According to the statistics they published by US based digital solutions provider GMS Local, who specialise in SEO help for national brands, their recent white paper “Perception vs. Execution: Examination of Brands’ Local Business Strategies”, indicated that 69% of marketers who participated in the survey answered that they spend more than the national average on local marketing strategies; according to the data, on average 25% of total budgets are spent on local marketing and advertising, conversely the survey actually found that while marketers may see the benefit, and recognise the importance of establishing a local presence and investing in local online activity to promote their business, in reality there is a significant gap between what marketers see as important, and how they implement their strategies.

It transpired that 33% of the businesses that participated in the study have yet to implement even basic local digital SEO to help achieve a positive impact on new business generation, even missing simple steps such as registering with online business directories.  The report also found that while marketers recognise the benefit of promoting their business amongst local networks, although it is not implemented on the same scale as they perhaps claim, they anticipate an increase in the allocation of their budget that is dedicated to local search over the next three years:

“Eighty-three percent of marketers surveyed expect their local online spending to increase at a greater rate than the projected national growth (25 percent) over the next three years. Such growth supports the expansive consumer activity happening in the local digital marketplace, where up to 20 percent of searches conducted have local intent (jumping to 40 percent on mobile devices)”.

By engaging with local consumers through national advertisers, communicating with a broader base of clients, maximising the potential of platforms with extensive local footprints, organisations can extend their presence within close proximity to their business operations.  Merely recognising the importance f these steps is not enough however.

While building a global brand and presence across the web is integral for worldwide businesses, when it comes to smaller operations, ensuring maximum exposure across a local network of potential customers is crucial.  One of the most effective means of reaching out to local clients is through SEO help for local businesses, building a foundation from a company website, through to the basics such as registering with local directories such as those provided by Google, establishing a footprint on a local network and ultimately making it easier for local clients to find businesses in their area.

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In Google’s own words: “we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience”.  As ‘Distinguished Engineer’ Matt Cutts goes on to explain in his blog post on the subject:

“In our ongoing effort to help you find more high-quality websites in search results, today we’re launching an algorithmic change that looks at the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result.”

In a bid to constantly improve the services that they provide their users, Google has listened to the feedback and responded accordingly.  This will not help SEO for any business that relies heavily on advertisements; to what Cutts terms “an excessive degree”.

In order for any sites looking for SEO help to increase revenue and stimulate new business, in order to maximise the position of their website in Google’s search result listings, a readjustment will be required, as Cutts notes: “sites that don’t have much content ‘above-the-fold’ can be affected by this change”.

It is anticipated that the change will impact less than 1% of global searches, however when considering the numbers on Google’s scale; 1% is not an insignificant number.  It is estimated that Google receives several hundred million queries per day across it’s portfolio of online services.

For any business adopting standard practices utilising SEO to help increase their web footprint and maximise the exposure of their brand or business online, that is likely to be affected by these changes, the solution proposed by Google is to revise page layouts to ensure that relevant content is accessible to users, with a focus on providing the “best possible user experience”, as Cutts goes on to explain:

“If you decide to update your page layout, the page layout algorithm will automatically reflect the changes as we re-crawl and process enough pages from your site to assess the changes [...] on a typical website, it can take several weeks for Googlebot to crawl and process enough pages to reflect layout changes on the site.”

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Since the inception of Google+, very little has been said about the global popularity of Google’s new social media project by the search engine giant itself, with no official statistics being provided that widely publicise it’s initial success, following the sites launch in June of last year.

In December the “unofficial Google+ statistician” Paul Allen, ran a query associated to surnames that had been used to sign up to the service, in order to identify the number of users logging in to the social networking site, and settled on 62 million following his research; with predictions that the number would climb to 85 million by the beginning of February this year.

Digital business analytics service ComScore also reported that Google+ was home to 65 million users in November; the difference between their study and that of Hitwise being that ComScore, and also Allen, refer to the number of visitors, while Experian Hitwise measured the number of visits to the Google+ site, a more vague indicator of the number do users actually signing up to and using the site on a regular basis.

The speculation from various quarters across the industry indicates that interest in Google’s social media platform is steadily growing; as does the overall impact of digital media marketing on the IT industry.  Although Google+ seems to be enjoying increasing popularity, it is still a long way off proving a serious threat to the likes of Facebook, which boasts over 800 million active users, half a billion of which access the site on a daily basis, and Twitter with a reported 300 million plus users.

