Its a strange use of the above idiom however I have to say it was one of the first things that came into my head having now had the ‘pleasure’ of Google’s new expanded social functionality within the new mainstream Google search results pages. One may suggest I am averse to change, however this couldn’t be further from the truth. For most SEO’s change has become part of the job description, as Google tweak, change, test to ‘give users the best experience’ – and for many of us it forms part of our wider night time activities (I know what your thinking) in terms of various affiliate and business ventures many SEO’s have behind the scenes.

Change is something in particular, SEO’s have had their fair share of over the last six months or so – and certainly the changes announced by Google yesterday are comparable to many of the earlier changes announced by Google during that period. The integration of features such as more personalised results, the integration of personalised images could have a profound effect on how users interact with their search engine.

Further more the people and pages functionality provides a greater level of detail and personalisation into my search results, as Google integrates the wisdom of the crowds into my personalised web experience.

There is one big problem with much of this most recent rollout and that is the with the degree to which personalisation is beginning to impact on the entire search experience. One can see what Google are trying to do here, and I can see the logic in doing so however much like many of their other recent tweaks and changes it comes with a degree of cynacism attached. Strange again that we see a product rolled out yet again which significantly favours Google real estate above and beyond that of many other real estate (not going to get into the subject of co-incidence, correlation etc here) but much of this does appear to favour their inventory in the search engines. Further to that, the fact much of this new advancements come as standard, and one actually has to turn this off to get a non personalised experience.

This has one significant drawback, it relies on on engaged Google+ audience to work – however in my eyes it shares many similarities to the days where Microsoft Windows defaulted to Internet Explorer as standard and where Windows came on the majority of PC’s out there. Microsoft pushing Microsoft and the similarities to those days appear to be there for all to see. Its going to be interesting to see as with Microsoft whether we see any impact from bodies like the FTC as to privacy or antitrust concerns – however certainly I would be surprised in the short term as to whether we will see anything of that scale of here (though be interesting to see how the Germans and US deal with this.)

The fact it needs Google+ to be effective could work too fold. This does feel more like a direct shot across the bows at Facebook. A real big shot aimed at stealing userbase away from the social monster that is Facebook. This could be an absolute masterstroke from Google, it could also be a significant flop and one which may have significant repurcutions. We can only wait and see on that one. With that in mind, we come back to the idiom above. Google appear to be throwing significant weight behind Google+ now – and more closely tying it into their primary commercial vehicle. However until Google really break that social vehicle and give me a reason to want to engage socially much as Facebook have done I still feel the real attraction to move away from Facebook isn’t there for one to change and as such may still leave this as underutilised. We will see…

Where I do feel Google could get real traction on this is if there was more impartiality. Twitter have already been vocal regarding their concerns on the rollout as is, and I would be surprised if we didn’t hear more from Facebook at some point. Integrating true wisdom of the crowds into such a personalised rollout would really throw credibility to this and create a more rounded perspective of peoples behaviours, likes and dislikes.

After all, my Google+ activity is certainly not a reflection on my personal character and thus this links me to possibly the biggest issue of all. The success of this personalisation is very much dependant on an all in approach. That is me making Google ‘the center of my universe’ and sharing with it all aspects of my likes and dislikes. To do that as I said before they need to break that social barrier – as otherwise it will be nothing more than what I suspect it is now…

We ran a poll for the last couple of months or so asking people in the industry about which Google product they thought would be pulled next. The poll itself was developed following the announcement of the demise of Sidewiki – and a number of options were provided including

- Google +

- Feedburner

- Picasa

- Google Reader

- Google sites and others

Nearly half of respondants voted for two of the products namely that off Feedburner and Picasa with Google + following behind however I should add a number of those votes came before the announcement of the new business features for Google+.

Agree with the poll or will we see bigger changes in the wider field?

Its nearing the end of another year, and its been an interesting one both personally and for the blog itself -and to be honest I am looking forward to 2012 with renewed vigour. We have a number of big plans for the site to move it forward and I really look forward to bringing these to fruition in Q1 next year.

So from me – Merry Christmas to everyone from myself and Holistic Search and see you in 2012.

Its amazing watching how Google is evolving their presence across the search engine landscape. Yesterday we saw Bas’ post on State of Search regarding the continuing takeover of the SERPs with Google+ results, and at the same time we saw the introduction of the Google Comparison ads across the pond on many hotel based search queries.

Source: Search Engine Land

Google’s usage of these comparison ads is nothing new, we have seen similar products roll out here in the UK for secured loans for example for a couple of years, and more recently Google have taken advantage of the ITA purchase through the rollout of the flight search functionality. There have also been examples of further seperate vertical specific rollouts such as boutique.com over the course of the 12 months, in what appears to be a wider plan to dominate vertical aggregated search as well as the main piece itself dealing often with end users rather than middle men as much of the recent acquisitions have suggested (I would suggest we are not far away from seeing similar forays into Insurance (Beat that Quote) and Real Estate at some point in the very near future.

The hotels extention is however a sort of natural progression of what they have been doing less obviously over recent months. Many people would have noticed the more prominent maps on hotel centric queries, and further to that the categorisation of many of these hotels underneath (see below).

The new comparison ads would appear to merely make this more prominent within relevant searches, offering Google valuable real estate on the page in which to further monetize applicable searches.

As I have said before, I doubt this is the least time we will see Google monetize vertical search. Whether or not advertisers beat a path to their door is open to debate however the continued strategy would appear to be here to stay

Experienced SEOs know that there’s a huge difference between what Google and its fans declare to be ‘SEO best practices’ and what actually works to get sites to rank.

For those who are still struggling to make sense of this, below I’ve outlined a few SEO myths propagated by the likes of Matt Cutts and his adoring fanbase, and compared that to the real truth of the matter.

Paid Links

Probably the greatest myth in SEO is that buying links – paying a website money to place a link to your website – is a horrendously bad SEO practice and will get your site banned from Google’s SERPs.

The truth is, of course, that paid links are a massive grey area to begin with. Paying for inclusion in an online business directory is, for all intents and purposes, a paid link. Yet you’ll never get penalised for that. Also, many newspapers give extra column space and links to big advertisers, as part of their ongoing patronage. These are essentially paid links, yet you’ll be very hard-pressed to see any site penalised for engaging in such activities.

In fact, Google is so bad at detecting and acting upon paid links, that in some cases it takes enormous mainstream media attention for them to do anything about it. The JC Penney affair was one such case, and while it resulted in a temporary penalty for the site, it didn’t last very long.

So buying links – if you’re being smart about it – is a perfectly valid and relatively low-risk linkbuilding tactic.

• Google Says: Don’t buy links.
• The Truth: paid links work and are very hard to detect.
• What you should do: if you’re in a competitive industry, go for it.

Great Content

Google has been brainwashing encouraging webmasters to produce what they vaguely define as ‘great content’ for years. In fact dare you to find a Google Webmaster video produced in the past year here Matt Cutts does not utter the words ‘great content’.

So what is this ‘great content’ they speak of? Nobody really knows. The good news is, you shouldn’t worry too much about it, because ‘great content’ is just a load of bollocks.

The truth is that Google’s ranking algorithm leans heavily on links. You don’t need great content, you just need a shedload of links to rank for any given term. Links rule Google’s SERPs, and while the big G has been trying to wean themselves off of the link juice for years, so far they’ve been thoroughly unsuccessful.

Sure, having solid content on your site helps – you’d be a fool to build your SEO strategy purely on links alone – but chasing after that ‘great content’ hullabaloo is a pretty pointless exercise. Always deliver what your visitors want, but don’t go chasing after Google’s windmills. Focus on what works.

• Google Says: Publish great content
• The Truth: Nobody knows what great content is, and it doesn’t matter that much anyway
• What you should do: Don’t skip over your on-site optimisation and do make an effort on generating good content, but don’t go chasing after it to the detriment of more effective activities. Like linkbuilding.

Cheating

Google has been trying to discourage SEO methods it considers ‘cheating’ for almost as long as it has existed. There are a lot of tactics that can be considered cheating, including (but not limited to) cloaking, doorway pages, scraping other people’s content, link networks, and more of such fun.

The truth is, those types of activities are still widely used today because – you guessed it – they still work. Search engines are getting much better at detecting these and penalising sites accordingly, but overall it’s a running battle of search engines versus smart coders. My money is on the coders, because every time Google finds a cure for a specific tactic and burns a couple of sites, the coders just move on and try new approaches.

If your goal is to build a sustainably profitable website, such cheating tactics are probably not the best approach. But if you’re not too worried about losing the occasional website and are fine with the burn & churn approach to making money online, cheating works.

