International Digital Marketing

During the London press conference last Wednesday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced the first 1,930 applications received for the new brand, or generic, domain endings replacing .com. The list includes brands such as L’Oréal, Chanel, Nike, Gucci, Macy’s, Swatch, Target, Zara, Next and Wal-Mart.

Almost 50% of the proposals (911) were from North America, more than 30% of the proposals were from Europe (675) and 16% came from Asia Pacific region (303). Only 1% of the proposals came from Africa (17) and 1,3% came from Latin America and the Caribbean (24).

What is a brand domain?

Brand, or generic, domain means website urls ending .brand, .thing or .idea instead of .com. The idea is to allow businesses that joined Internet later to find alternatives to “dot com”, but in practice these domains would most likely sit alongside established domains such as .com and .org. The possibilities vary from hobbies, demographics, and professions to corporate brand names. Few examples are .lol, .bank, .baby, .music, .doctor, .loreal, .youtube, .google, .coke, .apple and .twitter.

ICANN announced that the companies that have applied for the brand domain names are now going through an independent review process with a 60-day comment period and a 7-month objection period. The organization will review each proposal, make a criminal background check for each applicant, and assure that company’s financial plan is stable and contingencies exist in case a company goes out of business. If there is a conflict between names, ICANN encourages competing bidders to reach an agreement together, but the organization will hold an auction if the parties fail to reach a compromise.

Expensive – but a trend to watch closely.

These domains do not come cheap.  There is a $185,000 fee per application, and so far ICANN has collected about $350 million from the bidders. ICANN states that the main reason for the high cost is the technical complexity as it is not simple to run these top-level domains. The first domains are estimated to go live in the first quarter of 2013.

It is expensive, but most of the brands are registering the domains for defensive reasons to avoid competitors and other public to acquire their brand domains. The application cost now might be $185,000, but if a competitor or counterfeiter registers the domain first, the acquisition cost in the future may become extremely expensive.

End of dot com or a passing trend?

Besides of applying for brand names, some companies such as L’Oréal are also registering generic domains such as .skin, .hair and .makeup. This is expensive, but it may be a very smart move against the competitors if the trend takes off and the brand will receive more traffic and consumer interest. It will be interesting to see what Google’s point of view is regarding the subject, and how this will affect the SEO as the keywords in domain name have a positive impact on ranking. Maybe Google itself will start giving or selling .google domains for businesses and users to increase its prominence in the cyber space?

At the same time, people are used to .com and country specific domains such as .co.uk, .es and .it. When the system is launched, how do you explain people that “doctor” is a website without www or .com? It is also to be seen how the system and new domain endings work in practice. For example, if the user types “doctor” in the browser bar, he is expecting location based search results. Instead, he might end up in the page of whoever owns the domain .doctor, which will most likely only annoy him. This is why the url structure change may result confusing for general public and the adoption rate may be low. If the consumer interest and adoption rate are low, after the first excitement brands may start simply redirecting these brand domains to their  .com site.

It is an expensive game to play and at the moment only the big players can invest in these domains. However, if the technical cost goes down after the first wave of brand domains, it might be the end of the “dot com”. Or then we only end up with a big bunch of 301 redirects.

We have been aware of it for almost a one year, but unfortunately the lawyers in EU headquarters are not changing their minds as we secretly hoped. The new EU data cookies law will be effective from 26^th of May 2012 in the UK, but very rare companies have done something about it. Now we only have two months left.

What is a Data Cookie?

Cookie is a small file that is downloaded onto your device when you access a website, and it sends your information back to the site once you access it again. Cookies are used in most of the websites – for example, eCommerce site stores delivery details to fasten the checkout, Google analytics (one of the most common cookies) uses cookies to provide statistics for the website owners, and Google also uses them in Google search to provide more personalized search results and adverts.

The reason why cookies are so important for companies is the statistics and results they provide. These allow website owners to analyze the data and take actions to optimize the website performance. Marketers also need the results to justify the digital investment for the top management and investors.

What is the New EU Data Cookies Law?

