Social Media Continues to Grow, Exits 'Infancy'

According to the Nielsen and NM Incite's 2012 Social Media Report, social networking is no longer a considered a passing trend as consumers are spending more time on social networks than on any other category of sites.

Social media is no longer in its "infancy," the study stated. Nielsen found that consumers spent 30 percent of their total online time on their mobile devices accessing social media sites, while on PCs, social media sites accounted for 20 percent of their browsing.

"The recent proliferation of mobile devices and connectivity helped fuel the continued growth of social media. While the computer remains as the predominant device for social media access, consumers' time spent with social media on mobile apps and the mobile web has increased 63 percent in 2012, compared to the same period last year."

Facebook remained the most-visited social network in the United States, with most U.S. members of the social network continuing to access the site via PC— 152.2 million visitors. Mobile visitors, meanwhile, accounted for 78.4 million members through native Facebook apps, while 74.3 million users visited through mobile browsers. Content sharing service Pinterest produced the largest year-over-year increase in both unique audience, as well as time spent on any social network on PCs, mobile web and apps.

The rise of social media during the past few years has been well-documented. Facebook announced in October that the social network exceeded one billion "active" members, with over 600 million users utilizing the service on mobile devices. Twitter is now publishing 1 billion tweets every 2.5 days.

Google+'s VP of product, meanwhile, had recently stressed that the former is a "social network of the past", with its intrusive advertisements "pissing off users." It's quite a statement for a company who has seen its own social network, Google+, being branded a ghost town since its inception. Although it boasts 400 million registered users, Google+ been criticized due to said users hardly ever logging in. Still, Google has stressed it's the best social service available so it must be, right? ...Right?

This Little Box – The Death of Hotel SEO? Dream On

The basis of these claims is that by squeezing in the Google Hotel Finder paid search box into the initial results page, Google has pushed all organic hotel or OTA listings ‘below the fold’: ie everything the consumer immediately sees, has to be paid for by advertisers.

But Georg Ruebensal, Managing Director of Expedia Australia, said: “We have not seen an impact on SEO at this stage, either for domestic or international searches. Travel SEO has been pronounced dead a couple of times before but it hasn’t happened. There’s still a lot of opportunity to invest in SEO.”

Mr Ruebensal says the most likely impact will be to increase paid search rates because Google has reduced the number of paid ads at the top of the page from three or four to just two to make room for Hotel Finder.

“The top spots are the place to be from an SEM perspective and (reducing inventory) simply increases competition and drives up the cost per click,” he says.

Kate Gamble, Kate Gamble, Director of SEO, Social Media and Digital Content Strategy at Bruce Clay Australia, which oversees search for the Toga Hospitality and Best Western accommodation brands, says has seen no impact on SEO conversion at this early stage of the Google Hotel Finder rollout.

“It’s not really going to change SEO,” she says. “I think evidence from previous Google changes tells us that, for a period of time, some users get distracted but then revert back to their original behavior.” By that she means scrolling down the first page of results to find a natural result that suits their search.

And the reality is that the days when natural results appeared well above the fold are ancient history in web terms. In fact, there are now more natural results on the first Google results page than ever before – up to 29 or 30 for some searches, with paid accounting for roughly 60% and paid 40% – plus a map.

In the golden olden days, it was all text and there may have been 10 organic listings. But it was easier to get seen because there was so much less competition. Search was only being seriously deployed by a savvy few. The rest were yet to catch on.

Now everyone is doing and the competition is cut-throat. The web isn’t fun anymore – just a very expensive necessity.

Convert Adsense: AdSense Gets New Ad Review Function

Google announced a change to the Ad Review Center in AdSense to help users find and review ads more efficiently.

On the Inside AdSense blog, Google’s Marcel Crasmaru explains, “Using the technology behind Google Image Search, you’ll now be able to upload an image file from your computer to search for related image ads; you can then review and take action on the returned ads.”

“For example, you might want to find and block ads that contain the logo of a competitor,” says Crasmaru. “After you upload and search for the logo, we’ll return image ads that contain the logo and which are eligible to appear on your pages. Please note that you can upload images with a maximum file size of 2MB and a largest dimension of 1024 pixels. To try this feature, log in to your AdSense account and visit the ‘Allow and block ads’ tab.”

Google suggests using filters sparingly – specifically when you prefer not to have a particular ad or advertiser appear on your pages.

SEO in 2013, the Importance of AuthorRank

One of the biggest trends we are going to see changing SEO for this coming year is AuthorRank. If you have heard of Pagerank, you have an idea of what sort of tool this is. AuthorRank won’t be a replacement for Pagerank, rather used to inform Pagerank, in the hopes of enabling Google to rank quality content more appropriately. The most important changes are;

1) AuthorRank uses Google Plus profiles

2) Content quality will no longer be based solely on domain or Web page, it will now be reputation based and take into consideration the “authority” of the individual that authored the content. So what can we do to meet AuthorRank’s SEO standards?

Authors
In the AuthorRank world, we need to have an author who is an “authority”, meaning he or she has a lot of “natural” links and he/she is optimized for their blogs on Google Plus. If no one in your organization holds a strong online reputation, start building up the AuthorRank of your chosen “agent” within the organization to leverage in the long term. To leverage this author, here are 3 key steps;

1. Add a Rel=Author code to your wordpress website. Here are the detailed instructions from Google.
   
2. It is suggested that your author should interact as often as possible with Google Plus (authors are ranked on the number of Google Plus circles they are included in).
   
3. Stick to one topic. If the author writes about a whole host of subjects it is assumed that the content will be weaker. Google ranks honed authors higher.

Google Plus
The interesting part about this new algorithm is that it requires you use Google Plus. So bloggers are now going to be encouraged to use Google Plus to boost SEO. Here is how: At the bottom of your Google Plus profile page (in edit mode) you will see a contributor section; this is where you can enter in which blogs you are contributing to. By doing this, you create a relationship that increases your SEO. This action will also make your listing more prominent in a search because it causes your profile picture to show up.

Measure
Once you set up Google Authorship, go and track down all the (quality) content you have created in your specific area of expertise. How do you see if you are measuring well? Use the Rich Snippet Testing Tool. You will verify authorship and then see your results.

Huge change?
The normal SEO criteria will still be highly valued; don’t walk away from reading this thinking all you need to do now is become active on Google Plus! The biggest change we are going to see is more and more bloggers on Google Plus. It’s very sneaky of Google making their social networking site essential for SEO, but just as most bloggers will submit to this requirement and start using Google Plus, Google is doing what they have to do to gain more customers