Think word of mouth doesn’t impact search? Think again. According to this video from Google, 146 million brand conversations per day are augmented via search online.

Word-of-Mouth is fueled by people — people talking to each other face to face; people talking to brands online; people talking to people via social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

If you want your social media programs to be caught up in those conversations, think about people and how you can get them talking.

At a Glance:

Newly launched pilot which allows searchers to recommend/share results from Paid and Organic Searches (web pages are soon to come).

• Currently, opt in only through www.google.com/experimental/
• Requires a Google Profile page and will only appear when logged in
• Sharing occurs within ones Google Network of contacts
• Soon to roll out across all search results

Why Is This Important?

• 90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know
• 71% say reviews from family members or friends influence purchase decisions

Sources: Econsultancy July 2009,
Harris Interactive June 2010

How Does +1 Work?

Who Will See +1 Results?

• Results will be shown to ones Google Network, which currently includes:

–      Gmail Contacts

–      Google Talk Chat List

–      Followers on Google Reader & Google Buzz

• Expect Google to roll in non-Google services such as Twitter & Flickr in the not so distant future

What Can Be +1’d?

What Can’t Be +1’d? (Yet)

Currently, most universal search results cannot be+1’d but these are expected enhancements:

Note: +1 is not currently appearing in Mobile results

Does This Impact My Media Strategy?

Since adoption will be low in the short term, your current Paid Search strategy is still valid

• Google states that +1 will not directly impact Quality Score & CPC
• Since +1 may lift CTR there may be an indirect impact to the above
• If specific ads are getting more +1’s in a category, those without may fall from line of sight
• Metrics are not yet available and on release will create a new set of metrics for brand marketers but will require scale to truly impact direct marketers

Does This Impact My SEO Strategy?

Due to link spam, SEO strategists have been calling for a new set of ranking signals to inform PageRank and this will begin to impact SEO

• You must be relevant to appear for a query in the first place, so SEO best practices still apply
• Social signals already play a role in personalization and ranking, therefore watch for +1 impact and prioritize with other social initiatives
• SEO and Social will continue to converge which will require the lines between these teams to more nebulous

What Else Is Important For Marketers?

• All results will have the +1 option, you cannot opt out
• As results become more relevant through the use of social signals, search results on page 2 become more obsolete
• Human centric messaging in results become more important and may help you get +1’d
• User experience will carry similar weight as customer experience
• If +1 recommendations begin to cross Paid and Organic listings (currently they do not) integration will become even more important
• It will be crucial for +1 to have a significant impact on the relevance of results of Google searchers for it to become widely adopted

Facebook Killer?

Hardly… but diversification of social strategies will be needed

• +1 won’t kill Facebook as their value proposition is much more than the ‘Like’ button
• The Facebook user base is massive and it is unlikely people will switch
• Google is expected to roll +1 into larger social initiatives
• In the end, expect +1 to live alongside the ‘Like’ button on most websites

Can +1 Be Measured?

• +1’s and +1 undos will be available at the Ad Group and Ad level in Paid Search

It is unknown whether Organic search results will show up in Google Webmaster Tools (or otherwise)

Action Plan

• Keep doing what you are doing today in Paid and Organic Search
• Begin discussions between Social and SEO teams
• As results become available, understand what Ads are being +1’d and adjust strategy appropriately
• Prepare to add the +1 button to your website, Google is to announce the release soon

If you have landed on this post, you have likely heard about the Google algorithm update.  It  has reportedly already impacted about 12% of all Google queries!  The change was largely focused on low quality, mass produced SEO content, and was aimed at ‘content farms’ which have been littering search results for quite some time. This change has been met with praise and dissent – but those on the wrong side of this coin should not be surprised.  The signs were there.

The demise of low quality content has actually been part of the Google plan for quite some time, but up until now only smaller sites not built to withstand algorithmic shifts had been feeling the impact.

Now Google is adjusting the algorithm to target the typical profiles of sites that are using dubious SEO tactics to try to get a competitive advantage in search results. Inbound Link buying schemes have been the focus over the last couple of years and recently two major sites where dinged for engaging in these activities – JCPenney.com and Overstock.com. Although Google does work to remain neutral, it is clear that they are observing specific behaviors and reacting to keep manipulators out of the index.

Most recently they are moving on to target content farms, many of whom have been immune to prior algorithm changes. Below is an explanation of the update from Matt Cutts of Google’s Anti Spam Team:

Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

My take is that they are approaching this with two business objectives in mind:

So will this spell the end for content farms? In my point of view, yes – for those that remain pure content producers for the sake of mass. In fact, many have already seen a significant change to their online visibility as shown in seen in this Search Engine Land article by Danny Sullivan.

I do expect many who have significant financial backing to evolve and focus on quality content with social value or look to purchase premium web properties to supplement traffic loss. Demand Media’s recent IPO is likely to put them in a position to do just that.

