Starting today for people who enter an English search term into Google.com logged into their Google account, they will see results featuring posts and content from their wider Google+ network alongside worldwide search results. Below is an example of what happened when Neil searched for “Tug” while logged into his Google account.

You can see the top result indicates that there are 400 personal results in his Google+ network. Then the second and third results are personalised with a figurative logo in blue next them to indicate this is the case.

Image searches also fall under this category and the name of the friend who has posted this image appears in the thumbnail link, showing the name of the person who posted the picture to your network.

You can switch between your personal search results integrated with worldwide results and pure worldwide results using two new buttons that appear on the right hand side of the search bar.

This means you can filter out the social feed and opt to use natural Google search at the touch of a button.

Search plus Your World will impact the way Google users search for content online and highlights a sea-change in the importance of social media when considering your SEO strategy.

To talk to Tug about social media drop me a line at ben.romberg@tugsearch.co.uk

Or follow us on Twitter @tugagency

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With Dynamic Search Ads Google will maintain a fresh index of advertiser accounts by using the Google organic web crawling technology. When a relevant search occurs, Google will dynamically generate an ad with a headline based on the search query and the text based on your most relevant landing page. The ad will enter the auction and compete normally. However Google will hold it back for any other relevant searches where you also have an eligible keyword targeted ad.

Google says that this new feature will not only complement advertisers, but the users as well. It was often experienced, that a user is searching for something specific and the ad doesn’t completely answer the user’s query. When users click on an ad, they expect to see the products that they were searching for, but it is possible that the product was sold out, so the users get an overall negative search experience. It is more likely that user clicks will convert into purchases, if the ad answers user queries. Google says that they did limited testing for the Dynamic Search Ads and so far they have seen solid performance.

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On Monday 10th October Google AdWords announced that the +1 button and personal annotations will start to appear with your Display ads. So if you are seeing the button, don’t be surprised, however it is possible that some advertisers do not see this option as of yet, but Google says that they are working hard to roll out the +1 button to everyone who are using AdWords display ads as soon as they can.

The reason to create this feature was because Google believes that incorporating user personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising. Google says that a display ad will become much more powerful when users can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it. The +1 button on display ads will work together with +1 buttons on search results, search ads and websites. A single +1 applies to the same content across the web, no matter where it appears. It will be able to include the button to image, animated GIF, Flash, Display Ad Builder ads and also on Double Click Rich Media ads.

Google is looking forward to add the +1 button and personal annotations to all eligible inventory over the next couple weeks, as they are confident from their experience with the button on search, that it will be a great addition to advertisers’ Google Display Network campaigns.

Since the introduction to the +1 button on search results and search ads, it has been installed over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily, so no wonder Google decided to add it to the display ads as well.

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• Being in the 1st position will make your ads most profitable. This is not entirely true. There is no doubt that being in the 1st position gives the best visibility of your ad to a user and sometimes that can result in a conversion (after a user clicks on your ad, of course), but mostly it will end up spending more money that what the ad is generating. Being in the 1st position is great for branding purposes, however it also drives a lot of users who are not yet ready to make a purchase, subscribe to an email newsletter or register on the site, but are still researching. It is advised to experiment with ad positions, so that you can determine the position that works best and helps you achieve the right balance of costs vs. value.
• Add and use as many keywords into your PPC account as possible to get the most traffic. In theory you may get a ton of traffic, however it is important to keep in mind relevancy. By adding a lot of keywords, the traffic you get from it won’t be qualified traffic. This will most probably result in unwanted clicks or no action from users what so ever. Let’s admit, if you are selling chocolate, for example, there is no point to bid on clothing or shoe related keywords. It is important to target the most relevant keywords for your PPC account, otherwise it’s likely to use all your budget quickly without generating any of your desired conversions.
• After setting a PPC account you can forget about it. A lot of people think that they can create campaigns and ad groups, set budgets, bids, load in keywords, ads and walk away. Although it would be very nice and easy, unfortunately this isn’t true. PPC is not a “set it and forget it” if you want to make the most of the money you are willing to invest or spending at the moment. It takes monitoring, testing, adding, removing, bid increasing or lowering, turning off, turning on, etc., in order to get the highest results for the money you spend. Because of the workload involved in managing a PPC account many businesses choose to outsource their accounts to PPC agencies, which can dedicate time and expertise to complete the mentioned tasks.
• Opening up a new PPC account will re-start your Quality Scores. This actually is partially a myth, because technically if you open up a new PPC account your Quality Scores will reset, however, if you are keeping the same account structure, landing pages, ads, keywords, etc., you are going to end up with approximately the same Quality Score as you had previously. To improve your Quality Score, you need to monitor your account or maybe even re-structure to organize your campaigns, ad groups, keywords to reach the most targeted audience possible.
• Test ads every week regardless of the clicks they have. And again this isn’t true. It is important that when ads are tested (before deciding on when to pause or leave an ad on) to give them a longer date range to look at. Also be sure that each ad has at least 100 clicks – the more the better, before making any final decision. This will allow to get a true perspective on which ads are performing best over time. If an ad is paused too early, it could result in pausing a potentially great performing ad. Sometimes testing can take a longer time period, but it can achieve very positive results.