(Note how I avoided using any parlance involving colours and hats. That’s deliberate, because that whole shtick is sooo 2005.)

• Google Says: Don’t cheat
• The Truth: Cheating works – albeit often temporarily
• What you should do: Don’t cheat if you’re building a long-term business. But if you’re OK with disposable websites, by all means go for it. Just don’t break the law, m’kay?

Barry Adams is a seasoned SEO pro whose experience includes consulting for dozens of SMEs, and in-house SEO work for two massive multinational corporations and a large regional newspaper. Currently he’s the Senior SEO guy at Pierce Communications in Belfast, where he deploys his skills in aid of some of the Emerald Isle’s biggest brands.

With the recent ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union on the Inteflora/Marks & Spencers case regarding trademark usage and its direct impact on Paid Search, we are interested to know whether you think brands should be allowed to bid on competitor brand searches.

With many organisations using competitor bidding as a big part of their online acquisition strategies there is no doubting the potential impact this could have – however one may argue this could work two fold and in many cases may help larger organisations more than smaller ones.

Guest post from Jake Langwith

Well we are firmly settled into 2011 and all the predicted trends within search are hotly doing the rounds as expected. The usual suspects such as social and mobile certainly seem to poke their heads up above the others. I think it will be an interesting year and I’m sure a few surprises will spring out and send the usual ‘SEO is Dead’ crowd into blogging overdrive too.

But what’s going to be hot or not in the technical world of search is not the thing I am here to write about today. I’ll leave that to people in the industry who are far more knowledgeable than myself. Instead I’ll discuss the recruitment side of the business and the state of the market over the past twelve months and what I personally expect to see happen this year.

The media is full of doom and gloom stories with unemployment rising and still a major lack of jobs open. This is true for the majority of industries as most have taken huge hits financially and are still in consolidation phases with their finances. An area though which has come through the recession relatively unscathed though is SEO. Apart from a few notable surprises such as i-level going under back in 2010 the industry has actually prospered quite well.

The days of above the line advertising budgets being the prime focus have most definitely given way to an increase in the demand for natural and paid traffic via the search engines. The accountants have done their sums, played around with their spreadsheets and have realised that substantial amounts of income can be generated online for a fraction of the cost involved with more traditional marketing techniques. Of course this comes as no surprise to anyone remotely associated with search engine marketing.

2010

So what was 2010 like from a recruitment perspective? Well it was a pretty good year in all honesty and 2011 is going to be even bigger. During the first half of 2010 the market began to stabilise and a lot more junior roles became available as agencies saw an increase in business and looked to grow their teams in order to provide the man power needed for the day to day aspects of SEO and PPC. This invariably led to an increase in more senior roles within management as teams needed to be successfully led. Then towards the end of 2010 we saw a big upturn within the top end of the market with more director and heads of search positions coming up. This also resulted in a few well known industry figures making the news as they moved around.

Another change within the market was in the fact that more and more client side roles have become available with firms looking to build strong in-house presences to work alongside their agencies. A lot of these positions are obviously in highly competitive sectors such as travel and finance, but also we have seen a surge in technology companies hiring as they look to back-up their sales teams with other sources of revenue traffic. Some of the higher end salaries have also come from this side of the market as companies look to tempt agency workers away from their traditional career path with the lure of generous corporate benefit packages.

2011

So what will be the recruitment trends for 2011? Certainly more and more client side roles will become available and I am already seeing this with around 35% of my current opportunities falling into this category. It is also worth noting that many applicants are telling us now that they are only looking to move should a good client side position come up.

What kind of positions will be in demand this year?

Well natural search will lead the way as it has done over the past twelve months, with everything available from the executive end to director level. The majority of hires will most likely be in the mid level experience range based upon discussions with our clients at the beginning of the year. Paid search appears that it will follow closely along this model too.

Already we are being asked to source applicants with good social media experience too and several agency side clients have informed us of their intention to rapidly expand these teams.

Firms are certainly looking to increase their social presence and several are also indicating that we should keep our eyes open for people with any kind of mobile knowledge too. This is still very much an emerging market and the talent pool is very limited indeed. We’d expect this to be a highly competitive area and to see companies actively fighting for the few experienced people available.

There also appear to be less split roles where a reasonably equal mix of SEO and PPC skills are required, as companies look to focus their staff into specialist niches. This can only be a good thing as it indicates more roles on either side of the search spectrum will become available. This is a trend seen mainly amongst the smaller companies.

Now a very interesting development has been in the rise of analytics focused roles. We have seen a steady increase in these types of jobs with certain companies really putting in the effort to recruit hard core numbers guys to data mine and focus solely on analytics, optimisation, conversion tracking as well as A/B and multivariate testing. I’d expect this trend to continue and have noticed this is an area where new blood has entered the search sector as invariably companies need to hire from the finance sector. Quite simply put, the number of jobs in analytics outweighs the number of people currently working in this sector. We are even seeing a huge demand for social media people with analytics backgrounds as more firms look to identify the ROI from their social campaigns. This is certainly a trend to watch closely.

The senior end of search will continue to grow as there is a well developed flow of experienced people looking to make sideways or upward moves for various reasons. But one area that many clients are struggling with is finding good junior applicants. There is most definitely a lack of graduates entering search and those that do often fall into the industry by accident.

More effort needs to be done to promote the types of roles available as SEO and PPC don’t appear to be buzz words with those job seekers who are new to marketing. The role of traditional marketing both online and offline are what they expect to enter into and it’s often only when they are assigned to a search team that they get an insight into what is a very stable job market.
Problems with hiring

I’d foresee many companies actually struggling to attract experienced applicants this year as salaries have remained stagnant and it’s a simple fact that most people will not move for the same money or only minor increases. If someone with two years SEO experience is on £35,000 then don’t expect them to join you for the same figure, just because that is the industry ‘standard’. There are certainly a handful of companies where it is their policy to pay well and effectively put the ‘golden handcuffs’ on their staff. These tend to be the companies that have grown rapidly recently and managed to retain their staff.

Another problem is the complete lack of benefits offered by many companies in search. The days of a base and maybe a small bonus are long gone. This is one of the areas that has made client side jobs stand out. Search professionals who join these firms are invariably going to be entitled to things such as travel allowances, private health care (including their families and dental), private pensions, substantial bonus schemes, good holiday allowances as well as things such as season ticket loans & share options. And of course companies in particular industries can offer things such as discounted holidays, cheap insurance and as interest rate rise (come on, we all know this is going to happen) access to cheap finance and subsidised mortgages.

Do you really think an average basic wage will really compete? It’s a close community within search and word quickly gets out about the kind of packages being offered. I think some firms are going to bleed staff in 2011 and will find it extremely difficult to take on quality experienced people to replace them.

Of course there are also many other factors to be considered such as training and the types of projects being worked on, but at the end of the day, it’s a recession and people are most definitely thinking with their wallets.

I hope this has been of interest. In all honesty I have had to leave out a lot of more detailed information and have made this article a more general piece. Maybe I’ll be asked to write a few more detailed pieces focusing on employers, job hunting tactics and individual markets. Until then, rest assured, if you work in search you’re in a market that is not going to die anytime soon. It’s always nice to have some job security.

Jake Langwith is a professional headhunter by day, SEO consultant by night. Further to this he describes himself as a ‘seo junkie, social media geek, gadget lover and all round superhero into Japanese cooking’.

For those that have been visiting the Holistic Search blog during the last couple of weeks you may have noticed we have been running a poll on which conferences our audience would be looking at attending in 2011. This included a number of the leading UK conferences including SES, Dom Hodgson’s Think Visibility, Distilled/SEOMoz Pro SEO seminars and Sascon.

Unsurprisingly, SES ruled the roost however probably more surprisingly SMX didn’t feature very highly at all coming in behind the International Search Summit and Ad-tech.

Given that many participants are now pulling together their options for 2011, we have included promotional codes where applicable to the events should you wish to attend alongside the events.

1) SES London – February 22nd – February 25th


This is already taking shape with a number of great speakers already lined up including Dave Naylor, Patrick Altoft, Richard Baxter, Mel Carson, Ralph Tegtmeier to name but a few (as well as myself making a SES speaking debut ). The event this year has changed location and will be taking place down the road in Westminster at the The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Broad Sanctuary, London.

2) Sascon – May 19th – 20th


Moving from one day to two in 2011, Sascon is one of the conferences that could make a big impact in 2011. With speakers including Dixon Jones, Nick Garner, Dave Naylor and Joost De Valk amongst others now confirmed with a number of others in discussion this could significantly build on a promising 2010 debut.

