Following the US Government’s banning of online scams and the Pakistani Government’s rather humorous attempt to filter out text messages containing words and phrases such as ‘pocket pool’ and ‘honkers’ (use hashtag #PTABannedList on Twitter for more), I started to think about what I would do if I could wave a magic wand and police the digital world in the way I see fit.

Aside from the obvious stuff that we’d all condemn, I’ve come up with five new laws that I’d introduce:

1. Ban the use of 'lol'

I don’t like ‘lol’. I’ve never liked ‘lol’. I can’t even finish writing a lengthy sentence that… nope; can’t do it. What’s wrong with ‘haha’ or ‘hehe’? Did our early character limits in the first ever text-message enabled phones forever rule out the use of a fourth letter?

I don’t think I’d mind so much if it were only used when the typer was actually laughing out loud, but they rarely are. Just wait until someone IM’s you at work with ‘lol’. Jump up out of your seat and take a look at their face. If they’re not laughing out loud, or desperately trying to remain composed and not wee themselves, go over and punch them squarely in the mouth.

2. Enforce proper punctuation in emails and forum comments

If I’m beginning to sound like a grammar Nazi, it’s because I am (runs quick hypocrisy-preventing grammar check in Word). At best, it’s just annoying. At worst, people will misunderstand you.

Let’s look at two examples:

·         Can you smell, Nicky?

·         Can you smell Nicky?

In the first one, we’re asking Nicky if she can smell. In the second, we’re asking someone else if they can smell her. One comma makes all the difference.

We could easily insult Nicky in the above example if we’re not careful. Also, let’s try not to make it LOOK LIKE WE’RE SHOUTING.

I once received an email that read something like this:

hi paul i said id do that thing for you today butshouldnt of things are hectic is it ok if there with you in the morning were having some problems with the trucks in the depow pls reply thanks

If I received that from a member of my team, I’d take a good hour out of my day to buy some card, fold into a conical shape, stick glitter all over it, write ‘fool’ on the front and back (and in reverse in case someone is reading it in their rear-view mirror), put it over their head and then douse them in boiling water. It infringes my moral code.

3. Prevent online giants deciding what I should be looking at

No, Google. I do not want you to customise your search results based upon my search history. If I’d already found what I was looking for, I wouldn’t need to search again. If I do choose to search again, I don’t want to see the same results.

Also, when I tell you not to customise my results, don’t assume that I’ve changed my mind the very next day.

4. Allow cookies, forever

Yes, yes, I know! Everyone complains about cookies and the invasion of privacy. As an online marketing professional*, I have no interest in who my client’s customers are, where they live, what their job is and what they look like. I would, however, like to serve my client’s customers, and only my client’s customers; no one else.

Nobody wants to spend marketing budget showing ads to users who are not interested in them. Cookies allow us to track what’s working and what’s not, cutting out irrelevant ads for those who do not want to see them and maximising our client’s ROI. That way, we keep users happy and grow our clients’ businesses. It’s great!

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

5. Allow me to vote against useless websites

We’ve all seen them. You’re trying to find out the best way to stop cold air leaking in through your old windows, so you do an online search. A range of pages come up from a bunch of random authors and you start clicking through. However, you soon realise that these pages are designed simply to rank high in the search engines and encourage you to click on their AdSense ads. There’s no real information in there at all.

I would like to give these sites a big ‘thumbs down’. Can I have a -1 button, Google?

I’m sure you’ll all agree with these, so vote for Paul as the new Fuhrer of the International Global Association of Worldwide Online Policing of Nations. Lol.

*right?

Here at atom42, we are great believers in tracking everything we do – it’s why we love the online space. So, you can imagine the excitement we felt last week when Google announced they were launching their call metrics feature in the UK, allowing advertisers to track phone calls from their PPC ads, and report on them through the Google Adwords interface.

What is 'call metrics'?

Simply put, it’s a call forwarding system, which allows Google to track how many calls users make from your PPC ads (either from manually typing numbers they see in a desktop ad, or clicking on a mobile click-to-call ad).

Enabling call metrics in your PPC account will allow you to see a variety of metrics alongside click data in the Adwords interface, including:

•    The number of phone calls
•    Phone number impressions
•    A new metric called phone through rate (PTR)

You can also see more granular, call-related data such as call duration, area code of caller and call status (missed/taken etc).

This is a great leap forward for Google, allowing them to start competing with other call tracking providers, with the added bonus of Adwords integration.

Comparing the market for call metrics

Other providers need not worry just yet, however. Although Google will undoubtedly get there eventually, their offering isn’t quite market leading. For a start, it’s pretty expensive - at £1 per call for the advertiser (for calls from a desktop/laptop), this could add a fair amount to low CPAs. There is also the obvious downside which is that it only works for Adwords – whereas other suppliers integrate their technology with other channels such as online directories/organic sources/non-Google PPC sources.

