You'll Want to Take a Ride on Google’s New Visual Sitelinks Carousel
Visual sitelinks display image text ads in a swipe-able carousel on mobile, similar to the image carousel feature on Facebook. You get to capture and hook more attention with sweet mobile friendly visuals.
I don’t have to remind you the importance and power of visuals in advertising and marketing. The power of visuals is in your hands, use it wisely! I love carnival rides, I’m listening...
What’s in it for Google you ask?
Visual sitelinks are available on MOBILE (emphasis on mobile intended) only for the time being. Google wants you to up your mobile friendly website game plan and keep you on your digital toes. Google police are wise, strict, but fair when it comes to spotting decent mobile experiences. They are rooting for you to dish out quality and relevant information and search results with user experience in mind. A mobile friendly experience is a happy experience for searchers, for you and for Google. It’s a win win right?
People are constantly attached to their smartphones and use it for basically everything 'all day err day.' Just think of how you use your smartphone everyday, it comes as no surprise that you should have a mobile marketing strategy. If your website is not mobile friendly (look, navigation, performance) and you don't have a mobile marketing strategy, you will be penalised in search results. Google is a strict yet fair search mistress...
Ye ye…but what’s in it for me?
Visual frenzy! Unleash your creative beast and use product visuals to drive engagement crazy. You have the creative power to give and bring searchers exactly to what they are looking for, want to actually see and intending to purchase. What better way to do that than with visuals to catch their eyes and draw their attention. You have full creative control over what visual content searchers see, you will see better engagement and increased conversions. When it comes to mobile content...optimise, optimise, optimise!
Google loves when you are attentive towards providing relevant information and user experience at the top of your mind. They will rank you higher. We live in a visual advertising world that is surrounded by visual stimulation. The old saying that an image is worth a thousand words…well, you can’t even fit a thousand words in your text ad! (nor should you). With visuals you can enhance ad performance, click through rates and conversion rates.
Whatever your strategy is for putting out your content, keep mobile content consumption in mind and how you can use mobile to digitally, authentically and humanly connect with your audience, provide them with awesome experiences and tell your brand story.
I’m interested…but will this work for me?
Some things are just better conveyed in images. Designers, fashion retailers, travel, jewellery, food…you catch my drift here?
Google is still measuring the impact, but you can bet your Google Adwords $$$ that performance will depend on image quality, text description and relevance and signals say performance is related the keywords/product your image is related with (whether a user finds an image of your product helpful).
Neil Patel, co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and KISSmetrics, helps companies like Amazon, NBC, HP and Viacom grow their revenue. Called a top influencer on the web by The Wall Street Journal and one of the top 10 marketers by Forbes, he says marketers must understand how and why mobile content matters, and how to create content that mobile readers will love. Check out his guide to How to Write Content That Engages Mobile Readers.
See you at the Google carnival rides….