This Month In eCommerce SEO – August 2024

#1: What You Need To Know About The Google August 2024 Core Update

After a month of anticipation, the August 2024 core update arrived mid-month and has finished its roll out period as of September 3rd. If you’re all about providing useful content to your readers, you’ll want to learn more about this update.

Google announced on August 15th that this update was designed primarily to show more content that people genuinely find useful. On the other hand, content that feels like it was written purely for Search would not be prioritized.

🔗 Link to full news here:

• What to know about our August 2024 core update
• Google August 2024 core update rollout is now complete

✅ A ranking bug impacted numerous search results after the August 2024 update, but Google has confirmed it as a separate issue, which has since been resolved.

✅ Many sites previously affected by the September 2023 Helpful Content Update are now seeing improvements, with gains in ranking and visibility, including the return of rich result image thumbnails, although full recoveries are still pending.

✅ The August 2024 update took 19 days to fully roll out. During this period, it’s common to see fluctuations in keyword rank positions which can have a knock effect on traffic and revenue. Now that the update is complete, it’s a good time to review what improved and more importantly – if any valuable keywords dropped.

✅ Google emphasizes the importance of people-first content. Sites that focus on quality, expertise, and user experience are more likely to achieve higher rankings under this update. Refer to Google’s guide for creating helpful content in the “Additional Sources” below.

✅ Smaller and independent sites now have a stronger opportunity to rank. By producing original, valuable content for relevant search queries, these sites can compete more effectively with larger competitors.

Additional sources:

• Google August 2024 core update rollout is now complete
• Google Search Status Dashboard
• Some Google Helpful Content Update Resurrections With August Core Update
• Google Search Status Dashboard – August 2024 Core Algorithm Update
• Google: Wait Until The August Core Update Is Complete To See Effects
• Google Search Central – Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content

#2: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Aims Safer Online Shopping Experience In New Rule

Fake reviews disrupt a healthy market ecosystem which is why in a recent ruling, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officially bans the publishing, purchasing, or suppressing of reviews. Businesses have until October 13, 2024 to examine their practices to ensure compliance with this new rule.

Failure to comply can bring an enforcement action seeking in excess of $50,000 per alleged violation. This could also result in a decline of consumer trust. Overall, this rule aims to fight against digital marketing practices that mislead consumers.

🔗 Link to full news here: Federal Trade Commission Announces Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials

✅ The FTC’s new rule targets fake reviews with specific provisions banning practices such as buying or selling reviews from individuals with no experience, coercing consumers to remove negative reviews, publishing undisclosed employee reviews, and buying or selling fake social media interactions.

✅ Several indicators may signal fake reviews, such as rapid submissions or incorrect product mentions, but each case requires deeper investigation based on its unique circumstances.

✅ AI-generated reviews are covered under the new rule because they are still considered as deceptive no matter what method is used. There is no loophole for AI-generated testimonials, which will likely take center stage under this new ruling.

✅ To stay on the right side of the FTC, focus on getting honest, transparent feedback from both customers and employees.

✅ The regulation is enforceable only within the United States. Additionally, this is being issued by the FTC which means that it does not carry the same legal weight as a law passed through Congress, though it is still a significant regulatory measure.

Additional sources:

• FTC Announces Rule to Crack Down on Fake Reviews
• New Rule Issued by FTC Focuses on Fake and AI-Generated Reviews, Imposes Heavy Civil Penalties 
• FTC – We’ll pay you to give our new rule a good review
• The Price of Fake Reviews Just Went Up: What the FTC’s New Rule Means for You 

#3: Expand Your Content Visibility In Search Through Google AI Overviews

Search is evolving. This is especially true after Google announced key improvements in AI Overviews. This feature uses artificial intelligence to provide users with summarized answers to their questions with a link to the full source for deeper research.

Although it raised reliability concerns since its launch in May this year, it continues to yield more accurate results after recent updates and is likely going to get even better. Google continues to test ways to present the most helpful and reliable content for users.

🔗 Link to full news here: New ways to connect to the web with AI Overviews

✅ Link cards in AI Overviews are a valuable addition, offering users multiple sources to explore for more detailed answers. This feature is also available on mobile.