3) ProSEO – TBC (October 2011)


With Distilled and SEOMoz, you wouldn’t expect any less than a pure SEO fest, and ProSEO delivers and more. Last years event went down very well and featured a number of high profile speakers including Rand Fishkin, Wiep Knol as well as the usual Distilled crew (ie Will/Tom et al).

4) Think Visibility – March 5th 2011


One of the best value conferences anywhere on the circuit – and one of the best conferences round to boot, both for the value of the event both during and the networking afterwards. Although search heavy, Think provides a little something for everyone – and its loyal following is symbolic of the stature in which the industry perceives the event. This March’s event is already looking good with David Naylor, Paddy Moogan, Gary Taylor (Highly recommend you see -was highly impressed by his presentation last year) and Paul Madden just some of the speakers confirmed for this years event

5) A4U Expo – October 2011 (TBC)


One of the most successful affiliate conferences around, however the affiliate title shouldn’t fool you. The conference offers a wealth of knowledge across the online marketing spectrum. Organised by Matthew Wood,the event normally takes place down at Excel in London. The speaker list is comparable with any of the major search events with a unique blend you won’t find anywhere else.

Other dates:
International Search Summit – May 2011 (TBC)
Ad-tech – 21st/22nd September
SMX London – 16th/17th May 2011

It should be a great year for the industry, and with a wealth of events currently available you are spoilt for choice.

There used to be a great image used by many of the presenters on the SEO circuit and beyond which suggested a ratio of between 80/20 and 70/30 clicked on organic search results over that of paid search results.

Much of this goes back to circa 2004 and before, and much of this appears to suggest a significantly higher proportion of google browsers utilising the paid search. However one has to remember, Google has changed ALOT in that time….

The days when the above assumptions/research was based was a very different animal. We have to bear in mind the significant changes that have taken place and the increasing maturity of the Google user in the modern day online environment compared against that of six years ago. This is something however I have continually seen used over the years, without any consideration for whether or not this still applies – most recently in an quote from John McGrath (head of Search for Chapter Eight in an article on the Marketer which also included Richard Gregory from Latitude and Teddy Cowell from Guava.

I would however suggest there are a number of reasons why the 70/30 search landscape may now be significantly different for a number of reasons:

The blurring of the lines

Lets compare the Google search page above, with that of the modern day search page (without taking into account any universal search results at this stage) – and we are presented with a very different landscape to that experienced in 2004, in particular:

• The Google layout is now three column. The net effect is a much busier landscape for users which offers secondary opportunities for paid Google targeting
• Paid Search results are now much much closer to the organic search results. The significant space between the two results is now minimal in comparison
• The prominent segmentation in terms of background colour between paid and organic search results is now no more. Side paid search results have the same background colour as the organic results and the top paid search results are only slightly different
• The text used to identify the paid search ads is now significantly smaller. Now just says ‘ads’. Recent research suggests the wording here can have a significant difference on paid search clickthrough rates – by as much as 33% according to a recent Harvard Study.
• Google have recently started testing paid search results at the bottom of the page. This could further encourage those users not finding results within the top paid or first paid organic results to click on a higher proportion of paid search ads.

Paid search expands into previously organic only areas

In the last couple of weeks we have seen paid search inventory move into traditional organic territory such as image search results for example. Many of these ads occupy prominent areas of the results pages, inclusive of images within the ads themselves,something that one would suggest would have a significant impact on clickthrough when compared against that of ads where no images had been utilised.

If we go back to the days where the original 70/30 rule was started, we have a very different landscape confined solely to the traditional search engine results. Whilst this is likely only to affect small volumes of potential search traffic, this is further evidence that Google in my opinion is trying and probably succeeding in changing searcher behaviour in favour of paid search inventory.

Organic activity impacting heavily on paid search inventory

One thing 2010 will be remembered for is the continuing evolution of paid search ads, something that appeared to have been left behind in comparison to the ever evolving organic search inventory. In particular we have seen some major changes with the following:

• Google product results showing in paid search ads
• Google review ratings showing in paid search ads
• Maps showing in paid search ads

One would suggest there is still signficant scope for more expansive ‘integrated’ search frameworks particularly in terms of

• Real Estate
• Travel
• Social Media
• Local

Better PPC campaigns and targeting

One has to suggest that paid search has evolved significantly over the last 5 or so years in terms of not just our understanding of how to run effective paid search campaigns but also in terms of the search engine management (both in terms of systems and MI).

Further to this, paid search managers continue with more and more organisations not utilising search (in particular) paid search the amount of available inventory is far higher again that we experienced back in the early days of search. As such this increased competition and available inventory means that more choice is thus available to potential customers. One would suggest that the availability of 10 paid search ads and 10 organic search ads is much more likely to allow potential consumers to choose from.

Reduced natural search results

Recently we have seen increasing reports of reduced organic search results being presented to searches, some seeing as low as 4 organic search results. This obviously swings the balance of favour heavily into the paid search inventories favour over its organic counterparts.

Many have suggested these may be very limited tests, so this is likely to only affect a limited number of potential searches however Google are continually updating their search results – many of these in favour apparently of their paid search inventory.

To conclude

When the initial click rations were devised the world was a very different beast.I can’t help thinking that the above ratios is due for a significant review,something I would have loved to have done as part of this post – however due to current circumstances was unfortunately not possible to do (physical data being the biggest issue here). However Google appear to be highly focussed on revenue generation, even more so than probably in subsequent years, and as such the balance of power has to have shifted during this period. With many previous examples we have highlighted, many of the tweaks made would appear to be about encouraging users to click on paid search ads. At the end of the day, we should face it at the end of the day Google is there to make money, why the hell should they not maximise their opportunities – organic search doesn’t make them any money

I would also suggest much of the data I have seen over the duration of my career would suggest to me that the ratios between organic and paid were nowhere near the 70/30 splits we often use in such discussions. My gut feel is that this is certainly lower than the 80/20 ratio I have heard mentioned during the writing of this post – and probably lower than the 70/30 we have used over the course of the last six or so years.

What do you think?

Its been quite big news this week – and certainly raised a couple of eyebrows both within the SEO community and the wider business world. Prices for the acquisition vary between $2.5 Billion and $6 Billion depending on what day of the week it appears to be – however there is no doubting that this is likely to make a sizeable dent in the rumoured $21Billion acquisition budget.

More recent reports would suggest that figure is between $5.3 to $6 Billion more than they brought both Doubleclick and Youtube for, and just fractionally less than what Yahoo is valued at at $10 Billion. When you take into account the lack of any direct intellectual or technological property, then that figure would seem excessively high for an online property who could be very quickly created by an organisation with the resources of Google. Further to this, there are no obvious barriers to entry, something to which you would imagine would have come into the mindset of any due diligence analysis.

Add to this Suchanta Mulpuru from Forrester Research suggests other reasons why this seems a balmy idea:

• The increasingly competitive nature of the industry
• Merchants themselves aren’t still fully brought into the idea.
• List Quality
• No track record
• Its wont transform Local Search
• Potential market size

With all that in mind, what could Google possibly want with an organisation which doesn;t appear to have much going for it. Certainly many of the articles I have written so far would suggest Google must be mad – however this was something we recently discussed on the State of Search radio show with Bas van den Beld and Roy Huiskes.

I would suggest one of the biggest reasons Google may be looking at the Groupon deal are two fold

1) Its current focus on Local

One only has to look at the migration of Ms Meyer’s role into Local to see how important Google are taking Local Search. With the traditional search market now well and truly in the bag in much of the world, Google are now focussing on the increasingly competitive local search market, with recent results page changes and the launch of Google Hotpot further evidence of this.

One may ask where Group on fits in – and why a more evolved Hotpot potentially couldnt fix that problem. Well essentially they are two different products, Groupon is a deal-of-the-day website that is localized to major market whereas Hotpot is essentially a peer review format.

However lets take a potential purchase of Groupon into the mix. All of the sudden you have boxed off an entire local framework – the ability for users to receive sales offers from the Groupon framework – and then subsequently review them within the self same vendor. All of the sudden its a far more attractive local offering in its own right.

When one considers that Ebay has just bought milo.com, Amazon is looking at buying Living Social and you get an idea of just how big the local battleground is going to get over the coming years

2) Its increasing focus on Social

Groupon professes to have around 33 Million signed up users, many of them actively engaged particularly across health, fitness and beauty. With use of Google accounts often sporadic, Groupon would offer a social destination from which users could actively engage with their Google accounts – something I would suggest Google has very little of within its current product inventory – as many others are often not useful for the general public.

Adding a tool such as Groupon would allow Google an interface in with the wider public – particularly in terms of local priorities and behaviours something which increasingly could be used to personalise and influence existing inventory.

