Archive for December, 2009
What Google’s ‘real time’ results will mean for SEO marketers
Dec 8th
Managing your brand reputation has never been so important.
Google has now added those ‘real time’ results it has been talking about all year, which means users will now see feeds from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other fresh content in their search results.
Google announced an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in their search results a couple of months ago saying that it believed their search results and user experience would greatly benefit from the inclusion of this “up-to-the-minute data”.
At the time, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, Marissa Mayer said, “In the past few years, an entirely new type of data has emerged — real-time updates like those on Twitter have appeared not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.”
But what does this mean for SEO marketers and how will having someone’s Twitter feed or Facebook status in Google’s search results help users find what they are looking for?
Users will get results as they are being produced out there in the world wide web. Online social-networking rivals MySpace and Google will be providing feeds of all public updates made by users.
Google said on its blog, “Search is a natural starting point for discovering the world’s information, and we strive to bring you the freshest, most comprehensive and relevant search results over an ever expanding universe of content on the multitude of devices you use to access it.”
The search engine believes that this is an “important step in the evolution of information access”. And while that may be true in some instances, I can’t help thinking that having such results turn up in my search queries will be distracting and irrelevant.
On the other hand, it’s good news for marketers who have Facebook Fan Pages and those brands who Twitter. Just using the right key words will see you show up in those Google search results for free.
All sounds good in theory but marketers will have to be incredible diligent in not only what they are posting on social networks, but what their own customers are saying about them as their conversations are about to become a whole lot more visible.
Immediately after conducting a search, users will be able to see live updates from people on sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before.
When they are relevant, Google will rank the latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page.
The real-time search enables users to discover breaking news the moment it’s happening, even if it’s not the popular news of the day.
Users can however filter their results to see only ‘Updates’ from micro-blogs like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and others. Latest results and the new search options are also designed for iPhone and Android devices.
But marketers, while they may not be able to stop consumers saying not so nice things about their brands, can at least monitor what is being said about them more easily with a new ‘hot topics’ element to Google Trends that will show the most common topics people are publishing to the web in real-time.
Since social media came about, companies and brands have been learning how to leverage it and tap into the rising tide of consumers participating in social network sites, blogs, wikis and Twitter. So in some ways Google is helping make this a bit easier.
But Google says it still has a way to go, “Search is still an unsolved problem and we’re committed to making it faster and easier for people to access a greater diversity of information, delivered in real-time, from across the web.”
This has me worried a lot about brand reputation, but may create some jobs in ‘reputation management’ I suppose. The advantage is, at least, that marketers will be able to listen into the conversation which could deliver a whole new world of insights for their brands and perhaps help them improve. The bottom line is, don’t annoy your customers or the whole of cyberspace will know about it one way or another.
Ad-supported streaming is the future of music business, Apple agrees
Dec 7th
Tech giant and iTunes owner Apple may have a 70% share of the music download market, but nothing is forever, and new services are posing a threat to the giant’s monopoly.
There is no way Apple is going to let a little competition stop it from being the number one music service on the internet – it’s now cementing its ground with the acquisition of US music streaming site Lala.
The digital music war is heating up and sites such as News Corp’s MySpace and Spotify are constantly signing deals with artists and producers as they attempt to steal away market share from iTunes.
But Apple is keen to keep its monopoly and by purchasing Lala, its 70% market share looks safe. For now.
An Apple spokesperson said, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans.”
Well of course not. But reports are speculating that the technology giant is seeking new ways to expand iTunes to move it beyond being a predominantly download service for songs.
Apple could be looking to get into the ‘streaming’ market – an idea made popular by Spotify which clocked up more than one million users in its first three months after launching in January this year.
Spotify is clearly the darling of the moment in the music industry. The only other digital music service that has ever sustained the same pulling power as Spotify is Apple’s iTunes. And of course there is a lot of talk about whether Spotify is actually an ‘iTunes Killer’. The general consensus seems to be “not yet”, but that doesn’t mean that Apple shouldn’t feel a little threatened.
The music industry needs Spotify to get a decent shot at being a success and combating piracy. It’s no secret that ad-supported music services have numerous challenges, not least a softening ad market. It’s equally no secret that Spotify needs to make its premium business a success.