Finally, a major limitation of Google’s Call Metrics is that tracked numbers are, like the current ad extensions, allocated on a campaign level. As a search specialist, it would be far more beneficial to see calls on a keyword level so that we can make more granular decisions – and this is something other providers offer.

‘Bid-Per-Call’ - sneaky or sensible?

Google, as always, have ways of making advertisers want to use their products, despite the negatives. In this case, they have introduced the Bid-Per-Call feature – which will only be available if you are also using Call Metrics. Bid-Per-Call allows advertisers to set a separate bid per phone call. For most advertisers, a phone call is one step further down the conversion funnel, so this bid is likely to be significantly higher than a click bid.

As someone who has previously sneaked phone numbers into PPC ads, I can tell you that my click through rate or ‘CTR’ (and therefore Quality Score) has been affected by the phone number itself taking up precious characters in my creative, which has had a negative effect on my CPCs.

Bid-Per-Call, combined with Call Metrics, will allow a phone number to sit outside the 25,35,35 character limit on desktops (as with the click to call feature on mobile), and will also aid quality score (oh yes, phone bids will contribute to overall quality score) – which could put any advertisers who don’t use the product at an immediate disadvantage. Sneaky.

Potential for success

Flaws and all, I think the Call Metrics system is worth testing as long as the £1 call charge doesn’t put you at an immediate risk of missing any CPA targets (the theory being that the higher conversion rate of a call should negate this cost). It won’t revolutionise my PPC campaigns (we already use keyword level call tracking here at atom42), but it will be interesting, all the same. Bid-Per-Call though, has the potential to be a game changer – watch this space!

Pay-per-click advertising, managed well, can still offer businesses exceptional value for money, as well as unparalleled measurability in terms of your return on investment. But, for the time-rich and cash-poor, there are many other ways you can increase traffic and sales. Combined with traditional PPC and SEO techniques, these lesser-known strategies could see your visitor numbers skyrocket...

1. Use social media to engage your audience

By creating Facebook and Twitter pages where your users can communicate with each other, and which they will find interesting and useful, you can build a loyal community of followers for free. Incentives such as competitions and discounts will help to generate interest. Gradually introduce your brand over time so users don't feel too 'marketed to'.

2. Write and submit expert articles online

You can post expert articles on dedicated article sites, using advice and information you already have through experience. These articles link back to your website, thus creating valuable links, effectively for free.

3. Create a blog to engage with your consumer base

Create your own blog (there are free sites to help you do this) to engage your website visitors with what you do, you can then use your blog posts in a monthly newsletter to your list of contacts. This keeps potential clients engaged with the brand and helps current clients feel a sense of community, as well as (hopefully) providing them with useful hints and tips about your sector.

4. Write and submit press releases

Use PRWeb to send optimised news articles about your business straight to Google News and other sites and blogs. We think it's worth paying a little extra to add anchor text links, though this is optional. There are free sites as well which, while they lack some of the advantages PRWeb offers, can give companies on a very tight budget some much-needed PR, absolutely free.

5. Become a source

A journalist in a relevant sector can do wonders for a company in terms of free marketing, providing targeted 'advertising' on a regular basis, ideally both in print and online. All you have to do is prove yourself as a good source for topics they might be writing about.

6. Use local listings

Create a Google Places listing, which will appear on Google when users search for businesses like yours in your area. Eyetracking studies by SEOmoz have revealed how influential these listings are becoming - users gravitate towards them. Optimise the listing for target keywords you know your customer base is typing in, and ask customers to leave reviews there – this will help you to rank highly for local searches. If your customer base is local, you might also benefit by listing yourself on Foursquare, so people can see your location (and any deals you're willing to offer) on their mobile devices.

7. Add your website to directories

Directories can still work for you, if you do it right. Get listed on high ranking free directories, encourage reviews, and benefit from being at the top of the listings. The link itself can also work in your favour as it can potentially help with SEO.

And finally - once you have generated all those visitors, streamlining your purchasing process is the last, crucial step to online success. This is where, in the end, you will need to convert those visitors into sales, and even small changes at this final stage can make all the difference.

It’s no secret that a well managed stock portfolio and a good pay per click (PPC) account can both yield a high return on investment. And in each case, while it’s easy to set up an account and get started, managing one can be quite complex.

But the similarities don’t end there. This post highlights five characteristics that PPC marketing and the stock market share.

1. You must research before you invest

Stock market: With a wide variety of options available, it can be overwhelming to decide which stock to invest in. Generally, past performance influences your decision of whether or not to invest.

