With their new “Search Plus Your World” feature, Google’s search results are undergoing a transformation that will drastically change the way search results appear to users.  The feature is now live on the Google Network, and will be fully rolled out to all users that are logged in to Google and searching in the English language.

What does the “Search Plus Your World” feature do?

The new “Search Plus Your world” combines Public, Personal, Social (Google+ only), and Private search all into one algorithm. Public results are just regular Google searches, while the new Personal feature compiles results based both on your past search behavior and social connections. The feature will also feed in relevant content that his been shared within your circles on Google+.

Here’s an image provided by Google that shows an example of the Personal Results feature. (Note: if you select the globe icon on the right it will hide personal results, and when the person icon is selected, personal results will be turned on.)

The left arrow above points to the section that states there are 50 personal results out of the 419,000 found for the search. Some of these 50 personal results will be blended into the first page of your search results.

Personal Results are compiled from these existing areas:

• Regular Web Listings
• Regular Web Listings  (boosted because of social behavior and social connections)
• Public & Private Google+ posts, photos, and Google Picasa Photos

In the image below (again provided by Google) we see more of the results for a search for “Chikoo,” the name of a Google developer’s dog. Chikoo is also the name of a fruit, and before the “Search Plus Your World” feature was implemented nothing related to his dog would have ever shown up in the search results. But with the new feature…
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Google says that there are 151,000,000 searches a month for the word “car.” Question…Is it more important to therefore try to rank organically for the word “car,” to try and capture traffic from those hundreds of millions of searches and compete against every other website going after “car” searches? Or should you focus your efforts on other more specific keywords that are more relevant to your brand and you have greater potential to rank for?

Below are some thoughts and questions you should ask yourself about keywords when you are building a site, adding a page, or even naming a product:

1. Just because you call your product something, doesn’t mean that a consumer is searching for your product that way
   • A car can be searched for many different ways: sedan, coupe, Ferrari, sports car, two door sedan, red car, best sports car, which car is better, Ferrari that was in Ferris Bueller’s Day off

   When trying to find keywords for your site, make sure that the keywords make sense for your brand and what the product actually is; this will help them rank better in the long run.

2. Make sure to check out how competitive the search landscape is
   • If you are a smaller website, it might be better to focus less on the broad, very high traffic keyword “cars” and put more effort into the “red four-door sedan” keyword which doesn’t have big companies competing for that space.

   Just because consumers conduct 1,000,000 searches a month for a specific keyword, doesn’t mean you will get any traffic from it, if you are not ranking on the first page or second page of the results. So do your competitive landscape analysis and find the right keyword.

3. Map Your Keywords across your site
   • Why cannibalize your own keywords? Find unique keywords per page that you can optimize and have the possibility of ranking for all of them

   Make sure to focus each page to two or three specific keywords and use each keyword two to three times in the content.


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New kinds of social media are popping up like wildfire, but which ones are catching the eyes of consumers?

We all know the social media big timers—Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—but a new wave of alternative social media sites are worth looking into. Some have been around a while, but they can still help your business’ visibility and discoverability.
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• YouTube has been around since 2005 as a video sharing website. Recently, companies have been using this online tool to promote their services and advertise themselves. YouTube videos work because they are easily accessible and can be shared easily. Not to mention they help with Google Optimization.

• StumbleUpon was created to let users “stumble” through sites related to their interests. All companies have to do to become a part of StumbleUpon is submit their website and associated categories. From here, whenever a person clicks “stumble,” their website has a chance to pop up on the site. On StumbleUpon, a link to a company’s blog or specific product pages would be most effective.

• Pinterest (pictured above) is a different kind of social media site. A mix between StumbleUpon, Twitter, and Facebook, users can see images other users have “pinned,” or uploaded. You can “re-pin” an image someone else has already pinned onto your own boards. Users create boards and categorize them however they want, such as fitness, food, crafts, or weddings. Business can get into it, too. A bakery could utilize this site by uploading pictures of their wedding cakes and linking the pin on their website. Just one re-pin can reach hundreds of people. Uses of this site can be limitless to a company.

In “marketer” terms, attribution modeling is determining which marketing channels contributed to the overall goal of a campaign, and how those channels work together to produce the optimal marketing mix for whatever your website or campaign goals are. Marketers have typically used last click attribution to determine vehicle effectiveness without considering what other customer touchpoints contributed to that goal. In “simple” terms, you may be able to contribute an online purchase directly to a Paid Search ad, but do you know what prompted that search or what other channels were exposed to that visitor? Did they first read about you in their favorite magazine, then search for your company name in Google to learn more, but then come back to your site by clicking on a paid ad with a specific promotion? Until now, it has been very hard for marketers to track that path.

Recently, Google Analytics launched a new tool set for being able to determine which channels contribute to an online purchase, email signup, or pdf download. The image below shows a path in their new reporting structure and an example of what value each attribution path brings to this particular website.

On the heels of this new release in Google Analytics, Forrester has recently come out with a new study on user behavior as it relates to the path of an online buyer. Some key highlights of the study, which included purchase data from 15 retailers during the 2010 holiday season:
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• Nearly 1/2 of purchases followed multiple exposures to web marketing efforts.
• Search and Email proved to be the most effective tactics in driving sales, but Display and Affiliate Marketing were also crucial in early steps of the research phase.

EIM intern Adrianna explains the benefits, for students and professionals alike, of presentation software Prezi. Read up to see how you can use it to stand out.

The business world revolves around creativity and originality. One new way to stand out is by upgrading your presentation out of the usual PowerPoint, and into a Prezi. Prezi is an online cloud-based presentation software that allows the presenter to capture the audience’s attention in a non-linear way.