Rumours suggest Yahoo were also looking at Groupon back in October, offering a rumoured $3 Billion, so in that context one would suggest that the figures being mentioned for Google’s acquisition are not that crazy. Some may suggest this may be crazy money but in the new local war – this could be just the shrewd move that could really pay dividends for Google….

News has broken that Jaamit Durrani, one of the rising stars of the UK SEO scene died last night. News is still scarce as to what has actually happened but I can’t put into words how sad it is to hear of his loss – someone who I met at a number of events and one of the nicest people I had the fortune to meet.

Theres no doubting the effect that Jaamit had on the industry particularly here in the UK and here are a couple of peoples thoughts since hearing the news:

:( Wow, tears have taken over me. I never even met @jaamit in person, but I feel that I knew him. My best wishes to his family. <3

November 26, 2010 11:38 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@jennita

Jennifer Sable Lopez

Very sorry to hear that @jaamit passed away yesterday. RIP.

November 26, 2010 11:41 am via Seesmic WebReplyRetweetFavorite

@DonnaFontenot

Donna Fontenot

Heard the terrible news that @jaamit passed away yesterday. My prays and thoughts go out to his family & friends. A great guy and true SEO.

November 26, 2010 11:39 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@illiyav

Illiya Vjestica

can I suggest a wonderful, friendly, supremely talented man for today's #ff : @Jaamit RIP

November 26, 2010 11:37 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@danbarker

dan barker

I am shocked about @jaamit - unbelievable. words fail me. An absolute gem of a person. :(

November 26, 2010 11:36 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@robwatts

Rob Watts

I was shocked and saddened when I got the call about @jaamit my thoughts and prayers go out to his family. We're all going to miss you mate

November 26, 2010 11:36 am via CoTweetReplyRetweetFavorite

@JudithLewis

Judith Lewis

can't believe the news about @jaamit. think everyone who knew him is feeling incredibly upset right now

November 26, 2010 11:35 am via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@traillblazerSEO

Marie Traill

Terrible to hear about Jaamit. One of the first SEO's I followed on twitter, doubt I'd be in Manc if it wasn't for him. RIP @jaamit. :(

November 26, 2010 11:34 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@rhyswynne

Rhys Wynne

Absolutely shocked and saddened to hear about @Jaamit. One of the nicest people I ever had the pleasure of meeting.

November 26, 2010 11:32 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@kieronhughes

Kieron Hughes

Just heard my friend @jaamit passed away yesterday my well wishes go out to all of his friends and family, sad day

November 26, 2010 11:32 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@AlCarlton

Al Carlton

Devastating :( I'm so very, very sorry RT @rishil Yes the sad news is true. @Jaamit passed away yesterday. No more details. But god bless.

November 26, 2010 11:31 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@AngsCopywriting

Angie Nikoleychuk

@jaamit SEO community - so sorry to say that Jaamit passed away yesterday due to a tragic tube incident -i will be in contact with more info

November 26, 2010 11:08 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@searchmitch

mark mitchell

I am sorry I don't know what to say, memories of sitting next to you and our pool games come in mind @jaamit RIP - tears wont stop

November 26, 2010 11:45 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SauravRimal

Saurav Rimal

Jaamit, you were an absolute legend – and you will be very sadly missed

My thoughts and condolences go out to his family at this time

When Eric Schmidt eluded to Google.me comprising of social layers rather than a full blow social network , many in the industry wondered as to how this would manifest itself within the Googlesphere. Very much the layers of an onion we are slowly starting to see the Google layers starting to unravel, layer by layer.

With the launch of Hotpot, we are seeing the first forays by Google into the local social environment, a domain often associated with the likes of Foursquare and Facebook.

The premise of Hotpot is very simple – personalised results influenced by what you – and your friends like. Unlike similar locational tools such from Facebook and Foursquare, Hotpot is less about where you are and more about what you like. Hotpot uses Google Places data and overlays reviews and ratings from you and your friends. It recommends places based on how you’ve rated similar things. Might it eventually be merged with Google’s other location, social, and other services to provide a robust Foursquare-like experience? That would seem logical but for now at least, it’s entirely separate and in my opinion possibly a little too far removed.

Further delving into the Hotpot experience I felt was similarly underwhelming. Yes there is a degree of personalisation to this, however I cant’t help feeling stopped short of a robust social tool, that would appeal to the wider public. As with other review based services on Google, reviews are pulled from a number of different sites, so the opportunity for significant exploitation from the likes of me and the majority of readers of the blog would appear to be fairly limited. That said, one would suggest this could provide a scalable opportunity to develop ones social and brand campaigns in order to integrate these key review sites or alternatively provide the opportunity for new authority review sites.

This would also seem to be the first of many Google related tools I have started seeing out in the either. Google affiliated sites such as

• boutique.com
• Ventures such as homeaway

appear to becoming more and more commonplace, and one would only suggest there may be more and more of these Google assets popping up should we start looking at Google’s recent acquisition trail.

I have to say, my first impressions of Hotpot were not particularly favourable. It still has a heck of a long way to go to become anything that could become heavily mainstream, and would appear to lack the clarity of thought of integrated offerings from the like of Facebook. Whether or not this is another example of half thought through ideas in response to competitor activity (lets face it Facebook were in the middle of announcing improvements to their offering) – or another complex layer is still to be seen. However I would suggest that without significant further investment its only going to go the same way as other duds such as Wave…..

If you would like to know more about Hotpot, Vanessa Fox has done a fantastic write up on the Search Engine Land site.

There has been a lot of people who have asked me recently about what is happening with me. I can confirm that I am leaving Mediavest Manchester after nearly two and a half fantastic years as their Head of SEO. It wasn’t a particularly easy decision to make but my new destination provided me with a new challenge which I am incredibly excited about.

Mediavest is a great organisation, and I feel I can be incredibly proud of what I achieved there alongside Jon Myers (soon to be at Yahoo) and Elliot Muscant – and feel that I have departed at a time where the SEO team is in a good shape to compete with the biggest agencies in the UK. With new blood such as Tom Cull now at the top, their are new ideas and new drive.

However my new opportunity was brilliant, one I really couldn’t turn down and working with some very clever people – and building upon the skills I have developed during my 9 years in the industry. The new role, also as Head of SEO will offer me the chance to further develop an existing team – working with some of the biggest clients in the UK.

As a final note – I would like to thank both Jon Myers and Elliot Muscant for the opportunity at Mediavest – as well as a fantastic team who I got to share some fantastic moments with with some truly superb clients and wish them both indivdually and Mediavest all the best in the future – unless of course they come up against me

It may be the end of one era, but its the start of another……

There used to be a time when as marketeers, us SEO’s sat as a very siloed bunch – but times have changed and continue to change at breakneck speed. SEO techniques are increasingly more sophisticated, and with it the way SEO practioners measure and evaluate campaign success, something we covered during a recent post on whether rankings as a metric for success were dead.

One area which is developing very quickly are analytics. Traditionally many SEOs have used traditional tools such as Google Analytics to evalaute their campaign impact much of the time in isolation to other activity which may be going on within an advertisers marketing ix, however as the influence of SEO has grown the traditional big boys within the paid search campaign management marketplace have started to take notice.

In particular, two tools have started to make interesting manouvres into the organic marketplace, namely Atlas and Doubleclick. Before I go further its possibly worth highlighting why I say interesting. Lets create a scenario:

• Client x is running three channels namely PPC, SEO and Display, of which that client is monitoring/managing their campaigns via Doubleclick – SEO is monitored for traffic purposes through Google Analytics – a scenario I would suggest many SEO’s are used to.  For simplicity sake we are only going to use PPC and SEO here though.
• At the end of the month PPCagency A reports on their traffic, leads/sales and lead/sales revenue to the client, using last click attribution from their monitoring systems. At the same time SEOAgency B does the same  – however using Google Analytics as their source for data.
• Client x gets the report and concludes that PPC leads + SEO leads = overall leads and does not take into account any potential cannabilisation from the above mentioned sources.

The problem with the above scenario in a traditional sense is that we are going to have a fairly significant volume of doublecounted leads in the scenario highlighted above for the following reasons

• The PPC tracking system in all likelihood has not been configured to monitor organic traffic and as such will set the cookie for last click to PPC.  Say the user then goes away from the site – and then returns via an organic result – the analytics would pick this up – however the paid search monitoring system will not
• The user then goes on to convert and gets counted as a lead via GA for organic search and as a lead for paid search via the tracking system there. Same lead but attributed to two differenct channels….

