The Guide To Search: Why Social & Mobile Are The Future

Search is currently in a transition period right now. As algorithms become more complex and the major search engines introduce new features, it’s clear that our expectations about how search should work and what it can do for us has risen with every new development. It’s not enough that it just suggests relevant information. Now we demand that it comes faster, becomes more accurate and matches our tastes and interests. Throw Siri and Google Now (or at least, the potential of Siri and Google Now) into the mix and the idea that the very concept of search will be radically different in three to five years time is a distinct possibility.

Social search was seen as the next step in this process. Using our profiles to filter and curate the content we want to see, the results have been mixed. Google’s insistence on using Google+ and its +1 system has been criticised because it neglects the more popular social media sites to plug its own. On the other hand, Bing has struggled to even dent Google’s hold on search, despite championing its social search feature – partly because Microsoft has a stake in Facebook. Throw in the massive rise of mobile search, and the concept of search is evolving in a way that we mightn’t have expected.
Yet one thing is certain: With more and more content being created online, a new way of curating and processing the vast waves of information out there will necessity. With Google making small changes to search – both on desktop and mobile – and Bing pushing its social credentials even further, the race is on to see who can discover (or possibly stumble) upon the next stage of search.

Contents

1) Where Is Social Search Headed?
2) The Development Of Mobile Search
3) Web & Mobile analytics tools
4) Social & Mobile SEO Practices
5) Opinion & Analysis
6) Infographics Sources

Where Is Social Search Headed?

Despite social platforms like Twitter and Facebook making huge strides and pulling in hundreds of millions of users, it’s still Google that controls search for the large part. Facebook has had a flawed search experience since the site launched and even a partnership with Microsoft and its search engine Bing has not been able to help them improve. Twitter has a wealth of “real-time” data with the couple of hundred million tweets they see every day, but their search experience is also poor.
Despite the fact that Twitter and Facebook are not making the best strides in the battle for social search, Google does recognize the threat that they pose and that search will eventually be powered by humans rather than just algorithms, which is why it invested so much time, money and energy into Google+.
While its spiders can crawl the web and their page rank system has proved the foundation of the company over the last decade, it knows that it needs to find out more about the people browsing the web and what they actually like. The fact that people spend so much time on Facebook – and that it is effectively a walled garden to which Google has little or no access to – has to be a huge worry for the world’s biggest search engine, especially with users volunteering so much useful information to the social network.
There have been persistent rumors about Facebook getting into search, or at least improving the experience on their own site, and it is something that we would love to see happen. I’d love to be able to tap into the wisdom of my friends to find the best restaurants, bars, holiday destinations and books. We do see it happening through frictionless sharing for the likes of movies on Netflix, songs on Spotify and other apps through open graph, but that is a different type of discovery than search itself.
Despite all the knowledge within Google, Twitter and Facebook, none of them have cracked social search yet and I fully expected one of them to have done so at this stage. One thing that is certain is that it will be one of those three companies who will eventually crack it. A startup might lead the way with a totally new solution, but one of the big guys would inevitably acquire that company and fold it into their own offering. As far as true social search is concerned, we are all still waiting.

The Development Of Mobile Search

The major focus of mobile is that most search queries relate to location. Naturally, the majority of users search while they’re on the go, but this has a far greater bearing than you might expect. As the above infographics highlight, many users search when they are shopping and make shopping decisions soon after their search, meaning that localised search plays a massive part in how mobile will develop. While desktop search is primarily focused on providing as much information as possible, people on the move don’t enjoy the same luxury, not having the time or screen space to filter through numerous results.
Instead the focus has turned towards providing a concise answer and making sure the process from search query to result is as smooth and as frictionless as possible. In a way, this is probably the avenue that mobile search will go down for quick inquiries and local searches, while for more research intensive searches, brands and businesses will have to optimise their sties to deal with this.
While the same search engines are available on iPhone and Android (oddly Bing’s app isn’t available outside the U.S.), the only two that seem to be treating mobile differently are Google and Apple. The latter’s effort, Siri, was the first real attempt at creating a mobile only search engine through the form of a personal assistant. While it’s by no means perfect (and it does search through Google, it must be added), Siri did at least introduce the idea that mobile search could be more than just an afterthought and give the very idea of personal search some credit.

As a search engine, Siri’s use is quite limited, yet one-third of people are said to use it to search the internet and 87% say that they use it once a month, suggesting that while it hasn’t exactly set the world alight, it’s doing enough to engage users and has given voice activated search something to work with.

Google, on the other hand, has been trying a number of different approaches with its search engine – unsurprising since it is its main business. Google Now, one of the latest features introduced alongside Android’s Jelly Bean, is its closest rival to Siri as it too has voice control, but it does things differently.