Pay per click: In PPC you rely on keyword suggestion & traffic estimation tools to decide which keywords to bid upon. Traffic volumes, average costs and search trends can help you to make an informed decision.

2. Performance determines price

Stock market: The current price of the stock is based on the company’s current performance. We’ve witnessed instances such as “Lehman Brothers” where the stock price went right down when the company was in the doldrums.

Pay per click: A keyword’s potential contribution to the company’s PPC return on investment, or its current performance, correspondingly determines the maximum amount you are willing to pay for that keyword.

3. Good performance doesn’t go unnoticed

Stock market: If a stock you invested in results in the company making a healthy profit, you receive dividends, thereby increasing your return on investment.

Pay per click: If you have keywords that perform well, then you are rewarded with a lower cost per click and a higher ad position. Generally, click through rate is a good metric to assess the performance of that keyword.

4. You can build on your success

Stock market: If stock you invested in generated higher returns, you can try to replicate your success by investing in similar companies within that industry.

Pay per click: If you detect highly performing keywords, you can look to expand & invest in similar keywords, plurals, synonyms etc.  Occasionally you can benefit from the odd misspelling, too.

5. You can become a certified partner

Stock market: If you wish to trade on behalf of other customers, a stock exchange membership can go a long way. 

Pay per click: The majority of the advertising networks, like Google, Yahoo & MSN, offer certification programmes. Customers looking for an agency or individual to help with their PPC activity may consider using certified professionals.

As YouTube gains more and more importance in the online world, it is necessary for us digital marketers to take it seriously - especially when it interferes with the natural search results!

Research has shown that videos are the most prominent category to be featured in the search engine results pages (SERPS) besides images, news, blogs, shopping and maps.

YouTube SEO will help your videos rank highly in the YouTube search results, as well as in the natural SERPS.

Here are a couple of quick techniques you can use to optimise your videos (perhaps surprisingly, many of them are very similar to traditional SEO):

1. Optimise your title, descriptions and tags with the keywords you are trying to target

2. Ensure that all of the above are enticing, as YouTube takes in to account CTR when determining rankings

3. Build keyword optimised anchor text links to your video

4. Ensure your title and description are relevant to your video, as time on page and bounce rates are relevant factors when determining rankings

5. Have a good preview image: as this image appears in the results page it essential to have an image which stands out from the crowd

6. Use the YouTube Keyword Tool to identify keywords with high search volumes on Google

Well optimised YouTube videos will appear in the natural SERPs, allowing brands to acquire more real estate – for free!

Google Analytics is a free web Analytics product which helps you analyse the activity of users who reach your website. You can find out where they’re coming from, how long they’re staying on your site, what keywords they’re using to get there, whether they’re buying, whether they’re using a smart phone, if they’re returning later, etc, etc. In Google’s own words; 'Google Analytics makes it easy to turn page views into profits and, from our point of view, is an invaluable tool when it comes to optimising online marketing activity'. But with so much data available, how do you find what you are looking for? Here are my top ten tips for Analytics success:

1. Set up Alerts

With so much data at your disposal, it’s easy for any mistakes or improvements to be missed or overlooked. The alert feature (found in the intelligence section) lets you specify certain events you want to be notified about. For example, I might want to be alerted if the conversion rate from my ecommerce site drops below 2% (suggesting something could be wrong with the payment process), or if organic traffic reaches a record high level (suggesting a new high position in the SERPS). With the ability to receive alerts via email or text alerts (only in the US), this tool ensures you will always be on top of your accounts.

2. Set up Advanced Segments

One main flaw of the old Analytics interface was that it didn’t allow you to compare trends for two types of traffic at the same time. Yes, I could filter keyword traffic looking just at brand using the ‘contains’ function, but what if I wanted to compare that to unbranded traffic in one graph? What if I wanted to look at my Yahoo! Display traffic against Facebook traffic for the last 6 months? The only way to do this was by exporting each variable separately and manually creating a graph in Excel. With advanced segments, however, you can specify a source/medium/keyword parameter and then compare multiple segments in one graph. GA also allows you to share these segments with other users (good for consistency) and copy across multiple profiles.

 3. Create Custom Reports to give you what you want quickly

Want to look at total clicks and conversions for each medium in one report? Not an easy task without the custom report feature. An under-rated tool but possibly the one that I use most often, Custom Reports allows you to, well, customise your reports to show only the metrics and dimensions you need. You can even segment your data by time of day to look at hourly clicks/conversions, which can inform any day parting strategies. One major flaw in the custom reporting feature is that you can only see aggregated data for one specified time period – not broken down by day / week within that period (for anyone who has used this feature, you know what I mean!).

