Search Plus Your World provides marketing opportunities to businesses.

Google’s moves toward personalizing search results took a dramatic turn a little over a week ago with the introduction of Search Plus Your World (SPYW). Now when you do a Google search while logged in to a Google account, you might see results from your Google+ network integrated into the search results.

Google+ isn’t SPYW’s only source of personalized information: you might also see photos on Flikr, threads on Quora, and other publicly available information.

Even if you’re not signed in or don’t have a Google+ account, you might see Google+ content on search results pages. This dramatically heightened visibility of Google+ pages creates a huge marketing opportunity for businesses. (Read more about how you can create a business page on Google+.)

Google+ business pages can now appear in several places in search results pages:

• In search results: Your Google+ business page, and the content you add to it, can appear in search results. Searchers may see your profile image, the text and images in your posts, and other information. Below your page or post might be a count of the number of comments or +1′s it earned along with the profile images of anyone in the searcher’s Circles who have shared it. All this color and special markup helps it stand out visually in search results. Also, the more comments, +1′s, and shares a page or post gets, the higher it’s likely to appear in search results. In other words, if you create a Google+ page for your business and fill it with engaging content, that could give you a boost in search results.

Posts from businesses' Google+ pages can appear in search results, as in this example from the Muppets.

• In sidebar suggestions: For some searches (even if you aren’t signed in to a Google account), a sidebar appears to the right of search results offering suggestions of Google+ pages related to your search that you might want to add to your Circles. If you frequently talk about a certain topic on your Google+ page (say, your city or your industry), your page might show up as a suggestion for that topic.

If you search for "Angry Birds" on Google, a sidebar will offer suggestions for related Google+ pages.

•  In image searches: Even if you don’t search specifically for images, Google sometimes offers a row or two of images in regular search results. With SPYW, images from the people and businesses in your Circles may appear. Below each personalized image is a grey bar noting where the image came from. Clicking on the bar brings you to that person’s or business’s Google+ page. As a business owner, you can increase your potential visibility by posting and sharing interesting images on your Google+ page.

If you post interesting images on your Google+ page, those images have the chance to appear in Google's image search with a link to your Google+ page.

If you’re still casting around for worthwhile New Year’s resolutions, put creating and maintaining a Google+ page for your business at the top of your list.

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At the start of this new year, you may be experiencing an internet marketing hangover from 2011 and who could blame you? It was a hurricane (no mere whirlwind) of changes this last year. Highlights included:

Google

Panda bears may be lazy, but Google Panda has been anything but with 9 major updates since its release in 2011.

Google released 21 major updates in 2011, up from eight in 2010, five in 2009 and two in 2008. Most of these updates were centered around updates named for an endangered bear. In terms of search engine marketing, 2011 could be called The Year of the Panda. These updates were implemented to return higher-quality search query results by placing quality websites near the top of the search results and lower the rank of low-quality sites. Many complaints, a request from Google for help in gathering data, and several updates later, it appears Google Panda is finally starting to deliver on its promises.

Mobile Device Internet & Search Usage

According to StatCounter, the mobile device market for internet use continued to grow throughout 2011, rising to from just over 4% in December 2010 to 6.5% overall in November 2011.  In the search market, mobile devices now account for 20% of search engine queries.

Social Media Marketing

Google+, the search engine’s latest and strongest foray into social media, was opened up for business profiles in November.

Showing up in the news feed of your Facebook fans becomes increasingly important as your fan base grows.

Facebook announced their new Timeline personal profile feature, which rolled out worldwide on December 15, 2011.  The biggest lesson of 2011 for businesses on Facebook, though, is the need to be active and effective in engagement via the news feed of your fans.  The reason for this is the relative lack of traffic to a business page once “liked.”  A PageLever study of Facebook analytics shows that as your fan base grows the percentage of fans visiting the business page shrinks.  This does not mean that you don’t need to worry about the branding and extra features of your business page; it does mean that you will need to increasingly focus on the timeliness and engagement effectiveness of your postings to compete for visibility to your fans.

Twitter announced a new interface that is billed as more “follow friendly.”  YouTube announced a new design to enhance its social interactivity features.  All of these social media outlets are increasing their competitiveness for their slice of your social media marketing efforts.

Recommended Internet Marketing Resolutions for 2012

With 2011 now in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to make sure your internet marketing efforts are ready to meet the challenges as they emerge in 2012.

We will be covering the following recommendations in depth, along with others as they emerge, throughout the year in our Internet Marketing Weekly series.

Increase Search Engine Marketing Effectiveness

Focus on Optimized, Quality “Above the Fold” Content

Search engines prioritize content appearing "above the fold" - as do website visitors.

Regardless of the medium (desktop/laptop or mobile) make sure that what displays “above the fold” (i.e. what initially appears on the display of your website pages and blog posts) is quality content. Relevant header and supporting content should always be a part of this. Use of large images and video are a big question mark at this point, so we recommend slightly de-emphasizing images and videos above the fold unless they are for photo/video-specific blog posts. If you have advertising space on your website, keep it minimal above the fold and do not allow it to dominate any portion of your website pages.

