#i love when the mixed event gets announced and i can make confident predictions and then it all falls apart one event later

[project-sekai-facts]

so wedding event is next and the line up is Shiho, Minori, Nene, Ena and MMJ Luka. Idk whose banner and whose shop yet, but how does that affect your predictions?

Banner is Minori/Nene/WxS Luka, it was confirmed in the announcement. Probably 3*Shiho/2*Ena. This actually helps things a lot in the predictions department!

I reckon Haru4 will be Haruka/Shizuku/Rin. Rin has a lot of mmj cards but she kinda needs a card and I doubt another mmj miku card. 3* Airi/2* Minori.

Mafu5 probably Mafuyu/Mizuki/Miku. Definitely Mizuki, her last card was her new year lim, and Miku needs a card on either this event or haru4, this being more likely imo. Welcome back niigo miku 4* cards. 3* Ena/2* Kanade.

Mixed event I still think will be Emu, and probably a Miya 2-B event at that since it’s incredibly likely that at least one member of L/n will be on the banner. Shiho lim doesn’t affect anything either since Minori is getting her 7th lim now. In terms of the fes, hard to tell, mainly because I don’t know how they’re gonna organise it. At the very least it won’t follow the same order as last year, even if the pairs don’t change, because Mafuyu can’t go first. Rui is highly likely for a lim either June or July, so he could be fes if paired with Tsukasa or Emu (orrrr idk Toya???). Probably more likely for July lim though.

I reckon first event in July could be VBS Kohane (Akito/vsinger rateup + An 3* Toya 2*) or maybe a permanent mixed event but that would mean no commissioned songs for a month so I doubt it. Then L/n wle of course and who the fuck knows what’s gonna happen in August bc right now vsinger wle is scheduled to take 18 fucking days + cooldown either end so ??? Idk what’s going on there.

[crackinwise]

Mondo having a thing about coating Taka with hickeys and Taka having a thing about very much enjoying the process is a good headcanon I've seen used several times, in both fic and art.

I see it causing an issue for them at least once.

Kiyotaka has the syllabus and upcoming events memorized before he and Mondo have a "session" so he won't be caught broadcasting his love life unwelcomed. Besides, he always fears he'll be accused of being hedonistic and immoral just for using some free time to feel wanted by the man he loves.

Meanwhile, Mondo knows to keep it below the uniform collar, but that's a lot of fair game there. After one night where they get carried away, Taka's torso from the base of the neck down looks like a leopard. Taka looks like he lost a fight with an octopus. But it's fine because a)Taka wanted it, and b)he can still look presentable in public with them covered.

But, the next day at gym, the class is told the schedule had to be rearranged and everyone is to head up to the pool. Taka instantly panics.

As everyone starts walking, he grabs Mondo's arm and pulls him to the back of the group.

"Mondo," he hisses, "I can't go to the pool!"

"Why?"

Taka fully despairs for a brief second. "If I take off my uniform, everyone will see the marks you've made!"

The caveman part of Mondo's brain makes his chest want to swell with a mixture of pride and possession, but it plummets down to become a lead ball in his stomach the instant he notices the unshed tears and fear in Taka's large eyes.

"It's okay. S'okay, I'll figure somethin out. Let's just get goin," Mondo promises him.

He can't let Taka feel humiliated. He mostly trusts his classmates by now--Taka would never have another middle school experience--but this wasn't a couple hickeys to get teased over and laugh off. Their peers' first reaction might be to get Taka a bodyguard and Mondo a muzzle. The teacher might investigate; Taka's dad might be called. Mondo shakes away the mental image of a mortified Taka and tries to actually problem solve.

He couldn't picture Taka sitting the period out on the bleachers and risk being a bad class leader. Taka could lie about feeling sick or needing somewhere else to be to work on his Talent, but he wouldn't. Taka wouldn't forgive him for pulling the fire alarm either. He didn't know of any clubs Taka could help at this hour. Would anything at the pool hide him when they got there?

Mondo's head snaps up with an idea and he walks faster to catch up with the classmate who made swimming pools her domain. "Asahina!"

Hina stops hopping around excitedly next to Sakura and turns to address him. "Mondo? What's up?"

He starts to whisper while also glaring at any classmates daring to curiously rubberneck. "I need a favor. Do ya have one of them, like, swim shirts? Y'know, surfers and shit wear 'em?"

"A rash guard?"

"Sure."

Hina frowns, apologetic. "No, I never thought to bring one here since the pool is indoors." She gives him a once-over. "And I'm not sure we'd be the same size."

"It's not...for me." Mondo rubs the back of his neck anxiously. He makes sure to keep his voice low. "It's for Taka."

"Since when does Ishimaru prefer a rash guard while swimming?" Kyoko asks, suddenly appearing on Mondo's other side, startling him.

"Holy fuck! Who who asked you?!" he yelps.

"You're not as quiet as you think you are," she helpfully warns them. "Here, let's walk to the side a bit."

The three step to the outside of the pack of students to continue talking a bit more covertly.

"Now, Oowada, what's this about?" Kyoko asks, eyes sharp.

Yeah!" Hina loudly whispers back. "Is Taka all right? Him asking for cover is concerning, ya know!"

Mondo's defensive annoyance threatens to flare up. "He's fine, but he can't go in the pool today. I can't tell ya why, so don't ask."

Maybe if another teacher needed help, but Mondo didn't know of any and unless one walked down the hall, he couldn't beg them. Or the headmaster!

"Oi!" Mondo's outburst causes Hina to jump. He lowers his voice once again, "Kirigiri! I need ya to ask yer dad if he has anythin he can call for Taka to work on. Like, now, for the whole period."

Kyoko's cool eyes narrow at him. He knows she's still trying to suss out his motives.

"If it were just for you, I'd demand more of an explanation, but this is for Ishimaru, right?" Even as she asks, she has her phone out, texting the headmaster. Mondo catches a glimpse of her text starting with "URGENT" and feels a wave of appreciation.

Finished, she looks from her phone back to Taka, still uncharacteristically silent and walking yards behind everyone else. She notes how he's hugging himself and darting his unfocused eyes around.

"Hmm." Her hand is up to her chin in thought. "Well, all we can do is wait for my father to answer me or make an announcement on his own. I could always just lie and say my father requested him."

"Y'know damn well he'd hate that and give us both detention when he found out," Mondo gripes. He understands why Taka refuses a little dishonest help, but it's still frustrating as hell sometimes.

"Yes," she agrees, her voice was as level and confident as always, "but that depends on how much he'd rather be tricked than show off your love bites."

"Right? Damn."

Hina, still close by and listening, covered her mouth to muffle a giggle.

Then Mondo's steps faltered. "HEY!"

His shout echoed around the hall, causing a few students to eyeball them. Makoto was clutching his chest, about ready to imitate a fainting goat.

Kyoko didn't so much as blink though. "It's as if you forget who I am. But don't worry, I'll take all the blame for lying to Ishimaru if it comes to that."

"Thanks," Mondo sighs out. "If you two didn't help, I was gonna pay Hiro to predict a pool disaster big enough to stall."

That causes Hina and Kyoko to realize the severity of the situation might be more than simple awkwardness.

"You know Hiro would try to charge you, like, hundreds of dollars for that," Hina says, worried. "Maybe thousands. Is Taka really that embarrassed by a hickey?"

Mondo swallows thickly but doesn't answer. He feels incredibly guilty. He feels like a danger to Taka's reputation for a new reason than the usual ones that sometimes haunt him. He knows hormones and his lack of self-control are a bad mix, but add in Taka enthusiastically praising his mouth, and he has zero hope of restraint.

They arrive at the changing rooms for everyone to switch into their swimsuits before going to the pool. The other students file inside while Mondo, Hina, Kyoko, and the trailing Taka hang back.

When Taka stops in front of them, his wide eyes finally focus on Mondo. He glances at the girls then says, hopefully, "Any, um, ideas?"

Mondo worries Taka is going to have a panic attack with the way he's breathing and clutching his blazer closed. As if the marks were magically visible through his uniform shirt too.

Kyoko brings her phone screen up to her face to check for a reply, then shakes her head at Mondo. Hina wrings her hands.

Deciding he's just going to kidnap Taka for the rest of the day and risk his boyfriend never speaking to him again, Mondo starts to grab Taka's arm.

The P.A. system squeaks on. "ISHIMARU, YOUR ASSISTANCE IS NEEDED IN THE HEADMASTER'S OFFICE, PLEASE!"

All four friends sag with relief. Hina does a little cheer, gives them a thumbs up and skips into the girl's changing room. Kyoko nods at Mondo's thankful expression and follows her inside.

Taka runs his fingers thru his hair, laughs bubbling out of him. He has no idea what had happened to save him, but he wasn't going to question it just now. He squeezes Mondo's wrist once with his left hand and smiles to convey he was never upset with his partner about the situation. Then he proceeds to speed-walk to the office.

Mondo's frayed nerves want him to break the rules and embrace Taka, but his impulsive actions have caused enough problems today. He turns to go get changed for the pool, his caveman pride starting to return after helping to protect his Kiyotaka.

Following this, Taka didn't let them have another "session" for a month, and when he did he made contingency plans to be nowhere near the pool for a full week.

[hollands-poppet]

ALL WE HAVE IS NOW EPILOGUE// TOM HOLLAND X READER

Summary: Y/N is living the Hollywood dream but is conflicted with her feelings when her old flame comes back around..

Word count: 1.5K 💛

A/N: I still can’t believe this is the final part but since the last part was so angsty, I thought I would give you guys the ending Y/N deserves. I know I only posted the last part last night but I’m ready to move on hahaha. ANYWAY I’M SUPER EXCITED FOR MY NEXT FIC, TAKE A GUESS WHAT IT’S ABOUT Y’ALL. 

PART1 PART2 PART3 PART4 PART5 PART6 PART7 PART8

warnings: nothing really 

-

-

It’s been almost a year since filming wrapped, and just like everyone predicted when Oscar season came around you couldn’t believe it. You had been nominated in the Actress in a Leading Role category, and so did Emma but you weren’t surprised that she was nominated. The day of the whole event was a blur, you wanted to bring Zendaya but she was already going with someone else.

Nonetheless, it was exciting, you didn’t know if you were gonna win or not, considering you were up against amazing nominees. To even be on the nominee list was more than a dream, and it was coming true.

Y/N and Timothée decided to go together seeing that it was only appropriate. She decided to wear green in homage to her character and he decided to color coordinate too as he wore the same color.

You hadn’t seen Timmy since filming wrapped, he immediately went to go shoot a movie called Call Me By something, you couldn’t put your name on it. But filming with him during Wicked was so platonic, you had remained friends but nothing how you both used to be on the first film.

No hookups, nothing. Just friends, so seeing him today shouldn’t be weird, just a nice reunion. You and Manny had picked him up from his hotel in the limo, you both exchanged hugs and small talk. He started smoking from his vape but you didn’t want to get high, you wanted to really remember the night.

Arriving on the carpet was surreal, you were nervous. Shit, you couldn’t even describe how you felt. As soon as your foot hit the ground, the lights almost blinded you but every flash felt like your dream was coming closer. You walked down the carpet, striking a pose every so often, showing off yourself and your hard work through this night.

Timmy was ahead of you on your left as you took photos, he looked confident like he’s done this before. You smize as you scan the paparazzi in front of you, your name being yelled through the card in every direction, and you felt butterflies as soon as you heard the name. You could hear the paparazzi sprinkling Tom’s name in the mix, the butterflies sinking in every time.

The first thing you notice when you turn your head is Tom fixing the button on his sleeve by his wrist, he is smiling at the paparazzi and then occasionally tightening his lips. Your hands tighten on your waist from the tension you feel, there was nothing more you wanted in this moment was to go up to him and feel close again but you couldn’t.

You’re knocked out of your thoughts by Timmy grabbing your wrist, “Hey, let’s head inside yeah?” You’re still staring at Tom who hasn’t noticed you yet, and you let out a crooked smile and then look back at Tim, “Yeah, let’s go.”

-

-

The inside of the venue was drop dead gorgeous, the stage was beautiful and so were all the people that are a part of the academy. Seeing your favorite stars all in one place felt amazing, you didn’t feel worthy.

You sat next to Timmy during the show since you were both nominated, and once the show started

Jimmy Kimmel started with his monologue. He was poking fun at everyone in the crowd, including you. “Y/N L/N is here tonight as well, she is nominated for her first Oscar for her portrayal as Elphaba in Wicked.”

You could feel the cameras and everyone’s eyes linger to you, you wave shyly at the camera and you focus back at Jimmy on stage. “Y/N, since this is your first nomination, give it a second before you get up if your name is announced. We don’t want another mishap.” Everyone in the audience laughs, including you. You remember the iconic La La Land fail and you clap with the joke.

Zendaya came up on stage to introduce a performance, she looked stunning. You were hoping to run into her after the taping. 

The whole show was a blur until your category came up, your palms began to sweat. Timmy’s category had already passed and he didn’t win so you knew you had a feeling you were not going to win. Name after name got called, including Emma’s name who was nominated for the same film as you.

“Y/N L/N in Wicked..” the camera pans to you as you awkwardly smile and throw up a peace sign at the camera, you look at Timothée who is clapping with the crowd. Meryl Streep pulls the card of the envelope, “And the Oscar goes to..”

It’s like the whole world stopped in this moment so you could hear your name being said by Meryl. You won, you actually fucking won. You hand shot up covering your mouth, you couldn’t believe.

Timmy basically had to grab your hands because you weren’t standing up. You grabbed your dress and lifted it as you walked up the stairs to accept your award, pictures of you in character were displayed on the screen. 

Was this really happening?

You take the award from Meryl, and give her a hug and you walk up the microphone, “I can’t believe such an icon just gave me my award.” There are giggles spread across the crowd as you look down at the Oscar in your hand.

You gulp, “I just want to thank the Academy for this honor. I am also so honored to be nominated with the woman in this category..I-” and before you could continue it was like this next moment was supposed to happen. You saw Tom in that crowd, staring at you with the biggest smile on his face, he was proud of you and you could feel your heart beating slower and faster at the same time at the sight of him.

A tear manages to escape your eye, “Being able to play Elphaba has been the biggest dream of my life, and the fact that I was able to play her and win an Oscar is more than I have ever dreamt for.” You clear your throat, and claps move across the crowd as you grip on your award tighter, “I never realized how much I related to Elphaba until the first day of filming, and before I leave the stage I want to leave you with one of her lines in the film.. ‘Everyone deserves the chance to fly..’ and I can honestly say that I’ve flown so far and I’m not stopping anytime soon. Thank you, have a goodnight.” You turn around and walk off stage with Meryl, making small talk.

When you make it off stage you take a few photos and then head back to your seat, Timothee and Manny are in awe of your award. The show is still on commercial break so you and your friends are talking about what just happened, and that is when you feel a hand touch your shoulder. You turn to see whose hand it is, and there he is in the flesh, “Tommy..” you immediately stand up and go in for a hug.

He pulls away while he still holds onto your waist, “Darling, you look beautiful. I just wanted to congratulate you.” Your hand rests on his shoulder, he smells like just how you remember like mahogany and vanilla, “Thank you.”

There is a pause between the two of you until you whisper, “You look good, Tom. I’ve missed you.” He tightens his lip into a smile, and leans toward you “Me too.” You both chuckle in sync, and then he looks over your shoulder, “Hey mate..” You turn back to look at Timothee approaching you, you’re getting nervous because the last time these two were together they were throwing hands.

Tom puts out to shake his Timmy’s hand and he shakes it in return, “Sorry about the loss, there is always next year..” Timmy nods with a smile, “Yeah, it’s no biggie man. There is always next year.”

“Can we get a picture of you three?”

You hear the voice of a photographer and you all huddle up for a pose, you sandwiched between the two. 

Maybe you three could all somewhat be civil in the same room.

Timmy says a quick goodbye to Tom as he heads backstage to present an award, and you turn back to face the brown haired man, “I can’t believe you kept it a secret that Spider-Man dies.” He laughs, “Yeah, I did..surprisingly.” He brings his hand behind his neck, and lets out a small cackle.

The announcer comes on the speakers and asks everyone to make it back to their seats, and as you’re about to say goodbye to Tom he chimes in, “I’d like to take you out after this, if you’re okay with that..” You nod with a tight smile, “Yes...I’d like that a lot.” He punches his palm lightly in success and walks away as you take your seat.

You were ready for whatever was to come next.  

A/N: Wow. I can’t believe it’s OFFICIALLY over. I think the epilogue is suuuuper cheesy but I wanted a somewhat happy ending. You guys can decide what happens to Y/N’s future from here. Anyway, send me your thoughts, critiques, my asks are open! Love ya guys! - Amy 💛

Taglist: @smexylemony@ladybirduris@princesssparklesxo@llamazarecoolaf@minispidey @devillinchi@superleftoveraddiction​@justapotatonow​ @peterxbarnes​ @thoughtfulbonkeggbat​@unicornio-vomita-mierdas​@standingintheclubwateronthecouch​ @omalleysreads​ @musicgirl234​

[babygirlgalitzine]

i'm not sure if you'd write anything like this but i would LOVE to read a fic where rob is say an escort and aaron is a rich business man (or switch them around idk) and robert starts falling for him but aaron starts getting more detached the more time they spend w each other

Escort

Aaron stood in front of his full body mirror, smoothing hisgrey suit down, turning sideways on to check if he looked presentable. He’dbeen invited to a industry party, a high class event, and he knew that peoplewould ask questions if he showed up alone. He’d been to so many of them beforethat it had gotten repetitive, barely walking in the door before someone askedwhere his plus one was.

“I’m single.” He’d say. “I’ve got nobody to take to eventslike this.”

They’d sympathise, of course they would. A young, attractivemulti-millionaire: single? But they didn’t seem to twig that Aaron didn’t wantto introduce anyone to this world. He spent so much time in it, trying to buildhis own business up from scratch, wanting to get that validation and successfullife that he dreamed of having, that he just didn’t have time to meet a newbloke.

Which is why he had called up an escort business, asked foran attractive man, similar age to Aaron’s own, in hope that people would fallfor their lie. He was due to be knocking on Aaron’s door any moment, Aarondeciding that they should at least meet up beforehand so that they could sortout their cover story.

What Aaron hadn’t taken into consideration, however, was howattractive the escort would be.

He turned up at Aaron’s door, his shoulder leaning againstthe frame, black suit perfectly fitted to his body. It wasn’t designer, but atleast it was tailored perfectly, and for that, Aaron thanked his lucky stars.

His name was Robert, and he looked amazing.

“So, what’s the plan?” Robert asked, sneaking a look atAaron’s arse as he bent over to pick up his wallet and keys.

“You’re my boyfriend, we’ve been together for six months andI’ve kept you secret because I didn’t want to mix my business with my personallife.” Aaron spoke, explaining everything to Robert whilst walking around hisroom.

Robert nodded along, listening carefully to Aaron’sinstructions. He needed this money, and hopefully, if he did a convincingenough job tonight, Aaron would hire him for more jobs.

“So, Aaron, how exactly are you single?” Robert had askedthe invasive question as Aaron sat in the drivers seat. “I mean, you’re hardlyugly, and you’re successful.”

Aaron pulled out of his drive, beeping the button againstthe brick wall, allowing the electronic gates to open up in front of them.“Building a business empire takes time and patience. While my friends from backhome went out to nightclubs every weekend, I was working on business plans, andsigning contracts.” Aaron explained, eyes firmly on the road. “I didn’t havetime to go out and meet men, it just wasn’t something that ever interested me-I figured that once I had my business the way I wanted it, I’d get a boyfriend,but I really just haven’t done anything about that.”

“What exactly is your business?” Robert asked, pressing hishead against the plush leather head rest, eyes trained on Aaron’s side profile,inwardly not at all complaining about having to spend time with the attractiveman.

“I buy and sell classic cars and car parts.” Aaronexplained. “I used to work at my uncles garage and we had a few classic carscoming in from time to time and that’s how I got interested in them. So now Ihave dealers in different places all over the country, a few in Europe, and we basicallyget hold of the cars, sell them off to different places if the price is right.”

Robert nodded, already sensing that Aaron was going to askhim a question next.

He did.

“How did you get into the escort business then?”

Robert chuckled, knowing that pretty much everyone he metthrough his job either asked the same question, or wanted to ask it.

“I was nineteen and my dad pretty much abandoned me.” Hestarted, voice trailing off a little bit. “I didn’t have a lot of money, andthe money I did have allowed me to be put in a hostel for a couple of nights.Within a couple of weeks I met my first boss and he helped me get off thestreets through being an escort. It’s not the best job in the world, but itmakes money, and as a nineteen year old that was the most important thing.”

Just as Aaron predicted, the moment he walked into thebuilding with Robert on his arm, they were bombarded with questions. It was thefirst time for people at the event to see Aaron’s personal life, even if itwasn’t actually real. Robert stayed with Aaron, smiling at and shaking handswith everyone Aaron mingled with, talking both business and pleasure. Aaronknew Robert had experience with this, that much was easy to see. Aaron handed apint over to Robert, who he had left to speak to Mark, who had only recentlycome into the industry circle. Robert, attempting to keep up with the lie,kissed Aarons jawline in a way to say ‘thank you’, his nose tickling as itbrushed against Aarons beard. Unsurprisingly, Aaron flushed a pale shade ofred, not used to this contact at all, but thankfully everyone played it offthat Robert just caused Aaron to react that way because it was Robert.

“I cant believe you kept him hidden for six months Aaron!”Marks wife exclaimed, drinking the last of her champagne. “He’s definitely akeeper.”

Aaron chuckled, naturally wrapping his arm around Robertswaist, which even surprised himself. “Definitely.” He responded, pullingRoberts body into his own.

A day later, the money had been transferred into Robertsbank account, more money than he had been expecting. The money Aaron had givenRobert was on par with the money he would be expected to earn if they had hadsex, which would now mean that Robert would be called in, because, in all thetime Robert had been at this firm, he was one of the escorts that didn’t havesex with clients. Especially first time clients.

Robert was right, because less than an hour later, he wasbeing called into the office.

“This money that Mr Dingle transferred to you.” His boss, John,said. “What did you do to get that?”

Robert shrugged, knowing that it’d be difficult to get outof this one. “I just went to his industry party, acted like his boyfriend. Ikissed his cheek, and nothing else happened. He was just rich, probably thoughtthat was how much I was owed.”

John tilted back on his chair, intertwining his fingersacross his chest. “Anyway, whatever you did yesterday worked. He wants to be aregular client for you now.”

“Really?” Robert asked, genuinely shocked and surprised. Heknew that they seemed to work well together, and that people bought into theirlie, but he didn’t expect Aaron to want to become a regular client.

John nodded. “Obviously we’ll have to do the normal checksbefore you both see each other again, and he has shown evidence of being clean.You can do your checks today and we’ll go on from there.”

It was three days. Three whole days since Aaron had asked tobecome a regular client for Robert. They both had all the relevant checks, justto make sure they were both clean in case anything did end up happening betweenthe two of them. Aaron had asked for Robert to meet him at his work office,knowing full well that people had been talking and the news that Aaron actuallyhad a boyfriend had spread like wildfire. People had been asking Aaron how theyhad met, a few of the women wanting to see photos of Robert, and Aaron hadbarely managed to escape the wrath of them when he kept his cards close to hischest. That was the thing about being the boss of his own business. Most peoplewould expect him to be harsh and refuse to speak to his employees, but Aaronbelieved that that wasn’t the way to run a business. He, from the very start,didn’t treat people in a hierarchal order, he was down to earth and lookedafter everyone, treating everyone in the exact same way.