The European Union Cookie law – or the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 – was created to assure that website users have a choice whether the website can collect their information or not.

It means that cookies or similar devices must not be used unless the website subscriber or user:

(a) is provided with clear and comprehensive information about the purposes of the storage of, or access to, that information; and

(b) has given his or her consent.

However, device finger printing as a way of user identification is allowed.

What does the EU data cookies law signify for companies?

From May 26^th 2012 companies must inform users about the cookies on their website, what the cookie is doing and ask actively users permission to use that cookie. Besides websites, devices like mobile phones, internet-connected TVs and gaming consoles require the same level of compliance.

How this is done in real life without spoiling the user experience? Well, that is a good question.

If the user does not give permission to use cookies, companies will have no track record of their visit, which means that visitor numbers are going to drop record low. It will also be extremely difficult to track website and campaign performance. Not only there is a great quantity of own and third party tagging, but do not forget the quantity of embedded YouTube videos, widgets, social log-ins, plug-ins etc. which also want to use cookies. Who will explain the Facebook cookies – the website owner or Facebook?

How to ask users permission to use cookies?

There are not many examples how companies are asking users permission to use cookies in real life. This is most probably because companies do not want to add an annoying message to their website until they absolutely have to. And of course companies prefer seeing what competitors are doing first and then possibly copying the message to their website. Of course the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website had to provide an example. Not a great one to be honest, since if user ignores the message and does not click “accept” you cannot track them. It meant that ICO’s analytics data regarding the unique visitors dropped 90%.

There are however few options, such as:

• Modal dialogue box, which explains in detail what cookies are on the site and what they do. It is shown as a layer and does not allow user to interact with the site until they opt-in or opt-out
• Status bar, which appears in the top or bottom of the page. It informs users that cookies are used on the site and user needs to opt-in or opt-out to close it.
• Warning bar, which appears every time the website wants to use a cookie asking user to either accept or decline it.

How this is implemented in mobile, TV or tablets? I do not know. Maybe one option is to start by having a link advicing users of the new privacy policy, which then leads to a page explaining in more detail what the cookies are, why they are used, how they improve the site functionality, and explaining how the user can disable them in their browser (if they really want to).

Whatever you do, it is not worth waiting for 26^th May 2012 to see what competitors are doing or you might risk a 500,000£ fine. It is better to start thinking and experimenting with AB testing now before it is too late. Of course usually the government does not act until someone complains – but do you really think that some of your competitors would not be happy to tip you off?

Ever dreamed of an app that works in all devices and operating systems? Creating a mobile app requires investment and resources, but with increasing number of players in the mobile space, app development has become even more complicated and expensive. Instead of one iPhone app, you need to decide whether you will also develop the same app for other operating systems, such as fragmented Android and emerging Windows OS.

But there is hope. HTML5.

New technology with increasing potential

According to Michael Mullany, VP of marketing and products at Sencha, already 95% of the functionality of native apps is being delivered by HTML5, and the new technology will emerge competitive on just about every level within two years. Meanwhile, research firm Strategy Analytics forecasts 1 billion HTML5 compatible phones to be shipped in 2013 (up from 336 million in 2011), which has provoked interest among big players such as Facebook and Google.

In addition, Financial Times surprised the market last year by withdrawing FT iPhone app completely from App store, and creating its own HTML5 app instead. Within only few months FT managed to migrate 1 million of its mobile users from its native mobile app to the browser-based version. Currently 20% of total page views and 15% of new B2C subscriptions are coming directly from mobile and tablet devices. Quite impressive.

What is an HTML5 app?

HTML5, also called “the flash killer”, means a fifth generation of coding language that is used to create web pages. It gets to bypass phone’s hidden components that in the past have forced developers to create a specific app for each OS. This means that instead of creating various versions of the apps for different OS and devices (iPhone OS, Android, Windows…), by using HTML5 companies are able to develop one mobile / tablet app that is suitable for any device or operating system.