Some companies have already been forced to react to the abrupt change in traffic – Mahalo, a human-powered search engine announced a layoff of 10% of its staff and temporarily halting freelance content production.

It appears that some content producers who do not necessarily match the ‘spammy set’ were also impacted. A recent FastCompany article discussed CultofMac.com, an Apple fan site which saw a significant downward shift in traffic coming from Google.  But they have since seemed to recover.   It is likely that the algorithm went through various corrective tweaks to induce the desired outcomes over the days after launch.

As it appears, content farms as we know it are officially dead. Those who will survive once the dust settles will be the sites that are able to evolve and produce unique, relevant content which has social value.  Search engines are using social queues more and more as a method of identifying value but this will likely fuel the next wave of SEO manipulation.

It was great to start off the new year with a fact-filled staff meeting, a celebration of promotions and awards, memories of a successful Snocial, and a vision of the future for One to One — and the pizza wasn’t half-bad either!

For our January OMG Award, three talented, dedicated individuals were nominated: Mark Alexander, Lead Platform Developer, One to One Connect (Charlestown); Casey O’Looney, Account Supervisor, One to One Interactive (Reno); and Ryan Spence, Contextual Marketing Specialist, One to One Networks (Baltimore). Superman sailed South (smart guy!) to greet our smiling winner, Ryan, in our Baltimore office with a lovely gift card. Congratulations Ryan!

We also offered big congratulations on a job well done to those receiving promotions during year-end review time, as announced by Diana Brunelle, SVP, Human Resources:

Roumen Stoyanov- Associate Director, Application Development (Charlestown)
Charlie Bleau- Associate Director, Content Technology Solutions (Charlestown)
Derek Silvia- Manager, Analytics (Charlestown)
Sutee Pearce- Accounting Supervisor (Charlestown)
Greg Slama- Associate Director, Search Marketing (Charlestown)
Jay Keaveny- Search Specialist (Charlestown)
Amy Seeburger- Media Supervisor, Team Lead (Charlestown)
Jess Cohen- Media Planner (Charlestown)
Michaela Burke- Media Planner (Charlestown)
Mark Alexander- Lead Platform Developer (Charlestown)
Scott Hirschheimer- Search Specialist (Baltimore)
Gurvinder Sandhu- Lead Consultant (London)

Through our Chief People Officer Bill Haeck’s slideshow, One to One’s commitment to creating a cohesive, fun, and supportive company culture shone through loud and clear. From adding an extra week’s vacation to employees’ schedules to initiatives in providing world class management-level training to starting a “Think Differently” speaker series and discussing our “Six Beings of I” credo —- and even rolling out a new employee survey, from which we expect 100% participation – we want to hear your voice!

Leaders Ian and Jeremi Karnell shared highlights of our tremendous progress over the past year, goals for the new year, and offered kind words and kudos to the pitch team that worked night and day to absolutely knock.our.clients.off.their.feet last week – can’t wait to hear the exciting results!

Strap on your seatbelts, people, because 2011 is gonna be a fast, exciting, and yes – fun – ride!

On November 10, 2010, DexOne announced the acquisition of Business.com and their plan to fully integrate Business.com into the DexOne business model.

It is still unclear what will happen to the Business.com brand and URL now that it is owned by DexOne. Yet, with the wide array of online B2B industries and growing need of advertising outlets, DexOne clearly has a unique opportunity to provide small businesses the means to both support the business as well as acquire new customers.
The question is, where will everyone go? While in the short term certain industries can rely on their respective niche vendors as well as the Hoovers of the world, trends are showing an increased focus on social media for 2011.

In October alone, almost half of Business.com’s advertising efforts were focused on “conversational media”*, showing that even a mostly search focused site recognizes the growing trend of social media in the B2B space. A clear indicator of this is LinkedIn. As Business.com traffic decreased in the past 12 months, LinkedIn’s traffic has almost doubled**.

Over the past year, visitors to Business.com have decreased by 59%* which may turn out to favor those players staying in until the end. Though it has been business as usual since the news of the DexOne acquisition broke in early November – in Q1 most advertisers will be turned over to a self service model and it will be interesting to see how many stay on.

Though there is no official end date released for Business.com, it is clear that DexOne is a separate audience for most B2B marketers. While Business.com has always served a wide array of industries, DexOne is focused specifically on serving local businesses – potentially cutting out strictly online businesses. If the key features and audiences of these two sites were to combine they may have the ability to holistically served small businesses.

In the September, 2010 addition of the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR), Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s Jenni Romaniuk and LogicLab’s Craig Gugel provided an overview of the journey the Advertising Research Foundations (ARF) 360 Media and Marketing Council undertook to reevaluate the role that exposure to communication channels play in moving consumers along the path to purchase. The article was titled “The ARF 360 model: Update to a Human-Centric Approach” [Download PDF].