Robert walked in, giving his name to the man on the desk,who rang up to Aaron’s office. Robert knew the minute he came into contact withpeople at the firm that all eyes were on him. It was like they just knew. Aaron had already warned him thatpeople had been gossiping, he had asked John to pass that information on toRobert.

“Never expected to hear from you again.” Robert announcedafter shutting Aaron’s door.

Aaron stood up from his chair, walking to the front of hisdesk and leaning against it, arms folded across his body. “Well everyone wantedto meet my boyfriend, so I thought I’d give them the pleasure.” He explained.“But that means that the lie has to keep going on, so I thought I’d become aregular client for the time being.”

“Yeah about that.” Robert started. “You gave me way too muchmoney for what is was! I had my boss on my back think we slept together.”

Aaron smirked, pushing off the desk and walking towardsRobert. “Well you are attractive.”

Robert rolled his eyes, all of a sudden become a shy mess,something that just didn’t happen to him. He was confident, sometimes overlyso. But not now. Not with Aaron.  Hesomehow managed to speak. “So how is this happening? Do you just get in touchwith John when you need me or?”

“I was thinking more, you give me your number and we canstay in touch through that?” Aaron asked.

Robert nodded, taking his phone out of his jeans pocket andhanding it over to Aaron, taking that moment to look at him closely. He wasdressed formally, a crisp white shirt tucked into some black suit trousers, hissleeves rolled over slightly, showing off just a little bit of his forearms.Robert appreciated his chest, and knew that Aaron must work out regularly toachieve that. He was gorgeous in Robert’s eyes, and he didn’t like to see hisclients in anyway other that just clients, but he couldn’t help it when it cameto Aaron.

The next couple of times they met, Aaron had needed Robertfor business events. People had become aware that Aaron was going to them morefrequently than he needed to, and it was no coincidence at all that he onlywent to them to spend time with Robert. None at all.

Aaron didn’t seem to care what people were saying about him,he actually encouraged the gossip, because it always made for a conversationwhen he texted Robert. Which he did a lot.

It was almost as if they had started a relationship up, andit was real.

This time they met up, it was completely different. Theywouldn’t be around hundreds of business associates, it would be just the two ofthem, on a date, with Mark and his wife. It was Mark who suggested it, over thephone to Aaron at the beginning of the week. Of course, Aaron agreed. Whowouldn’t? It was a chance to see Robert dressed up in a nice suit again, and tospend more time with him.

That was why he sent Robert off to Aarons favourite tailor.He wanted Robert to have the nicest suit possible. Entirely for Aarons ownbenefit.

The restaurant was posh enough. Robert could see that as Aarondrove them in front of the grand building, handing the keys to his ’64 Bentleyover to the valet.

“Marks texted me and he’s already in there with Kath.” Aarontold Robert as he intertwined their fingers together. They’d never done thatbefore, but it felt natural in that moment.

“So tell me.” Kath started, putting her fork to her plate,looking up at Robert and Aaron, who were sat opposite her and her husband.“When did the two of you meet, exactly?”

Robert decided to take the lead, gently brushing his fingerover Aaron’s knuckle, who pulled back in shock slightly before realising thatRobert was only doing his job. “Aaron’s best friend managed to drag him on anight out, which isn’t something he would usually go along with, but I’m gladhe did. We bumped into each other, I bought him a pint and he was shamelesslyflirting with me so we just exchanged numbers and met up for a meal afterthat.”

Aaron just nodded along, smiling at Robert.

“That’s adorable,” Kath commented. “Isn’t it, darling?”

“It is.” Mark smiled earnestly. “I hope you two are as happyas me and Kath are.”

Aaron smiled, taking the lead and kissing Robert’s handgently, something else that they had never done. “We are.”

By the time it was time to go home, it was getting onto halfeleven at night, the sky a pitch black colour and only the street lights and afew cars illuminated the roads. Aaron drove straight back to his own house,knowing that in reality, he was too tired to drive any further. “You can stayhere tonight.” He told Robert. “Unless you have somewhere to be?”

Robert shook his head, getting out of Aaron’s car. “Nope,I’m free now until you need to use me again.”

Neither of them knew exactly how it happened, but it wasalways inevitable. Aaron had Robert up against the wall, his hands shovedbetween their two bodies, rubbing against Robert’s crotch as they kissed.

Robert somehow managed to find the strength to push Aaron upthe stairs, silently begging Aaron to take him to his bedroom. Which he did,thankfully.

The roles were reversed as Aaron led on his bed, the quiltinstantly being messed up as he shrugged his trousers off, Robert stood at thefoot of the bed doing the exact same. “You okay with this?” Aaron askedbreathily as Robert climbed over him, making quick work of unbuttoning hisshirt.

“Yeah.” Robert responded, his voice deep with lust. “You?”

Aaron didn’t vocally respond, he pressed his lips to Robertand helped Robert into a state of undress, so both of them were equally asnaked as the other.

The next morning, Aaron woke up with Robert wrapped aroundhis body, legs intertwined under the covers. He looked at his bedroom floor,eyes squinting ever so slightly because of how bright it was in his room. Allhe could see was his and Robert’s clothes scattered over the floor, boxershanging halfway off the bedpost.

He got up slowly, in an attempt to not wake Robert up, wholooked like he was sleeping soundly, a relaxed look on his face, making himlook younger. Aaron wished he could stay in bed with him all day, but there wasa nagging part of him that knew it would never work. He couldn’t have arelationship with an escort. It would ruin his reputation if it got out. Soinstead, he quietly picked up his clothes, grabbed something new to wear towork, and left £150 on the bedside table for Robert when he eventuallysurfaced.

 ur a prick

i honestly thought imeant something to u

obviously not

Just a few of the many messages that Robert had left forAaron over the course of the day.

Aaron inwardly groaned, dropping his head onto his desk.

“What’s up smiler?” Josh asked, popping his head around thecorner at the sound.

Aaron looked up, tears welling in his eyes as he realisedhe’d fucked up.

“Oh that’s a bad look.” Josh so fantastically pointed out.“Break up?”

Aaron didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded. It was almost a break up, right? Itcertainly felt like one.

“Mate, just go home, or go and see him if it can be solved.”Josh advised. “You were great together, and we can run this place whilst you’regone.”

So Aaron did just that. He rang Robert up, left a missedcall asking him to meet Aaron at the coffee place around the corner fromAaron’s, and all he could do was hope and pray that it wasn’t too late.

Fourty-five minutes. A whole three quarters of an hour Aaronwas sat there, staring into space as he drank the last of his outrageouslypriced coffee. It was another five minutes before he decided that Robert wasn’tcoming, and so he handed his mug over to a waiter and walked out onto the coldstreet, wind blowing in his face.

“Not nice is it?” A voice shouted from over the road. “Beingleft?”

“Rob.” Aaron breathed out, the nickname something he hadn’tcalled Robert before, but in that moment, it just worked.

Aaron stepped closer, walking across the road so they couldactually speak rather than shout. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m so sorry foreverything.”

Robert’s eyes didn’t leave the floor, his hands balled upinto fists in his jacket pockets. “You shouldn’t have left me like that. Youwanted to have sex just as much as I did.”

“I know I did. And I’m sorry for leaving you, I didn’t wantto hurt you. I guess I didn’t want to hurt myself either.” He said honestly.“Remember that time we spoke about me not having a boyfriend?”

Aaron waited for Robert to nod before carrying on.

“I told you how I’d have feelings for people, but then pushthem away because I got scared. Well that’s what happened with us.” Aaron said.“I fell hard for you, but pushed you away bec-“

“Because of my job yeah, I get it.” Robert practically spat,getting ready to walk away, only to be dragged back by Aaron.

“Yes okay, because of your job.” Aaron said. “But also thefact that I’ve never had a boyfriend, never been in love and that thoughtterrifies me.”

Robert licked his dry lips before he spoke. “I would’ve stoppedfor you. Gone into a proper job, if me and you actually settled down.”

“And we still can.” Aaron responded seriously. “I want you.I reckon I have done since that first day.”

Robert’s arms wrapped around Aaron’s waist, both of them holdingon to each other now. “If you promise to not leave me like that again, I’ll leavethe firm today, come home with you.”

Aaron leaned forward, catching Roberts lips in a kiss, bothof them smirking into it, neither of them wanting to break apart, but they did.

“I promise.”

[skrisiloff]

The Fed will move in March, right?

Each week we read dozens of transcripts from earnings calls and presentations as part of our investment process. Below is a weekly post which contains some of the most important quotes about the economy and industry trends from those transcripts. Click here to receive these posts weekly via email.

The two most powerful people in America, Janet Yellen and Donald Trump, each were in the spotlight this week.  Yellen testified before Congress, where she directly said that the Fed still wants to raise rates three times this year.  She still sounds like she lacks conviction though, which is probably why markets don’t believe that she will actually carry out the plan.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump certainly doesn’t lack conviction.  Most of his news conference was spent sparring with the press, but he did make some comments that started to lay out a timeline for Obamacare and tax reform.  We’re still lacking clear details on both policies though.

Readers should also note John Legere’s comments in this week’s post.  It sounds like he could be signalling deal activity.  Charlie Munger also shared some words of wisdom at the Daily Journal Annual Meeting.

The Macro Outlook:

Yellen continues to say that the Fed could raise in March

“I indicated that at our up coming meetings we will try to evaluate whether or not the economy is progressing, namely labor market conditions and inflation in line with our expectations. And if we find that they are, it probably will be appropriate to raise interest rates further. We’ve indicated that we think a gradual path of rate increases is likely to be appropriate if the economy continues on its current course.” —Fed Chair Janet Yellen (Central Bank)

She is sticking to three rate increases this year

“We last said that…a few increases would be appropriate. The median was three at that time, that means we have eight meetings a year and means at some meetings we would if things remain on course increase our target for the federal funds rate and not act at others. And precisely when we would take an action whether it’s March or May or June…I know people are focused on that. I can’t tell you exactly…It’s our expectation that there will be increased rates” —Fed Chair Janet Yellen (Central Bank)

Inflation expectations have definitely risen

“As we look forward into 2017, in the first half in particular, before we lap the inflation that we saw in 2016, we do expect to see a higher level of low single-digit inflation in commodities. And that combined with our annual pricing outlook will probably result in a bit of pressure on gross margins.” —Pepsi CFO Hugh Johnston (Beverage)

“it appears, we’ve now reached the bottom on commodities and are likely to have to contend with commodity inflation beginning in Q1 of this year…in 2017, when we take a look at the spot and forward rates, we’re likely to see year-over-year inflation. And we’re already seeing that in cheese, coffee, bacon” —Kraft Heinz CFO Paulo Basilio (Packaged Foods)

Companies are thinking about expansion

“Since the election of course there has been a marked shift in the mood around major financial institutions. While that mindset may take some time to be captured in job numbers, there certainly is reason to believe that we may once again see increases in financial services employment here in New York” —Vornado President David Greenbaum (REIT)

Financial markets are wide open

“Turning to the financing markets. After periods of volatility in 2016, we are now open and liquid, especially for blue chip sponsors like Vornado. While the 10-year Treasury is up 60 basis points since the election, CMBS spreads have tightened and risk retention has been the Y2K of real estate finance, a non-event on large loans. Overall, we are seeing active bidding from all types of financing sources. CMBS lenders, life companies, balance sheet lenders and foreign capital all of which is good for borrowers.” —Vornado CFO Michael Franco (REIT)

Yellen still sounds hesitant though

“Right now, the Taylor rule would call for a short-term interest rate somewhere between 3.5 and 4%. Which is obviously a much higher value of the federal funds rate than the FOMC has deemed appropriate given the needs of the economy.” —Fed Chair Janet Yellen (Central Bank)

Meanwhile, Trump sounds pleased

“The stock market has hit record numbers, as you know, and there’s been a tremendous surge of optimism in the business world, which means something different than it used to. Now it means it’s good for jobs. Very different. Plants and factories are already starting to move back into the United States, big league, Ford, General Motors.” —President Donald Trump (Government)

He’s having a great time

“But I’m having a good time. Tomorrow, they will say, Donald Trump rants and raves at the press. I’m not ranting and raving. I’m telling you you’re dishonest people, but I’m not ranting and raving. I love this. I’m having a good time doing it, but tomorrow’s headlines are going to be Donald Trump, rants and rants. I’m not ranting.” —President Donald Trump (Government)

The administration has big plans for next week

“there’s never been a presidency that’s done so much in such a short period of time, and we haven’t even started the big work that starts early next week. Some very big things are going to be announced next week.” —President Donald Trump (Government)

Healthcare is first up, tax reform will be next

“Frankly, the tax would be easier, in my opinion, but for statutory reasons and for budgetary reasons, we have to submit the health care sooner, so well submitting health care sometime in mid-March, and after that, we’re going to come up, and we’re doing very well on tax reform.” —President Donald Trump (Government)

Financials:

Rising interest rates haven’t impacted CRE markets

“[interest rates] may have had a slight impact on the appetite in the pricing, but not a material impact. We still see a lot of capital that wants to go into real estate…institutions are under-allocated to commercial real estate by about 100 basis points relative to where they want to be. So that could be a positive impact.” —CBRE CEO Bob Sulenic (CRE Broker)

The Fed is still planning to shrink its balance sheet someday

“The FOMC has enunciated it is longer run goal is to shrink our balance sheet, to levels consistent with the efficient and effective implementation of monetary policy. And while our system evolves and I can’t put a number on that, I would anticipate a balance sheet substantially smaller than at the current time. We would like to — in addition, we would like our balance sheet to, again, be primarily treasury securities, where as you pointed out, we have substantial holdings of mortgage backed securities…What we would like to do is to find a time when we judge that our need to provide substantial accommodation to the economy in the coming years is minimal, when we have confidence that the economy is on a solid course, and that the federal funds rate has reached levels where we have some ability to address weakness by cutting it. And once we have that confidence, we will try to — we will begin to allow maturing principle from — from our investments to gradually and in an orderly way we will stop reinvestments or diminish them and allow our balance sheet to shrink in an orderly and predictable way. The committee has decided that it will not sell mortgage backed securities, but as principle matures we will begin to allow — allow those assets to run off our balance sheet.” —Fed Chair Janet Yellen (Central Bank)

Consumer:

Not everyone can produce all original content

“And there are more players in the marketplace that are now looking for content, which is great, on the streaming services as well. So it’s really a mixed bag. I think some of the cable operators are coming back to buying off-network product. They realize they can’t do their own all-original content.” —CBS CEO Les Moonves (Media)

The average Candy Crusher plays for 30 minutes a day

“we have more than half an hour of gameplay per player per day, and we think this is an attractive opportunity, a very attractive opportunity for advertisers. It’s a very engaged user base.” —Activision/King Digital CEO Ricardo Zacconi (Video Games)

John Legere is telling cable operators that they won’t get into wireless without buying a carrier

“if you think about what happened, the cable industry has been hoping to use MVNOs on Verizon to get economics to do something in the wireless entry point. However, there’s no possible way they’ll get economics to do unlimited, which has now become the industry standard, and that will compel them. And don’t rule out that part of what Verizon did with their unlimited offer is send a message to the cable industry that you’re not going to ride us to what’s going to happen on your entry into wireless.” —T-Mobile CEO John Legere (Telecom)

He’s hinting that a deal could go down after the spectrum auction is over

“I couldn’t be more excited about the period that’s going to come up when this auction is over, while we continue to do what we just announced and then engage in understanding what the future of this industry is going to be, which is fascinating.” —T-Mobile CEO John Legere (Telecom)

Technology:

With technology one minute you’re a market leader, the next minute you’re washed-up

“the global watch market has experienced significant disruption over the last couple of years. Prior to that, we were clearly positioned as the competitively advantaged leader in a growing category. However, with the introduction of technology into wrist devices, traditional watches came under pressure and we were disadvantaged. We didn’t have the technology capabilities to compete with smartwatches, leading to a decline in our addressable market.” —Fossil CEO Kosta Kartsotis (Watches)

Avis doesn’t see an impact from ride-sharing

“as we continue to update our analysis of car-hailing or ride-hailing impacts on our business…they don’t really change that much across the country basis. It’s just not that big of a part of our business to begin with. As we’ve said, our average rental is four days and 450 miles, so those kind of short mileage and short length of rental type transactions are not a big part of our volume.” —Avis Budget CEO Larry De Shon (Rental Cars)

NVIDIA says that deep learning is a breakthrough in AI

“deep learning is a breakthrough technique in the category of machine learning, and machine learning is an essential tool to enable AI, to achieve AI. If a computer can’t learn, and if it can’t learn continuously and adapt with the environment, there’s no way to ever achieve artificial intelligence. Learning, as you know, is a foundational part of intelligence, and deep learning is a breakthrough technique where the software can write software by itself by learning from a large quantity of data. Prior to deep learning, other techniques like expert systems and rule-based systems and hand-engineered features, where engineers would write algorithms to figure out how to detect a cat, and then they would figure out how to write another algorithm to detect a car. You could imagine how difficult that is and how imperfect that is. It basically kind of works, but it doesn’t work…well enough to be useful. And then deep learning came along…deep learning has proven to be quite robust. It is incredibly useful, and this tool has at the moment found no boundaries of problems that it’s figured out how to solve.” —NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang (GPUs)

Healthcare:

Pharma companies are trying to blame PBMs for rising drug costs

“I’ve never seen more misinformation and absence of facts in the dialog about our role…Drug companies set drug prices and over the last eight years those list prices have increased by more than 200%…Drug makers set prices and we exist to bring those prices down” —Express Scripts CEO Tim Wentworth (Pharmacy Benefit Manager)

Materials, Energy:

Cliffs Natural says that sanity has returned to iron ore markets

“The most important point I would like to make today, we finally have sanity back in the seaborne iron ore market. I truly commend Rio Tinto and Vale for eliminating their reckless behavior that had infected the market for a number of years and destroyed several billions of dollars in equity value. Once the market analysts saw iron ore prices at $40, they believed that this was the new normal. Not the case. For a controlled commodity like iron ore, in which only three big players have the ability to move market price up or down, this should never be the case. Iron ore at $40 is not, nor will it ever be normal.” —Cliffs Natural CEO Lorenco Goncalves (Iron Ore)

But stockpiles are building in China

“Every time we felt that iron ore stockpiles are very high. The Chinese would buy more. And when we felt that they didn’t have enough, for some reason they would stop buying. So unfortunately, it’s unpredictable. Their criteria have to do more with how they view the cost of acquiring iron ore and the prospect of utilizing it in their steel industry. So from here onwards what we are looking at is pretty high stockpiles admittedly. But that is not sufficient in itself to make us draw the conclusion that the Chinese are not going to continue buying iron ore, if they feel that it is a opportunity to do so for them.” —Diana Shipping President Anastasios Margaronis (Dry Bulk Shipping)

Miscellaneous Nuggets of Wisdom:

Investing has gotten much harder over the years

“In the old days, what we did was shoot fish in a barrel. It was so easy, we didn’t want to shoot fish while they were moving, so we waited until they slowed down and then we shot them with a shotgun. It was just that easy. It’s gotten harder and harder and harder…Think of the hooey we built up over the years: we don’t understand it, it’s outside our circle of competency, the worst business in the world is airlines – and what appears in the holdings? Apple and a bunch of airlines. Have we gone crazy? I think the answer is, we’re adapting reasonably to a business that’s gotten much more difficult…Things have gotten so difficult in the investment world that we have to be satisfied with the type of advantage we can get…Indexes have created absolute agony among investment professionals because 95% of people have no chance of beating it over time…most people handle that with denial…I think the people who are worried and fretful are absolutely right. I would hate to manage $1 trillion in the major indexes.” —Berkshire Vice Chair Charlie Munger (Buffett’s Partner)

Engage life

“My hero is Maimonides. All that philosophy, all that writing he did after working all those hours a day as a practicing physician all his life. He believed in the engaged life. I recommend that you engage life. If you spend all your time on how some politician wants it this way or that way and you’re sure you know what’s right – you’re on the wrong track. You want to do something every day where you’re coping with reality.” —Berkshire Vice Chair Charlie Munger (Buffett’s Partner)

Full transcripts can be found at www.seekingalpha.com

[terryblount]

Need For Speed Heat – Review

For some, the very short lead-up from announcement to release for Need For Speed Heat sounds worrying. But each info drop after the gamescom reveal has been done in an air of confidence. Something rare to see.

Developers Ghost Games are the de facto caretaker of the longest racing game franchise ever. But it’s hard to say they have ever put out a game that captured the magic from the glory days.

Until now.

Ghost Games have finally made a Need For Speed that can stand tall against the best games from the franchise. Need For Speed Heat is great.

Presentation

Need For Speed Heat takes you to Palm City, a fictional city inspired by Miami, Florida with a little creative license thrown in by mixing in the hillsides of neighbouring state Georgia. It definitely feels like Miami, albeit a lot wetter. The gorgeous rain and puddle effects from the 2015 reboot returns and the world, and cars when there are soaking wet, looks impressively beautiful.

Also, Need For Speed Heat does not suffer from noticeable texture pop-ins. Of course, it’s running smoother on PC but the PS4 version maintains that 30fps like a rock. Maybe the textures on decals can sometimes be low-res at times but the rest of the car and the environment look as good as ever.

The standout feature in Heat’s presentation is the soundtrack. It’s bold to have a very Latino-inspired selection of tracks, but the songs have grown on me over time. Despite the blue and purple hues featuring prominently in promo art and during night races, there’s no night wave here, but the hip-hop, and drum and bass tracks work well better than I expected.

No arguments about the songs for the garage- it’s the right mix of songs I can hear for hours end while tweaking settings and make liveries.

Gameplay

In Need For Speed Heat, you are an up-and-coming driver new to Palm City and wants to make a name for themselves. In the day, there are legally sanctioned races called the Speedhunters Shodown where you win bank (money). But at night, there are street races where you go and make a reputation, hence earning rep (experience) points.

It’s an interesting system. Sure, you don’t get dynamic time now, but the two contrasting gameplay loops balance out nicely. You need money to buy cars and get better parts. But you need higher rep to unlock those first. But to survive the night you need to get your car to the best of its ability.

Palm City is the biggest open-world map for Need For Speed- but forget about that. The important part is this time the roads flow so well. It’s just fun driving around, and each road leads to something interesting- either a dead mall in the middle of nowhere, the observatory high up in the hills or an abandoned prison.

Hustle By Day, Risk It All At Night

Races also got a huge improvement because of that. The earlier tracks are short but over time, longer, more complicated ones get introduced. For the most part of the game there are no hard barriers for the tracks- so no wall-riding, but also corner cuts are possible.

I like how in the day, we have destructible barriers that won’t stop the car to a halt but definitely slow you down. While at night, neon lights of blue and purple glow to show you the right way. It’s great to see where you should be headed, but sometimes the checkpoint placements are placed way too close to a sharp corner where you easily overshoot past it. Especially in that sloped junction near the edge of Frontera Hills. That’s no good.

Racing in the night brings back the risk-versus-reward gameplay seen in Need For Speed Rivals. You collect rep from races, but you can also build heat multipliers that multiply your base rep based on how much attention you made to the cops. Make your way back to a safehouse without cops on your tail and you bank them all.

Get busted, and, at least you get to keep your base rep and just be slap with a nasty fine. This isn’t Rivals, thankfully.

Can’t Catch Devils With Angels

There’s also an underlying story, centered around the Rivera siblings. Lucas and Ana are your guiding hands for the day and night events respectively. Their differing philosophies of racing is not just for gameplay, the two argue from time-to-time as the plot goes.

