The explosion of social media has given consumers a strong desire to know what is happening in real-time. Real-time search engines, such as OneRiot, have responded to this desire. WebProNews spoke with Tobias Peggs to find out how the search engine is providing a real-time solution for consumers.

As he explains, real-time content doesn’t exist very long and contains a lot of noise. For this reason, OneRiot takes the process of filtering it very seriously. The search engine developed a ranking algorithm called PulseRank, which ranks content in a way that reflects the current social buzz.

Peggs also says OneRiot pays very close attention to the content publishers and their credibility. For the people who create meaningful posts, the search engine applies more authority. On the flip side, the people who typically post spammy content will not rank very well.

So, what opportunities exist for marketers? According to Peggs, if you look at search behavior across all traditional search engines, you will find somewhere between 20-40 percent of searchers reveal an intent for the real-time information that real-time search engines offer. Given those percentages, he says it produces a need for monetization.

However, it is a challenge since an ad that tries to prompt a purchase is not relevant to the consumer’s immediate need. OneRiot created the first advertising network for the real-time Web that includes fresh ads from media companies. Peggs says the ads provide additional value to the overall consumer experience.

Are you utilizing these opportunities?

Since SEO is constantly changing, how can SEOs determine the most important areas of focus? As Matt Bailey of SiteLogic Marketing tells WebProNews, the foundation has to be strong in order to be built upon.  For this reason, he believes the fundamentals are critical to SEO success.

Content is just one of the fundamental areas of SEO. Not only is the content itself important, but the structure of the content is also important. Bailey says content needs to be scalable, readable, and allow users to understand the content on the rest of the page by simply looking at the headline. This is significant because numerous studies show that the majority of people scan content instead of reading it.

There have been many recent debates pertaining to long content versus short content. People often say they tried blogging, Facebook, or Twitter and found that they didn’t work. However, Bailey believes users need to examine their efforts to see if they are utilizing them correctly.

“The what is going to change daily. The why will never change,” he says.

He goes on to say that if you have a purpose, the “what” doesn’t matter and can always be applied.

Marketers also struggle with the challenge of creating content for both users and search engines. Bailey says the key to this dilemma is in the analytics. For example, it is very possible to have the right ranking with the wrong page. As a result, marketers need to look at their analytics to see which metrics work. He tells WPN that marketers can celebrate when they determine what is profitable, not when they rank high.

Although there will be many more changes for SEO, the job of driving people to a destination will always be constant.

Are you focusing on getting the fundamentals right or are you distracted by the “shiny, new object syndrome”?

Mobile is definitely on everyone’s mind these days. In this interview with WebProNews, Cindy Krum of Rank-Mobile talks about some popular mobile trends that people should watch closely. Applications are one of the big drivers to mobile and, incidentally, not just iPhone apps. Google’s Android and other platforms are creating their own marketplace as well.

In regards to apps, she points out that many people use them for search, which essentially takes away from search engine traffic. For this reason, she advises local businesses to optimize for apps in addition to optimizing for mobile search.

Krum also discusses the idea of augmented reality, which is typically in the form of an app. If a user points their phone toward an object or location, it puts a digital layer over it that provides information. One example of this is Wikitude. It lets users know if there is a Wikipedia article on the object or location.

Geolocation is another hot mobile area with sites such as Foursquare and Gowalla on the rise. Krum believes these platforms can be very valuable for coupons, loyalty programs, and more.

To compile her mobile ideas together, Krum also recently wrote a book entitled Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customer No Matter Where They Are. She says it provides a comprehensive view of how mobile marketing is more effective when all aspects are used together.

Linking offline marketing with mobile efforts is just one area of importance that she covers in the book. As she explains, when people are offline, they don’t have access to their computers. However, they do have access to the Web. As a result, marketers can incorporate elements such as QR codes to tie the two areas together, which will ultimately, reach consumers.

Are you keeping up with these mobile trends?

As Yahoo and Microsoft continue to integrate the terms of their 10-year partnership, there are lots of questions surrounding Yahoo. To shed some light on this area, WebProNews caught up with David Roth, the Director of Search Marketing at Yahoo. Roth provides a unique perspective on these issues since he is both a search marketer and an advertiser for Yahoo.

He says he will likely get one of the first views of how Yahoo Search Marketing will be integrated into Microsoft’s adCenter. As a result, he will be able to see any new features and if there are any bugs. At the time of the recording of this interview, Yahoo or Microsoft had not released any specific dates for the roll out of their integration. Aside from saying they hope to have Microsoft ’s search technology powering Yahoo before the end of the holiday season, the companies have still not released any specific dates for a roll out.

Interestingly enough, last week Barry Schwartz reported on Search Engine Land that Yahoo is testing paid and organic Bing results on its own live search results.

