SEO & Social Media Marketing

Google New: One-Stop Shop to Find What's New on Google

Google New: Find Google’s Latest Releases At One Web Page

Search Engine Land's report on Google New, a web page where you can find what's new in Google products. Given how frequently Google is adding new features to its services these days, it's helpful to see everything in one place.

Google Instant -- the death of SEO or just another step forward?

Google today announced Google Instant, a new feature that's rolling out now. Google Instant automatically shows results that dynamically change as you type your query from the Google homepage or from a Google search results page.

SEO experts are wasting no time weighing in. Some are pronouncing Google Instant "the death of SEO" as we know it. Others, such as Google's own Matt Cutts (in a video response to a question), believe SEO will still be around in five years, and "that's not a bad thing." 

Without a doubt, Google Instant will make it easier for search engine users to fine-tune their queries on the fly and find what they're looking for more efficiently. If you've optimized your content to what people are actually looking for, Google Instant should simply help make that content easier to find.

There are potential implications for PPC ads, too, because the ads shown will change as a user types a query. A Google AdWords page explains what Google Instant means for how PPC impressions are counted.

Matt McGee, writing in Search Engine Land, offers a helpful overview of Google Instant. I agree with his conclusions: 

* Google Instant won't actually have an impact on a lot of searches. That's because many people do their searches using a Google browser search box. Google Instant doesn't work when a user types a Google in a browser search box or from iGoogle. It only works from the Google home page or from the search box at the top of a Google search results page.

* Some users may actually be slowed down by Google Instant, "as they stop to read and consider all of the predicted queries and search results that are now being displayed automatically," McGee writes. "On the other hand, I do think that it may train some users to be smarter searchers."

So to recap: Google Instant might actually help your SEO efforts, provided you're optimizing for keywords and phrases that people are actively looking for. Search engine users will inevitably get savvier about how to search, which can help you get more targeted, motivated users to your content, instead of someone who stumbled upon it, discovered it wasn't what they wanted, and quickly moved on. And Google Impact isn't going to impact every Google user, at least for now. 

Admittedly, I'm still absorbing all the news and coverage, so I reserve the right to change my mind on all of the above. But what do you think? Is Google Instant going to kill SEO, the long-tail, etc. etc.? Or is it simply going to make search engine users savvier--causing search engine marketers to be savvier, too?

Related articles

• Thoughts on Google Instant (Matt Cutts/Gadgets, Google, and SEO) (techmeme.com)
• How Do You Feel About Google Instant? [Google] (gizmodo.com)
• Google Instant: The Complete User's Guide (searchengineland.com)
• Google Instant: Impact on Search queries (googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com)
• Marissa Mayer On Google Instant, SEO, Ad Sales & Power Steering (TCTV) (techcrunch.com)
• Does Google Instant Mark the End of SEO? (webpronews.com)
• How To Get Matt Cutts To Answer Your Google Questions On Video? (seroundtable.com)

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Mashable + Search Engine Land + SmartBrief on Social Media = daily candy for SEOs, social marketers

Trying to keep up on SEO and social media news is like trying to stay current on Amy Winehouse's hospital and rehab stays. Here are 3 newsletters you can sign up for to get your daily SEO and social media candy: 

* Mashable sends out a daily digest of its social media news and trend pieces, along with how-to articles, tech gossip, and reader surveys. Lots of useful information, all in one place. Downside: The e-mails are dense and lengthy, with plenty of graphics (and some ads). For instance, the e-mail I received today had 27 stories. I'd rather receive a digest of the top 10 most important social media stories of the day. Even so, Mashable's free e-mail roundup is required reading for social marketers. You can subscribe to the daily e-mail by clicking the 'Email' icon toward the top right of every Mashable page.

* SearchCap is a daily roundup of news, trend, and how-to pieces that appeared on Search Engine Land and other sites. This e-mail feels more manageable than Mashable's and it lacks graphics (and ads), which makes it easier to read on a smartphone. The link I've supplied is to their e-mail sign-up page.

* SmartBrief on Social Media compiles social media news, trends, and advice from a variety of sources on the Web, including Mashable, BBC, The New York Times, and blogs.  (See screen shot at right.)

If you've only got time for one of these, I'd say read Mashable if you're in social media and SearchCap is you're strictly following SEO trends. But ideally, try to set aside time each day to at least scan the headlines of all three. 

