As we enter holiday season, we wanted to make sure you are in the know of everything SEO because there have been quite a few changes this year with Google and other large tech giants such as Shopify staking claim in the search game.
Google’s New Search Redesign
Google is now switching over to use the “Multitask Unified Model Algorithm.” Quite a mouthful, but this algorithm is meant to be more intuitive, more visual, and more inspiring than previous models. It will allow users to search with images instead of just regular text and luckily, there won’t be too much of an impact on SEO outside of keyword styling.
According to Search Engine Journal, this algorithm is changing search in three ways:
- Things to Know: Google will anticipate relevant or popular paths and surface this
- Topic Zoom: Allow users to jump in and out of related topics
- Visually Browsable Search Results: Restricted to searchers where the intent is to find inspiration
Google Updated Their Best Practices Guide for eCommerce Websites
Google wanted to help online retailers and publishers make their products more visible in search and across Google images, lens, shopping tabs and maps. The guide includes structured data and site architecture advice, such as recommended navigations to use and how to optimize your URL structure. Additionally, this updated guide discusses what type of data you should be sharing with Google so your product can be displayed in the merchant center and shown when appropriate.
Google Looking to Add TikTok and Instagram to Search
YouTube has dominated Google search results, having struck a deal that included native video display of podcasts, Twitter and Vimeo. Now, Google is expanding to compete with TikTok, Youtube Short and Instagram’s Reels. Perhaps Google is fearful of their monopoly ending—they pay Apple annually a smooth $15 billion fee to be featured as the default search engine on mobile devices. Not wanting their reign to end, they have high hopes of adding more video to their search engine.
Shopify is Growing Their Tech for International Markets
According to a report by eMarketer and Insider Intelligence, almost 30% of store traffic in July 2021 came from outside the U.S. This is just one of many reasons why Shopify announced their new global eCommerce hub Shopify Markets. This technology will handle currency conversion, language translation and regional SEO.
The biggest impact this would have would be for domain visibility in different search engines across the globe, but we still need to review how this tool is rolled out.
International SEO that is not done well can cannibalize priority regions and dilute value or previously established content. For Shopify clients, testing this feature to evaluate if it’s worth investing into is paramount. If the Shopify Market is properly set up, this tool could give users a large competitive edge when breaking into new regions.
Co-writer: Taylor Heussner, Corporate Marketing Manager