According to industry observers cnet, Google has been making a number of changes to a variety of platforms, in order to integrate their social site fully across their existing portfolio, and establish the site as a key component part it’s web offering and digital media marketing platform:

“Google has been integrating Google+ with other technology such as Android, Picasa, Web Albums, Gmail, search, and Reader, using the service to unify Google technology and to cross-promote its products.”

Recent studies conducted by ComScore indicate that social networking is as popular as ever, with an estimated 82% of web users aged fifteen years or over using the net to access social media sites, and almost a fifth of time spent surfing the web is on social networking platforms; making it the most favoured past time globally, and a lucrative market for digital media marketing.

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The announcement came via the Twitter advertising blog, which provided an insight into the changes, and how they would affect marketers already using Twitter as a platform to communicate with existing clients, as well as circulating their brand amongst web audiences, utilising digital media marketing in order to extend their reach online:  “we are introducing enhanced profile pages that help marketers create an even more compelling destination on Twitter for their brands” they said.

Enhanced profile pages have been rolled out amongst a limited number of advertising partners and charities, including American Express, Bing and Intel, with the new format being made available to wider audiences over the coming months.

The update retains Twitter’s communication centric focus through succinct and concise messages, with the emphasis being on what people are saying about their business, and how they are saying it.  While businesses are limited to just 140 characters per tweet, the new twitter ‘advertising’ pages provide a number other devices to maximise the exposure of a brand online through digital media marketing, such as larger header images for a brand or business to display their logo:

“Communicating with users isn’t just about what you say. It’s also about how you say it. Now, your profile page does more to help you make an impression with a large header image for displaying your logo, tagline, and any other visuals.”

In addition, Twitter have included more sophisticated devices in order to compete with the likes of Facebook and Google+ (which according to recent reports saw an increase in traffic of 55% in December), providing users with more flexibility to target visitors with specific messages.

“You can also control the message visitors see when they first come to your profile page by promoting a Tweet to the top of your page’s timeline. This Tweet helps you highlight your most engaging and important content and better connect with your target audience [...] this page and the Promoted Tweet are both free of charge and publicly accessible for the whole world to see.”

As digital media marketing continues to proliferate amongst brands and businesses, the race for dominance between the three big hitters will no doubt continue to heat up throughout the year, with 2012 promising to be an interesting year for change amongst the three key social media contenders, as the main Twitter blog post explained: “what we’re announcing today is just the beginning. We now have a framework in place that we will quickly build and iterate upon to help users connect with whatever is meaningful to them.”

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MerchantCircle is a company that is “dedicated to connecting neighbors and merchants online” and as part of their commitment to supporting small businesses, the social networking site for SMB’s conducted a study amongst 2,500 small business owners, asking each of them: “If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?”.  The options available to those participating in the study included: SEO, paid search, mobile, social and traditional media.  The results published indicate that SEO revealed itself as the most popular medium by far.

The purpose of the MerchantCircle study was also intended to reveal the opinions of small business owners when it came to the current economic climate, as well as focusing on the preferred marketing channel of choice, being widely implemented by the US based business owners.  SEO scored the highest with 33%, traditional media came in second with just under 20% and social media fourth with 16%.

As part of their continued commitment helping to support local businesses in Surrey to extend their reach online, Top Click Media reviews Search Engine Optimisation tools available to small to medium enterprises and regularly researches new approaches to local SEO, in order to ensure their approaches support the constantly evolving SEO landscape.   Top Click Media review global approaches to SEO to make sure that the most effective marketing strategies are being implemented when it comes to SEO for local UK based businesses, and the findings of this latest study confirm that the bulk of most marketers budgets are being invested into online SEO campaigns, although MerchantCircle’s ‘Confidence Index’ also revealed that new approaches to online marketing are also being adopted widely by SMB’s:

“newer paid marketing channels like Facebook Ads and group deals are now part of the small business marketing mix, with local pay-per-lead poised for some serious growth in the near future [...] also surprising is the quick adoption of Google Offers relative to the “big boys” in the group deal space like Groupon, Facebook Deals (no longer around) and Living Social.  Local business owners tell us that they plan to try Google Offers more than any other group buying service in the future.”

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“184 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in October for an average of 21.1 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience viewed 42.6 billion videos, representing an all-time high.”

According to statistics published by the global leader in digital media analytics, You Tube/Google has an audience of just less than 161 million unique viewers; an impressive figure; and one that is three times that of Facebook, which comes in at second place with almost 60 million unique viewers.  Based on comScore’s findings, VEVO registered in third position with “57 million [viewers], Microsoft Sites with 49.1 million and Viacom Digital with 48.2 million”.

