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Google Hackey Sack
The sun was bright and the morning air crisp for last Friday’s presentation, “The Future of Search: Google’s Perspective,” at the Cambridge Google office. Presented by SEMPO Boston Working Group and Google’s Lisa Greene, the 200-plus people in attendance were perky and inquisitive despite the early 7 a.m. hour. Why such high energy? We’re talking about the mythological office of Google, the number-one rated company to work for by Fortune, the place where employees allegedly receive “a $1,500 monthly stipend for mandatory lava lamp purchases.”
Totally Radical Lava Lamp
Greene had a lot of exciting news to share with SEM industry insiders, even if a lot of it was centered on search functions that won’t be available for months, years or maybe never. The general theme was the “device revolution”—how our search for information has gone from using the devices (aka mediums) of encyclopedias to desktop computers to smart phones. Each step in this progression has made the quest for information easier and a more integral part of our lives. Google is adapting their search engine to be more compatible with smart phones, helping to turn these hand-held devices into something more and more akin to a human being—something that can hear, see, feel, tell us directions and sometimes has skin, too.
Here’s a recap of news from Google:
- Real-World Digitalization: Google is fusing digital with the real world. For example, Google Sky Map for mobile devices. You can hold up your phone to the sky and it tells you what constellations you’re looking at using its internal global positioning device. (Men, earn points with your lady gazing at a clear Valentine’s night sky!)
- Location-Personalized Searches: Now, no matter where you are, you can type in “sushi restaurant” into your smart phone and get the phone numbers and locations of sushi joints right around the corner; no need to type city or neighborhood into your query.
- Social Circle Presentation: Google Social will augment search results based on what our friends have recommended via social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and on their blogs. I’ll be able to get recommendations and reviews on sites, products, movies and restaurants from my friends before advertisers can reach me.
- Modes: Wouldn’t it be cool to ask your mobile phone a question and have it respond back with the answer? Voice-search is in its infancy. First the search engine has to learn how to understand your accent, voice, language, pitch, etc.
- Media Search: If your content goals are focused solely on text, get with the program! Google is incorporating many more forms of content in its search results, from images to videos, podcasts and songs.
- Image Recognition: Speaking of images, with Google Goggles, you’ll be able to take a picture with your device and have the search engine tell you what you’re looking at—whether it’s a landmark, a specific person or skyline. You’ll even be able to get search results based on the data it finds in images. In addition, the algorithm is starting to understand what color looks like. So, if you search on “red roses,” you’ll get crimson blossoms in your image results.
- Similar Image Searches: Have you seen the Google Wonder Wheel? This is a helpful tool in finding root keyword terms to target in SEO and PPC campaigns. Well, the Wonder Wheel v2 for images is going to give you similar results for images.
- Language: Search all content in the world and have your results presented in your language. The only caveat? Once you click on the page, it’s still in Swahili.
So that’s the future. But what can content marketers do right now to get top search results?
- Continue optimizing for long-tail keywords. Search results are getting more and more specific, and users are learning that the more specific keywords they search on, the better results they get. Google is constantly making improvements to the algorithm in favor of long-tail keywords to weed out low-quality sites.
- Keep up with your company blog and social media initiatives. Real-time results are showing more and more tweets and blog posts in search results. Make sure your company is a part of these results.
Tags: content marketing
