SEOs know that adaptation and ongoing education are crucial. The problem is that businesses don’t always understand just how much the search landscape actually does change. This can present a whole different set of challenges for both the small business and the professional SEO.

In the following Video, Searching for Profit founder Amanda Watlington recently discussed some arising trends in the search industry and how understanding the changing search landscape is of vital importance.

Chris continues to cover some of the things Amanda mention in the video and ends by saying that if you are the client of an SEO or a business trying to get things done yourself, don’t stay hung up on old tactics that might be outdated. Here are things you should keep in mind:

• Site Speed (it’s going to matter, so don’t ignore it…here are some things to consider)
• Personalized Search (Not everyone is going to see the same Google results)
• Universal Search (Showing up here requires attention to different indexes)
• Real-Tme Search (look for more evolution in this area)
• Changes in Local (there are frequently tweaks made by Google here)
• Some things do stay the same (things like reputable links will always be in style)
• Most importantly, stay informed (just keep up with the latest in industry developments)

There has been so much said about this in the last 24 hours, and it is hard to keep up with all the blogs, news and article mentions. Let me try and summarize quickly…

Yesterday Microsoft announced sealed agreements to access real-time content from social networking sites Facebook and Twitter to boost search engine results in Bing. According to Microsoft executives at a presentation at a San Francisco Internet conference, Bing is hoping to take on current dominant search leader Google in the sphere of Social Search and will have access to Twitter’s entire store of public data in real time as well as content from social networking site Facebook. At the same conference, it was also announced that a standalone Twitter search service will be offered at Bing, with some ranking technology other than sort by date involved, and that shortened URLs will be expanded. And finally, there would be some integration within the regular Bing service itself.

Only a few hours later, Google’s Marissa Mayer announced Google Social Search will be launching in the coming weeks. This feature will allow you to see results for queries from people in your social network and will work only via your own Google Profile. In your profile, if you add add links to social networks you’re a member of, such as FriendFeed or Twitter, Google will scan who you are connected to and give your results from those people which will then be integrated in to regular results. Google emphasised their goal of creating the most comprehensive, relevant and fast search and believe that their search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, looking forward to having a product showcasing how tweets can make search better in the coming months.

There has been such talk for some time and even though Bing (MSFT) beat Google to it by first announcing the integration of real-time data into search results, it is clear that this move from both indicate what the future of Search holds for us. Social Integration. Real-time data in Search results! This indicates the importance of consumer perception and the value of comments made by the average consumer and the trust they have regarding brands and products.

This is somewhat confirmed by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg saying that The Future is Social, Not Search. While Google is by far Facebook’s biggest rival in terms of Paid Advertising, it was clear that no love is lost between Google and Sheryl Sandberg, an ex-Googler. Sandberg said that Facebook is leading the net from the information age to the social age, where people will be finding their important answers not through Google but through their friends. As for search, Sandberg said Google would still have a place in the future, even if it’s not very big.

The face of search is indeed going to change and the race to be there first is definately on. The next days, weeks and months will be very interesting.

How will consumer behaviour affect search and the ranking relevance of brands and products in the SERP’s?

My personal prediction is that this affect won’t be seen immediately, but that it will slowly take affect as both Search Engines integrate real time data over the coming months.

For me, the future of Search will neither be Search, nor Social. The future of Search will be “Social Search” – Integrated Real-Time Search, (hopefully) relevant, updated results, as it happens.

How Bing and Google will control what is included in the search results will be interesting to see, but this can only be a good thing for companies doing Online Reputation Management. Hopefully businesses and corporates will be forced to operate in the social spaces more to not only control the conversations, but also add to it, or respond.

Resources:

• Facebook and Twitter Now More Important to Search Rankings?
• Microsoft’s Bing seals Facebook, Twitter deals
• RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my!
• Bing To Do Deal With Twitter, Launch Its Own Twitter Search
• Google Social Search Is Coming & More On Google-Twitter
• Microsoft, Google in deals with Twitter, Facebook
• Google’s New Social Search Is A Big Chess Move Against Facebook
• The Future is Social, Not Search, Facebook COO Says

It is true that Google is the leader in Search, holding around 65 percent share of the search market in the US while Bing is gaining some market share and Yahoo is falling behind (based on latest Comscore Search Analysis). It is therefore interesting to see what these Giants are doing to keep the momentum going. Let’s have a quick look at some of the latest news to see what is stirring and causing ripples throughout the online community and compare the frequency of these events between the Search Giants.

I am going to simply cover the latest new launches, trends or news surrounding Yahoo, Bing and Google for the last 30 days or so, starting with Yahoo first.

