.

Clicking through to view more details will let you know what went into the score, with recommendations what you should definitely fix and what you should consider fixing.

After spending some time with the new tool it’s easily comparable to Google’s page speed testing tool which has been around for some time. The greatest difference is that the new tool feels more approachable in its design, is more efficient in presenting information, and is all around more user friendly.

Another key difference is the option to have a report sent to your email, which is something the previous tool didn’t offer. This is not only useful for yourself, but an excellent report to show clients as well.

Interestingly enough, Google’s PageSpeed Insights still exists, which means the new tool is not replacing the old tool — at least not yet. Will the two tools coexist when one is such a vast improvement over the other? That remains to be seen.

With people being 5 time more likely to leave a site that isn’t mobile friendly, it’s a good idea to give Google’s new tool a run through and see how your site fares in terms of mobile speed and friendliness.