Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, announced the future of the search engine; It will understand what you want, give you what you’re looking for and jumpstart the age of “augmented reality.”

Personalized Information At Your Fingertips

Google’s biggest step in expanding its search capabilities is delivering personalized information at a much faster pace. The new Google would deliver information even if it hasn’t been indexed yet. Schmidt emphasized this point when he spoke at the IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin.

The CEO also praised the expansion of the mobile web noting that small, connected devices such as tablets and phones could deliver a stream of information that is fitted to what you’re searching for. Eric’s vision is only made more appealing as he noted the mobile web is growing 8 times faster when compared to the desktop web we’ve come to know and love only 10 years earlier and that more mobile search queries, about 33% have to do with where a user is.

Schmidt had this to say regarding personalized search:

“Ultimately, search is a personal activity. Ultimately, where search goes is not just the web, but literally all of your information — your email, the things that you care about. This is with your permission, I might add. This is personal search for you and only you, because ultimately search is about finding what you want right now.

And the next step of search is doing this automatically. So, when I walk down the streets of Berlin — I love history — what I want is the computer, my smartphone to be doing searches constantly. ‘Did you know? Did you know? Did you know? Did you know? This occurred here. This occurred there.’ Because it knows who I am. It knows what I care about. It knows roughly where I am. So this notion of autonomous search — this ability to tell me things I didn’t know but am probably very interested in is the next great stage, in my view, of search.”

This notion of autonomous search – to tell me things I didn’t know but am probably interested in, is the next great stage – in my view – of search.”

Implementing Personal Search

Hugo Barra, a Product Management Director, demoed a new, upcoming feature for Google Translate called “conversation mode.” The new feature would allow users to speaking into a mobile phone or device to translate their words in to a different language on the fly.

Schmidt urged businesses that rely on the “economics of scarcity” to convert to the “economics of ubiquity” which would help monetize “augmented humanity.” His example was the monetization of YouTube which is helping push the augmented age and create “healthy debate” about pressing topics. Schmidt also noted that YouTube receives more than 2 billion views per day and an addition 160 million mobile views per days. Advertisers are also up 50% in the last year and 45 billion ads are served each day by DoubleClick.

Via: Search Engine Land

Today Yahoo announced that all of its organic searches are powered by Bing, the search engine created by Microsoft as a direct competitor to Google. The switch is finalized from a deal hammered out between Yahoo and Microsoft over a year ago.

Now that Microsoft powers Yahoo’s searches, the software giant commands 28.1% of the search engine market which is contrasted by Google’s share of 65.8%. Yahoo’s Senior Vice President of Search Products gave his take on the switch:

Yahoo! Web, Image, and Video search experiences on both desktop and mobile devices are now powered by the Microsoft platform in the US and Canada (English), with more markets to come. The speed in which this was completed is a testament to the great work and partnership between a number of Yahoo! and Microsoft employees, the ranks of which are numerous.

While the backend has changed dramatically and Yahoo’s web development team didn’t need to step in, searches will start to look different. However, users are left asking one question; why should I continue to use Yahoo instead of Bing now that the two search engines are virtually the same? The answer comes down to preference, which brand do you trust more? Loyal Yahoo users may shy away from Microsoft’s new search engine but those who have been using Bing may not find Yahoo interesting enough to ‘switch’ to. If you’re an ad agency dealing with Yahoo, be prepared to switch over to Microsoft’s AdCenter this coming October. The ad platform is one of the last platforms to switch over to Microsoft’s solution.

Via: Search Engine Journal

HTML5 is one of the newest web technologies and is being readily embraced—but what does it mean for journalists and writers?

What HTML5 Means For Writers

There has been a lot of buzz surrounding HTML5, especially in regards to HTML5 overtaking flash design for video playback and animation. This is sure to put a tough decision on any ad agency. While Adobe’s Flash and the newly released HTML5 specification compete head to head in both functionality and mindshare, coders and web designers are readily implementing the newest version of HTML. People who write online don’t think about the design process and offload that to the designer. However, HTML5 is shaping up to be a vital tool for them. Martin Belam has a great write up on what HTML5 can do for journalists which introduces them to how it works in relation to their content. If you’re a journalist or Blogger who tends to shy away from coding and instead offload HTML and CSS duties to a contracted designer or website design company, this is the time to embrace it in the form of HTML5.

Incorporating HTML5 Into Website Design

One of the best tools HTML5 offers is article structure which is vital for any writer to clearly show what they’re trying to convey. The “section” tag will allow you to divide up your content on criteria such as tutorials, reviews or news items. Writers can utilize the “aside” tag to identify related content.Factoring  in time and dates to your writing is another important aspect journalists can take advantage of in HTML5 using the “time” tag. A close comparison is the data detectors employed in Mac OS X which recognize time and dates. However, the time tag will be implemented into your CMS in due time.

Another interesting tag to use under HTML5 is the “details” tag, which allows you to insert relevant information that can be collapsed or opened by the reader. This tag could encompass information such as relevant dates, in depth location or directions. The “mark” tag makes your content stand out. The “wbr” tag can be used in place of the break tag when a word break is needed instead of forcing line breaks.

Making HTML5 Writing And SEO Friendly

In addition, HTML5 is SEO friendly and easy to use which is important for any writer looking to promote their work and have it show up in relevant search results. HTML5′s XML-like structure makes it easier for search engines to index. You can also improve your ranking with the “article”, “aside,” “header” and “section” tags. You can also compliment your content with video and identify it appropriately with the new video tag and search engine friendly wording.

Are you a writer or journalist utilizing HTML5? Let us know your experience!

If you are tracking lots of unique visits to your website but your conversions are low, you might want to try some different design elements to improve your analytics. We try and target between 4% and 7% and if your site is converting below that you may have a poor design or your Keywords may also be too broad. Click Here for a good tool to use to research search volume on a particular Keyword so you can also make sure you are not using Keywords in your Title Tags, Meta Tags and URL Strings that are not being searched. Watch the video below.

If you are like me and wonder what all the fancy speak means when SEO is being explained you might find this SEO Glossary helpful.  Please understand that SEO is all about relevancy and popularity.  If you want to learn quickly where your website might need SEO help, go to http://www.websitegrader.com and type in your domain.  If are selling products online and want to see how you stack up against your competition go to http://www.spyfu.com and type in your domain and see the statistics on your competitors and how they might be beating you to the punch.  SEO Glossary

By Robin Broitman
The advent of social media has opened up a wide range of opportunities for non-professional writers like me — and probably you too — to write online.  Most of us writing for websites or blogs or posting on Twitter likely aren’t trained journalists.  Even professional writers trained for print must learn to adapt their writing style to an online audience who experiences content differently than a print audience.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1UWWL3

Here are 5 big No-No’s in SEO

1. Avoid the use of flash and internal java script.
2. Non-unique, duplicate, or non-relevant content.
3. Keyword stuffing and hidden text.
4. Poor Meta data.
5. Always use “alt”, link, and header (H1, H2, Etc) tags.