Online Marketing Solutions

At the beginning of 2012, Google launched “Search Plus Your World” -- a change to the way the search engine performs that promises to make internet search more personalized than ever.

“Google Search has always been about finding the best results for you. Sometimes that means results from the public web, but sometimes it means your personal content or things shared with you by people you care about. These wonderful people and this rich personal content is currently missing from your search experience. Search is still limited to a universe of webpages created publicly, mostly by people you’ve never met. Today, we’re changing that by bringing your world, rich with people and information, into search” (Google Blog). 

This development follows the launch last year of Google+ -- Google’s own social network that turns the whole search engine into one giant social network, and makes connecting online more like connecting in the real world. Now, your personal Google+ platform will be integrated with Google Search. 

That means that when you perform a search, not only will Google search the world wide web for results, it’ll search your Google+ world -- drawing on content from inside your Google+ social network for incredibly personalized results. Exciting? Sure. But it changes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) quite a bit.

Up until recently, Social Media was an important part of any good Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign. Now, with the launch of Search Plus Your World, it’s an absolute essential.

“Since Google is the most influential search engine and they are clearly integrating and favouring results coming from people’s Google+ circles, this becomes the most important social outlet to focus on from a SEO-Social perspective. No more ignoring it” (www.agent-seo.com).

In that sentiment, all of Stir’s comprehensive and customizable SEO packages include Social Media Marketing, Management, and Engagement -- that’s including (but not limited to) Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and (of course!) Google+. So, Search Plus Your World has changed how your SEO agency will have to think about and incorporate Social Media. What else? Keyword/keyphrase usage (both on- and off-page) and link-building (among other aspects of SEO) will have to be approached quite differently. In reality, you need an expert now more than ever. 

Further, during these early days, some people have expressed concern about security and privacy now that personal content is going to show up in search results. Google assures us that we needn’t worry:

“Unprecedented security, transparency and control -- When it comes to security and privacy, we set a high bar for Search plus Your World. Since some of the information you’ll now find in search results, including Google+ posts and private photos, is already secured by SSL encryption on Google+, we have decided that the results page should also have the same level of security and privacy protection. That's part of why we were the first major search engine to turn on search via SSL by default for signed-in users last year. This means when you’re signed in to Google, your search results—including your private content—are protected by the same high standards of encryption as your messages in Gmail” (Google Blog).

These developments might seem scary for businesses just trying to get a feel for social media and search engine optimization. But they shouldn’t. The internet is always changing, and -- once we all get our head’s around this new search style -- the results will be exciting. And Stir is here to help. 

We’re Google experts and are looking forward to helping your business make use of these new steps. Book your free Internet marketing consultation now. 

• Click here to learn more about Google+
• Click here to learn more about Google and Search Engine Optimization

Last month, Google changed the face of “internet search”, and made search engine optimization (SEO) just a bit more ponderous. How? They launched Search Plus your World, which makes searching the internet more personalized than ever: your personal Google+ platform will now be integrated with Google Search. 

For SEOs, that means that while Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, and now Google+) used to be complements to a good SEO campaign, they’re now essential components. 

Google+, launched last year, is Google’s own social network, one that claims to “turn the whole search engine into one giant social network”, and makes connecting online more like connecting in the real world. 

“At its core, Google+ is a social network” (B. Parr, 2011, Mashable.com), and its “stream” feature is a lot like Facebook’s News Feed feature: it allows users to share status updates, news and views, photos, videos, and links. But that’s where the similarities sort of stop and Google+ starts to look quite different from its counterparts.

Here’s what Google said: “Google+ makes connecting on the web more like connecting in the real world. Share your thoughts, links and photos with the right circles. Use easy, spontaneous video chat to strike up conversations with as many as nine people at once. Get everyone on the same page with fast, simple group chat. We’re very excited about the new approach to sharing we’ve created through Google+, but this is really just the beginning.”

Google+ is a “project” that will be rolled-out/revealed in stages, but here’s what we’ve been introduced to so far: Circles (which allow you to group your connections and communicate with them as specific targeted groups); Huddle (which is a group chat feature); Sparks (which allow for “accurate and personalized content discovery”), Hangouts, Games, Search, and more! If Google+’s goal was to “topple” Facebook, it might have a shot: “[Google} certainly has a lot to work with, including Picasa, Gmail and Google Maps and information and functions from all of these will be integrated into the Google+ experience” (B. Parr). 

But only time will tell. In the meantime, as a business owner looking to leverage the power of social media to build brand awareness and brand loyalty, network, benefit from powerful word-of-mouth advertising, increase sales, and garner support, is Google+ something you should consider devoting time, staff, and resources to?

Should business owners join Google+?

Hot on the heels of the Google+ launch, Google announced the release of Google+ Pages (like Facebook’s Pages feature): “So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people. But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide” (Google Blog). 

To get your feet wet (before creating your own business page), consider signing up for an individual/personal account and learn the ins-and-outs of what’s poised to become the next big thing in social networking. 

