Google’s search results are undergoing one of their most radical transformations ever, as a new “Search Plus Your World” format began rolling out on January 10th. It finds both content that’s been shared with you privately, along with matches from the public web, all mixed into a single set of listings. When logged in to Google.com, users will see their personalized results displayed more prominently, and in higher concentration, than Google’s previous personalized/social search results. The release is already stirring up great controversy, accusing Google of showing bias to content found within its own social network, Google+. Google claims that it is not displaying content from Facebook/Twitter/Flickr because each has not granted Google API access. In any event, Google is definitely showing bias to content within Google+, making Google+ more important than ever. From a SEO perspective, it is as relevant now as it ever was. The ever-evolving mix of Search and Social, however, just took a significant leap forward. A brand’s level of social engagement now plays a more significant role in organic search than it once did. A brand that is not engaging socially, or has ignored social integration within its site, is now at a major disadvantage from an organic search perspective – or, should we say, from a digital marketing perspective.

You are going to start to see this symbol ,  next to results that are personally relevant to you. Other results are assumed global/public web results.

You are defaulted into seeing personalized results, but can choose to see only global/public results as well.

To summarize, personalized results include:

• Listings from the web
• Listings from the web, boosted because of your personal behavior
• Listings from the web, boosted because of your social connections
• Public Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos (all of which are also listings from the web)
• Private or “Limited” Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos shared with you

Controversy | Privacy and Google Bias

This is already creating controversy, most of which are misconceptions, or can be explained.

Privacy - People are seeing their own personal/private results in what appears to be public (private photos, posts, etc.). Google now has access to your content, but only because you are logged in.  Really, this content is not visible to the public web.

Google Bias – Many are accusing Google of favoring its own content over other equally or more relevant content.  Much of the social integration appears to be favoring Google+ content.  Really, Google is showing content from Google+, but mostly because Facebook and Twitter will not (have not) opened the flood gates to their platforms. Google wants to show Facebook/Twitter/Flickr in “Search plus Your World,” but claims it can’t until each social network authorizes access. Twitter/Facebook/Flickr post too much content (not to mention behind log-ins), making it hard for Google to adequately crawl in real-time. It needs the API.

Read More:

What is it?
http://searchengineland.com/googles-results-get-more-personal-with-search-plus-your-world-107285

People claiming Google to unjustly promote itself in search, not other social platforms
http://searchengineland.com/search-engines-should-be-like-santa-107400

**Google claims, not favoring its own results… and is happy to talk to Twitter and Facebook about Integration
http://marketingland.com/schmidt-google-not-favored-happy-to-talk-twitter-facebook-integration-3151

How | a Practical Applications | Clarification from Matt Cutts
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/search-plus-your-world/

High level, how it affects SEO (a couple of points could be pulled from this article)
http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2012/01/how-google-plus-your-world-will-impact-seo.html

Why Google+ is now essential (at least for now) for all brands — some great points in this article
http://searchengineland.com/examples-google-search-plus-drive-facebook-twitter-crazy-107554

I’m an admitted Disney fan, so I was naturally psyched to see the upcoming re-release of Beauty and the Beast in 3D. I promptly liked the Beauty and the Beast Facebook page and have enjoyed seeing behind-the-scenes nuggets, pictures and trailers scroll through my News Feed these past few months in preparation for the January 13th release date. Obviously, Disney has other film projects in the works, most notably, their new Pixar collaboration, Brave, a tale about a (wait for it) brave Celtic princess.

Disney is a massive brand, with fan pages for each of their titles, theme parks, subsidiaries and more. So it makes sense that some cross-promotion takes place – heck, it’s a no-brainer. But I was surprised to see a bit of clever tagging on a post the other day:

Posting a picture from the movie, the Beauty and the Beast fan page captioned the photo with a cutesy warm fuzzy about bravery and fate. But soft, what tag through yonder update breaks?! They cleverly inserted the title of their new Pixar movie, tagging it and leading fans to Brave‘s own Facebook page.