There’s also the police situation. Cops at night are ruthless in taking down racers, but not arresting them outright, and what you might think to be just a gameplay quirk actually ties back to story reasons.

The writing has remarkably improved. If Payback was too predictable in its Fast And Furious homage with writing that’s borderline cringe, Heat actually makes the characters charming, or at the very least bearable. It also helps that you, the blank-slate player character, also have agency.

While mostly the quiet type, your character is compassionate, speaks only when needed and actually moves the plot with their own decision. The story is short, but well delivered from any Need For Speed in recent memory. Definitely better than The Run.

They’ve Fixed The Handling!

The biggest change in Need For Speed Heat is not the day-and-night gameplay,  but an overhaul to the handling model. Fans were longing for handling physics more reminiscent to Black Box’s Need For Speed games like Underground, and it finally happened. Thank god.

Cars are now not locked under archetypes with pre-determined handling models. Instead, each car can have a handling profile within a spectrum. Whether it’s built for drifting or race (read: grip handling), and whether it’s faster on the road or off-road. The flexible handling system lets you build a car to your handling tastes, which is nice but not new.

What’s new is that cars with high race handling actually can turn. And taking a corner like it’s Forza rather than drifting through is also a viable option. Nitrous has been retooled so that it doesn’t build up boost faster when drifting by default.

I played the game with a Porsche 718 Cayman tuned to maximum race and on-road setup, which made it glued to the road and outright refuses to drift. The live tuning settings are back and now you can even tune downforce settings, making cars easier to turn at the cost of top speed.

Also, no more micro-transactions from the Speed Card system. Adding performance parts is closer to Forza this time. Engine parts make the car go faster and improves the performance rating (kind of like a gear score for cars, which is actually normal). Chasis parts mostly help define your handling characteristics, with auxiliary items being bonuses that include nitrous boosts from doing drifts, drafting cars, jumps and near misses. Though most of it is items that help your chances of escaping the cops.

Hot Pursuit

Cops are back in action in Need For Speed Heat. While they took a less prominent role in the 2015 reboot and Payback, they are as relentless as they were in Rivals, and definitely lived up to the days when the original Most Wanted brought back the 911 to the series. They do appear in day time but are mostly docile.

It’s at night where they are in full force to get these pesky racers. At heat level 1 it’s easy to shake them off, requiring you toy with them a lot to really get them interested and raise the heat level. By heat level 3, the classic Crown Vic pursuers are replaced by Dodge Chargers. By level 4, Corvettes come to play and spike strips will be deployed. And the max level 5 will see the cops throwing everything they got, including a helicopter and the occasional Rhino rammer.

Unlike the original Most Wanted, you don’t have Speedbreakers to shake the cops. It’s all about driving really fast and breaking line of sight. It can be overwhelming at first- I approached it like Most Wanted and I ended up in heat level 5 with a car clearly unable to outrun them. It requires a different approach to get away from them and also plays well with the risk-reward system during night time.

Need For Speed Heat is at its best when all of the elements come together, by way of the High Heat Races. These are where the tough AI and the aggressive cops get showcased the best. Try your best to stay in the top 5 in a long race, and possibly longer chase right after that.

Content

Need For Speed Heat carries over most of the cars you would expect to return from Payback and the 2015 reboot. Ferraris are back! And some of them do have a few customisation. Most of the new inclusion here are convertibles, which is odd considering how rainy Palm City is. But any variety is welcomed. It’s just not too exciting- oh it’s that car again but without the roof on. And it can easily be seen as easy padding.

Customisations are as strong as ever. But don’t expect new parts across the board. Though Heat has reduced the part restrictions so you can essentially kitbash certain body kits to a higher degree. And for the most part, it looks okay. The BMW Z4 has a rear fender that adds a spoiler element. But if you prefer to add a separate spoiler that’s okay too, it still looks nice.

The exhaust tuning is something I never wanted until now. The new paint options are nothing to scream about, but I do love the carbon fiber options available. Engine swaps are great, not only for the performance boost but also for the sound. Do you want a roaring V8 or a howling V12 in a Porsche? Now you can.

Multiplayer..?

Multiplayer is a bit of mixed bag. There’s no competitive Speedlist this time, as Ghost opted for the inclusion of online free-roam from the get-go (as well as an offline mode). With the open world being bigger than ever, 16 players in a session feel sparse. Most of any interaction I found with random strangers is seeing them leave the game.

But if you already have friends, there’s now a Crew (clan) and a party system. Crews members can now compete in special Crew Time Trials- there’s no more Autolog for normal races. If you want to roam around together with friends, you can have them all in a party, which also lets you join races together. I feel like there might be better ways to encourage players join someone else’s races. As of now, if you don’t have friends to play with, stick to offline, it’s nothing special and you can’t pause the game.

3 Ways To Play

There are three different race disciplines in Need For Speed Heat- the usual races, drifting and off-road racing. These three races have a separate side questline you can follow to completion that rewards iconic cars from the series past. Think of it like the missions in the 2015 reboot. But better writing and characters, which is fun to see all the way through the end.

The game ends kind of abruptly, more because the pace moves super fast. You should be done in around the 10-hour mark. By that time, you should have a car around performance rating 280 with more exotic cars still locked. There’s definitely a post-game, and the high heat races are a great test of skill and understanding of the game, with lucrative rewards.

But will have the staying power of, say, Forza Horizon 4? Other than daily challenges and Crew Time Trials to beat, there’s not much of games-as-a-service element to it. But if you prefer it that way, Need For Speed Heat uses its game time well, even if it may be feeling a bit short.

Personal Enjoyment

I am personally a long-time fan of Need For Speed. And that meant I saw the highs of its PS2 era, the wayward mid-life crisis period of the last generation, and what is mostly a disappointing range of games in the current generation. I kind of liked Payback but not enough to really recommend it last time.

With Heat, I don’t feel guilty of enjoying it.

The series at its current state really needed to fix its fundamentals and they have finally delivered. I spend hours adjusting how the car paint looks exactly. But this time I happily look forward to driving the car around town.  You can even feel that the designers have fun making these courses. There are two tracks that are just about following a railroad line and a tricky monorail line. It’s silly, I love it.

The car customisation is still best-in-class. I love the small quality-of-life change where you can see how much customisation a car offers before purchase. And there’s even a label for cars that have severely limited body customisation, which is fair.

I love messing around with the photo mode. I wish there’s an option to disable not only the photo mode UI, but all of game UI to take more action shots using the PS4 share button.

Even when the story abruptly end, I still want to keep building and buying cars and see how the peak performance of a 400+ car is like. At the time of writing, I reached around rep level 43, a few more to the level 50 cap. And I still want to play it a bit more after this review.

Verdict

Need For Speed Heat mixes the many ideas Ghost Games have tried in the past into a better-playing package. And the result is one of the best Need For Speed game in years. Those efforts to make the handling model more agreeable do this game wonders to how fun driving around is. And so is the well-thought-out open-world map design.

If you may have been a casual fan who just wanted to see something revolutionary, Need For Speed Heat will not wow you. But if you have been following this franchise through its current state of affairs, Need For Speed Heat will blow you away at how great it is. This is the game we wanted for years, and Ghost Games have definitely taken notes from our many grievances.

Like the tyres of a current F1 car, all it needs to be at its best was the right amount of heat. The future of Need For Speed is bright again.

Played on a base PS4. Review copy provided by EA

Need For Speed Heat – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[makemoneyonlineprofit-blog]

The 8 Biggest Graphic Design Trends That Will Dominate 2019 [Infographic]

