Google rolled out its biggest update to search with ‘Search Plus Your World’. The new search results allow users to find public information and privately shared content through a single search. Results now include:

1. Public web listings
2. Public Google+ posts and photos, Picasa photos
3. Private Google+ posts and photos, Picasa photos

We keep a close eye on changes in search and help you respond right away. The summary below describes how this update affects marketing and what you can do to capitalize on this update.

What this means for marketing

Social matters even more – Social’s impact on search has been discussed for a while, and the update reinforces it’s influence on rankings and brand. Google+ content such as posts, pages and photos will feature prominently in search results, and the importance of social as a ranking factor will continue to rise over time. For marketers, this is a powerful way to drive SEO performance and brand image.

SEO scope expands – SEO continues to expand – it is both more segmented and more integrated across digital channels. SEO success now requires a unified strategy that spans both websites as well as social media presence. This strategy requires integrated analytics, integrated content, and a unified user and search engine experience. SEOs must also begin to optimize social channels for search engines.

Impact varies across segments – While the impact will likely affect many segments over time, searches with heavy personality-driven keywords (entertainment, politics and sports) or strong customer facing brands (cars, consumer electronics and games) will see more Google+ content sooner.

Universal search evolves – Universal search has been present for some time, but the source of content displayed has changed. This may mean that previous content no longer displays in the same prominence as before – marketers will see competition from content within their users’ social networks.

How you can navigate these changes

Create or optimize your Google+ page – If you don’t have a Google+ page, please create one. If you have a Google+ page, optimize your site to reinforce your Google+ page and vice versa.

Unify site, search and social strategy – Make sure there is a coherent, integrated plan between the three different channels that includes integrated analytics and messaging. It’s also important to create a unified “search engine” experience—make sure that Google and other engines see and show the consistent messaging and content..

Manage site, search and social together – Understanding the relationship between the three channels in a changing market is critical. We recommend creating a single dashboard with visibility across channels; be sure to include universal, social and keywords specific to Search Plus Your World. Analyze your keywords to identify the value and importance from different channels, and prioritize.

Assess universal search results – Look at the universal search results and see if there are any major changes, positive or negative. Analyze keywords to determine their likelihood to be impacted by the change and build an improvement plan

1. “Minor” Google Panda Update On November 18th

Google tweeted that they have pushed out a minor update to the Google Panda algorithm this past Friday afternoon.The update impacts less than one-percent of searches, which is why Google labelled this a “minor” update.

2. 10 New Google Analytics Features You Need to Start Using

Over the past eight months, Google has steadily released one revolutionary new feature after another. On March 17, the company announced a new version of Google Analytics. Up until this point, users could decide whether they preferred to stick with the old interface or switch to the new one. However, Google recently announced that the old version of GA will be turned off in January 2012.

3. 10 Stats to Justify SEO

Have you seen the potential of SEO but are struggling to convince your boss or colleagues? You are not alone. SEO can often be viewed as a difficult, techy oddity, and not something that every company needs. Small-scale businesses often think they won’t benefit from spending money on online marketing.

4. SEO Salary Guide For Top 20 U.S. Markets [INFOGRAPHIC]

ONWARDsearch released and infographic yesterday called SEO Salary Guide: For Top 20 U.S. Markets that shows you which U.S. markets offer the highest number of SEO-related jobs and what the salary ranges for those markets are.

5. Beyond SEO: Retaining the Visitor

During SES Chicago, there was definitely a resounding theme. You have to think more about your visitor than you have in the past. It isn’t always about a throng of visitors. As I’ve worked to create a better and more meaningful user experience for my clients’ site visitors, I noticed that time and time again, my clients keep making simple mistakes that detract from what I call visitor retention.

6. 5 Powerful New Features to Leverage in YouTube Analytics [INFOGRAPHIC]

Yesterday, YouTube replaced Insight with the brand new YouTube Analytics. The new analytics tool, which is more robust than YouTube Insight, will provide detailed data regarding the audience and how that audience interacts with the video.

