3 Google Changes We are Looking Forward to Seeing in 2018

As we kick off yet another year in Digital Marketing, the updates that roll out throughout the year are hard to miss. From better performance enhancements, to sales and everything else in between – here are three things we are eagerly waiting to see and their influence as the year progresses.

Whether you like it or not, Google’s new complete revamp of the AdWords user interface is here to stay. Getting used to navigating your way around soon enough is a definite. This is a change that will take some getting used to and it will be interesting to see how it goes throughout the year, here are some tips to help you get started finding your feet on Adwords Alpha.

Some Useful Features In The New Interface.

• Updated Demographic Targeting Options – In their new interface, Google has taken a step further on demographic targeting options, allowing advertisers to target users based on their household income and parental status which could really be a game changer for a lot of advertisers.
• Audiences – A new Audiences page offering a single place to manage audience targeting and optimizations.
• Updated Reporting – reports now visually displays the breakdown of clicks, cost, and conversions across desktop, tablet, and mobile, making it easier to manage your campaigns and optimize your device bid adjustments.
• New Extensions – newly added is the Promotion extensions which will allow you to highlight special sales on your website and in the process of doing this through an extension you also save some valuable, limited characters in your ad copy.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes that was announced late last year was that the Google Partner Exams are moving to Google Academy for Ads and they will now be called assessments. This will now be the exclusive new home for AdWords learning courses, exams, and certifications. This does seem like a good choice since it will be easier to find more information and learn more about Google ads from one place.

What Happens to Your Current Exams You May Ask…

• All valid exams and certifications’ information will be transferred including: your name, each exam and certification that is currently valid, and their respective expiration dates.
• You will continue to take exams and earn certifications through the Academy for Ads website instead of the Partners site.

You still have a choice if you don’t want to transfer your information to Academy for Ads, you can opt-out on the “My profile” page in your Partners account (your choice can’t be changed after January). However if you choose to opt-out of transferring your exam and certification information, it won’t be available in Academy for Ads and it won’t be available on the Partners site after April 2018, meaning if you are affiliated with a company, the status of your company’s Google Partner badge and specialisations might be put at risk in certain situations like not meeting certain requirements to be considered a Google Partner.

Another change that has started rolling out is the new Google Search Console interface, the home page for the new Search Console shows a graph of your performance, as measured by total clicks on your site. It also shows a table with key metrics for your site, such as index, AMP, and structured data coverage. You can click in to see details about any of these values or to start troubleshooting any problems you see.

It sure will be interesting to see how users find the new experience and making the transition, be sure to give us your comments letting us know your thoughts about the new updates and how they are working out for you.