MySpace, Twitter and Facebook have all joined forces in the creation of an add on for browsers, that wages war on the Google “Search, plus Your World”  campaign, which returns personal information from Google+ subscribers, when users are logged in to their Google account, providing relevant results from Google+ alongside the usual web results listed in response to a search query, providing a more “personal experience” in what Google fellow Amit Signal, via the Google blog post, called a move to develop a search engine that “understands not only content, but also people and relationships”.

The add on is an open sourced code named “don’t be evil”, directly quoting Google’s own inimitable strapline, which is available from a website entitled ‘Focus on the User’.  Social media has proved to be a lucrative platform for marketers looking to increase their position in Google’s rankings, and maximise their exposure when it comes to Google Search Engine Optimisation in the UK, hence the battle is hotting up, especially since Google made the self-serving changes to their search content, as the brains behind ‘Focus on the User’ explain on the site’s home page:

“How much better would social search be if Google surfaced results from all across the web? The results speak for themselves. We created a tool that uses Google’s own relevance measure—the ranking of their organic search results—to determine what social content should appear in the areas where Google+ results are currently hardcoded”

The code is designed to eliminate what Facebook, Twitter and MySpace perceive to be Google’s ‘bias’ when it comes to it’s own social network, listing their potentially outdated Google+ results in search listings, in the place of more up to date and relevant content posted on any other social media sites.  The complaint from Twitter’s quarter is that since Google launched “Search, plus your world”, Google+ content is now prioritised over and above other information available from alternative social media sites, even in the case of them publishing more recent, or even relevant content to the search user.

Launched in late January, the browser add on seeks to redress the imbalance when it comes to Google’s monopoly over Search Engine Optimisation UK and global SEO markets, giving web users the option to view the results that a search query would have returned before Google made their self-promoting update.  Using Google’s own ‘relevance measure’ according to the ‘Focus on the User” site, their code looks at: “the three places where Google only shows Google+ results and then automatically googles Google to see if Google finds a result more relevant than Google+”.

For anyone who wants to try out the add on, it can be added to a browsers bookmark bar from the ‘Focus on the User’ site, but as yet it is not compatible with Internet Explorer browsers.

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If you haven’t already heard the speculation on the SEO grapevine about the first of Google’s Panda updates this side of 2012, then the confirmation from Google that the algorithmic update, referred to across the industry as version 3.2, might come as a surprise.

Online SEO Agency Search Engine Land received confirmation from Google that the reports circulating across the web are in fact true; a data refresh of the Panda algorithm took place last week.  Google have indicated that it was merely a data refresh, and there were “no additional signals or algorithm changes”.

Some websites that were affected by Google’s alterations to their search results ranking algorithm, during the global rollout of their Panda update in April 2011, when an estimated 12 percent of search result rankings were affected, have seen their search rankings improve with the latest updates.  The impact that was felt by a number of sites, who witnessed a decrease in their traffic levels, have since reported that with the subsequent (almost monthly) updates, such as this latest data refresh, they are now seeing their pre-Panda site traffic levels restored.

Since the impact of the Panda rollout last year, a number of SEO Agencies have been closely monitoring any algorithmic changes, as well as their effects across the web. Many are now surmising that this latest data refresh was intended to re-establish any higher-quality sites that may have been unfairly impacted by the changes to Google’s algorithm, as well as those who should have been affected and remained untouched by the update; such as the “low-quality” sites that Google sought to rank lower in it’s results listings when the changes were originally made early last year.

Google’s war on low-quality content featuring high up in their search result listings was augmented last week by the additional changes made to their page layout algorithm, making it easier for Google users to access the content that is relevant to them and relating specifically to their search query.  The changes were made in response to feedback provided by Google users globally.

Any websites that are ad-heavy ‘above-the-fold’, featuring minimal content and an ‘excessive’ number of advertisements at the top of their webpages, will have seen their ranking in Google’s search results impacted by the changes.  Any sites featuring an ‘excessive’ volume of advertising, or relying heavily upon link building, with “shady” linking practices, will see their rankings slip over the coming weeks, as Google focuses in earnest on promoting sites with relevant, quality content, as SEO Agencies continue to monitor the changes and their ultimate impact on SEO.