HTML5 app benefits and challenges

Main benefits: cost savings and accessibility. Besides huge savings on mobile / tablet app development costs, you are not restricted by terms and conditions and do not require anyone’s permission to distribute an HTML5 app. It means that there is no 30% cut of app revenue, which happens with apps sold via native platforms. HTML5 apps are also searchable by search engines such as Google, which expands their reach beyond native app stores such as Apple’s App store and Google’s Android market.

Main web and mobile browsers support HTML5 and most of its features are able to run on low-powered devices such as smartphones and tablets. However, even if HTML5 has been improving fast there are still some limitations such as speed, access to certain phone features such as Bluetooth, and inability to handle the intensity of graphics performance for maps and fast-moving games as well as native app. What also is required for HTML5 to really kick off is an effective distribution channel for the HTML5 apps, user feedback system, and simple and secure payment channel. In general, quality of the apps may also not be up to same standard if there is no central quality control.

Should our business invest in native or HTML5 apps?

If the aim is to develop a graphic fast-moving game or location-based app using maps – maybe not. If the aim is to develop an engaging mobile app that does not require necessarily fast internet connection, HTML5 apps can make life less complicated. Instead of a long process of creating, testing and approving many versions of the native app for different operation systems, company can concentrate on one mobile app that is suitable for most of the devices. This allows us to invest more time and resources in something more important, such as building a proper mobile strategy, instead of running around like headless chickens focusing on small details instead of the big picture.

To be honest. If we have a possibility to produce something that most of the people can access while making considerable time and cost savings – shouldn’t we?

It took a while, but Facebook has finally – at least officially – identified mobile as “critical to maintaining user growth and engagement over the long term.” The global social media platform acknowledged that users are moving from PCs towards mobile Facebook access, and admitted that “if we are unable to successfully implement monetisation strategies for our mobile users, our revenue and financial results may be negatively affected.”

 Growing International mobile advertising market

 According to experts, global mobile advertising market is experiencing an annual growth rate of 64% and is expected to reach 17.6 billion US dollars by 2015. This might be the main reason, instead of the user engagement, why the social networking company is so interested in mobile market. In fact, Facebook’s biggest revenue channel is advertising, generating 85% of sales in 2011. To put it in perspective, Facebook’s revenue accounted for 3.71 billion US dollars in 2011.

Surprisingly, Facebook is not currently generating profit directly through the Facebook mobile products and it has not been advertising via mobile. The social media company revealed that this is going to change and that they “may have potential future monetisation opportunities such as the inclusion of sponsored stories in users’ mobile News Feeds.” I am not sure how the Facebook users are going to react, but users’ reaction seems to be one of platform’s smallest concerns, especially taking in account the recent changes, privacy issues and the polemic regarding the timeline.

 Global Facebook mobile usage

 But how many users are currently accessing Facebook via mobile? According to Facebook, more than 425 million monthly active users (MAU) were utilizing its mobile products in December 2011. This has great significance since in total the platform has 845 million monthly active users and it seems unbelievable that the social networking company has not realized until now the potential mobile marketing has.

Company is forecasting the mobile user rate to grow even faster than the MAU, which has been increasing annually 39%. This may very well be possible. According to a recent ComScore study, 55.1 million European mobile users accessed social networks or blogs via mobile devices in September 2011 only, representing 23.5% of the total mobile audience. Not only did the mobile social media usage nearly double, but 47% of the users accessed social networks and blogs daily.

Challenging global mobile market

 Facebook might have a strong position in International online market, yet the global mobile market is full of competitors and challenges. The social networking company admitted that it is dependent on different mobile operating systems they do not control, such as iPhone OS, Windows OS and of course … Google’s Android.

 Until recently we were experiencing Apple smartphone domination, yet things are changing. Industry analysts are predicting that Windows Phone will increase its market share up to 16.7% by 2015, while Apple’s market share will decrease from 18% percent to 16.6% by 2015. Meanwhile Android is expected to grow from 47.4% to 58.1% by 2015.

 There are several reasons for the change. One is Nokia’s powerful partnership with Microsoft, which has resulted for example in a successful Lumia mobile. Other is Android’s massive volume of devices. Even if the Android OS is fragmented and constantly changing, Apple takes its time to launch a new expensive new iPhone / iPad, while hundreds of Android powered mobiles arrive in stores across the globe in a year … and with a cheap price.