But building the ad business and the premium revenues will both take time. Until those are fixed every new user for Spotify is cost to the bottom line. Apple on the other hand has no issue with laying down a bit of cash while it experiments with new revenue and business models.
Spotify itself is not about to become ‘the future of the music industry’ but it does stand a decent chance of being one of the first truly mass market online services.
Apple has recognized that its business model is going to evolve into a streaming one and this could probably propel iTunes to the next level.
The Lala service allows users to stream from the internet any tune in its catalog of more than 8 million songs once for free, and then sells unlimited streams for 10 cents per track and MP3 downloads starting at 79 cents.
Apple is also walking into some pretty good deal. Lala has more than 100,000 users and recently partnered with Google to provide users song samples along with links to purchase the music.
Lala has also partnered with Facebook to offer music through the social networking site.
So tad funded music streaming services could be the future of the music industry – a sore subject for the past couple of years. But will it work? Things rarely go pear shaped for Apple.
Google is greedy, but we’ll borrow your ad tactics
Dec 7th
A new environmentally friendly search engine has attacked Google for being greedy with its profits. But it has no qualms about borrowing the search king’s ad tactics.
A new search engine is launching today, but it’s not going to be taking on Bing and it won’t be going anywhere near Google. In fact, it’s only aiming for 1% market share. Why? It has bigger issues to tackle.
Ecosia, created by ‘green-minded friends’ in Berlin, is aiming to be the world’s greenest search engine and has picked its launch date to coincide with the climate change talks which begin in Copenhagen today.
The search engine hopes to help save the Brazilian rainforests and says it will give at least 80% of its revenue to the World Wildlife Fund to protect rainforests.
If you’re wondering why the search engine interface looks very similar to that of Bing’s it’s because Yahoo and Bing, rather than competing with the new comer, are actually powering the sites search technology.
Also on the homepage of Ecosia is an update of how much of the rainforests we are saving by using the site. Here’s what it says today: “Each free web search saves about 2.4 yd² of rainforest. We have already protected 330,818 yd²”.
This all sounds very lovely, but what does it mean for marketers?
Unlike Google and other search engines, Ecosia promises to dump all records of users’ activities after 48 hours and not mine the data for marketing purposes. The new site has actually lashed out at Google for only worrying about making its investors happy and rich and not caring about the CO2 emissions each search creates (the same amount as a light bulb does in an hour, apparently).
But Ecosia is banking on the same online advertising tactics that catapulted Google into fame and fortune with the funds benefiting nature instead of investors.
Advertisers typically pay the search engine for each click on sponsored links appearing on results pages.
With sponsored links, search engines earn billions every year, but Ecosia founder Christian Kroll will be using such profits to fight global warming.
Ecosia was following through on its green theme by relying on data centres that run on electricity from alternative sources that do not emit heat-trapping gases.
The site already has more than 20,000 users. Here’s a cute little video of how it all works:
iPhone apps boost mCommerce shopping experience
Dec 4th
Big things are predicted for mCommerce. eBay’s recent ‘Deals’ app was launched on the back of predictions that by the end of this year it expects more than $500 million in merchandise to be purchased via eBay mobile.
Launched just a year ago, the eBay iPhone app has been downloaded more than five million times – making it one of the most popular iPhone apps.
The company also claims a purchase is made every two seconds via eBay mobile and that users from over 165 countries visit the eBay mobile website and use the iPhone application.
For mCommerce to be a success it’s all down to apps being easy for consumers to use and them then working cleverly to make lives easier.
Which is why a new one has caught our eye that uses high tech to make the most of an old tech device – the barcode.
‘StripeyLines’ allows shoppers to swipe the barcode on goods they are considering for a price comparison and then saves these goods and profiles as a wish list on the StripeyLines website for later research and evaluation.
It’s already got the backing of Iceland and Tesco through its TJAM initiative., with more retailers set to jump on board.
So in the run-up to Christmas or during sale events it could be used to allow visitors to affiliated retail stores to touch and feel products while on the shop floor then use their iPhone to scan the barcode of their desired products and collect them later at a “customer collection point”, or scan them and add them to online wish lists.
Alternatively, in-store, or later over a coffee, shoppers can review what they’ve scanned to make an informed decision and perform further research before purchasing the items from their iPhone or desktop PC.
