Earlier this week Google has announced a few new changes to AdWords and the way that ads will be displayed in the near future.
More Paid Ad Spots
The first is a new paid listing which will appear in the local block, adding to the already paid regular organic listings. On June 21 Google confirmed the Local Pack ads and showed a preview of the potential update where the first local listing would be the additional paid ad.
I find this update somewhat funny for two reasons. The first being that back in January 2012 Google rolled out the first of several “Top Heavy Algorithm” updates which were designed to target websites with too many ‘above the fold’ ads. Googles own layout breaks this rule as, depending on your screen resolution, you may see only paid ads above the fold during search queries!
The second reason I find this funny is that back in April I wrote an April fools post about how starting this summer Google would only be displaying paid ads on the first page of results. This paid ad expansion puts that joke post one step closer to reality, and the timing of this summer is spot-on.
AdWords Click to Text Ads
Google has also announced the introduction of click to text ads. The new ad extension allows searchers to click a ‘TEXT’ button alongside paid ads that they could then use to send the advertiser a text message. Time will tell if this texting ability will be useful for advertisers, but I for one am always a fan of reducing the number of steps required in a conversion. This will give potential customers another easy option to engage with advertisers.