The number of videos viewed online in October broke all previous records, and indicates that the future of digital media marketing lies with the proliferating online video market.  The sheer volume of users, in the US alone, is testament to the increasing popularity of online video sites on a global scale:

“More than 42 billion videos were viewed during the month, with the average viewer watching a record 21.1 hours. Google Sites demonstrated the highest engagement with 7.1 hours per viewer.”

Earlier this year Yahoo was surpassed by YouTube as the second largest search engine, and has the added benefit of attracting users for prolonged periods of time.  The reach of Google’s YouTube platform exemplifies the potential for online advertisements as a platform for marketers to reach potential target audiences, with digital media marketing video ads reaching a growing number of users globally, as more and more people utilise online video sites for extensive periods of time each month.  As comScore goes on to note, 53% of the population in the US accessed online videos 47 times during October on average:

“Time spent watching video ads totaled more than 3.2 billion minutes during the month, with Tremor Video delivering the highest duration of video ads at 614 million minutes. Video ads reached 53 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 47 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 46.5.”

The potential to use promoted video ads as a lucrative digital media marketing platform are vast, and with Google operating their promoted ads in much the same way as their existing search ads platform, it is relatively easy to navigate, and provides advertisers with methods for attracting attention to a video ad, as well as increasing viewers and subscribers to a channel, with the objective of impacting upon downstream conversions.

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With the recent launch of Google+ Pages for business, Top Click Media Reviews the impact of Google+ Pages for brands and organisations that adopt Search Engine Optimisation strategies as part of their general business market reviews; increasing web traffic and maximising the exposure of a brand online through PPC and SEO.

The Facebook ‘like’ button has proved to be a powerful tool for many businesses, and with the introduction of the Google +1 button and Google+ Pages for business this year, the search engine giant is following in the footsteps of the world’s most popular social media site.

In early November, Google announced the launch of Google+ Pages, which provides businesses with a new platform to communicate with their existing or potential customers.  The platform is designed for businesses, brands, products and organisations to build their public identity on the Google+ network.  Back in early July when Google+ launched in Beta, following a closed trial period of three months, Top Click Media Reviewed the potential posed by Google’s new social network, the general feeling at that time was that Facebook would prevail as the established choice for the online community, and it could take years for Google+ to ostensibly challenge their title, however Google have some tricks up their sleeve that are being used to sway opinion and coerce businesses over to the Google+ way of thinking.

One of the most notable is the simultaneous promotion of Google+ with the +1 button, used to circulate credible content amongst other Google users. Google+ Pages will enable businesses to link their various portfolios online, from their website, to their AdWords PPC sponsored links to their mobile sites, as Dennis Troper, Product Management Director for Google+ Pages explained via the AdWords blog: “we will also make it possible to link your Page to your AdWords campaigns for your site, so that all your +1s — from your Page, your website, ads and search results — will get tallied together and appear as a single total”.

The changes will mean that when a business, or brand, creates a Google+ Page online, that page can then be linked across a variety of platforms, including an existing website, and more specifically to an AdWords PPC Management account.  This then will mean that when someone +1’s any URL’s, or a landing page from a particular AdWords campaign, they are then linked back to a Google+ business page; augmenting the numbers on a fairly big scale.

At Top Click Media we review the best way for businesses to increase their web footprint and maximise the exposure of their brand online.  There is little doubt that publishing a Google+ Page will improve the position of a businesses webpage in Google’s search rankings; it’s like web nepotism, and having as much information about your brand or products online as possible, can’t be a bad thing.

Covering a range of platforms shouldn’t put businesses off, although having a presence across an ever increasing number of social media sites can at times be difficult to manage, different audiences engage via different mediums, some use Twitter, others Facebook, those with their finger on the pulse use Google+.  With even more social media management platforms opening up to the Google+ social network, including: Buddy Media, Context Optional, Hearsay Social, Hootsuite, Involver and Vitrue, using one interface to populate information across a range of platforms is relatively simple; they will index separately and you ensure that you have all social media bases covered across multiple social media platforms, communicating to a wider audience.  Top Click Media’s Review of the latest social platform from Google is favourable on the whole, but whether it can truly compete with Facebook remains to be seen.

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Following the launch of the Google+ search facility in October of this year, Google+ have now enhanced their search options to include trending topics, in the same way that Twitter includes trends on it’s social media platform, listing the most popular subjects that are under discussion with users, and providing the option to conduct a specific search for these topics via it’s social site.