4.  Exclude your own site usage

If you spend all day looking at your website, chances are you will be skewing all the site usage metrics - increasing time on site etc. Exclude your IP address in your account settings to make sure your Analytics data is only reflecting actual users, not you!

5.  Interrogate the data

So you are looking at time spent on site for your ecommerce site and you see that it has suddenly increased in the last week. Good, right? Users are engaging more with your site, right? Not necessarily! An increased time on site could mean that users are struggling to find what they are looking for or are clicking aroun aimlessly. Always think about your stats in context and don’t just assume that a line going up is a good thing!

6.  Link with your AdWords account

Being able to see your impression/cost/CTR data in the same interface as time spent on site/pages per visit/bounce rate is highly valuable when trying to optimise your PPC activity. This is why we always recommend our clients link their AdWords accounts to Analytics.

7. Personalise your Dashboard

Many people don’t realise that the dashboard in Google Analytics is fully customisable, allowing a user to see their most important reports on their welcome screen. To add a new graph/report, simply navigate to it as you would normally, then, above the graph, you will see an ‘add to dashboard’ button. Clicking that will make sure you can see that report immediately in the dashboard next time you log in. Each module on the dashboard also contains a handy link, allowing you to view the full report in its usual place, which can be moved around so that more important information can be displayed without scrolling down.

8. Use Google Annotations

You’re running historic reports and you see that your traffic doubled on a specific date three months ago and your immediate question is: ‘why?’ It’s difficult to remember what action at that time led to such a dramatic increase without a significant amount of digging in old emails or change history reports. The Annotations feature allows you to place a comment next to specific dates outlining anything that happened that may have an effect on results which you may need to refer to later.

9. Set up Goals

It might sound obvious, but how can you work out what is working and what isn’t without setting up accurate goals in Analytics? These need to be tested and sanity checked before being taken as gospel, (for example, ensuring the final step is on a confirmation/thank you page, not on the contact us page). Combining goal set up with a goal funnel (which outlines the steps on the way to the goal) will enable you to see where you are losing traffic along the way. You will be surprised how much difference tweaking each step can make to your overall results!

10. Track everything & be consistent!

If I could give you one piece of advice for total Analytics success (it’s like some geeky version of Baz Lurhmann’s ‘sunscreen’), then it would be this – track everything and be consistent with the way you do it! Make sure every link in email communication, every click tag on display creatives, every PPC ad, every voucher code listing and every directory submission has tracking parameters appended to their destination URL. Unfortunately, Google hasn’t quite worked out how to differentiate between upper and lower case and will track ‘google’ and ‘Google’ as different sources, so consistency is also key for making sure you have data you can rely on – as a rule I always use lower case - saves confusion!

In summary, Google Analytics is an invaluable tool for analysing your site’s traffic levels and quality. By using all of the features Google offers, you should successfully be able to navigate your way through the reams of data to find what’s most important to you right now. I said right now.....Go!

News came from Britain’s police inspection body last week that police forces must adapt to protestors who use Twitter and Facebook to organise demonstrations at short notice.

The report came a week after the Egyptian government chose to shut down the internet for 7 days in a bid to prevent protesters from organising themselves on Twitter. Though Google weighed in to help circumvent the block, the vast majority of the country was totally cut off from all sources of independent information in less than an hour – at the mere whim of a desperate political leader. As Iain posted last week, Twitter also helped the protestors’ cause with their speak2tweet technology.

A Novel Strategy

Omar al-Bashir, president of Sudan, has allegedly been watching the situation carefully and come up with a different strategy: to embrace social media. The dictator has requested that more of the country’s 44 million citizens be connected to the internet so that he can use Facebook to overcome his political adversaries. On the same day, Syrian president, Bashir al-Assad, lifted a country-wide ban on YouTube and and Facebook.

Clearly, there are discussions going on all over the Middle East as governments ask how best to use the internet and social media to gain political advantage over opponents – be they rival political parties or the citizens themselves. But the open internet dilemma isn’t only confined to Middle Eastern countries; it's also widely discussed in Eastern Asian politics.

Online Blocking From East to West

North Korea’s decision is, and always has been, the polar opposite of Sudan’s; they’ve had a country-wide block on the internet in place before they even fully knew what the internet was. Similarly, China closely monitors all internet activity with their controversial Great Firewall of China which not only blocks obscene or criminal sites, but also anything that the government considers politically objectionable or merely inconvenient.

Internet users in the West often look to citizens of these countries sympathetically – but we would be well advised to keep an eye on what is happening in our own back yard.

Internet freedom in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia is comparably much better than many dictatorial countries, but there have been signs that governments are keen not only to be more aware of what is happening on the internet, but to also have more control over it.