Traditionally this has been a very difficult situation to overcome – however increasingly these Paid Search management systems are starting to migrate into the organic search landscape. With Doubleclick for example, one is now able to track organic search like never before, allowing the opportunity to pivot, query and integorate data like never before.

Lets take the scenario outlined above, and incorporate these tools into the framework with a central tracking system in place such as Doubleclick:

• User enters the site via PPC.  User then goes away from the site and returns via organic search. Depending how my system is configured this would now correctly be attributed as an : organic visitor (if last click), paid search visitor (if first click) or blend of paid/organic (if blended option) has been chosen.
• The same principle as highlighted above would then be attributed to conversion as well.

Last Click and Multi-touch attribution models both have their own pros and cons. Many argue that the last click is the most beneficial as around 75% of conversions can be attributed to a single click, however there is an increasing appreciation of the role of other channels apart from search within the conversion matrix. Further to this, assigning attribution back to Local or even offline activity is increasingly important in a blended marketing world.

Such a framework provides a far more ‘realistic’ overview of a clients search landscape and a much truer representation of the true commercial impact of their marketing activity. Doubleclick is one of the tools on the market would appear to have the upper hand at the current moment in time, however other tools Atlas shouldn’t be discounted and what these systems now allow organic search practioners to monitor and report on is the true search engine landscape – often taking into account full channel attribution modelling or ‘search path analysis’.

I should add these aren’t the only two systems on the market – however what I would highlight is that I can’t help thinking having run these blended campaigns on a number of accounts that it provides a much more more intelligent framework to work in where paid search and organic search are configured to work completely in synergy with each other. At the end of the day talk a language that is consistent to both effectively allowing you to compare apples with apples – which I can’t help thinking means less work and more time to spend doing what really makes the difference to your clients  – increasing visibility.

There has been a lot of drivel written over the last couple of weeks – magnified by the Google Instant launch at the beginning of September. Interestingly many of these have centered on the ‘SEO is dead’ angle, the first being Steve Rubel from Edelman and more recently one from Techmap profisicing the same thing. Many of these articles seem to have an underlying tone of SEO being replaced with social media or derivatives thereof or merely removed from a consumers behaviour due to technical changes.

Its disappointing to see articles such as that written by the Techmap rabble suggesting the death of SEO and apparently suggesting budget should be migrated towards social. Whilst there is no doubting the role social media and engagement can play in the online marcomms mix, this needs the support of other channels both on and offline – particularly when one looks to monetize such campaigns in terms of its effect on ROI.

Through many of the agencies I have worked with, integrated SEO has been key. That is not just in terms of the integration of SEO with paid search but how SEO works and integrates with other marketing channels including press, display and affiliates. Note here the mention of integration rather than replacement. These channels are not working in isolation but rather together to produce the best results for the client. Further to this there have been a number of ‘studies’ in terms of the effect of Display/Social media etc on SEO both in terms of ‘share of voice’ (visibility) and in terms of direct return on investment. A recent .Fox Networks/Comscore study found the following:

1. Video and display advertising both successfully increased brand engagement in each of the four campaigns analysed. The average uplift across the campaigns saw site visitation increase by more than a factor of seven over a four week period following exposure to an ad, with consumers three times more likely to conduct search queries using brand or relevant generic terms in the same time period.
2. When evaluating video and display side by side, consumers exposed to video advertising were 28 percent more likely to visit the brand site and nearly twice as likely to conduct a trademark search.
3. Confirming expectations and previous industry understanding, video was able to generate a more immediate impact in the first five exposures than display ads in terms of increases in site visitation and search queries; however, behavioural response for those exposed to display climbed steadily as the number of ad impressions increased..

This highlights quite effectively the natural effect of display advertising directly on the search landscape, and further to this there have been a number of research studies related directly to the impact of social on SEO (further to this the direct impact of social related links and subsequent linkage activity highlight the power that channels such as organic search. Such activity could similarly be done on the effect of TV etc on social media (take for example the Evian TV ads, or Meerkat ads here in the UK whose adverts have gone supersonic on Youtube.

Convergence in media
It is thus more important than ever to think of a converged media, rather than channels in isolation. Increasingly clients are looking for more bang for the buck – particularly given the current economic climate – and as such every pound spent will be scrutinised. Isolating other channels thus is likely to not result in the increased spend you are looking for (well perhaps short term), but rather a lack of understanding of the digital mix.

I have long since advocated that SEO supports multiple channels and really should be central to your marketing communications

• TV – Online distribution of video. Development of Youtube branding/presence etc.
• PR & Press – Online PR and Blogger Relations
• Radio  – Podcasting/Vodcasting + Social Seeding

All these offline channels can work a lot harder when working in collaboration with a digital specialist, simply using these offline is only telling half the story – particularly given that more and more people increasingly are online whilst watching TV or consuming other media.

A Holistic Search Approach
Increasingly agencies in particularly are looking at search as an integrated piece, rather than SEO and PPC operating in isolation. This increasingly can offer

• Greater efficiencies in spend where spend
• Greater share of voice
• Increased awareness of the search landscape as response can be measured side by side rather than in isolation
• Greater awareness of the search path – that is how people interact with your site.

One of the tools aiding such innovation in the sector is the number of tools now able to provide a more blended overview. Take for example Doubleclick, once the domain of Paid Search, which now is able to track natural seach. Such tools allow a more blended overview to be presented, and a more accurate one as one tool is able to offer the insight on both a last click and contributory model – something which is essential to any succesful campaign planning framework.

So what for the future

Rather than the doom mongers which suggest the end of search engine optimisation, one can’t help but feel positive for the future of SEO. Yes our landscape is evolving but surely that has to be a good thing to a certain extent. We as SEO’s now have far more scope of influence than we have ever had, and given the increasing budgets which appear to be migrated towards SEO one has to suggest clients are increasingly aware of how this can be used successful.

Google Instant won’t be the last big change we will have to deal with, there will be more coming – but lets face it without organic search provides the search engines wuith a level of balance, something which is often difficult to achieve purely via paid search inventory, where bigger clients can afford to drive bigger campaigns, with more widespread visibility.  Sure Google is looking to increasingly monetize its real estate – however we have to tailor this with its strive for relevance – and that is where SEO is key to Googles future plans

Link Building in Real Life – Think Visibility 04-09-10

First serious panel at the day with Gary Taylor (a Think Visibility speaking virgin) – covering a number of aspects to keyword domains and mini-sites. Gary is a domainer – who buys, sells and developers domain names.

His first slides covering the basics of keyword domains, namely

• Exact Match is essential
• Localised domains can often help in localisation – particularly if you have a domain which is a key traffic driver within a particular vertical

Mini-sites as the name suggest are just that – small websites – consisting of between 1-10 pages. With these sites be very keyword specific don’t get carried with lots of SEO work – but focus specifically on those terms with only a very variations. Gary highlights the fact that time is money – the longer you are willing to hold on to a domain – the more valuable they are likely to become. Self sustaining here is crucial – both on and off-page.

A quote from Rich Schartz (Ricksblog.com – a well known domainer) is

“…know the difference between investment-quality domains and domains that mean nothing, say nothing have no idea behind it, no traffic within it, no idea how to make money with it and nobody wants to buy… what i refer to as pigeon shit…. pigeon shit with an extention

Key to your domain decision should be

• Exact Match
• CPC and Promotional opportunities (at the very least do some research on search based keyword tool to see what market is there

Its interesting here that Gary highlights how a scalable model can quickly become a good revenue earner. 3-5 per week per domain based on ten domains is going to give you around £2600 in revenue.  Start however by covering costs. Monetise your domain by using a variety of sources:

• Amazon E-Store Widgets
• Adsense
• Affiliates

Would suggest reading Gary’s post on his experiences with flyfishingbooks.com – http://bit.ly/d6d5cy

Considerations:

• Dominating a niche
• Lead Generation
• Diversify
• Hand Registration vs Auctions
• Long Tail vs Generic
• Network of related sites vs one-off sites.

Gary has a number of resources which should be read

• Rick Schartz
• Frank Schilling (highly recommended reading)
• Kevin Ham (reinvent.com – worth looking at owns the most domains out of anyone, makes $70m a year)
• Gary Kremen (originally owned match.com and still owns sex.com – currently available for auction

If you are looking for auction sites suggested ones are:

• Sedo.com
• Domainlore.co.uk (currently in beta)
• Greatdomains.com
• Afternic.com

Domaining tools resources:

• DomainTOols.com
• Valuate.com
• Estibot.com

Parking and Drop Catching – gary suggests doing this if you arent going to use it. At least allows some authority going to be gained.