Scanned barcodes can be used to gain access to generic images and details via either the retailer’s adapted version of their catalogue or through look-up search engines such as Amazon, eBay, iTunes and Google.
Shoppers can choose to carry out a number of different actions on a scanned item including the ability to search for the item on Tesco.com and then add it to their online Tesco’s Grocery account shopping basket.
It opens up a world of additional possibilities. What if having scanned a product the user plans to eat or drink, the application could update how much the nutritional value of that product contributes to their daily allowance and calculates the number of calories they have remaining? Such a development is already in planning.
Retailer specific barcodes (the shorter 8 digit barcodes found on own brands) are being added to the StripeyLines search as retailers make them available. The first retailer to provide this data is Iceland Foods with data also being made available from Tesco.
The flip side are the advantages for retailers who don’t want to developing their own iPhone application.
The StripeyLines app enables them to develop simple plug-ins that are beamed to shoppers’ iPhones and highlight certain lines and promotions when related items are scanned.
It allows them to integrate their stores with a product show room on an iPhone where shoppers can ‘touch and feel’ items and use capture/scan technology to deliver enhanced product data, access the website, create wish lists, receive recommendations, and cross sell suggestions – limited only by the retailer’s vision.
Following the launch in July 2007, sales of the iPhone and iPod Touch had reached 43 million units globally in 81 countries by April 2009, with over 35,000 applications hosted in the Apple store. Recently 30,000 iPhones were sold in the UK on the Orange network on the first day of sale, according to the operator.
“iPhone users are early adopters, technology savvy and are eager to embrace new lifestyle options and services,” explained Paul Tough, CTO of Portaltech, the company which has developed StripeyLines.
If it takes off, the StripeyLines iPhone app has the potential to change the face of shopping for consumers, making it possible for retailers to deliver enhanced mobile shopping services in store to implement a true multichannel strategy with minimal development and investment.
“As it’s a plug-in extension to their existing web technology, retailers don’t have to learn about a new technology and they can update and disseminate information in a true multi-channel environment, enabling them to merge the online and in-store experience so it is seamless and convenient, added Tough.
Google search offers the best of both worlds for publishers. Apparently.
Dec 3rd
As the Google and Bing search war heats up, publishers are left wondering whether they should be putting up pay walls or keeping their articles in Google News and Google Search?
Well, according to Google, they can do both as the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
Google has said on its blog, “There are a few ways we work with publishers to make their subscription content discoverable” as it updates one of them to remind publishers about some of their options.
The search engine giant has strict policies against what is known as cloaking – showing one web page to the crawler that indexes it but then a different page to a user.
It does this so that users aren’t deceived into clicking through to a site that’s not what they were expecting. While the anti-cloaking policies are important for users, they do create some challenges for publishers who charge for content.
Google’s “crawlers” can’t fill out a registration or payment form to see what’s behind a site’s paywall, but they need access to the information in order to index it.
One way it overcomes this is through a program called ‘First Click Free’ in which participating publishers allow the crawler to index their subscription content, then allow users who find one of those articles through Google News or Google Search to see the full page without requiring them to register or subscribe.
The user’s first click to the content is free, but when a user clicks on additional links on the site, the publisher can show a payment or registration request.
Google believes that First Click Free is a “great way for publishers to promote their content and for users to check out a news source before deciding whether to pay”.
In addition to First Click Free, it also crawls, indexes and treats as ‘free’ any preview pages – generally the headline and first few paragraphs of a story – that are made available to users. This means that Google crawlers see the exact same content that will be shown for free to a user.
Because the preview page is identical for both users and the crawlers, it’s not cloaking. It then labels such stories as ‘subscription’ in Google News. The ranking of those articles are subject to the same criteria as all sites in Google, whether paid or free. But, generally, if something has ‘subscription’ written beside it, users are less likely to click through to it.
According to Adam Bunn, Head of SEO at search marketing agency Greenlight, Google’s proposition weakens Microsoft’s hand in its struggle to improve Bing – Google’s only foreseeable challenger in the search game.
While First Click Free is designed so that newspapers can theoretically charge for their content and still benefit from Google traffic, the reality is quite different.
“What has ensued is a ‘Mexican standoff’ in which both parties claim they have no need of the other, which in the event has been broken first by Google,” explains Bunn. “First Click Free now only requires that the first five page views by Google users on any given day are free, after which sites are free to charge whatever they like.”