Facebook / Apple mobile partnership?

Facebook has a problem. It is planning to step into the mobile game, however its 425 million MAUs have already an existing Facebook app, there are many competitors in location-based services, social networks, games and deals, and the social networking company does not have any control over mobile OS. Apple on the other hand is losing its market share rapidly while Android OS is growing fast.

One interesting possibility the two companies have is augmented reality. According to Juniper, by 2015 global revenues from AR will reach 1.5 billion dollars. ABI Research estimated that even if in 2010 revenue from Augmented reality was only 21 million dollars, amount might very well increase to 3 billion dollars by 2016. But it gets better: AIB claims that revenues related to Augmented reality will increase from 6 million dollars in 2009 to more than 3.5 billion dollars in 2014 – which signifies a yearly growth of 97%.

What this has to do with Apple and Facebook? Apple has acquired recently Polar Rose, a company which has created facial recognition software and other elements that enable the “automatic creation of events based on visual cues in images.” This brings enormous possibilities in social networking area, which should interest Facebook. Apple has the iPhone OS and technology, and Facebook its Facebook Places and large user base perfect for the newly acquired facial recognition. If these two companies join forces they can very well have a chance to compete with Google. Actually these two combined could possibly even be very, very dangerous for Google.

Facebook and Google do not like each other. Apple and Google do not like each other. What would be a better partnership than ganging against a common enemy?

Will 2012 be the year of Google?  Android continues eating Apple’s pie across the world, Facebook’s constant changes drive frustrated top influencers to Google+, Google analytics is  the most widely used web analytics tool with market share of 80%, and Google continues in its no. 1 position in search.

Google search: where are we right now?

Google has come a long way. Few years back the search giant was reluctant to invest in social, especially after not so successful attempts with Orkut and Google Buzz. Yet step by step the company has become more ambitious and seen the potential social has.

• 2009: Personalized Search : Ranking based on user’s history, clicks and location
• 2009: Social Search : Results based on user’s social connections
• 2010: Google Real time:  Integration of Twitter feed into the results
• 2011: Google Plus: Google social network + addition of Google+ pages for business
• 2012: Search plus your world: Personalized, Social, G+ and authors in the search result

What is “Search plus your world”?

Search plus your world is Google’s attempt to finally unify the search, social and its own G+. It means that Google has integrated the algorithm of social search, personal search and personalized search in one algorithm. This latest addition in search mix finds the content that the users shared in Google plus (photos, videos, posts, articles, etc.) together with the traditional web content. To search information of a contact, you only need to search for it in Google and you will get the social network results first.

The change to the algorithm has already been implemented, but at the moment it is only visible for people who are logged in Google.com and do their search in English. Google is planning to roll it out shortly to the rest of the world.

How Search plus your world will influence SEO?

Let’s be honest. Google owns 90% of the global search market so if Google says jump, we jump. So if Google says we need +1 buttons and a G+ page to improve our ranking, so be it. Logically, not only Google will show personal Google+ results for users, but the search engine ranks higher the pages that feature +1 recommendations and +1 also appears both in the paid and natural listings. As with Facebook “like” button, +1 is a social proof that the content is worth seeing and sharing. More recommendations you have, more likely users are going to click your page (and more likely Google is going to like it…sorry I mean “plus” it).

A very important change in the new search is that the personal results will appear first. How does this affect traditional search? Well, let’s say that if first 10 results are personal, they will already kick the traditional search results from the first page. Annoying!

What comes to Adwords, some experts say that Google is stupid to play with its biggest income channel and the change may be negative for the search giant. Yet when you think about it – if your real ranking is out of your control and depends on random users and their opinions, how much are you ready to pay to secure your place on top? The change might actually  push the Adwords bids very high creating more income for Google.

Regarding Adwords’ look and feel, I am curious to see what Google will do because the way they appear right now is likely to be different compared to the personal results. Maybe Google will create its own version of Facebook’s “sponsored stories”. Let’s see.

