Marketing Letter - 📈 Why Google Search is Falling Apart

GM nerds,

Welcome back to the newsletter that always lets you know exactly where we’re at in the circle of pain

Here’s what’s good this week:

→ What YouTube Viewers Want 👀

→ Google Shopping’s AI Overhaul 💸

→ Why Google Search is Falling Apart 😬

→ Gaming Your Socials To Win Over Gen Z 😤

→ more, obviously 💬

But first…

​This Week's Video 🗣️🎙️​

In this week's video, I explore how to leverage Reddit to increase your business revenue effectively. Unlike the common strategies of affiliate marketing, my approach focuses on utilizing Reddit in a way that truly benefits your existing business. This method works particularly well for eCommerce and other customer-focused ventures. Tune in for more details.

​YouTube​​

What’s Going Down @ Google 📊

→ Google Shopping is integrating a personalized “For You” feed + a new suited of other AI-powered features, including:

- enhanced product searches
- Virtual try-on and “dynamic filters”
- Upgraded “Deals” page

Google aims to "personalize the online shopping experience" and the next few weeks will see it all start rolling out in the US.

→ A video titled “Why Google Search is Falling Apart” has gone super viral (2M+ views on YouTube) and not many are disagreeing. He’s wrong about some stuff, but that’s fine. BTW the top comment rn is: “the only good thing about Google search is that it searches Reddit better than Reddit’s search when it comes to older posts.” lol.

→ Google is testing a “Top Links” feature, shown in both organic and paid Search results, that "seem to give a title to the sitelinks shown under search result snippets."

→ Another example of Google’s new fav brand of hypocrisy: promoting the use of Google’s AI tools to create content while also penalizing publishers for using AI to create content.

→ Update on Forbes Advisor. After rumors of getting clapped, it’s still ranking on the first page for many queries and appearing in AI Overviews.

→ You know, I try not to give too much air to people with titles like "Google Web Performance Advocate" but here’s an explanation of Cumulative Layout Shift, a Core Web Vital, how it’s measured, and why it supposedly matters.

→ “Man, Google couldn’t get more divisive and polarizing if it tried.”

​Google, launching Nuclear Energy Initiative: Hold My Beer.

What could go wrong?

Social Media Round-up 📲

→ Speaking of YouTube, here’s an interesting piece from the platform’s blog: Beyond the Frame: How viewers define content quality. A survey of 12K YouTube viewers determined: "discovered that while clear visuals and good audio are important, these are now the default rather than a differentiator. Technical excellence helps to sell the story, but only if the story is worth telling." FWIW:

- a massive 91% of viewers said “Quality content needs to deliver on both a technical and emotional level”
and
- 60% of Gen Z said “The more effort put into customizing video platforms, the more quality content they get”

→ We’re all out here tryna solve the riddle of how to get Gen Z to spend money. This piece by SEJ- How Marketers Can Reach Gen Z On Social Media - basically synthesizes a bunch of articles, studies, reports, and data-driven analyses highlighted by stats like:

- “33% of the Gen Z population is interested in buying from a brand founded by an influencer”
- “54% of Gen Zers favor YouTube over any other social media platform, with 80% spending t
their time on it”
- “ 35% of Gen Zers spend over 4 hours a day using social media, and only 4% spend less than 1 hour a day”

Beyond stats, the article offers some actionable suggestions and considerations, like: "Embrace Partnership With Creators," "Give The Brand A Persona Online," "Focus On Engagement Over Follower Count,""Use Video To Your Advantage," and more.

→ I know there’s a lot of Reddit marketing buzz right now, but it’s so new that sometimes we’re short on concrete tactics. Here’s a promising one found in the depths of X:

“1. Google “alternatives to <insert competitor> reddit” then add a nice comment saying I’m building an alternative. This gets constant traffic to my site.
2. On RELEVANT posts, I mention my SAAS I’m working on.”

→ Here’s a NicheSiteLady AMA w/ this prompt: “$20k on Facebook ads for my travel blog.” Worth scanning the Q&A, she’s legit.

→ BTW, if you think it’s worthwhile to “grow your Threads presence,” click thru. Sure, why not?

AI Insight 🤖

→ Matt Diggity's piece on analyzing Perplexity Pages as “a case study for user-directed AI content” is worth a read. Some stats that stand out:

- a whopping “91% of organic traffic to perplexity.ai comes from branded terms”
- just 21.6% of monthly visitors to Pages “come from organic, non-branded keywords globally”

→ Adobe’s AI video generation model has arrived and Premiere Pro users already have access. The Generative Extend feature can "extend the end or beginning of footage that’s slightly too short" or make other minor adjustments, while Text-to-Video and Image-to-Video tools are being beta tested in the Firefly app.

→ Here’s an interesting look at why walmart is developing its own retail-specific AI models.

Jacky Chou​
Founder of Indexsy
hello@indexsy.com
Let's Connect on Twitter👇

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