In the recent Ad Age article, " Four Digital Trends to Worry Media Companies" Shiv Sing speaks about four shifts that are happening in the online space that are significantly reshaping marketing strategies across companies.      The shifts he discusses in detail are:

 1.     Social Media is allowing for real time feedback of brands and content.  

2.     Consumers are interacting with brands across many different types of devices and the experience is evermore comprehensive. 

3.     Consumers are flocking to "pin" avenues like Pinterest, Instagram, etc. 

4.     Brands are becoming their own publishers.

The last point speaks to me the most.  Becoming your own publisher and releasing useful content for your target and housing it in SEO (search engine) compliant venues is one of the most cost-effective tactics you can be doing online.   SEO Audits should not only look at maximizing free search traffic, they should always include new ideas for content.  When done right, the traffic is free and is relatively permanent.  


 We always include this analysis as part of our search audits here at NPP. 

On August 8th, Google announced at their Search breakfast that they would be integrating Gmail emails directly into their search results for users that are logged into Google and Gmail.  Even though the enhancement has to go through a testing phase (where you can sign up here) there are many things to speculate about and worth asking.   Here are just a few questions that come to mind and some potential responses, should the enhancement prove to test well.    After reading this, feel free to contact us for a comprehensive  SEO Audit that maximizes organic or paid search traffic to your website or web assets.

·      Is this to combat Microsoft’s Hotmail to Outlook migration?  It could be, with Microsoft recently announcing that it’s going to migrate the users of the 16 year old Hotmail service to a new “Outlook” interface and the positive buzz it’s getting, Google may be trying to offset the momentum and potential loss in Gmail usage that the Outlook buzz could bring.  Make no mistake about it, Google does not want to risk losing their over 190 million users and its ad revenue stream.

·      Aren’t my email folders and search results murky enough?    Many people would answer yes.  If the enhancement passes the test phase, expect that the search results page will remain relatively clean.    Also expect the Google algorithm to have functionality that filters spam emails.   Google has always emphasized the user experience and has done a good job a maintaining a clean search results page, I wouldn’t expect this to change with this enhancement. 

·      What does this mean for businesses?    It’s too early to speculate, but you can bet that there will be specialized SEO/Email marketing campaigns for Gmail users to keep brands ahead of the results.    Since the ranking algorithm for organic search results focuses on keyword relevance within various cells of a page,  brands may have to consider special guidelines for emails to keep the most valuable email messages up top in the rankings.      

·      Is Google getting desperate?  Google has bombarded users and websites with several search updates in the last 12 months to combat, they’ve rolled out Google local with Google Plus, they’ve tweaked YouTube, they’ve vigorously promoted Google Plus.  At first glance this seems like another ball thrown at the wall to try to enhance their offering and to keep users on search pages longer.   With Mobile search becoming the norm and traditional search needing to evolve, merging Gmail results can serve as an incremental opportunity to serve additional email ads (through their content network) where traditional searches may be declining.  The new search page could be a one-stop shop for contact details, emails, and maps.

 
·      How does this affect Mobile search?  I believe that the benefit of this enhancement will be felt in the mobile search experience.  Think about it, how much easier will it be to do a search in one place to find emails and relevant information instead of going to your email search box and then your opening your browser to do another search.  As a result the mobile search experience will be centralized and much faster and easier

It’s way too early to tell if the enhancement passes the test phase or if users will be receptive to the merging of email and Google search, but I do think that it makes sense from a business and mobile search experience perspective.  Success will depend on the final design of the Google results page and how users react to the buzz around the Outlook email.