by on March 12, 2012 in Google, Social Media, Social Media Marketing

Google’s Search, Plus Your World And What It Means For SEO

Google’s New “Search, Plus Your World” And What It Means For Your SEO Campaign

What Is “Search, Plus Your World”?

We already know from Gmail advertisements that Google watches our every move. 

Now, Google is inviting us to check out Search, Plus Your World, which tracks your actions to provide a more personalized search experience. If you are already using Google’s social network, Google+, your search results will automatically be personalized while signed in. If not, you can upgrade to Google+ to get this search experience.

Google’s personalized search uses your web history – what you ended up clicking on and where you spent the most time – to place your previous search results higher up the next time you go searching. Google notes that “searches completed while Web History is paused won’t influence your search results.”

Connect with Klik Marketing on Google + 

However, Google still allows you to switch on and off your personalized results.

             This Icon In The Upper Right Hand Corner Means That You Are Viewing Personal Results

               This Icon Means That Personal Results Are Hidden

So far, however, people aren’t reporting drastic changes between their general and personal search results unless they have done some serious Google research on a topic in the past. The one big difference is the appearance of Google+ results in the SERPs.

How Can I Leverage My Google + Account For SEO?

Simple – do what you can to get more +1’s. Google+ is no doubt Google’s push to stake its claim in the online world of social networking. But it’s also a way Google can rank your site based on user-generated content.

It’s time to get on board the Google+ train for the sake of your company’s ranking within the organic search results. SEOMoz CEO Rand Fishkin and some other SEO geeks recently tried an experiment where they asked lots of people to +1 a site. They successfully got the site from 16th rank to 6th in no time. (Drag your mouse immediately to the right of a url in the Google SERPs to see the +1 button appear.)

Remember, Google owns the search market, and they have the control over how Google+ will influence the results. And so far, it looks like they are placing a good bit of importance on their social network in the SERPs.  

Google+ In Search Results- The blogosphere is lighting up with instances of Google placing Google+ results over relevancy in the organic search results pages. Check out this post from Search Engine Land for some examples.

Others are simply remarking that they’ve noticed a lot more Google+ results appearing from people they’ve put in their “circles” in their organic search results. Not surprising considering that Google said “relevant Google+ posts and comments that have been shared with you will now appear in your search results.” What does this mean? Type in your friend’s name and you’ll actually get the “John Doe” that you know, not some other guy. Images search will also include pictures from your friends and Picasa albums.

Google+1 For Human Relevance – Google+ could help Google overcome a big obstacle in the current search algorithm. It has been trying to develop a crawl bot that can determine the relevance and quality of a website. The Google+1 button allows users to do that work for them.

Instead of relying solely on keywords and backlinks, humans can tell Google which sites are most important with the single click of a button.

So, what to do? Get a Google +1 Button on your website landing pages. Try to post interesting content on your Google+ page to get others to +1 you. Make +1 profile connections by adding people to your “circles.” 

Connect with Klik Marketing on Google + 

The Klik Marketing Blog is your source for Charlotte SEO and Small Business topics. It is written by Klik Marketing founder and President Eric Fransen. Eric has been involved with the Internet Marketing industry since the late 1990’s.

Comments { 0 }

by on September 6, 2011 in Conference, Social Media, Social Media Marketing

Lesson from B2B Social Media by David Thomas at Social Fresh in Charlotte NC

Lessons From B2B Social Media by David B Thomas, Radian6

Many times B2B social media has unique challenges and long sales cycles. When we focus on social for B2B, we learn that there are some differences, small and big, that we can all learn from.

B2B Social Media is Important! There are longer sales cycles and more influencers in the process. The sale will be higher dollar and there will be a higher value to the relationship.

  • Importance of the Social Graph – Data that search engines serve up to you will be determined by people that you are connected to in social media. 
  • Reach is Still Important
  • Content Rules – Important to share information that is useful, timely and relevant to your influencers. 
  • Emotional Aspects of Purchase Decisions – Social Media helps you form an emotional attachments to your possible customers.
  • Everybody Loves a Good Story – Engage people with interesting content.
  • The Bs and Cs are all People – Everybody want to be informed, entertained, engaged, etc.

Take Aways

  1. Have Social Media Guidelines in place for your employees. 
  2. Guidelines need to be clear and concise.
  3. Include Do’s as well as Don’ts. Show them examples of “good” engagement.
  4. Give real world examples of how to engage. 
  5. If you need some guidelines go to www.socialmediagoverance.com

Tie Social Media to your Business Objectives

  1. Social Media is a set of tools, not a strategy unto itself.
  2. Tie your efforts to existing bottom-line business objectives.
  3. Decide how you will measure success.

Use What You Have

  1. Develop a content mindset.
  2. Create a content calendar.

Give Your People the Tools

  1. People are talking about your company whether you are there or not.
  2. Customers are sharing their needs, their hopes, their dreams
  3. Prospects are asking questions about you.
  4. You don’t need focus groups anymore. Just use social media

David’s word of advice….. “Listen, Discover, Measure and Engage”!

Nice Job David! Really enjoyed it!

 

Comments { 0 }

by on September 6, 2011 in Conference, Conversion Optimization, Social Media Marketing

Data Driven Social Media Marketing by Eric Boggs at Social Fresh in Charlotte NC

How to learn from the data of your social media marketing?

How To Learn From the Data Behind Your Social Media Marketing by Eric Boggs, Argyle Social Media

Join the CEO of Argyle Social and discover how to maximize your social exposure and ROI by unlocking the insights in your data.

Conversions?

  • Social Media Marketing = Marketing
  • Marketing = Driven by Outcomes
  • Social Media “should” be driven by conversions. 

Four Social Media Insights

  1. RSS Automation Works – Doesn’t matter if you manually publish content or if you let the RSS feed take it over. 
  2. Scheduled Posts Generate Clicks, but Not Conversions – There’s a timeliness premium. Real-posts work better for revenues. Scheduled posts drive traffic and Timeliness drives conversions (revenues).
  3. Hashtag Stuffing Doesn’t Work – Don’t target content to hashtags. Target timeliness.
  4. Curating Drives Click… Creating Drives Conversions – Over-curating is ineffective. Over-promoing isn’t as ineffective as you might think. 

Two types of marketing channels

Intent Generating Channels – Builds consumer awareness and interest
Intent Harvesting Channels – Capture consumer intent to purchase and drive them to the cash register. 


Two Types of Conversion Tracking

Multi-Touch Tracking – Attributes revenue to all the channels that touched the consumer. See Google Analytics Multi-Funnel Conversions. 
Last-Touch Tracking – Attributes revenue to the last channel that touched the consumer. 
Thanks Eric – Nice Job! 

 

Comments { 2 }