Search engines want to make it as easy as possible for people to find what they are looking for. The success of their business relies on efficient search results. Google are making search results more personalised in order to achieve these ends.

For some time Google have provided those with Google Mail accounts with personalised search facilities as long as they had the web History feature turned on. The basis of this is that when you instigate a search and find what you are looking for Google ‘learns’ from that information and provides you with better search results next time. For example if you are looking for a particular book and you end up buying on ebay Google will include that high up on your search list next time you are looking for a book.

Google’s aim is to provide the most ‘useful and relevant information on the internet.’ In the Google blog they explain how this works:

The new personalisation facilities allow those who are not signed into a Google account to be part of this useful facility. A user’s search behaviour is linked to an anonymous cookie which holds information for up to 180 days.

How can you find out about personalisation?
If you have the personalisation feature you can click on the ‘view customisation’ link found on the top right hand side of the search page. If you do not have an account and you cannot see this link then you do not have this feature available to you yet.

Can you turn personalisation off?
Yes, of course Google allows this feature to be turned off. Many consumers will not even realise that the feature is running in the background which brings up the issue of confidentiality which has been in the public domain for such a long time.

If you are logged in you can turn off the personalisation by turning off your web history. If you are not logged in then you can do one of two things: delete your cookies or disable your customisations via the web history link.

When personalisation is not a good idea?

• If you are looking for ‘fresh’ information or ideas
• If you are tracking search results as part of a marketing campaign or researching a business area
• If the idea of being ‘tracked’ online does not appeal to you
• If you have many people using the same computer then personalised search results will not be useful

Google Fast Flip, shows clips from newspapers and magazines as they appear on the original site. The layout is appealing and does contain a lot of news information. This fact has aroused a lot of criticism from Rupert Murdoch and other publishers who claim that Google is making money by ‘freeloading’ off journalist’s hard work.

Matt Brittin, Managing Director of Google UK, spoke about it to the BBC’s Working Lunch.

Brittin said that Google send 100,000 clicks a minute to news publishers sites but that publishers have control over whether they appear on Google search.

He said that the intention was for people to follow the Google links to the publisher’s sites and read the content from there. It is true to say that all that can really be read clearly from Google Fast Flip are the headlines. He added that free search was also a more cost effective way for publishers to distribute their material compared to traditional distribution at newsagents and that publishers choose to make their content free before Google ever came to prominence.

Brittin also added that publishers work with them to make money by using Google Adwords.

One of the problems faced by business is that so much has been available online for free for so long that this is what the public expect. This has been funded by advertising. Brittin agreed that experimenting with different models to see what consumers are willing to pay for is a good way forward. He said that there are: ‘Big opportunities for publishers.  The way they can make money is by changing.’

He confirmed that Google has lost advertising revenue in the recession but not as much as traditional advertisers. He said that internet figures were still growing that that people were using the internet to find better deals and ways to manage their budgets.

Blogging is one form of social media marketing that can enhance your company. But why and what is the best way to go about it?

The Why?

A shop window
By providing a platform via which your customers can get to know you and your products and services. Like your website, its another shop window but one that is ever changing and dynamic.

Creating links to you website
Blogs can help you to create inbound links to your website. Search engine’s like inbound links from authoritative and content laden sources. If your blog is rich with useful information for your visitors then the search engines will treat links from there as ‘good’ and they will help you to increase your search engine ranking. Creating inbound links is a big part of search engine optimisation so if you are serious about your ranking in the search engines then a blog will definately help.

Communication
Blogs that allow comments from its readers enable your audience to communicate with you. This can provide useful feedback for your company.

Advertising
Advertising your products on your blog and linking straight to them on your website will provide extra traffic for your shopping cart. A good blog can generate lots of traffic and enable you to increase sales directly.

The How?

Posting often and regularly
It is important to post often and regularly when it comes to blogs. ‘As often as you can’ is probably the best phrase to have in mind when it comes to blogging.  Its also important not to leave large gaps between posts.

Great content
Your blog posts have to be informative or interesting or funny (or all three). But seriously, keeping good content going is the most important thing. When you are writing, just think about your target audience. What would they like to hear about? What would they find interesting? What are their interests?

Keywords
Use your main keywords and keyphrases to enable the search engine robots to search through your writing. Optimising your blog for the search engines is important if you want to rank well.

Write naturally
Search engines are looking for natural patterns of writing. This means no formula’s but natural, informative writing. This can seem like a contradiction: You are told to focus on keywords but then you are told to write naturally. It can be done. Focus mainly on writing naturally but keep the keywords to the forefront of your mind whilst you are doing it.

Natural writing is also varied. So write posts of different lengths and intersperse text posts with photos and video.

Patience
It can take time to build up a following on a blog. Just be patient and keep going.

Great content is what draws in interested consumers. But what is great content? Here are a few tips that will help you create website and blog content that will keep your readers coming back for more.

Identify your readers
You cannot write convincingly if you don’t know who your audience is. Who do you intend to read your blog or article? How old are they? What are their interests?

Identify the purpose
What are you writing for? To get more visitors, to get more sales? Identifying your purpose will help you to create content that is not only interesting for your reader but that is in line with your business objectives.

Interesting
Write about things that will interest your readers. This is the key. This is what will bring people back to your website or blog and help you to fulfil your business objectives.

For your readers
This is the number one rule. You may only have ever started a blog in order to get higher search rankings but you need to forget about this once you start blogging. Concentrating on your audience and then working your strategies around that is what will work best.

Two-way communication
Allow your readers to respond to your writing. This keeps your blog active and you can allow the feedback that you get to inform you as a business as well as give you more ideas for future blogs. Some blogs of course do not allow feedback from readers and this is fine too.

Good looks
What you write has to be appealing. That means it has to be well written and crafted to be read online. That means small paragraphs and information that is concise and to the point. Reading from a screen is much harder than reading from the written page. It will turn readers off if they feel uncomfortable when they read your work.

Go gently with keywords
Of course, using keywords in your writing helps with search engine optimisation but be gentle. Silly keyword stuffing is likely to do you more harm than good.  Not only will readers be put off but the search engines could penalise you for doing it.

The UK now has it very own version of Bing, the new search engine from Microsoft.

The latest version of the search engine was launched last Friday. It allows users to search for UK specific results.

Microsoft’s UK head of consumer and online, Ashley Highfield said:

‘This is a serious, long-term commitment from Microsoft to put a differentiated search product in to the market place. We have not just used the US version of Bing. We’ve had a UK team focusing on what will work particularly well over here.’

‘Bing is ready for the UK consumer, with our revolutionary way of searching the internet proving very popular.’

‘This is by no means the end of our development. We will continue to innovate and introduce new features on an ongoing basis by listening and responding to what UK search users find relevant. Removing our beta tag is merely the first step to signal Bing is here and already has features that are superior to those provided by other search engines.’

In the states Bing launched in May and they have managed to gain an increase of 7% of the search market between September and October.

The initial signs are that Bing is doing well. It is still no competition for Google but it is making a tiny mark. Its nearest rival is Yahoo who has 3.27% of the search market in the UK. Bing has 2.75% and Google has 92.06% so there is still some way to go.