Click here to learn more about Google+ and Google’s new “Search Plus Your World” and what it all means for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

In today’s competitive business landscape, being “on top” when people search for businesses like yours using search engines like Google is critical. 86% of online searches in Canada are performed using Google, and research consistently proves that “the top listing gets the most attention” (capturecommerce.com). 

In fact, one study showed that “the top spot drove 34.35% of all traffic in the sample, almost as much as the numbers 2 through 5 slots combined, and more than the numbers 5 through 20 (the end of page 2) put together...The biggest jump, percentage-wise, is from the top of page 2 to the bottom of page 1.  Going from the 11th spot to 10th sees a 143% jump in traffic...As you go up the top page, the raw jumps get bigger and bigger, culminating in that desired top position” (insights.chitika.com). 

The Value of Google Result Positioning 

Excerpt: “How much is the top spot on Google actually worth? According to data from the Chitika network, it’s worth a ton – double the traffic of the #2 spot, to be precise. In order to find out the [real]...we looked at a sample of traffic coming into our advertising network from Google and broke it down by Google results placement. The top spot drove 34.35% of all traffic in the sample, almost as much as the numbers 2 through 5 slots combined, and more than the numbers 5 through 20 (the end of page 2) put together...”

Fig. 1 “Percent of Traffic by Google Result”

Getting that top spot in search engine results pages involves Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of creating or modifying a website and its content for the purpose of improving its visibility to search engines (and therefore its ranking on search results pages). SEO includes a combination of internal and external (on-page and off-page (ie: behind-the-scenes)) strategies like:  

URL structures; keyword/keyphrase research and implementation; site design; HTML; site navigation; link quality; menu items; title tags, metatags, and meta descriptions; navigation; directory and search engine submissions, and content writing. And, recently, social media marketing went from being an important aspect of SEO to a crucial one.  

Achieving that “top spot status in Google requires working with the confines of Google’s algorithm. (Definition, Algorithm: “A step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end especially by a computer” (www.merriam-webster.com). In the case of Google search results, it means “how Google uses the search criteria you enter to find the best, most appropriate results”.   

In the early days of Google, understanding and working with algorithms was something only the most experienced web programmers and internet (SEO) experts could do. Today, Google’s algorithm is much more refined, and there are now some clear industry standards to help those of us who aren’t experienced programmers, SEOs, and Google engineers to compete. 

Remember, though, that at the end of the day, your website (or business’ online content) should serve human visitors before search engines. Again, make your site’s design and content interesting, valuable, timely, and accessible. Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings (Google is smart enough today to tell when you’re stuffing content with keywords willy-nilly or participating in link schemes designed to increase ranking.) And ask Stir for a free copy of our “SEO 101: A Beginner’s Guide...” to help you get started. 

  Next Steps

Problem: My website technology is out-dated

Clients contact us initially to have move to the stage of online marketing only to discover that their website is built on technology that is either out-dated or difficult to use.
Many business owners are tempted to hire a friend or relative to create their company website unaware that it is essential to have their website created to easily integrate with their marketing initiatives.

I recently met with a thriving company that has a "passable" website. It looked like it was built about five years ago. When I asked the company how they update the site, they said that it a tedious process that is done through their "webmaster". It turns out that the "webmaster" is a relative who works part-time developing websites and created the site through a website builder like FrontPage. The only way to update the site is to do it through that software via FTP - a task too complex for the administrative staff of the company to buy into. The price tag to do the updates was not the issue for this company. Rather, like many others we meet, the issue was the time delay between a website update request and the task completion.

Solution: Evaluate and Re-Create.

First of all, our team of strategists will help you to evaluate your website technology and website design. Here's what we look at:

• Does the time delay in editorial updates hurt your company's ability to communicate with your clients or potential customers?
• Can you create marketing tools for your company's growth using your current website technology?
• How much does it cost to migrate your website into technology that allows your staff to update the site?
• What benefits would your company achieve if the website was re-designed?
• Is a website re-design MOST important or do you need to get onto marketing for a critical business goal?

In some cases, we will recommend a website re-do as the first phase of your online marketing. This will be the case if the site is useless to benefit your company's growth or is damaging to your company's reputation. Some things we've seen in this regard are:

• sites that don't have correct grammar or use of the english language for an english audience
• sites that have no clear conversion goal (call to action)
• sites done entirely in Flash (invisible to iphone users)
• sites that are out of date in terms of content (what they sell, old promotions)

in other cases, we will recommend that you pursue online marketing goals in order to generate revenue and success. If your technology is poor, there may be no way to pursue search engine ranking. It is possible to get around a poorly designed website, however, with paid advertising.

At Stir Solutions, we will create landing pages for your paid advertising campaign and ensure that they are correctly designed and optimized. It is possible to start selling online or generating leads even without the advantage of a visitor-friendly, highly-converting website.

We don't recommend this as a long-term solution. You will need to find the budget to re-create your website using all the best practices in both technology and design.

A favorite success story of ours is the re-creation of the website for International Genealogical Search, Inc. The immediate result was 6 times more quote requests without generating any more web traffic. See the Case Study.

Are you ready to evaluate your site? Contact us today for a free consultation.