On Wednesday, Google announced the arrival of Google Instant, a technological leap forward for Google’s search engine, and the latest development in the ongoing cat and mouse game between Google and search marketers. Google Instant Search, in simplest terms, means that Google will refresh your results ‘instantly’ as you type a search query removing the need to hit the ‘search’ button or hitting the enter button to see your results. When typing a query, Google provides you with a list of suggestions personalised to you and your location (around since 2008) but as you type, now Google prompts and predicts what you are trying to look for and updates results as you type. What’s important to note here is not a change in Google’s algorithm and how it ranks sites, but the fundamental change in search behaviour that will result.

How Search behaviour may change
Having search results update underneath typing a query will be a new experience for searchers and as a search query is being typed, a searcher may be likely to stop on a query if something eye-catching appears underneath. This is especially true for transactional queries where there will usually be pretty universal results like video, shopping, and micro formatted starred results in alongside normal results. For example if my initial search query intention was going to be ‘cheap iphone 4 deals in UK’ and by the time I get to ‘cheap iphone 4’, I see Google shopping results underneath, I personally would be likely to stop and click on these results rather than finish my query.

Likewise for location-based transactional queries like ‘Hotels in Glasgow’ where by the time you type ‘hotels in gl’ , Google Places appear underneath with a list of hotels and you may decide to click on these Google Places listings rather than finishing off a search query which would produce ‘normal’ results.

It remains to be seen whether there will be an initial spike on more attractive universal results but it may cause search marketers to reassess ways they can make use of the digital assets they have to provide attractive results for searchers.

Why you may need to reassess your search marketing strategy

SEO

When it comes to searching, searchers want speed and the right results and Google estimate that Google Instant will save up to 2-5 seconds per search query. This saved time is expected to be from clicking on Google’s Suggests predicted query rather than finishing off their long search queries. If this search behaviour does develop, it will make the Google Suggest keyword research more important than ever for search marketers.

As well as the associated Google Suggest key terms increasing in importance, it is expected that many searchers will stop at shorter key terms if they find the results they need. This may result in increase focus on head terms again and increase their competitiveness. This will favour those currently in a strong position, generally larger brands.

Another important point from an SEO perspective is front page real estate. Google Instant’s suggestions will push the natural listings slightly further down making it even more important for sites to rank in the top 3 organic listings of Google and increasing the prominence of PPC Ads.

PPC

From a PPC perspective, there are concerns that Google Instant will cause a spike on impressions for PPC ads (and thereby reduce CTR’s and Quality Score) as PPC Ads appear while a searcher types. Google has explained that it will only count as an impression in 3 cases: if a searcher completes a search query and the PPC Ad is displayed, if a user stops typing and PPC Ad is displayed for more than 3 seconds, or if a user clicks on the search results page for that search query where the Ad is displayed.

As mentioned above, the increase in search volumes around shorter key terms may mean that shorter competitor’s key terms CPC will increase making these more competitive and more expensive to bid on.

Google Suggests list of key terms will push listings down further giving more prominence to PPC Ads and will likely increase clicks on PPC Ads, improving the 30% of clicks traditionally believed to be PPC’s share.

In the past few days, Google Instant has caused many alarmists to proclaim the end of SEO, but if anything Google Instant means that SEO and PPC will have to monitor and adapt to their audience’s search behaviour and create content to meet this change. What has changed?
Google Instant has been rolled out in the US, the UK and the main European countries (not Ireland yet). For Irish people who see what it’s all about, log into your Gmail account and go to Google.co.uk or Google.com.

Here is Google’s official Bob Dylan video on Google Instant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcm0rG8EKXI

This week’s Best of the web looks at web design and we have selected four great sites to wet the lips of any web designer.

First up is Lois Jeans with their Autumn Winter 2010 2011 collection. Are you Red Army or Blue Army?

Next up the work of Uli Heckman presented through revealing fonts and accompanied by some groovy tunes.

Next up the Scandavian design team of HelloDave who specialize in motion design and live action.

Last but not least is the awarding winning agency DriftLab featured in TASHEN ‘s web design series.

Earlier today we tweeted about the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry and the opportunity to win the chance “to live and breathe science 24/7 for 30 days”. One lucky winner will live in the museum for thirty days, reporting their experience to the outside world via a blog, Twitter and online video. The lucky individual will also walk away with a prize of USD 10,000, an honorary lifetime membership to MSI and a package of tech gadgets, including the notebook computer and camera provided to document the experience.

This campaign is reminiscent of Queensland’s groundbreaking “The Best Job In The World” campaign – a PR and viral marketing phenomenon that generated worldwide media attention. While the success of the Chicago’s Museum engagement initiative remains to be seen, the rise of these kinds of competitions and their success begs us to consider the question, are marketing funds best spent on ads?

