July, 2020 - Mason Interactive

Google has introduced various initiatives this year with a goal to make eCommerce more accessible to retailers of all sizes. Among the benefits for sellers, the tech giant removed product-listing fees on Google Shopping, and brought free listings to Search as well.

Last week Google announced a series of new changes that included a move to zero Google commission for purchases made through “Buy on Google” (aka Shopping Actions). This means that brands and retailers who participate in the Buy on Google checkout experience will no longer have to pay a commission fee. Effectively, this move will attract a broader range of retailers – and shoppers – to Google Shopping, and help the tech giant better compete against the major players in the eCommerce world.

What this means for you?

If you’re brand new to selling on Google through Shopping Actions, you will be invited to onboard directly to this new 0% commission version of the program.

If your store is already live on the platform, you will be invited to migrate your account to the new version with 0% commission over the next few weeks. Starting July 30, your commission rate will be automatically capped at 5% or less.

Make digital commerce more accessible

In addition, Google will open up its platform to third-party providers, starting with Shopify for inventory and order management and PayPal and Shopify for payment processing. This allows retailers to continue using the tools and services that already work for their business – essentially enabling a smooth transition for sellers, as well as consumers.

To simplify its tools and make them more compatible with merchants’ existing processes, Google is enabling commonly-used product feed formats that allow sellers to connect their inventory to sell directly on Google without having to reformat their data. Retailers will also be able to add product information (like images or technical specs) by pulling from Google’s existing database rather than having to upload it themselves.

According to Bill Ready, President of Google’s Commerce Division, Google has seen a significant increase in demand to buy from and support small businesses, and in order to help people discover these smaller merchants, Google plans to add a new small business filter on the Google Shopping tab.

With zero commission, and simplified onboarding, it will become easier for retailers to sell their products through the Google Shopping program. For consumers, this will eventually mean a larger variety of products available on Google search. As a Google Premier Partner, Mason Interactive is ready to answer any questions you may have about the new changes. Contact us for more information.

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We are honoured to welcome Wholesome Crave to our roster of clients.

Founded by a four-time James Beard Award winning chef Michel Nischan, Wholesome Crave works toward providing healthy, sustainable food to American families. A portion of the gross sales from Wholesome Crave products will benefit Wholesome Wave, a non-profit food equity organization.

The Wholesome Crave team brings decades of food industry experience to the table and enlisted Mason Interactive to go direct-to-consumer in a big way. As we begin to think thoughtfully about their Organic (SEO) strategy and roadmap, we aim to increase visibility, brand awareness, and navigate consumers to their plant-forward soups and products, while focusing on growing their SEO traffic & revenue.

Wholesome Crave is a visionary in their space, backed with a charitable mission, and we are excited to be working with them, says Mason CEO Brook Llewellyn Shepard. “The growth in clients we have seen in the past months shows the growing demand for digital advertising services. We have recently expanded our SEO team, and are fully equipped, and stronger than ever, to take on new SEO clients. “

We are committed to provide excellent service, and support brands on their digital journeys. Sign up here to schedule a free consultation with our digital experts, and take the first step on your journey.

More about Wholesome Crave here.

2020 is a whirlwind. In addition to helping our existing clients navigate the evolving landscape, we have had the privilege to welcome new, inspiring brands to the Mason family. While our client portfolio is growing, we are also growing our team of digital experts and are excited to introduce our newest team members; Marissa and Katie.

Marissa Bavaro, SEO Account Manager

Marissa is the latest addition to our growing team Rocket (SEO). Her days at Mason Interactive include developing and implementing SEO strategies on behalf of our clients, auditing client websites, conducting keyword research, preparing reports and monitoring performance in order to improve our clients’ results, efficiency, and profitability.

Marissa started her career in account services and had the opportunity to grow her passion of digital marketing into an SEO career. She graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Marketing and a minor in Media Arts. With the ever changing landscape of search, Marissa always keeps up with the latest SEO trends that help her clients rank in the SERPs. What she finds most interesting about her job is seeing how people’s minds work when they search and what makes them convert.

When she’s not optimizing for keywords, Marissa likes to stay creative with art projects, cooking and baking, and her newest hobby is candle making.

Katie Sutphin, Marketing Associate

Katie started as an intern at Mason Interactive in January 2020, and earlier this Summer she became a part-time member of team Turbo (Media). Her typical day at Mason Interactive includes brainstorming client concepts with other team members, and executing a variety of behind the scenes tasks such as pacing accounts, writing ad copy, creating ads and audiences, and pulling creative insights of top performers.

Katie is a rising college senior at Ramapo College of NJ, all set to graduate in May 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in Communication Arts with a concentration in Global Communication & Media Studies. Growing up, she aspired to be a Journalist due to her passion for reading, writing, and current events, and currently she writes for a school newspaper and does freelance writing work for a local entertainment company. In her free time she enjoys hanging with friends, reading, practicing yoga, and watching movies.

“Mason Interactive was my first internship, and the perfect fit for me! I couldn’t have asked for a better place to learn the industry, or from better people. As I worked with both paid media teams more and more, I began to really like what I was doing. My favorite thing to do at Mason is to write ad copy because I love writing. Creating interest clusters and audiences is always fun too!”
– KATIE

Again, we welcome Marissa and Katie to Mason Interactive, and continue delivering top-quality digital marketing services for our clients.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the organic practice of increasing both the quality of traffic to your website as well as the quantity of traffic. Not only does SEO appeal to search engines, but it is also highly involved in understanding users and their behavior.

