Today, the importance of having (and using) a blog on many business websites, takes on new importance. Google’s blog post Relevance meets the real-time web says, “we’re introducing new features that bring your search results to life with a dynamic stream of real-time content from across the web. Now, immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page.”

What this means to you is your content, when presented properly, has a chance of being found in Google shortly after it is posted. Take another look at how well you are using your blog. If you are not using Twitter and or other social media, maybe now is the time to look at using those tools as part of your online presence.

As more and more users embrace the use of mobile devices for searching, this opens amazing opportunities for those delivering content wisely.

There will definitely more coming about this.

Talking about Pay-Per-Click, Google AdWords mostly, search results and landing pages is pretty much a daily thing around our office. Accordingly, it makes sense to talk about it here.

Recently I had the opportunity, thanks to Andy Lewis, to be a part of a Webinar for “The National e-Commerce Extension Initiative” named “Maximizing Your Pay-Per-Click Campaign.”  The PowerPoint presentation and links to related resources may be found at www.webwisedesign.com/adwordswebinar/. We concentrated on Google AdWords. Why? It is my humble opinion that for most, a limited advertising budget is a reality. Google is the 500-pound Gorilla, and if you are going to feed web advertising money to anyone, it should be Google with over 72% of U.S. searches reported for February, 2009 according to Hitwise.

Last week I met with several representatives of one our largest clients, and discussed mostly AdWords and Analytics for the better part of the afternoon. In both cases we talked about Keywords, Ad Copy, Landing Pages at length. Why? Having high placements in Google AdWords or Google organic search results is directly related to those three powerful terms. They rule this world as surely as many of the Triumvarites of history.

The importance of Keywords, Ad Copy, Landing Pages, is a simple concept, while not difficult, that is complex in implementation when done correctly. The good news is, you don’t have to spend in inordinate amount of time working on your AdWords campaigns to get some immediate results. Very simply, just make sure your keywords are in your ad copy and on your landing pages (prominently). If you do that, you will see your Click-Through-Rate, aka CTR, improve as well as your placement.

If you, or your search professional, spend the time on your landing pages to write keyword-relevant “Titles,” meta “Descriptions,” Headings, and content including the keywords that potential visitors would using when searching for your product, service, or information, and you write quality ads, as well as conducting ad-variant testing, you will be rewarded with increased, targeted, self-qualified traffic. Serious keyword research, a knowledge of how Google likes your pages coded, and knowing how to write and place that code is part of what will take your AdWords campaign to another level. Of course a thorough knowledge of AdWords and your analytics program is necessary as well if you want optimum results. To that end, unless you have a lot of spare time, working with a search professional who has experience and successes on their resume is essential.

One of the cool benefits, is that, the time you, or your search professional, spend on your “landing pages” will eventually manifest itself as higher rankings in Google’s search result pages, aka SERPs. Google sells relevance. Make sure your site search strategy, both PPC and organic, includes relevant keywords, ad copy, and landing pages.

Keywords, Ad Copy, Landing Pages - The Triumvarite!

For better or worse, on November 20th, Google rolled out their new SearchWiki feature. Before you will see the feature, and can use it, you’ll need a Google Account, and have to be logged in.

Google says, “With just a single click you can move the results (you’ll see an arrow and an ‘X’ to the right of each result) you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don’t feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users. We store your changes in your Google Account. If you are wondering if you are signed in, you can always check by noting if your username appears in the upper right-hand side of the page.”

Google also says, “The changes you make only affect your own searches.” But is that really true? I can’t help but wonder about a few aspects of this new “feature.”

1. How many users have, will have, or ever know what a Google Account is?
2. User comments – “the wisdom of the masses” or “the madness of crowds” or perhaps a place of disgruntled people or unethical marketers.  It seems more people voice their complaints than their satisfaction. Oh, by the way, your Google nickname is displayed to everyone along with your comment. (Using links at the bottom of the search results page (SERP), you may edit/delete your comments, and view comments from others.)
3. One can only speculate on whether or not Google will consider the “popularity” of sites that have been moved to the top by many users, when Google serves search results to those without Google Accounts.
4. Bosses could be fooled by in-house webmasters, and unscrupulous search engine optimization (SEO) firms could show prospects whatever rankings they wished (good or bad), by saying, “here is a screenshot of Google search results for this morning.”
5. Add an URL - Will Google track (I believe the answer is yes) and use that information for general search results? We can only speculate about the latter. Speaking of adding an URL, wouldn’t you just bookmark it instead of adding it to search results?

The release of SearchWiki also makes me start to wonder how much Google is in tune with their average user as opposed to those in Silicon Valley.

Time and users will tell, but I can’t help but think Google would have better spent the time and money on their “Proposal for reducing U.S. dependence on fossil fuels.”

Until next time…