Consumers are getting more demanding by the second. They’re basing their comments and perception of your business on their past experience and talking about it, they not particularly interested in future developments if it’s not relevant or they can’t sample them and, it seems as time goes on – they’re only concerned with what’s happening ‘now’.
In the online world, there’s another name for ‘now’ – ‘real time’. Real time news, real time views and now – real time search results.
If you missed the news, Google and Bing have signed agreements to show tweets (and Facebook updates in the case of Bing) as part of their search results. And to make it even more of a statement, separately, Google are rolling out an extension of personalised search called ’social search’ pulling in results from people in your extended social circle including Google services (e.g. blogs followed in Google Reader, Gmail chat friends) and your social networks (e.g. Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Flickr, etc)!
This is an extremely interesting and smart move on the part of search giants Google and Bing, because they’ve followed the old age concept of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”. When they found users turning to Twitter for the latest news and views, they simply joined forces with them. The result? They’re now in the game of offering Internet surfers what they want – up-to-date, up-to-the-minute data!
But even as the web becomes more about giving consumers what they want – what does this mean for businesses?
At first, it may seem that the game of being surfaced/found in search engine results and SEO has become even more intense and competitive but for us, this news of real time search results is good news. Let me explain -
One, it signifies that being in the social media space only adds to your chances of coming up trumps in search, rather than being excluded from search engine optimisation, it’s now a key part of it. And two, for the sceptics among us, it indicates that social media is here to stay and your efforts are not wasted.
So, to get to the point – how can you take advantage of these changes?
These developments pose new opportunities and challenges for every business, and we’ll cover these tips off in more depth in one of our newsletters, but…
- You need to focus your efforts more on your search engine ranking and the quality of leads from it.
- You need to be more active in the social media space (blog more, tweet more, do more video, use more pictures and finally – interact more).
- You need to be relevant and make what you say and do online relevant. Relevance will increase your chances of being found.
- And finally, you need to manage and build your brand and reputation on the web through testimonials, advocates and followers. Because, if someone searches for your product and/or service – it won’t be just your website they find but customers’ comments and tweets too! So make sure it’s good.
At the end of the day, it’s worth bearing in mind that – having your social media updates display in search results pages not only gives you more of a chance to rank, it gives your customers a plethora of ways to find you. And for those reasons alone, it’s worth your time and effort.
The goal is to make what you’re doing on the Internet (and off it) work for your customers and you – right now.
What do you think of these developments? Have you seen your tweets appear on search results pages? Leave a comment and let us know!