I paused at this. Clever? Or spammy? Sure, it’s all Disney, but do I want a Beauty and the Beast experience divorced of other Disney properties? Or do I want to see how this movie fits with the overall Disney brand experience? I asked the office here at Sitewire and received some interesting responses, of which I’ve included some snippets:

I don’t see an issue as long as you’re cross-promoting within your own brand. -Sandy Catour

Sneaky sneaky…BUT I love it!! Pretty smart if you ask me -Paige Dell’Armi

I’ve seen a lot of things from Disney sort of uniting the common thread between their heroines. For any other brand, I might say that this is spammy cross-promotion that takes advantage of the tagging functionality. For Disney, it’s furthering a message that has been integral to them for years, while at the same time showing that they still produce films that instill the same values in young girls. -Emily Voris

So, seems like most people liked the idea, but recognized that it walks a fine line, and, perhaps, it’s only okay because Disney did it. But maybe it’s not so much the fact that cross-promotional tagging took place, but how it was used. For example, instead of working the tag into a sentence (which, by the way, is not a quote from Beauty and the Beast – might have been different if it was), why couldn’t they have been a bit more transparent? What if they had captioned the photo differently?

Belle is a strong and independent character. And in keeping with Disney’s long line of inspirational heroines, Disney brings audiences Merida, a Celtic princess who makes her feature film debut in this summer’s Brave.

Regardless, it’s fun to see brands experimenting with Facebook’s functionality. And I’m psyched for both Beauty and the Beast in 3D and Brave.

What are your thoughts? Are there rules to cross-promotional tagging on Facebook? Let us know in the comments!

Google+ Pages present a new opportunity for brands to be represented and interact with their audience in social media. For brands with a social presence — or who would like one — Sitewire strongly recommends Google+ Pages as a next step in improving visibility online.

Do I need a Google+ Page if I already have a Facebook Page?

With very few exceptions, yes! The adage says to “fish where the fish are,” and Google+ and Facebook represent different ponds of active users. The Google+ user base is already 50 million strong, and growing, comprising a young, affluent, early-adopter audience. In addition, the Google+ feature set offers some new options that Facebook does not, including delivering targeted messaging via “Circles” and live video chats.

Google+ had been promising to roll out pages for organizations since the social network launched in June 2011. As of Monday, businesses are able to create Google+ Pages for themselves in one of five categories:

• Local Business or Place
• Product or Brand
• Company, Institution or Organization
• Arts, Entertainment or Sports

These pages will function similarly to Facebook in that Google+ users can “circle” (or subscribe to) to the G+ Page to receive all of the content published on your brand’s page. Unlike Facebook, Google+ Pages are allowed to do many of the same things that a personal account can do, including:

• Share photos
• Share videos
• Share links
• Conduct Hangouts (a live video chat feature)
• Highly target specific messages to specific groups

How do I get started with a Google+ Page for my brand?

All you need to create a page is a valid Gmail email address. Once this address creates a Google+ page for your business, it will be the only page administrator. Multiple administrator support is promised in the near future. Unlike Facebook, there aren’t “vanity” URLs available (yet) that use a business name rather than a long string of numbers.

Google+ pages can be a great way to connect to and engage with fans of your brand, and we recommend taking one of the following actions:

1. Let us do it for you! While Google+ Pages certainly aren’t a tactic on their own, the growth we’re seeing this new channel — along with the immediate integration to the powerhouse that is Google — can’t be ignored.
2. Or if you just want to test the waters,  create your own Google+ Page.
3. Circle the Sitewire Google+ Page!

Regardless of which approach you take, a strategy to produce content and engage with those in your circles should be created based on your social media goals. Well… that third option doesn’t take much strategy, now does it?

We’re excited to watch this new property develop. Early indications point to a highly interactive but business-focused audience engaging on Google+. And for businesses, that’s a welcome addition!

