August 9, 2011
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Posted by
Antonella Pannizzo
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Google recently released new tools to track the impact of social media plugins such as tweets, likes and +1s.
Google Webmaster Tools
The +1 metrics in Google Webmaster Tools provide three reports – Search, Activity and Audience – that show you how the +1 button affects traffic to your website.
Search Report – indicates how +1 button affects your site performance through organic search results. The report shows the list of pages that have the most +1 annotated impressions and the click through rate (CTR) with or without a +1 button.
Activity Report – indicates how many times a page...
July 25, 2011
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Posted by
Jenny Mehan
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Google has released new specifications for e-commerce sites that have their products listed on Google Product Search. The updates are being implemented to make it easier for shoppers to find the information they’re looking for and to send more shoppers to Google merchants.
The following conditions are now mandatory:
• Availability: The availability status of all items must be stated• Google Product Category: Product categories will have to be defined for “Apparel & Accessories”, “Media”, and “Software”• Images: A product image must be submitted• Apparel: Variants such as “Age Group”, ...
March 30, 2011
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Posted by
Jenny Mehan
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A couple of weeks ago, the network was abuzz with rumors that Google would be launching a new social service called Google Circles. The primary feature that would distinguish this new offering from established players, such as Facebook and Twitter, was the ability to group contacts into certain “circles”. Rather than lumping all of my contacts into one big generic amalgamation of “Friends”, I could organize independent groups (Family, Co-workers, etc.) in a way that would actually reflect the social networks that exist in my offline life. This would establish boundaries and solve the “world...
December 13, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan
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Recently Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land asked Google and Bing six questions related to how they use social data from Twitter and Facebook. While it has been suspected that the sharing of links in social media influenced organic rankings, this interview has confirmed it. Let’s recap. With respect to ‘social search’ both Google and Bing have offered ways to see what is shared by your social community. If you’ve connected Bing to Facebook, you’ll see a ‘Liked By Your Friends’ section within your search results. In a similar fashion, Google’s Social Search aims to present relevant conte...
September 16, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan
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Last week Google introduced Google Instant, a form of predictive search. The basic premise of Google Instant is to help users by showing relevant results as a query is typed. Think of it as a ‘search before you type’ kind of analogy. There have been many, many blog posts subsequently written on whether Google Instant is bad or good, or somewhere in between. I won’t get into the philosophical debate as quite frankly, it’s really too early to tell the implications for users, businesses and those in the SEO community. This blog post is not about Google Instant; it is however about how Google-spo...
July 8, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan
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After the July 4th long weekend, many retailers turn their thoughts to the Back-to-School season. And Back-to-School is big business. According to a NRF study, last year’s Back-to-School holiday spending total was $47.5 billion, second only to Winter Holiday spending category. Over at the Google Retail Blog they have posted some interesting statistics on when consumers begin their Back-to-School shopping research. Approximately 50% of those who research Back-to-School purchases will do so in the time period between now and the end of July.
Furthermore the Google Retail blog h...
July 6, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan
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User generated ratings and reviews are extremely important in e-commerce. Empowering consumers to make more informed choices by providing access to others feedback is generally accepted as a very good business practice.
And now businesses can extend the value of that user generated content beyond the confines of their own sites, via integration with search engines. Back in April, Bazaarvoice partnered with Google to enable its 800 customers to display ratings & reviews from their websites in Google search results (both natural and PPC). Now Bing has announced that it’s getting in on th...
March 2, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant
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Many people conduct extensive product research online prior to making a purchase decision, and product videos play an increasingly important role in this research process. Since product videos provide a visual demonstration of your products' features and benefits, they can be a great addition to a product page to help to influence conversion rates on your e-commerce site. What you may not have considered is the value of placing your product videos on video hosting sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, etc. As ReelSEO.com founder and creator, Mark Robertson, states: The huge availabi...
December 14, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant
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When it comes to holiday shopping, eWeek.com reports that social sites like Facebook and Twitter are giving competition, or at least providing some impact, to search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing. While direct competition between search engines and social media sites is still a long way off, some shoppers in November 2009 did utilize social sites to find those holiday shopping deals. The eWeek.com article cites a recent ComScore shopper survey indicating that 28% percent of those surveyed who had started their holiday shopping said that social media influenced their purchases. Some examp...
November 24, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant
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When it comes to site search and e-commerce, displaying relevant data is key to driving Return on Investment (ROI). While that may sound obvious, there are plenty of retailers who are missing on key opportunities to leverage data to improve product findability and of course conversions on their sites. According to a recent E-Commerce Times article, retailers can help customers find exactly what they are looking for by taking available data - such as product information, shopper profiles and buying preferences, shipping options, and user ratings - and incorporating this information into s...
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