Tailoring it to suit your needs, you can have it present different information and updates to you at various times so things like how busy traffic will be, times of flights, sporting updates and translations can be accessed or timed to help you out. All of this is tailored using existing info like web history, your current location and location history. Since Google automatically keeps track of your previous web searches (unless you turn it off), this is the basis for social search: Taking information we already know about ourselves to make the system more effective.
Siri’s influence spreads even further into Google’s own search app, which recently added voice recognition so you can ask questions and answer them with a brief statement. It works separately to Google Now, only drawing on results directly from the search engine instead of your previous searches, and if its promotional video is anything to go by, it will provide more diverse and snappy answers than Siri currently does.
Considering that Google Now was just released, it’s too early to comment on whether it’s more successful than Siri or not. However, the gauntlet has been thrown down and both Google and Apple will work towards making Google Now and Siri faster, smarter and better to the point where having them is essential.

Web & Mobile analytics tools

Google Analytics
Google Analytics makes it easy for anybody to manage and analyse a website. Once you’ve copy/pasted the GA code onto your site, you should be set to go and explore the many ways in which Google can analyse your blog or website. You can monitor many sources of information with GA: visitors, traffic sources, content, ecommerce and goals. That’s all fairly standard – tracking how many visitors you have, how they are getting to your site and what pages they’re viewing – but the goals tab is especially helpful in that it allows you to set aims and then guides you along as you try to achieve them, a vital and knowledgeable assistant.

The site’s dashboard is simple to navigate and is open to customisation, so you can get the facts that are most important to you upfront. The visualisations of the analytics are especially clear and very malleable seeing as you can easily choose the range over which you are gauging interest and compare activity over certain time periods or across certain pages. Free and simple to use, GA is pretty much essential.
Crazy Egg
What makes Crazy Egg unique is its use of heat and scroll maps, which not only show what pages your users are viewing, but what parts of those pages they are viewing in particular. Heat maps will shows which links are most clicked on, while scroll maps will tell you if people are scrolling through the whole page, or just moving on quickly.
These are minute details which display why people are viewing particular pages rather than just if they are. Crazy Egg is really meant to be used to measure how many clicks are being made, but its visual manifestation is creative and appreciably easy to follow since it annotates any particular page with visual aids rather than with stats and graphs.

WebTrends
WebTrends is a pensioner in comparison to many of the other analytic sites mentioned here, but it still packs a punch in some areas, in spite of its competition far outstripping it in others. Story mode still presents data in a package that is simply consumed and takes various statistics and lots of information from across your site. Assets such as Analytics 9, Ad Director, Marketing Warehouse, Professional Services, Score, Social Measurement, and Visitor Intelligence come at a price, but are well-suited to analysing your traffic and helping you increase it.
Its ability to measure traffic and referrals remains largely unmatched still, but its all-encompassing ability may be superfluous, daunting or off-putting to many users and small businesses and it fails to surpass younger rivals in the latest aspects of analytics. With that said, WebTrends is still a sound investment for those that are especially serious about their analytics.

Facebook Analytics

SocialDon
There’s not a lot to SocialDon, but it is very simple. Log in using your Facebook account and then using Don to compare statistics between any pages (you don’t have to be an admin, though it would surely be advisable that you were). The dashboard is quick to load and stats are presented in line graphs that clearly state the facts.
The analytics are all as you would expect, but the ‘talkability’ data offers something beyond the norm and you can, of course, change the date and intervals over which you want SocialDon to measure data. You can also measure yourself and your contributions to your various pages if you want, or if your business is in need of a social media evaluation and makeover. It’s a helpful little tool, but SocialDon is by no means comprehensive.
Pagelever
Pagelever is probably best know for its work with YouTube and those who has glanced at the analytics on YouTube videos can see the contextual knowledge that Pagelever provides. Pagelever can give you pure numbers, but it also gives milestones that you will find interesting and help you to replicate and improve on any successes you may have.
The aim of Pagelever is to cut though noise by showing businesses what is working for them on Facebook and what isn’t, in the hopes that will reduce their posts and refine their content and yet still continue to grow their popularity. Pagelever will present you with stats and graphics tell you what and when it is best to post and why that is so.

Twitter Analytics

Twitsprout
Twitsprout is a one-page Twitter analytics service that concisely summarises all your Twitter account’s key statistics and presents them in an easily understandable format. That all the important facts and figures are presented on one page is what makes Twitsprout stand out, and updates are tailored to activity rather than a set schedule – so you will be alerted via email when RTs or followers are increasing/decreasing at an abnormal level, for instance.

The graphics are informative and very colourful (which is always a plus), and stats are explained for those that are getting to grips with Twitter and analytics with very few buzzwords and little jargon. Finally, Twitsprout is smart; it can evaluate trends and interpret them in a way the unindoctrinated eye just can’t, so it is perfect for new users and flourishing businesses.
The Archivist
The Archivist is one of the premier Twitter analytic apps, allowing you to archive tweets and analyse the biggest trends. Whether you’re searching for stats on keywords, hashtags or certain users, the Archivist will provide an extensive and aesthetically crisp analysis of whatever you want.
It is very extensive, but it also immediate; literally type in the account hashtag or keyword you want to analyse and the results will pop up in a matter of seconds. There is no programme or anything to downloadable, it is done purely online, but you can download the results into an Excel spreadsheet or a .zip file if you want once you’ve signed in, which should alleviate worries about organisation.
Twitalyzer
Twitalyzer will give you a complete overview of your Twitter account’s influence based on, among other things, number of followers, number of people following, retweet level, number of retweets by others, how often an account replies to other users and engages in conversations. Again, it doesn’t have to be your own account, you can just type in any username if you really want to know that type of thing.
It puts a visual preference on numbers as opposed to actual statistics as the final percentages and numbers come up in large type while their corresponding graphs and charts are dwarfed in comparison. Twitalyzer offers additional metric points and reporting data, making it one of social media’s most complete analytics/measurement apps.