A new graph has been making its way around the social media circles, part of an excellent white paper about long-tail CTR. While the piece was shared by some very smart people in the industry, and people that I have a lot of respect for, this kind of report makes me cringe because its implications are so often misunderstood. Here’s the graph:

As is true with any data, there’s plenty of room for misinterpretation. I think many  people get the wrong takeaway from this graph. Let me explain:

The wrong takeaway: “We need to get our site to the top of the search results, so we can get that click-through rate.”

That’s not what this graph means—it’s descriptive, not prophetic. You do want to get to the top of the search results, but a graph like this (or the similar ones from Optify or Enquiro) may be reflecting different types of search behavior that don’t actually benefit your site. I’m thinking of navigational searches and hyper-specific searches.

Navigational searches are the times when Google takes the place of bookmarks. We know the site we want to go to, but we have forgotten the specifics of the URL. I’ve personally looked over the shoulder of people who do this for everything, searching for “Google Docs” or “ESPN.” To drive this home, realize that every month there are 3 billion—with a “B”—Google searches for just the term “Facebook.” And there’s another 124 million hapless searchers each month typing in “facebook.com” as a search term. There’s even 30 million searches per month for “google.com,” searched for from Google search itself. In any of these cases, the first search result is always the right one.

Hyper-specific searches are just what they sound like, and are the cousin of navigational searches. For example, if I search for “HP Photosmart 4280 driver,” it’s clear that I’m searching for something specific, and it’s always the first search result—the first match in this case likely gets 90% of clicks, and the other results are useless.

The graph is still right, but the hazard is assuming that all search behavior is the same. When looking at these click-through rates, they make a lot more sense for generic search terms (“sports news”) than for something specific the searcher might have in mind (“ron artest hair infographic”).

The right takeaway: “We need to make the content on our site more relevant, so Google will reward it with higher placement.”

With Google’s algorithm changes over the last year, most notably its Farmer/Panda releases, a lot of the gaming of SERPs is gone. And that’s a really good thing.

In the good ol’ days of SEO (and this was white-hat SEO, too), human readability was removed from pages in order to make them more search engine friendly. A site title of “Doctors in Phoenix” was tweaked to be “Doctors Phoenix” to more closely match a high-volume search term. Individual pages were set up to capture specific search terms (“pediatricians phoenix,” “dermatologists phoenix”), with each page comprising a few paragraphs of keyword-rich text—pages that provided absolutely nothing useful to anyone who landed there. The good news is that Google is increasingly recognizing their treachery and penalizing them for it.

It sounds like an insurmountable task, but Google is legitimately rewarding real, human-relevant sites more than ever before. Our focus as marketers and business owners has to shift away from nit-picky details and loopholes of the Google algorithm back to people, and how real human beings consume content.

Ultimately, it would be just as fallacious to take this concept too far and assume that search engine rankings don’t matter—they matter immensely, and improving rank for a key search term can be an enormous boon to a company’s bottom line. The point, rather, is that our approach has changed. We should focus first on how humans will consume our site, and let Google reward us for the relevancy of our content—rather than focusing on Google itself. Once we do this successfully, we’ll get those terrific click-through rates.

And I’ve got a graph that can tell you all about it.

via androidguys

Two days ago, the buzz on the internet was all about Google+. (No, not Google +1. Drop the numeral and remove a space. How’s that for clarity of branding?) A handful of techno-nerds had their hands on it for a while, telling us that Google was finally making a solid push for the social space.

And we waited. But not for long.

Last night many of us who can’t stand to be anywhere other than the bleeding edge were allowed inside. Productivity dropped to all time lows as we kicked the tires and explored the corners of this new social network. I’m still a bit bleary eyed this morning, but I wanted to pen this quickly. See my earlier “bleeding edge” comment. Yeah, that’s me.

But I’ll let the social pundits tell you what is and is not cool in their own blog posts and news articles that will be flooding your inbox over the next week or so. Instead, I’m going to tackle Google+ from a marketing wonk perspective. That’s why you work with Sitewire, right?

What are the advertising opportunities on Google+?