7. Cyber Monday 2011 Marks Biggest U.S. Online Spending Day in History

Cyber Monday 2011 was the heaviest U.S. online spending day in history, with the holiday season as a whole up 15 percent YoY to $15 billion this season-to-date. Average order values increased 2.6 percent and mobile traffic to retail sites are up 3.9 percent over the biggest online shopping day a year earlier, according to just-released reports from IBM, comScore, PayPal, and others.

8. Top 5 Considerations For International SEO

Considering a global expansion in 2012? Extending your web presence internationally can be challenging, especially without local resources at your disposal. But, with the right preparations it can be done. Understanding the basic principles of International SEO will ready you to enter a new foreign market successfully. Here are five critical considerations to account for prior to embarking on global SEO.

9. Infographic: Black Friday As Seen Through Foursquare Check-Ins

Black Friday is only three days away, and some people are already camping out in front of stores. Judging from Foursquare check-ins from last year in the US, peak shopping will happen at 2pm, Target & Best Buy will be swamped and department stores will be busiest.

10. Google: Parked Domains, Scraper Sites Targeted Among New Search Changes

In what’s now to be a monthly update on search changes, a new Google “Inside Search” blog post today tells us that life is getting tougher for those with parked domains, life may get better for those plagued by scraper sites and those hoping to “push down” negative listings may have a tougher challenge.

This week Google announces Google+ pages for businesses, learn effective Content market tricks and what the updated local search formatting means for your marketing campaign. Read on for more!

1. A Fresh List of Google Winners & Losers

Google announced their latest big change to the search results November 3 – fresher, more recent results, which they initially said impacted 35 percent of all searches, but have since clarified to say that it only “noticeably impacts 6-10% of searches depending on the language and the domain you’re searching on”. The best advice that you can take about this is to, once again, not panic. Look at your analytics, look at your data, look at your trends, and make informed decisions, not knee-jerk reactions based on data that may not correctly reflect what’s going on with your site.

2. Do brands need an exact match domain?

If you’re about to begin an internet business then you’ll probably be planning an online marketing campaign that involves SEO. After all, most website visits begin with a search engine and exact match domains (EMDs) will often dominate the Google SERPs for a given result.

The importance of EMDs is a frequently discussed topic, with most SEOs saying this is becoming less of a search ranking factor in the future. Ultimately, though, if you can avoid a highly popular term as a brand name, then do so. A business really needs to rank for its own name, especially in the long-term.

3. Updated: Google+ Pages For Businesses: The AdWords Impact

Google’s introduction this week of Google+ Pages for businesses will likely have a dramatic impact on +1s in AdWords.

When businesses create a Page on Google+, they can link the page to their web site URLs and also to their AdWords account. When that’s done, +1s for any of the linked URLs — on web sites or landing pages for AdWords ads — will all accrue to the brand, making the numbers much larger.

4. New Google Local Search Results Show Directions, Menus, Pics

A new Google search results page layout for places queries adds significant benefits for users, but poses a real threat to marketers through pushing the PPC ads below the fold and reducing their value. Google has added a large, graphic display on the right side of SERPs for restaurant, museum, and other local attraction queries.

When the information needed to populate this feature is available, Google displays a box that may include a link to get directions to the place, a map, pictures, a list of related keywords/hours of operation under the heading “Details,” and links to reviews on Expedia and other review sites.

5. Will Siri Eat Google’s Lunch?

The iPhone 4S is on the streets, and accompanying it is a helpful young virtual assistant named Siri. There has been much talk about her, which has hit a fever pitch with Siri’s native launch on the 4S. Of course, Siri isn’t perfect. She’s been down and out and has experienced a backlash due to limitations in voice recognition, inability to open apps, etc. But many people (among them, one Eric Schmidt) take another stance: Siri is game-changing, and not only that, she poses a significant threat to Google (and beyond).

6. 10 Takeaways from Google’s Holiday 2011 Consumer Intentions Report

Google’s fourth annual research on consumer shopping trends and intentions was released last week. The webinar and report confirmed a lot of hunches online marketers have had for a while now – that mobile and tablet markets continue to grow and influence online shopping – and unveiled some new insights, like the fact that the search query volume is increasing faster than ads can follow. This article highlights the major points for online marketers including 46 percent of consumers plan to use search engines more for researching holiday purchases this year and the importance of having a good mobile site.