Be Prepared to Deal with Less Keyword Data in Google Analytics

Logged-in Google user keyword data is no longer provided in Google Analytics.

Touted as privacy protection, Google made the decision to encrypt the searches of its logged-in users in mid-October 2011. Since then, Google Analytics has removed its logged-in user data for keywords entered into Google that resulted visits to your website via organic results.  These keywords are now listed as “(not provided)” in keyword reports. The percentage of this logged-in Google user traffic varies from day to day and website to website, but, regardless, your search engine optimization efforts (and/or those of your service provider) should now include monthly review of search engine queries data using Google Webmaster Tools.  The data is not as comprehensive (i.e. it doesn’t provide visit quality metrics) but it will provide important information that is otherwise unavailable.

Communicate with Your Ecommerce Providers That Don’t Support Your Internet Marketing Efforts

Your website may be up an effective tool in generating links out to your online sales, but when a website visitor leaves your website to view products and/or services and make purchases on a provider’s website, are you receiving optimal service?

Google Analytics Cross-Domain and Ecommerce Tracking

Proper cross-domain tracking and support from your online sales service provider ensures accurate ROI tracking for Google Analytics Ecommerce.

If you’re selling products or services online and don’t have Google Analytics cross-domain and ecommerce tracking set up between your website and that of your ecommerce provider, you have no reliable way of tracking the sources (search engine, paid directory listing, etc.) of revenue and are therefore unable to evaluate Return On Investment (ROI). Make sure your provider knows the importance of this tracking to your continued business with them.

Get a Mobile-friendly Ecommerce Website

Hopefully you have a mobile device-specific website already (if not, make it a priority goal for 2012). When a visitor links out to your ecommerce website you are more likely to lose the sale if that site isn’t also friendly for viewing on the user’s mobile device.

Enable or Upgrade Social Media Links & Share Buttons

Increase the effectiveness of social media on your website with prominent placement of links and sharing buttons.

If you are active as a business in social media, make sure your efforts include cross-marketing on your website with links to your social media profiles and social media sharing buttons so that users may like, tweet, “+1″ and otherwise promote your website content and blog posts in the social media sphere. InsideOut Solutions offers a simple social media bar for our Inndx customers and social media integration options for all of our customers.

Broaden Your Local Search Base and Enhance Search Performance

Assuming you have claimed and filled out your Google Places listing, resolve to claim and fill out your Bing Local and Yahoo Local listings.  With that done, you will want to claim and fill out your business listings on local search data suppliers, such as InfoUSA, Acxiom, and Localeze.

Get Mobile Specific with Your Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Shift an appropriate percentage of your search engine paid advertising dollars to the mobile market.  Start with a review of our recommended 5 steps to improve mobile PPC and stay tuned for more.

Social Media Marketing

Social media’s importance to effective internet marketing will continue to grow in 2012 and businesses should be prepared to become more socially active and effective in their engagement to remain competitive.

Google+

Google+ might not have the history of Facebook, Twitter, et al., but it does have the name (and deep pockets) of Google behind it.

The “new kid on the block” in social media is poised grow its market share substantially. A Google+ user review by GlobalWebIndex indicates that this new social media platform now has 150 million active users.  What’s more, Google will likely integrate Google+ into its search results to help enhance its new focus on more personalized search. It’s time to build your Google+ personal and business profiles and start engaging users.

YouTube

Despite its ubiquity in people’s daily lives, YouTube remains a non- or under-utilized marketing outlet for many businesses. Resolve to explore video marketing of your business if you currently aren’t. If you have a YouTube channel, resolve to both take advantage of the new design that’s rolling out and also to produce new quality video content for 2012.

Cross-platform Branding

It’s vital to your online marketing efforts to brand your social media outlets to be consistent with your website’s branding.  InsideOut Solutions offers Facebook, Twitter and YouTube branding services.

Cross-media Marketing with QR Codes

The huge gains in mobile device internet use in 2011 will continue to grow throughout 2012. Nearly half of mobile users use a smartphone.  If you aren’t using QR codes in your print marketing and signage to drive mobile traffic to specific information and/or offers on your website, now is the time to start and InsideOut can help get you on the QR marketing track.

We wish all of our readers a happy and prosperous 2012.

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Businesses can now create branded pages on Google's social media platform, Google+.

Businesses can now create branded business pages on Google+, Google’s social media platform.

Last week Google+ began allowing its members to create pages for local businesses, brands, products, organizations, sports teams, and other entities. These pages look and function similar to Google+ personal profiles, allowing businesses to connect with consumers by sharing updates, links, and pictures. Businesses can also start Hangouts, in which up to 10 people can hold a video chat.

Consumers can follow a business by adding that business to their Circles, similar to Liking a fan page on Facebook. Also like Facebook, the business page displays a counter for the number of people who have added the page to their Circles along with the profile pictures of up to eight of those people.

Only one person can administer a business page at present. Unlike Facebook fan pages, on which multiple admins can post updates and manage settings, Google+ allows only one person to do so per business page.

How do I get a Google+ business page?