Yahoo! Launches (2)

• Yahoo! launches New Yahoo! Search
• Yahoo Goes Live With New Search Format

Yahoo! Updates (7)

• Yahoo Site Explorer Adds Top Queries Report
• Liveblogging The Yahoo “It’s You” Press Conference
• Weather Report: Yahoo! Search Index Update
• See More SearchMonkey in Your Search Results
• Video Search: Enjoy Larger In-line Play and Embedded Related Videos
• Testing a New Yahoo! Search Experience
• Yahoo Brands Flickr: Users Retaliate

Bing Launches (1)

• Bing Launches Visual Search | Bing Launches Visual Filtered Search

Bing Updates (2)

• Bing Market Share increases (Microsoft increases search share; More Bing—Microsoft’s search engine is posting strong numbers; Microsoft Gains In Search As Google, Yahoo Decline)
• Microsoft Releases Bing iPhone and Mac SDK on CodePlex

Google Launches (5)

• Fast.Forward. Connecting marketers with innovative ideas
• Help and learn from others as you browse the web: Google Sidewiki
• Google Launches “Place Pages,” Gets Rid Of Tabbed Info Bubble
• Google Offers New Keyword Research Tool
• Google climate change tools for COP15

Google Updates (20)

• Place Pages for Google Maps: There are places we remmber!
• Google Starts Shopping For Businesses Again
• Picasa 3.5, now with name tags and more
• The DoubleClick Ad Exchange: growing the display advertising pie for everyone
• New AdWords bidding tutorial
• Google launches Chrome Frame for IE
• Google launches Chrome 3.0 — should you care?
• Teaching computers to read: Google acquires reCAPTCHA
• Google Chrome after a year: Sporting a new stable release
• Read news fast with Google Fast Flip
• Now S-U-P-E-R-sized!
• Google Maps Street View Driving Begins in South Africa
• Five million students going back to school are “going Google”
• Google Domestic Trends: tracking economic sectors
• Google Translate now speaks 51 languages
• Translate documents: sharing across languages and generations
• More books in more places: public domain EPUB downloads on Google Books
• In the future, everyone will monetize their 15 minutes
• Google Parameter Handling For Webmaster Tools
• Google Internet Stats For US

That should be enough for now. I have to mention that these references are from recent results I found for the last 30 days. I did not look at the global picture of each company nor individual specific services or products, nor updates or trends related to specific countries or regions as that would have taken a while, but I think it is clear by just looking at the difference in number of references from the snapshot above that Google is by far leading the pack.

So what makes Google a Market Leader?
A Market Leader is defined as follow:

It is a Brand, product, or firm that has the largest percentage of total sales revenue (the market share) of a market. A market leader often dominates its competitors in customer loyalty, distribution coverage, image, perceived value, price, profit, and promotional spending.

That would certainly be true of Google as they are being more proactive than any of the other two major players. They have established their brand as being loyal to it’s users, with value for money, while the company’s scale simply allows it to produce products that are better than it’s competitors (at least for most). They continue to work on growing their service offerings, expanding into new spheres other than online (desktop applications, etc.), whilst adding compatible location based services in many countries.

In a article way back in August 2008, Google, then, was the search leader in customer satisfaction, and one year later, they are still leading the way.

No wonder they can be considered Market Leaders. Perhaps Google is just bent on being the best. Well, if you were Google, you’d probably say, “What the Heck, why not?”. And why wouldn’t you say that?

The latest data released by Hitwise or Nielsen Online not only shows current trends but perhaps some insights to future Search behaviour and online social engagement.

Let’s first look at data from Hitwise related to Search

“Google accounted for 72.39 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending April 25, 2009. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 16.27 percent, 5.68 percent and 3.95 percent, respectively.”

The report states that Search engines continue to be the primary tool(s) for Internet users to navigate to key industry categories. Compared to the same period in 2008, Business, Finance, Sports and Online Video categories showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines with Google continues way ahead of the pack. (based on U.S. searches alone)

Another interesting trend is that the length of search queries have increased over the past year, averaging five to more than eight words in length per search. Rather than using 1 or 2 words as search phrases, searchers are now using upwards of 3, perhaps indicating that they are finding less value in results presented when using less or the fact that they are aware longer-phrased search terms will present more accurate results than fewer.

For the full report visit Hitwise for the April Search data.

Trends related to Social Networking from Nielsen Online

Based on a report in September 2008 (Twitter Grows Fastest, MySpace Still The Social King), well-established social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn continued to grow at amazing rates. Nearly half of the biggest social networking sites were among the fastest growing and were also expanding beyond the youthful audience more toward the older generations. Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reunion.com were most popular among visitors ages 25-34, 35-49, and 55-64, respectively according to Nielsen.

Twitter was the fastest growing social networking site with 343% Growth over the last year.

The latest report from Nielsien, Global Faces and Networked Places, puts the global social network phenomenon during 2008 into context, providing insights and lessons for the networks themselves, advertisers and the media industry on how to take advantage of what’s happening online around “Global Faces and Networked Places”. Social Networks provide the trigger to improve the potency of advertising across all forms of media. For the full report, download the PDF here.