Goodbye Google ranking?

 Some people say that this is the death of Google ranking. Not necessarily, but it means that we have to stop focusing only in numbers, excel sheets, visits, clicks, conversions and results.We have to start concentrating also in people.

It is true that right now the effect is still very small, since penetration of Google plus is still low. You may think that it does not really matter that people see personal, social results when at the moment not so many of the users are in Google+. Maybe, but in the future it will. Therefore it is a good idea to start thinking about your Google+ strategy, to set up a Google+ page for your brand, and to start building your fan circle. Once the social results start to matter, you already will have a fan base and plenty of +1 recommendations to stay on the first page.

Meanwhile, it is not worth ditching the current SEO strategy and efforts. Google’s search project sounds good, but at the same time it has few downfalls. First of all: privacy issues. With the new search whatever we do in Google+ is visible in Google search for our family and friends, and if people add Google+ friends as carelessly as Facebook friends this might have serious implications. Secondly, Google is about relevancy, but what my friends (bless them) say in Social Media is not always very useful. This might alienate users from Google search and they might start preferring other search engines.

Let’s see if Google’s sneaky plan to integrate personalization, social and G+ into search will be successful, or whether it will be like many of its projects: ambitious … but rubbish.

After the recent launch of Google+ pages, companies and marketers around the world are debating whether it is worth investing money and time in another social network especially taking in account the effort an international social media strategy requires. On the other hand, there has also been discussion whether it would be worth ditching the website and replacing it with a Facebook page.

It takes a bit of convincing to encourage top managers to invest in social networks, but once you have started, engage successfully with your audience, and see referrals and leads coming in – are you able to stop?

Growing dependency on Social Network platforms

How dependent are we on social networks? Many companies are using Twitter for customer service, communicate with consumers through Facebook newsfeed rather than newsletters and news articles, and promote in TV commercials their Facebook page instead of the official site. Also, in place of the own database acquired via website, brands are directing the communication to databases owned by social networks.

For some companies, such as Zynga (FarmVille, Mafia Wars), the situation is a bit more complicated. Even if the interconnected business model has allowed the social gaming company, which has 60 million active users in 166 countries, to grow faster, it is highly dependent on Facebook’s platform and user base. “We generate substantially all of our revenue and players through the Facebook platform and expect to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Any deterioration in our relationship with Facebook would harm our business”, says Zynga’s IPO. This means that despite Facebook policy changes that have been negative for the business, Zynga cannot leave the platform in close future even if it would try to diversify to other networks, such as Google+.

Co-dependent Business Model

According to Kevin Werbach, a Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor, Zynga’s dependency on Facebook could show a preview to a dominant business model for the future digital world, that revolves around what he calls “real-time value webs.”

“We’re seeing that model play out today with the rise of digital platforms such as Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon.com. They are offering services to customers directly, but also providing the infrastructure for ecosystems of other companies,” Werbach states. “In a digital era, everything is potentially interconnected. Companies are no longer isolated islands.”

It is not obvious whether in five years the users will still visit the company websites or whether they will only use social networks and apps to check the latest news and offers. The social networks have re-designed and developed their businesses as platforms, and offer a starting point for emerging companies willing to grow fast. The same trend goes beyond social media: app developers are reliant on iPhone OS and Android, and Japanese app developers are dependent on cell phone carrier NTT DoCoMo.

Worldwide Social Network referrals

But which social network brings the most traffic? In Q3 2011 Facebook was the biggest traffic driver worldwide with 63.5% of the social network referrals, while Google owned Youtube followed it with 21.2% of the referrals.

Twitter and StumbleUpon followed with 6.3% of the social media referrals each, Reddit drove 1% of the traffic to the websites, but Google+ only reached 0.2%. However, to put it in perspective, even if the new social network was launched just few months ago, Google+ brings 2 times more referrals than Delicious, 4 times more referrals than Flickr and 6 times more referrals than Mashable.