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The data confirms what we already knew about the power of SEO when it comes to generating new business and increasing revenues, and also indicates that SEO forms an integral role in the broader marketing strategies for many organisations.  In response to these latest findings, Top Click Media Reviews SEO for Surrey Businesses, and how starting the new year by investing in SEO and expanding on existing approaches, and implementing new strategies and publishing information across platforms about your brand or business online, will improve the web footprint of Surrey businesses through SEO, as well as driving revenue by extending the reach and client base of Surrey based businesses online; start the new year with a boost in sales and revenue.

It is crucial for businesses in Surrey looking to improve their existing approaches to SEO, that a strong presence is established through the main search engines, for the purposes of Top Click Media’s Review of SEO for Surrey Businesses, the focus will remain on Google as the most popular global search engine provider.

Social Media has dominated the marketing landscape for the last twelve months, and it continues to expand it’s network on a global scale; through sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ Pages, businesses are able to establish a presence across a range of social networking platforms; these are particularly useful tools when it comes to SEO for Surrey businesses, looking to maximise the exposure of their brand, products or services online.  Enabling Surrey businesses to maintain contact with a network of existing and potential clients is one of the best ways to build up confidence in a brand or Surrey business.

As well as using Social Media as a platform to communicate with other internet users, Surrey businesses can also augment their online presence, and make contact with potential clients through a portfolio of products from Google, including AdWords Pay Per Click campaigns, one of the most effective SEO tools for Surrey businesses.  Top Click Media Reviews these as an integral service for most Surrey businesses looking to adopt SEO in order to increase sales.

But for these approaches to take full effect, an established web site, providing detailed information about your business, services, contact information, and even customer reviews is the best foundation for any Surrey business looking to use SEO as a platform to drive their business forwards this year.

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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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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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“On November 7 Google announced Google+ Pages, offering brands the ability to manage their social media presence in the Google+ network. This move mimicked long-standing functionality offered by Facebook [...] In this early phase of a Google+ presence, brands are moving fast to create Google+ Pages. At the time of this report 61% of the top 100 brands have already established Google+ Pages.”

Businesses and brands will continue using Google+ in order to increase the number of “+1s” referencing their site, and recommending it to other registered Google users, effectively circulating their content online across a global network.  This is where Google will be hoping to underpin their social media platform and encourage it’s usage across global markets; increasing it’s popularity with consumers and brands alike.  By utilising their dominance in search markets, Google are taking advantage of devices such as indexing their Google+ Pages in their search results; no doubt they will be hoping that this will generate increased interest from online consumers as well as establishing their social platform’s popularity with the online community.

In addition, Google have provided an added incentive for businesses to set up their own Google+ Page, 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”.

Should companies start offering incentives for Google users to +1 them, as a number of brands do currently on Facebook, encouraging people to ‘like’ them by providing rewards for user endorsements, no doubt the exposure of Google’s social networking platform will proliferate, but it must establish itself within the consciousness of online communities, and attract enough active users to encourage wider audiences on the scale of existing social media platforms.

Although the SEO Agency report also identifies that just 12% of the top 100 US brands with Google+ pages have linked their homepage to their Google+ Page, compared to 53% of the same top 100 brands, that have linked their website homepage to their Facebook Page, indicating that Google+ still has a long way to go before establishing the sort of presence that both Facebook and Twitter have achieved in social media markets.

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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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“New technologies in display advertising are resulting in better user experiences, better advertiser results and incredible growth for the industry. We’re investing significantly to help improve display advertising for advertisers, publishers and users [...] where people connect and respond to display ads in ways we’ve never seen before.”

Video ads are the fastest growing online format for advertisers, according to eMarketer, over the next three years investment in video advertising is expected to reach $50 billion.  Google are currently piloting their ‘First Watch‘ ad format with big brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Hotels.com, Macy’s and Virgin Media, centered around the generation of ‘professional content’ distinct from the videos posted by users that the site is best known for.  First Watch provides advertisers with a pre-roll slot when a consumer views a video for the first time on the broadcasting site.

Currently online advertising is the second largest ad platform, second only to television; overtaking other mediums such as radio and print; display advertising makes up an incredible 40% of this space, and according to Google, is growing by 25% year on year.  The impact of this new approach when it comes to engaging with potential customers will no doubt lead to it’s integration with other Google SEO management tools; as businesses engage with the display ad market, and look to use the platform as a tool for increasing web traffic, brand awareness and their online presence.  In the latest Social Share Report published by BrightEdge, of the 10,000 largest sites on the web that were included in the survey, 17% of them provide links to YouTube on their home page, indicating the impact that the broadcasting site is already having on social media marketing.

