Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

People may think I’m nuts, but Google+ is going to be the lever that begins prying Google away from total domination of much of our online lives.

What follows is, of course, conjecture, but one thing I’ve learned over the years is that I don’t trust my instincts often enough, so here goes….

They’ve Shot Themselves Over Search, Of All Things

By using Google+ to manipulate their own search results, Google abandons the very core of their business culture – serving up unfiltered, “best” results as they attempt to organize the world’s information.

By telling Google employees who push back to get on the train or get out, they undo their organization’s credibility from the top down. A cushy work environment in Mountain View is just lipstick on a pig if your business doesn’t deliver on its promises.

I don’t know where it’s going to come from (Microsoft’s Bing search engine is not nimble enough, although I’d be happy to be proven wrong) but there will be a challenger to Google that will come out of nowhere and capture those who want to go back to basics.

FocusOnTheUser.org is one example of how that movement has already begun, with their “Don’t Be Evil” alternative search button tool. Tellingly, it was created by some engineers from Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Privacy – Google Is All UP In Your Business

The privacy issues with Google are even more significant than Facebook’s.

At least with Facebook, you can just get the heck off of it, or at a minimum take draconian measures with your settings.

Google is everywhere – our email, our videos, our maps, our photos, our search habits and our Android phones – and you cannot opt out of their creepy data mining.

I’ve been told that many people don’t understand the implications of this, and/or don’t care about privacy issues. Fine, but Congress and the FTC do care.  Someone’s going to move on Google; either the consumer public or regulators or both.

Not Another Social Network!

Google+ is essentially another Facebook with some cool bells & whistles (I do like the G+ video Hangouts) but despite apparently roaring user numbers that don’t add up, I sense that in terms of true mass adoption, the regular Joe Bag o’ Donuts guy/gal is not jumping on Google+ like they are getting onto Facebook.

People go where the people are who they want to connect with;  I saw this in microcosm in 2008/2009 when Plurk failed as an alternative to Twitter.  The Geekerati said that Plurk was so much better organized, easier to use, etc. etc. but the fact is, everyone already HAD networks on Twitter and when they didn’t move over en masse to Plurk, people went back to where the people were.

Does anyone out there really want one more blasted digital thing to manage?  Even a lot of techie types are feeling rather overwhelmed, and many others in the mass market are still figuring out Facebook, are puzzled by blogs and find email challenging.

Not Another Social Network! Except Maybe Pinterest

In contrast to the “no THERE there” that is Google+, I’ve been watching the recent explosion over digital bulletin boards on Pinterest. No one wants another thing to manage, unless they really like the thing, and they like this one.

Fans of Pinterest are truly crazy about it. My own line of work, tourism and hospitality, is diving into Pinterest. I can’t remember when I’ve seen such rapid adoption and wild enthusiasm, albeit still mostly among a more tech-savvy crowd than the mass market.

May I remind you of the popularity of scrapbooking?  The hordes of people who’ve jumped onto Facebook worldwide (it just knocked Google’s Orkut off as the number one social network for Brazil) are perfectly capable of figuring out how to transfer their scrapbooking skills and enjoyment to something like Pinterest.

On the other hand, I can’t see any of them lining up to laboriously sort their friends into Circles on Google+.  Actually, it wouldn’t be that laborious, because no one’s really ON Google+!

Tech journalist Omar Gallaga compared Pinterest and Google+ on his Digital Savant blog, saying:

“Despite the growth of Google+, I have yet to hear a single person say she loves it. The people I see posting more often there are marketers, photographers, social media experts and a handful of media people like me sharing the same kinds of links and jokes they also post to Twitter and Facebook. Google+ otherwise feels like a weirdly active ghost town….”

My geek crowd is saying that they love the visual organizing, inspiration and connections on Pinterest, but most see Google+ as a somewhat bothersome “I have to do it because it’s Google” chore.

A privacy-invading chore is not a recipe for mass adoption.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

We’ve been here before with AOL and Yahoo! and other behemoths who are now pygmies. No one stays on top forever.

Google has self-immolated their corporate values by embracing search manipulation and calling it “social.”  Update: Farhad Manjoo on Slate – “Google just broke its search engine.”

They’ve created something that is mostly a marketing obligation for many, a chance to write a quick how-to book for others and a genuine place of enjoyment for specific niches like photographers, who do seem to like G+.

That’s not much of an endorsement for what will be yet another Google failure at building a social network, and will also lead to the beginning of the end because it is not part of the business culture or values that made their company great.