7. Up Close With Creating & Managing Google+ Pages

Google has launched Google+ Pages, allowing businesses to take part in its social network. Here’s a walk-through on how to create and manage these pages.

8. Search Hits Big Time, Top Engines Buying Supportive Studies

It’s official: the search engine industry is playing at the big table. In the past year both Bing and Google have given financial support to researchers who have produced studies claiming they were “less biased” than the other when it comes to plugging their products preferentially. The ultimate question that needs to be answered by these researchers is “Do the search engines have the right to place their own stuff at the top, especially given the person is already at their site?“

9. Should Amazon Buy Yahoo?

With no CEO and rumors of a sale swirling around, Yahoo is once again in the business news for all of the wrong reasons. While Google and Microsoft have been touted as potential suitors alongside the option of selling the company’s Asian assets, one company that isn’t being mentioned has the size and cash to buy Yahoo – Amazon. But is this a good business move for Amazon?

10. Content Marketing Essentials: Tactical Advice From A To Z

From boardrooms to blogs, mainstream marketers are fixated on “Content marketing” and why it’s so important these days. In reality, savvy advertisers, PR pros, brand evangelists, SEOs, in-house and agencies have been leveraging content’s intrinsic power since the dawn of organized marketing activities. This article offers a roundup of Tips and tricks for Content Marketing.

This week Google tweaks its search algorithm, Bing and Google go head-to-head in search bias and learn effective Twitter market tricks. Read on for more!

1. Google Tweaks Search Ranking Algorithm

Google’s search algorithm underwent another little upgrade. This time, the search giant tweaked its ranking algorithm to help more recent information zoom to the top of search results.The change, which will affect about 35% of searches, is designed for queries about recurring events, recent activity in the news and frequent updates.

2. Infographic: The Top Three US Search Engines

Search Engine Land created an infographic that notes a variety of statistics about the top three search engines – can Yahoo! and Bing catch up to Google? Maybe – according to these stats!

3. The Other Side of Search Marketing

This economy has forced hotels and their guests closer together – the same is true in most industries actually. While hype about the “social wave” can be a bit disconcerting, it’s obvious that as businesses refine their interactions, social media and especially mobile aspect will encroach upon traditional models. The one constant we can all count on is change, evolution, the dynamic progression of our endeavors.

4. Google is increasing the transparency of search advertising

The Official Google Blog announced two new features that will increase the transparency of search advertising as well as provide Google’s users options concerning what ads display. The two new features, the “Why these ads” link and the “Ads Preferences Manager,” will provide users with insight to why Google feels an ad is relevant to them and also allow users to prevent certain advertisers from targeting them in Gmail and search results.

5. The Ultimate Analytics Mashup

This post will show you how to create a custom report by connecting a Google Spreadsheet directly with your data from Google Analytics. By doing this, your data is available directly in a spreadsheet you’re able to make interesting comparisons, create the dashboard of your dreams, or chart data however you’d like. And the only requirement is that you have Analytics setup for your website.

6. Bing vs. Google – which search engine is more biased?

Does Google favor its own sites in search results, as many critics have claimed? Not necessarily. New research suggests claims that Google is “biased” are overblown, and that Google’s primary competitor, Microsoft’s Bing, may actually be serving Microsoft-related results “far more” often than Google links to its own services in search results.

7. Google Launches Mobile-Friendly Site Initiative

In an effort to further entice webmasters to create mobile-friendly websites, Google has launched HowToGoMo.com, a mobile website training and testing ground. Visitors can view their website as customers see it on their smartphones, check out example of mobile-friendly sites, and find mobile site developers.

8. Google Refreshes AdWords Location Targeting

The Locations Targeting interface is getting a makeover in AdWords. This comes as a move by Google to improve the the overall experience of their advertisers. Google is trying to make it easier for advertisers to navigate and obtain more detail on potential target locations through their AdWords accounts.

9. 5 Cool Twitter Marketing Stories

Twitter has launched a collection of user-contributed stories that showcase just how small the world can become through social media. Five of the currently published Twitter Stories are particularly inspirational for marketers looking for new and creative ways to generate conversation, raise awareness, and drive traffic with tweets.