Since late last week Google+ search results have included ‘hot topics’ including key terms being used in the most popular discussions on the Google+ social network, when users conduct a search they are now provided with a list of possible matches for that term, separated in a drop down window that directs to either People or Pages that match the query.

When the search functionality was first turned on for Google+ users, at the top of the page there were four tabs to choose from: Everything, People and Pages, Posts and Sparks, these have now been consolidated to one tab, with a secondary tab which incorporates three new filters: ‘Everyone’, ‘Your Circles’ and ‘You’, allowing users to access information from wider audiences, engaging with friends, colleagues or acquaintances about a given topic.  Search Engine Optimisation in the UK seems to be expanding outside of the realms of what people are looking for on any given search engine, and expanding into the field of social; it seems that it is people who are shaping the current and future landscape of SEO.

Trends are also listed on the right hand side indicating the ten most popular terms; the key component to any self-respecting social site; no doubt another device being used by Google to encourage wider audience participation and user engagement.  Twitter’s trending topics was an organic function introduced by Twitter users through prefixing a key term with the hash tag symbol, and it has become an integral component, called upon by a number of online publications, such as the New York Times, who provide a weekly digest of trending topics, reporting on what is being widely discussed on social media platforms across the world.

The adoption of trending in the Google+ social media sphere is symptomatic of the evolving landscape when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation in the UK, as well a globally, developing outside of standard search terms on Google or Bing and into the realms of social interactivity; what people are talking about locally, globally, across industries, providing infinite realtime information about a given topic.

Interestingly the addition of Google+ trending topics to their social site was done with very little fuss and no official announcement was made on the Google blogspot, although a number of news sites have announced the change and reviewed it’s impact on Google’s social network.

The effect of the Google+ platform on UK Search Engine Optimisation itself is being widely speculated upon, as Google introduce a number of devices to ensure the success, and increasing global network, of Google+ users, such as their launch of Pages for Brands and Businesses, linking ‘+1’s’ to Google+ Pages and including these in their Google search result listings.

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And so they did.  It now transpires that Google+ Pages will mean big things for Google +1’s on their AdWords PPC Management sponsored links.  Google’s social networking site will enable businesses to link their various portfolios online, from their website, to their AdWords account to their mobile sites, as Dennis Troper, Product Management Director for Google+ Pages explained in their latest AdWords blog post: “we will also make it possible to link your Page to your AdWords campaigns for your site, so that all your +1s — from your Page, your website, ads and search results — will get tallied together and appear as a single total”.

The changes will mean that when a business, or brand, creates a Google+ Page online, that page can then be linked across a variety of platforms, including an existing website, and more specifically to an AdWords PPC Management account.  This then will mean that when someone +1’s any URL’s, or a landing page from a particular AdWords campaign, that are linked back to their Google+ business page, that +1 will not only be registered against that particular URL or landing page, but also on the Google+ Page; augmenting the numbers on a fairly big scale, as Troper goes on to explain:

“Consumers will be able to see all the recommendations your business has received, whether they are looking at an ad, [or] a search result or your page, meaning your +1’s will reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day.”

Google’s +1 button now works across a variety of platforms, including their search facility, AdWords PPC management portfolio, on websites and mobile devices; +1 allows Google users to circulate content about a business or brand, and with Google+ Pages the effect of linking URL’s and landing pages with AdWords advertisements, further enhances the impact of social media on search and online advertisements, as well as the way customers engage with brands or businesses online.  These changes, inextricably linking a business’s Google AdWords PPC account with its Google+ Page, should not be underestimated, according to the online news site Search Engine Land:

“Previously, +1s were specific to individual URLs and only accumulated when people +1ed the URL in organic results or an AdWords ad that used that URL as a landing page. Google is now displaying +1s with ads both on Google.com and on the display network and has said ads with +1s perform better than ads without, presumably because they’ve been socially recommended.”

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Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google, made the announcement via the Google blog yesterday morning, now everyone from smaller to larger businesses can launch their own page and utilise it as a tool to connect directly with audiences not just locally but also around the world:

“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.”

For local based businesses in Surrey utilising Search Engine Optimisation in order to drive sales and ultimately increase revenue, tools such as the Google+ business pages provides a unique opportunity to engage on a personal level, and build relationships with potential customers, as well as keeping in touch with existing clients.  By creating a variety of groups within your Google+ page, you can communicate with relevant users, share insights and updates with them, or by hosting an online broadcast via the live Google+ Hangouts feature, you can make announcements, launch a new range or product or just simply keep in touch with customers in your area.