None, really. Well, no more than Google already offers. I fully expect to start seeing Google-powered ads showing up all over Google+. Just like they show up all over the rest of the Google properties. Google has an excellent and ever-evolving contextually relevant engine that places ads. Getting more info about what users like and say will only make this better. Action: make sure you’ve got deep coverage in Google Content. It’s been important for a while.

Can my brand get involved in Google+?

Not in the way you are thinking. Unlike lots of social media properties, there is no “beachhead” (think profile or page) that a brand can establish. Google+ works with people’s existing Google accounts. Gmail. Reader. Calendar. You don’t have to “Go check Google+”. You see it as an integral part of the other Google properties you use on a daily basis. Action: Why exactly don’t you have a personal Gmail or Google Reader account? Go get one. Now.

Can I use Google+ to broadcast my message to people?

I cringe to say this, but yes. Like other social networks, sharing of links, images, and notes is an integral part of Google+. But all of this sharing is done at discrete levels. One or more Circles (think lists on Twitter or Facebook) must be selected for every shared item. You could put loads of people into one big list and broadcast out in their Stream. But considering how easy it is to add — and delete — people from lists, I expect tolerance for blatant promotional messages to be very, very low. But then again, I said that with Facebook and Twitter and was proven wrong. So YMMV. Action: Experiment with your content calendars. Go slow here. Please?

Should I drop everything and embrace Google+?

I wouldn’t go that far. We’ve seen Google stumble and fall many times as it’s made advances into Social. I think they are playing it smart by leveraging the vast network of users they’ve already accumulated through their various properties. But there may not be waves of people ready to get that much social chocolate in their productivity peanut butter.  Action: When Google opens up more invites, see if you can get one. Personally. Play in the space. And get ready to move if necessary. But don’t  neglect your other much more established properties.

Final thoughts:

This isn’t a Facebook killer. This isn’t a Twitter killer. It’s not going to kill anything. It’s worth watching and perhaps worth engaging. But it’s too soon to tell what the larger impact will be.

After years of deliberation and discussion, ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, voted to launch an initiative that will effectively allow for an unlimited number of Top Level Domains, or TLDs. As of right now, 22 TLDs exist — with .com, .net and .org the most recognizable — as well as nearly 300 country specific domains, such as .uk, .tv and .ly.

To call this announcement historic is an understatement.

Since inception, ICANN knew its TLDs were abstract organizers at best. Internet users have come to know no difference between .com, .net and .org. So if these TLDs hold new meaning, why not open the door further, allowing for more abstraction and the possibility of better organization at the same time?

But that doesn’t mean you should rush out and apply for .YourCompany. Or even .CommonNoun. First, there’s the fact that you have to pony up $185,000 just to apply. Not accepted? No refund. Then consider that this isn’t the same as registering a domain name. Because you aren’t registering a domain name. You’re applying to administer, manage, maintain and run a TLD. That is a serious technological hurdle to overcome. You’ll need more than a webmaster and a couple of DBAs to handle this. (Imagine operating the TLD “.org” as is today and the responsibilities attached.) This is an investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, annually. And if you can’t prove to ICANN that you’re technologically ready for the challenge, you won’t be accepted.

The first round of new TLDs could be available by July of 2012. In theory. Assuming the entertainment industry or other groups can’t get an injunction to stop this from happening.

Immediate recommended actions

None. But if you feel the need to do something, read the proposed 300+ page gTLD Applicant Guidebook from ICANN here: http://bit.ly/9eVyyx

Future recommended actions

• Keep alert. Once someone applies to own a TLD, a 5-month “evaluation process” begins. It’s open to public comments, and is when you need to have your lawyers looking out for your registered marks. All will be posted on ICANN.org.
• Look for opportunities. Right now, .com is the hot TLD. But maybe a new and more specific domain will make sense? If you sell eco-friendly products, wouldn’t you want to be in .green?
• Prepare for post-scarcity. Only having 22 TLDs keeps scarcity — and prices — for domains high. Once thousands are available, the market will change. If you’re contemplating a domain name purchase right now, reconsider. It could be much cheaper — or free — in a year. Cybersquatters are about to be out of business.
• Redouble your SEO efforts. It will take some time, but users will come to rely less on .com. That means people will turn to searching to find things even more often than they do today.
• Stay tuned. As we learn more about what this means, we’ll keep you posted.