10. How to Develop Link Marketing Ideas

Tips and tricks for coming up with ideas to get people to link to your site. This post offers help whether you’re looking for a story idea, developing an online tool, or wanting to do something humorous. There are strategies to find new ideas on a regular basis. The trick with many of these techniques is to approach it with a very open mind, and creatively. If that’s not your strength – consider having someone else assist.

This week we announced a great update the S3 platform to make it even better!  Twitter updates its timeline, find out why you should make sure you have a site with excellent tablet functionality and why Facebook “likes” their fan pages so much. Read on for more!

1. Should SEOs Prepare for the End of Google as We Know It?

Is Google’s master plan to abolish the natural algorithm, which is what made it so popular in the first place? If so, this would be a big problem for search marketers in the future and if Google is willing to let big companies pay their way to the top of all listings this could be the death of organic search as we know it. It’s their search engine and it’s the biggest one out there, but will they move to an entirely paid model?

2. Matt Cutts Answers “Does Google consider SEO to be spam?”

Matt Cutts of Google sits down to discuss the ways in which Search engine optimization can be a valid way to help people find what they are looking for via search engines.

3. Twitter reveals new timeline features

This week twitter announced a look to their interface and timeline, it seems Twitter may be streamlining the look of its stream.

4. Google Transparency Report Now Shows User Data Requests

The Google Transparency Report has been updated to include data on Government requests for user information. The U.S. made requests for over 11,000 accounts in the first half of 2011 alone, making them the leader in user data requests. In terms of user data requests, the U.S. is a real leader; there were 5,950 U.S. user data requests in the first half of 2011 alone. Those requests covered 11,057 total accounts. Google complied, in whole or in part, with 93% of those requests.

5. The secret behind Facebook’s obsession with fan pages

A study found that a Facebook page that is a branded fan pags with updates that users see — are vastly more successful than other ways of advertising on Facebook. To be more exact, Facebook Pages convert people into customers at a far higher rate than other forms of advertising. The conversion rate is four times higher than ordinary display ads and more than six times higher than traditional Facebook ads.

6. Google Hides Search Referral Data with New SSL Implementation

On Tuesday, Google announced that signed-in users will, by default, be routed to the SSL version of Google Before Tuesday, most users used non-SSL Google for their searches. Now, according to Google, “…a web site accessed through organic search results on http://www.google.com (non-SSL) can see both that the user came from google.com and their search query… However, for organic search results on SSL search, a web site will only know that the user came from google.com.” The effects were obvious immediately. Here’s a screenshot of our GA account showing the quantity of “(not provided)” keywords going up from Sunday to today.

7. PROOF You Should Make Sure Your Website Works on Tablets

Journalism.org released an infographic based on a study that found that people who use tablets are better educated, spend more time consuming news and have a higher average household income. This IG is focused on news, but we all know that people are using tablets to look at everything. Take away: take the time and money to invest in a site that works.

8. How to Effectively Battle the Panda Update

Sure it may be convenient to blame your current ranking decrease on panda, but the first thing you should ask is if your problem really was panda related or if there is a deeper underlying issue with your SEO tactics. Even if it is a panda issue, focus your energy toward fixing the underlying cause. Not every negative change is panda’s fault. It is quite possible that some other issue is hurting your site and it is best to use your time to fix that problem then to use the Panda update as your scape goat.

9. Tech Talk Podcast: Search Engines for Phones

How do people use search engines on mobile devices compared to those on computers? On this Bits: Tech Talk podcast, Claire Cain Miller, a Times technology reporter in Silicon Valley, discusses how behavior differs. She also explains how advertisers are adapting to search-on-the-go, and how Google came to its early dominance of the mobile-search market.

10. Should you care how high your Klout score is?

Some argue that Klout scores are effectively meaningless, since no one really knows how the score is calculated. While these criticisms may be well-founded, however, there is no question that measuring online influence is a huge potential market, and Klout is far from the only one doing it; Google, Twitter and Facebook clearly have their eyes on that prize as well. While it may be true that those affected by Klout scores are primarily social-media consultants, there’s no question that the goal of measuring influence online is one that some major players also have their sights on.