In 2008, Australia came under fire by filtering content with their Chinese-imitation black-list which not only blocks sites advocating terrorism, but also material about suicide, racism, cartoons and at one stage, the Wikileaks website. Advocates of free speech panned the black-list.

Earlier this year, the Canadian government implemented usage-based billing in the country; the decision was so controversial that it is being reviewed. If it does get passed, Canadian users will be charged high fees for exceeding meagre bandwidth limits. Though not an outright ban, the policy would limit many users to how much they can use the internet (based on what they can afford) – and greatly limit how they use services like Skype, Netflix and YouTube.

The United States has discussed net neutrality for several years despite huge opposition from user groups. UK users also face a similar battle against net neutrality which, if endorsed, would allow ISPs to regulate which content we have access to – and how much we pay for it.

The British Response

In the mean time, the British police advisors are undoubtedly watching closely to see how Libyan leader Gadhafi's stance against Facebook is working. Libya was disconnected from the internet only days before protestors started to take control of several army bases. They've probably noted with some mirth that his former advisors suggested he resign – via Twitter. (Perhaps the reason that they are former advisors.)

No single political strategy is the right one, and different countries obviously require different internet strategies in order to be effective and maintain their power. But one thing seems certain: blocking the internet is rarely a way to maintain long-term power and content supporters. The only exception seems to be North Korea – but even there lies murmurings of a quiet uprising inspired by the Middle East, being helped along in part by their southern neighbours.

For now, the Metropolitan Police seems content with the state of peaceful protests in London. Their comment: "Met Police happy with current protest".

However, should that sentiment ever take a turn, you will certainly not read about it on Twitter or Facebook. As the new saying goes, "The revolution will not be Tweeted."

I think it might be speak2tweeted, though.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has given us a spectacularly eerie insight into Google’s policy on creepiness: 'Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.'

Schmidt, who has a history of making surprising remarks about the company, made the statement during a discussion about the possibility of installing Google implants – electronic chips – under the skin of users. The chips would track their whereabouts and provide easy access to the internet.

Schmidt said, thankfully, that this would probably be considered ‘over the creepy line.’ But he added: 'With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches. We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.'

Reactions to Schmidt’s somewhat Orwellian comments posted onto online forum WebmasterWorld read like the taglines to a horror film:

'He wants to turn us all into cyborgs. He'll get access to our brains. Then we [will] all be at his mercy.'

'Who knows what evil lurks in the minds and hearts of men? Only the Shadow knows. Bwahahahahahahaha...... '

'Eric... know what I'm thinking now?'

One commentator notes that Eric Schmidt went from this:

''Don't be evil.' Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But ‘Don't be evil’ is much more than that. Yes, it's about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it's also about doing the right thing more generally - following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect.

To this rather quickly:

'...a chip under your skin that would track you and provide easy web access.'

And it’s not just Schmidt causing Google’s PR team to regularly wake up in a cold sweat. Founder and president Sergey Brin ominously announced recently that he wanted Google to become 'the third half of your brain.'

We say: it’s coming up to Halloween - why not surprise us Google with the ultimate in creepy accessories. Forget a chip under the skin, instead, furtively implant us all with a malevolent third eye so you can track the universe from every possible perspective.

The launch of Google Instant has created a mighty online stir with Google users and advertisers alike. Having previously worked for Google, I know the focus has always been on the end user and Google Instant will ultimately benefit Google's users.

However, from an advertiser standpoint many Google customers will be re-thinking how they build, analyse and evaluate their AdWords PPC campaigns. The launch of a new product like Google Instant isn't the first time Google has changed the rules, there have been a number of them over the last seven years, most notably:

2003 - Moving from an initial cost-per-thousand (CPM) model to PPC.

Why? Google has always been firmly focused on relevancy, so why should an advertiser with more money be able to pay more in order to rank higher than a more relevant advertiser with limited budget?  The launch of AdWords meant a level playing field for all.

2005 - Introduction of Quality Score (QS)

Why? Well, some advertisers were being penalised because they found their minimum bids on certain keywords were too high even though they had a very relevant QS flow from keyword to ad copy to landing page/content. QS allowed for minimum bids to be "variable" per advertiser / keyword rather than per keyword across the whole advertiser community. 

2006 - The relaxation of trademark restrictions.

Why? Google argued that if a company sells a product manufactured by another company (i.e. a hardware retailer such as PC world selling HP laptops) why should they be prevented from advertising it? Similarly, if a user searches on a specific brand name, why should the search results not show ads for other companies similar to that brand?

Google actually has never been under any legal obligation to protect TM usage and merely offered TM monitoring as a complementary service.

2008 - Making visible and destination URLs match.