When we talk about organic, we are talking about non-paid advertising. When a user searches for something and gets taken to a SERP (search engine ranking page), normally, the top three results are paid advertisements. Everything after those ads are organic search results, and the first page of results are where you want your site to live.

If you are new to SEO, or are looking to increase your organic efforts, continue reading to learn about some of the steps Mason Interactive suggests to improve your site and rank higher.

Don’t Overlook Meta Titles & Descriptions

The main purpose of meta titles and descriptions are to tell users what your pages are about at a quick glance. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when writing meta titles and descriptions:

Keep title tag under 60 characters and descriptions under 160 characters
Include target keywords
Avoid keyword stuffing and try to keep it short and sweet
Write unique meta titles and descriptions for each page
Try to include a call to action

URL Structure: Keep it Short and Sweet

Having a proper URL structure is important for both users and search engines to get an idea of what a page will be about. According to Backlinko, shorter URL’s tend to rank slightly higher than longer URL’s, so try to keep your URL as short as possible. In addition to keeping your URL short, including keywords in your URL helps increase your rankings. Lastly, try to avoid adding words like “and” and “the” into your URL structure. These are stop words and not only add to the URL length, but do not add any value whatsoever.

Understand What Your Users are Looking For

Behind every query, there is search intent. Aligning your website content with the search intent of users is vital to appearing higher on SERP. This is where blogs and videos lend a helping hand.

When a user searches for “how to optimize for SEO,” you want to make sure that query is included in your content so you can easily satisfy that search query.

There are four main types of search queries:

Informational
Navigational
Commercial
Transactional

Informational search queries are just users seeking information. Navigational queries are users searching for something specific, like “Mason Interactive.” Commercial queries are users looking to buy something, but they need more information before they do so. And finally, transactional queries are when users are ready to purchase a product or service.

Making sure that your SEO content aligns with a users’ search intent is what will get eyeballs to your site. You cannot optimize for “buy SEO online class” and only offer the user reasons why SEO is essential to your site’s success. In layman’s terms, you need to optimize for what your target audience is searching for.

Optimize Page Speed for a Better UX

Page speed and load time is a major Google ranking factor, as well as an important factor for visitors to your website. If a page takes too long to load, users will get frustrated and leave, causing your traffic to drop and your bounce rate to increase.

Here are some suggestions to increase your pagespeed:

Image compression (see below)
Delete unused/unnecessary plugins and widgets
Reduce your redirects (if possible)
Minify JavaScript & CSS

Images Can Make or Break Your Site

Having images on your site is a great way to add a visual element while also grabbing the attention of your visitors. However, images can take up a lot of space on your site, causing it to slow down. Here are the best practices for image optimization on your site:

JPEG for photographs, PNG for text images, or WebP
Image compression
Image alt text
Lazy-Load images

All of the above listed image optimization techniques can make a huge difference in your site speed and performance, as well as help your site rankings.

Your Internal Link Structure is the Backbone of Your Site

Internal links help to establish your site’s infrastructure and page hierarchy. The best way to utilize internal linking is to first identify your top performing pages and your pages that need a little TLC. The best way to leverage internal linking is by adding links from your strongest pages to your weakest pages. Always make sure that your internal links are working properly and not broken, because broken internal links can get penalized by Google and cause your rankings to fall.

Website Security is a Must!

Making sure your site is secure is not only important for SEO results, but important to visitors to your site as well. You want to make sure that whatever information visitors share on your page stays private. Moving your site to a secure server (HTTPS vs. HTTP) is the best way to make sure information stays private.
The main difference between HTTP and HTTPS is the SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate. This certificate encrypts user information and translates the data into code. With an SSL certificate, even if a user’s information was stolen, it would be encrypted and not understood. In addition, being on a secure server is one of the factors Google uses to rank your site on SERP.

Speak Search Engine’s Language by Using Schema Markup

Schema is microdata that you can add to your HTML code to improve the way your site is read by search engine crawlers.

Schema is microdata that you can add to your HTML code to improve the way your site is read by search engine crawlers. Many people get confused or scared by the term ‘schema’, so here is an easy way of understanding it.

The whole point of introducing schema into your code is to make it easier for Google to crawl your site. Schema is Google’s preferred language, so search engines will be able to understand the information on the page much better and in turn rank it higher in SERP.

How Can Mason Interactive Help?

At Mason Interactive, we offer a wide range of search engine optimization services including technical onsite optimization, site speed optimization, competitive keyword targeting, and much more. Contact us for a free marketing analysis and to see how we can help improve your website’s SEO.

A skincare brand Olive + M, is the latest addition to Mason Interactive’s roster of beauty clients.

Olive + M is an olive oil-based skincare company with a robust wholesale business. They use natural, plant-based ingredients with the belief that what you put on your body, is just as important as what you put in your body.

The new partnership aims to raise Olive + M’s D2C profile, driving increased online sales through a strategic mix of Paid Search and Paid Media tactics across a variety of platforms. Combined with Mason Interactive’s extensive experience within the beauty space, and the agency’s ever-growing technology stack and robust partnerships with industry leading platforms, Olive + M will enjoy access to the best strategies and user experience the market has to offer.

Our team is dedicated to building a strong online presence for Olive + M, and we are looking forward to the upcoming kickoff meeting with the client to ensure their new, customized advertising plan is aligned with their business objectives and needs, says Mason CEO Brook Llewellyn Shepard. “We’ve seen beauty, particularly skincare, brands thrive in the current climate, and the season is looking very promising for online sales.”