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In preparing the keywords section for our July 26 webinar with Travel Online Partners about SEO basics for tourism, I was struck by the obvious….if you have a rich vocabulary and are good at crafting descriptive sentences and well-organized paragraphs, you are perfect for SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)

Why then do so many think that SEO is some sort of impenetrable, exclusive club for techies? Beyond any mumbo-jumbo you may have heard, SEO means creating content in a way that makes it easy for search engines (and people!) to find it.

Two words for those who may need to do some SEO for content written in English – English major.

Duh, right? Yes, you CAN get a job with it!

So can communications majors, journalism majors, heck even anthropology majors, because you know how to WRITE.

What words will people use in search engines to find your content, and how can you craft content to match what they seek?

Words. Yes, you can DO this….

PS – the SEO webinar info and signup is here, or if you some across this blog post at a later date, it will be available in our Tourism Currents Store, in the Webinar section. Thanks!

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Pretend you are a visitor to town XYZ.

Go stand in some central area – maybe downtown – where your visitors tend to cluster.

Pull out your phone, open up the browser, and type “XYZ restaurants” or “XYZ hotels” into the magic Google search box. Like any tourist, you’re asking, “What’s here for me?”

Look at the results. Which ones of your attractions are up towards the top, and which ones are invisible? Do you think your unique, local places have any idea about claiming their business on Google Places or encouraging reviews, in order to be more find-able? As we point out in some search advice in this Tourism Currents newsletter, input from your locals (not just visitors) matters, too.

Close the browser.

Now, open up the Yelp app (application.) Ask it to tell you which restaurants, shops and hotels are around you, based on the GPS position your phone is transmitting.  It will do so.

Look at the results. How many of the owners of the businesses you see (showing around your location) have any idea about all of the reviews and feedback on Yelp, and that people make decisions about where to eat, where to shop and where to stay based on that information?

Put the phone away. Return to the office. Schedule some workshops with your local partners.

Help teach them to rise above the local search slush pile.

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You know I’m getting a bit more into video production for CVBs and tourism organizations, and I want to ensure that you understand how important it is to optimize your video content for SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)

Great videos that are never found are just….nice.

The video below features Greg Jarboe telling you a little bit about how to increase your chances of being found – here’s a helpful article on press release and video SEO on Jarboe’s own site.

Hat tip to State of Search, who interviewed Jarboe at the International Search Summit in London this month.

Here’s the direct link to the video on YouTube, in case you can’t see the embedded box….

While doing a live Tech in Twenty show last night on Blog Talk Radio (our topic was women in social media in 2010 and you can listen or download it here) I noticed that my fellow panelists Colleen Pence and Holly Hoffman both had the same answer when our hosts asked us to tell the audience where they could find us online:

“Just Google me.”

When you’ve worked long and hard and consistently to establish your Web site, blogs, LinkedIn profile, Twitter account, Flickr photostream, Facebook profile, YouTube channel, etc….plus you’re talked about and linked to online….then it is easy to be confident that not only are you “at the top of Page One of Google,” you can FILL that page.

How broad and deep is your destination or attraction’s presence in search engine results, especially with all of the recent changes with Google and Bing?

Does your tourism organization’s material pop up at the top of Google search results, or is there some commercial site or savvy local blogger who trounces you with a better online presence?

How can I help you rise to the top?

There have been some big changes in the world of search engines, and it’s important for the average CVB (Convention and Visitor’s Bureau) and tourism person to understand them, not just “the IT guy” or your hired gun marketing agency.

Google’s site ranking formula is a closely-guarded item, but fundamentally, to rank higher in search engine results you need lots of high-quality sites linking to your site.

Additionally, from Google’s Webmaster Central:

“One of the most important steps in improving your site’s ranking in Google search results is to ensure that it contains plenty of rich information that includes relevant keywords, used appropriately, that indicate the subject matter of your content.”

See how this works?

1. You create quality content, using the same words (called keywords) that visitors use to find you in search engines (i.e., “family vacation packages Toledo”) and….
2. Because your content is high quality and helpful, the humans who run the good sites eventually link to you.  Then….
3. When visitors search, your site comes up at the top of the search results because its content matches what they’re looking for AND your site is seen as having credibility and authority because others have linked to it.

Yep, that’s pretty much the big search “secret.”

It’s all still true, no question, but now there are new elements to consider.

Bing as a Google alternative

Microsoft’s Bing is now the third-largest search engine, behind Google and Yahoo. It’s gaining traction among users partly because of some extra marketing hype, and also because it is now Microsoft’s default search engine and even the default in some Blackberry smartphones.

So what if it’s the default?