https://120profit.com/?p=2266&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr Last year was all about taking risks in graphic design. But most of the graphic design trends I predicted last year have become mainstream. With brands like Apple, Google and other tech giants embracing bold and unique designs trends. So you’re going to need to take it up an extra notch, or three, to be seen and heard in 2019. That means more vivid colors palettes, bold fonts, and futuristic patterns. Luckily, this guide will help you stay ahead of the curve. Without further ado, here are the biggest graphic design trends for 2019: CREATE THIS TEMPLATE Click here to jump back to the biggest graphic design trends in 2018 Or click here to jump back to the biggest graphic design trends in 2017   1. Pops of Vivid Colors You may have noticed the world of design feels a little more colorful lately. You would be right. Splashes of electric yellows, bright corals and vivid blues are replacing the reserved colors of the past. More brands and designers are adding vivid colors to their palettes for 2019 and beyond. I love it–more color is always a plus in my books! If you aren’t familiar, vivid colors include lighter hues that are intense or attention-grabbing. Kinda like the blues, pinks, and reds in the example below: Source Or literally any of the colors used in this beautiful annual report: Source I believe that this shift towards more vivid colors is a continuation of the rejection of bland minimalism of the early 2010’s. Also, as brands proceed to fight for our attention, they must take bigger design risks. Last year was dominated by bold colors, this year very vivid and bright will reign supreme. After one of the largest trendsetting companies, Apple, added vivid colors to their designs a few weeks ago, I expect these colors to continue their takeover. As you can see, they used a bunch of vivid color palettes to announce the new iPad Pro…and it was a hit! We have already seen vivid colors start making their way into other Apple graphics as well: But I think this year these vivid colors will become part of their core creative and brand strategy. Plus these colors just look amazing on their, and other brands, ultra HD device screens. And once Apple does something, many brands will follow. Spotify is another big brand that is usually ahead of the most popular trends, and this year is no different. Bright, vivid colors have made their way into their marketing material: And on their wildly popular app: We saw Spotify embrace gradients, bold colors, and flat design before it was fashionable, and I see bright colors taking the same path. I do think it’s important to note that you don’t have to only use vivid colors. In fact, mixing those color with stronger or flatter colors will help you stand as well. Check out how well the colors come together in the presentation template below: CREATE THIS TEMPLATE It’s like the two trendy color palettes of the past few years teamed up to create something very unique.   2. Strong Typographic Focal Points Over the past few years, we have seen bold fonts and typefaces become the norm. From Adidas using it across all of their marketing: Source To Samsung, which illustrates nicely the move to more vivid colors this year as well: Source This bold font makes it easy to read the text on social media feeds and on mobile devices. As well as instantly projecting strength, innovation, and individuality. However, as you can see in all of these examples, the bold font is often the supporting partner to the other design elements. But this year the bold font will become the main focal point in a lot of graphics. Especially if your graphic only has a few seconds to grab the reader’s attention. Like with a poster, social media graphic or flyer. In these poster examples from the CTA18 conference you can see how powerful a bold font can be: Each of the font-heavy posters stands out like a beacon, compared to the other futuristic-looking posters. Even if you knew nothing about the conference or company it would pique your interest. This bold font was used throughout the rest of their conference material and it helps project a daring and confident message. All of this was achieved with a single bold font, and no supporting images. Another great example of using bold font comes from Nike at the Public School New York Streetball Classic: Source This bold font just screams strength. It’s extremely fitting for an athletic display. Plus those posters will definitely stand out on the busy streets of NYC. If you’re looking for something a little more colorful, check out the bold font used on this design project from CalArts: Source It dominates the graphics but fits extremely well with the vivid color palette. Could you imagine a minimalistic font having the same effect? I think not! This example is begging you to read more. It could even catch your eye from across a crowded room. I do think it’s important to point out that I’m not advocating only using text-heavy graphics. There should be some other interesting elements included, like in this gradient-filled festival flyer: Source This modern sales poster: CREATE THIS TEMPLATE Or this brilliant flamingo adorned hiring poster example: Source The main header and font of each example definitely grab your attention, but the other elements could be what catch your eye first. So don’t forget to include some of these interesting elements, even if you want the text to be your central focal point! The harmony between all of those elements could really make or break your designs in 2019.   3. Futuristic Influences Are Mainstream I guess since we are technically living in the future that so many 80’s films predicted, it’s time for our designs to reflect that. This means a lot of futuristic patterns, colors and ideas are about to dominate the design world for the next few years. We do have most of the futuristic devices they predicted in our pocket each day. So you might as well take advantage of that tech with your design work! I believe that this approach will help brands create unique content that will stand above the noise on social media. The visual rebrand of BBCTWO this year is a solid example of a large brand embracing this idea: Source They could have taken the boring route that so many brands take and just refresh their typeface or logo. But they have let the futuristic patterns, textures, and colors define their branding across all of their content. Additionally, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rise of vivid colors matches up almost perfectly with the explosion of futuristic influences. They both have been used recently to stand out from the noise created by other brands. When futuristic designs and vivid colors are used together, they can create something really cool. For example, these album covers from the europe.collective project looks like they were ripped from a futuristic record store: Source Honestly, these are works of art and are likely to stick in someone’s mind a lot longer than some of the other album covers I have seen. Plus these futuristic examples will look amazing on your iPhone, Android or Mac screen. Or on the side of a building, like with this innovative event poster example: Source With futuristic designs, you can take a lot of risks and let your creativity run wild. Let’s break down some of the common elements of these futuristic designs: Bright color palettes:    CREATE THIS TEMPLATE Gradients and other color transitions: Source Abstract patterns: Source “Glitches”: Source Holographic and reflective elements: Source Geometric influences:   Source …and more! But since we don’t know what the future holds, there’s no right way to do it! So get out there and create something that looks like it was ripped straight out of your favorite science fiction movie.   4. Light and Dark Color Schemes You may have noticed that some of the largest companies are adding light and dark modes to their apps. Or embracing light and dark color schemes across different devices and avenues. This includes Apple recently adding Dark Mode for all of their Macs: Facebook just added a dark mode to its Messanger platform: But they are about a year behind Twitter, who integrated that feature all the way back in 2017: You may be asking why I’m highlighting these companies now. I do like talking about tech companies but that’s not the reason. Instead, I wanted to point out that the biggest brands in the world of tech are embracing this dual colored design trend. So it’s pretty easy to see the graphic design world wholeheartedly adopting it this year. These apps use different modes to make the apps more useful for the user depending on the situation. You can use this same flexible technique in your design work to instantly adapt to many mediums or screens. In fact, one of my favorite flyer examples uses a light and dark color scheme. Each fits the subject matter and event extremely well: Source Like I said above this dual color scheme makes the poster a lot more flexible. If you need to hang it up on a dark wall, the white colored poster is perfect. But it also won’t stand out if you need to place a poster on a blank office wall, which is where the black color scheme saves the day. In these beautiful poster examples, the designer used a duotone blue and white as the main color influences. But it has the same effect as the flyers above. Source With this kind of technique, you’re not putting all your eggs into one basket. Saving you from a ton of wasted time and effort. The light one could catch the eye of some people, but the dark one could do the same thing for another group. The change between light and dark graphics can be quite subtle. For example, in these graphics they only really change the borders from light to darker colors: Source It may seem like a lot of work to create multiple versions of your design but with the Venngage Brand Kit, you can switch between color palettes with a single click. You can also import your brand colors, fonts and logos into your Brand Kit. Then you can automatically apply them directly to your designs or templates. Like so: DESIGN SOMETHING  You already have a battle-tested palette of colors that your audience recognizes. So why not use them!   5. Complex Gradients and Duotones Gradients are one of my favorite things to add to any design project to give it a little more depth. Plus, like some of the other rising graphic design trends, they look incredible on mobile devices. Last year I predicted that gradients would begin to take over the world. Especially after seeing large companies embrace it, like Microsoft: And the payment giant, Stripe: Even the designers over at Apple Music: With their vivid colors and futuristic patterns, they feel right at home with some of the other graphic design trends of 2019. However, I think this is the year the gradient grows up and is used in more ways than just a simple background. Just like any new trend, people are going to find unique ways to use it as time progresses. For example, take a look at how Fast Company uses gradients as color filters across their content: Source This simple overlay can instantly upgrade even the blandest stock photo. Also, this visual strategy can become part of their brand, making it easier for readers to spot their content. Overall it’s a simple way to differentiate from the competition that even the most novice designers can emulate. After seeing the rise of gradients last year, we added the gradient backgrounds to Venngage. Apply them to your designs in a single click: DESIGN SOMETHING  If you’re looking for something a little more complex, check out these examples from the Adobe 99U Conference: Source In these examples, the gradients are the main focal point and dominate the graphics. In the past, they would have of being pushed to the background and only played a secondary role to another element. This approach takes a little more skill to master, but definitely will stand out: And if gradients were used to advertise, say, a conference on the future of design, I think it’s safe to say they are here to stay. If you want to blow readers out of the water, take note of these slides from the Ringling College Motion Design conference: Source These slides are literally called “Future Proof” and feel like they were pulled straight from an episode of Star Trek or Blade Runner. I could honestly look at them all day, or make them the background of my laptop. Actually, maybe I will! Duotones are another design tactic that fits extremely well with the other design trends. Most graphics that use duotones feel very futuristic and colorful, almost by definition. In the simplest terms, duotones are images that replace the whites and blacks in a photo with two colors. Like how the graphics designers at TQ used a blue for the dark parts, and a pink for the lighter ones: Source I like duotones because you can make almost any image match your company branding. And as you probably know, keeping things consistent is extremely important in the design world. Duotones aren’t as popular as they once were a few years ago. But they still can be used to create some interesting graphics, like these blog headers from The Health Diaries: Source Additionally, like gradients, they really pop when used on a white background, social media or a mobile phone.   6.  New “Colorful Minimalism” I think it’s pretty common misconception that minimalist design only used black text and white backgrounds. Or another combination of the two. But minimalism is actually about paring down design to only the necessary components. It’s seen as the rejection of complicated and cluttered ideas. Many people have interpreted that as using only muted and neutral color palettes. Especially after the main tech giants used it for about a decade in their marketing. Source A lot of the graphic design trends I have witnessed over the past few years have been a reaction to that kind of minimalism. From the explosion of hand-drawn graphics, bold color schemes, and abstract patterns. Each of those trends is the opposite of what minimalism is at its core. Despite that, this year, some of those more complex graphic design trends are going to mix with traditional minimalism to create a new type of minimalism. One that is dominated by color and creativity, instead of blandness and conformity. For example, take a look at this product poster series from Nike: Source Each poster is traditionally minimalist, with not a lot of flair or unneeded elements. And without the vibrant gradients, it’s just another boring poster. But this simple color addition makes it very eye-catching, without abandoning the main tenets of minimalism. It masterfully walks the fine line between too dull and too complex. You can also take some of the ideas we have outlined in this article and integrate them into your minimalist projects. Things like a bold font, futuristic elements or a simple gradient can really upgrade your simple designs: Source Just be sure that they don’t dominate the graphic, and instead are used in a supporting role to other elements. These logo examples from Aula Visual are a perfect illustration of that idea: Source In each of the graphics, both a futuristic pattern and color are used to up add a little something extra to the brand mark. Without those elements, I think this would just be another boring logo. The same thing can be said about these graphics for Black[Foundry]: Source It honestly looks like they were able to combine almost all of the graphic design trends we have talked about so far with the minimalist ideals. We’ve got a bold font dominating a few graphics, a gradient peeking through and even a futuristic pattern making an appearance. Now if you don’t want to go the color gradient route, you can still inject some color into your designs. In this presentation template example, they use only three colors to build an interesting visual: CREATE THIS TEMPLATE The slides use exactly the same layout throughout the whole presentation, only swapping the colors on each. This minimalist approach keeps the presentation cohesive and eye-catching, all without being too complex. The designer used exactly what they needed to get their points across, no more and no less. And at its core, that’s what minimalism is all about.   7. Dynamic and Complicated Hand-Drawn Illustrations Custom or hand-drawn illustrations are an excellent way to make your visual content stand out. And stand above all the other brands that take the easy way out. That’s because no other brand is going to be able to exactly replicate these visuals. Competitors can copy your color scheme, your social media strategy and the stock photos you use.   Plus, in the quest for a strong brand, unique content such as this is extremely valuable. That’s why I believe that hand-drawn graphics and illustration will continue to be a graphic design trend this year. However, like some of the other graphic design trends we saw roll over to this year, things are about to get a bit more complicated. Last year you could get away with using simple flat doodles, like the examples from MailChimp below: Source This year that’s not going to cut it! Because everyone else picked up on the simple sketch trend, it’s not unique anymore. Like I said above, you’re going to have to take it to the next level with your hand-drawn illustrations and visuals. Mailchimp, among others, has risen to this challenge and blown the doors off of it with their custom illustrations. Source These illustrations were added to literally every page of their website, and all social media accounts. And I kinda love it. Additionally, they used these custom illustrations to help inspire their customers to be themselves and embrace simplicity…as well as reject the overly polished company image that they see online every day.   Their designers have always been known to take big risks, and this one seems to have paid off. It was talked about by every designer and marketer for weeks after the rebrand was unveiled. The project management masters over at Asana took a similar approach this year. Last year used the simple doodles and sketches throughout their marketing graphics. But this year they invested in some more dynamic illustrations across their social media accounts: Source I like that these illustrations look like they were all created by the same designer, which is very difficult sometimes. Especially when they have a whole team of designers working on one project. This method makes each share or email from them look like it came from a single voice, that their readers can easily recognize. In this noisy world that we all live in, that can be a huge benefit. Also, it’s nice to see them using some very vivid colors in their designs! At Venngage we got the memo as well when we created this fun Halloween infographic: VIEW THE FULL INFOGRAPHIC One of our designers created each of the illustrations from scratch, and it makes me smile each time. There are a ton of similar Halloween infographics in the world, but ours is incredibly remarkable because of the custom illustrations. To conclude, if you’re looking for a little more inspiration to create your own illustrated masterpieces, I would check out these examples from The New Yorker: Source And the perennial innovators over at Slack: Source They actually were one of the first companies that I noticed creating these works of art. And they have been creating amazing illustrations for their content ever since!   8. Authentic and Genuine Stock Photos As you have probably noticed many brands are creating some very creative designs to seem more genuine. Or to make them feel more authentic, instead of a faceless corporation. This push into the more real and genuine will be seen in the type of stock photos they use this year as well. I feel that a lot of stock photos have become too professional, polished and vague. In their quest to reach as many people as possible, these photographers choose a safe subject. Overly edited photos are also out this year, readers really want more genuine and authentic looking photos of people. The viewer should be able to see themselves reflected in the photo. These new stock photos look like they were taken with someone’s personal camera or phone. Kinda like the examples of people below: Source These examples honestly look like they were taken by a bunch of friends hanging out, not by a professional. The same thing can be said about these photos as well! In each of these free stock photos, the colors look real and not like it was overly edited: Almost like something you would see in your Instagram feed from your cousin that travels too much. And I was able to find those examples relatively easy, so it baffles me when brands all use the same generic photo. Those ultra-generic pictures that might relate to the content should be avoided this year. Like this example, which has been used by almost every tech company at least once: As a reader, this photo tells me nothing about your content because it’s so general! Instead, shoot for photos that help you tell a visual story and add to the narrative. Instead of just filling an open space on your blog or social media feed! For instance, compared to the example above, these photos would work much better in a tech-focused blog article: Like I said previously, these photos depict a real scene that you could put yourself into. And they feel like they were snapped in the moment. Not meticulously planned like some of the examples below: Ugh, that fist bump photo makes me cringe a little bit. Now in my experience, the laziest content creators love the generic and overtly planned stock photos. Ones that took them a few seconds to find, and have already been used by millions of people. I hate those kinds of stock photos. I mean, if you can’t take the time to create or find a better stock image, why should I take my time to read it? I think many of you will agree with that statement. So in 2019 don’t be one of those creators, instead strive to be more weird, unique and genuine with your visuals! And best of all, you can find these great examples and millions of more stock photos for FREE on Venngage now: DESIGN SOMETHING NOW  Want to learn how you can incorporate stock photos seamlessly into your designs? Read our step-by-step design guide. Now that you have seen what will dominate graphic design trends in 2019, why don’t you take a look at the trends that were popular in 2018!   The biggest graphic design trends for 2018: GET THIS INFOGRAPHIC TEMPLATE 1. Multiple brand color schemes Traditionally, companies have a few colors that they use across all of their branding and design work. This helps people recognize them out in the world, on social media and other places online. But I think this design “tradition” is going to be completely upended as brands look for more ways to stand out in 2018 and beyond. In fact, companies rebranding with a plethora of colors schemes is one of the first graphic design trends that I see really taking off. Spotify started doing this a few years ago in all facets of their design but they were one of only a few.  Now they have such a strong visual brand that I know something came from Spotify almost instantly. Dropbox also decided to completely ditch their old color palette in 2017 to help update their brand and reach.   Usually, a rebranding effort updates the font or graphic of a company logo, but this one was completely different. Instead of changing their logo design, which everyone already knew, they added a ton of new official brand colors to use with it. They built this new branding to show that great things can happen when diverse minds work together. And I hate to say it because some people were not big fans, but I kinda love the rebrand. They already had a logo that everyone knew, but now they have a ton of new ways to use it. When you are a massive company like Dropbox that needs to appeal to almost every industry, this kind of flexibility is ideal. I also think that this change really reflects their growth as a company from a free place to store your school paper, to something that connects the creatives of the world. Just take a look at how they evolved their social media presence from last year: To this year with the rebrand: It’s almost like night and day. Who would have thought that breaking design conventions would have allowed for so much creative freedom? However, I do think that this kind of rebrand can only work with a company that is as big and recognizable as Dropbox. Or eBay, which actually rebranded a few months before Dropbox. In their rebrand, eBay also decided to add a ton of new colors, while keeping their recognizable logo: If we want to compare the two rebrands, I think that eBay would win. That isn’t because I was not impressed by Dropbox’s efforts, I just think that it fits eBay’s core business and products better. Plus, they are using the rebrand across all parts of their platform. It’s a good idea to consider multiple brand color schemes if you want to create a perfect E-commerce website. The designers at eBay have used the color upgrade to unify millions of products across their site. Take a look at the examples below: They may not all share the same colors, but they have the same feel. Even though it’s a mix of pastels and bold colors, the site still looks incredibly clean. Additionally, they have found a way to inject color into a place that is usually boring and bland: the background. This subtle boost of color makes almost everything they share on social media stand out from the rest. Are you seriously going to be able to scroll past this pastel mixer? I think not. If you need help picking your picking new colors, read out in-depth guide to picking color schemes.   2. Color gradients are making a comeback Whenever I think of color transitions and gradients, I can’t help but remember the bad word art from Microsoft Word over the past 20ish years. As kids, we thought this was the best way to make your report on dinosaurs look professional. And I think that we were on to something back then. Because in 2018 color gradients will be literally everywhere, from websites to Twitter headers, and even presentations. Instagram, always ahead of the curve, has used it in their branding and logos for the past few years, actually: Now the rest of the world is starting to catch up. One of the best examples I have seen of gradients being used comes from Mixpanel, an analytics company. As you can see below, they have adopted a gradient as the main background of their site: This is a common way for sites to keep a simple background, and add a few flourishes. Otherwise, you’re stuck with a pretty boring single-colored background. What I haven’t seen much of is gradients being used in every piece of visual content, like Mixpanel did: This wholehearted adoption of color gradients gives the company a lot of creative freedom, without straying too far from their brand. Because in this case, multiple color gradients is their branding. The graphs and charts are by far my favorite use of color gradients. It adds that little something extra and helps them stand out from the noise. These principles are similar to website design must-haves. A few other large tech brands are bringing gradients back into their designs. Like Stripe: Polaroid, with a more subtle gradient: And even Skype: But my favorite way to use a gradient is by overlaying it on an image or creating a duotone. Kinda like what The Next Web did below: It adds so much extra power to the image. All this with a simple gradient, a design trick the internet loves to hate. But as we’ve seen in these examples, they are a great way to add a little bit of eye-catching color to your design. Plus, they can help improve any image or stock photo.   3. Better branded social media images Last year I talked a little bit about using more authentic photos in all parts of your design and marketing strategies. This year, I really want you to focus on extending that trend to your social shares as well. Readers and consumers use social media to distract themselves from what is happening in their life. They don’t want to see a tenuously relevant stock photo that you picked in two seconds for the sake of having an image. That shows readers that the person who produced the content didn’t care enough about their work to find an impactful image. If the person who created the content doesn’t care, why should you? For example, if you were scrolling through your Twitter feed, would you click on the tweet that used this image? Or this one from Cubeit? Now, technically either would work for the same tweet, but the one from Cubeit is the clear winner. By a mile. How do I know this? Because that image made me stop in my furious scrolling tracks and want to read the article. I must sound like a broken record by now because of how often I talk about not using bad stock images in your design work. But I also believe that this is one of the easiest ways for your brand to stand out on social media. The image will be the first thing the readers are going to see on social media, and maybe then they’ll read the text. Your content could be great but it will never get the chance because you picked a bad featured image. Even something as simple as what Quuu did below looks a hundred times better than a stock image of a computer: One of my favorite examples of this trend comes from Moz: They attach a face to almost all of their tweets. Instead of a generic stock photo, you see a friendly and luminizing face, from the person who wrote the article, shining back at you. They also use Rand Fishkin, in as many images as they can. This is not only a great branding play, it also humanizes the company as a whole. When I think of Moz now, I don’t think of a faceless company–I think of an innovative person.   4. Unconventional colors everywhere As we have seen so far, 2018 is the year of taking risks in your design. One of the best places to start taking risks is in the colors that you use. That doesn’t mean that you need completely rethink your brand’s color palettes, like some of the brands I’ve mentioned already. Instead, be ready to inject some more risky colors in your design projects this year. Bold colors are the most common driving force that we have seen behind each of the design trends this year. I wouldn’t call any of the following colors traditional in any sense of the word: Sticking to the traditional corporate blue palette isn’t going to cut it this year. Also, if you noticed, minimalism and neutral color schemes are on its way out.   Instead, I recommend going a little off the rails with the colors you pick–within reason. Find a few colors that you can call your “unofficial brand colors” and use them across all your projects. This way, you can do something new and exciting but still stay close to your core values in other places.   A great example of using bold color comes from the sports world, in Bleacher Report. They are in an extremely competitive space, fighting with thousands of sports writers for your eyeballs. But they consistently use bold, bright colors in their designs to differentiate their content from those others. Because they do it so well, you can quickly spot a Bleacher Report article or Tweet out in the world. Another example is Fast Company, who have taken to using more non-traditional colors in their magazine cover designs to entice readers. Like Bleacher Report, they’re also using bright and bold colors to stand out in a very competitive space: print journalism. With each issue, they are fighting with thousands of competitors to get the attention readers. And that isn’t an easy task. Even online they’re using color to add something extra to their design work. With the simple addition an interesting color–or five–they made each graphic much more captivating. Now, I hate to bring Spotify up again, but they have effectively been disrupting the space for the past few years. You can definitely see this in their color usage lately as well: I have talked a few times before about being to spot something from Spotify just from their non traditional color usage. Especially in their most recent Wrapped experience, which shows your listening habits for the past year:  For a few weeks after they launched this promotion, I was even able to spot other people’s lists, just based on the colors they used. If that isn’t an effective use of color, I don’t know what is.   5. Bold & handwritten fonts dominate What makes you a good graphic designer? Another way to add some eye-catching features to your designs is to use some bold or handwritten fonts. This is another trend that seems to come from the design world, moving away from boring minimalism as a whole. Bold and handwritten fonts are going to stand out against the simple or overused fonts that your competitors are using. And they will help your content jump off the screen on social media–whether it’s infographics for your blog, Facebook ads, or motivational quotes on your social media. Kinda like my alma mater, the University of Arkansas, does below: They are definitely fans of bold fonts, however what they are not fans of is winning apparently. Now, instead of looking at more examples who only use bold or handwritten fonts, I thought it would be interesting to find ones that effortlessly use both.   A great example comes from the shoe giant, Adidas. They may actually be my new favorite company in 2018. I mean have you seen those NMDs and Ultraboosts?! Across their site, they use bold fonts in their graphics or text, which looks great: And when you jump over on social media, bold handwritten fonts take over: But neither feels out of the ordinary for a brand like Adidas. Everything they create and share feels natural because they have created such a strong visual brand over the past few years. I believe that this adoption of ultra bold and handwritten fonts coincided with their plan to become a more fashion-forward brand. That choice has helped really sell the mystique of these new type of shoes they are creating. Another incredible example of using both bold and handwritten fonts together comes from Adobe: With this Digital Marketing Report, they are able to seamlessly blend together both bold and handwritten fonts, in addition to using some awesome gradients, GIFs and unique colors. In fact, Adobe seems to be embodying all of the graphic design trends I’ve mentioned so far. If the leader in design is using them, I think they’re a safe bet.   6. More custom illustrations Over the past year or so I have seen designers move away from cookie-cutter graphics to more custom icons and illustrations. And I could not be happier. This movement started to take form last year with the rise of hand-drawn illustrations and icons.  But these illustrations and icons will become even more unique in 2018, as brands look to differentiate themselves even more. I mean, look at how Strikingly has used the illustrations to make their blog headers look amazing: No one else is going to be able to replicate that, especially with a stock image. So instead of using a boring photo, I would recommend creating some custom graphics. Like Discord has done below: As a tech company that caters to gamers and techies, those icons fit them perfectly. I mean just take a look at their homepage: That is a well thought out brand! Also, I believe that this trend is another rejection of the overly clean and somewhat boring design “rules” that dominated the past decade.   Now, instead of following those rules, designers are making their own. If you need help there are also many free online graphic design courses available. There’s also Microawesome, a design service aimed towards providing short-term design work at low costs. You can clearly see this with the rise of custom illustrations and icons being used across the spectrum. From the simple hand-drawn icons that MailChimp uses: To the one-of-a-kind illustrated images in InVision blog posts: And all the places in between, like in this year-end report from First Round Capital: If you are looking for something that looks a little more like art, I would check out the examples from Slack below: These are incredibly interesting designs to look at, and they will stand out from the riff-raff of social media. This also fits their almost laid back “making work better” vibe that they use in all of their marketing and product materials. Additionally, when someone takes this much time and effort to create a featured image, you know the content is going to be good. They are able to use the image to make a first impression with their audience almost instantly. That’s why I’m pushing for more graphics like this in 2018 and beyond! People are looking for more authenticity in all parts of their digital life and this is a great way to appeal to that. Instead of using a bad stock image, use an awesome illustration or icon.     7. Better GIFs, less reactions One of my favorite things to come out of the internet–maybe ever–are GIFs. I use them on a daily basis to communicate with my friends and coworkers. They are perfect little ways to show how you are feeling. For me, it’s usually this one: They are also used by your favorite hip brand to show they are still cool. Using reaction GIFs and such are great to send on Slack or Tweet to your friends. But in 2018 your GIF usage as a brand or company needs to be taken to the next level. Most people would also recognize a GIF as the reaction ones we are all so fond of. But they can be used for so much more. Like as infographics that actually add to your share or article in a meaningful way. One of the best examples of using GIFs in this manner comes from the sports world, actually. My hometown Kansas City Chiefs are big users of GIFs on game days and it truly adds to the experience. Now, I usually don’t have time to watch a whole game, but I love that I can quickly scroll through my Twitter feed and get an update. Those updates stick out more than a simple text update would. They may not be the most breathtaking GIFs but they help people keep track of what is going on. It helps foster a conversation with their audience and that should be one of your goals when using GIFs this year. Don’t just slap a reaction GIF on a share or article, because someone will laugh and move on with their day. Another way to use GIFs this year is to replace your featured images and blog headers. Like in this one from Axios about nuclear tax credits: That will definitely grab someone’s attention, no matter the platform. But just because I’m recommending that you upgrade your GIFs, doesn’t mean they all have to be bland or serious. They can still have that element of silliness that GIFs are known for. To see what I’m talking about, check out this GIF from Muz.li: And here is another similar one from UX Planet: It’s simple, well designed and relatable. Plus, it will stand out from all the other static images in someone’s feed. If you can create and share GIFs that marry those three ideas together nicely, you will be set in 2018.   8. Cinemagraphs are gaining more traction After talking about GIFs, it’s time to talk about their more refined cousins: cinemagraphs. Cinemagraphs are basically GIFs or videos that have been completely frozen, except for a tiny area of subtle movement. Here is one of my favorite examples: I’m guessing you have more experience with GIFs. But cinemagraphs are going to continue to gain ground in 2018. Especially with more design and tech-focused companies in the world. Like my friend’s podcast, the Pitch, which has a large audience of tech and startup aficionados: The subtle changes in the stars may not seem like much, but they definitely add a little something that people will stop and take a look at. Cinemagraphs are less obtuse than a GIF or a video, and can still be used in all parts of your marketing or design work. Because of that somewhat subtle movement, I believe that they are more eye-catching than a video or static image. Plus they can be little works of art that bring customers to your post or share. Design that fights back The driving force behind this year’s graphic design trends is the rebellion of designers against the plain, white color schemes and sparse aesthetics that the titans in the tech industry have pushed for the past few years. Now we will see designer take a whole new approach. It will be intense, innovative and beautiful. I mean, look at this year’s explosion of colors! As we have seen in previous years, most of the innovating will be done by the top tech companies. They are the ones that have the bandwidth, money and talent to test a bunch of ideas to see what works best. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t implement some of these in your design. Remember, 2018 is all about taking risks! I hope these tips will guide you in taking on some new design challenges and getting ahead of your competitors. Check out last year’s graphic design trends below.   The biggest graphic design trends of 2017 GET THIS INFOGRAPHIC TEMPLATE   1. Louder and brighter colors Over the past few years, many tech leaders used muted, safe and easy to digest colors. This was in an attempt to create a very clean and controlled design scheme. It was almost an attempt to show people that the sleek, functional future they have seen in science fiction movies was already here. But now that everyone and their mom have seen this design style work for Apple, the copycats have killed the power it once held. Now, in 2017, there will be a shift away from neutral colors like whites, grays and black, to bolder and brighter colors. Some companies are already doing it and have been for a while, like the music wizards over at Spotify. In fact, they are already leading the pack, using bold colors mixed with professionally edited photos to create in-your-face designs. This kind of color usage has become part of their brand, which means that their images are instantly recognizable. And when you are fighting for real estate on social feeds, powerful branding like this will help you win 2017. Just because many companies will be ditching their boring color schemes in 2017 doesn’t mean there needs to be a color revolution in your company. Some companies will be adding just a bit of color, and it will make all the difference. Using bold color accents will also help many brands cling to their minimalist roots. By infusing bright colors with traditional neutral backgrounds, companies can give their branding a fresh new look without straying too far from what made them great. For example, we already saw this type of redesign from Instagram a few months ago. This simple redesign helped bring them into a whole new era and unified all of the different apps under one color. And just like with Spotify, this type of bold color usage is recognizable across the web. A large driving force behind the trend of bold and bright color usage in design comes from Google’s Material Design. Their design language focuses on flat, organized, and intuitive design. They use  “unexpected and vibrant” colors, as well as fonts and images that are as functional as they are pleasing to the eye. Actually, a lot of the things that will be trending in 2017 are influenced by the adoption of the Material Design principles. We took their advice when designing this graphic to promote a new ebook. It has been an insanely popular featured image! If you need some great examples of color palettes that fit this bold scheme, check out this article that helps you choose the best colors for your designs. Don’t be afraid to use colors that contrast starkly against one another.  GET MY INFOGRAPHIC TEMPLATE   2. Bold typography In 2017, bold typography will also fight against the ever-dwindling attention spans of readers, and the saturation of content. Big and daring fonts will be used to grab the eye. One of my favorite examples of this would have to be Wired. They use a mix of fonts to emphasize individual titles and establish a hierarchy of information on the page. Just take a look at some of the examples from their homepage below: A great example of using in-your-face fonts to grab the reader’s attention on social media comes from HubSpot. They make sure the text is front and center, with the graphic used as support: HubSpot know that the time we allocate to digest a tweet is nearing zero each year. They combine concise, punchy copy with bold fonts to capture your attention. Additionally, the shift to mobile and extremely high definition screens will also increase the need for bold fonts. Obviously, more and more people will be using their phones to get content, and the way that content is presented will need to keep up. Buffer uses strong headers in the body of their articles, not just at the beginning, to give them a backbone and make it easier to read across different devices. I would recommend using this approach to help people navigate long reads, no matter the screen size. We also took a similar approach, when creating this infographic template. Mixing bold font choices with interesting colors to create an eye-catching graphic: GET MY TEMPLATE 3. Google Fonts I have been using Google Fonts for a while now because they are so versatile. If I need to design one thing online and then add it to my slide deck, I am confident the fonts will work together. And they play nice with about every website you build.  Oh, and did I mention most of these 810 different fonts are free to use? Yeah, people like free. And they like things that are insanely easy to use. Like this example that uses a mix of a few popular Google Fonts: GET MY INFOGRAPHIC TEMPLATE Some of our most popular fonts on Venngage are bold Google Fonts, like Roboto from above or Open Sans.   4. Authentic photos As the amount of content created each year continues to increase, the need for quality images has increased as well. And to maximize the shelf life of some of these images, the creators have had to make them as generic as possible. The only problem is that the best generic images get overused by everyone. If you have been active in tech or marketing scene lately I am guessing you have seen the following image: It has been used in landing pages on, blog headers, and even some Instagram posts. To be fair, I even used it for one of the sites I was building a few years ago. But because of the popularity of this image and other stock images like it, the authenticity has plummeted. The need for clean and perfect images in everything has only exasperated the problem as well. As reader seeing this image for the hundredth time, I would think that the writer or creator does not care about making their work original. So why should I read it? That is why you need to start using authentic images that represent your brand. Stop using the most popular images and start making some of your own. I am guessing everyone on your team has a camera phone in their pocket. Why aren’t you using them? Snap a few photos of your product, office or some fun pictures of your logo and use those instead. Or if someone on your team is a budding photographer, give them a day or two to shoot some images that you can use for a year! For example, we took a picture of some of our employees for our new website and could not be happier. By doing this, we added the human element back to our images, that so many of these stock photos are missing.   5. Hand-drawn graphics and icons The need for more authentic images will also influence icons and graphics. Recently we have seen brands embrace this wholeheartedly as they look to differentiate themselves from the pack. This will also add a personal or fun element back into your design or content work. And this can’t be done with off-the-shelf icons or graphics. Many may see this trend as childish or unprofessional, but it will definitely help you stand out online. Like many of the graphic design trends in 2017, this is a push back on the clean and almost clinical nature of design in recent years. For example, Dropbox has adopted the use of hand-drawn illustrations in everything they do. It has become part of their brand now and is easily recognizable. Plus, it puts the user at ease, appeals to the child in all of us, and makes the product seem more accessible. This is especially helpful if you are a large tech company like Dropbox. Another great example of hand-drawn icon comes from Casper, a mattress company. They use illustrations on almost all of their landing pages Like this interesting one below: MailChimp also got into the spirit and used hand-drawn illustrations in their 2016 annual report! And finally, for one more GREAT example, we look to Moz. They use illustrations in their blog headers, like this one: We also have introduced more hand-drawn illustrations in Venngage as well. I am particularly a fan of some of the ones below: GET MY ICONS And our love for hand-drawn icons sometimes makes its way into other projects as well: 6. Minimalism that goes back to its roots If you were to describe what minimalism was to a stranger, you would probably talk about a lack adornment in design, with a focus on functionality. You would probably also think of a neutral color palette of blacks, grays, and whites. It seems that the true spirit of minimalism–pared down, functional design elements–has been lost and, instead, replaced with boring black and white color schemes. I suspect this was done to make up for the lack of processing power and screen size on mobile devices. In 2017, that will all change. This is the year that minimalism, hopefully, gets its groove back. And that involves using a lot more color. Mobile devices are now just as powerful as computers and some even have better screens. One of my favorite minimalist-influenced designs would have to be Medium’s logo. They were able to include a bunch of different colors but still create a very minimalist logo. Another logo redesign that influenced minimalism with color happened a few years ago with Google, who happens to be a catalyst for many of these new graphic design trends. They shaved a little bit off their typeface but also debuted a whole new “G” logo, which I am still a fan of. Everything about that screamed minimalist but there was not one mention of it in the press because true minimalism has been lost to the general public. Because it did not look like it was created before color was invented and only used one shape, it was not a minimalist logo. Instead, it was more colorful and popped off the page–but it was still a minimalist logo. And following that redesign, like so many things before, people followed Google’s lead. We have even started emulating a more minimalist style with our featured images for blogs. The simple design clearly communicates the message of the graphic.   7. Useful GIFs Everyone (well, almost everyone) loves GIFs. They are the perfect little conversation helper that expresses emotion when text won’t do the trick. Plus, they do not require any special software to run, usually have a small file size, and can be embedded just about anywhere. So they are better than videos and images, in most cases when loading time or data usage needs to be minimized. And I think that versatility is what will make them even better and more useful in 2017. One of my favorite ways to use GIFs is as featured images for your blog posts or article. Instead of using boring stock images, invest a few minutes of your time in creating a GIF like the one below: It does not have to be a work of art, but it definitely will draw attention to your post when shared on social media. One of the best examples of using a GIF as a blog header is this post on The Next Web 8. Duotones Duotones are simply the combining of two colors on an image, usually using very bright or contrasting colors. They require a bit of design work but it is most definitely worth it. Only a skilled designer can really create an amazing duotone. It is honestly past my skill level but that does not mean you should not include it in your 2017 design plans! Spotify was one of the first to really push this type of design into all parts of their branding, and many other brands have followed their lead since. Like below: They have been able to use this approach to color to stand out in not only the streaming space but music in general. And you can use it in the same way for your industry! This bold use of contrasting color will also bring some originality into your design. And hopefully make it pop on the white backgrounds of the many social media sites. If you need some help getting your graphic design skills up to par, I recommend these articles: The Ultimate Guide to Designing Epic Social Media Graphics How to Make an Infographic in 5 Steps (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.0"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); 120profit.com - https://120profit.com/?p=2266&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr

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How to Boost Bookings & Conversions with Google Posts: An Interview with Joel Headley

Posted by MiriamEllis

Have you been exploring all the ways you might use Google Posts to set and meet brand goals?

Chances are good you’ve heard of Google Posts by now: the micro-blogging Google My Business dashboard feature which instantly populates content to your Knowledge Panel and individual listing. We’re still only months into the release of this fascinating capability, use of which is theorized as having a potential impact on local pack rankings. When I recently listened to Joel Headley describing his incredibly creative use of Google Posts to increase healthcare provider bookings, it’s something I was excited to share with the Moz community here.

Joel Headley worked for over a decade on local and web search at Google. He’s now the Director of Local SEO and Marketing at healthcare practice growth platform PatientPop. He’s graciously agreed to chat with me about how his company increased appointment bookings by about 11% for thousands of customer listings via Google Posts.

How PatientPop used Google Posts to increase bookings by 11%

Miriam: So, Joel, Google offers a formal booking feature within their own product, but it isn’t always easy to participate in that program, and it keeps users within “Google’s walled garden” instead of guiding them to brand-controlled assets. As I recently learned, PatientPop innovated almost instantly when Google Posts was rolled out in 2017. Can you summarize for me what your company put together for your customers as a booking vehicle that didn’t depend on Google’s booking program?

Joel: PatientPop wants to provide patients an opportunity to make appointments directly with their healthcare provider. In that way, we're a white label service. Google has had a handful of booking products. In a prior iteration, there was a simpler product that was powered by schema and microforms, which could have scaled to anyone willing to add the schema.