As a student, I have used Prezi to create my professional portfolio. With the features of Prezi, my portfolio will stand out and leave a lasting impression, just as it will do for a presentation, lesson plan, or wherever your imagination takes you.

Prezi has a wide variety of features to help enhance your audience’s presentation experience.  There are twelve different drawing options available—including an org chart, process chart, a number of diagrams, timeline, pyramid, and compare table. In my portfolio, I used the timeline to show off important professional milestones, the pyramid to illustrate my values, the balance diagram to show evidence of my multitasking abilities, and clouds to highlight recognition from colleagues. Finally, I used the perspective chart to explain why I am a good match for the job I’m applying for. These drawings can be compared to “smart art” in PowerPoint, but these drawings allow for more flexibility and are more presentation friendly.

One great feature is the zoom tool, which highlights important parts of your presentation. With this tool, you can create your presentation to zoom into different parts of the drawings. For instance, my timeline is long, so I have the zoom tool set to focus on the more important dates. I was able to select where and when to zoom by creating a path, which guides the audience through the presentation, similar to slides in a PowerPoint.
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Most companies put plenty of thought, time, and money toward their logos. But have they thought about how others see that logo online?

Whether designing a brand new logo or redesigning an existing one, it’s important to keep in mind where and how that logo will be seen in the Internet age.

Think, for a moment, about all the possible ways your logo might be displayed online.

On Google search results, in various sizes.
On display ads; both elongated banners and squares.
As a tiny square box on a Twitter profile.
An even tinier square box for a mobile app.
As a mobile ad.
In a Facebook update.
On a LinkedIn profile.
In a press release or embedded in a blog post.

These are just a few examples, but the point is this: Your logo must be flexible to adapt to different sizes and situations. It also must be recognizable both large and small. If your logo contains your company name or slogan, the lettering must be legible even when it appears small. Your logo might look great elongated, in an oval shape, or composed of several small facets – but how will it look confined in a box?

Your logo also must “pop.” Simple lines and your company name might look great on printed letterhead, but it won’t stand out online where consumers are barraged with other interesting images that evoke a response.

If your company logo simply cannot be modified or adapted to fit in the digital landscape, consider making an alternate logo for digital use. Of course, it must be immediately recognizable as your brand and not stray from the parent logo. But, chances are good that, in this age, your logo will be seen online more often than anywhere else.

Google has introduced Real-Time traffic data to all Google Analytics users, allowing you to view all traffic on your site as it’s happening in…real time!

Real-Time Analytics allows you to view who is entering and leaving your site, if they are a new or returning visitor, and most importantly what traffic source they are coming from.

Since Real-Time will define the source of a visitor, this is very valuable for marketers and business owners who want to know how well an ad campaign or social media post is performing. They can now gauge the immediate impact of those marketing efforts. For example, if you tweet about a new product on your site, you can immediately see how many site visitors were driven by that particular content. This will allow you to help pinpoint your  marketing strategy,  by allowing you to find what type of messages are the most effective and what time to post to drive the most traffic to your site.

Make sure you capitalize on this new feature, and use it to maximize your advertising campaigns to their full potential!

Check out some screen shots of the new Real-Time Google Analytics in action below:

Last week I ran a little social media experiment… non-scientific of course. I tweeted and posted on Facebook that for every twitter Retweet (RT) or Facebook Like/Share I got on a specific post I would donate $1.00 to my Movember campaign.

I didn’t really have any goals besides donating some money “humblebrag” and seeing if I could get 100 RTs & 100 Facebook “Likes” in a day, and seeing if it in fact worked.

Below are my findings:
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•  Surprisingly, it was much harder to get Facebook “Likes” than to get RTs on twitter
• Going into this, I thought I would easily get to 100 Facebook “Likes” but that was not the case at all. With the new Facebook feed, there is so much more news being spread and posts get lost in the clutter much quicker if people are not actually sharing the post. It is important for something to be shared and not just “liked” if you don’t want the post to be lost in the clutter
• For any brand to show up consistently on Facebook they will need to either be constantly posting status updates, (spammy and annoying) or pay for advertisements on Facebook
• There is also the option of asking your friends to repost/share your status updates, not just like them, but again, that can come off as spammy
• twitter RTs were much easier to come by. I only have 370 followers (don’t judge) but most people were more than willing to give a RT for a good cause

Two weeks ago, I was lucky to attend a great social media conference at Windy City Social in Chicago. In fact, I was so overwhelmed with good information, it took me two weeks to write this post.  I want to share some of the most useful information that I took away, that would be of value to you, our blog readers. As an organization, you may or may not have a social media strategy in place. A couple tweets here and there, a Facebook photo album after your company holiday party, etc., and now you are tasked with putting together a real social media plan! Here are some tips for how to get started and what you should include in your plan.

Tips for getting started:

1. First off, take a good look at what you are trying to solve with social media.
2. Next, identify your goals – Is it to build your brand’s online presence? Is it to protect your brand? Your goals must align with what you are trying to solve.
3. Then, take a look at the activity that is occurring right now – where and when the conversations are happening, and if that sentiment is negative or positive.

If you haven’t already done so at this point, you should put together a Social Media Council, made up of stakeholders that can serve as advisors and ambassadors to the program. These individuals should be well-versed in the plan you are about to put together, and can act as representatives of your company, whether externally or internally.

Now it’s time to create your social media plan! Here are 4 main components that each plan should have:
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1. Social Buzz Analysis – here, you need to focus on the trends in your industry, what people are thinking and their interests today. Identify threads that are already present, and keywords that resonate with your audience.