Hot off the press! Google just launched Place Search for local searches today (Oct 28).

You can see this already on Google.com.sg Just search for something like “cafe” or “dentist” and you will see Google Places results among the usual natural search results. Another thing you will notice is that the Google Places results are often in the top half of the page.

What does this mean to SEO? Here’s another piece of priceless search engine results real estate you have to get hold of. You will want your local business or website to appear among the first page results. This is where Google Places Optimization will come in.

Not many SEM companies offer this currently. However, with the change to the local search today, you WILL need to do this if you are serious about SEO. Clicklobby has a wealth of experience in Google Places Optimization and has helped many businesses achieve that coveted visibility.

Check out the coverage on the changes to Google search.

Contact us today for more info.

When Google Instant was launched, a lot of people were saying that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will be dead. One of the first few people to post about it was Steve Rubel. This is what he said:

no two people will see the same web. Once a single search would do the trick – and everyone saw the same results. That’s what made search engine optimization work. Now, with this, everyone is going to start tweaking their searches in real-time. The reason this is a game changer is feedback. When you get feedback, you change your behaviors.

Basically, he expects users to change their search behaviour. Before, users just searched for a certain keyword phrase (usually 2-4 words long), hit enter and the results of relevant websites are displayed. So SEO targets those 2-4 keywords and tries to rank your website high on the search results. However, if users start to tweak their searches, that would result in many other keywords being used. So much so that it will be impossible to run a SEO campaign to target ALL these keywords.

We think that it is still too early to tell how Google Instant will affect SEO. Would users really change their search keywords just because they see results now instantly? Perhaps, if the results shown are not relevant, or they see something that interests them.

Ultimately, if your website’s SEO is targetted at relevant keywords, and provides interesting content, that should not cause the user to search for different terms. So it still boils down to providing relevant and interesting content.

Google Instant was rolled out early this month in a few countries like the U.S. and Canada. Not yet for Singapore. But you can try out Google Instant by going onto the Google.com site rather than the Google.com.sg site.

TechCrunch had an interesting video interview with Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search Products and User Experience. In that interview, Mayer touts Google Instant as a “whole new way to search,”, and she may be right. She also talked about how Google Instant will impact Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Mayer believes there will only be a “small change for the SEO community.”

However, she does expect user search behaviour to change. For example, while typing in a query, before the initial search keywords are completed, the user would have received additional info well, instantly. The user may thus adjust his original search to include the new info. So the end result is not just faster searches, but also more searches.

Now, if Google Instant does change the search behaviour of people, would that really have minimal impact on SEO? Our next article will touch on that.

Clicklobby provides Search Engine Marketing (SEM) services. According to Wikipedia, SEM is: a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of search engine optimization (SEO), paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.

So what does that mean to businesses and companies? In a nutshell, SEM will help your website get more eyeballs from potential customers and partners on the internet. Nowadays, people turn to the internet first when they want to find something. When you can get your product (on your website) to appear  first to users when they search, you will get targetted leads onto your website and highly potential sales.

Many businesses have difficulty understanding the intricacies of search engine marketing and choose to rely on third party agencies to manage their search marketing. That is where Clicklobby comes in.

Clicklobby provides SEO, Pay Per Click (PPC) Management, and Web 2.0 Marketing services. Our expertise in these areas enable our clients to achieve maximum bang for their buck. Contact us for more info!

Welcome to Clicklobby’s blog. We’ll post occasional news on Search Engine Marketing and Internet Marketing here.

We hope that you will find these useful!