Social & Mobile SEO Practices

Having a social media and mobile presence is all well and good, but you need to optimise both sectors if you want your site to benefit. Your social and mobile search strategy should complement your main SEO strategy, so make sure you have a traditional SEO strategy first before you start focusing on social.

Social SEO

Post your articles immediately on social media
While this should always do this, there’s an extra benefit that you mightn’t have considered. According to Mitch Monsen of WhiteFire SEO, social media helps content get indexed faster. So if you’re posting a time-sensitive post or if you focus on reporting, it helps to be quick. The faster you post something, the faster you get into Google’s index for your keyword terms and the faster you show up at the top of the results. So when you get the chance, post it onto Twitter and Google+.
Provide sharable content
Content is very much king, and while we’re not saying you should create content solely for the sake of sharing, but by focusing more on what people want, the chances of it being shared and liked increases.
According to Jordan Kesteler of PETA, there are two reasons for this. The first is that it’s good for SEO as more shares mean more links to your site, which is always a good thing. The second is that if a popular user or account shares your content, their whole network may see your post the next time they search for similar material, resulting in another boost in your ranking.
Use Twitter Directories
Building up links to your Twitter profile doesn’t have to be hard provided you do two things: Tweet often and use Twitter directories. The latter is handy for getting your content to those who might be interested and CNET has a great list on the best Twitter directories out there.
Twitter SEO
We covered this originally in our 50 Twitter tips list last week, but it’s worth repeating to help improve your social SEO rank. Essentially, make sure your name and username has the main keyword you want, include your full website address and fit keywords into your bio and profile picture. The same would apply to both Google+ and to an extent, Facebook.

Mobile SEO

Different Keywords for a different format
Just because certain keywords work for search doesn’t mean that you will get similar results for mobile. As mentioned earlier, mobile search usually focuses on local so if you’re a retailer, create keywords that reflect your location. For other sites, have a look at your analytics tools to see which keywords come up when users search through mobile and use that data to form your keywords. The traditional SEO rules apply so make sure they’re optimised for mobile use as well as desktop.
Make Your Site Mobile Friendly

Not exactly an SEO tip, but it’s important that your site is suited to mobile. A desktop site isn’t going to work well on a portable device (unless it’s a tablet), so you should design your website to reflect this. Some brands go for apps, but a better way is to optimise your site to work on a smaller screen. Even if it’s relatively basic looking in comparison to your main site, that’s much more useful as it will (a) load faster and (b) users will find the content they’re looking for faster.
Create mobile-friendly content
Linking to the last point, Neil Patel of Quick Sprout makes the point that you should figure out a way to host your mobile site and mobile exclusive content. Your regular desktop content can stay the same provided you’ve reformatted it for mobile users (see last tip), but the best thing to do is to host your homepage and mobile only pages on m.domain.com subdomaion or /m subfolder.
Patel says that you can redirect to your desktop pages, but to use canonical tags so that the links are directed back to desktop pages.

Opinion & Analysis

- Ars Technica review of Google Now claims that the mobile app could teach Siri a thing or two about being an information assistant.
- BuzzFeed looks at the concept of social search after Google started pulling in users’ Gmail for results.
- eConsultancy lists four major reasons why mobile search is different to traditional search.
- Search Engine Land asks whether Google’s Mobile SEO preference changes the fundamentals of how mobile SEO works and whether it was dead on arrival or just on life support?
- Back in August 2011, GigaOM looked at how social search was changing the search industry.
- State of Search explains why a good content strategy is crucial for social search.

Infographic Sources

-http://www.tekgoblin.com/2012/07/07/over-3-billion-searches-on-google-each-day/
-http://www.biakelsey.com/Company/Press-Releases/120418-Mobile-Local-Search-Volume-Will-Surpass-Desktop-Local-Search-in-2015.asp
-http://searchengineland.com/google-50-percent-of-smartphone-users-exposed-to-ads-took-action-74760
-http://www.viralblog.com/mobile-and-apps/11-incredible-mobile-marketing-statistics/
-http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en//events/thinkmobile2011/pdfs/time-for-mobile-is-now.pdf
-http://www.google.com/events/thinkmobile2011/presentations.html
-http://thesocialskinny.com/99-new-social-media-stats-for-2012/


Source: The Guide To Search: Why Social & Mobile Are The Future