Google Social Search: Future SEO

Something’s coming that could have a major impact on search engine optimisation (SEO).  Currently billed as ‘an experiment’, Google Social Search, if it takes off as expected, is something to keep a close eye on.  However, although this is something that’s going to be bigger ‘in the future’, all companies should be implementing strategies now that will give them a head start over their competitors.  Standing still at this point will lead to lost business later on.

Google Social Search in its current form, appears to be just that – ‘social’.  The simplistic view is that when you search Google for something, amongst the natural search results you will see results that are related to people you know.

For example, let’s say you’re trying to find out about a restaurant called Fabbo Food.  You type ‘Fabbo Food’ into Google and you see the normal search results.  Within those normal search results you’ll also see an area called:

Results from people in your social circle for Fabbo Food

Within that part of the page you will see comments related to Fabbo Food from people within your social circle – people you know, or are connected to people you know (extended social circle).  By clicking on those search results you get views from people that you know (and probably trust), which is more likely to help your buying decision than general reviews elsewhere, or what Fabbo Food say about themselves.

So how does Google Social Search actually work?

It relies on people creating a Google profile (free), which contains public information about them, and lets them connect to various other public accounts they have.  For example, they could link their Google profile to one or more of their accounts as follows:

• Twitter

• Facebook

• YouTube

• LinkedIn

• Blog

• Friendfeed

• Flickr

• Google Reader

So let’s say that you are logged into your Google account and are searching Google for Fabbo Food.   If one of your social circle (or extended social circle) has tweeted about Fabbo Food, or made reference to Fabbo Food in a blog or Facebook page, then you will see what they’ve said because it’s information that they’ve allowed to be ‘public’ and Google Social Search pulls all that public information together.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with gaining more business.  Certainly, while Google Search may be great to find out information about new films, restaurants, places, and more, all from people you know (or are connected to people you know), where’s the relevance when it comes to business?

While there are few people considering how Google Social Search (a system that is just in its experimental stages), could apply to business, the Custwin view is that there’s plenty of potential but that businesses need to be advancing now in order to best-capitalise on it.   There’s one important phrase to consider here:

Connectedness and Visibility.

This means: “how connected are you to other people and how visible are you and your expertise online?”

Using an example of someone within a company that deals in asbestos, let’s say that they use Twitter, blogs, and LinkedIn to demonstrate their expertise in the subject.  They focus on demonstrating that they are experts in their field.  However, that person within that company also has a Facebook page that has no mention of their asbestos expertise at all.   How does all this become beneficial for the business?   Read on …

Let’s call the person within the company ‘Joe’.  Someone connected to Joe via Facebook (we’ll call her Mary) has searched Google for an asbestos type phrase.  Google Social Search kicks in and shows her that one of her contacts, ‘Joe’, who she previously only knew through Facebook, is an expert in that area.   Mary, who presumably has built up an element of trust with Joe, is more likely to contact them about that asbestos issue than anyone else in the search results.

You may be thinking “oh come on, be realistic – what’s the chances of that happening?”.  And you’d be right if you have only a very small social network and presence online.  However, by boosting that up and being connected to many people, you’ll significantly increase your potential to be found within the first page of Google search results under the ‘Google Social Search’ listings.

And this is where the calls to action come.  Google Social Search is going to take time to get out of the experimental stage but it’s quite likely to happen.  When it does happen, the old phrase ‘people buy people’ will come into play and anyone who is visible under Google Social Search results (which will be on the first page of Google) will be taking business away from their competitors.   The actions recommended are:

1. Create a Google Account if you don’t already have one (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount). 
   

2. Within that Account create a public profile for yourself.
   

3. Pick something to get into, that will raise your public profile in a subject related to your business.  The most obvious ones here would be Twitter, Blogs, and LinkedIn.    Focus on just one at a time, make it become second nature and regular to use, and then move onto something else.
   

4. Connect your public Google profile (created as part of your Google Account setup) to each element of your public visibility (e.g. Twitter).
   

5. Keep an eye out for news about Google Social Search.   If you’ve followed the steps above, you’ll be well positioned for Google Social Search as well as having taken actions to use business tools that will benefit you whether or not Google Social Search becomes important to you.

Not sure how Google Social Search would be applicable to your business?  Contact Us for a quick chat about why taking action will be important for your visibility within the natural Google search results in the future.

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"PPC Doesn't Work"

That’s a pretty commonly used phrase and many companies have the perception that being listed in the Sponsored Links in Google (or within Yahoo or Bing) doesn’t work.  So let’s look at some facts here:

1. If the adverts didn’t work then the advertisers wouldn’t be advertising for long.  Even the stupidest advertiser would realise after a few months that they’re not getting a return on investment. 
   