Google is making significant effort in 2011 to blend social elements into its standard search results. In February, Google launched an update to further integrate Twitter, Flickr and Quora information within its standard search results. Only one month later, nearly a year after Facebook’s launch of the “Like” button, Google announced its rival, the “+1” button.

Google +1

Google now enables you to share recommendations within search results. To recommend something, simply select the +1 on a webpage or ad that you find useful.

The +1 button appears next to each search result. After selecting, your +1 recommendation will appear publicly in search results around the world and within your social circle (there are options to only recommend within your network). You will see the total number of +1s as well as how many and who of your social circle has +1′d. Your social circle is currently defined as people you are connected with via your Google profile (Gmail, Google Talk chat list, “My Contacts” group in Google Contacts, users you follow in Google Reader or Google Buzz). It is expected that in the future, Google will allow +1s outside of your Google profile, expected to link to Twitter, Flickr and Quora profiles. This is currently rolled out to a small percentage of US users. Not seeing +1s in search results yet? Join Google Experimental to turn the feature ON in your profile.

How will this affect Paid Ads?

• Increased Click-Through Rates are expected.
• All ads will be get +1 buttons.
• There is an opt-out form for advertisers. Sitewire expects positive results from the new feature and does not recommend opting out at this time.
• Clicks on the +1 button next to ads do not count as a paid ad click.
• Advertisers will be able to see stats about which ads are getting the most +1s.
• The way Google measures Quality Score will not change.
• Organic +1s will also show up in ads.

How will this affect Organic Search?

• Soon after launch we should see +1 stats in Webmaster Tools.
• Soon you will be able to add +1 buttons within your site alongside other social buttons (such as “Like” or “Tweet”). Put in a request to be notified when +1 feature is available.
• +1s speculated to be the new PageRank, or at least another signal in Google’s search algorithm.

The Future

There have been rumors that Google is creating its own social network and that the new Social Search features will be major components of the network. Google claims that it is not building a rival social network and that each of its new features are meant to be social layers to its search offering.

Yahoo! recently rolled out its rival to Google Instant, called Yahoo! Search Direct. Similar to Google Instant, Search Direct provides “Answers” to a user’s query as the user types.

Yahoo! claims its new feature is faster and produces more relevant results than Google Instant. Yahoo! claims Search Direct supports 15 different categories at this time, but could eventually expand to include hundreds of categories. Some of the categories at this point include sports, music, celebrities, weather, news, shopping and local. The program is currently in Beta, but can be seen here.

Answers vs Links

Yahoo! differentiates itself from Google by claiming to provide “Answers” rather than just “Links.” Search expert Danny Sullivan compares both tools head to head. While Yahoo! claims to be the superior product, it fails to win this comparison test. It is not correct for Yahoo! to argue that Google does not provide “Answers.” Google displays answers as well, and possibly in a superior fashion.

New Ad Opportunities

Yahoo! states that over the next few months it will offer the ability to advertise within Search Direct. Yahoo! may allow advertisers the ability to embed images or videos in the right-pane. Sponsored and branded results will appear in the display box as well.

On The Yahoo! Horizon

Yahoo! is interested in incorporating more social elements within its search results. Yahoo! wants to incorporate Facebook results into its search, as well as display information based on what your friends have searched or shared.

Evaluation

Yahoo! is still playing the catch-up game in terms of remaining relevant in the search world as it continues to lose search market share to Bing and Google. It was 6 months late on Search Direct and is currently working to incorporate social layers into its search results, also something Google has already done. Yahoo! could, however, differentiate itself from Google if it could successfully merge Facebook data within its standard search results, something Google and Facebook have failed to agree on…yet.

via Flickr (DoubleM2)

By now, you’ve heard the story about how retailing giant JC Penny got caught up in the perils of “link building.” Google is applying little “negative feedback” (my term) which will likely prove more costly than the fees they paid to the black-hat-wearing SEO firm that did the deed. Several SEO pundits, including Search Engine Land, have analyzed the recent situation so there’s nothing much more we can add to the story.