• Whypark.com
• Pool.com

Forums/Resources:

• Acorndomains.co.uk
• Domaining.com

Q & A

Hyphenated domains – Gary not keen on hyphenated domains. Resale value of hyphenated domain is significantly lower than non-hyphenated domains

Domains – Gary suggests .org.uk still valuable – if you can’t get a .co.uk. .Org he favours over.net. From a personal perspective here have to agree as from the affiliate sites I work on

Selling domains – Thinks agencies have an opportunity here. Thinks domainers should contact agencies if they are looking to sell. Also highlights that .com is far more valuable than .orgs. End Users often pay less for domains than domainers do.

Leasing domains – From personal perspective think there is huge opportunity here for domainers – something Gary has just reitterated.  Beneficial for both parties at the end of the day

Trademarks – Suggests stay away from trademarks. Approaching a whole world of trouble. However clever long tail targeting is useful

Content – A site has got to have decent content in order for this to work. Crap content is not likely to be rewarded. Again completely agree here – some automation does work – but needs unique content alongside it.

Whois If you have a content network of domains this may be a consideration.

Bubble Bursting – Gary thinks this is already happening.

For the first time I have attended Dom Hodgson’s Think Visibility conference over in Leeds. Despite the fact I am one of the founders of Sascon over here in Manchester, I always like to get behind other North West ventures – and Dom’s conference is one of the better ones around.

Following a brief introduction from Dom – which introduced all of us to the conference. Mel Carson introduced us to Bing’s Learning and Earning with Social Media

He starts off by introducing some great examples of Social Media in action. Bartells Drug Store in particularly will be happy to hear that Mel did indeed keep his promise to start his next presentation with an example of good search and social media in action.

This leads him in to how Microsoft have approached the path to social media. According to Mel much of this started around five years ago, with the launch of blogs and forums back in 2006 – which allowd Microsoft to have a forum where

• They could have an official voice
• Calling Card
• Ask For Feedback
• Feature Requests – talks through the fact that its all about listening
• Signing up Beta Testing
• Help Advertisers – some people dont want help  they just want the tools to develop things themselves

Further to this Microsoft actively understood the requirement for advocacy. In particular the use of 3rd parties has been embraced by the use of sites such as Sphinn. Twitter as well has played an important part in this evolution (Mel here thanks David Naylor for gettig him into Twitter) – with Microsoft now running two accounts (was previously 3). They monitor these accounts in a daily basis as a tool to help support and promote the Microsoft product. Further to this other channels such as Facebook – also allow greater awareness of their toolset. The benefit for them is the accountability with Microsoft able to determine a number of tangible metrics to ai them.

Other channels Microsoft have utilised increasingly as part of their social media strategy include:

• Youtube
• Flickr
• Windows Live

All allow greater touch points to the community which people can use to communicate with Microsoft. Mel also continues to suggest traditional channels such as PR are a crucial part of the communications strategy – and one that appears to becoming increasingly integrated – something I personal believe is crucial – and so often underutilised by organisations

Whilst having all this content out this is important, understanding and reporting is just as important. IN particular discipline n report is crucial.  Looking at his slides their active use of Buzzmetrics allows them to listen and understand not just how much is being said but sentiment as well – as well as allowing them to respond to individual contacts themselves.

A showreel highlights the fact that events often allow them to attract new followers and visitors. Looking at the slides he is showing he highlights how a myriad of technologies allows them  to support and promote their content in a format that they want – and gives people a really good indication of what they want.

He finally highlights 7 value indicators:

• Measure growth and translate as reach
• Think how you’re lowering costs
• Information and Empowerment leads to increased spend
• Internal education leads to external evangelism
• “Earned Media” – Windows 7 Launch (221M Impressions)
• Think “Social Media Marketing” – Be disciplined
• Whats the return on in-action (what would the difference be if you didnt get into social media)

I do a lot of work with F1 Commentator James Allen, something which has allowed me to enhance my skills across a number of avenues I would not easily have access to. In particular social media has played an increasingly growing part in that strategy, not least Youtube. We have done a number of recent videos including

First flying lap of Silverstone with Martin Brundle – courtesy of James Allen
Launched: 29th April 2010
Views: 100000+

Organic traction has played an important part in driving traffic to these videos without having to rely on the paid means to drive traffic to the video and secondarily to the site itself.

1) Dont just do videos for the sake of it
This is a conundrum often associated with other factors such as SEO but its just as true with video optimisation. Rather make a couple of really good videos a month, than 10 or 15 videos of limited quality. A clear message and target audience is crucial for video success and videos created just for the sake of it are often easily spotted and usually not very successful in terms of online pickup.

2) Optimise with targeting in mind
Taking the point above, each video should have a clear focus. You wouldn’t optimise a page without knowing what keywords you are optimising it for, so why would you optimise a video any different. Before you start make sure you have a clear idea of what may drive traffic to the site, and build your campaign accordingly.

3) Think of users and pickup
Its all well and good optimising your video so that it has a great chance of automated pickup via the results – however one has to consider how potential browsers are likely to find the video. Issues such as the title and description need to be crafted to attract clickthrough – particularly the title.

Try and include your target keyword in this title where applicable and further in the description if this is feasible. Further to this try and embed your URL into the description and if possible on the video in some format. This should tie in any external seeding or access via Youtube – back with the website (using the video above – you will notice reference to both Santander and James Allen’s F1 site in the top right corner – which create a subtle but effective reference back to the source sites.

However at all times bear in mind who is going to be looking at this….

4) Don’t forget your keywords
As with any other aspect of search, keywords are crucial. I have already highlighted the importance of including keywords in the title and description however one should not forget integrating these into other areas as well, such as the tags. Don’t restrict yourself to one or two – ensure you reference any keywords which are relevant to this as well. Think long tail – go mad but don’t, don’t, don’t just include the one or two….

5) Don’t keep it to yourself
One of the most important aspects I have often found with video optimisation is to ensure we don’t merely rely on organic Youtube traffic to drive traffic to the video. To do so is incredibly naive.

One of the most effective ways of driving credibility to the site is to embed your video in your website, or other peoples website, or press releases, infact consider sources that are going to drive eyeballs. For James Allen we embed the videos on video specific posts – which are subsequently often picked up by a number of other third parties.

All these views count – and it should subsequently be noted this helps organic traction in Youtube, which can subsequently feed organic traction in the mainstream search results – all of which drive traffic to your video….

6) From small seeds, big trees do grow
Social media is a wonderful way of spreading awareness of your videos. Take for example the recent IPad Blendtec video. Whilst much of the success of recent Blendtec videos is down to the initial successes of earlier incarnations there was a real buzz when Blendtec released the latest variant to ‘celebrate’ the launch of the ipad particularly on social media sites such as Twitter.

However there are more ‘straight to market options out there, budget permitting you may want to look at:

• Homepage takeovers
• Promoted Videos
• Branded pages

Further to that services such as TubeMogul can significantly open up your online distribution. We were however focussing on organic traction so I would suggest particularly the homepage takeovers and promoted videos really anything thats likely to help raise awareness of your video to the wider public

7) Test, Learn Refine

Rome wasn’t built in a day, most people learn their trade by testing, learning, and refining their strategies based on what they have learnt. That process happens over and over again, each time ,something new tested, more lessons learned and strategies further tweaked and refined.

It should be noted like that of SEO – is that video optimisation is also a case of ticking boxes. Think of your keywords, think of your content, and think about how you are going to promote it. By doing that you have already won half the battle

For those of you who don’t know, this Wednesday sees the very first Sascon conference taking place at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. For the conference we (Richard Gregory – Latitude, Simon Wharton – Pushon, Ben McKay – MediaEdge CIA, Richard Hudson – Vanilla Storm, Nicky Wake – Dont Panic Projects and Peter Cobley – ISpy) have pulled together some of the best speakers in the UK and Europe to discuss a range of issues across search engine optimisation, paid search, analytics and social media – with a range of client and agency side speakers.

I am lucky enough to be moderating the Advanced Link Building panel with a number of recognised leaders in the field on the panel including

• Kristjan Mar Hauksson – Nordic eMarketing
• Joost De Valk – Orange Valley
• Neil Walker – Just Search
• Richard Baxter – SEOMoz/SEO Gadget
• Fantomaster (Ralph Tegtmeier) – Fantomaster.com

It should be an absolutely brilliant panel – and we are looking for questions to ask our panellists during the panel. If you would like us to ask your question at the event please drop it below and we will choose the best to ask our panellists. For those attending the event there will be a Q & A at the end of the panel for you to ask your questions as well.

Google has made some initial moves behind putting some serious resource behind Google Local Business Centre, a move which has resulted in it being renamed Google Places. The move not only incorporates a new name but also a new suite of additional features and a more advanced help and support framework.