2. Google and the others wouldn’t be making the $Billions that they do out of such paid advertising and would crash in no time if people stopped advertising.
   

3. Although many people say that they don’t click on the paid adverts (e.g. Sponsored Links in Google), the reality is that millions of people DO click on those adverts. 

Having said all that, someone attempting to advertise for the first time (e.g. via Adwords) without professional help could easily think that “PPC Doesn’t Work” for the following reasons:

1. The website is too weak to convert clicks into business.
   

2. The PPC campaign has been set up inefficiently.
   

3. They may have used a PPC service provider that wasn’t good enough but had made lame excuses that made it look as if Google was at fault instead of them (although sometimes this can be the case).

PPC DOES work – it just needs to be handled professionally.  Millions of businesses are gaining billions of revenue, as are the providers of the PPC systems.  If PPC didn’t work (when done properly) then Google would die – it’s as simple as that.

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SEO Sharks

Estate Agents, Bankers, Used Car Salesmen … they’ve traditionally been types of people that when mentioned, leave a nasty taste in the mouth.   But they’re increasingly being joined by:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) people.

There must be few businesses that haven’t been badgered either by email or on the phone, by SEO people/companies that promise the world.   These people will be cold-calling and are (from what our clients tell us about calls they’ve had), at best, pushy, and at worst, extremely rude.  Most of them are paid on a commission basis and are only interested in getting a quick result.

At Custwin we see a regular pattern after we create PPC campaigns for clients:

1. PPC campaign goes live.
   

2. Within a few weeks the client is being contacted, told that it can be done a lot better.

That gets the client on the phone and it’s then necessary to reassure them that they’re already getting the best service they could be.

We’ve been keeping track of the types of comments that are made by these SEO Sharks.  Many of them pretend to be Google, or say they get preferential rates from Google, or that they’re best friends with Google.  All utter rubbish of course as none of the above is true (although sometimes Google themselves do make contact but it’s obvious whether it actually is them or not).   Others make great claims and try to raise doubts in the minds of the people on the phone.   Very few of them would be willing to give guarantees about the results they would get.

The purpose of referring to these SEO Sharks is because the practice is on the rise and so here are some tips if on the receiving end of such contact:

1. Get as much detail from them as possible about how they think they can improve things and then pass those details onto your existing SEO provider so that they can provide feedback.  Also speak to other contacts to get alternative views.
   

2. Ask them questions that uncover whether they’ve actually looked into the depth of your website to understand it or whether they’ve had a quick skim and so don’t really understand how your target market needs to be attracted.  Throw in a lie about a service or product that you don’t provide and see if they say that they looked at that and it would be possible to make you highly visible for that online.
   

3. Ask them if they’ll give you a results-only trial that proves how good they are, but with no, or minimal cost to yourself.   Tell them that you’re not interested in clicks or visitors but in actual enquiries/sales made. Only those who are truly good at what they do will offer such a trial. 
   

4. Above all, don’t commit to anything.  If they seem genuine then research them further.  Ask as many people you can about them.   Get the real picture.  And of course, ask for an extensive list of their clients and say that you’ll be contacting any of them that you want to, in order to ask their opinions of how good they are.

Unfortunately, the SEO industry isn’t regulated.  There are ‘badges’ that are actually worthless because there’s no quality control. Currently, there is no proper system that protects companies from making what could be very expensive mistakes that at best, waste marketing budget and at worst, stop those companies from being visible online while competitors are, and so lead to a further decline in business that could otherwise be gained from good search engine positioning.

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Raise your prices with PPC

Most of the marketing gurus would tell you that in a downturn you need to increase your prices.  The caveat is usually that you also need to increase the perceived value of what you’re selling.

But life can be made a lot easier through your PPC campaign.  You don’t have to raise perceived value in order to raise your prices and you can very easily substantially increase your profitability.

Using a hypothetical example, let’s say that you’re spending a relatively small £100 per month on Google Adwords PPC clicks.  The clicks average 25p each, which brings 400 people to your website each month.

If your website is weak then you’ll not get many of those clicks converting into enquiries/business and although you’d be advised to strengthen the effectiveness of your website before doing so, it’s still actually possible to gain more business with a weak website.

If your website is strong then you’ll get reasonable numbers of those clicks converting into enquiries/sales.

Let’s take a bad case scenario - £100 of budget brings 400 clicks, which convert into 4 enquiries (1%).  Of those 4 enquiries, only 1 becomes business.  If that business doesn’t have a profit level of at least £100 then you’re onto a loser with your PPC campaign.  In this case you’d really have to enhance your website in order to consider spending any more budget on PPC clicks.