At the very least though, Google has signaled its willingness to compromise its previous hard line on news content. It will help to neutralize public concern over its apparent lack of care towards publishers.
Microsoft has been reported to be discussing the possibility of exclusive deals with major newspapers including the Murdoch empire. That would see Bing become the only search engine able to include those papers in its results. If Microsoft were to get enough publishers on board, that could potentially harm Google’s relevancy.
Bunn believes that Bing’s approach may be less attractive to the publishers themselves as they see the possibility of making more cash from Google following the changes to the well established First Click Free.
“Whether these changes alone will be enough to placate newspaper owners is questionable,” says Bunn. “After all, how many Google users click through to the same site, from Google, more than times times per day?”
Whatever the number, it’s almost certainly a tiny proportion of those who visit news sites at all.
Furthermore, of those who do, how many are willing to pay for their news content versus the alternative option of simply reading essentially the same story elsewhere? Again, only time will tell, and whether this will be the end or beginning of negotiations between the papers and the search engines remains to be seen.
But at the end of the day, whether you’re offering your content for free or selling it, it’s crucial that people find it.
SEO tips for Bing
Dec 2nd
Think you have a good SEO strategy for Google? You better adapt it for Bing
Following yesterday’s news that Microsoft’s Bing is gaining share on Google (its searches are up 7% for October), I thought I’d look into the company’s stance on search engine optimization (SEO) – you know, now that people are flocking to the site.
Microsoft’s stance on SEO doesn’t appear to be all that different from Google’s, however, users won’t get the same results on both Google and Bing, which is how to two can coexist in the first place.
The real difference is in how the results are presented, and not as much in how the two determine quality and relevancy. Remember that Microsoft’s Bing is the “decision engine”.
Bing and Google have separate algorithms, but both like quality, relevant links and good content, as opposed to deception and spam.
In a white paper for webmasters, Microsoft says: “There have been no major changes to the MSNBot crawler during the upgrade to Bing. However, the Bing team is continuously refining and improving our crawling and indexing abilities. Note that the bot name hasn’t changed. It will still show up in the web server access logs as MSNBog.”
Bing separates results into categories, which has so far worried some search marketers, but Microsoft says good SEO will work just as well with this set up.
Bing also has the explore pane, which corresponds with the categories in the SERPs. In some ways, this is similar to Google’s recent addition of “search options.”
Look at the keyword phrases you want to rank for, and see how Bing breaks it up. Let’s say “mobile phones” for example. Bing gives you categories like shopping, brands, buying guide, providers, accessories, images, videos, and local.
With Bing, it’s not about getting to the top of the results, it’s about getting to the top of the right set of results. Having quality and relevant content is the best thing you can do. Incidentally, this will probably help your cause in Google (and other search engines) at the same time.
“Ultimately, SEO is still SEO. Bing doesn’t change that. Bing’s new user interface design simply adds new opportunities to searchers to find what the information they want more quickly and easily, and that benefits webmasters who have taken the time to work on the quality of their content and website design,” says Microsoft, as quoted on Webpronews.com.
Curious About What Bing Looks for in Links?
Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center recently posted a pair of blog posts looking at what makes some links good and some bad:
- If you don’t feel you can endorse the quality of the content at another site, you shouldn’t be linking to them
- Don’t seek links from sites whose content isn’t worthy of your endorsement.
- Links to and from your site should be relevant to your site (or at least the page you’re linking from/to)
- Focus on quality, not quantity. Few highly relevant links are better than a bunch of crap links
- Avoid “bad neighbourhoods” like dedicated domains or IP ranges that do nothing but set up meaningless link exchanges.
- Avoid hidden text
So that’s where Microsoft stands on SEO practices. Remember that when you are thinking about SEO and how to rank higher, the rules as they were set out on Google when we first starting talking about SEO have changes. Search engine marketing is about to become a whole lot more complicated.
Why do marketers get branded iPhone apps so wrong?
Dec 1st
With over with over 100,000 applications on the iTunes App Store, brands are left with the dilemma of how to get their offerings noticed.
So what’s the secret of becoming a hit? What’s the magic formula that will get you on someone’s phone and close to them 24/7?
According to a new report from Adweek.com, two factors come into play.