Since Mohan made his keynote speech earlier this year, it is reported that Google has invested $100 million in the development of original content for it’s YouTube platform, and according to the Wall Street Journal, Google are establishing twelve or more YouTube “channels” dedicated to subjects such as sports and fashion, establishing them in an increasingly prominent situation within the market, when it comes to brand positioning through display advertising.

Google have in the past demonstrated their commitment to developing key strategies in the continued development of the display ad market, however their next challenge will be to provide users and businesses with a range of SEO management tools, enabling brands and businesses to target, optimise and monitor the success of their display ad campaigns; helping businesses to boost website traffic and ultimately sales.

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One of the compelling features for prospective Google+ members is the multi user ‘hangouts’ video chat feature that allows multiple people to join a conversation via video online, using Hangouts “On Air” up to nine other people can join your video discussion, and anyone can watch your live broadcast: a function that Google is extending to it’s Android smartphones, allowing users to conduct conversations with multiple contacts using their mobile device. Google+ also allows members to share whatever is featured on their computer screens with contacts they are talking to using the chat ‘hangouts’ feature.

In addition to the Google Chat function, there are certain key features to the Google+ platform that make it a beneficial tool when it comes to social networking, and more specifically it’s affect on SEO, one of which is the integration of search facilities within Google+, giving members the opportunity to find results from information shared socially through Google +1 and recommendations from other users, as well as across the web generally. It is this “social search” element of Google+ that makes it an appealing option for businesses to use in order to improve rankings and their position in Google’s search listings.

According to the Google Blog, the addition of the search function was in response to users requesting that Google+ be fully integrated with Google search:

“You’ve been asking for it, and we’ve been busy building it, so today we’re bringing Google’s search expertise to Google+. Just type what you’re looking for into the Google+ search box, and we’ll return relevant people and posts, as well as popular content from around the web.”

Google+ has long been anticipated to be launched as another string to Google’s SEO bow and fully integrate into their Search Engine Optimisation portfolio. Social media has proliferated as a fundamental tool for many marketers advertising online, driving visitors to their site by using existing social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook in order to increase web traffic. In an interview with the BBC, Matt Rhodes, a specialist in social networks, explained the significance of this features inclusion in the Google+ portfolio and the benefits for businesses using the platform to drive sales and increase SEO performance:

“Brands know that a lot of people who come to them come through search and anything they can do to make themselves come up through the right terms or higher up the rankings is important. Commercially that is the opportunity.”

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With the well documented success of smartphone technology, Intel are keen to break into the market, currently dominated by ARM, used by Microsoft’s Windows smartphones, while other companies manufacturing mobile processors such as Texas Instruments and Samsung, license ARM’s architecture.

The announcement comes just months after Google acquired hardware manufacturer Motorola mobility, and completes the circle of hardware, processor and operating system development, indicating that Google will be leveraging their partnership with Intel in the manufacture of mobile devices that can compete with the Apple iPad and iPhone; a move that has proved unsuccessful for many manufacturers in recent months, including HP and RIM.

The Intel and Google partnership is mutually beneficial, as Google’s Android platform holds a 40% share of the smartphone market, more than both Apple or Microsoft’s operating systems, enabling Intel to benefit from the dominance of Google’s operating system in this sphere.  The adaptation of their Pay Per Click Management Suite, also complements the full range of hardware, software and services provided to the mobile market by Google.  According to Real World Technologies analyst David Kanter:  “it’s really about Google saying that Intel is going to be a first-class citizen in the Android ecosystem”.

Both organisations are aiming to optimise Google’s Android mobile software, for use with the lower-powered Atom chips, in order to expedite the ‘time-to-market’ of smartphones using Intel technologies.   Until fairly recently, phone manufacturers have been solely responsible for enabling the compatibility of Android friendly hardware, for use with Intel processors; the new model will ensure Google’s Android software is optimised at the point of manufacture for use with Intel’s Atom chips.

The move is fairly critical for Intel, as the proliferation of tablets and smartphones has lead to increased speculation, and subsequent evidence, to suggest that the curtain is falling on the average PC, with sales declining in mature North American and European markets.  The x86 architecture adopted by Intel is aligned to the PC market, and has proved to be inefficient on smartphone devices; impacting on the battery life, with it’s high consumption of power.