To get a Google+ page for your business, you must first have a personal Google+ profile. You can create one at plus.google.com.

Next, go to plus.google.com/pages/create to build your business page. Begin by choosing the type of page you want to create. The first option, “Local Business or Place,” is best for businesses with single brick-and-mortar storefronts, like bed and breakfasts, wineries, dude ranches, and stores. You can also create pages for a “Product or Brand,” “Company, Institution or Organization,” “Arts, Entertainment or Sports,” or “Other.”

Once you’ve created your page, encourage other Google+ users to follow you, and keep your followers engaged by asking questions, building conversations, and posting a variety of videos, photos, and links.

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If Matt Cutts says it, time to do it.

Check out the video to learn more.

How does Google sort these results?  Having the highest amount of reviews is not the answer, as you can see in the graphic above that Crest Hotel is not ranked #1 even though they have 388 reviews.  Google looks at many factors for placement and we have developed a white paper on this subject. Claiming your business through the Google Local Business Center is where you need to get started, but first download our White Paper titled “How to get top placement on Google Maps”.

This white paper has ten pages of great information ranging from where Google gathers information about your business to how to optimize your business listings for top placement. Drop us an email if you have questions or comments.

Here is a great video from Google on how to update your listing.

For example, say you own a bed and breakfast in Tennessee. The first thing that you want to do is explore what kind of sites are showing up in the top 10 on Google for your state and city name. For example, if your state association web site and a B&B directory web site are some of the top listings when you search for “Tennessee Bed and Breakfast”, you may want to consider joining these web sites. Not only will this enable you to get visitors to your site via these memberships, but it is also good for your web site’s Search Engine Placement.

You don’t have to limit your exploration into “link-building” with lodging and location terms. If you also hold weddings at your B&B, you will want to explore the terms that potential brides are using to plan their wedding in your area. Often times you can join a wedding web site not only as a ceremony location but as a lodging option for a honeymoon or for the bride & grooms’ family.

Not all links are the same

Other sites to explore for a listing or a link might include theme parks or seasonal attractions, like ski parks or water sports companies like rafting outfitters or other outdoor activity outfitters that attract people for overnight stays, such as hunting trips.

Remember when you are trying to build links to not get involved with “link circles” or paying a base price for a group of links. Google frown on this and can penalize your site for these activities. After all, building links with other businesses in your area or in your industry is just like networking face to face or business to business. You wouldn’t buy paper plates to serve your breakfast on just because it is cheap and fast. It doesn’t give you the reputation you want, nor does it last. The same can be said for link circles.

Building reputable links for your web site is something that we preform here at InsideOut for our promotion clients. Feel free to contact us about marketing your bed and breakfast web site.

Thanks to Jeff McSweeny for the photo above, Jeff takes great photos and is available to take photos of your B&B for a very minimal rate.

The next conference we are going to is the PAII Innkeeping Conference & Trade Show and we hope to see you there. If you would like to scheduled a time to talk about your web site needs please head over to our online sign up form.

Our own Jeff Logan will be speaking on how to get going with Google, the worlds largest search engine, responsible for 65% of all search engine traffic. Google is how the world is finding information online.

Success sure tastes sweet!

The wonderful thing about using Google to market your business is that most of the services Google provides are free.

If a 45 minute presentation doesn’t seem like quite enough for you, then sign-up for a personal web consultation session with an Insideout team member. Talk to a Search Engine Marketing expert for free and get an in-depth explanation about what is right and what is wrong with your site, as well as suggestions and ideas about how to market your business and brand across the web.

We hope to see you in Atlanta soon, make sure to stop by booth #1015 and say hello!

Left to Right: Wayne E. Howell Jr., VP Herbie Wiles Insurance; Pamela Lanier, Travelguides.com, Lanierbb.com, Elegantsmallhotels.com, and Familytravelguides.com; Jeff Bryce of Reservation Nexus; Patricia Detwiler, Owner of Quilter's Inn and President of Florida Bed and Breakfast Inns (FBBI); Jay Karen, President of PAII; Jeff Logan of InsideOut Solutions; David Caples of Lodging Resources and Berkeley Young, President of Young Strategies, Inc.

Good-bye gray skies and evergreens, hello palm trees and sandy beaches-at least for a couple of days. We were lucky enough to have Pat McCauley and Jeff Logan representing us in Florida at the end of last month for the Florida Bed and Breakfast Inns (FBBI) annual conference. Held in Lake Wales, some of the most important folks in the B&B industry gathered in the sunshine state to discuss this year’s theme; “The Keys to Success”.

Jeff Logan spoke on the importance of every inn’s online presence with a lecture called “Get Going with Google”. He also unveiled the new Florida Bed and Breakfast Inns website to excited members.

Jeff and Pat helped the innkeepers continue to fill information for their businesses into the website database. One of the reasons InsideOut has seen so many contracts for State association websites is because we include features and details that make the site easy to use, present information in an organized and readily available manner, and of course, make it look as lovely as the state itself. Look forward to the new Florida Bed and Breakfast Inns website going live this Friday October 3rd!