Firstly, it argues that brands operating in the digital space have the advantage over non-digital brands.
No great surprise there. Unsurprisingly they get the space, how it operates and the needs and wants of online users. Oh, and they already have a profile in the online sector.
The second is ‘Utility’ – offering something of value to customer.
Any marketer is faced with the challenge of persuading consumers that their product/service is something they can’t live without.
It’s no different in marketing apps. Bottom line is do some research and do it early. If the feed back is that what the app is offering is rubbish, it’s most likely rubbish.
But don’t simply our word for it.
According to VP of Business Development at Symsource, Tim Ocock, in a recent article on UTalkMarketing.com the three guiding priciples for any brand developing an app should be.
1. Make sure you understand the capabilities and limitations of the technology.
2. Do something that can only be done on mobile.
3. Build something useful, not a gimmick
Ahhh, ‘something useful’ as in a Utility then! Have we made our point?
Bing appears to be winning the search engine battle, why?
Dec 1st
Is Google’s 13 years of dominance about to come to an end as we switch to the cool new Bing?
It may have only been launched in June this year, but already Microsoft’s “decision engine” Bing has already increased its usage by 7%. Google however, has seen the number of searches conducted slip by 1% – could this signal the beginning of the end of Google monopoly?
According to new research from Hitwise, Google accounted for 70.6% of all US searches in October.
Yahoo! Search, Bing and Ask.com received 16.14%, 9.57% and 2.62%, respectively.
The launch of Google’s first global advertising push, which will include the UK, France, Canada, Japan, Australia, and Singapore, came as a surprise considering the search engine king built its entire empire without a single advert, relying only on word-of-mouth.
Google is feeling the heat from rising competitors for the first time with Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing sparing nothing in their assault on its market share.
Microsoft is next year launching its first true web version of Office that will complement its traditional Office apps. Google, with its global campaign, is attempting to steal a march on the competition before it even launches, which is smart. But will businesses ever see Google as a serious competitor and software solutions provider looking beyond its search engine capabilities?
Microsoft isn’t doing this all alone, remember. It partnered up with ailing search engine Yahoo just a few months back and although the deal is currently awaiting approval over competition concerns from the US Justice Department, it already has the backing of advertising heavyweights including WPP, Publicis Groupe and Omnicom.
Google has also been slow to make as big as an impact as it was hoping for with its browser Google Chrome. It holds just a 2.59 per cent share, well behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer which has 67.7 per cent of the market share.
While this may be the first global campaign from Google, it certainly can’t be the last.
Google has not only lost its stranglehold in western nations, but also in emerging markets such as China. In fact, China’s Baidu now holds the title of ‘the world’s largest search engine’ (given China’s 1.3 billion strong population) despite Google’s presence there. Google’s struggle to crack China is just one of the giant’s many anxieties over the past few years.
Google has always maintained that it isn’t worried about competition, but perhaps this is starting to change. Tell us what you think below.
Reputation, reputation, reputation is key to online success
Dec 1st
When it comes to doing business online, you can mess with your location as much as you like – but don’t risk your reputation.
If you build a good reputation on the web, people will link to you. If people link to you, other people will follow those links, and you will build up your traffic and your business. And the more good quality and relevant links you have, the higher you will rise up the search engine listings. More and better links means better rankings on Google, too.
Whether buying a house or opening a shop, there’s an old saying that the most important factors are location, location and location. But how does this work out on the internet?
Your web server can be physically located in a data centre almost anywhere in the world. Potentially, you can run an online business as effectively from a beach in Majorca as you could on Oxford Street.
One of our customers a few years ago even succeeded in managing his store while halfway up Mount Everest!
So when it comes to doing business online, you can mess with the location as much as you like. But the one thing you don’t want to mess with is your reputation.
If by action or inaction you manage to damage your reputation, the world can hear about it very quickly; via Facebook, MySpace, Digg, del.icio.us, Twitter. There is an endless list of media by which disgruntled customers can spread their complaints about your business. Do you monitor them? Would you know?
On the internet it’s not location, location, location; it’s reputation, reputation, reputation that counts.
That means selling a quality product at a fair price, and looking after your customers. It also means watching what’s being said about you in social and interactive media, and taking every opportunity to intervene positively and turn disappointed customers around.
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