✅ You can now save AI Overviews for future reference via Search Labs. This makes it easier to revisit useful information without having to start a new search.

✅ The new Gemini model enhances AI Overviews by providing clearer answers to complex questions. It can handle multi-step reasoning, allowing search users to ask more detailed queries without breaking them down into multiple searches.

✅ AI Overviews are now available in more countries, including the UK, Japan, India, Mexico, Brazil, and Indonesia. This expansion not only boosts local website visibility but also better serves search users in these regions.

✅ Your site can appear in AI Overviews by following Google’s search guidelines. It’s now more important than ever to follow SEO best practices and improve Topical Authority for the chance to be featured as a source for AI overviews.

Additional sources:

• Google AI Overviews gains new citations and links, plus more
• New ways to connect to the web with AI Overviews
• Reuters – Google brings AI answers in Search to new countries
• Google Search Central – AI Overviews and your website

#4: Search Users are Getting Better at Searching

Since the launch of ChatGPT, the landscape of searching for everything online has changed. Those who have adopted AI into their researching process are bringing their new found prompt-like queries to search engines.

A hypotheses being explored in the article above reviewed 41 million search terms and their corresponding impression, click, and cost data over the past 29 months. It’s evident that the usage of AI tools like ChatGPT can result in search users typing highly-specific queries into search engines to get what they’re looking for.

Sounds great…what do we do?

🔗 Link to full news here: How search query length is shifting in the LLM era: Insights for brands

✅ Prioritize the user. Identify the questions your audience is asking about within your industry, and become their source for answers. Evolve your webpages to provide deeper knowledge and details to users through written and visual content. This deeper understanding will help develop content that truly resonates with your audience, helps your customers, and increases brand relevance.

✅ Brands should monitor specific conversational search terms. In the graph below, longer 7-8 word queries are increasing as searches become more conversational with tools like ChatGPT, while shorter 3-6 word queries are seeing fewer impressions.

#5: Inaccurate Product Pricing In Search Results

For online retailers, displaying wrong or inconsistent pricing can risk losing a sale and losing trust from potential customers. Google’s John Mueller suggests using Google Merchant Center – a tool that allows businesses to upload their product information to Google, to directly submit the accurate pricing data which would help avoid inaccuracies in organic search listings.

Retailers may want to leverage this platform as it offers efficient solutions with minimal effort.

🔗 Link to full news here: Google Offers Solutions for Inaccurate Product Pricing In Search

✅ Google Merchant Center directly addresses inaccurate pricing in search results by allowing retailers to upload accurate product data, ensuring that prices displayed in search listings are correct, which helps prevent loss of sales due to pricing errors.

✅ Signing up for Google Merchant Center offers more than just accurate pricing. It also gives you access to Shopping ads, free listings, and other valuable Google services, expanding your product visibility.

✅ Switching to Google Merchant Center Next can simplify product management. This feature allows Google to automatically crawl your site and add products, requiring no extra effort as long as you have structured data markup on your product landing pages.

✅ Global retailers can address currency discrepancies in search results by creating region-specific pages and content to avoid duplicates.

✅ Regularly monitor your displayed prices and currencies to ensure accuracy and prevent potential revenue loss. If high-traffic product pages have their prices reduced, it’s highly recommended to ensure you matching the updated prices in Google Merchant Center.

Additional sources:

• Google Merchant Center – Product data specification
• Google Merchant Center – Improve product pricing with the Price Insights report
• Google Merchant Center – Show products in multiple target countries

Tip Of The Month 💡

Want to get your content featured on top of search results?

Featured Snippets are Google’s way of answering user queries without them having to actually click through to a website. These snippets show up at the top of page 1 can drive A LOT of search traffic.

Here’s how your content can be featured in the Featured Snippets ⬇️

✅ Look for keywords where you’re already ranking on page 1 and Google’s showing a Featured Snippet (SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEM Rush can help with this).

✅ Use the keyword as a subheading on the article, phrased as a question. For example if you’re a music store and you’re targeting “types of guitars”, have a subheading called “What are the Types of Guitars”.

✅ Provide an answer to the question immediately after the subheading, establishing a clear question-answer relationship.

✅ Include a concise 40-60 word answer to the question, then elaborate on the details and nuances.

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