Now that we have that off our chest, let’s consider some of the necessary ingredients required if you are thinking of a similar social media campaign.

1. The bigger the incentive the bigger the chance of getting noticed; it’s true sometimes size does matter.

2. Knowing your target market is key, as it will guide you in designing the campaign that will intrigue them and lead them to take actions. With the array of online monitoring tools around today, it is now easier to understand where they are, what they are interested in and what kind of content resonates with them.

3. Be creative, innovate, and try not to imitate. It’s amazing what can happen if you get in a room with a white board for an hour and think outside the box. If that’s not your forte then work with a team (like ourselves!) who will help you create, develop and implement your social media plan.

4. Don’t underestimate the time and resources you will need to engage effectively. You will need to be on your toes to engage in conversations, posts, chats and/or forums taking place regarding your product, service or campaign.

5. Measure it – monitoring tools will also allow you to measure your campaign’s impact and help you form a social media habit moving forward.

Have you come across similar types of campaigns? We would love to hear about them, what is your favourite? Best answer wins the chance to live on a dream island for life!

Anna Von Mertens paints aura readings taken from classical portraits and photographs of iconic people, commenting on the ‘soul’ in art in the digital age with the resulting ghostly images.
http://www.annavonmertens.com/portfolio.php

Many artists use pencils to create works of art. Dalton Ghetti, on the other hand creates miniature masterpieces on the tips of pencils!
http://bit.ly/9Rw8l6

Eyebeam is the leading not-for-profit art and technology center in the United States. Founded in 1997, Eyebeam was conceived as a non-profit art and technology center dedicated to exposing broad and diverse audiences to new technologies and media arts, while simultaneously establishing and demonstrating new media as a significant genre of cultural production.
http://www.eyebeam.org/

Closer to home, Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa has an exhibition in IMMA at the moment. He has been working since the early 1990s using a multidisciplinary approach that includes architecture, urbanism, narrative, history, and politics.
http://www.imma.ie/en/page_212197.htm

Google has made another significant change to their algorithm which has seen a monumental development in how search results are displayed in the natural section. This has far reaching consequences for four key stakeholders.

For Brands
Previous to the change, advertisers battled for the real estate in natural search results against Publishers/Affiliates and Retailers for the share of voice on their products. Look at how many times Amazon would dominate search results on brand items which they themselves were only a retailer of, or quite often, merely an access point to other retailers who sold the product. Apple iPod would have been a good case in point. Previously, if you typed in Apple iPod the search results heavily featured Amazon, Play.com and other third parties who either sold the product or published information on the product i.e. Publisher/Affiliates.

That landscape is now turned on its head. Google are giving the Brand owner more voice and therefore causing a detrimental shift in traffic for Publisher/Affiliates and Retailers alike. Type in Apple iPod and Apple have approximately 80% of the share of voice within natural. This could result in less being spent on brand terms in PPC by large brand advertisers. Alternatively, Google are offsetting this potential impact by driving third party PPC sales by the very act.

For Consumers
A poorer experience? When consumers type in a brand product, not only do they want to be provided with access to the brand owner’s site, they also want to access the rich tapestry of information that sits on third party sites. Pages that are information rich on user experience and product reviews which brand product pages don’t typically cater for.

Google claim that providing more results from the same domain will provide a “deeper set of results for navigational search queries”. However for these searches, many of these extra “deeper results” from the same site were already available as site-links in the normal results making this change unnecessary for many searches.

For Publishers/Affiliates and Retailers
Third parties will now have to find other sources of traffic through other channels – PPC, Display, Social, Offline advertising etc. In general, it is a detrimental move for third parties and could impact the sales of brand products by decreasing their visibility on independent sites.

Eamon Collins, Cybercom’s resident Search Expert and Industry Analyst commented –

“This change by Google who claim it will make for richer results for navigational queries seems to be an unnecessary step towards favouring bigger brands and diminishes a searcher’s options overall. SEO results seem to be negatively impacted in favour of driving more PPC clicks and ultimately a poorer search experience overall.”

In summary, this move, while focused on providing greater navigation from Google, is an unnecessary step for consumers based on their wants and needs. If consumers tend to populate most of their clicks in the top 2/3 listings, having brand owners populate 7/8 natural listings seems a pointless move by Google, benefiting brand owners more so than consumers. Having a larger set of results from the same domain will undoubtedly help big brands with their reputation management but for the general consumer it is restricting their choice and impeding their search. If the page is full of results from the same domain, many people may turn to click on PPC results instead. Or, as recently reported, people may click away from Google and into the arms of Bing.

Google launched Gmail phone calls in the US this week, with one million phone calls placed in first 24 hours of its release. Read more on PC World.

Embarking on a little Facebook research when considering a new hire? According to an article from ReadWriteWeb.com this will soon be a thing of the past in Germany. The government there has introduced a draft law that would restrict a company’s ability to consult social networks like Facebook when making hiring decisions. The company could use the Internet in general, and job-specific networks like LinkedIn, but not social networks.