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In October there are two that we are particularly looking forward to. Having been spoiled already in the previous months with being able to attend the free and very comprehensive industry event ad-tech London based SEOS can look forward to finding new insights at the Distilled conference Searchlove London on the 24th and 25th of October 2011. With ticket prices of up to ? 750 you may find that this event is not on the cheap and cheerful side but will definitely be inspiring and worthwhile as you get the chance to find out about the latest in linkbuilding strategies, social media and technologies from Distilled’s and SEOmoz’s SEO gurus.

Those of you who like travelling and still have a few holidays to spare might still find an available flight to Berlin, where they can have two industry events for the price of one: SES holds its annual conference in Berlin on 13th October in conjunction with OMcap. This popular search marketing events previously took place in December but this year SES and OMcap organizers have teamed up to deliver one big event with over 40 experts talking about the latest industry insights. Tickets cost € 499 but according to the website drinks are included.

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Why would you do this? If you’re not an e-retailer and you’re running PPC against your own brand, I think the question should really be “Why wouldn’t you do this?” A single visit to your homepage, although valuable, is nothing as compared to the value of a relationship which is precisely what Facebook and Twitter are in the business of delivering. You don’t need me to tell you that a fan or a follower has a much deeper level of engagement with your brand and is much more likely to make repeat visits, than a passer-by who simply looks in the shop window.

Even if you are an e-retailer I still think you should give it a try, but I understand why you might be reluctant to siphon brand traffic away from your main site. It’s important to bear in mind that just as your Facebook and Twitter pages are not a substitute for your main site, the paid search links to them are a mere accompaniment, diversifying your offering, if you will. The searcher who is actively intent on a purchase is unlikely to be distracted from the task at hand by a Facebook link, while those more interested in interacting with your brand will likely deliver you more long-term value, if not a sale on that visit.

With its $5,000 per month starting price a Twitter advertising trial is, understandably, out of reach of all but the bigger brands. Advertising on Facebook is comparatively accessible but remains a daunting prospect for many and is, at the moment at least, no small task to do properly. Adding in sitelinks, on the other hand, is child’s play for anyone familiar with Adwords and will take you five minutes at most – and that’s if you stop for a cup of tea. In terms of cost, on a per click basis Facebook advertising is also almost always more expensive than your brand terms are likely to be in search.

I know what you’re thinking and yes, tracking is an issue. Not only does AdWords lump all of your Sitelinks’ search data together – anyone from Google want to explain that one? – but once the user has arrived on your Facebook or Twitter page, there’s no way of measuring the extent of their interaction. Did they become a fan? Did they post on your wall? Are they following you? Have they retweeted?