Today, they are putting their effort behind Reserve with Google, which requires a much deeper API integration. While PatientPop would be happy to provide more services on Google, Reserve with Google doesn't yet allow most of our customers, according to their own policies. (However, the reservation service is marketed through Google My Business to those categories, which is a bit confusing.)

Additionally, when you open the booking widget, you see two logos: G Pay and the booking software provider. I'd love to see a product that allows the healthcare provider to be front and center in the entire process. A patient-doctor relationship is personal, and we'd like to emphasize you're booking your doctor, not PatientPop.

Because we can't get the CTAs unique to Reserve with Google, we realized that Google Posts can be a great vehicle for us to essentially get the same result.

When Google Posts first launched, I tested a handful of practices. The interaction rate was low compared to other elements in the Google listing. But, given there was incremental gain in traffic, it seemed worthwhile, if we could scale the product. It seemed like a handy way to provide scheduling with Google without having to go through the hoops of the Maps Booking (reserve with) API.

Miriam: Makes sense! Now, I’ve created a fictitious example of what it looks like to use Google Posts to prompt bookings, following your recommendations to use a simple color as the image background and to make the image text quite visible. Does this look similar to what PatientPop is doing for its customers and can you provide recommendations for the image size and font size you’ve seen work best?

Joel: Yes, that's pretty similar to the types of Posts we're submitting to our customer listings. I tested a handful of image types, ones with providers, some with no text, and the less busy image with actionable text is what performed the best. I noticed that making the image look more like a button, with button-like text, improved click-through rates too — CTR doubled compared to images with no text.

The image size we use is 750x750 with 48-point font size. If one uses the API, the image must be square cropped when creating the post. Otherwise, Posts using the Google My Business interface will give you an option to crop. The only issue I have with the published version of the image: the cropping is uneven — sometimes it is center-cropped, but other times, the bottom is cut off. That makes it hard to predict when on-image text will appear. But we keep it in the center which generally works pretty well.

Miriam: And, when clicked on, the Google Post takes the user to the client’s own website, where PatientPop software is being used to manage appointments — is that right?

Joel: Yes, the site is built by PatientPop. When selecting Book, the patient is taken directly to the provider's site where the booking widget is opened and an appointment can be selected from a calendar. These appointments can be synced back to the practice's electronic records system.

Miriam: Very tidy! As I understand it, PatientPop manages thousands of client listings, necessitating the need to automate this use of Google Posts. Without giving any secrets away, can you share a link to the API you used and explain how you templatized the process of creating Posts at scale?

Joel: Sure! We were waiting for Google to provide Posts via the Google My Business API, because we wanted to scale. While I had a bit of a heads-up that the API was coming — Google shared this feature with their GMB Top Contributor group — we still had to wait for it to launch to see the documentation and try it out. So, when the launch announcement went out on October 11, with just a few developers, we were able to implement the solution for all of our practices the next evening. It was a fun, quick win for us, though it was a bit of a long day. :)

In order to get something out that quickly, we created templates that could use information from the listing itself like the business name, category, and location. That way, we were able to create a stand-alone Python script that grabbed listings from Google. When getting the listings, all the listing content comes along with it, including name, address, and category. These values are taken directly from the listing to create Posts and then are submitted to Google. We host the images on AWS and reuse them by submitting the image URL with the post. It's a Python script which runs as a cron job on a regular schedule. If you're new to the API, the real tricky part is authentication, but the GMB community can help answer questions there.

Miriam: Really admirable implementation! One question: Google Posts expire after 7 days unless they are events, so are you basically automating re-posting of the booking feature for each listing every seven days?

Joel: We create Posts every seven days for all our practices. That way, we can mix up the content and images used on any given practice. We're also adding a second weekly post for practices that offer aesthetic services. We'll be launching more Posts for specific practice types going forward, too.

Miriam: Now for the most exciting part, Joel! What can you tell me about the increase in appointments this use of Google Posts has delivered for your customers? And, can you also please explain what parameters and products you are using to track this growth?

Joel: To track clicks from listings on Google, we use UTM parameters. We can then track the authority page, the services (menu) URL, the appointment URL, and the Posts URL.

When I first did this analysis, I looked at the average of the last three weeks of appointments compared to the 4 days after launch. Over that period, I saw nearly an 8% increase in online bookings. I've since included the entire first week of launch. It shows an 11% average increase in online bookings.

Additionally, because we're tracking each URL in the knowledge panel separately, I can confidently say there's no cannibalization of clicks from other URLs as a result of adding Posts. While authority page CTR remained steady, services lost over 10% of the clicks and appointment URLs gained 10%. That indicates to me that not only are the Posts effective in driving appointments through the Posts CTA, it emphasizes the existing appointment CTA too. This was in the context of no additional product changes on our side.

Miriam: Right, so, some of our readers will be using Google’s Local Business URLs (frequently used for linking to menus) to add an “Appointments” link. One of the most exciting takeaways from your implementation is that using Google Posts to support bookings didn’t steal attention away from the appointment link, which appears higher up in the Knowledge Panel. Can you explain why you feel the Google Posts clicks have been additive instead of subtractive?

Joel: The “make appointment” link gets a higher CTR than Posts, so it shouldn't be ignored. However, since Posts include an image, I suspect it might be attracting a different kind of user, which is more primed to interact with images. And because we're so specific on the type of interaction we want (appointment booking), both with the CTA and the image, it seems to convert well. And, as I stated above, it seems to help the appointment URLs too.

Miriam: I was honestly so impressed with your creativity in this, Joel. It’s just brilliant to look at something as simple as this little bit of Google screen real estate and ask, “Now, how could I use this to maximum effect?” Google Posts enables business owners to include links labeled Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, and Get Offer. The “Book” feature is obviously an ideal match for your company’s health care provider clients, but given your obvious talent for thinking outside the box, would you have any creative suggestions for other types of business models using the other pre-set link options?

Joel: I’m really excited about the events feature, actually. Because you can create a long-lived post while adding a sense of urgency by leveraging a time-bound context. Events can include limited-time offers, like a sale on a particular product, or signups for a newsletter that will include a coupon code. You can use all the link labels you've listed above for any given event. And, I think using the image-as-button philosophy can really drive results. I'd like to see an image with text Use coupon code XYZ546 now! with the Get Offer button. I imagine many business types, especially retail, can highlight their limited time deals without paying other companies to advertise your coupons and deals via Posts.

Miriam: Agreed, Joel, there are some really exciting opportunities for creative use here. Thank you so much for the inspiring knowledge you’ve shared with our community today!

Ready to get the most from Google Posts?

Reviews can be a challenge to manage. Google Q&A may be a mixed blessing. But as far as I can see, Posts are an unalloyed gift from Google. Here’s all you have to do to get started using them right now for a single location of your business:

Log into your Google My Business dashboard and click the “Posts” tab in the left menu.

Determine which of the options, labeled “Buttons,” is the right fit for your business. It could be “Book,” or it could be something else, like “Sign up” or “Buy.” Click the “Add a Button” option in the Google Posts wizard. Be sure the URL you enter includes a UTM parameter for tracking purposes.

Upload a 750x750 image. Joel recommends using a simple-colored background and highly visible 42-point font size for turning this image into a CTA button-style graphic. You may need to experiment with cropping the image.

Alternatively, you can create an event, which will cause your post to stay live through the date of the event.

Text has a minimum 100-character and maximum 300-character limit. I recommend writing something that would entice users to click to get beyond the cut-off point, especially because it appears to me that there are different display lengths on different devices. It’s also a good idea to bear in mind that Google Posts are indexed content. Initial testing is revealing that simply utilizing Posts may improve local pack rankings, but there is also an interesting hypothesis that they are a candidate for long-tail keyword optimization experiments. According to Mike Blumenthal:

“...If there are very long-tail phrases, where the ability to increase relevance isn't up against so many headwinds, then this is a signal that Google might recognize and help lift the boat for that long-tail phrase. My experience with it was it didn't work well on head phrases, and it may require some amount of interaction for it to really work well. In other words, I'm not sure just the phrase itself but the phrase with click-throughs on the Posts might be the actual trigger to this. It's not totally clear yet.”

You can preview your post before you hit the publish button.

Your post will stay live for 7 days. After that, it will be time to post a new one.

If you need to implement at scale across multiple listings, re-read Joel’s description of the API and programming PatientPop is utilizing. It will take some doing, but an 11% increase in appointments may well make it worth the investment! And obviously, if you happen to be marketing health care providers, checking out PatientPop’s ready-made solution would be smart.

Nobody likes a ball-hog

I’m watching the development of Google Posts with rapt interest. Right now, they reside on Knowledge Panels and listings, but given that they are indexed, it’s not impossible that they could eventually end up in the organic SERPs. Whether or not that ever happens, what we have right now in this feature is something that offers instant publication to the consumer public in return for very modest effort.

Perhaps even more importantly, Posts offer a way to bring users from Google to your own website, where you have full control of messaging. That single accomplishment is becoming increasingly difficult as rich-feature SERPs (and even single results) keep searchers Google-bound. I wonder if school kids still shout “ball-hog” when a classmate refuses to relinquish ball control and be a team player. For now, for local businesses, Google Posts could be a precious chance for your brand to handle the ball.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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How to Boost Bookings & Conversions with Google Posts: An Interview with Joel Headley

Posted by MiriamEllis

Have you been exploring all the ways you might use Google Posts to set and meet brand goals?

Chances are good you’ve heard of Google Posts by now: the micro-blogging Google My Business dashboard feature which instantly populates content to your Knowledge Panel and individual listing. We’re still only months into the release of this fascinating capability, use of which is theorized as having a potential impact on local pack rankings. When I recently listened to Joel Headley describing his incredibly creative use of Google Posts to increase healthcare provider bookings, it’s something I was excited to share with the Moz community here.

Joel Headley worked for over a decade on local and web search at Google. He’s now the Director of Local SEO and Marketing at healthcare practice growth platform PatientPop. He’s graciously agreed to chat with me about how his company increased appointment bookings by about 11% for thousands of customer listings via Google Posts.

How PatientPop used Google Posts to increase bookings by 11%

Miriam: So, Joel, Google offers a formal booking feature within their own product, but it isn’t always easy to participate in that program, and it keeps users within “Google’s walled garden” instead of guiding them to brand-controlled assets. As I recently learned, PatientPop innovated almost instantly when Google Posts was rolled out in 2017. Can you summarize for me what your company put together for your customers as a booking vehicle that didn’t depend on Google’s booking program?

Joel: PatientPop wants to provide patients an opportunity to make appointments directly with their healthcare provider. In that way, we're a white label service. Google has had a handful of booking products. In a prior iteration, there was a simpler product that was powered by schema and microforms, which could have scaled to anyone willing to add the schema.

Today, they are putting their effort behind Reserve with Google, which requires a much deeper API integration. While PatientPop would be happy to provide more services on Google, Reserve with Google doesn't yet allow most of our customers, according to their own policies. (However, the reservation service is marketed through Google My Business to those categories, which is a bit confusing.)

Additionally, when you open the booking widget, you see two logos: G Pay and the booking software provider. I'd love to see a product that allows the healthcare provider to be front and center in the entire process. A patient-doctor relationship is personal, and we'd like to emphasize you're booking your doctor, not PatientPop.

Because we can't get the CTAs unique to Reserve with Google, we realized that Google Posts can be a great vehicle for us to essentially get the same result.

When Google Posts first launched, I tested a handful of practices. The interaction rate was low compared to other elements in the Google listing. But, given there was incremental gain in traffic, it seemed worthwhile, if we could scale the product. It seemed like a handy way to provide scheduling with Google without having to go through the hoops of the Maps Booking (reserve with) API.

Miriam: Makes sense! Now, I’ve created a fictitious example of what it looks like to use Google Posts to prompt bookings, following your recommendations to use a simple color as the image background and to make the image text quite visible. Does this look similar to what PatientPop is doing for its customers and can you provide recommendations for the image size and font size you’ve seen work best?

Joel: Yes, that's pretty similar to the types of Posts we're submitting to our customer listings. I tested a handful of image types, ones with providers, some with no text, and the less busy image with actionable text is what performed the best. I noticed that making the image look more like a button, with button-like text, improved click-through rates too — CTR doubled compared to images with no text.

The image size we use is 750x750 with 48-point font size. If one uses the API, the image must be square cropped when creating the post. Otherwise, Posts using the Google My Business interface will give you an option to crop. The only issue I have with the published version of the image: the cropping is uneven — sometimes it is center-cropped, but other times, the bottom is cut off. That makes it hard to predict when on-image text will appear. But we keep it in the center which generally works pretty well.

Miriam: And, when clicked on, the Google Post takes the user to the client’s own website, where PatientPop software is being used to manage appointments — is that right?

Joel: Yes, the site is built by PatientPop. When selecting Book, the patient is taken directly to the provider's site where the booking widget is opened and an appointment can be selected from a calendar. These appointments can be synced back to the practice's electronic records system.

Miriam: Very tidy! As I understand it, PatientPop manages thousands of client listings, necessitating the need to automate this use of Google Posts. Without giving any secrets away, can you share a link to the API you used and explain how you templatized the process of creating Posts at scale?

Joel: Sure! We were waiting for Google to provide Posts via the Google My Business API, because we wanted to scale. While I had a bit of a heads-up that the API was coming — Google shared this feature with their GMB Top Contributor group — we still had to wait for it to launch to see the documentation and try it out. So, when the launch announcement went out on October 11, with just a few developers, we were able to implement the solution for all of our practices the next evening. It was a fun, quick win for us, though it was a bit of a long day. :)

In order to get something out that quickly, we created templates that could use information from the listing itself like the business name, category, and location. That way, we were able to create a stand-alone Python script that grabbed listings from Google. When getting the listings, all the listing content comes along with it, including name, address, and category. These values are taken directly from the listing to create Posts and then are submitted to Google. We host the images on AWS and reuse them by submitting the image URL with the post. It's a Python script which runs as a cron job on a regular schedule. If you're new to the API, the real tricky part is authentication, but the GMB community can help answer questions there.

Miriam: Really admirable implementation! One question: Google Posts expire after 7 days unless they are events, so are you basically automating re-posting of the booking feature for each listing every seven days?

Joel: We create Posts every seven days for all our practices. That way, we can mix up the content and images used on any given practice. We're also adding a second weekly post for practices that offer aesthetic services. We'll be launching more Posts for specific practice types going forward, too.

Miriam: Now for the most exciting part, Joel! What can you tell me about the increase in appointments this use of Google Posts has delivered for your customers? And, can you also please explain what parameters and products you are using to track this growth?

Joel: To track clicks from listings on Google, we use UTM parameters. We can then track the authority page, the services (menu) URL, the appointment URL, and the Posts URL.

When I first did this analysis, I looked at the average of the last three weeks of appointments compared to the 4 days after launch. Over that period, I saw nearly an 8% increase in online bookings. I've since included the entire first week of launch. It shows an 11% average increase in online bookings.

Additionally, because we're tracking each URL in the knowledge panel separately, I can confidently say there's no cannibalization of clicks from other URLs as a result of adding Posts. While authority page CTR remained steady, services lost over 10% of the clicks and appointment URLs gained 10%. That indicates to me that not only are the Posts effective in driving appointments through the Posts CTA, it emphasizes the existing appointment CTA too. This was in the context of no additional product changes on our side.

Miriam: Right, so, some of our readers will be using Google’s Local Business URLs (frequently used for linking to menus) to add an “Appointments” link. One of the most exciting takeaways from your implementation is that using Google Posts to support bookings didn’t steal attention away from the appointment link, which appears higher up in the Knowledge Panel. Can you explain why you feel the Google Posts clicks have been additive instead of subtractive?

Joel: The “make appointment” link gets a higher CTR than Posts, so it shouldn't be ignored. However, since Posts include an image, I suspect it might be attracting a different kind of user, which is more primed to interact with images. And because we're so specific on the type of interaction we want (appointment booking), both with the CTA and the image, it seems to convert well. And, as I stated above, it seems to help the appointment URLs too.

Miriam: I was honestly so impressed with your creativity in this, Joel. It’s just brilliant to look at something as simple as this little bit of Google screen real estate and ask, “Now, how could I use this to maximum effect?” Google Posts enables business owners to include links labeled Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, and Get Offer. The “Book” feature is obviously an ideal match for your company’s health care provider clients, but given your obvious talent for thinking outside the box, would you have any creative suggestions for other types of business models using the other pre-set link options?

Joel: I’m really excited about the events feature, actually. Because you can create a long-lived post while adding a sense of urgency by leveraging a time-bound context. Events can include limited-time offers, like a sale on a particular product, or signups for a newsletter that will include a coupon code. You can use all the link labels you've listed above for any given event. And, I think using the image-as-button philosophy can really drive results. I'd like to see an image with text Use coupon code XYZ546 now! with the Get Offer button. I imagine many business types, especially retail, can highlight their limited time deals without paying other companies to advertise your coupons and deals via Posts.

Miriam: Agreed, Joel, there are some really exciting opportunities for creative use here. Thank you so much for the inspiring knowledge you’ve shared with our community today!

Ready to get the most from Google Posts?

Reviews can be a challenge to manage. Google Q&A may be a mixed blessing. But as far as I can see, Posts are an unalloyed gift from Google. Here’s all you have to do to get started using them right now for a single location of your business:

Log into your Google My Business dashboard and click the “Posts” tab in the left menu.

Determine which of the options, labeled “Buttons,” is the right fit for your business. It could be “Book,” or it could be something else, like “Sign up” or “Buy.” Click the “Add a Button” option in the Google Posts wizard. Be sure the URL you enter includes a UTM parameter for tracking purposes.

Upload a 750x750 image. Joel recommends using a simple-colored background and highly visible 42-point font size for turning this image into a CTA button-style graphic. You may need to experiment with cropping the image.

Alternatively, you can create an event, which will cause your post to stay live through the date of the event.

Text has a minimum 100-character and maximum 300-character limit. I recommend writing something that would entice users to click to get beyond the cut-off point, especially because it appears to me that there are different display lengths on different devices. It’s also a good idea to bear in mind that Google Posts are indexed content. Initial testing is revealing that simply utilizing Posts may improve local pack rankings, but there is also an interesting hypothesis that they are a candidate for long-tail keyword optimization experiments. According to Mike Blumenthal:

“...If there are very long-tail phrases, where the ability to increase relevance isn't up against so many headwinds, then this is a signal that Google might recognize and help lift the boat for that long-tail phrase. My experience with it was it didn't work well on head phrases, and it may require some amount of interaction for it to really work well. In other words, I'm not sure just the phrase itself but the phrase with click-throughs on the Posts might be the actual trigger to this. It's not totally clear yet.”

You can preview your post before you hit the publish button.

Your post will stay live for 7 days. After that, it will be time to post a new one.

If you need to implement at scale across multiple listings, re-read Joel’s description of the API and programming PatientPop is utilizing. It will take some doing, but an 11% increase in appointments may well make it worth the investment! And obviously, if you happen to be marketing health care providers, checking out PatientPop’s ready-made solution would be smart.

Nobody likes a ball-hog

I’m watching the development of Google Posts with rapt interest. Right now, they reside on Knowledge Panels and listings, but given that they are indexed, it’s not impossible that they could eventually end up in the organic SERPs. Whether or not that ever happens, what we have right now in this feature is something that offers instant publication to the consumer public in return for very modest effort.

Perhaps even more importantly, Posts offer a way to bring users from Google to your own website, where you have full control of messaging. That single accomplishment is becoming increasingly difficult as rich-feature SERPs (and even single results) keep searchers Google-bound. I wonder if school kids still shout “ball-hog” when a classmate refuses to relinquish ball control and be a team player. For now, for local businesses, Google Posts could be a precious chance for your brand to handle the ball.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2HRL8OL

[mercedessharonwo1]

How to Boost Bookings & Conversions with Google Posts: An Interview with Joel Headley

Posted by MiriamEllis

Have you been exploring all the ways you might use Google Posts to set and meet brand goals?

Chances are good you’ve heard of Google Posts by now: the micro-blogging Google My Business dashboard feature which instantly populates content to your Knowledge Panel and individual listing. We’re still only months into the release of this fascinating capability, use of which is theorized as having a potential impact on local pack rankings. When I recently listened to Joel Headley describing his incredibly creative use of Google Posts to increase healthcare provider bookings, it’s something I was excited to share with the Moz community here.

Joel Headley worked for over a decade on local and web search at Google. He’s now the Director of Local SEO and Marketing at healthcare practice growth platform PatientPop. He’s graciously agreed to chat with me about how his company increased appointment bookings by about 11% for thousands of customer listings via Google Posts.

How PatientPop used Google Posts to increase bookings by 11%

Miriam: So, Joel, Google offers a formal booking feature within their own product, but it isn’t always easy to participate in that program, and it keeps users within “Google’s walled garden” instead of guiding them to brand-controlled assets. As I recently learned, PatientPop innovated almost instantly when Google Posts was rolled out in 2017. Can you summarize for me what your company put together for your customers as a booking vehicle that didn’t depend on Google’s booking program?

Joel: PatientPop wants to provide patients an opportunity to make appointments directly with their healthcare provider. In that way, we're a white label service. Google has had a handful of booking products. In a prior iteration, there was a simpler product that was powered by schema and microforms, which could have scaled to anyone willing to add the schema.

Today, they are putting their effort behind Reserve with Google, which requires a much deeper API integration. While PatientPop would be happy to provide more services on Google, Reserve with Google doesn't yet allow most of our customers, according to their own policies. (However, the reservation service is marketed through Google My Business to those categories, which is a bit confusing.)

Additionally, when you open the booking widget, you see two logos: G Pay and the booking software provider. I'd love to see a product that allows the healthcare provider to be front and center in the entire process. A patient-doctor relationship is personal, and we'd like to emphasize you're booking your doctor, not PatientPop.

Because we can't get the CTAs unique to Reserve with Google, we realized that Google Posts can be a great vehicle for us to essentially get the same result.

When Google Posts first launched, I tested a handful of practices. The interaction rate was low compared to other elements in the Google listing. But, given there was incremental gain in traffic, it seemed worthwhile, if we could scale the product. It seemed like a handy way to provide scheduling with Google without having to go through the hoops of the Maps Booking (reserve with) API.

Miriam: Makes sense! Now, I’ve created a fictitious example of what it looks like to use Google Posts to prompt bookings, following your recommendations to use a simple color as the image background and to make the image text quite visible. Does this look similar to what PatientPop is doing for its customers and can you provide recommendations for the image size and font size you’ve seen work best?

Joel: Yes, that's pretty similar to the types of Posts we're submitting to our customer listings. I tested a handful of image types, ones with providers, some with no text, and the less busy image with actionable text is what performed the best. I noticed that making the image look more like a button, with button-like text, improved click-through rates too — CTR doubled compared to images with no text.

The image size we use is 750x750 with 48-point font size. If one uses the API, the image must be square cropped when creating the post. Otherwise, Posts using the Google My Business interface will give you an option to crop. The only issue I have with the published version of the image: the cropping is uneven — sometimes it is center-cropped, but other times, the bottom is cut off. That makes it hard to predict when on-image text will appear. But we keep it in the center which generally works pretty well.

Miriam: And, when clicked on, the Google Post takes the user to the client’s own website, where PatientPop software is being used to manage appointments — is that right?

Joel: Yes, the site is built by PatientPop. When selecting Book, the patient is taken directly to the provider's site where the booking widget is opened and an appointment can be selected from a calendar. These appointments can be synced back to the practice's electronic records system.