Interesting facts from the report:

• Social Networking has been the global consumer phenomenon of 2008. Two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visit a social network or blogging site and the sector now accounts for almost 10% of all internet time.
• “Member Communities” has overtaken personal Email to become the world’s fourth most popular online sector after search, portals and PC software applications.
• The staggering increase in the amount of time people are spending on these sites is changing the way people spend their time online and has ramifications for how people behave, share and interact within their normal daily lives.
• Social networks and blogging sites are now the fourth most popular activity on the Internet.
• ‘Member Communities’ now reach over 5 percentage points more of the Internet population than it did a year ago – a growth rate more than twice that of any of the other four largest sectors.
• Time spent on social network and blogging sites growing at over 3x the rate of overall Internet growth.
• Social networks and blogs are eating into the share of time held by other sectors. Because time spent on social networks is growing at a dramatically faster rate than the Internet average, social networks are gaining a larger share of all Internet time.
• As the online industry matures and the value of online real-estate is increasingly measured by time spent, rather than pages viewed, a significant shift in advertising revenue from ‘traditional’ online media towards social media could be realised.
• The changing audience offers advertisers the opportunity to use social networks as a vehicle for targeting all demographic groups.
• The global rise of social networks in 2008 has primarily been driven by Facebook, which overtook MySpace to become the world’s most popular social network. Facebook (168% relative increase) and LinkedIn (137%) have seen huge increases in reach.

Finally, the report also addresses challenges facing advertisers on social networks and offers advice. Here is just a few highlights:

What can advertisers and their agencies do?

• Work with the networks more closely
• New approaches to the ad model are required for this challenging and complex arena
• Advertising must be a conversation rather than a push model
• The tone of advertising must be more authentic
• Advertising should be about adding value

Generating ad revenue – the MySpace story
Although Facebook has come some way towards delivering a promise of targeted ads within a mass network, MySpace’s more focused overall offering seems to be proving more fruitful at the moment…

Why Facebook has become the world’s most popular social network
Based on a simple design, broad demographic appeal and a focus on connecting, Facebook has become the most popular social network in the majority of countries measured by Nielsen Online.

First-mover advantage and language have kept Facebook at bay in some countries
Although five years old, Facebook only came to global prominence in the last two years, allowing time for other social networks to take a strong hold.

Mobile Social Networking is Taking Off
Mobile is a natural fit for social networks, as consumers are used to connecting with friends via mobile calls and text. Using the phone to access social networks doesn’t require much change in consumer mindset.

What can publishers do?

• Understand that social networks are an opportunity for everyone
• Tap into what makes social networks successful
• ‘Internal’ – Increase interactivity within the publisher site
• ‘External’ – Participate in the conversation on social network sites
• Think about the mutual relationship with social networks and other media
• Whatever the successful ad model turns out to be in social networks – copy it

For the full article visit Social Networking’s New Global Footprint / Global Faces and Networked Places: A Nielsen Report on Social Networking’s New Global Footprint or download the full report here.

Here is a summary of the report

The Search Marketing Trends report analyzes the factors that are driving consumers, followed by marketers, to online search engines.

Marketers have four basic search options: paid search, contextual advertising, paid inclusion—all three are types of advertising—and search engine optimization (SEO).

While paid search gets most of the attention and money, marketers are increasingly turning to SEO to acquire new customers.

All four options will experience increased spending through 2013. By then total US search marketing outlays will reach nearly $23.4 billion, and marketers will be spending more on SEO than on contextual advertising.

The Search Marketing Trends report aggregates the latest data from marketing and communications researchers with eMarketer analysis to provide the information you need to make smart, timely business decisions.

Search Marketing Trends: A Return to Basics

In the latest post on the Google Adsense blog, Ambroise Fensterbank highlights some important points for search optimization. He basically gives us basics of optimization starting off with the following pointers:

• “there’s no magic formula to make your site show up first on a search results page”
• “use good practices when it comes to links, design, content, and the structure of your site.”
• “Google organic search and AdSense are independent of each other. Displaying AdSense ads on a site won’t change the ranking of the site in Google search in any way”
• “ranking in Google search is based on many different algorithms”
• “optimization for search is a long, continuous process”
• “avoid any techniques that claim to optimize your ranking very quickly or radically”
• “monitor the quality of your site’s backlinks – backlinks are links from any site directing to your site”
• “to increase your site’s popularity, check if other sites that discuss similar topics or have a similar reader base are aware your site exists”
• “outgoing links are also important and should comply with our guidelines”
• “don’t participate in link schemes or buy/sell links that pass PageRank, as it is against our guidelines and may hurt your site’s performance in our search results”

The above may sound familiar to you and might clear up the fog around some of the seo myths (top 10 organic SEO myths or 5 myths about SEO) floating around, but it does not provide earth shattering revelations. These are simply a good basis or platform to start from when optimising our sites.

More hints were given and Ambroise provided these tips for structuring your site:

• Your pages should have a clear hierarchy and relevant internal links.
• We also recommend creating a Sitemap and using Google’s Webmaster Tools. These tools are useful, user-friendly and will provide information such as where your backlinks come from or which queries visitors used to reach your site.
• Use <title> tags (Unique Page Titles) that are explicit and useful for the user. For example, avoid a title like “Homepage” or “Welcome to my site”.
• For images, use ALT attributes to describe appropriately what the image is about.

Being very helpful, Google got Matt Cutts to explain the final topic of ALT attributes in a quick and useful YouTube video.