This week we announced our exciting partnership with Gyro, helping to make Search and Social work together even better! Yahoo! finalized its integration with Bing finalized this week, learn how to create a good mobile SEO strategy and how content can best be used for SEO. Read on for more!

1. Yahoo Completes Global Organic Transition To Bing (Except Korea)

Twenty months later, Yahoo and Bing have announced the completion of the organic (algorithmic) transition from Yahoo powered search results to Bing powered search results globally, with the exception of Korea.

If you do a search on any Yahoo powered site via your desktop or mobile device the search results will be powered by Bing.

2. Having Won The Land War, Google Is Now After “Hearts And Minds” With Ice Cream Sandwich

Google is hoping that with the release of Android 4.0 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”), with a wide array of new features and upgrades, will win the hearts of consumers.

The new version of the operating system unites Android for tablets and smartphones, though there are not yet any Ice Cream tablets. Honeycomb, which proved to be tablet-only, was largely a failure.

3. Should I Change my URLs for SEO?

If you do decide a sitewide URL change is worth the risk, plan and execute it carefully, keep in mind a couple of high-level points:

1. Use proper 301-redirects.
2. Redirect URL-to-URL, for every page you want to keep.
3. Update all on-page links.
4. Don’t chain redirects, if you can avoid it.
5. Add a new XML sitemap.
6. Leave the old sitemap up temporarily.

4. Integrating SEO & PPC: 3 Areas to Explore

This discussion of the integration and balance the interplay of organic and paid listings touches upon the need for through utilizing landing page snippet text in PPC ad copy, focusing on competitive search and understanding traffic value to get the most of your marketing efforts.

5. Mobile SEO is a Myth

Having a strategy for creating strong mobile SEO is important with the boom of mobile devices. To be able to have the maximum audience reach the best mobile strategy is to create a site that works on all devices and always provide a link for me to switch to the full version. Though, if you want a true “device experience,” create an app.

6. How Google’s Human Search Quality Raters Assign a URL Rating

Google ran over 20,000 experiments in 2010 to come up with the 500 modifications they felt best improved search results for users. While there are over 200 factors, or signals, these constant updates affect their relevance and how they impact search results. It might seem like the algorithm is changing so often, webmasters can’t keep up – especially when updates like Panda come out.

However, there are specific qualities and attributes real people – Google’s URL Raters – look for when they visit your page. Those guidelines have been leaked in the form of a 120+ page training manual for new URL raters.

7. Google To Begin Encrypting Searches & Outbound Clicks By Default With SSL Search

Google will now begin encrypting searches that people do by default, if they are logged into Google.com already through a secure connection. The change to SSL search also means that sites people visit after clicking on results at Google will no longer receive “referrer” data that reveals what those people searched for, except in the case of ads.

8. Why Is Content Good for SEO? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Infographic: Why Content for SEO? explores how content is key to search engine visibility.  They also have a related post which breaks down each area of the infographic. I like this stat – “76% of marketers who have strategic SEO campaigns in place invest in content creation.”

9. Head To Head: Siri Vs. Google Voice Actions

The introduction of Siri as a marquee feature on the iPhone will change the way people interact with their phones and how competitors are forced to respond. Google, with its already powerful voice assets, doesn’t have far to go to match or nearly match Siri’s capabilities. Microsoft also has formidable speech assets but there’s nothing like Siri or Google Voice Actions on Windows Phones currently.

Only time will tell the direction that Siri and Google voice go on their Roadmap and how this will affect brands on mobile devices.

10. Advanced SEO Keyword Research Tips and Ideas!

This is a guide and a few quick tips and tricks for the best SEO keyword research and keyword examples to show areas you can incorporate into your keyword research. Including adding in social media data and utilizing Google Keyword Tool to help keep keywords organized.

2. Google+ Search Goes Real Time & Gains Hashtag Support

Today, BrightEdge announced the launch of BridgeEdge S3 – the first application to enable social signal tracking and monitoring to support user driven marketing campaigns.

BrightEdge S3 is offered in response to an industry-wide shift in how marketing is traditionally done.

