Comments on: 3 Ranking Survival Tips For Google’s New Personalized Results

By: DanielR

DanielR — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 06:14:49 +0000

Nick, Great Article. As we all here have discussed, this puts empahsis on the use of more social media techniques, but really the game hasnt changed all that much in terms of the types of tactics used for a robust SEO Campaign:

Ensure website is crawlable by search engines
Having content the audience wants and searches for
Long term link building strategy (from directories to virals and from word of mouth campaigns to blog outreach)
Leverage social media to distribute content and encourage link building
Integrate SEO strategy with PPC, Branding and Awareness (Word of Mouth Campaigns etc)

What I'm interesting in knowing is what percentage of Google searchers are made by users who are logged on into Google Account? Blog Marketing, Widget Creation etc can be resource intensive and difficult to the client to learn and grasp. Is Google Account use large enough to justify such use of resources? If not now, will it be in 6 months? If anyone has stats on how many searches are done under a Google Account, please share!

By: seo beginners

seo beginners — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 21:38:22 +0000

As long as Google runs the “Search Party”, we are prompted to follow their steps.

Great article, I am visitin Search Engine Land more often to read, you are in my favorites now, thanks.

By: tblotsky

tblotsky — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 18:29:56 +0000

Great write up Nick. It sounds like niche domination and geolocation (at least for brick and mortar service providers) will continue to gain importance.

By: Steve Amundsen

Steve Amundsen — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 14:48:44 +0000

Thanks for the clarification, Nick. I do agree that as Internet searches become ubiquitous in the mobile environment, i.e. the merging of PDAs, phones and other devices, the personal data of which you are speaking will undoubtedly play a key role in delivering increasingly relevant data to the end user.

By: NunoH

NunoH — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 11:57:20 +0000

Useful tips. But I’m somewhat confused what personalized search will mean in the future.

By: Nick Wilson

Nick Wilson — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:21:54 +0000

@Steve: Yes, I mostly agree with what you’ve said. Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough, if so my apologies: I was talking about using your presense on social network for example as a way of increasing the “personal” data for Google. IE: all those people using Google services on these networks, all those with the Google toolbar etc. It may only help a little right now, but im convinced that it WILL help, and that in the future it may help a LOT.

@Jontus

Yep. I hear you. Have them start a blog, network with other similar shops, find the enthusiast sites (and if there are manhy, pick out the influencers for them) and network with them. Link to them, join the conversation.

Once a blog is setup and initial training and orientation provided it shouldn’t really take them much more than an hour a day to catch up with immportant discussions in their niche and comment on the issues of the day.

By: jontus_media

jontus_media — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 05:58:18 +0000

Probably the most intriguing article I read yesterday! It kept me awake thinking.

As an overview of where things are going, I think you’ve hit the nail the on the head.

What concerns me given the majority of clients I work for (think small businesses who don’t really understand the net), is that Google have just raised the bar for businesses with limited resources: time, staff, IT-strategy, etc.

People understand you need to rank highly in Google. But Digg, del.ic.ious, Fark, etc: I meet a lot of managers who (i) haven’t heard of social booking (ii) don’t get it (iii) don’t want to get it because it means changing strategy again.

It’s going to be hard to persuade small businesses to go after this but it will no doubt be exciting.

Bottom line: such a major paradigm shift will allow Web 2.0-orientated businesses to come to the fore, excluding a lot of businesses that are excellent but just don’t get IT. And most of them don’t even realise this is happening.

By: Steve Amundsen

Steve Amundsen — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 05:27:47 +0000

Interesting post, Nick, but I think you are paying too much homage to the social networking scene. There is a good reason companies paid Google more than $10 billion in 2006…they are selling real products to real consumers. And they are paying the piper because they are not well optimized. As personalized search begins to take hold, it will be even more important for companies to reach their customers with an intelligent and compelling web presence.

People will continue to search the web to find and purchase products, web searches will still begin with a query, and the search engines will still provide the initial SERPs. It is up to the website owner to be relevant enough so that the searcher will click to the site, and keep returning to the site. Personalization from the search engines is the last step in this process. SEO, along with web analytics will thus continue to become even more relevant as personalization permeates the web.

By: aimclear

aimclear — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:20:02 +0000

Thanks for the post. When you use third party reporting tools (like webPosition) what is the data returned your “personal” search results?

By: Nick Wilson

Nick Wilson — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:16:41 +0000

Eeek! Sorry about that lucky, the company is new and the site not ready for public yet but the password was an error nonetheless, i’ve fixed that now, thanks!

Sure you can email me at nick@communicontent.com