Miriam: Very tidy! As I understand it, PatientPop manages thousands of client listings, necessitating the need to automate this use of Google Posts. Without giving any secrets away, can you share a link to the API you used and explain how you templatized the process of creating Posts at scale?

Joel: Sure! We were waiting for Google to provide Posts via the Google My Business API, because we wanted to scale. While I had a bit of a heads-up that the API was coming — Google shared this feature with their GMB Top Contributor group — we still had to wait for it to launch to see the documentation and try it out. So, when the launch announcement went out on October 11, with just a few developers, we were able to implement the solution for all of our practices the next evening. It was a fun, quick win for us, though it was a bit of a long day. :)

In order to get something out that quickly, we created templates that could use information from the listing itself like the business name, category, and location. That way, we were able to create a stand-alone Python script that grabbed listings from Google. When getting the listings, all the listing content comes along with it, including name, address, and category. These values are taken directly from the listing to create Posts and then are submitted to Google. We host the images on AWS and reuse them by submitting the image URL with the post. It's a Python script which runs as a cron job on a regular schedule. If you're new to the API, the real tricky part is authentication, but the GMB community can help answer questions there.

Miriam: Really admirable implementation! One question: Google Posts expire after 7 days unless they are events, so are you basically automating re-posting of the booking feature for each listing every seven days?

Joel: We create Posts every seven days for all our practices. That way, we can mix up the content and images used on any given practice. We're also adding a second weekly post for practices that offer aesthetic services. We'll be launching more Posts for specific practice types going forward, too.

Miriam: Now for the most exciting part, Joel! What can you tell me about the increase in appointments this use of Google Posts has delivered for your customers? And, can you also please explain what parameters and products you are using to track this growth?

Joel: To track clicks from listings on Google, we use UTM parameters. We can then track the authority page, the services (menu) URL, the appointment URL, and the Posts URL.

When I first did this analysis, I looked at the average of the last three weeks of appointments compared to the 4 days after launch. Over that period, I saw nearly an 8% increase in online bookings. I've since included the entire first week of launch. It shows an 11% average increase in online bookings.

Additionally, because we're tracking each URL in the knowledge panel separately, I can confidently say there's no cannibalization of clicks from other URLs as a result of adding Posts. While authority page CTR remained steady, services lost over 10% of the clicks and appointment URLs gained 10%. That indicates to me that not only are the Posts effective in driving appointments through the Posts CTA, it emphasizes the existing appointment CTA too. This was in the context of no additional product changes on our side.

Miriam: Right, so, some of our readers will be using Google’s Local Business URLs (frequently used for linking to menus) to add an “Appointments” link. One of the most exciting takeaways from your implementation is that using Google Posts to support bookings didn’t steal attention away from the appointment link, which appears higher up in the Knowledge Panel. Can you explain why you feel the Google Posts clicks have been additive instead of subtractive?

Joel: The “make appointment” link gets a higher CTR than Posts, so it shouldn't be ignored. However, since Posts include an image, I suspect it might be attracting a different kind of user, which is more primed to interact with images. And because we're so specific on the type of interaction we want (appointment booking), both with the CTA and the image, it seems to convert well. And, as I stated above, it seems to help the appointment URLs too.

Miriam: I was honestly so impressed with your creativity in this, Joel. It’s just brilliant to look at something as simple as this little bit of Google screen real estate and ask, “Now, how could I use this to maximum effect?” Google Posts enables business owners to include links labeled Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, and Get Offer. The “Book” feature is obviously an ideal match for your company’s health care provider clients, but given your obvious talent for thinking outside the box, would you have any creative suggestions for other types of business models using the other pre-set link options?

Joel: I’m really excited about the events feature, actually. Because you can create a long-lived post while adding a sense of urgency by leveraging a time-bound context. Events can include limited-time offers, like a sale on a particular product, or signups for a newsletter that will include a coupon code. You can use all the link labels you've listed above for any given event. And, I think using the image-as-button philosophy can really drive results. I'd like to see an image with text Use coupon code XYZ546 now! with the Get Offer button. I imagine many business types, especially retail, can highlight their limited time deals without paying other companies to advertise your coupons and deals via Posts.

Miriam: Agreed, Joel, there are some really exciting opportunities for creative use here. Thank you so much for the inspiring knowledge you’ve shared with our community today!

Ready to get the most from Google Posts?

Reviews can be a challenge to manage. Google Q&A may be a mixed blessing. But as far as I can see, Posts are an unalloyed gift from Google. Here’s all you have to do to get started using them right now for a single location of your business:

Log into your Google My Business dashboard and click the “Posts” tab in the left menu.

Determine which of the options, labeled “Buttons,” is the right fit for your business. It could be “Book,” or it could be something else, like “Sign up” or “Buy.” Click the “Add a Button” option in the Google Posts wizard. Be sure the URL you enter includes a UTM parameter for tracking purposes.

Upload a 750x750 image. Joel recommends using a simple-colored background and highly visible 42-point font size for turning this image into a CTA button-style graphic. You may need to experiment with cropping the image.

Alternatively, you can create an event, which will cause your post to stay live through the date of the event.

Text has a minimum 100-character and maximum 300-character limit. I recommend writing something that would entice users to click to get beyond the cut-off point, especially because it appears to me that there are different display lengths on different devices. It’s also a good idea to bear in mind that Google Posts are indexed content. Initial testing is revealing that simply utilizing Posts may improve local pack rankings, but there is also an interesting hypothesis that they are a candidate for long-tail keyword optimization experiments. According to Mike Blumenthal:

“...If there are very long-tail phrases, where the ability to increase relevance isn't up against so many headwinds, then this is a signal that Google might recognize and help lift the boat for that long-tail phrase. My experience with it was it didn't work well on head phrases, and it may require some amount of interaction for it to really work well. In other words, I'm not sure just the phrase itself but the phrase with click-throughs on the Posts might be the actual trigger to this. It's not totally clear yet.”

You can preview your post before you hit the publish button.

Your post will stay live for 7 days. After that, it will be time to post a new one.

If you need to implement at scale across multiple listings, re-read Joel’s description of the API and programming PatientPop is utilizing. It will take some doing, but an 11% increase in appointments may well make it worth the investment! And obviously, if you happen to be marketing health care providers, checking out PatientPop’s ready-made solution would be smart.

Nobody likes a ball-hog

I’m watching the development of Google Posts with rapt interest. Right now, they reside on Knowledge Panels and listings, but given that they are indexed, it’s not impossible that they could eventually end up in the organic SERPs. Whether or not that ever happens, what we have right now in this feature is something that offers instant publication to the consumer public in return for very modest effort.

Perhaps even more importantly, Posts offer a way to bring users from Google to your own website, where you have full control of messaging. That single accomplishment is becoming increasingly difficult as rich-feature SERPs (and even single results) keep searchers Google-bound. I wonder if school kids still shout “ball-hog” when a classmate refuses to relinquish ball control and be a team player. For now, for local businesses, Google Posts could be a precious chance for your brand to handle the ball.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2HRL8OL

[kraussoutene]

How to Boost Bookings & Conversions with Google Posts: An Interview with Joel Headley

Posted by MiriamEllis

Have you been exploring all the ways you might use Google Posts to set and meet brand goals?

Chances are good you’ve heard of Google Posts by now: the micro-blogging Google My Business dashboard feature which instantly populates content to your Knowledge Panel and individual listing. We’re still only months into the release of this fascinating capability, use of which is theorized as having a potential impact on local pack rankings. When I recently listened to Joel Headley describing his incredibly creative use of Google Posts to increase healthcare provider bookings, it’s something I was excited to share with the Moz community here.

Joel Headley worked for over a decade on local and web search at Google. He’s now the Director of Local SEO and Marketing at healthcare practice growth platform PatientPop. He’s graciously agreed to chat with me about how his company increased appointment bookings by about 11% for thousands of customer listings via Google Posts.

How PatientPop used Google Posts to increase bookings by 11%

Miriam: So, Joel, Google offers a formal booking feature within their own product, but it isn’t always easy to participate in that program, and it keeps users within “Google’s walled garden” instead of guiding them to brand-controlled assets. As I recently learned, PatientPop innovated almost instantly when Google Posts was rolled out in 2017. Can you summarize for me what your company put together for your customers as a booking vehicle that didn’t depend on Google’s booking program?

Joel: PatientPop wants to provide patients an opportunity to make appointments directly with their healthcare provider. In that way, we're a white label service. Google has had a handful of booking products. In a prior iteration, there was a simpler product that was powered by schema and microforms, which could have scaled to anyone willing to add the schema.

Today, they are putting their effort behind Reserve with Google, which requires a much deeper API integration. While PatientPop would be happy to provide more services on Google, Reserve with Google doesn't yet allow most of our customers, according to their own policies. (However, the reservation service is marketed through Google My Business to those categories, which is a bit confusing.)

Additionally, when you open the booking widget, you see two logos: G Pay and the booking software provider. I'd love to see a product that allows the healthcare provider to be front and center in the entire process. A patient-doctor relationship is personal, and we'd like to emphasize you're booking your doctor, not PatientPop.

Because we can't get the CTAs unique to Reserve with Google, we realized that Google Posts can be a great vehicle for us to essentially get the same result.

When Google Posts first launched, I tested a handful of practices. The interaction rate was low compared to other elements in the Google listing. But, given there was incremental gain in traffic, it seemed worthwhile, if we could scale the product. It seemed like a handy way to provide scheduling with Google without having to go through the hoops of the Maps Booking (reserve with) API.

Miriam: Makes sense! Now, I’ve created a fictitious example of what it looks like to use Google Posts to prompt bookings, following your recommendations to use a simple color as the image background and to make the image text quite visible. Does this look similar to what PatientPop is doing for its customers and can you provide recommendations for the image size and font size you’ve seen work best?

Joel: Yes, that's pretty similar to the types of Posts we're submitting to our customer listings. I tested a handful of image types, ones with providers, some with no text, and the less busy image with actionable text is what performed the best. I noticed that making the image look more like a button, with button-like text, improved click-through rates too — CTR doubled compared to images with no text.

The image size we use is 750x750 with 48-point font size. If one uses the API, the image must be square cropped when creating the post. Otherwise, Posts using the Google My Business interface will give you an option to crop. The only issue I have with the published version of the image: the cropping is uneven — sometimes it is center-cropped, but other times, the bottom is cut off. That makes it hard to predict when on-image text will appear. But we keep it in the center which generally works pretty well.

Miriam: And, when clicked on, the Google Post takes the user to the client’s own website, where PatientPop software is being used to manage appointments — is that right?

Joel: Yes, the site is built by PatientPop. When selecting Book, the patient is taken directly to the provider's site where the booking widget is opened and an appointment can be selected from a calendar. These appointments can be synced back to the practice's electronic records system.

Miriam: Very tidy! As I understand it, PatientPop manages thousands of client listings, necessitating the need to automate this use of Google Posts. Without giving any secrets away, can you share a link to the API you used and explain how you templatized the process of creating Posts at scale?

Joel: Sure! We were waiting for Google to provide Posts via the Google My Business API, because we wanted to scale. While I had a bit of a heads-up that the API was coming — Google shared this feature with their GMB Top Contributor group — we still had to wait for it to launch to see the documentation and try it out. So, when the launch announcement went out on October 11, with just a few developers, we were able to implement the solution for all of our practices the next evening. It was a fun, quick win for us, though it was a bit of a long day. :)

In order to get something out that quickly, we created templates that could use information from the listing itself like the business name, category, and location. That way, we were able to create a stand-alone Python script that grabbed listings from Google. When getting the listings, all the listing content comes along with it, including name, address, and category. These values are taken directly from the listing to create Posts and then are submitted to Google. We host the images on AWS and reuse them by submitting the image URL with the post. It's a Python script which runs as a cron job on a regular schedule. If you're new to the API, the real tricky part is authentication, but the GMB community can help answer questions there.

Miriam: Really admirable implementation! One question: Google Posts expire after 7 days unless they are events, so are you basically automating re-posting of the booking feature for each listing every seven days?

Joel: We create Posts every seven days for all our practices. That way, we can mix up the content and images used on any given practice. We're also adding a second weekly post for practices that offer aesthetic services. We'll be launching more Posts for specific practice types going forward, too.

Miriam: Now for the most exciting part, Joel! What can you tell me about the increase in appointments this use of Google Posts has delivered for your customers? And, can you also please explain what parameters and products you are using to track this growth?

Joel: To track clicks from listings on Google, we use UTM parameters. We can then track the authority page, the services (menu) URL, the appointment URL, and the Posts URL.

When I first did this analysis, I looked at the average of the last three weeks of appointments compared to the 4 days after launch. Over that period, I saw nearly an 8% increase in online bookings. I've since included the entire first week of launch. It shows an 11% average increase in online bookings.

Additionally, because we're tracking each URL in the knowledge panel separately, I can confidently say there's no cannibalization of clicks from other URLs as a result of adding Posts. While authority page CTR remained steady, services lost over 10% of the clicks and appointment URLs gained 10%. That indicates to me that not only are the Posts effective in driving appointments through the Posts CTA, it emphasizes the existing appointment CTA too. This was in the context of no additional product changes on our side.

Miriam: Right, so, some of our readers will be using Google’s Local Business URLs (frequently used for linking to menus) to add an “Appointments” link. One of the most exciting takeaways from your implementation is that using Google Posts to support bookings didn’t steal attention away from the appointment link, which appears higher up in the Knowledge Panel. Can you explain why you feel the Google Posts clicks have been additive instead of subtractive?

Joel: The “make appointment” link gets a higher CTR than Posts, so it shouldn't be ignored. However, since Posts include an image, I suspect it might be attracting a different kind of user, which is more primed to interact with images. And because we're so specific on the type of interaction we want (appointment booking), both with the CTA and the image, it seems to convert well. And, as I stated above, it seems to help the appointment URLs too.

Miriam: I was honestly so impressed with your creativity in this, Joel. It’s just brilliant to look at something as simple as this little bit of Google screen real estate and ask, “Now, how could I use this to maximum effect?” Google Posts enables business owners to include links labeled Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, and Get Offer. The “Book” feature is obviously an ideal match for your company’s health care provider clients, but given your obvious talent for thinking outside the box, would you have any creative suggestions for other types of business models using the other pre-set link options?

Joel: I’m really excited about the events feature, actually. Because you can create a long-lived post while adding a sense of urgency by leveraging a time-bound context. Events can include limited-time offers, like a sale on a particular product, or signups for a newsletter that will include a coupon code. You can use all the link labels you've listed above for any given event. And, I think using the image-as-button philosophy can really drive results. I'd like to see an image with text Use coupon code XYZ546 now! with the Get Offer button. I imagine many business types, especially retail, can highlight their limited time deals without paying other companies to advertise your coupons and deals via Posts.

Miriam: Agreed, Joel, there are some really exciting opportunities for creative use here. Thank you so much for the inspiring knowledge you’ve shared with our community today!

Ready to get the most from Google Posts?

Reviews can be a challenge to manage. Google Q&A may be a mixed blessing. But as far as I can see, Posts are an unalloyed gift from Google. Here’s all you have to do to get started using them right now for a single location of your business:

Log into your Google My Business dashboard and click the “Posts” tab in the left menu.

Determine which of the options, labeled “Buttons,” is the right fit for your business. It could be “Book,” or it could be something else, like “Sign up” or “Buy.” Click the “Add a Button” option in the Google Posts wizard. Be sure the URL you enter includes a UTM parameter for tracking purposes.

Upload a 750x750 image. Joel recommends using a simple-colored background and highly visible 42-point font size for turning this image into a CTA button-style graphic. You may need to experiment with cropping the image.

Alternatively, you can create an event, which will cause your post to stay live through the date of the event.

Text has a minimum 100-character and maximum 300-character limit. I recommend writing something that would entice users to click to get beyond the cut-off point, especially because it appears to me that there are different display lengths on different devices. It’s also a good idea to bear in mind that Google Posts are indexed content. Initial testing is revealing that simply utilizing Posts may improve local pack rankings, but there is also an interesting hypothesis that they are a candidate for long-tail keyword optimization experiments. According to Mike Blumenthal:

“...If there are very long-tail phrases, where the ability to increase relevance isn't up against so many headwinds, then this is a signal that Google might recognize and help lift the boat for that long-tail phrase. My experience with it was it didn't work well on head phrases, and it may require some amount of interaction for it to really work well. In other words, I'm not sure just the phrase itself but the phrase with click-throughs on the Posts might be the actual trigger to this. It's not totally clear yet.”

You can preview your post before you hit the publish button.

Your post will stay live for 7 days. After that, it will be time to post a new one.

If you need to implement at scale across multiple listings, re-read Joel’s description of the API and programming PatientPop is utilizing. It will take some doing, but an 11% increase in appointments may well make it worth the investment! And obviously, if you happen to be marketing health care providers, checking out PatientPop’s ready-made solution would be smart.

Nobody likes a ball-hog

I’m watching the development of Google Posts with rapt interest. Right now, they reside on Knowledge Panels and listings, but given that they are indexed, it’s not impossible that they could eventually end up in the organic SERPs. Whether or not that ever happens, what we have right now in this feature is something that offers instant publication to the consumer public in return for very modest effort.

Perhaps even more importantly, Posts offer a way to bring users from Google to your own website, where you have full control of messaging. That single accomplishment is becoming increasingly difficult as rich-feature SERPs (and even single results) keep searchers Google-bound. I wonder if school kids still shout “ball-hog” when a classmate refuses to relinquish ball control and be a team player. For now, for local businesses, Google Posts could be a precious chance for your brand to handle the ball.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2HRL8OL

[maryhare96]

How to Boost Bookings & Conversions with Google Posts: An Interview with Joel Headley

Posted by MiriamEllis

Have you been exploring all the ways you might use Google Posts to set and meet brand goals?

Chances are good you’ve heard of Google Posts by now: the micro-blogging Google My Business dashboard feature which instantly populates content to your Knowledge Panel and individual listing. We’re still only months into the release of this fascinating capability, use of which is theorized as having a potential impact on local pack rankings. When I recently listened to Joel Headley describing his incredibly creative use of Google Posts to increase healthcare provider bookings, it’s something I was excited to share with the Moz community here.

Joel Headley worked for over a decade on local and web search at Google. He’s now the Director of Local SEO and Marketing at healthcare practice growth platform PatientPop. He’s graciously agreed to chat with me about how his company increased appointment bookings by about 11% for thousands of customer listings via Google Posts.

How PatientPop used Google Posts to increase bookings by 11%

Miriam: So, Joel, Google offers a formal booking feature within their own product, but it isn’t always easy to participate in that program, and it keeps users within “Google’s walled garden” instead of guiding them to brand-controlled assets. As I recently learned, PatientPop innovated almost instantly when Google Posts was rolled out in 2017. Can you summarize for me what your company put together for your customers as a booking vehicle that didn’t depend on Google’s booking program?

Joel: PatientPop wants to provide patients an opportunity to make appointments directly with their healthcare provider. In that way, we're a white label service. Google has had a handful of booking products. In a prior iteration, there was a simpler product that was powered by schema and microforms, which could have scaled to anyone willing to add the schema.

Today, they are putting their effort behind Reserve with Google, which requires a much deeper API integration. While PatientPop would be happy to provide more services on Google, Reserve with Google doesn't yet allow most of our customers, according to their own policies. (However, the reservation service is marketed through Google My Business to those categories, which is a bit confusing.)

Additionally, when you open the booking widget, you see two logos: G Pay and the booking software provider. I'd love to see a product that allows the healthcare provider to be front and center in the entire process. A patient-doctor relationship is personal, and we'd like to emphasize you're booking your doctor, not PatientPop.

Because we can't get the CTAs unique to Reserve with Google, we realized that Google Posts can be a great vehicle for us to essentially get the same result.

When Google Posts first launched, I tested a handful of practices. The interaction rate was low compared to other elements in the Google listing. But, given there was incremental gain in traffic, it seemed worthwhile, if we could scale the product. It seemed like a handy way to provide scheduling with Google without having to go through the hoops of the Maps Booking (reserve with) API.

Miriam: Makes sense! Now, I’ve created a fictitious example of what it looks like to use Google Posts to prompt bookings, following your recommendations to use a simple color as the image background and to make the image text quite visible. Does this look similar to what PatientPop is doing for its customers and can you provide recommendations for the image size and font size you’ve seen work best?

Joel: Yes, that's pretty similar to the types of Posts we're submitting to our customer listings. I tested a handful of image types, ones with providers, some with no text, and the less busy image with actionable text is what performed the best. I noticed that making the image look more like a button, with button-like text, improved click-through rates too — CTR doubled compared to images with no text.

The image size we use is 750x750 with 48-point font size. If one uses the API, the image must be square cropped when creating the post. Otherwise, Posts using the Google My Business interface will give you an option to crop. The only issue I have with the published version of the image: the cropping is uneven — sometimes it is center-cropped, but other times, the bottom is cut off. That makes it hard to predict when on-image text will appear. But we keep it in the center which generally works pretty well.

Miriam: And, when clicked on, the Google Post takes the user to the client’s own website, where PatientPop software is being used to manage appointments — is that right?

Joel: Yes, the site is built by PatientPop. When selecting Book, the patient is taken directly to the provider's site where the booking widget is opened and an appointment can be selected from a calendar. These appointments can be synced back to the practice's electronic records system.

Miriam: Very tidy! As I understand it, PatientPop manages thousands of client listings, necessitating the need to automate this use of Google Posts. Without giving any secrets away, can you share a link to the API you used and explain how you templatized the process of creating Posts at scale?

Joel: Sure! We were waiting for Google to provide Posts via the Google My Business API, because we wanted to scale. While I had a bit of a heads-up that the API was coming — Google shared this feature with their GMB Top Contributor group — we still had to wait for it to launch to see the documentation and try it out. So, when the launch announcement went out on October 11, with just a few developers, we were able to implement the solution for all of our practices the next evening. It was a fun, quick win for us, though it was a bit of a long day. :)

In order to get something out that quickly, we created templates that could use information from the listing itself like the business name, category, and location. That way, we were able to create a stand-alone Python script that grabbed listings from Google. When getting the listings, all the listing content comes along with it, including name, address, and category. These values are taken directly from the listing to create Posts and then are submitted to Google. We host the images on AWS and reuse them by submitting the image URL with the post. It's a Python script which runs as a cron job on a regular schedule. If you're new to the API, the real tricky part is authentication, but the GMB community can help answer questions there.

Miriam: Really admirable implementation! One question: Google Posts expire after 7 days unless they are events, so are you basically automating re-posting of the booking feature for each listing every seven days?

Joel: We create Posts every seven days for all our practices. That way, we can mix up the content and images used on any given practice. We're also adding a second weekly post for practices that offer aesthetic services. We'll be launching more Posts for specific practice types going forward, too.

Miriam: Now for the most exciting part, Joel! What can you tell me about the increase in appointments this use of Google Posts has delivered for your customers? And, can you also please explain what parameters and products you are using to track this growth?

Joel: To track clicks from listings on Google, we use UTM parameters. We can then track the authority page, the services (menu) URL, the appointment URL, and the Posts URL.

When I first did this analysis, I looked at the average of the last three weeks of appointments compared to the 4 days after launch. Over that period, I saw nearly an 8% increase in online bookings. I've since included the entire first week of launch. It shows an 11% average increase in online bookings.

Additionally, because we're tracking each URL in the knowledge panel separately, I can confidently say there's no cannibalization of clicks from other URLs as a result of adding Posts. While authority page CTR remained steady, services lost over 10% of the clicks and appointment URLs gained 10%. That indicates to me that not only are the Posts effective in driving appointments through the Posts CTA, it emphasizes the existing appointment CTA too. This was in the context of no additional product changes on our side.

