Search plus Your World: Is Google Unfairly Stealing Top Positions from Other Providers?

searchplusyourworld

Google was infuriating critics last week with its Search plus Your World service – the newest social search capability integrating Google+ social results into the top pages of the search engine.

Search plus Your World is adding user reviews to +1s and adding new sharing capabilities to the top of search engine results for users with a Google Profile – essentially ousting Twitter, Facebook and other providers from gaining the advantages of Google’s top real estate. If a user wants to get the latest information on his or her favorite celebrity, instead of getting a Twitter, Facebook or YouTube result, Google+ results will be at the top of SERPs instead (results that have been +1d and reviewed by friend’s in a user’s circle.) Another instance: when users search for definitions on Google they will get Google’s own favored dictionary results instead of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

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Google+: How Social Collaboration is Transforming Corporate Presence

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Social collaboration is becoming an important aspect of Google because of what it means for marketers and the way they market products and brands to consumers.

With the advent of Facebook and the “Like” button, the Google+ implementation has transformed the way users engage with pages on SERPs. What was once a matter of brands controlling page visibility (through SEO and keyword relevancy) is now providing users with the ability to find products and brands using recommendations by people they trust.

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Targeting Mobile Users with Effective Usability Design

intuitive

The growing customer base in the mobile market is continuing to pressure marketers to improve their mobile experiences by allowing users to access information using more effective mobile interfaces.

Mobile users have become accustomed to using their mobile phones to accomplish simple and increasingly more complex tasks and are looking for even more efficient ways of doing so. This means that companies that want to stay ahead-of-the-curve in the mobile environment have to build increasingly more “intuitive” mobile interfaces in order to achieve the right response and action from a growing consumer base that uses Blackberries, iPhones and Androids to navigate through applications, web sites and other information portals on the web.

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Improving the User Experience with a Strong Branding Strategy

UX

If you are wondering why your web site or your mobile campaign is not converting as well as you thought it would, perhaps you have missed the mark on combining a positive customer experience with an effective branding strategy.

An effective user experience is a critical component of any business. To deliver value to web users, it has become essential to represent our products, brands, information and services in a increasingly “intuitive” way. Designing intuitive interfaces on web sites, mobile devises and other information portals means organizing content in such a way as to allow users to navigate through a well designed interface that works to get customers to the exact information they need. Companies that achieve this spend time devising the kind of campaigns that help them better understand their prospects’ basic needs and motivations. This way, marketing can identify these needs and create the kind of content that is easily available through an effective interface that reflects buyer needs at each sales cycle stage.

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5 Criteria for Developing an Effective Content Roadmap

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1. Execution

Content marketing champions often get stuck at the planning stages: What type of content are we going to disseminate? What should we do with the content after it has been created? How is the content going to be defined in terms of the solutions it will provide for our prospects? What channels should be used for distribution; and finally, do we offer publications for free or charge prospects for access?

For a properly executed content roadmap, strategic content marketers have to evaluate each step of the sales cycle as well as the buying behavior of prospects in order to ensure that publications are delivered and contain authoritative information. The worst thing that can be done is when content champions leave things to chance or “understanding” hoping that consumers will “get” what actions they need to take.

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