Google | Mirna Bard

Is Google + Competing with Facebook?
Posted Jul 25th, 2011 By Mirna Bard in Google With | 4 Comments

Hands-down, Google is the most popular website on earth. Yet they seem to be worried about their stiff competition coming in at a close second – none other than Facebook.

This is precisely why Google has decided to introduce their own social network as Google +. Google has tried to make a number of different social media channels over the years, like Google Buzz and Google Wave. Yet nothing has caught on so far…

But now we can consider Google + for a second. Google + makes no bones about the fact that it is supposed to be just like Facebook with a few enhancements. Maybe we could call it “Facebook with a facelift”? Instead of opening up Google + to the public, Google has decided to create a little bit of buzz, so to speak.

Upon its introduction, you can’t sign up directly for Google + just yet. Initially, you have to be invited by someone else who is a member in the beta stage of this social network. But even with this type of exclusive appeal, Google + has managed to gather 10 million members as of July 2011. This is nowhere near the mega benchmark set by Facebook at 750 million members, but it seems to be off to a strong start.

Google + versus Facebook

At first glance, Google + looks like a copycat of Facebook. You can post your thoughts and updates, just like you can to the Facebook wall. There is also something called a Stream, which is exactly like the Newsfeed on Facebook. And to compete with the “Like” button on Facebook, Google + offers a +1 button so that you can show that you are a fan of a post, picture, video, or what have you.

But the big, shiny difference between the two is that Google + has a little something called Circles.

If you’ve ever had the thought when using Facebook that you’d love to say something a little more inappropriate, a little more private, or a little wackier than what you would share with all of your friends, Circles may be the answer. You can create circles of friends, family, acquaintances, and following, which is similar to Twitter. You can also create your own circles with specific members, like Grandparents or College Friends, where you can share private jokes or special stories to your heart’s content without boring everyone else on your Stream.

And when you decide to share something, you are able to specify which circle that it is sent to. Of course, you can choose to send the information to all of your circles or just one to keep a bit of news private. This minimizes much of the fuss surrounding social media, like teachers getting fired for posting pictures of a drunken party or saying something inappropriate. If you want to post something that you don’t want your boss to see, then don’t post it to a public circle, plain and simple.

Although this may be a subtle difference between Google + and Facebook, only time will tell how the Circles feature attracts users to this new social network.

Guest Author: Bethany Ramos is an expert in Internet marketing and social media marketing, and she also co-owns her own e-commerce website, The Coffee Bump.
Does Google+ have a chance?
Posted Jul 19th, 2011 By Mirna Bard in Google, Polls, Social Networking With | 9 Comments

Please vote and include any additional opinions in the comments below!
Are you ready for the Google Network?
Posted Apr 22nd, 2011 By Mirna Bard in Google With | 2 Comments

Welcome To the Google Network

Google TV exists; it is the interactive programming installed on certain models of Sony HDTV televisions and works with various LG products as well. With Google TV, you can search the web, check and send email, and play Internet content directly on your TV. That is seriously cool, and while Apple has it too, but theirs is a little less feature rich. Like much that Google has done in the past, it is a cool project, but it never really captures the public’s imagination; however, this may be about to change. Google is going to be working on some major upgrades to YouTube that could be the beginning of an actual Google Network.

Your Interactive Past

Does anyone remember the Time magazine cover story on our interactive future, way back when the Internet was young? Does anyone remember what WebTV was? WebTV was a set top box that connected your television to the Internet. In reality, it was a simple way to access email and some basic, sandboxed, browsing from your TV. While Microsoft bought the company and did nothing with it, a few are still out there, unbelievably, and one is now known as the MSN TV.

The interactive vision has been around for as long as the Internet has been a part of the public perception, it just never took off. Convergence was the buzzword to describe the future where TV and Internet became the same thing. The person producing the content was the single problem that arose. Companies saw a future in which people would be able to access and share their precious franchises without revenue control, and froze solid. That copyright and infringement issue has kept the Internet on a leash ever since. (more…)
Should You Make SEO and PPC Changes for Google Instant?
Posted Dec 3rd, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Google, Pay per Click (PPC), Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) With | No Comments
I am still getting a lot of question about Google Instant, and I am sure it’s because everyone is concerned about their search engine optimization efforts, so I thought it may be best to clarify this in a post.

Google Instant is real time search that was launched a few months ago to help make searching faster and more user-friendly. According to Google, here are a few of the core features in Google Instant:
- Dynamic Results – Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
- Predictions – One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.
- Scroll to search – Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.
Google Instant works from any of the popular browsers, and the main difference between Google Instant and regular search is that Instant populates the results page before the user has completed typing their search query, giving you different suggestions. There’s no need to press Enter to generate search suggestions. Users instead select from the suggested terms or look below to see what websites come up as they are typing.

Searchers can also turn off Google Instant if they choose not to use it.

Most importantly, you can stop worrying. Google Instant does not kill SEO nor does it have any impact of rankings of search results. Google Instant search results will show three paid ads and one organic listing while the auto-complete box is activated. This means it’s likely click-through-rates on the first and second listing will rise, while those in the third and fourth position will fall. Thus, this may increase competition if you are using Google PPC.

If you haven’t already done so, here are a few best practices for Google Instant that you can do right away:

For SEO:
1. Edit your website’s meta titles on your main pages to include both the main keyword or phrase and a call to action.
2. Integrate new long tail search terms into your search engine optimization efforts. Use your analytics software to monitor these terms performance and find out how your users have adapted and what kind of impact it made.
For PPC:
1. Refine your negative keyword lists as necessary to lessen the chance of your ads are not displayed for less relevant terms.
2. Monitor click-through-rates carefully because many advertisers will be focusing on broader terms, and this can lead to a lot of competition.
If you need more information, there were a couple of excellent article written about Google Instant. These will help you make changes to your SEO and PPC plans, if necessary:

Google Instant 101

Google Instant – 10 Things Marketing Teams Need to Know

Are you still using Google regular search or have you switched to Google Instant?
The Future of Mobile Search
Posted Oct 19th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Google, Mobile, Social Networking With | 3 Comments

It was only a few short years ago that mobile searching meant driving to the nearest library and ploughing through dusty tomes to find information that would at best be slightly out of date, and at worst, utterly wrong.

The development of mobile phones has changed all this, and it is now easy to search for information wherever a phone signal can be found. This has opened up a whole vista of possibilities and has been extremely successful. Now many businesses, as well as millions of individuals, not only use mobile searching as one of their key methods of accessing information, but as a new way to access tools such as mobile billing.

Recently, there have been a number of developments that promise to take mobile searching to a whole new level and maximize its potential to such a degree that it may even become the dominant search platform of the next decade.

Google has fired the first salvo in the battle for mobile search dominance with the launch of Google Instant. Essentially a real-time search engine, current estimates are that it can on average take two seconds off a search. This, of course, may not seem like much but when you consider how many searches an average business’s employees carry out in a month, the total time saving becomes significant. (more…)