Below is One to One’s first attempt to visualize and consolidate the evolution of THE ARF 360 Model into it’s most recent iteration:

In keeping with the spirit of the original model, the stages that are detailed above are not meant to be linear in nature. The ARF 360 Committee felt it was important for this model to be circular to “highlight that there is no single starting point that applies to everyone”. Indeed, the Committee highlighted that the process can be initiated by either the marketer or the person seeking to satisfy specific needs. They continued “to refer to the “human” rather then the “consumer” to remind the industry that consumption is only one part of their lives”. And with consumers in control of media, the “onus rests squarely on the advertising community to “adapt to the choices consumers make”.

To that end, I think we still have some work to do on this infographic. This Version 1.0 attempt to summarize the good work done by The ARF 360 Committee should be viewed as an initial draft. One to One is open to any/all feedback to make this asset as clear and as helpful as possible. We will continue to evolve this design and provide additional formats for download. In the spirit of starting a dialogue, we felt this was at least “good enough” to share with a broader audience.

Session Overview: 10:30 – 11:45, SES  New York 2010

Eye Tracking Research Update
Eye-tracking provides valuable information about a Website visitor’s focus of attention. This information is crucial in improving the design of Web pages and products to enhance the visitor’s experience. Effective search engine marketing relies on understanding user interactions with continually evolving search engines. Google’s universal search, which now includes media results, is one such evolution. This panel will discuss a neuromarketing study performed by One to One Interactive which analyzed user behavior through physiological, emotional, and qualitative data. Also covered will be the newest information in eye tracking of SERPs and the latest on heatmaps.

Speakers:
Shari Thurow, Founder & SEO Director, Omni Marketing Interactive
Jeremi Karnell, Co-Founder & President, One to One Interactive
Susan Weinschenk, Chief of User Experience Strategy, Human Factors International 

Our research uncovered two significant insights.

Insight 1:

SERPs which include Universal Search results reinforce eyeballs to stay focused on the first page’s top paid and natural search results

Implications:

• The advent of Universal Search demands that companies optimize not only their text, but also their media (images, videos, etc)
• Image and video results may anchor users to stay at the top of the SERP
• Images and videos will begin to impact what users will click on first in a SERP

Insight 2:

The inclusion of Universal Search results increase emotional engagement during interactions with a SERP

Implications:

• Users will get an ‘instant gratification’ from images – perhaps more so from branded images
• Higher engagement with Universal results may stop users from exploring the rest of the SERP

One to One Interactive’s OTOinsights research division is happy to announce its latest research white paper titled “Implications of User Engagement with Search Result Pages“. 

It is well established that rankings on a Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) have much to do with whether a user is likely to click on a given result and higher rankings can actually have a positive effect on a brand’s perception and ‘likeability’ (MarketingSherpa, 2009). With the onset of Universal Search, this study sought to measure the user impact of this new generation of search engine result pages that include multimedia elements such as images and videos.  Specifically, we wanted to understand if there was a difference in emotional engagement with the results and if that would impact click propensity in Paid and Natural Search.  The study compared user engagement with Universal search results vs. traditional text-only results by recording the users’ eye tracking, physiological & emotional reactions, and click tracking behavior. 

Our research uncovered two significant insights.

Insight 1:

SERPs which include Universal Search results reinforce eyeballs to stay focused on the first page’s top paid and natural search results

Implications:

• The advent of Universal Search demands that companies optimize not only their text, but also their media (images, videos, etc)
• Image and video results may anchor users to stay at the top of the SERP
• Images and videos will begin to impact what users will click on first in a SERP

Insight 2:

The inclusion of Universal Search results increase emotional engagement during interactions with a SERP

Implications:

• Users will get an ‘instant gratification’ from images – perhaps more so from branded images
• Higher engagement with Universal results may stop users from exploring the rest of the SERP

OTOinsight’s “Implications of User Engagement with Search Result Pages” white paper is free and available to download here. 

Below is a PowerPoint presentation of the research findings that Dan Berlin and I shared earlier this week at the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) Boston’s Annual Conference at Bentley University.

We welcome your comments, feedback, and suggestions.

Here are the examples for when advertisers can now use trademarks in their ad text:

• Generic Use: Use of a trademark term in a non-brand way. For example, Apple iPhone vs. Apple Cider
• Re-Seller/Component Seller: Use of trademark if the advertiser sells the product or a component of the product. For example, Honda Auto Parts
• Informational: Use of a trademark for an informational site. This cannot be used if the site is selling a competitive brand. We have also been assured that any site that is overly negative would not be allowed within this change.

These updates go live June 15th, and we have been assured that the appropriate editorial processes are in place to make a smooth transition.

Large changes can be expected in the world of retail, as the new ad text will allow more advertisers to be relevant and grab a larger share of searches with the new relevant ad text. It could in turn increase the CPCs for blue chip companies with the greater competition.