Highlights brought to you by Search Lately at SMG this week include: Google Wants All Your Data – 25th January Tablets Change Media Strategies – 24th January PPC Challenges with Search plus Your World – 23rd January Social Rivals Show Google How to Do Search For Users – 23rd January Granular Mobile Targeting Options Available – 17th January 2012 Punctuation Search Now Available -23rd January Browse last week‟s Search Lately for more details and initial reaction from industry experts on recent hot topics.
Google Wants All Your Data – 25th January This week Google have announced that they will be consolidating more than 60 documents across their products into one single privacy policy document. As Google just recently announced the highly controversial changes that come with Search plus Your World, they have been quick to push forwards with their vision for a new Google experience in 2012 with an announced roll out this spring. This means that Google will also effectively treat you as a single user across all its products. Google claim this will give consumers a much simpler and more intuitive experience while logged in to Google, as relevant information will be shared across products resulting in more targeted advertisements. While this is definitely true and an indication of where things are heading in the near future, it is bound to cause a number of raised eyebrows along the way. It is a bold update, especially announced so soon after they have been criticised over anti-trust and privacy issues, as not all consumers will be happy to share everything with Google. While it will help brands to target and re-target consumers across Google products with an almost stalker-ish big brother pursuit, expect further complaints to surface from both consumer and rival platforms over privacy concerns. – Kevin Ting More details: econsultancy.com/us/blog/8795-google-updates-privacy-policy-to-share-user-dataacross-its-products
Tablets Change Media Strategies – 24th January As Deloitte report that over 5 million tablets will be sold in 2012, agencies are becoming more aware of the need for cross channel integration. While tablets could once be neglected as a niche medium, they must now be seen as an integral part of any marketing strategy as the integration with TV for example is critical in the future of advertising. While many see tablets as a mobile device due to the ease of portability, in reality they are actually more closely related to desktop and laptop devices. The integration and multi-functional nature of this new platform with mobile portability and ease of use combined with desktop functionality and entertainment capacities gives it the best of both worlds. Behavioural characteristics of consumers on tablets vary considerably compared to desktop and mobile as it is likely that it is consumed alongside another advertising medium such as TV or radio. It will be key in the future battle for consumer attention and should be given the great time and respect it deserves while it offers a vital link between online and offline advertising. – Kevin Ting More details: Search Lately: Issue 26 - 2012: Rise of the Tablet? Article www.nma.co.uk/news/emergence-of-tablets-sparks-rethink-of-debate-over-mediaconsumption/3033438.article
PPC Challenges with Search plus Your World – 23rd January As this latest iteration of Google is rolled out across the US and the UK, it will have evident effects on the world of search in terms of SEO and also PPC. This development highlights and forces the issue and importance Google+ will have for the future of PPC and SEO, as it will be even more vital for Brands to have a presence on Google+. Creating a Google+ Business page and connecting it to its Adwords accounts will allow +1s to be collated across platforms and its growing influence over search results will grow. As Google+ and +1s become more common use and people become more familiar with them, much in the same way Facebook „Likes‟ and Twitter „Tweets‟ first started, the impact on search activity will become even more vital. This could lead to not only the most recent and most socially appealing +1-ed search results being displayed within search, but it will also emphasise the newly occupied social space which in turn could be a vital brand battle ground in the new Google search layout. Social network influences are here to stay and will have an even greater impact on search results than ever before as we head deeper into 2012. Brands should optimise Google+ strategies today to take full control of the social influences of tomorrow, as Google are seemingly using their influence in search to pressurise many into the active use of Google+. Brands should revise social strategy for 2012 and beyond as other social
networks will inevitably play a integral role in shaping the search of tomorrow, but at the moment the focus is on Google+ with the recent Search plus Your World updates. – Kevin Ting More details: econsultancy.com/us/blog/8757-7-changes-search-plus-your-world-brings-to-ppc
Social Rivals Show Google How to Do Search For Users – 23rd January Social network giants Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have teamed up this week to develop a bookmarketlet that enables users to see what Google “should have” done with the recent Search plus Your World update. This collaboration has brought a „don‟t be evil‟ labelled button to our browser through focusontheuser.org . Google + Your World arguably deliveres Google+ biased results and many claims that it neglects potentially more beneficial user results. This innovative little button gives us a view of how Google “should have”(?) been updated to include all the social spheres across the web with accordance to relevancy. This new vision of Google+ (all) Your World has been developed using the relevancy data that is readily available through the Google API system using its own algorithm. This highlights the true social search results that should be available according to the highly praised Google algorithms, but is debatably being held back from users. It will be interesting to see how Google react to this and whether or not these developments will see them integrate more non-Google+ social results according to relevancy criteria in the future. In the meantime have a look at what other social networks deem should be the accurate Search plus (all) Your World of the future. (Don‟ Be Evil – Search plus (all) Your World converter) – Kevin Ting More details: searchengineland.com/dont-be-evil-tool-google-108971 econsultancy.com/us/blog/8781-facebook-twitter-myspace-chide-google www.focusontheuser.org/video.php
Granular Mobile Targeting Options Available – 17th January Google has announced two advanced targeting options for mobile advertisers: WiFi targeting, and targeting by mobile operating system version. AdWords Mobile Advertisers will now be able to target their campaigns to mobile users specifically on a WiFi connection. In addition, they are given more granular options on mobile operating system targeting. Adwords users can now target specific versions of mobile operating system, such as “iOS version 4.0 and above”.
Google is making mobile ads more targeted to allow advertiser to reach the right audience. WiFi Targeting is especially useful for advertisers whose landing page has videos or other high bandwidth content. When the landing page loads faster with WiFi connections, itâ€&#x;s more likely that users will spend more time on the site, and you can get lower bounce rate as well. In addition, for advertisers who want to promote their mobile apps which exceed the 3G download limit size, targeting WiFi only will allow them to reach users who are more likely to convert. – Blair Liu More details: googlemobileads.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-targeting-options-available-to.html
Other News Punctuation Search Now Available - 23rd January Google have recently updated their search engine to provide results for punctuation marks and symbols, so search queries such as !, *, @ and . symbols will now result in the relevant search results being presented... (For full list of searchable symbols) More details: searchenginewatch.com/article/2140741/Google-Upgrades-Punctuation-Search-Results
Sources searchenginewatch.com www.focusontheuser.org www.nma.co.uk econsultancy.com googlemobileads.blogspot.com
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