This is not the first time Intel and Google have worked in collaboration, in 2006 the pair announced plans to bring together Google Video with Intel’s Viiv technology, making it easier for consumers to: “search, manage, and consume the huge amount of video information available on the Internet”.  Five years on, no doubt the objective in their latest partnership will be much the same; allowing users to consume the ever increasing amount of information that is available to them, on a device powered by Intel’s Atom chip and delivered via Google’s Android operating system, with web usage monitored by Google’s ever expanding portfolio of PPC and SEO management tools.

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The report last year focused on the impact of social media on Search Engine Optimisation for local businesses, and the latest study published by the internet and integrated marketing specialist, indicates that those who participated in the survey reported that content generation was a key factor when it came to the success of their campaigns: “marketers rated content creation as the most difficult (yet most effective) SEO tactic.  This comes as no surprise, since content marketing sits at the intersection of search and social”.   The report also claims that in order to fully optimise content for local searches, it is vital that organisations must be aware of the evolving SEO landscape, in order to stay ahead of the competition:

“To achieve good organic rankings and ensure that their products and services are found across all formats and venues, organisations must be strategic with their planning and processes, and ever-savvy with the creation and optimisation of all digital assets.  Simply put, good content makes for a better end-user experience”.

According to the report, the most widely used local search engine optimisation ‘tactics’ include generating content across a number of platforms, with 82% using local content on web pages, blog posts and page titles in order to increase sales regionally.  However, only 24% used customer reviews posted in ‘prominent’ positions in order to attract new business opportunities.

With Google supporting the ‘customer review’ feature through its SERP’s, and consumers consistently reporting that one of the key factors informing their online purchasing decisions includes user generated content; specifically in the form of reviews or feedback posted on shopping sites, social media or other online platforms, it seems that local businesses could be missing out on additional revenue by not opening up a public forum for their customers to comment on their products or services.

The findings of MarketingSherpa’s latest report indicates that, for local businesses at least, there is still a barrier between social media and user generated content published online, and even more specifically on a local businesses website.  Although there is a perceived value in using social media as a means of attracting potential clients, with the FaceBook ‘like’ button firmly established in the consciousness of most marketers, proving an all powerful tool in the world of local search optimisation tactics; but when it comes to providing their customers with a more comprehensive facility that encourages them to publish content about them online; there is still a need for a greater understanding about the power of UGC and the online word of mouth, outside of social platforms.

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Three of Ability’s key clients that operate online participated in the study, which found that although smartphones are the source of the vast majority of mobile traffic, the largest proportion of sales were generated from tablet users.  Although Ability did not disclose the names of the retailers that took part in their study, which involved reviewing data from Google Analytics to identify how people accessed their clients websites, as well as purchasing trends, all the companies that participated were identified as e-commerce sites conducting significant volumes of business online, across a wide range of products.  The results demonstrate the importance of the effective management of Search Engine Optimisation for mobile devices, to not only increase  traffic, but achieve higher conversion rates.

The information gathered by Ability indicates that while the largest proportion of web traffic was generated by smartphone users, conversion rates were far higher on tablets, and more specifically, the Apple iPad was identified as the key appliance driving more revenues for retailers than any other mobile device.

According to Jennifer Tonisson, Commerce Marketing and Training Manager for Ability, online retailers need to be more switched on to the possibilities opened up by the tablet mobile market, and SEO for mobile, with many businesses failing to develop websites that are smartphone or tablet friendly, some e-retailers are missing the opportunity to generate new revenue streams by targeting mobile devices:

“What retailers should do is see what devices consumers are using to shop on their sites and see what their sites look like on those devices, it’s important to bring in the traffic, but it’s more important to convert the traffic into sales.”

According to the results of Ability’s study, conducted over a thirty day period, iPad users made up more than 55% of mobile commerce revenues for one retailer, but accounted for only 13% of visits made by mobile consumers, the second demonstrated similar values, with 21% of web traffic generated by iPads, 51% of their sales came from the same device.  Perhaps the most compelling evidence was provided by the third anonymous retailer, with 50% of their traffic, and 97% of their m-commerce revenue originating from an Apple iPad.

Ability’s report comes after Google’s announcement following the changes made to their SEO tool AdWords, that allows users to target tablet devices with their campaigns, including the option of distinguishing between PC’s or laptops and mobile devices such as Smartphones, within the settings tab of an AdWords account.  The options provided also give advertisers the chance to target specific operating systems (Android, iOS and webOS) or “all mobile and tablet operating systems”, complementing the Google AdMob for mobile ads platform that encourages ads that appeal directly to mobile users:

“Tablet users are highly receptive to mobile ads, especially more graphical, image-based ads. iPad image ads have 2x higher CTRs than the average CTR on AdMob’s network.  Advertisers can target tablet devices with their ad campaigns”.