Well, how many users change their computer software defaults, and how many take whatever they’re given out of the box?

In a move for more relevancy and cutting-edge “oomph,” Bing was also the first to cut a deal with Twitter and Facebook about featuring their previously-walled-off content in general search results.

There are deep pockets at Microsoft; I would never totally discount them.

Google featuring tweets and Facebook data

Hot on the heels of Bing, the 800-pound Google search gorilla is now also showing individual tweets in search results, and publicly-available Facebook data (meaning mostly Facebook Fan Pages) is coming soon.  You may hear it referred to as “real-time search.”

So what?

So tweets and Facebook chatter suddenly matter beyond simple community- and brand-building and “rainbow Skittles and unicorns.” They matter in how masses of people find information about your destination on Google.

So if you aren’t visible and participating on Twitter and Facebook, you’re missing a newly-significant way of being found by prospective visitors.

From the Tnooz post Twitter, Google and Bing: The Perfect Storm of travel search:

“In one quick stroke the search engines will be including the Zeitgeist of travel:  the here and now of the travel conversation or what the web community is saying about destinations, airlines, hotels, tour operators, agencies and, most importantly,  the reaction to it.

If this is the case, Twitter becomes a powerful channel for travel companies and can no longer be ignored.”

Plain-vanilla Google search isn’t so plain anymore

Until, oh, a month or so ago, you typed in your search terms and waited for the deluge. Anyone else who typed in those same search terms got the same deluge (with some small adjustments based on your geographic location.)

Then came this month’s Googlebomb.

Google now offers search results that are “personalized,” or tailored to your previous personal search patterns (back to about 180 days.) This technically means that 28 people typing in the same search terms might get 28 different search results, based on their previous usage patterns.  The user, by their own history, somewhat controls what he/she sees in search results, which are no longer “neutral” across all searchers. Users can turn off the pattern-tracking cookies or opt-out of this, but I defer to my point above about how many people ever change default settings on things.

So what?

So how do you achieve search engine prominence for your site when the search results are now fractured to match a gazillion different users in “the new normal?”

There is some skepticism that Google is as smart as it thinks it is.  Will the personalization/customization be helpful, or encase searchers in an echo chamber of their own making?  Will serendipity be lost?  Are all of these “helpful” initiatives making Google searches too complex and therefore possibly less trustworthy?  Does traditional SEO even matter in 2010?

So What?

So here’s my advice….

1. As always, produce interesting and helpful content for visitors to your destination or attraction, but don’t produce it just for a Web site.
2. You’ve got to be “out and about” – searchable and findable in more than one way (including mobile, where Google also made some significant search strides.)
3. You need to consider not only the customer relationships and awareness benefits of your Twitter stream, but also the use of keywords in your tweets. Yes, search engine optimization (SEO) has come to Twitter.
4. A Facebook Fan Page, which I recommended recently as a good first step into social media, has now become more than a nice-to-have.  The question should not be “do we need it,” but “why shouldn’t we have one?”

If I missed any significant issues or implications of the many recent changes in search engines, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

One of the world’s biggest and best tech conferences is South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) held every March in Austin, Texas.

I recommend it for anyone who wants to be immersed in the future of communications as it is happening right now.

Remember….Twitter was first truly introduced (hyped?) at SXSWi. Cutting edge shows up there first.

I spoke with fellow writer Pam Mandel at SXSWi 2009 about travel blogging; our panel was livestreamed on Qik by Todd Lucier and got some favorable coverage from UpTake, the Austin American-Statesman, attendees in the room and those watching the hashtag on Twitter.

This year, I proposed two different panels to be considered for inclusion in the conference schedule.

At SXSWi, response from the community-based Panel Picker voting public “….accounts for about 30% of the decision-making process for 2010 SXSW panel programming,” according to the SXSWi Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs.)

So, if you’re interested in my ideas, particularly if you might attend SXSWi, please register for free on the Panel Picker site and take a look at these possible panels (and any others that interest you….)

• Can They Buy Your Voice?  Blog Disclosure Ethics:  We’ll talk about “best practices” for disclosing sponsor help in a blog post and how companies can reach out to bloggers ethically with products and service demos, among other knotty questions. Will include a discussion of press trips.
• Drawing the Line Between Free and Paid: Are there some “rules of thumb” to know when it’s smart business to let one’s brain be picked for free, and when it’s smart to announce rate sheet fees? How can you turn the conversation from a free discussion to a paid consultation without being “that guy?”  Content DOES have value.

Thanks for your support, and hope to see you in Austin in March 2010.