The small amount of Google+ referrals might also be due to the lack of brand presence and brand pages on the platform, and the situation may change in few months since Google has now enabled Google+ pages for companies. The power balance is likely to get even more interesting, since according to Spotify investor and former Facebook President Sean Parker, the influencers are now leaving Facebook and moving to other social networks.

Dependency between Social Networks

Despite of the fierce competition between different social platforms, interestingly there seems to be also certain dependency between the  networks. For example, 28% of the traffic to Google+ comes from other social networks. To put this in context, 6% of the users go to Facebook from other social platforms and 22% of the traffic arriving to YouTube comes from social. Twitter has the highest dependency compared to other social sites with 32% of its traffic coming from the other social networks.

It might be that in the future companies and social networks become so interconnected that neither can survive without each other. Or then we hopefully find a more convenient business model.

Google+ with user base of over 40 million people and growing has finally opened the doors for businesses. Since the launch there has been a lot of speculation whether Google would keep its promise to create business pages for brands and finally the wait is over. The launch of Google+ pages enables brands to connect with customers and fans while improving their search ranking as well as SEO campaigns.

A couple of brand pages are already available, including +Angry Birds, +Pepsi, +Toyota and +Barcelona Football club (you can create your own Google+ page here). If you already have played with your personal Google+ profile, the features Google+ page offers are familiar. For example, the page works through the Google+ mobile app, your brand can have live video conversations with the customers or fans, and you can place people in different circles – a feature which enables you to target better.

However, there are certain differences: brand page cannot send messages to a user who has not added them yet in their circle and the content on a Google+ page defaults to public (unlike personal profiles). Pages also cannot share with extended circles.

Google+ demographics

But who actually uses Google+? According to a Comscore study, Google+ has currently over 40 million users and 20 million active visitors across the world.

Top Google+ 10 countries:

• US: 5.31 million
• India: 2.85 million
• U.K: 0.87 million
• Canada: 0.86 million
• Germany: 0.71 million
• Brazil: 0.62 million
• Taiwan: 0.52 million
• France: 0.5 million
• Turkey: 0.37 million
• Spain: 0.37 million:

Unique visitors in Google+ are in average between 25-34-years-old. The Google+ audience tends to be more affluent, 54% earning a household income of $30k and over, and 12% earning $150k and up. 72% of the Google+ population is male and 78% of the professions in top 100 list consists of different developers, engineers and designers.

But despite the very interesting user base, is it really worth creating yet another social network page, even if it is Google+?

Google+ page benefits for brands

Besides of being an additional channel for user engagement, Google+ page allows you to have a different conversation with different circles increasing the effectiveness and relevancy of your message. With pages people are as well able to recommend a brand, not only separate sites, articles or ads.

What comes to the SEO,+1 recommendations have a positive effect in search ranking as well as search and display ads increasing their performance. Also, not only does Google include Google+ pages in search results, but it also is experimenting with a feature called Direct Connect. The latter enables user to navigate quickly to a brand Google+ page via typing + and the brand name. For example, if the user searches for +angry birds or +youtube he will be taken directly to the Angry Birds or Youtube Google+ page and he has a possibility to add the page to his circle. To become eligible for Direct Connect, Google suggests linking from your Google+ page to your homepage and vice versa. This also allows Google to determine your site relevancy in normal search, which means your pages are likely to index faster and have a better ranking than competitor pages without Google+.

Google+ replacing Facebook?

Once Google+ was launched I was playing with the possibility of Google+ threatening Facebook. 40 million and growing is still far away from the 800 million Facebook users, however it seems like influencers might be leaving Facebook.

Improved SEO and power influencers? Sounds good to me.

In 2011 Apple took over Google’s position as the most valuable brand in the world. Even if Google dominates PC as well as mobile search, despite recent Android launches Apple still dominates mobile as well as tablet market in the West. One of the Google’s weaknesses in mobile and tablet business has been the quite in-existing Android content ecosystem as well as competition between different manufacturers using Android OS.

However, things are getting more interesting. The search giant has recently agreed to pay $12.5bn in cash for Motorola Mobility to move decisively into the hardware and into even more intense competition with Apple and Microsoft. Larry Page, Google’s CEO, claimed that the reason for the move was to “supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers”.