Except this: be very, very careful.

It’s far too easy for a client to turn to purported experts and say, “Ok, we trust you. Do what you need to do to get us good results.” There are lots of bad ways to handle digital marketing. Bad SEO. Bad advertising. And sometimes, as JC Penny is discovering, those bad things can bite back.

So now you’re expecting me to say, “Hire Sitewire! We don’t do bad things!” True, but that’s not the intent of this post. Yes, I want to provide a cautionary tale, but it’s more about knowing what your outsourced firms are doing than anything else. You have to ask hard questions. You have to sometimes look under the hood to find out what is happening. Too much is on the line to leave it to chance, or to have things done on your behalf that you are unaware of. Not that I want you to get paranoid, but it’s time to be a little less trustworthy. Trust is earned.

For the record, we don’t do link building here at Sitewire. We think quality links start at home, and recognize the importance of relevant and remarkable content as the cornerstone to getting people to give you the all-powerful link. While “if you build it, they will come” isn’t exactly true when it comes to attracting links, it’s a much safer approach than trying to game the system. So don’t.

While we do a whole heck-of-a-lot more than search, we still do a lot of it. Our focus is on sustainable search engine optimization practices that help Google, Bing and other engines notice and properly rank your content. We will never knowingly engage in practices that are frowned upon by the publishers, be it link building, doorway pages or any other black-hat techniques. Heck, we don’t even like the grey ones!

But as mentioned earlier, black-hat techniques aren’t limited to SEO. There are serious no-nos when it comes to paid ads. Social marketing is a ripe market for abuse. Let’s face it – deceptive practices in advertising are as old as… well, advertising. It’s a slippery and sometimes slimy world out there. Try not to get any on you.

With the recent completion of Coca Cola’s Expedition 206 social media project, I started thinking about how this global brand utilized social media on a huge scale, but at the same time, how regional markets were responsible for their share of the promotion. Many brick and mortar brands have their marketing managed by a corporate office, a central hub that controls the messaging that filters necessary communications down to the many locations around the country, region, etc. But is that really the best way to do it?

We are in an age where the global market can be as small as you want it, but the truly local market is becoming increasingly more powerful. People in Kansas don’t want to be treated the same way as people in California, and if you aren’t utilizing your local teams to drive the individual market messages, are you really speaking to your customer in their language? Sure, you may have a Facebook page and offer responses back to the people who identify themselves as coming from different areas, but how in-touch with them can you possibly be, when you’ve never even been to Topeka?

Brands like Coca Cola are trying to leverage the wisdom of their local experts, their regional marketing teams, to truly make that local connection – and that’s going to be infinitely more valuable than making sure every message is on point with corporate communication. Training your local representatives in corporate messaging needs to suffice, and then give them the ownership and flexibility to communicate with their customers.

Many times messages in the social media space are complaints, or notices that a customer had a less than stellar experience. Getting an apology from the head of corporate marketing for a restaurant or retail outlet is great, but what’s even better is the manager recognizing the customer’s experience or acknowledging that they know the staff member they are speaking of and that the matter will be handled by them. The local customers feel respected and heard, and expect that the issue will be handled expediently. Everyone knows corporate giants move slowly. I’d imagine a manager at my nearest location could make things right with a gift card or free dessert a lot faster than a corporate office thousands of miles away.

Train your representatives to understand social media, ask them to spend some time at the beginning or end of their day (after they check out the corporate intranet) to review and respond to messages that are specific to their location. Ask them to post about things going on in their area, or send posts to your corporate office to announce to the relevant audience. Respect the local market enough to have their local resources speak directly to them. Trust your staff to know how to represent your brand to their neighbors. Creating a better local bond will help national and global brands succeed in this time when going local is all the rage.