On the sustainability front, we were intrigued to learn that MIT researchers tested the first prototype of the Seaswarm, a pack of robots that use nanotechnology to suck up oil from the surface of the ocean for immediate processing.

Mark Oct 29th free in your diary – Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder is coming to Dublin, where he will speak at the Dublin Web Summit

Techcrunch covers Yelp deals, launched officially in San Diageo this week. They must be feeling the pressure from group deal site groupon.com Bring on the Dublin deals!

And just because we have loads of biking enthusiasts in our midst… Garmin rolls out touch screen-based Edge 800 cycling GPS – Is it too soon to mention Christmas presents?

Much like the Facebook 500 million and Your Stories by Google Twitter Tales aims to bring stories of its users together by asking the simple question ‘How do you use our service?’ A great source of case studies when you need them.

EuropebyEurostar is a new social media platform by Eurostar. The site crowd sources reviews of destinations like Paris which are served by the train and offers unique insights into the cities hidden gems. Great for planning last minute getaways!

Hmmm Foodspotting…. website and app that lets you share photos of good food and recommend it to others. It also recently featured on The Times Top 50 list.

The Fridge is another social network except this one is ‘private’. Same principle as Facebook except you won’t be sharing your content with 500 million members just a personal group that you create.

After months of testing and internal wrangling, Digg have finally released version 4. The new redesign is a testament to the influence of social as My News takes centre stage in the new interface displaying stories “digged” by you and submitted by the people you follow.

Load times have improved significantly and the content submission process now features the “Digg It” submission bar top and centre (you no longer have to navigate to a separate page to submit content). Facebook and Twitter’s influence is obvious as submissions can now be shared through these channels as well as email.

There is a lot to digest and for a full review we recommend you check out Ben Parr’s piece on Mashable. Of course, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the new offering, good or bad? Too little? Too late?

Facebook continues to expand its offering on a monthly basis with recent releases like the Open Graph and “Like” button. They are now turning their attention towards local marketing. As with all of Facebook’s new initiatives, most of the online chatter is asking how Google intends to combat this and, more importantly, how it will position itself as a leading social decision making engine.

There is no doubt Facebook will put Google under pressure, but a lot of the claims regarding Google’s demise are wide of the mark. Although Google is losing market share to Yahoo and Bing, we shouldn’t forget along with their search dominance, they also have a 98% share in mobile and are banking on location based marketing for mobile being a considerable revenue stream.

In relation to search, there has been a lot of misinformation recently on how Facebook, Twitter and other social metrics are affecting search results. There is no evidence of metrics from these properties being used in the main algorithm however they may use social metrics when applying their QDF algorithm. Dave Harry has some great information on this subject in the post “The Evolution of Ranking Signals: Google is Getting Past the Link”. It discusses how Google can move towards behavioural data and social data. If the search engine results are based on those areas it becomes more difficult to rank a website based on spam tactics. You are not going to spam yourself (behavioural) and will not build a network of obvious spammers (social).

Google has its own social graph through user’s Google profile which, if connected to their Twitter, Flickr, Picasa and friend feed accounts, provides Google with plenty of social content which can then use to enhance a person’s search results. These ‘social results’ were rolled out recently in Google US and Google UK but are still in beta.

Alongside Google’s own social graph, it already has a wealth of information on users’ online behavior and tastes through their past search history. Personalised search means results are no longer the same for each user. They now include Google Maps, Google Places results, tweets, and forum results, all relevant to the user who is searching.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, explains that Google already roughly ‘knows who you are and where you are’, and from past searches what you like. Google’s goal is not to simply return a list of the best results for a given search, but to tell you ‘what you should be doing next’.

Inhabitat’s mission is to track the innovations in design and technology that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future. The website is full of really interesting and inspiring designs like buildings built from books and swimming pools made from dumpsters. Green design could save the world!

Patagonia are taking social and corporate responsibility one step further with the Footprint Chronicles a the well-designed interactive site allows consumers to track social and environmental impact of specific garments. Offering unrivaled corporate transparency, users can learn of the good and bad involved with manufacturing outdoor clothing facilitating discussion about the environment and ultimately leading to more educated decisions about what we consume.

WithIntent is a UK website that ‘up cycles’ many of the thousands of tents that are left behind at festivals each year. The tents are remade into functional waterproof clothing and accessories that are then resold at the festivals!

The Cloughjordan Ecovillage or ‘The Village’ in County Tipperary is a 67 acre site that serves as an alternative model for sustainable living. The land has three broad uses with space allocated for residential, woodland and farmland. The first of its kind in Ireland the Village is leading the way with a host of sustainable features including a solar-and wood-powered community heating system, a green enterprise centre with hi-spec broadband and a centre of education for sustainable living.