Why? Google felt that some advertisers were deliberately misleading users. Before this change took place, you could effectively have a visible URL in your ad which pointed at a completely different, unrelated destination URL. There was plenty of malpractice over the years, and with its users in mind, Google put a stop to it.

2010 - Raising max bid caps

Why? The sceptic would say Google just wants to make more money, I don't know what Google's official line is on raising the bid caps, but am guessing that if some areas were getting too competitive (i.e. personal injury, finance, loans) then a higher bid ceiling would be the answer in order for advertisers to compete effectively and play ads in the auction.

Ultimately, as Google and its products change and continue to change, advertisers will need to change too; forget about complaining and instead spend their time thinking of new, innovative ways to appeal to potential customers. The end-user should always be front of mind.

The big question that SEOs are asking this week: what effect will Google Instant have on search marketing?

As you may have noticed, Google can now predict your search query and offer up potentially relevant sites as you type, a change which could affect the search world in a few different ways...

How will Google Instant affect search behaviour?

My view is that that the overall affect is going to depend on how quickly Google can display search results as you type.

It seems to take a little under half a second to display results at the moment, which isn’t quick enough to stop me typing in a longer query. Faster typists will be less affected, so I would imagine that younger, more computer-literate users will end up typing in the term that they originally intended most of the time anyway. And, if it only applies to users searching from the Google homepage, rather than a toolbar, the effect will be lessened further.

What about the search suggestions box?

The addition of the search suggestions dropdown box could influence search behaviour, with users selecting one of the suggestions displayed. I had imagined that a user might intend to type ‘acme anvils’, but end up typing an exact product name when they realised that they could be more specific. However, the options displayed are still quite generic, so I can’t imagine this changing too much.

I think the main effect this will have is to reduce returns from lower SEO positions, as all the results on the page are pushed further down the page by the suggestion dropdown menu. Those sites in positions 3-6 could end up with reduced CTR as they are pushed below the fold.

That said, Google's Matt Cutts commented that he ended up typing in a longer tail query which resulted in him clicking on a natural result that would have otherwise been on page 2, so this will probably depend on the nature of the query.

CTR in PPC will be affected, but as it’s the same for all advertisers I can’t see it affecting CPCs, unless you are displaying ads in positions further down the page than 4-5 as, again, these will be pushed further down the page by the suggestion box.

My initial predictions for search traffic:

•         Less traffic from PPC ads in positions lower down the page than 5.
•         Less traffic from SEO results in positions lower than 3-6.
•         Less traffic from long-tail keywords for users in older/less computer literate demographics.
•         More traffic from long-tail keywords from younger/more computer literate users, or those with slower connections.
•         More traffic from PPC ads in positions higher than 5
•         Smaller businesses may be squeezed out in certain circumstances

All of the above will probably differ depending on the nature of the query (searching for information, or searching for products/services).

Finally, it will become valuable to see separate Analytics data for users searching on the Google homepage versus those searching from a toolbar. I wonder if Google will offer this?

I think it’s about time for a Bing update. It’s now a year since Microsoft’s ‘decision engine’ was launched, and the last few months have seen a huge marketing push.

The chances are you’ve seen one of the TV ads, which focus on reducing the information overload users can experience at the hands of other search engines. Which is all very well, but can Bing deliver on its promises, and what are the consequences of this latest push for an online marketing agency like us?

The obvious outcome is that the cost of search engine marketing could potentially come down. As Bing fights to eat into Google’s market share, the increased competition between Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter is good news for search engine marketers.

One would also expect this battle for search dominance to drive improvements and innovation across the board, which can only benefit online marketing agencies and users alike. Recent Google innovations include placing more importance on the load speed when ranking pages, and the ongoing Google Squared project - intended to organise information related to the search term logically and quickly.

I’ve also noticed several changes to the Google interface over the last couple of weeks including going (even more) minimalistic for a while by removing the links across the top of the page including Gmail, shopping and news. These changes, both large and small, are a clear indication that the market leader is not going to let Bing’s advance go unnoticed. 

Bing’s market share continues to creep up

The polls show Bing’s market share is growing; ComScore’s most recent survey gives Bing a market share of 11.5% compared to Google’s 65.5%. But can this growth be sustained? I used Bing frequently back when it was launched, and have had another look recently after seeing the TV ads, but this was out of curiosity rather than because I’ve decided it’s the best search engine. If I used it out of curiosity then surely others did too and, like me, may revert to the comfort of Google.           

It’s been said, but for me it comes down to familiarity and speed and, as I’m familiar with Google’s offering, I get what I’m looking for more quickly. To break this cycle, Bing must strive to exceed Google’s engine rather than just match it.