Launch of Google branded mini-store “Chromezone”

Now last week Google launched its first Google branded retail mini-store, Chromezone, in London, UK. Surprisingly the company did not make a big buzz about the launch and the little “Chromezone” simply appeared inside the PC World store in Tottenham Court Road. The mini-store sells Google Chromebook computers and accessories and will be up and running for three months.

The mini-store however is only a start of Google retail plans: the company is planning to create more pilot shops around the world in the next few months and, if successful, Google is likely to create permanent retail stores to compete in different level with Apple and Microsoft.

“It is our first foray into physical retail. This is a new channel for us and it’s still very, very early days. It’s something Google is going to play with and see where it leads”, states Arvind Desikan, Google UK head of consumer marketing.

One of the reasons Google said lead to their decision to expand in retail was that company’s research showed 80% of laptop sales being done in physical shops. Until now Chromebook has only been available online.

From Chromebook to full range of products?

If the pilot works and Google’s retail mini-stores turn into permanent Google stores, it will be interesting to see whether Google will take advantage of the opportunity to showcase its full range of products.

Currently to browse or buy Android devices offline, the consumer needs to go through operators or computer/mobile stores. But for everyday, not-so-tech-savvy, consumer the word “Android” might not mean much, especially if you compare it with the word “iPhone”. But there is no one who does not know the brand “Google”.

This means that Google could leverage both the strong brand name as well as the great selection of products ranging from physical mobiles, tablets and laptops to Google search, Google maps, Google+, Youtube, and other company’s platforms and services. Not to forget different Google “stuff” for the Google fans. It would offer normal consumers as well as tech “geeks” a great in-store experience, increased brand awareness and engagement (and sales) for Google, and an additional showroom for different Android manufacturers.

Watch out Apple.

Earlier this week Google launched revamped sitelinks, changing the way these are displayed and organized in search results. Sitelinks are links that appear under certain search results and ads. They are Google’s way to allow users save time and find information they are looking for by analysing the link structure of your site and displaying the shortcuts under your main URL.

From user perspective sitelinks give them a quick overview of the website’s content and help them to access quickly most relevant parts of the site. From brand or company perspective the sitelinks allow webmasters to showcase areas of the site that normal users are not aware of.

New Google sitelink structure

Google changing the sitelink structure is nothing new, since the search giant has been experimenting with sitelinks for years. When Google launched these years ago they were only a single row of four links and since then the sitelinks have been shown in different ways from bullet points to separate results, until the company ended up with the current structure. Google increased the maximum number of sitelinks per query from eight to twelve showing title, URL and a small description of the page.

Google sitelinks impact on SEO

Previously there was no query-specific ranking of the sitelinks, but each site had a fixed list of sitelinks that would either all be visible or not at all. With the new structure, sitelink ranking and selection can be different for each query showing even more relevant results.

With more relevant – and more visible – sitelinks the CTR for your brand searches is likely to increase. Unfortunately the separation between the top domain and other domains is also clearer. It means that if sitelinks appear for the top result, then the rest of the results below will be from other domains. Not your website.

This is why it is very important to get the displayed sitelinks structure, title and description right. Check which sitelinks appear under your brand website. Are they the ones you want to appear, do they lead to main parts of your site and is there some important page missing? Is the title or description wrong or boring?

To manage sitelinks, login to Webmaster Tools where you can ask Google to remove sitelink you want. Google will then pick another sitelink however you cannot control which one will replace the current one. Please note that you can only try 100 times.

To modify the title, find out where Google pulls it from – it can be anchor text, footer, page title, headings or main body. To change the description, change the meta description tag of the page.

Google sitelinks impact on PPC

The AdWords sitelink structure remains still the same showing up to four additional destination URLs on the search-based text ad. However, the big difference between the organic search sitelinks and ad sitelinks is that you can control and edit the ad sitelinks while with organic sitelinks you have to rely on Google’s judgement.