For local businesses, using SEO in Surrey catchment areas is an integral part of reaching out to new customers and growing your business within the community, as more and more people turn to the web to solve their queries with Google searches:

“People search on Google billions of times a day, and very often, they’re looking for businesses and brands. Today’s launch of Google+ Pages can help people transform their queries into meaningful connections, so we’re rolling out two ways to add pages to circles from Google search. The first is by including Google+ pages in search results, and the second is a new feature called Direct Connect.”

Google+ enables local businesses utilising SEO in Surrey as a means to engage with an even broader audience; and with the updated integrated search function, you can circulate your business on an even wider scale, by prefixing a search term for a business or brand with the + sign, people conducting a search via Google will automatically be directed to the relevant Google+ social page.

Via the same announcement on Google’s blogspot, Gundotra also indicated that there will be further advancements made to the Google+ social network, with additional improvements to be launched over the coming months:

“With Google+, we strive to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. Today’s initial launch of Google+ Pages brings us a little bit closer, but we’ve still got lots of improvements planned.”

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The results for the third quarter for the whole of Google’s portfolio were up by 33% when compared to the same period last year, with Page reporting profits of $9.72 billion in revenue.

It is widely believed that the vast majority of the $2.5 billion revenue generated from their mobile speculations, is from Google’s mobile search ads, pay per click platforms, and although Page was not willing to confirm what proportion of their mobile profits was made up of mobile search compared to their display ad revenues, with Google’s authority in the mobile search arena, it is highly likely that this is the source of the larger proportion of their mobile income.

According to Page, there are now 190 million Android devices in circulation, an increase of 60 million when compared to figures presented for July, with their commitment to mobile pay per click advertising, ISP, OS sectors and the manufacture of hardware made apparent by the purchase of Motorola mobility earlier this year.  Google now covers the spectrum of key, lucrative markets that have demonstrated massive growth globally in recent years, with pay per click mobile search, and advertising leading the way.

Google’s announcement of almost $10billion in profits for Q3 alone comes as little surprise with their extensive portfolio, right now it seems that Google have all the bases covered across a spectrum of technology and online advertising services.

Google are in a strong position when it comes to targeting PPC content advertising and services for their users, integrating their web-based products and mobile operating systems with a hardware solution to complement their existing portfolio; further augmenting the strength of their core product Google AdWords, with the establishment of an already globally recognised brand within the hardware market.

News also came this week that Samsung is now the leading Smartphone vendor, shipping more handsets even than their primary competitor Apple.  Their range of mid to high-end Android devices was one of the main factors in them overtaking iPhone sales globally, and securing a market share of 23.8% (an increase of 14.5%).  According to reports almost 28 million devices were shipped by Samsung in Q3, compared to 17.1 million iPhones giving them just a 14.6% share of the global market.

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Both Google and Facebook provide advertisers with what are primarily PPC services, as well as other advertising options.  Google’s AdWords and Facebook Ads are the big hitters in PPC Management, mainly due to the size of their audiences.  Google still far outnumbers other contenders in the search engine market, with almost two-thirds of the market share, while Facebook is edging ever closer to securing 1 billion user accounts worldwide.

According to the research firm eMarketer, it is estimated that Facebook’s net earnings will be over $4.2 billion worldwide in 2011, equating to £2.66 billion.  90% of the money made by Facebook is through advertising revenues, with SMB’s accounting for the larger proportion of businesses using Facebook to advertise their brand or product.

Without doubt, they both have their merits, and provide distinct services relevant to particular businesses, brands or products.  Both platforms provide free marketing tools for subscribers, such as Facebook’s Pages and Google’s Places, neither of which require an ad buy from advertisers, and both provide the ability to target specific market segments when running online campaigns; but here is where the two platforms diverge.

Larry Kim, Chief Technical Officer of the online marketing firm WordStream explains that in order to understand the benefits of Google’s PPC management operations in comparison to Facebook, and to identify which provides the best fit for your business, product or brand, you first need to pinpoint exactly what it is that you are trying to achieve from your online campaign: “SMBs really have to figure out what they are trying to sell and to who, is it branding, or are you trying to sell something very specific?”.