Search on the move - the latest battleground

The forthcoming launch of the Windows Phone 7, with its dedicated Bing search button, can only bolster Bing's growth. However, the popularity of the Windows phone is unlikely to rival that of the iPhone (which uses Google as its default search engine), particularly with the hype already surrounding the launch of the iPhone 4G. Add to this the fact that Google is the standard engine on the iPad, and it’s evident that gaining the upper hand in mobile search is going to be tricky.

Online marketing agencies require search engines to deliver lots of relevant traffic as cheaply as possible. Whether Bing will ever dethrone Google in this respect is yet to be seen, but the ongoing competition is good news for the world of search engine marketing, and we should take advantage of the benefits wherever possible.

Google Buzz is a new social networking service launched by Google at the beginning of February. Google Buzz links directly with Gmail, allowing users to share updates, photos, videos and more. This allows users to start conversations about the things they find interesting.

The main issue users initially had with Google Buzz was the lack of opportunity to opt in or out of this new service. In fact, Google Buzz was automatically rolled out to 170 million Gmail users, without anyone being given the option to ‘opt in’. Many users saw this as an invasion of privacy, as there wasn’t a notification to inform users of the introduction of Buzz, giving them the option to refrain from sharing personal information.

With the original release of Buzz, some users found the people they emailed the most through Gmail had been published online. It has since been reported by TechCrunch that private email addresses can be exposed via the service as well.

Google have been faced with the difficult conundrum of having to apologise to users and back-track, reorganising the site so that users have the option to disable Buzz and block the users who they don’t want to be followed by. With all these changes now in place, the question is: will they be enough to restore users' faith in Gmail?

Google isn't the only one with privacy problems...

Facebook has been dealing with privacy issues since it began. The site has been continuously updating its privacy options to try and reduce the concern users have, while still trying to have strong relationships with Google and Bing. But, through changes in their privacy settings, Facebook has encouraged users to display all information with everyone.

Details published while settings are set to ‘everyone’ are removed from the user’s profile when the settings have been set back to 'reduced disclosure'. However, that data will have been sent out for the entire world to see, and what has been done with that data is unknown to the user.

Is Facebook really giving more control to the user?

Although users are led to believe that the new privacy settings are to improve personal privacy, the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) took a closer look at the changes, to figure out if this really was the case, with the conclusion that the new privacy settings were clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before. Even worse - the changes actually reduced the amount of control that users had over their personal data.

With the new Facebook privacy settings comes the ability to control who sees which post. The settings can be controlled so that only business colleagues see a status update, or only friends can see a personal photo. But do these changes actually rebuild users’ confidence that their personal information is safe on Facebook?

Controversies over Facebook’s privacy settings have caused many users to pay attention to their settings and ensure that only the information they want to share is publicly available. The main reason Facebook wants to publicise personal information and status updates is so that they can compete with Twitter with live streaming of updates. However, the nature of Facebook is more private, so this could lead to the types of membership losses previously experienced by Myspace and Friendster.

Gmail and 'email processing'

Google's Gmail is the only email provider that processes emails. This is done to allow targeted adverts. Google ensure that the email is never read by another human being other than the receiver. However, some users believe that the practice of ‘processing’ emails goes beyond what is acceptable.

Further to Gmail issues and Buzz problems, Google has come under criticism for its Street View, with its ability for people to be seen in places they were not expected. This led to many issues of privacy, with the original photos being displayed with people’s faces being shown while being arrested or publicly urinating. Most of these issues have been dealt with now by faces being blurred.

This begs the question - do online providers release new initiatives before really thinking the privacy issues that they will face, or do they consider the potential of a new medium over an individual’s privacy?

How will content providers ever align their goals with those of Google? First Click Free is an attempt to do so through a compromise between the two sides.

For all those not yet acquainted with the process, here is a quick run-down of Google’s ‘First Click Free’ strategy, designed to protect subscription-only content while simultaneously making it accessible via Google’s search results.

The problem

Online news sites have often complained that users can circumvent their subscription pages and gain free access to their premium content by finding the page in Google’s search results. Every time Google indexes a page it becomes available to searchers, so users can often click directly from the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) to the article and get to read it for free.

The solution

Google’s idea is to limit how much of that premium content a user can view. A user would search for a news story, click on the link to the site and then would be restricted to viewing up to 5 pages within that site before being redirected to a subscription page. That way, Google can maintain its index, show relevant results to its users and still allow online publishers a degree of control over their content... In theory.

News sites can already protect their content

Online publishers can already prevent Google from indexing pages that they do not want to appear in the Google index, or the index of any search engine for that matter. Entering two lines of code into a page makes it impossible for users to gain access to these pages without subscribing.