According to the release from Google

Why? Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world, and we want to better connect Place Pages – the way that businesses are being found today – with the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google.

So how exactly are they going to do this. Well Google Places still incorporates the original Google Local Business Centre functionality however the new platform will incorporate some new features namely

• Service Areas
• Enhanced Listing now called tags, plus expansion outside of its initial core focus areas of Houston and San Jose, to incorporate  Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and San Francisco.
• Free Interior Photography of the business
• Free QR Codes
• Favourite Places

The system will also see the support significantly upped including an introductory webinar and a number of case studies particularly geared at Small to Medium sized corporations.

Much of the improvements mentioned above are not new announcements however it does to a certain degree represent the increased focus Google is now putting on Local Search. I can’t help thinking there is nothing astounding in the new announcements, however one can’t help feeling this is the first of a number of new improvements to the Local Search framework.

Much like many of Google’s recent triumphant new products the market, Google SearchWiki appears to have gone the way of Notebook and others before it. Launched amongst a wave of controversy from search marketeers and brand reputation experts about 16 months ago, Searchwiki which allowed people to remove or influence their search results based on their preferences has now been replaced with a significantly refined system Google have branded stars or starred results.

Source: Search Engine Land

Starred results will be seperated from Google’s algorithmic results (appearing above the traditional organic results) and using this feature won’t change the traditional 10 organic results that Google returns in reply to a search. The starred results is also integrated with Google Bookmarks and the Google Toolbar for quicker access to starred items.

It should also be noted that starred results will also work across other Google channels ie if you star a result in Google Maps, for example, it may also appear as a starred result the next time you search on Google.com. For people who did use SearchWiki, Google also says that all your edits will be preserved in your Google account.

In my opinion its hardly a surprise that Google have taken this step. The Google landscape of 16 months ago was a very different beast to that which we use today, and new technologies such as Personalised Search, Real time search and Caffeine have meant that we are looking at a much more different and dynamic framework than that which was the case when SearchWiki launched.

Further to that, I would suggest the uptake of this has never been as big as Google had expected. Perhaps this is down to the subtlety of its incorporation or merely because people like to keep things simple – however Google are now utilising other and in my opinion more advanced ways of providing people with social feedback such as Google Social Circle results.

I would suggest this wont be the last of Google product culls in 2010, certainly I can’t help thinking Wave has a limited lifecycle particularly given the recent introduction of Buzz. However as regards SearchWiki, I for one won’t really miss it – and by the sound of it neither will alot of people. I will close with Google’s changing perception of Wiki taken from Matt McGee’s post on Search Engine Land

As for SearchWiki, at the time of its launch, Google told Search Engine Land:

Before we launched SearchWiki, hundreds of thousands of people tested it and the feedback was positive.

But in today’s announcement of the new Stars in Search, Google is sending a somewhat different message:

In our testing, we learned that people really liked the idea of marking a website for future reference, but they didn’t like changing the order of Google’s organic search results.

Other stories on this

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• Stars make search more personal (googleblog.blogspot.com)
• Report: Google To Launch Caffeine Index In Upcoming “Months” (seroundtable.com)
• Google Puts SearchWiki Out Of Its Misery, Replaces It With Cute Stars (techcrunch.com)

Its interesting seeing the evolution from Google to an organically heavy SERP page, to an engine driven by P & L. There seem to be an ever increasing number of search engine real estate evolving into paid results. It should therefore come as no suprise that Google Local has become the latest Google product to see paid search real estate moving into previously ‘organic’ results.

]
Source: Search Engine Land

The above image highlights how Google are now testing sponsored listings within the main 7-pack local results (denoted by the square yellow icon below the main result – and the sponsored disclaimer to its right). Whilst the move of integrating previously organic real estate with paid services is nothing new, this is interesting primarily due to its proximity to the organic search results – in fact its full integration with the organic results. That is something we have – as yet – seen very little of from Google.

It should be noticed, in order for the above sponsored result to display, you have to already be organically displayed so I guess one may argue this differs from a traditional paid search result by proxy – however I would suggest this may not be the end of these integrated results within the Google SERPs, and of particular interest over the coming months may be:

• Google Products – Already we have seen the results integrated into the main paid search results – one woiuld suggest it may be only a matter of time before sponsored results are displayed within the universal search results.
• Google News – We have seen a lot of twoing and froing this year with the whole Rupert Murdoch/Google scenario. This could be one to watch moving forward.
• Google Cinema – Why not? The current results are very limited in terms of scope. Integrating this with a paid result may allow for greater expansion of services via these results.

One things for sure – the lines between paid and organic are already blurring – and this wont be the last of the tweaks to Google.

Other stories

Search Engine Land – Google Blurs The Line Between Paid & Unpaid Results Again

Today sees the first day of SES London 2010, bringing some of the best speakers within the search industry to London. For those that haven’t been to SES before, its a three day event hosted at the Business Design Centre in Islington, with events away from conference often as interesting as those on it.

This year, Day 1 promises to be as good as ever with a host of great speakers on the agenda with big guns such as Rand Fishkin and Avinash Kaushik getting things going with a bang. For those going today Holistic Search have compiled our list of recommendations for the first day at the conference.

Keynote:
One not to miss – Analytics “evangelist” Avinash Kaushik gets things going with his opening salvo. Avinash always talks a lot of sense so its certainly going to be one to watch if your interested in your analytics, conversion attribution etc.

Session 1:
Has to be From ‘Real-Time Search to Dynamic Discovery panel’ featuring Mike Grehan moderating and Aaron Cahlow and Bill Scott on the speakers list. The other two panels (as much as I like Brian Eisenberg and Judith Lewis are both introductory panels.

Session 2:
The ‘PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle’ features a host of Twitterati on the panel including Ralph Tegtmeier (aka Fantomaster), David Naylor, Rand Fishkin, Andrew Goodman and Paul Mead. To be honest its the standout panel on the day, and one that will surely be filled to the rafters.

Session 3:
Had to go for this one but anyhow – Session three sees my recommendation go to ‘Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers’ with Jon Myers (Head of Search at Mediavest) moderating a panel that includes Jeff Ferguson (Local.com) and Brian Clifton ( Author, Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics)

Session 4:
Another standout panel on the day featuring Rob Kerry, David Naylor, Richard Baxter, Allan Stewart, David Fairhurst and Andy Atkins Kruger Moderating – the ‘Industry Specific Search Strategies: Under the Hood’ panel should be an interesting one particularly given both Rob (gambling) and Richards (flights/travel) previous experience.

Session 5 – Keynote Panel:
More heavyweight UK speakers are wheeled out for this one with Teddy Cowell (Guava), Anders Hjorth(Outrider), Kirsten Mangers (WebVisible) and Jonathan Beeston (Efficient Frontier) taking ‘a hard look at the current value proposition of search in the UK and how we got to where we are today’

If you want to know the other panels going on day 1, the full breakdown of the speakers can be found on the SES Website

Before I start, this isn’t a digg at any particular recent event, just really a thought of a number of recent conversations with fellow professionals. Spend in SEO has never been better, with more organisations ciphening more of their digital budgets towards SEO and Social Media – as highlighted by this study published by eMarketer last year.

The study above does not include that of social media which has been seeing an even more significant spike in spend over the last 12 months, however there is no doubting that along with this increased spend, comes increased consumer awareness – and ultimately increased an increasingly competitive marketplace.

That ultimately means that what may have been adequate before, no longer is – and you have to work consistently harder to ensure you maintain your prominence within the SERPs. Further to that , Google’s state of flux in terms of the new products/factors being introduced on a near weekly basis means you can’t simply sit back and enjoy your work.

Ultimately if you are working as a client side SEO or an SEO agency – you need to be ticking all the boxes. Technical SEO, Content Development and Optimisation, Link Building and not forgetting your social media factors all have their part to play. For those not currently directly involved in optimising your sites, buy in is essential and consistent nourishment of your SEO provider is absolutely essential if you are going to get that success.