Taking a better, but not brilliant scenario, £100 of budget brings 400 clicks, which convert into 16 enquiries (4%).  Of those 16 enquiries, 4 become business.  If those 4 pieces of business equate to more than £100 of profit then things are looking better.

Obviously, a sensible approach to PPC is to get as strong a conversion rate from clicks to enquiries as you can but while it’s always advisable to spend more time on tweaking a website than spending budget on promoting it, it’s not always vitally essential.

Taking the £100 of clicks budget once again, if you spent that in one month and your actual sales (via your website, whether those sales are products or services) exceeded that £100 in terms of profit, then you have a good starting point.  If it doubles the investment then better, and so on.  

However you would be advised to assess the situation over two, three, or more months, just to ensure there’s a consistent pattern.

When you get to the point where you feel as if your clicks budget is getting you enquiries that lead to business that is actually profitable then you have a choice:

1. Spend time refining the website further to get a stronger clicks to enquiries ratio.

2. Increase the clicks budget by a percentage, which should raise the enquiries by the same level.

So, if £100 of clicks generates profitable business worth £500 above the initial clicks investment then increasing that £100 to £150 is likely to bring in more business, to create £750 of profitable business above the £150.

And this is where you get to raise your prices.

A Custwin client recently commented that they were too busy.  They had got to that nice point where the website was strong enough to convert a good number of clicks into enquiries.   Those enquiries had resulted in the client working a lot (which has to be a good thing) but being at saturation point.  The answer, in this case is simply:

Put the prices up the next time a website visitor makes contact.

So the client did this – in this case, they raised their daily consultancy rate by £150.  They didn’t really NEED the extra work and so could afford to lose some potential clients.  Ironically, the client still got the work at a higher rate so short term was still fully busy, but had higher pay for their time.  So, the next enquiry comes in and the rate stays higher (or even higher than that), the process continues.

The key to success in this though is to get to that optimum level of business being gained and so being able to charge higher fees without fear of losing the potential business.  

The process to raising your prices through PPC advertising is as follows …

1. Ensure your website is strong enough to convert clicks to enquiries.

2. Test the water with PPC and ensure that you’re getting a return on your investment.  If you’re not, then stop the PPC and revisit the website strength.

3. Gradually raise the PPC budget, ensuring that you’re continuing to get business that is profitable and comfortably above the costs of the PPC clicks.

4. Get yourself to the point where there is plenty of work to deal with.

5. Then raise the cost of your service/product to any new enquirers.  Even a moderate price increase to experiment with can get results.  Those people who buy at your higher rate will continue to expect to pay that higher rate  and will refer to that rate when referring you on to other clients.

While this principle won’t apply to all types of businesses, for the majority it does work and apart from getting to the point where your website is initially strong enough to get a proper return on investment (ask us how if unsure), the rest is purely a case of raising your PPC budgets and getting to that point where you feel confident to increase your prices while demand is high.

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Stolen pictures on websites

It’s an easy mistake to make.   A website is created by a web developer and all seems good until the legal letter arrives telling you that you owe Getty/Corbis an extortionate amount of money for using their images on your website without permission.

What is a company to do in such a situation and how can it be avoided in the first place?

Online, people steal text and they steal pictures.  Sometimes not maliciously, other times very intentional.  But if you take a picture (or part of a picture) from the big boys at Getty/Corbis, you’re sitting on a time bomb waiting to go off.    But what if you didn’t actually do it yourself?  What if it was your web developer?   According to the people trying to claim money back from you, the responsibility lies with you and not the web developer.

If you look at the numerous forum postings on this subject you’ll find that although thousands of people have been caught out with ‘stolen’ images on their websites, it’s very hard to find any cases where people have actually been taken to court. But who needs the hassle and the time lost on trying to fight off the lawyers?

Perhaps it’s a good time for you to take a good look at your website and ask the all-important question of:

“Where did all those images come from?”

The first person to ask is your web developer – get them to confirm by email/writing that all the pictures are 100% legitimate and that they’ll take responsibility if any are proven not to be.

Then, where there are any doubts, consider that perhaps it may be time for a refresh of the website images anyway.  It’s relatively cheap to buy images from sites such as istockphoto.com and others, or perhaps enlist a photographer to create the images you want (or maybe even do it yourself if you have the talent).   It’s always good practice to experiment with changing images on websites anyway – even just one image can make a difference in the numbers of people who respond positively to a certain page of a website.

We’re soon at the end of 2009 and it’ll be a case of ‘out with the old and in with the new’.  Perhaps it’s worth considering applying this mindset to the images on your website, focusing initially on ensuring that you’re legally compliant and then considering how your website could have a fresh look as you enter 2010.

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