Miriam: Right, so, some of our readers will be using Google’s Local Business URLs (frequently used for linking to menus) to add an “Appointments” link. One of the most exciting takeaways from your implementation is that using Google Posts to support bookings didn’t steal attention away from the appointment link, which appears higher up in the Knowledge Panel. Can you explain why you feel the Google Posts clicks have been additive instead of subtractive?

Joel: The “make appointment” link gets a higher CTR than Posts, so it shouldn't be ignored. However, since Posts include an image, I suspect it might be attracting a different kind of user, which is more primed to interact with images. And because we're so specific on the type of interaction we want (appointment booking), both with the CTA and the image, it seems to convert well. And, as I stated above, it seems to help the appointment URLs too.

Miriam: I was honestly so impressed with your creativity in this, Joel. It’s just brilliant to look at something as simple as this little bit of Google screen real estate and ask, “Now, how could I use this to maximum effect?” Google Posts enables business owners to include links labeled Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, and Get Offer. The “Book” feature is obviously an ideal match for your company’s health care provider clients, but given your obvious talent for thinking outside the box, would you have any creative suggestions for other types of business models using the other pre-set link options?

Joel: I’m really excited about the events feature, actually. Because you can create a long-lived post while adding a sense of urgency by leveraging a time-bound context. Events can include limited-time offers, like a sale on a particular product, or signups for a newsletter that will include a coupon code. You can use all the link labels you've listed above for any given event. And, I think using the image-as-button philosophy can really drive results. I'd like to see an image with text Use coupon code XYZ546 now! with the Get Offer button. I imagine many business types, especially retail, can highlight their limited time deals without paying other companies to advertise your coupons and deals via Posts.

Miriam: Agreed, Joel, there are some really exciting opportunities for creative use here. Thank you so much for the inspiring knowledge you’ve shared with our community today!

Ready to get the most from Google Posts?

Reviews can be a challenge to manage. Google Q&A may be a mixed blessing. But as far as I can see, Posts are an unalloyed gift from Google. Here’s all you have to do to get started using them right now for a single location of your business:

Log into your Google My Business dashboard and click the “Posts” tab in the left menu.

Determine which of the options, labeled “Buttons,” is the right fit for your business. It could be “Book,” or it could be something else, like “Sign up” or “Buy.” Click the “Add a Button” option in the Google Posts wizard. Be sure the URL you enter includes a UTM parameter for tracking purposes.

Upload a 750x750 image. Joel recommends using a simple-colored background and highly visible 42-point font size for turning this image into a CTA button-style graphic. You may need to experiment with cropping the image.

Alternatively, you can create an event, which will cause your post to stay live through the date of the event.

Text has a minimum 100-character and maximum 300-character limit. I recommend writing something that would entice users to click to get beyond the cut-off point, especially because it appears to me that there are different display lengths on different devices. It’s also a good idea to bear in mind that Google Posts are indexed content. Initial testing is revealing that simply utilizing Posts may improve local pack rankings, but there is also an interesting hypothesis that they are a candidate for long-tail keyword optimization experiments. According to Mike Blumenthal:

“...If there are very long-tail phrases, where the ability to increase relevance isn't up against so many headwinds, then this is a signal that Google might recognize and help lift the boat for that long-tail phrase. My experience with it was it didn't work well on head phrases, and it may require some amount of interaction for it to really work well. In other words, I'm not sure just the phrase itself but the phrase with click-throughs on the Posts might be the actual trigger to this. It's not totally clear yet.”

You can preview your post before you hit the publish button.

Your post will stay live for 7 days. After that, it will be time to post a new one.

If you need to implement at scale across multiple listings, re-read Joel’s description of the API and programming PatientPop is utilizing. It will take some doing, but an 11% increase in appointments may well make it worth the investment! And obviously, if you happen to be marketing health care providers, checking out PatientPop’s ready-made solution would be smart.

Nobody likes a ball-hog

I’m watching the development of Google Posts with rapt interest. Right now, they reside on Knowledge Panels and listings, but given that they are indexed, it’s not impossible that they could eventually end up in the organic SERPs. Whether or not that ever happens, what we have right now in this feature is something that offers instant publication to the consumer public in return for very modest effort.

Perhaps even more importantly, Posts offer a way to bring users from Google to your own website, where you have full control of messaging. That single accomplishment is becoming increasingly difficult as rich-feature SERPs (and even single results) keep searchers Google-bound. I wonder if school kids still shout “ball-hog” when a classmate refuses to relinquish ball control and be a team player. For now, for local businesses, Google Posts could be a precious chance for your brand to handle the ball.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2HRL8OL

[mariasolemarionqi]

How to Boost Bookings & Conversions with Google Posts: An Interview with Joel Headley

Posted by MiriamEllis

Have you been exploring all the ways you might use Google Posts to set and meet brand goals?

Chances are good you’ve heard of Google Posts by now: the micro-blogging Google My Business dashboard feature which instantly populates content to your Knowledge Panel and individual listing. We’re still only months into the release of this fascinating capability, use of which is theorized as having a potential impact on local pack rankings. When I recently listened to Joel Headley describing his incredibly creative use of Google Posts to increase healthcare provider bookings, it’s something I was excited to share with the Moz community here.

Joel Headley worked for over a decade on local and web search at Google. He’s now the Director of Local SEO and Marketing at healthcare practice growth platform PatientPop. He’s graciously agreed to chat with me about how his company increased appointment bookings by about 11% for thousands of customer listings via Google Posts.

How PatientPop used Google Posts to increase bookings by 11%

Miriam: So, Joel, Google offers a formal booking feature within their own product, but it isn’t always easy to participate in that program, and it keeps users within “Google’s walled garden” instead of guiding them to brand-controlled assets. As I recently learned, PatientPop innovated almost instantly when Google Posts was rolled out in 2017. Can you summarize for me what your company put together for your customers as a booking vehicle that didn’t depend on Google’s booking program?

Joel: PatientPop wants to provide patients an opportunity to make appointments directly with their healthcare provider. In that way, we're a white label service. Google has had a handful of booking products. In a prior iteration, there was a simpler product that was powered by schema and microforms, which could have scaled to anyone willing to add the schema.

Today, they are putting their effort behind Reserve with Google, which requires a much deeper API integration. While PatientPop would be happy to provide more services on Google, Reserve with Google doesn't yet allow most of our customers, according to their own policies. (However, the reservation service is marketed through Google My Business to those categories, which is a bit confusing.)

Additionally, when you open the booking widget, you see two logos: G Pay and the booking software provider. I'd love to see a product that allows the healthcare provider to be front and center in the entire process. A patient-doctor relationship is personal, and we'd like to emphasize you're booking your doctor, not PatientPop.

Because we can't get the CTAs unique to Reserve with Google, we realized that Google Posts can be a great vehicle for us to essentially get the same result.

When Google Posts first launched, I tested a handful of practices. The interaction rate was low compared to other elements in the Google listing. But, given there was incremental gain in traffic, it seemed worthwhile, if we could scale the product. It seemed like a handy way to provide scheduling with Google without having to go through the hoops of the Maps Booking (reserve with) API.

Miriam: Makes sense! Now, I’ve created a fictitious example of what it looks like to use Google Posts to prompt bookings, following your recommendations to use a simple color as the image background and to make the image text quite visible. Does this look similar to what PatientPop is doing for its customers and can you provide recommendations for the image size and font size you’ve seen work best?

Joel: Yes, that's pretty similar to the types of Posts we're submitting to our customer listings. I tested a handful of image types, ones with providers, some with no text, and the less busy image with actionable text is what performed the best. I noticed that making the image look more like a button, with button-like text, improved click-through rates too — CTR doubled compared to images with no text.

The image size we use is 750x750 with 48-point font size. If one uses the API, the image must be square cropped when creating the post. Otherwise, Posts using the Google My Business interface will give you an option to crop. The only issue I have with the published version of the image: the cropping is uneven — sometimes it is center-cropped, but other times, the bottom is cut off. That makes it hard to predict when on-image text will appear. But we keep it in the center which generally works pretty well.

Miriam: And, when clicked on, the Google Post takes the user to the client’s own website, where PatientPop software is being used to manage appointments — is that right?

Joel: Yes, the site is built by PatientPop. When selecting Book, the patient is taken directly to the provider's site where the booking widget is opened and an appointment can be selected from a calendar. These appointments can be synced back to the practice's electronic records system.

Miriam: Very tidy! As I understand it, PatientPop manages thousands of client listings, necessitating the need to automate this use of Google Posts. Without giving any secrets away, can you share a link to the API you used and explain how you templatized the process of creating Posts at scale?

Joel: Sure! We were waiting for Google to provide Posts via the Google My Business API, because we wanted to scale. While I had a bit of a heads-up that the API was coming — Google shared this feature with their GMB Top Contributor group — we still had to wait for it to launch to see the documentation and try it out. So, when the launch announcement went out on October 11, with just a few developers, we were able to implement the solution for all of our practices the next evening. It was a fun, quick win for us, though it was a bit of a long day. :)

In order to get something out that quickly, we created templates that could use information from the listing itself like the business name, category, and location. That way, we were able to create a stand-alone Python script that grabbed listings from Google. When getting the listings, all the listing content comes along with it, including name, address, and category. These values are taken directly from the listing to create Posts and then are submitted to Google. We host the images on AWS and reuse them by submitting the image URL with the post. It's a Python script which runs as a cron job on a regular schedule. If you're new to the API, the real tricky part is authentication, but the GMB community can help answer questions there.

Miriam: Really admirable implementation! One question: Google Posts expire after 7 days unless they are events, so are you basically automating re-posting of the booking feature for each listing every seven days?

Joel: We create Posts every seven days for all our practices. That way, we can mix up the content and images used on any given practice. We're also adding a second weekly post for practices that offer aesthetic services. We'll be launching more Posts for specific practice types going forward, too.

Miriam: Now for the most exciting part, Joel! What can you tell me about the increase in appointments this use of Google Posts has delivered for your customers? And, can you also please explain what parameters and products you are using to track this growth?

Joel: To track clicks from listings on Google, we use UTM parameters. We can then track the authority page, the services (menu) URL, the appointment URL, and the Posts URL.

When I first did this analysis, I looked at the average of the last three weeks of appointments compared to the 4 days after launch. Over that period, I saw nearly an 8% increase in online bookings. I've since included the entire first week of launch. It shows an 11% average increase in online bookings.

Additionally, because we're tracking each URL in the knowledge panel separately, I can confidently say there's no cannibalization of clicks from other URLs as a result of adding Posts. While authority page CTR remained steady, services lost over 10% of the clicks and appointment URLs gained 10%. That indicates to me that not only are the Posts effective in driving appointments through the Posts CTA, it emphasizes the existing appointment CTA too. This was in the context of no additional product changes on our side.

Miriam: Right, so, some of our readers will be using Google’s Local Business URLs (frequently used for linking to menus) to add an “Appointments” link. One of the most exciting takeaways from your implementation is that using Google Posts to support bookings didn’t steal attention away from the appointment link, which appears higher up in the Knowledge Panel. Can you explain why you feel the Google Posts clicks have been additive instead of subtractive?

Joel: The “make appointment” link gets a higher CTR than Posts, so it shouldn't be ignored. However, since Posts include an image, I suspect it might be attracting a different kind of user, which is more primed to interact with images. And because we're so specific on the type of interaction we want (appointment booking), both with the CTA and the image, it seems to convert well. And, as I stated above, it seems to help the appointment URLs too.

Miriam: I was honestly so impressed with your creativity in this, Joel. It’s just brilliant to look at something as simple as this little bit of Google screen real estate and ask, “Now, how could I use this to maximum effect?” Google Posts enables business owners to include links labeled Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, and Get Offer. The “Book” feature is obviously an ideal match for your company’s health care provider clients, but given your obvious talent for thinking outside the box, would you have any creative suggestions for other types of business models using the other pre-set link options?

Joel: I’m really excited about the events feature, actually. Because you can create a long-lived post while adding a sense of urgency by leveraging a time-bound context. Events can include limited-time offers, like a sale on a particular product, or signups for a newsletter that will include a coupon code. You can use all the link labels you've listed above for any given event. And, I think using the image-as-button philosophy can really drive results. I'd like to see an image with text Use coupon code XYZ546 now! with the Get Offer button. I imagine many business types, especially retail, can highlight their limited time deals without paying other companies to advertise your coupons and deals via Posts.

Miriam: Agreed, Joel, there are some really exciting opportunities for creative use here. Thank you so much for the inspiring knowledge you’ve shared with our community today!

Ready to get the most from Google Posts?

Reviews can be a challenge to manage. Google Q&A may be a mixed blessing. But as far as I can see, Posts are an unalloyed gift from Google. Here’s all you have to do to get started using them right now for a single location of your business:

Log into your Google My Business dashboard and click the “Posts” tab in the left menu.

Determine which of the options, labeled “Buttons,” is the right fit for your business. It could be “Book,” or it could be something else, like “Sign up” or “Buy.” Click the “Add a Button” option in the Google Posts wizard. Be sure the URL you enter includes a UTM parameter for tracking purposes.

Upload a 750x750 image. Joel recommends using a simple-colored background and highly visible 42-point font size for turning this image into a CTA button-style graphic. You may need to experiment with cropping the image.

Alternatively, you can create an event, which will cause your post to stay live through the date of the event.

Text has a minimum 100-character and maximum 300-character limit. I recommend writing something that would entice users to click to get beyond the cut-off point, especially because it appears to me that there are different display lengths on different devices. It’s also a good idea to bear in mind that Google Posts are indexed content. Initial testing is revealing that simply utilizing Posts may improve local pack rankings, but there is also an interesting hypothesis that they are a candidate for long-tail keyword optimization experiments. According to Mike Blumenthal:

“...If there are very long-tail phrases, where the ability to increase relevance isn't up against so many headwinds, then this is a signal that Google might recognize and help lift the boat for that long-tail phrase. My experience with it was it didn't work well on head phrases, and it may require some amount of interaction for it to really work well. In other words, I'm not sure just the phrase itself but the phrase with click-throughs on the Posts might be the actual trigger to this. It's not totally clear yet.”

You can preview your post before you hit the publish button.

Your post will stay live for 7 days. After that, it will be time to post a new one.

If you need to implement at scale across multiple listings, re-read Joel’s description of the API and programming PatientPop is utilizing. It will take some doing, but an 11% increase in appointments may well make it worth the investment! And obviously, if you happen to be marketing health care providers, checking out PatientPop’s ready-made solution would be smart.

Nobody likes a ball-hog

I’m watching the development of Google Posts with rapt interest. Right now, they reside on Knowledge Panels and listings, but given that they are indexed, it’s not impossible that they could eventually end up in the organic SERPs. Whether or not that ever happens, what we have right now in this feature is something that offers instant publication to the consumer public in return for very modest effort.

Perhaps even more importantly, Posts offer a way to bring users from Google to your own website, where you have full control of messaging. That single accomplishment is becoming increasingly difficult as rich-feature SERPs (and even single results) keep searchers Google-bound. I wonder if school kids still shout “ball-hog” when a classmate refuses to relinquish ball control and be a team player. For now, for local businesses, Google Posts could be a precious chance for your brand to handle the ball.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2HRL8OL

[rodneyevesuarywk]

How to Boost Bookings & Conversions with Google Posts: An Interview with Joel Headley

Posted by MiriamEllis

Have you been exploring all the ways you might use Google Posts to set and meet brand goals?

Chances are good you’ve heard of Google Posts by now: the micro-blogging Google My Business dashboard feature which instantly populates content to your Knowledge Panel and individual listing. We’re still only months into the release of this fascinating capability, use of which is theorized as having a potential impact on local pack rankings. When I recently listened to Joel Headley describing his incredibly creative use of Google Posts to increase healthcare provider bookings, it’s something I was excited to share with the Moz community here.

Joel Headley worked for over a decade on local and web search at Google. He’s now the Director of Local SEO and Marketing at healthcare practice growth platform PatientPop. He’s graciously agreed to chat with me about how his company increased appointment bookings by about 11% for thousands of customer listings via Google Posts.

How PatientPop used Google Posts to increase bookings by 11%

Miriam: So, Joel, Google offers a formal booking feature within their own product, but it isn’t always easy to participate in that program, and it keeps users within “Google’s walled garden” instead of guiding them to brand-controlled assets. As I recently learned, PatientPop innovated almost instantly when Google Posts was rolled out in 2017. Can you summarize for me what your company put together for your customers as a booking vehicle that didn’t depend on Google’s booking program?

Joel: PatientPop wants to provide patients an opportunity to make appointments directly with their healthcare provider. In that way, we're a white label service. Google has had a handful of booking products. In a prior iteration, there was a simpler product that was powered by schema and microforms, which could have scaled to anyone willing to add the schema.

Today, they are putting their effort behind Reserve with Google, which requires a much deeper API integration. While PatientPop would be happy to provide more services on Google, Reserve with Google doesn't yet allow most of our customers, according to their own policies. (However, the reservation service is marketed through Google My Business to those categories, which is a bit confusing.)

Additionally, when you open the booking widget, you see two logos: G Pay and the booking software provider. I'd love to see a product that allows the healthcare provider to be front and center in the entire process. A patient-doctor relationship is personal, and we'd like to emphasize you're booking your doctor, not PatientPop.

Because we can't get the CTAs unique to Reserve with Google, we realized that Google Posts can be a great vehicle for us to essentially get the same result.

When Google Posts first launched, I tested a handful of practices. The interaction rate was low compared to other elements in the Google listing. But, given there was incremental gain in traffic, it seemed worthwhile, if we could scale the product. It seemed like a handy way to provide scheduling with Google without having to go through the hoops of the Maps Booking (reserve with) API.

Miriam: Makes sense! Now, I’ve created a fictitious example of what it looks like to use Google Posts to prompt bookings, following your recommendations to use a simple color as the image background and to make the image text quite visible. Does this look similar to what PatientPop is doing for its customers and can you provide recommendations for the image size and font size you’ve seen work best?

Joel: Yes, that's pretty similar to the types of Posts we're submitting to our customer listings. I tested a handful of image types, ones with providers, some with no text, and the less busy image with actionable text is what performed the best. I noticed that making the image look more like a button, with button-like text, improved click-through rates too — CTR doubled compared to images with no text.

The image size we use is 750x750 with 48-point font size. If one uses the API, the image must be square cropped when creating the post. Otherwise, Posts using the Google My Business interface will give you an option to crop. The only issue I have with the published version of the image: the cropping is uneven — sometimes it is center-cropped, but other times, the bottom is cut off. That makes it hard to predict when on-image text will appear. But we keep it in the center which generally works pretty well.

Miriam: And, when clicked on, the Google Post takes the user to the client’s own website, where PatientPop software is being used to manage appointments — is that right?

Joel: Yes, the site is built by PatientPop. When selecting Book, the patient is taken directly to the provider's site where the booking widget is opened and an appointment can be selected from a calendar. These appointments can be synced back to the practice's electronic records system.

Miriam: Very tidy! As I understand it, PatientPop manages thousands of client listings, necessitating the need to automate this use of Google Posts. Without giving any secrets away, can you share a link to the API you used and explain how you templatized the process of creating Posts at scale?

Joel: Sure! We were waiting for Google to provide Posts via the Google My Business API, because we wanted to scale. While I had a bit of a heads-up that the API was coming — Google shared this feature with their GMB Top Contributor group — we still had to wait for it to launch to see the documentation and try it out. So, when the launch announcement went out on October 11, with just a few developers, we were able to implement the solution for all of our practices the next evening. It was a fun, quick win for us, though it was a bit of a long day. :)

In order to get something out that quickly, we created templates that could use information from the listing itself like the business name, category, and location. That way, we were able to create a stand-alone Python script that grabbed listings from Google. When getting the listings, all the listing content comes along with it, including name, address, and category. These values are taken directly from the listing to create Posts and then are submitted to Google. We host the images on AWS and reuse them by submitting the image URL with the post. It's a Python script which runs as a cron job on a regular schedule. If you're new to the API, the real tricky part is authentication, but the GMB community can help answer questions there.

Miriam: Really admirable implementation! One question: Google Posts expire after 7 days unless they are events, so are you basically automating re-posting of the booking feature for each listing every seven days?

Joel: We create Posts every seven days for all our practices. That way, we can mix up the content and images used on any given practice. We're also adding a second weekly post for practices that offer aesthetic services. We'll be launching more Posts for specific practice types going forward, too.

Miriam: Now for the most exciting part, Joel! What can you tell me about the increase in appointments this use of Google Posts has delivered for your customers? And, can you also please explain what parameters and products you are using to track this growth?

Joel: To track clicks from listings on Google, we use UTM parameters. We can then track the authority page, the services (menu) URL, the appointment URL, and the Posts URL.

When I first did this analysis, I looked at the average of the last three weeks of appointments compared to the 4 days after launch. Over that period, I saw nearly an 8% increase in online bookings. I've since included the entire first week of launch. It shows an 11% average increase in online bookings.

Additionally, because we're tracking each URL in the knowledge panel separately, I can confidently say there's no cannibalization of clicks from other URLs as a result of adding Posts. While authority page CTR remained steady, services lost over 10% of the clicks and appointment URLs gained 10%. That indicates to me that not only are the Posts effective in driving appointments through the Posts CTA, it emphasizes the existing appointment CTA too. This was in the context of no additional product changes on our side.

Miriam: Right, so, some of our readers will be using Google’s Local Business URLs (frequently used for linking to menus) to add an “Appointments” link. One of the most exciting takeaways from your implementation is that using Google Posts to support bookings didn’t steal attention away from the appointment link, which appears higher up in the Knowledge Panel. Can you explain why you feel the Google Posts clicks have been additive instead of subtractive?

Joel: The “make appointment” link gets a higher CTR than Posts, so it shouldn't be ignored. However, since Posts include an image, I suspect it might be attracting a different kind of user, which is more primed to interact with images. And because we're so specific on the type of interaction we want (appointment booking), both with the CTA and the image, it seems to convert well. And, as I stated above, it seems to help the appointment URLs too.

Miriam: I was honestly so impressed with your creativity in this, Joel. It’s just brilliant to look at something as simple as this little bit of Google screen real estate and ask, “Now, how could I use this to maximum effect?” Google Posts enables business owners to include links labeled Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, and Get Offer. The “Book” feature is obviously an ideal match for your company’s health care provider clients, but given your obvious talent for thinking outside the box, would you have any creative suggestions for other types of business models using the other pre-set link options?

Joel: I’m really excited about the events feature, actually. Because you can create a long-lived post while adding a sense of urgency by leveraging a time-bound context. Events can include limited-time offers, like a sale on a particular product, or signups for a newsletter that will include a coupon code. You can use all the link labels you've listed above for any given event. And, I think using the image-as-button philosophy can really drive results. I'd like to see an image with text Use coupon code XYZ546 now! with the Get Offer button. I imagine many business types, especially retail, can highlight their limited time deals without paying other companies to advertise your coupons and deals via Posts.

Miriam: Agreed, Joel, there are some really exciting opportunities for creative use here. Thank you so much for the inspiring knowledge you’ve shared with our community today!

Ready to get the most from Google Posts?

Reviews can be a challenge to manage. Google Q&A may be a mixed blessing. But as far as I can see, Posts are an unalloyed gift from Google. Here’s all you have to do to get started using them right now for a single location of your business:

Log into your Google My Business dashboard and click the “Posts” tab in the left menu.