“The Internet is changing how companies engage with customers, and the rise of social networks and sharing is accelerating a user driven approach to marketing,” said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. “Just as strategies to manage and optimize search were essential for marketers during the past decade, CMOs will now require new tools in the next 10 years to leverage the torrent of data their customers generate everyday across site, search and social channels.”

Facebook and Twitter users are sending millions of social signals daily, which is a huge boon for marketers seeking better brand engagement. A special SocialShare Study that BrightEdge released in September shows that pages that display Twitter share buttons get 7 times the social media mentions than sites that do not, pointing to enormous social marketing opportunity that brands can implement immediately at almost no cost. These social plugins and share buttons are creating voluminous streams of data that signal consumer interest and intent.

Building on the company’s industry leadership in SEO, BrightEdge S3 is the first integrated offering that enables companies to track site, search and social signal streams and make the data actionable to drive customer engagement, traffic and leads.

New features offered by the BrightEdge S3 platform include:

●     Social Site Audit – Provides custom recommendations to help companies properly adopt Facebook’s extended open graph tags and better leverage customer engagement

●     Social Signal Measurement—Enables marketers to measure, manage and take action on Tweets and Facebook Likes, which directly impact search rankings

●     Facebook Page Recommendations—Provides proven recommendations to help companies’ Facebook pages rank higher in search

●     Search ROI Comparison–Enables marketers to measure the true value of their organic and paid search efforts

●     Collaborative SEO – Allows cross-departmental teams to work more efficiently by assigning tasks and workflow along with proven SEO recommendations to increase search rankings

●     Global Insight – Empowers rankings success around the globe with support for Google on 5 continents, Baidu, Yandex and Yahoo! Japan

This week’s news was all about the search industry: how the Google Panda update will affect your rank, tips for capturing broken links and the role of social media for major companies. Read on for more…

1. The Best SEO, Social + Content Strategy: Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is one of the easiest and most effective ways to get your company recognized as a leader in your space.

2. How To Capture Broken Inbound Links

Link building is valuable for SEO, and thus is a worthwhile exercise in which webmasters and SEOs should invest their time. By keeping tabs on your site’s broken links report, you can identify opportunities to reel in that lost traffic by setting up 301 redirects.

3.  Demystifying Facebook’s “People Are Talking About This Metric”

Earlier this week Facebook announced features and functionality geared towards pages and ads.  One of the newest metrics released is the “people are talking about this” for pages.  The goal of this number is to track conversations happening around specific pages.

4. Top 5 Most Unoriginal Internet Marketing Trends

When trying to effectively reach your target audience it is important to remember keys to good marketing, such as being overly self-promotional or taking too many shortcuts.

5. Latest Google Panda Update Favors Video, Big Brands, Google Properties

Will Google’s latest Panda update get the attention of the antitrust investigators given the boost it gave their own properties? It is obvious certain big brands, including Google properties were the big winners and some of Google’s competitors took a hit.

6. The Clickthrough Rate Equation In Organic Search

In the equation, C is the number of conversions, N(k) is the number of people searching for a keyword (or a group of keywords), f(I) is the fraction of searches where one or more links from your site show up (also called an impression), f(CTR) is the clickthrough rate from the search engine results, and f(conv) is the fraction of people who convert after clicking through. When trying to maximize traffic marketing professional must take all these components into account.

7. Social Media is Serious Business for Leading Companies [Study]

Booz & Company and Buddy Media, shows that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are now considered cornerstones of most social media strategies in larger companies. Ninety-four percent of respondents said Facebook is one of their top three social media platform priorities. Twitter was second with 77 percent, and YouTube trailed with 42 percent, though this is sure to rise as online and mobile video continues to grow in popularity and importance. Today, over 90 percent of companies measure engagement and participation to help gauge the success of their campaigns

8. Google Analytics Real Time Reports: Web Traffic Right Now

Google Analytics Real Time will show the number of people coming to a site for every minute, and the number of visitors actively on the site at that moment. It enables monitoring the sources sending traffic to the website, the pages being viewed, the GEO location of visitors, and the keywords that brought the visitors (if from search, paid or organic).

9. Keyword Research: Dealing With Uncertainty