According to Google’s blog, the popularity of tablet PC’s, and the projected growth of the tablet PC market in the coming years has played a major role in the inclusion of tablet PCs, alongside Smartphones, as key devices for their portfolio of SEO services such as AdWords and AdMob, where subscribers can target specific audiences with their advertisements:

“With more than 165 million tablets expected to ship over the next two years, tablets are becoming a popular device with engaged, tech-savvy consumers. So we’re pleased to announce that we’re developing new targeting options to help you better connect with this audience.”

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The new functionality will allow AdWords users to optimise the positioning of their ads, in order for them to appear consistently in the listings above relevant search results, for new or existing campaigns.  The recently implemented metric complements the changes made by Google in the introduction of their “Top vs. Side” reporting mechanism, that indicates how ads that appear on top of the search results perform in comparison to those published at the side of SERPs.  As Google’s Hal Varian explains: “this distinction is important, since, on average, ads that appear above the search results tend to get substantially more clicks than ads that appear on the right-hand side”.

These two changes to the AdWords portfolio will provide key indicators for marketers managing their online advertising and search engine optimization campaigns.  By providing access to data that will allow users to conduct a more detailed analysis, and make distinctions between the location of an advertisement on Google’s SERPs, compared with the click through rate, and ultimately the number of conversions.  The changes will also give brand advertisers a better understanding of how critical ‘brand terms’ are impacting on the position of their ad campaigns above search result listings.

The most recent metric will give AdWords users the opportunity to maximise budgets and achieve more click throughs by positioning advertisements in the best possible location, according to Andrew Truing’s Inside AdWords blog post, where the announcement was made:

“This information helps you better optimise your search campaigns by more deeply examining the relationship between your ads’ locations and their clicks and conversions. On average, ads that appear above the search results tend to get substantially more clicks than ads that appear on the side.  Using this information in conjunction with the new top of page bid estimates can give you greater insight with which to plan your bidding strategy.”

Although the metric will enable users to spend their budgets more sagaciously on ad campaigns, Truing does point out that merely relying on one reporting mechanism to provide adequate data for maximising the success and optimisation of your ad is not advisable:

“While the top of page bid estimates can help guide your bid planning, bidding higher than the top of page bid estimate will not guarantee a top ad position.  Ad position will still depend on Quality Score, your CPC bid, your budget and account settings, and user and competing advertiser behavior.”

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The impact of the +1 feature on Search Engine Optimisation Management is two fold: firstly it gives businesses the opportunity to track who is circulating their content; analysing user data gives an overview of the demographic they appeal to, enabling them to tailor their campaigns to a specific audience.  Secondly if the content is high quality, and worth circulating, it will be picked up and distributed amongst other users; effectively achieving the objectives of SEO Management.  Once the groundwork has been done, the hard work, getting the message to as many people as possible, is taking care of itself out there in cyberspace.

Facebook allows users to remove ads from their profile pages and give feedback on their relevance, Google has always encouraged dialogue with it’s users, across a variety of platforms, and appealed to advertisers to be more intelligent in the way they market their products; rather than flooding the net with a multitude of campaigns, select an audience, and tailor your message to meet your chosen demographic, maximising the results.  Now with their Google+ social media tool and +1 button, the search engine giant is bringing these two functionalities together and blurring the distinction between circulating content on the web, and via social networks.

According to Google: “it’s just the beginning”, the +1 button is now fully integrated with other Google+ services, like sharing content using the ‘circles’ function: “you can share relevant content with the right people, and follow content posted by people you find interesting”.  Using the +1 button is a way of highlighting content that might be of interest to other online users or ‘connections’ when they conduct a Google search, Google have just made it easier for content to be shared across the web as well as social media:

“We’re making it easy for Google+ users to share webpages with their circles, directly from the +1 button. Just +1 a page as usual and look for the new “Share on Google+” option. From there you can comment, choose a circle and share.”

The success of the +1 button in just three months since it’s inception, is testament to the role that User Generated Content (UGC) is currently playing online.  With the continuing success of social media, the marketing strategies of many businesses are evolving in response to interactive dialogues that are being held online with new and existing customers; features such as Google’s +1, Facebook’s ‘like’, twitter’s hash tag function, blogs and online forums, have all opened the web up for users to engage with organisations or brands, giving the people power, and the ability to actively form the advertising landscape.

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