This is why even if your brand has more visibility on the search results page with new Google sitelinks structure, it does not mean you should abandon PPC. Sitelinks will bring more clicks, but if competitor decides to bid and place text ads with more appealing sitelinks near your brand you might lose quality leads. Remember AdWords bring most of Google’s annual profit and this might be one of the reasons why Webmaster Tools does not allow you to choose your organic sitelinks.

Change for the better?

Depends on your ranking, displayed sitelinks and whether you are a brand, reseller or price comparison website. For brands this works out fine as long as the sitelinks are checked and optimized, since it gives them a higher visibility over the latter.

Happy to hear whether this has affected your search results or PPC campaigns in a negative or positive way.

“Our goal with Google+ is to make sharing on the web like sharing in real life, as well as to improve the overall Google experience. Circles let you choose with precision who you are sharing with. Not surprisingly this has been very well received, because in real life, we share different things with different people.”

Larry Page, CEO, Google

Google+, the new social networking service by Google, has already 10 million registrations two weeks after its launch even if it is invite only. Google +1 button itself was available since early June and its adoption rate is leaving Twitter behind. According to a study by BrightEdge, 4.5% of the analyzed sites have adopted the Google +1 plugin while Twitter Share was only adopted by 2.1% and Twitter Instant Follow by 1.3%.

Facebook still has a stronger presence than its competitors. Facebook like button was adopted by 10.8%, Like box 6.1%, Facebook connect 1.9% and Facebook Recommendations 1.2%.

What makes all this even more interesting is that the partnership between Google and Twitter allowing Google to integrate tweets into search results expired and it has not been renewed yet.

How to use Google+?

I discovered a very nice Google+ cheat sheet with small instructions on how to use the platform:

How does Google+ impact marketing and SEO?

Google owns 90% of the global search market and it is very important to appear high in the search results. Logically Google ranks higher the pages that feature +1 recommendations and +1 also appears both in the paid and natural listings. As with Facebook like button, +1 is a social proof the content is worth seeing and sharing, and more recommendations you have more likely users are going to click your page. Adding +1 button across your site will encourage content sharing and improve your ranking in Google. You are able to get the native button code here.

Please note that it only works in search for users who have their Google profile switched on at that moment, yet +1 buttons are visible in websites, logged in or not.

Google+ also has a mobile app for Android, iPhone OS, Nokia/Symbian, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. What surprises me is that +1 button does not appear in mobile search or websites accessed through mobile even if Google owns 98% of the global mobile search market and currently Google’s gross revenue from mobile advertising is over 1 billion dollars per year. Facebook like button and tweet button are visible.

Google +1 measurement

For marketers to measure Google +1 interactions Google has launched two additional tools:

1. Webmaster Tools support

A new set of menus “+1 metrics” within Webmaster tools.

2. Google Analytics social engagement report

The new Google Analytics Beta has a Social Engagement report showing the impact of different social media elements on your site. You are able to see which pages were viewed and which actions were taken. To set the report up, have a look at Google’s instructions. It shows how Google Analytics has setup interfaces for both Twitter and Facebook so for example Facebook Likes and Tweets can be recorded and viewed within Google Analytics.

Can Google+ take over Twitter and Facebook?

It is still very early to say what impact Google+ has over Facebook and Twitter. The launch has been very successful, but it is to be seen how many active users stay after the novelty value has been worn off. Right now Facebook is starting to get out of fashion among young people since parents, aunties and grandparents are joining the platform, yet I am not sure if Google+ will be used by the young generation or if it will be used more professionally. This is why I would love to see some Google+ demographics.

Anyhow, Google+ is an active network, which is intuitive and easy to manage. It has a simple and functional design and it is integrated with all the Google tools. Facebook basic functions such as “wall” are intuitive, but to be honest to manage which contacts have access to which content you need to be an expert. Google has created a friend classification system which is much more intuitive than what Twitter and Facebook have and user has a full control who they are sharing their things with.

Yet in the end everything depends on where your friends are, because if there is no one to share content with there is no point using the platform. If the adoption rate remains high and users recommend Google+ to their friends Facebook might become the new MySpace.