Good to Know: Google Adds Facebook, SEL Offers Landing Page Tips

Two quick items you might be interested in:

Mashable reports that Google has added Facebook pages to real-time search. Google launched real-time search back in December, with live updates from Twitter, news sites, blogs, Yahoo Answers, and other content added to search results pages. Public Facebook profiles are not yet included in the real-time Google search stream, Mashable points out. But I suppose that's only a matter of time. 

Meanwhile, over in Search Engine Land, Christopher Wallace offered five landing page tips for boosting your conversion rate. Wallace says it can be easy to tweak your landing page in order to get a greater volume of your traffic to convert into customers, as his company did for a client.

By "making a few changes to the landing page — including placement, and focusing on benefits rather than features — we were able to improve conversion rates by 250% in just six months," Wallace writes.

How Useful is Google Real-Time Search?

Google's real-time search feature, which recently began rolling out, is a welcome addition to the search engine results page.

You can see it in action by typing something hot and current, such as healthcare reform. Mixed among the results, usually toward the top of the page, will be a 'Latest results for...' box, with a scroll bar to the right. Within this box, you'll see a continually updated stream of search results, including Twitter tweets and news stories, some that are just seconds old. 

If you find this stream annoying, you can hit the 'Pause' button to stop it. As an information junkie, though, I like seeing what people are saying right now about a hot topic.

Is this information useful? In some cases, yes. If nothing else, it gives you a finger on the Internet's pulse. You get breaking news headlines mixed in with older, static content, which can save you time in searching elsewhere. Admittedly, you'll see some junky stuff float by in the Google real-time results box. But that's the nature of the Internet, and the real-time search results reflect this nature, only speeded up.

BTW, you're not going to see real-time results for everything you Google, at least not right now. As reported in Search Engine Land, if "Google thinks something has some real-time component to it, then it will show the section. In particular, if Google sees a spike in information on a certain topic, along with queries on a particular topic, then it assumes there’s a real time situation happening."

The Dark Side of Social Media Links -- Spam & Potential Embarrassment

Over the past few weeks, social media and search engines have done a mash-up. Google, Bing, and Yahoo! now display relevant Twitter posts in search results, as they happen, with real-time public Facebook updates coming soon.

It's too soon to say if having tweets about your company show up in Google search results is a good thing from a marketing standpoint. Probably depends on what Twitterers are saying about you. If it's largely negative, then you've got a reputation management challenge on your hands. Time to start frequently generating lots of positive, search-optimized content yourself, to try and push the negative tweets down in search results, though that's a rather daunting prospect. Or better yet, try to improve your company's customer relations problems to circumvent a social media trashing in the first place.

There's a separate issue, however, which both the New York Times and USA Today have pointed out in recent artlcles: spammy social media links.

"Links to corrupted websites continue to turn up in search results," says USA Today. "And spam messages and infectious postings continue to infest social networks. Combining the two seems likely to tilt the advantage to the bad guys."

The article quotes a PC Tools security analyst, Michael Greene: "This is just going to amplify the bad effects and make it easier for spammers and hackers to get their stuff to the top of search results."

In other words, given the potential for spam, search engine users may grow increasingly mistrustful of links in social media updates, either those they see in search results or on the social media sites themselves. This could make it more difficult to lure traffic to your Web site with a link in your social media updates.

So what do you do, if you're hoping your tweets and Facebook updates will attract visitors to your site via embedded links? You've got to make sure your social media posts sound even more original, authentic, and unmistakably like you or your company's voice. This will help people quickly differentiate your social media updates from a spammer posing as you.

And honestly, judging from the social media spam I've seen so far, this shouldn't be too hard. Example: My sister's Facebook account was hijacked not long ago by a spammer trying to sell a weight-loss plan. Suddenly, everyone in my sister's Facebook network was informed that she was on a new weight-loss plan and was singing its virtues.

My sister has never been even slightly overweight. So it was pretty obvious her Facebook account had been hijacked. Nonetheless, she was embarrassed by the spam.

Of course, spammers are always getting more sophisticated, and they'll always be able to trick at least a few people. But at the same time, I think social media users are becoming more sophisticated, too. And so the game of one-upmanship continues. Only now, it's starting to happen in Google, Yahoo!, and Bing result results pages, too.