Jan 23, 2012 0
Industry publication PharmaVOICE has released a special Social Media Showcase in their January 2012 edition. Marketing leaders look at how healthcare brands can participate in social networks smartly, safely, and with the greatest impact for patients and professionals. Look for my contribution, Search and Social Media for the Pharmaceutical Industry that outlines how social networks impact search results for all audiences.
Dec 26, 2011 0
With Apple’s release of beta program Siri to the public, there is a new opportunity (and challenge) for facing marketers: Phonetic marketing. Although voice search has been available for Android for more than a year, and new browser releases allow for voice search using your computer’s microphone, Apple is the company that usually forces traction for the everyday man’s adoption of new technologies. Siri is software that interprets your plain-language requests from the iPhone’s microphone and responds with an appropriate action. If this sounds intriguing and you haven’t see a demonstration, take a look at ThisIsMyNext’s Siri compilation.
What does this mean to advertisers? If a user makes a request of Siri that is outside of it’s knowledge base, Siri will use a search engine for results based on how it has interpreted the request. This is where the shift is: Apple (and this category of voice-search) is conditioning users to make requests in plain language-a shift from how many people search AND an even larger shift from how many marketers are building their SEO/SEM campaigns. What would a newly launched XEROX be if it isn’t findable in 2012?
Mar 27, 2011 0
2 new browsers have entered the market this week with Microsoft’s launch of Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4 from Mozilla. Both of these browsers offer wider support for web standards and are the first for each software company to support HTML5. Among the many features that HTML5 offers adopters is a new set of browser parameters to allow for <speech> properties supporting text input.
The future is here: It used to be that issuing commands to computers verbally was science fiction. Now, today, it’s a reality. If you are a Google Chrome user, there are several extensions available that will allow you to speak visit Bing or Google and simply “click and speak” your search commands. It’s real, it works and there is support for it in the new HTML5 specification.
What impact does this have on search? For the future, quite a bit. When I first used this new feature, it seemed quite brilliant. Click, speak and my results where loaded. very cool, very easy. I think the novelty will wear off after this begins to see widespread adoption, but it will likely stick around. This isn’t a new technology. There have been several applications at an operating system level to accommodate disabled persons and earlier last year, both Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS platforms supported voice search for their respective mobile browsers. What makes this new (and exciting), is that this is implemented via HTML5 for websites. Unlike previous iterations, all that will be required is a microphone (a safe assumption given that laptops have dominated PC sales in the last few years) and a browser supporting this new solution. Voice search usage will rise with the adoption of new browsers for most users.
Let the SEO reboot begin. The introduction of phonetic search to the already frenzied waters of search will have marketers spinning. In my limited experiment with voice search, I was not able to see any change in results between search engine results (SERP). I did notice that annunciation had a tremendous impact on the software’s ability to parse my speaking patterns. The trend of dropping vowels, using numbers and foreign top-level domains (IE: bit.ly) creates a number of top result issues. Will voice-over or phonetic [fi-net-ik] call-to-actions be the new web-design trend?
For a more academic look at how speech-to-search technology this will affect search Standford University Natural Language Processing Group has created a massive collection of data focused on natural language parsing that is spoken or typed. Their library includes information on word, phrase and word-tone as well as research in to trans-language patterns. Resources like this are likely to fuel the needs a speech-to-search system will need to be widely adopted.
To learn how you can try this out for yourself, visit the Google Chrome Blog or take a look at the demonstration.
Dec 27, 2009 0
Google has begun using “personalized search” as the default solution for returned search queries. Until now this service, which uses your profile and previous search behavior to organize your SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). What does this mean to developers? To Marketers? To anyone who creates content or wants to drive traffic online? It means that the game is changing again.
Personalized search will increase the quality of the links that Google is providing. In addition to being able to combine referral metrics, time on a given site as well as several other criteria, Google users can “up” and “down” position search engine results on the page. This information is then aggregated to better compute the proper SERP position for a given URL for the next visit. Sites repeatedly ranked “down” will begin to not appear as high in the results page and previously “deep linked” sites may now rise based on user feedback.
To content creators, designers and developers, this means that user experience and brand loyalty are more important than ever. The more a user visits and has a positive experience, the more likely that person will be to “up” your ranking when searching for content found on your site on the Google results page. In addition, the more time a person has invested with your site, the more likely that person is to post a reply, post a link on twitter, link to you via facebook. All of these channels strengthen your name recognition and lessen the chances that someone, when given a choice, will keep you as part of their search results and not “down” you to the second or third page of the SERP.
Unfortunately, the opposite is true with users who have a bad experience on your site. Users who prefer that not to see your domain in their Google search results can have your domain lowered in their results field or removed completely. Although Google has not documented the specifics as to how they are handling domains in their search results that are repeatedly removed, it is likely not a good thing if you would like maintain your position.
Reading this post, you are likely trying to determine what this means for you, a web site designer, developer or content creator: In a larger context, it means very little. You should still focus on good user experience, good design and making your website accessible to all types of browsers, devices and of course search engines. On a smaller scale, you should keep personalized search in mind when you are writing and designing content. Every user who visits your site or the site of your client has the ability to participate establishing its position. Every potential customer or reader has the ability to make a difference and help define where you will appear Google’s result page. Personalized search is a smart approach for Google and Google’s users. You will likely see this feature appearing in Yahoo’s and Bing’s search offerings shortly.
Dec 1, 2009 0
Looking for an SEO primer? Go to the source: Google has released an excellent resource in the form of a free pdf. The best practices document goes over META data, site navigation, robots.txt and a lot more. A very good find for anyone looking for quick reference or trying to get started with natural search and optimizing a website.
Chris Cullmann is a Creative Director and Online Strategist. He works for Ogilvy CommonHealth Interactive Marketing, a digital agency dedicated to healthcare marketing. His professional and personal portfolio includes interactive websites, viral and social media, and online education applications. His portfolio and observations about the design and marketing industry can be found at www.cullmanndesign.com
The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not reflect those of my employer or those who I am professionally connected.
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