Although Facebook’s own advertising reporting interface, like AdWords conversion tracking tracking, is actually really smart, user friendly and works to a reasonable level of granularity, neither Facebook nor Twitter have Analytics equivalent to tell you anything meaningful about external sources of traffic. Until either site opens up its back end, those questions will go unanswered and you’re just going to have to do this the old fashioned way: Firstly you should benchmark the rate of follower or fan uptake (or decline) prior to the links being added. Next, take note of your Followers and Fans on the day you add the links. When you’re up and running I’d also recommend alternating days on/off during the first week and comparing the difference.

I did, in a reckless moment of blue sky outside the box thinking, briefly consider driving all my brand searches to Facebook but ultimately settled on this, much less dramatic way of combining search with social. It’s may not be refined but it is a little bit nifty.

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For instance, if you attended the talk about ‘SEO Through Blogs & Feeds’ where Mikkel (deMib) and Andrew (BMM) discussed sitemaps, you would have learned that both have completely different approaches -I would definitely encourage you to try a combination by yourself. Let’s say you have a website that has been live for a few years, and all the pages have already been indexed, then there might be very little value in taking the time to create the sitemap and submit it to Google WMT; however, if there are quite a few pages that have not been indexed, then you should definitely take the time to do so. The same will apply with any other assets that you have on your site, PDFs, Videos, Images, etc.

On the last statement, I am definitely with Paddy @ Distilled who suggested digitising all business documents/assets on the ‘Digital Asset Optimisation’ presentation. Let’s assume you work in the retail sector, images and videos of your products are invaluable as these improve user experience, let alone the fact that they could generate traffic themselves with universal search. Press releases, product specification documents (as PDFs), reviews, testimonials, podcasts, everything counts when reaching new audiences, and business owners and marketing department must be aware of the importance of sharing this information as this is the key in today’s globalised world.

In the end, the main takeaway is ‘it’s all about trial and error’, which was brilliantly discussed on the ‘Conversion Clinic’ session by the guys at Conversion Rate Experts: make some changes to your website, test the results, make more changes and keep on testing. Same with link building: submit your press releases, pictures, videos, pdfs on different platforms -didn’t work as you expect?  Just keep on trying new things, rename your files, change the titles, descriptions, evaluate your keywords… Just make sure you have clear goals and benchmarks when testing! If someone already knew the magic SEO formula, then everybody would agree at these events.

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Attribution panel (myself and Paul Mead): before you decide to drop last click wins and start using an attribution model – ask yourself – and analyse the data – how long is your typical clients’ path to converion? if it’susuallty only 1 or 2 clicks – stick with your current tracking model. Don’t overcomplicate just for the sake of it. Eventhough the technology now is truly amazing for analysing paths’ to conversion and setting up attribution models – there will always be leakage within the system and it is still a bit of a fudge… attribution models are much more useful for products that have a long purchase cycle – if you’re selling t-shirts – don’t waste your time and money!

Retargetting panel: That search ignite guy is pretty impressive – as was the speaker from Banner. Top tips I picked up were: 1. use the cookie data you have – if you know they want a flight to spain definitely advertise that not a generic flight ad 2. Test your re-targeting window – one speaker found that the most efficient was to retarget only for 7 days after the first engagement 3. Don’t stalk – actually i knew that from when I was single…. 4.  swap remarketiong tags (illegal?) with a partner site that has a complimentary service 5. dont retarget to everyone who came to your site and didn’t convert – make sure they had some engagement such as they got half way through the application form, or they viewed 3 or more pages etc.

Biddable Media: again that search ignite guy is pretty smart – good at taking a concept and drilling down to what’s important – I only saw his speech before I had to go pick up Amelia. He made 2 good points – 1. the cool thing about display auctions is not the fact that they are auction based – search has been like that for a decade. The cool thing is that you are bidding on targetting an individual with all the cookie data recorded on this person – if they are your sweet spot an advertiser might be willing to pay 10 times what someone might pay for just a blind impression. 2. agencies are starting biddable media departments….. food for thought for all Search MDs…

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According to Emarketer, integrating Social Media with PPC & SEO is Top of the to do list for companies in the US (and I’m sure the UK have the same prerogative). Link Building programs and CMS processes round out the top 3 for SEO, while local search advertising and managing the impact of Google instance make the top 3 for PPC.

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