So why do news sites not want to do this? The answer lies in Google’s webmaster guidelines, which states that a site cannot ‘cloak’ its pages.

The Best of Both Worlds

Ideally, online publishers would like all their pages to appear in Google’s SERPS, but have users redirected straight away to a subscription page. However, in order to do this they would have to submit one version of the page to the Google index and then serve up another page (the subscription page) when a user clicks through. This is known as ‘cloaking’ and Google doesn’t like it.

Google does not want pages to be cloaked, as users would find their search results to be of less use unless they were prepared to subscribe to every site that they were interested in. Google wants users to be able to click through from the search results and find the page they expected to see.

Google’s ‘First Click Free’ appears to be an attempt to find a middle ground between these two opposing goals. The sites can allow users to click through unimpeded, satisfying Google, and then click around that site’s premium content 5 times before eventually being redirected to a payment page, satisfying the publisher.

Will This Save Online Publishers?

Whether this will work in practice remains to be seen. It may be that the average user will not need to view more than a couple of pages before having their thirst for information quenched.  Furthermore, as long as similar content can be found on free sites, such as the BBC, it may not be enough to generate the income that publishers desperately need.

This isn’t the end of the ‘Should Users Pay for Online News’ debate, so watch this space!

With Twitter seemingly taking over the world (I believe it started by taking control of Stephen Fry’s mind), Facebook now accounting for a quarter of all worldwide page views; and a fifth of all Internet users now sharing status updates, it was only a matter of time before the search engines realised they needed to take notice of social media.

Indeed, it would be crazy to ignore the vast amount of regularly updated user information available through social interactions. Looking for a takeaway? Your mate’s review of the Chinese around the corner is always going to hold more weight than a stranger’s review from 2002.

Bing's deals with Facebook and Twitter

It’s this up-to-date nature of Facebook and Twitter that has got Bing’s attention. They’ve just independently struck deals with Facebook and Twitter to incorporate real-time status updates into their SERPs. Unlike Twitter (where status updates are public for anyone to see), not all Facebook updates will be available in the results, due to users’ privacy settings. However, this strategic manoeuvre will still deliver an unfamiliar feeling to rival Google, who have been outplayed for once.

How Google are integrating social media results

Google, having struck a deal with Twitter hours after Microsoft, are trying to integrate social in a slightly different way. Rather than taking Microsoft’s worldwide approach, Google Labs are to offer an opt-in service, where one you have supplied your social network information, your friends’ views are incorporated into search results. Because you’re supplying log-ins, in comparison to Bing, you’re likely to get more information.

What’s that you say? Doesn’t this pose an issue of privacy? Of course – Google will now know even more about you! But before you get all agitated, remember it’s an opt-in service.

What does this mean for businesses?

Integrating social into search engines will mean companies will now have to adopt new and different strategies to market themselves. It will also mean that Twitter will be ignored by less and less people.

With Google and Bing now bringing in real-time information on searches, it will be very interesting to see how everyone is affected. An interesting view on the travel industry has been talked about by tnooz.com.

Yahoo, on the other hand, are taking no steps towards social integration, perhaps due to the impending deal with Bing…

The pending Microsoft / Yahoo deal is big news for search. It will make Microsoft the 2^nd largest company in the world, and a much stronger contender against Google.

What’s the deal?

In the 10-year deal, Microsoft’s Bing, which was launched just two months ago and is already gaining market share, will power search queries on Yahoo’s sites. Yahoo’s sales force will be responsible for selling premium search ads to big buyers for both companies.

Microsoft will initially pay Yahoo 88% of the search revenue generated through Yahoo’s sites – at least for the first 5 years. However, it will be another 2 and a half years before we see it go into effect – the companies still have to go through antitrust and privacy inspections.

The deal may involve redundancies on Yahoo’s side, despite Microsoft being required to hire at least 400 Yahoo engineers and pay them market-competitive compensation packages.

Yahoo says...

According to Yahoo’s website, they estimate the deal will ‘boost its annual operating income by about $500 million and yield capital expenditure savings of $200 million’. Yahoo also expects the deal to boost annual operating cash flow by about $275 million.

However, due to a lack of an anticipated upfront payment from Microsoft, initial share prices fell for Yahoo – despite analysts speculating that the partnership is a good deal, and perhaps the only way that the two companies, struggling to battle Google, can finally start gaining ground on the search giant.

There are, of course, limits to the deal. Yahoo has termination clauses involved if certain revenues fall below specific percentages; and the deal doesn’t include any other of the companies web properties such as instant messaging, email or display advertising.

Is this good news for search?

Here at atom42, we agree with Matt Cutts, who said that competition within the search landscape can only be a good thing. It is likely to help push both Microhoo and Google to provide better results and more helpful search features in the future.