Determine which of the options, labeled “Buttons,” is the right fit for your business. It could be “Book,” or it could be something else, like “Sign up” or “Buy.” Click the “Add a Button” option in the Google Posts wizard. Be sure the URL you enter includes a UTM parameter for tracking purposes.

Upload a 750x750 image. Joel recommends using a simple-colored background and highly visible 42-point font size for turning this image into a CTA button-style graphic. You may need to experiment with cropping the image.

Alternatively, you can create an event, which will cause your post to stay live through the date of the event.

Text has a minimum 100-character and maximum 300-character limit. I recommend writing something that would entice users to click to get beyond the cut-off point, especially because it appears to me that there are different display lengths on different devices. It’s also a good idea to bear in mind that Google Posts are indexed content. Initial testing is revealing that simply utilizing Posts may improve local pack rankings, but there is also an interesting hypothesis that they are a candidate for long-tail keyword optimization experiments. According to Mike Blumenthal:

“...If there are very long-tail phrases, where the ability to increase relevance isn't up against so many headwinds, then this is a signal that Google might recognize and help lift the boat for that long-tail phrase. My experience with it was it didn't work well on head phrases, and it may require some amount of interaction for it to really work well. In other words, I'm not sure just the phrase itself but the phrase with click-throughs on the Posts might be the actual trigger to this. It's not totally clear yet.”

You can preview your post before you hit the publish button.

Your post will stay live for 7 days. After that, it will be time to post a new one.

If you need to implement at scale across multiple listings, re-read Joel’s description of the API and programming PatientPop is utilizing. It will take some doing, but an 11% increase in appointments may well make it worth the investment! And obviously, if you happen to be marketing health care providers, checking out PatientPop’s ready-made solution would be smart.

Nobody likes a ball-hog

I’m watching the development of Google Posts with rapt interest. Right now, they reside on Knowledge Panels and listings, but given that they are indexed, it’s not impossible that they could eventually end up in the organic SERPs. Whether or not that ever happens, what we have right now in this feature is something that offers instant publication to the consumer public in return for very modest effort.

Perhaps even more importantly, Posts offer a way to bring users from Google to your own website, where you have full control of messaging. That single accomplishment is becoming increasingly difficult as rich-feature SERPs (and even single results) keep searchers Google-bound. I wonder if school kids still shout “ball-hog” when a classmate refuses to relinquish ball control and be a team player. For now, for local businesses, Google Posts could be a precious chance for your brand to handle the ball.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2HRL8OL

[byronheeutgm]

How to Boost Bookings & Conversions with Google Posts: An Interview with Joel Headley

Posted by MiriamEllis

Have you been exploring all the ways you might use Google Posts to set and meet brand goals?

Chances are good you’ve heard of Google Posts by now: the micro-blogging Google My Business dashboard feature which instantly populates content to your Knowledge Panel and individual listing. We’re still only months into the release of this fascinating capability, use of which is theorized as having a potential impact on local pack rankings. When I recently listened to Joel Headley describing his incredibly creative use of Google Posts to increase healthcare provider bookings, it’s something I was excited to share with the Moz community here.

Joel Headley worked for over a decade on local and web search at Google. He’s now the Director of Local SEO and Marketing at healthcare practice growth platform PatientPop. He’s graciously agreed to chat with me about how his company increased appointment bookings by about 11% for thousands of customer listings via Google Posts.

How PatientPop used Google Posts to increase bookings by 11%

Miriam: So, Joel, Google offers a formal booking feature within their own product, but it isn’t always easy to participate in that program, and it keeps users within “Google’s walled garden” instead of guiding them to brand-controlled assets. As I recently learned, PatientPop innovated almost instantly when Google Posts was rolled out in 2017. Can you summarize for me what your company put together for your customers as a booking vehicle that didn’t depend on Google’s booking program?

Joel: PatientPop wants to provide patients an opportunity to make appointments directly with their healthcare provider. In that way, we're a white label service. Google has had a handful of booking products. In a prior iteration, there was a simpler product that was powered by schema and microforms, which could have scaled to anyone willing to add the schema.

Today, they are putting their effort behind Reserve with Google, which requires a much deeper API integration. While PatientPop would be happy to provide more services on Google, Reserve with Google doesn't yet allow most of our customers, according to their own policies. (However, the reservation service is marketed through Google My Business to those categories, which is a bit confusing.)

Additionally, when you open the booking widget, you see two logos: G Pay and the booking software provider. I'd love to see a product that allows the healthcare provider to be front and center in the entire process. A patient-doctor relationship is personal, and we'd like to emphasize you're booking your doctor, not PatientPop.

Because we can't get the CTAs unique to Reserve with Google, we realized that Google Posts can be a great vehicle for us to essentially get the same result.

When Google Posts first launched, I tested a handful of practices. The interaction rate was low compared to other elements in the Google listing. But, given there was incremental gain in traffic, it seemed worthwhile, if we could scale the product. It seemed like a handy way to provide scheduling with Google without having to go through the hoops of the Maps Booking (reserve with) API.

Miriam: Makes sense! Now, I’ve created a fictitious example of what it looks like to use Google Posts to prompt bookings, following your recommendations to use a simple color as the image background and to make the image text quite visible. Does this look similar to what PatientPop is doing for its customers and can you provide recommendations for the image size and font size you’ve seen work best?

Joel: Yes, that's pretty similar to the types of Posts we're submitting to our customer listings. I tested a handful of image types, ones with providers, some with no text, and the less busy image with actionable text is what performed the best. I noticed that making the image look more like a button, with button-like text, improved click-through rates too — CTR doubled compared to images with no text.

The image size we use is 750x750 with 48-point font size. If one uses the API, the image must be square cropped when creating the post. Otherwise, Posts using the Google My Business interface will give you an option to crop. The only issue I have with the published version of the image: the cropping is uneven — sometimes it is center-cropped, but other times, the bottom is cut off. That makes it hard to predict when on-image text will appear. But we keep it in the center which generally works pretty well.

Miriam: And, when clicked on, the Google Post takes the user to the client’s own website, where PatientPop software is being used to manage appointments — is that right?

Joel: Yes, the site is built by PatientPop. When selecting Book, the patient is taken directly to the provider's site where the booking widget is opened and an appointment can be selected from a calendar. These appointments can be synced back to the practice's electronic records system.

Miriam: Very tidy! As I understand it, PatientPop manages thousands of client listings, necessitating the need to automate this use of Google Posts. Without giving any secrets away, can you share a link to the API you used and explain how you templatized the process of creating Posts at scale?

Joel: Sure! We were waiting for Google to provide Posts via the Google My Business API, because we wanted to scale. While I had a bit of a heads-up that the API was coming — Google shared this feature with their GMB Top Contributor group — we still had to wait for it to launch to see the documentation and try it out. So, when the launch announcement went out on October 11, with just a few developers, we were able to implement the solution for all of our practices the next evening. It was a fun, quick win for us, though it was a bit of a long day. :)

In order to get something out that quickly, we created templates that could use information from the listing itself like the business name, category, and location. That way, we were able to create a stand-alone Python script that grabbed listings from Google. When getting the listings, all the listing content comes along with it, including name, address, and category. These values are taken directly from the listing to create Posts and then are submitted to Google. We host the images on AWS and reuse them by submitting the image URL with the post. It's a Python script which runs as a cron job on a regular schedule. If you're new to the API, the real tricky part is authentication, but the GMB community can help answer questions there.

Miriam: Really admirable implementation! One question: Google Posts expire after 7 days unless they are events, so are you basically automating re-posting of the booking feature for each listing every seven days?

Joel: We create Posts every seven days for all our practices. That way, we can mix up the content and images used on any given practice. We're also adding a second weekly post for practices that offer aesthetic services. We'll be launching more Posts for specific practice types going forward, too.

Miriam: Now for the most exciting part, Joel! What can you tell me about the increase in appointments this use of Google Posts has delivered for your customers? And, can you also please explain what parameters and products you are using to track this growth?

Joel: To track clicks from listings on Google, we use UTM parameters. We can then track the authority page, the services (menu) URL, the appointment URL, and the Posts URL.

When I first did this analysis, I looked at the average of the last three weeks of appointments compared to the 4 days after launch. Over that period, I saw nearly an 8% increase in online bookings. I've since included the entire first week of launch. It shows an 11% average increase in online bookings.

Additionally, because we're tracking each URL in the knowledge panel separately, I can confidently say there's no cannibalization of clicks from other URLs as a result of adding Posts. While authority page CTR remained steady, services lost over 10% of the clicks and appointment URLs gained 10%. That indicates to me that not only are the Posts effective in driving appointments through the Posts CTA, it emphasizes the existing appointment CTA too. This was in the context of no additional product changes on our side.

Miriam: Right, so, some of our readers will be using Google’s Local Business URLs (frequently used for linking to menus) to add an “Appointments” link. One of the most exciting takeaways from your implementation is that using Google Posts to support bookings didn’t steal attention away from the appointment link, which appears higher up in the Knowledge Panel. Can you explain why you feel the Google Posts clicks have been additive instead of subtractive?

Joel: The “make appointment” link gets a higher CTR than Posts, so it shouldn't be ignored. However, since Posts include an image, I suspect it might be attracting a different kind of user, which is more primed to interact with images. And because we're so specific on the type of interaction we want (appointment booking), both with the CTA and the image, it seems to convert well. And, as I stated above, it seems to help the appointment URLs too.

Miriam: I was honestly so impressed with your creativity in this, Joel. It’s just brilliant to look at something as simple as this little bit of Google screen real estate and ask, “Now, how could I use this to maximum effect?” Google Posts enables business owners to include links labeled Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, and Get Offer. The “Book” feature is obviously an ideal match for your company’s health care provider clients, but given your obvious talent for thinking outside the box, would you have any creative suggestions for other types of business models using the other pre-set link options?

Joel: I’m really excited about the events feature, actually. Because you can create a long-lived post while adding a sense of urgency by leveraging a time-bound context. Events can include limited-time offers, like a sale on a particular product, or signups for a newsletter that will include a coupon code. You can use all the link labels you've listed above for any given event. And, I think using the image-as-button philosophy can really drive results. I'd like to see an image with text Use coupon code XYZ546 now! with the Get Offer button. I imagine many business types, especially retail, can highlight their limited time deals without paying other companies to advertise your coupons and deals via Posts.

Miriam: Agreed, Joel, there are some really exciting opportunities for creative use here. Thank you so much for the inspiring knowledge you’ve shared with our community today!

Ready to get the most from Google Posts?

Reviews can be a challenge to manage. Google Q&A may be a mixed blessing. But as far as I can see, Posts are an unalloyed gift from Google. Here’s all you have to do to get started using them right now for a single location of your business:

Log into your Google My Business dashboard and click the “Posts” tab in the left menu.

Determine which of the options, labeled “Buttons,” is the right fit for your business. It could be “Book,” or it could be something else, like “Sign up” or “Buy.” Click the “Add a Button” option in the Google Posts wizard. Be sure the URL you enter includes a UTM parameter for tracking purposes.

Upload a 750x750 image. Joel recommends using a simple-colored background and highly visible 42-point font size for turning this image into a CTA button-style graphic. You may need to experiment with cropping the image.

Alternatively, you can create an event, which will cause your post to stay live through the date of the event.

Text has a minimum 100-character and maximum 300-character limit. I recommend writing something that would entice users to click to get beyond the cut-off point, especially because it appears to me that there are different display lengths on different devices. It’s also a good idea to bear in mind that Google Posts are indexed content. Initial testing is revealing that simply utilizing Posts may improve local pack rankings, but there is also an interesting hypothesis that they are a candidate for long-tail keyword optimization experiments. According to Mike Blumenthal:

“...If there are very long-tail phrases, where the ability to increase relevance isn't up against so many headwinds, then this is a signal that Google might recognize and help lift the boat for that long-tail phrase. My experience with it was it didn't work well on head phrases, and it may require some amount of interaction for it to really work well. In other words, I'm not sure just the phrase itself but the phrase with click-throughs on the Posts might be the actual trigger to this. It's not totally clear yet.”

You can preview your post before you hit the publish button.

Your post will stay live for 7 days. After that, it will be time to post a new one.

If you need to implement at scale across multiple listings, re-read Joel’s description of the API and programming PatientPop is utilizing. It will take some doing, but an 11% increase in appointments may well make it worth the investment! And obviously, if you happen to be marketing health care providers, checking out PatientPop’s ready-made solution would be smart.

Nobody likes a ball-hog

I’m watching the development of Google Posts with rapt interest. Right now, they reside on Knowledge Panels and listings, but given that they are indexed, it’s not impossible that they could eventually end up in the organic SERPs. Whether or not that ever happens, what we have right now in this feature is something that offers instant publication to the consumer public in return for very modest effort.

Perhaps even more importantly, Posts offer a way to bring users from Google to your own website, where you have full control of messaging. That single accomplishment is becoming increasingly difficult as rich-feature SERPs (and even single results) keep searchers Google-bound. I wonder if school kids still shout “ball-hog” when a classmate refuses to relinquish ball control and be a team player. For now, for local businesses, Google Posts could be a precious chance for your brand to handle the ball.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2HRL8OL

[christinesumpmg1]

How to Boost Bookings & Conversions with Google Posts: An Interview with Joel Headley

Posted by MiriamEllis

Have you been exploring all the ways you might use Google Posts to set and meet brand goals?

Chances are good you’ve heard of Google Posts by now: the micro-blogging Google My Business dashboard feature which instantly populates content to your Knowledge Panel and individual listing. We’re still only months into the release of this fascinating capability, use of which is theorized as having a potential impact on local pack rankings. When I recently listened to Joel Headley describing his incredibly creative use of Google Posts to increase healthcare provider bookings, it’s something I was excited to share with the Moz community here.

Joel Headley worked for over a decade on local and web search at Google. He’s now the Director of Local SEO and Marketing at healthcare practice growth platform PatientPop. He’s graciously agreed to chat with me about how his company increased appointment bookings by about 11% for thousands of customer listings via Google Posts.

How PatientPop used Google Posts to increase bookings by 11%

Miriam: So, Joel, Google offers a formal booking feature within their own product, but it isn’t always easy to participate in that program, and it keeps users within “Google’s walled garden” instead of guiding them to brand-controlled assets. As I recently learned, PatientPop innovated almost instantly when Google Posts was rolled out in 2017. Can you summarize for me what your company put together for your customers as a booking vehicle that didn’t depend on Google’s booking program?

Joel: PatientPop wants to provide patients an opportunity to make appointments directly with their healthcare provider. In that way, we're a white label service. Google has had a handful of booking products. In a prior iteration, there was a simpler product that was powered by schema and microforms, which could have scaled to anyone willing to add the schema.

Today, they are putting their effort behind Reserve with Google, which requires a much deeper API integration. While PatientPop would be happy to provide more services on Google, Reserve with Google doesn't yet allow most of our customers, according to their own policies. (However, the reservation service is marketed through Google My Business to those categories, which is a bit confusing.)

Additionally, when you open the booking widget, you see two logos: G Pay and the booking software provider. I'd love to see a product that allows the healthcare provider to be front and center in the entire process. A patient-doctor relationship is personal, and we'd like to emphasize you're booking your doctor, not PatientPop.

Because we can't get the CTAs unique to Reserve with Google, we realized that Google Posts can be a great vehicle for us to essentially get the same result.

When Google Posts first launched, I tested a handful of practices. The interaction rate was low compared to other elements in the Google listing. But, given there was incremental gain in traffic, it seemed worthwhile, if we could scale the product. It seemed like a handy way to provide scheduling with Google without having to go through the hoops of the Maps Booking (reserve with) API.

Miriam: Makes sense! Now, I’ve created a fictitious example of what it looks like to use Google Posts to prompt bookings, following your recommendations to use a simple color as the image background and to make the image text quite visible. Does this look similar to what PatientPop is doing for its customers and can you provide recommendations for the image size and font size you’ve seen work best?

Joel: Yes, that's pretty similar to the types of Posts we're submitting to our customer listings. I tested a handful of image types, ones with providers, some with no text, and the less busy image with actionable text is what performed the best. I noticed that making the image look more like a button, with button-like text, improved click-through rates too — CTR doubled compared to images with no text.

The image size we use is 750x750 with 48-point font size. If one uses the API, the image must be square cropped when creating the post. Otherwise, Posts using the Google My Business interface will give you an option to crop. The only issue I have with the published version of the image: the cropping is uneven — sometimes it is center-cropped, but other times, the bottom is cut off. That makes it hard to predict when on-image text will appear. But we keep it in the center which generally works pretty well.

Miriam: And, when clicked on, the Google Post takes the user to the client’s own website, where PatientPop software is being used to manage appointments — is that right?

Joel: Yes, the site is built by PatientPop. When selecting Book, the patient is taken directly to the provider's site where the booking widget is opened and an appointment can be selected from a calendar. These appointments can be synced back to the practice's electronic records system.

Miriam: Very tidy! As I understand it, PatientPop manages thousands of client listings, necessitating the need to automate this use of Google Posts. Without giving any secrets away, can you share a link to the API you used and explain how you templatized the process of creating Posts at scale?

Joel: Sure! We were waiting for Google to provide Posts via the Google My Business API, because we wanted to scale. While I had a bit of a heads-up that the API was coming — Google shared this feature with their GMB Top Contributor group — we still had to wait for it to launch to see the documentation and try it out. So, when the launch announcement went out on October 11, with just a few developers, we were able to implement the solution for all of our practices the next evening. It was a fun, quick win for us, though it was a bit of a long day. :)

In order to get something out that quickly, we created templates that could use information from the listing itself like the business name, category, and location. That way, we were able to create a stand-alone Python script that grabbed listings from Google. When getting the listings, all the listing content comes along with it, including name, address, and category. These values are taken directly from the listing to create Posts and then are submitted to Google. We host the images on AWS and reuse them by submitting the image URL with the post. It's a Python script which runs as a cron job on a regular schedule. If you're new to the API, the real tricky part is authentication, but the GMB community can help answer questions there.

Miriam: Really admirable implementation! One question: Google Posts expire after 7 days unless they are events, so are you basically automating re-posting of the booking feature for each listing every seven days?

Joel: We create Posts every seven days for all our practices. That way, we can mix up the content and images used on any given practice. We're also adding a second weekly post for practices that offer aesthetic services. We'll be launching more Posts for specific practice types going forward, too.

Miriam: Now for the most exciting part, Joel! What can you tell me about the increase in appointments this use of Google Posts has delivered for your customers? And, can you also please explain what parameters and products you are using to track this growth?

Joel: To track clicks from listings on Google, we use UTM parameters. We can then track the authority page, the services (menu) URL, the appointment URL, and the Posts URL.

When I first did this analysis, I looked at the average of the last three weeks of appointments compared to the 4 days after launch. Over that period, I saw nearly an 8% increase in online bookings. I've since included the entire first week of launch. It shows an 11% average increase in online bookings.

Additionally, because we're tracking each URL in the knowledge panel separately, I can confidently say there's no cannibalization of clicks from other URLs as a result of adding Posts. While authority page CTR remained steady, services lost over 10% of the clicks and appointment URLs gained 10%. That indicates to me that not only are the Posts effective in driving appointments through the Posts CTA, it emphasizes the existing appointment CTA too. This was in the context of no additional product changes on our side.

Miriam: Right, so, some of our readers will be using Google’s Local Business URLs (frequently used for linking to menus) to add an “Appointments” link. One of the most exciting takeaways from your implementation is that using Google Posts to support bookings didn’t steal attention away from the appointment link, which appears higher up in the Knowledge Panel. Can you explain why you feel the Google Posts clicks have been additive instead of subtractive?

Joel: The “make appointment” link gets a higher CTR than Posts, so it shouldn't be ignored. However, since Posts include an image, I suspect it might be attracting a different kind of user, which is more primed to interact with images. And because we're so specific on the type of interaction we want (appointment booking), both with the CTA and the image, it seems to convert well. And, as I stated above, it seems to help the appointment URLs too.

Miriam: I was honestly so impressed with your creativity in this, Joel. It’s just brilliant to look at something as simple as this little bit of Google screen real estate and ask, “Now, how could I use this to maximum effect?” Google Posts enables business owners to include links labeled Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, and Get Offer. The “Book” feature is obviously an ideal match for your company’s health care provider clients, but given your obvious talent for thinking outside the box, would you have any creative suggestions for other types of business models using the other pre-set link options?

Joel: I’m really excited about the events feature, actually. Because you can create a long-lived post while adding a sense of urgency by leveraging a time-bound context. Events can include limited-time offers, like a sale on a particular product, or signups for a newsletter that will include a coupon code. You can use all the link labels you've listed above for any given event. And, I think using the image-as-button philosophy can really drive results. I'd like to see an image with text Use coupon code XYZ546 now! with the Get Offer button. I imagine many business types, especially retail, can highlight their limited time deals without paying other companies to advertise your coupons and deals via Posts.

Miriam: Agreed, Joel, there are some really exciting opportunities for creative use here. Thank you so much for the inspiring knowledge you’ve shared with our community today!

Ready to get the most from Google Posts?

Reviews can be a challenge to manage. Google Q&A may be a mixed blessing. But as far as I can see, Posts are an unalloyed gift from Google. Here’s all you have to do to get started using them right now for a single location of your business:

Log into your Google My Business dashboard and click the “Posts” tab in the left menu.

Determine which of the options, labeled “Buttons,” is the right fit for your business. It could be “Book,” or it could be something else, like “Sign up” or “Buy.” Click the “Add a Button” option in the Google Posts wizard. Be sure the URL you enter includes a UTM parameter for tracking purposes.

Upload a 750x750 image. Joel recommends using a simple-colored background and highly visible 42-point font size for turning this image into a CTA button-style graphic. You may need to experiment with cropping the image.

Alternatively, you can create an event, which will cause your post to stay live through the date of the event.

Text has a minimum 100-character and maximum 300-character limit. I recommend writing something that would entice users to click to get beyond the cut-off point, especially because it appears to me that there are different display lengths on different devices. It’s also a good idea to bear in mind that Google Posts are indexed content. Initial testing is revealing that simply utilizing Posts may improve local pack rankings, but there is also an interesting hypothesis that they are a candidate for long-tail keyword optimization experiments. According to Mike Blumenthal:

“...If there are very long-tail phrases, where the ability to increase relevance isn't up against so many headwinds, then this is a signal that Google might recognize and help lift the boat for that long-tail phrase. My experience with it was it didn't work well on head phrases, and it may require some amount of interaction for it to really work well. In other words, I'm not sure just the phrase itself but the phrase with click-throughs on the Posts might be the actual trigger to this. It's not totally clear yet.”

You can preview your post before you hit the publish button.

Your post will stay live for 7 days. After that, it will be time to post a new one.

If you need to implement at scale across multiple listings, re-read Joel’s description of the API and programming PatientPop is utilizing. It will take some doing, but an 11% increase in appointments may well make it worth the investment! And obviously, if you happen to be marketing health care providers, checking out PatientPop’s ready-made solution would be smart.

Nobody likes a ball-hog

I’m watching the development of Google Posts with rapt interest. Right now, they reside on Knowledge Panels and listings, but given that they are indexed, it’s not impossible that they could eventually end up in the organic SERPs. Whether or not that ever happens, what we have right now in this feature is something that offers instant publication to the consumer public in return for very modest effort.

Perhaps even more importantly, Posts offer a way to bring users from Google to your own website, where you have full control of messaging. That single accomplishment is becoming increasingly difficult as rich-feature SERPs (and even single results) keep searchers Google-bound. I wonder if school kids still shout “ball-hog” when a classmate refuses to relinquish ball control and be a team player. For now, for local businesses, Google Posts could be a precious chance for your brand to handle the ball.

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