Is Google A Good Neighbor When It Comes to Local Search?
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Transcript of Is Google A Good Neighbor When It Comes to Local Search?
IS GOOGLE A GOOD NEIGHBOR?Danny Sullivan, Founding Editor,
MarketingLand.com & SearchEngineLand.com
In This Talk…• Google: The biggest house on the block
• What’s up with all that construction:Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird?
• Is Google trying to price you out of the neighborhood?
• What is the impact of mobile?
• What’s up with wearables & search?
@dannysullivan
Google: The Neighbor You Can’t Ignore
@dannysullivan
Google & The Search Habit• Google is not only way people find
apartments, but it is:
• a primary search habit for any type of search
• unlikely to be unseated by any challenger
• So, what is Google up to lately and what’s in store for the future?
@dannysullivan
Of Panda, Penguin & Hummingbirds
• Is Google out to get people with all these animal actions?• what are these animal actions?
• The goal is really to improve search results because ultimately, Google works for searchers, not publishers
@dannysullivan
Behind The Construction….
@dannysullivan
Panda: Targeting “Thin” Content• Launched Feb. 2011,
designed to keep low-quality or “thin” content from ranking
• Roughly every month,Google filters everything though Panda to trap new stuff & free others
• If goal was to just help Google, it hurt top Google partners like Demand Media
• Conspiracy threat: LOW
@dannysullivan
Penguin: Targeting Link Spam• Launched April 2012, meant to fight spam - especially bad links
• Every 6 months or so,Google filters everything though Penguin to findspam regular systems miss
• Did Google really benefit? For any questionable sites that lost ranks, others rose up
• Conspiracy threat: LOW• Crazy link rule annoyance factor: HIGH
@dannysullivan
Link Rule Insanity• Paid links have long been warned against…• But it’s more complicated as native
advertising & native ads have grown
• Widgets get popular, so Google warns against them
• Infographics get popular, so Google warns against them
• Guest posting gets popular, so Google warns against “blogging for links”
@dannysullivan
Link Rule Insanity• Feels safer now not to link to anyone or to
“nofollow” everything
• Feels insane Google punishes for bad links rather than simply discounts credit
@dannysullivan
Hummingbird: The New EngineIn Google’s Search Engine• Announced in Sept. 2013,
an entire rebuild ofGoogle’s search engine
• Panda & Penguin areparts of that engine
• New engine can better tap into “signals” or “fuel” to rank results
• A major change is improved support for “entities” and “entity search”
@dannysullivan
Entities & Entity Search• People, Places & Things
@dannysullivan
Entities & Entity Search
@dannysullivan
EXAMPLE: • A search for “obama” in the past would look
for those letters in that order
• With entity search, Obama is understood as a person that can be connected to other people and various facts….
• Google (& Bing) are learning to search not just for matching patterns of letters
Optimizing For Entity Search• Make use of local “structured markup”
meta data • Mainly location now but more may come
@dannysullivan
Establish Authority via Authorship
• Use rel=“author” markup on blog posts • Use authorship on pages with real authors;
don’t fake it for listings
@dannysullivan
Google+ Local
• Use Google+ for your business• Big impact on personalized results; you
rank better if “friends” with people• Yes, Google+ might go away or change but
local listings will still remain crucial…
@dannysullivan
Real Conspiracy: Ads, Ads, Ads!
@dannysullivan
Then Again, Bing’s In On It Too
@dannysullivan
Fear The Knowledge Graph Carousel?
• What’s happening with hotels may be the future for apartments….
@dannysullivan
Paid Inclusion• Hotel Finder is free,
based largely on Google+ Local but with ad integration
• Future could belike Google Shopping,pay-to-play
@dannysullivan
Moving On To Mobile…• Everyone’s talking about a “mobile first”
world
• You don’t need a mobile site to rank better, but…
• A site with problems for smartphone searches on Google may not rank as well
• More important: knowing how to react in “Always On” mobile search world…
@dannysullivan
Can You Handle The Calls?
@dannysullivan
Soft Landing For Mobile Visitors?
@dannysullivan
• Click-to-call? • Mobile-friendly version of site?• App for repeat visitors?
The Wearable Search
• Notifications on your phone
• On your wrist
• And even in your eyes…
@dannysullivan
Where Wearables May Go• People may not flock
to Glass but nearly1/2 like idea of smartwatches
• “Agents” like Google Now & Cortana getting smarter at predictive search
• Location “gating” likely key in future
@dannysullivan
Takeaways• Google will keep working to reward “brands” -
big or small
• Google needs brands - make yourself essential
• Expect the “free” space to diminish; Pay to Play
• Structured data may offer new & perhaps better targeted prospects
• Deliver content that a mobile audience wants
• Wearables illustrate that search isn’t just keywords in a box on Google; it’s any method people seek information
@dannysullivan
Links & Resources
http://searchengineland.com http://marketingland.com
Articles & Links: • How To Tell Search Engines What “Entities” Are On Your Web Pages
• Search Engine Land’s Guide to Schema & Markup
• Google: Structured Data Guide For Organizations
• 5 Tips To Kill The Competition In Local Search
• Study: 61 Percent Of Mobile Callers Ready To Convert
• The Future Of Advertising In Your Eyes Today: Google Glass & Field Trip
• Survey: Nearly Half Of Americans Interested In Wearable Tech
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