Facebook users tend to be online during a single session for a much longer period of time compared to someone conducting a Google search; making Facebook a more suitable platform for raising brand awareness or communicating a single, clear message about a product or a particular area of your business, Facebook also makes it easier for advertisers to target a specific group or demographic.  ‘People-oriented’ messages are harder to orchestrate using the Google AdWords platform than they are through Facebook, which makes it easier to single out your target audience that you want your advertisements to reach.  But as explained by Kevin Casey from InformationWeek the online news site for SMB’s, conversely, Google has access to a wider range of users when it comes to web searches, potentially acting as a more suitable solution when it comes to increasing web traffic and click throughs:

“Facebook isn’t strong in pure Web searches; Google has the clear advantage there, and as a result could be the better fit for driving actual clicks and conversions around specific products. It comes down to intent: whereas Facebook users might just be checking up on their friends or posting vacation photos, Google searchers typically have a much more specific goal.”

In order for advertisers to effectively manage PPC campaigns, the key is identifying your audience, who you want to reach, and what message you are trying to communicate.  Knowing which platform best suits your audience and the message you are attempting to convey is the answer to ensuring PPC management is implemented effectively as part of your marketing strategies.

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“Incorporating personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising. A display ad becomes much more powerful when people can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it.”

The benefit for AdWords and PPC users is that the +1 button will circulate content amongst a much broader audience, and as Google are investing heavily in display ad marketing strategies, adding ten channels to their You Tube platform that will broadcast solely for specific industries such as sport and fashion, it was only a matter of time before they included the +1 functionality for existing display ad users.

Google see display ads as the future for PPC campaigns; encouraging increased traffic by engaging with potential customers in a way that traditional advertising strategies cannot, and by incorporating the +1 button as part of this feature, content is proliferated, endorsed and recommended, with the potential to engage with new audiences maximised, as Oliveira goes on to explain:

“What’s even better is that 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”.

Google is relying on the +1 button, combined with their new social project Google+ to further establish Google as a purveyor of quality content, encouraging social connections and endorsements from other web users, in order to maximise the effect of ad campaigns for AdWords and PPC clients.  By supporting display ads in their portfolio of products, Google are seeking to future-proof their services, and as they are fending off competition from new operations such as Twitter’s web Analytics tool, Google will no doubt be looking to the next generation of advertising platforms as a means of maintaining their dominance within this arena.  As identified by Oliveira, +1 is making an impact globally with multi-billion daily impressions:

“Since its introduction on search results and search ads, the +1 button has been installed on over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily […] we’re expanding that to include display ads across the web on both desktop and mobile. For the first time, you’ll be able to run social-enabled ad campaigns that work across millions of sites in over 40 countries around the world.”

Google have long been advocates of display advertising as a concentrated approach centered around user engagement, and have indicated that it will underpin the future for search advertising, augmenting existing approaches to SEO management as a means of engaging with users and establishing brands using web-based platforms.

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One of the key benefits provided by the new tool is the ability to produce reports measuring the impact that social media has on web traffic.  Google uses the example of ‘campaign tagging’ links that are shared between a blog, social platform or a website; when a new post is published, if users operating the Analytics PPC dashboard also tweet about their new content, by utilsing the real-time report function, the immediate affect that a tweet has on site traffic can be tracked, as John Jersin, of the Google Analytics Team explains:

“For example, last week we posted about the latest episode of Web Analytics TV and also tweeted about the post. By campaign tagging the links we shared, we could see how much traffic each channel is driving to the blog as it happened. We could also see when we stopped receiving visits from the tweet, which helps know when to reengage.”

The enhancement will largely benefit users who utilise social media as a means of driving web traffic to their site or online store front, as it affords the opportunity to draw correlations between these two factors and their interdependence, allowing users to measure just how important social platforms are, as well as providing insights into tweets, posts or updates that have the highest rate of click throughs and ultimately sales conversions.

Aside from the ever increasing importance of social media when it comes to marketing strategies, the added benefit of the Google Analytics Real Time functionality is the ability to ensure that campaigns are being correctly measured before their launch, as Jersin goes on to explain:

“Another way I’m using Real-Time is to make sure campaign tracking is correctly implemented before launching a campaign. When getting ready to launch a new campaign it’s critical to make sure your measurement plan is working before you start driving visitors to the page. With the Real-Time reports you can find out in seconds whether you’re getting the data you want in Google Analytics.”

The Google Analytics PPC dashboard is likely to come under scrutiny, and receive a number of updates similar to those provided by the ‘Real Time’ tool, in order to maintain it’s dominant position in the SEO market space, as the web’s more junior players, such as Twitter, increase their service offerings and provide their own analytics tools, in a bid to rival the established search engine giants like Google.

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