Simply leaving your SEO (whether inhouse or outbound) to do what SEO’s do isn’t likely to give you the long term results you want. I have had the opportunity to work or speak to some of the most prominent brands in the search engines, and many of them exhibit the same consistent streak. Complete buy in from the organisations not only through their SEO function but via the various channels which SEO may share such as PR, Video etc. This in turn provides their SEO providers with the tools and knowledge whereby best to maximise their content, either by its deployment on site or via its seeding externally. A few ways you could get more could get more could include:

• Bring your SEO consultant into your web development process. Let him no of changes as early as possible.  An issue fixed before it occurs will never become  a problem – fixing it before it goes live is always easier than having to retro fit something.
• Give your SEO consultant equal footing to your designer. At the end of the day both parties are trying to achieve the same thing – and that is a better result for you – however deployed seperately and not managed collectively is geared for failure
• Give your offline PR to your SEO. This can be used to get linkage to your site, or even better – even more exposure about your brand/site.
• Your videos are just as valuable as your PR. These can be optimised the same way content can

For those looking to enter any SEO commitment, it makes sense to do your homework and make sure you get a reputable agency on board, however your SEO commitment does not end there. Make sure you work with them – as you would through any other channel – and you will be amazed at how much more effective these channels operate. SEO is and can be just as transparent as any other marketing channel – and you have to go into it with your eyes open and with no expectations of just expecting magic wand SEO and long term sustained visibility. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen but cases are few and far between.

Search Engine Strategies (SES), one of the leading global search engine marketing conferences has appointed two new members to its advisory board, namely Thomas Bindl, founder of Refined Labs and Jon Myers – Head of Search at Mediavest.

On his appointment Jon stated:

“I have been involved with the Incisive Media SES (Search Engines Strategies) shows series around the world for a few years now and it is a great honour to be added to the Global Advisory Board as their UK representative. I am looking forward to working with some great people and big names within Search Marketing on taking SES Conferences forward over the coming years”

The new appointments will see Jon and Thomas working alongside existing SES advisory board and SES staff to help ensure the SES conference series continue to examine cutting end trends. Further to this they will help shape the shows in terms of content and speakers with the show planners.

Mike Grehan, Vice President and Global Content Director for Incisive Media’s Interactive Marketing Group said:

“With the addition of Jon and Thomas, we ensure that our EU attendees will be exposed to the most up-to-date industry content in each country we’re currently invited to present SES. The board will grow with international representatives in tune with our global expansion plans.”

As Jon’s colleague over the last couple of years, its good to see much of his effort within the industry (and particularly with the SES shows) rewarded.

Congrats to both Jon and Thomas on their appointments.

To read the official release, click here

There are a number of topics being mentioned in the industry, however one of the topics recently which has gained a lot of traction relates to RDF (Resource Description Framework) and Rich Snippets.

What markup such as this allows for search marketeers is the ability to provide further information to the search engines. In particular Google have been particular active in better ‘understanding the web’ during their announcements of Google Squared and Rich Snippets during their Searchology event back in 2009.

During the official post they stated the following:

We can’t provide these snippets on our own, so we hope that web publishers will help us by adopting microformats or RDFa standards to mark up their HTML and bring this structured data to the surface. This will help people better understand the information you have on your page so they can spend more time there and less on Google. We will be rolling this feature out gradually to ensure that the quality of Google’s search results stays high. If you are a webmaster and are interested in participating, visit the rich snippets help page to learn more

The announcement therefore of the further expansion of that earlier announcement, would suggest Google are serious in their adoption of RDF and Microformats – and that search engine marketeers would be stupid to simply ignore these within their SEO strategies.

The announcement of ‘Answer Highlighting’ by Google – which builds on the ‘Google Squared’ framework mentioned above – means that Google will now attempt to return more relevant snippets as part of their organic results. Take for example ‘empire state height’, prior to the announcements announced on the 22nd January would have been returned as follows

These will now display far more descriptive information as part of the snippet

Further to that, Googles adoption of extended rich snippets within the SERPs continues with events added to recent rollouts affecting reviews and people. These improvements could be of particularly interest to organisations such as event management companies given the example provided by Google:

Given the lack of understanding as a whole within much of the SEO community, I would suggest take up of microformats as a whole is likely to take some time to get traction, however there is no doubting the potential value not only to the search engine but to the advertiser as well – and its good to see Google adopting frameworks which further encourage on-page refinement over off-page engagement.

Whilst Google is only using this in limited sectors at present, there is nothing to stop this from being rolled out across further sectors as and where applicable. If you haven’t got rich snippets, microformats or RDF on your radar, I would suggest its about time you did….

To find out more about:
RDF – http://www.w3.org/RDF/
Google Squared and Rich Snippets – http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/more-search-options-and-other-updates.html
Answer Highlighting and further Rich Snippets – http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/understanding-web-to-make-search-more.html

After months of planning, we are pleased to announce the launch of SASCon (Search, Analytics and Social Conference) 2010. The event is being held at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester – and will bring together some of the best digital marketing speakers in the UK including Jon Myers, Richard Gregory and Dixon Jones, but also bringing in some of Europes finest such as Fantomaster and Joost de Valk. More speakers are to be confirmed too.

The event is being organised by a number of industry prominent national and regional search marketeers including Ben McKay (MediaEdge), Richard Gregory (Latitude), Simon Wharton (PushOn), Nicky Wake (Dont Panic), Peter Cobley (iSpy Search) and Peter Young (MediaVest).

SAScon Event Details

Date: April 28th 2010

Venue: The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK

Early Bird Tickets: £225 + VAT (Available until the 1st March 2010)
Early Bird SEMPO / Manchester Digital Member Tickets: £195 + VAT

SAScon is going to be one of the UK’s finest search and social events for those agency and client side looking to excel in their field.

For further information or to book tickets please go to the SASCon website which can be found at www.sascon.co.uk.

If you would like to sponsor the event, please go to our sponsors page or contact Nicky Wake @ Don’t Panic on 01706 828855

To follow SASCon on Twitter go to twitter.com/sasconference

It came out back in October that Google was to be launching support for cross domain canonical remediation via the extention of the rel=”canonical” link element.

Therefore it should come as no suprise that Google have today announced further details on how to handle cross domain canonicalisation, of which support of the cross-domain link element was announced.

It should be highlighted this Google would still appear to be suggesting the use of other remediation prior to use of the link element, however it is certainly encouraging to see greater utilisation of this as a method to aid canonical remediation, as it isn’t always feasible to implement the 301.

The following points are also worth noting

• The rel=”canonical” link element is seen as a hint and not an absolute directive, we do try to follow it where possible.
• The rel=”canonical” link element should most certainly not be used for 1:1 mapping of sites.  URL specific usage is recommended as 1:1 usage may ’cause problems’

I can’t see widespread usage of this in the short to medium term – particularly given much of the apathy that surrounds page specific canonical usage, however its a tool in the armoury should you ever need it.

I have lost count of the amount of posts I have done recently on Google related changes, and many of these have meant the greater promotion of their paid inventory over that of the organic equivalents. This has included:

• Adwords Sitelinks
• Adwords products
• Merchant Centre

The net effect of this has been the continued migration of Google’s paid inventory into previously organic search real estate, often resulting in organic results now appearing close to or under the fold. If considered against traditional Google search results, one can now see paid results influencing a high proportion of the visible page and as a subsequent result users favouring these paid results over traditional organic results. Further to this I personally would be expecting the traditional 30/70 split to come down significantly when we visit this over the next couple of months – particularly if you consider the findings of previous studies from Enquiro and Google themselves which suggest

• Higher results on the page receive more traction in terms of eyefall and clickthrough
• Whilst interactive elements such as maps/products impact eyefall and behaviour, this still is heavily focussed towards the primary results and around the blended result itself -> chunking/fencing (from Gord Hotchkiss Enquiro report – http://www.enquiro.com/whitepapers/pdf/barriers-on-a-search-results-page.pdf
• Left sided results receiving higher traction than right

However this does now reflect much more of a push rather than pull mentality, more symbolic of traditional advertising channels such as TV, Radio which whilst it does increase the visibility of Googles paid inventory – and thus make Google more money – does at the same time reduce the level of ‘choice’ and at the same time.

We have already seen a number of factors such as CTR reduce and CPC increase – however increasing the volume of paid inventory is going to mean in all likelihood

• Further increases in CPC
• Increases in budget as more clicks go via paid routes than organic
• Greater competition, thus greater obstacles to entry. Small companies finding it harder to compete
• A small number of organisations dominating the paid search results – a look at competitive sector such as insurance is symbolic of this in action

I can’t help feeling this constant drive for commercial renumeration is sooner or later going to start impacting in usage, particularly given the drive from Bing in terms of their search product and the potential for a viable competitor in the coming months/years. Consumers often don’t like being ‘sold to’ without permission, with examples such as Second Life and MySpace etc highlighting how greater commercialisation can potentially lead to reductions in popularity.

Only time will tell whether this actually occurs, however it will be interesting to watch just what happens to Google market share over the coming months, particularly with the unparralled drive towards world domination. I can’t help feeling however we are getting to the point where Google are fixing things that are not broken, and that isn’t without risks.