Stellar Search Blog

The last few weeks we have seen a lot of mentions on Google plus and the fact that it reached 25m  back in August. I suspect this is much higher now.

What we have noticed the last few weeks is that Google plus is still not the first choice for sharing an article. Popular sites such as TechCrunch and Mashable do use all available sharing options. But if you look carefuly Google + is the used the least.

For Mashable.com more people click on StumbleUpon than Google Plus.  For TechCrunch more users preferred the Linkedin sharing option. It’s interesting to note that both site have a high number of web savvy users that do tend to use social media a lot more. I really do hope that Google plus will be a success as it does offer a lot more than Facebook!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last few days we noticed that Google started testing images on the side PPC ads.  They tend to appear on the side, top right position 3-4.  Not sure about this test as the images do look small and not very clear as you can see form the screenshots below.  It seems that Google is pulling the images from the feed submitted to Google Merchant Centre.

When you search for credit card or mortgages Google now takes the top ad called “Comparison Ads“.  It’s been running for some time now but it was never there for most of the time.  What is very interesting is that most of the top PPC ads dropped by one space and the organic results got pushed down (again).

 

My first impressions after clicking on the ads is that the results are very clear! Users now can filter the results quickly with out the need of filling a long form with 3 steps as they do in the other price comparison sites. The selection of providers is a lot more than it used to be when this was first introduced. I pressume this is because of the beatthatquote.com website a few months ago. Overall as a user I do preffer this price comparison site than any other out there. Another great thing is that there is no need to give them my contact details as they have all the phone number listed and I can apply online! This is definitely one of the greatest points as from my experience when ever I gave  my phone number to a price comparison site I got bombarded by calls and text message for loans/insurance/accident claims and many more.

My main concern with this though is that Google is getting greedy and was a piece of the pie. Keywords for the finance sector are very expensive and as a result a good lead could cost a lot to a company. What Google is testing/doing now is trying to be both things at the same time. A search engine and a price comparison site some people could argue (including my self) that Price comparison sites don’t offer much to the user and Google could do the same thing but without the spamming. On the other group a lot of people will argue that Google has a great advantage over everyone else!

Personalisation in search is something that everyone is talking/working on the last few years. The following is a ten minute video from TED discussing this issue and it’s definitely something worth watching.

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/eng//id/1091

Speaker: Eli Pariser
Pioneering online organizer Eli Pariser is the author of “The Filter Bubble,” about how personalized search might be narrowing our worldview.

Five Google Tools You Should Know

Google Adwords keyword tool: Generates search volumes and variations of your keywords. https://adwords.google.co.uk/o/Targeting/Explorer

Google AdWordsSearch Based Keyword Tool: See what keywords are on your site that people are already searching with on Google with this tool that compares your website content to actual search queries. Now part of Google Adwords keyword tool.

Google Insights for Search: Reports search trends over time. www.google.com/insights/search

Google AdWords AdPreview Tool: Preview your ads in real time as they appear on the search results. https://adwords.google.co.uk/d/AdPreview

Google Website Optimiser: Optimize your landing pages by evenly splitting web traffic between multiple pages to compare performance. www.google.com/websiteoptimizer