Roth also tells WPN that Yahoo is continuing to push out its brand campaign internationally. He finds it amusing when people talk about global campaigns because he thinks the meaning of a global campaign is somewhat skewed.

“As an advertiser, there’s really no such thing as going global. Going global means local a dozen different times,” says Roth.

When entering a new market, he advises marketers and advertisers to understand that goals will be different, especially in markets outside the U.S. Fortunately, search marketing can support nearly any business goal.

Getting back to the Yahoo/Microsoft partnership, Roth says the pressure is on Yahoo to develop really compelling ad products since it will be pulling back on its development of the search index and search algorithms. He goes on to say that Yahoo has to utilize all the data that both search and display advertising generate and then leverage it to create new ad products. In the future, he believes their ad products will be more sophisticated and include better ad units, behavioral targeting, and more.

More often than not, marketers jump into SEO without being fully prepared. Although it is easy to do, it could eventually have harmful effects on the business. In this interview with WebProNews, Heather Lutze, the Director/Owner of the Findability Group and the author of The Findability Formula, explains how marketers need to understand the foundation for setting up an effective search marketing plan in order to have maximum findability.

As she discusses, there are many dangers with jumping into search. For starters, the technicalities can quickly overwhelm people. Search efforts are also often isolated to one division, such as PPC. As a result, businesses could end up missing out on a lot of benefits they could be receiving from search. Another danger is that many marketers think they know what their searchers want, when they actually do not.

“Don’t stand in judgment of your own search, let your searchers tell you what they want,” says Lutze.

She goes on to point out that marketers need to focus on all 3 areas of search. These areas are PPC, SEO, and Social Media. She says if a business really wants to be findable, it needs to be where users expect it to be. Since it’s difficult to know where the users are, she advises being present in all 3 areas.

By utilizing these 3 components, businesses can develop a consistent message across all its channels, which will increase their chances of being findable.

Are you getting the maximum findability out of search?

Unfortunately, most companies do not realize how much content can be optimized as news. According to Lisa Buyer of The Buyer Group, press releases, blogs, social media profiles, tweets, Facebook posts, and more can all be included in news results.

To do this, she suggests that marketers, first of all, optimize press releases for news search. She also recommends using tools such as PitchEngine. This tool provides an additional place for marketers to post press releases. Buyer says this effective tool practically guarantees that users will show up on the first page of Google’s search results. Although it does not always stay in the top spot, it does provide instant gratification.

She also points out the importance of interacting with media, especially through Twitter. Specifically, she tells WebProNews that “#journchat” is a great way to do this. The chat takes place weekly and brings journalists, bloggers, and professionals together.

Additionally, Buyer offers advice in regards to promoting content. She says one of the keys to successful promotion is avoiding spammy and pitchy messages. Although it’s easy to take the headline and tweet it out, it is not the most effective approach. Instead, Buyer advocates more creative methods such as using quotes, statistics, questions, or other interesting nuggets of information that will draw traffic back to the release.

Are you utilizing these opportunities to show up in news results?

Everyday consumers use their mobile devices to search for products and services. As marketers, how are you leveraging this activity? Dan Flanegan of Brand Anywhere tells WebProNews that it is becoming increasingly important for companies to think about the mobile experience they are providing.

Unless a company is capable of investing a considerable amount of money into a mobile marketing campaign, most consumers will find them through mobile search. For this reason, Flanegan says companies need to have a mobile-specific site.

As mobile continues to grow, there will be more standardization across mobile browsers. However, Flanegan still believes that a mobile-specific site is the best option since mobile remains to be a challenging area.

He also suggests that marketers pay attention to mobile analytics. With mobile, marketers need to provide a focused experience that limits the number of actions users need to take. To do this, Flanegan says they need to understand the data in order to know what consumers want.

What kind of mobile experience are you providing for consumers?

As marketers, what goals do you have with social media? Most marketers use social for efforts such as branding, promotion, and visibility. Interestingly, marketers do not usually consider the benefits that search and social provide together.

According to Rebecca Lieb of Econsultancy, most marketers aren’t aware of how closely the two are tied. For instance, when a user signs into Google and searches for a query, he can see real-time social search results in addition to the other results. Specifically, he can see a live Twitter feed and anything that people within his social circle are saying, related to his query.

While still talking about social media, Lieb brings up two areas that marketers have not fully grasped. They are: strategy and execution. So many marketers are jumping on the social media bandwagon with a Facebook page or Twitter account to simply keep up with the times. However, this is not the way that people succeed in social media.

As part of a social media strategy, marketers need to know what they want to accomplish, who they are trying to reach, how they are going to communicate with the target, and more. Many people perceive social as something that is free, but as Lieb points out, nothing is free.

To be truthful, social media takes lots of time and resources. If marketers calculate these factors into their strategy, their chances for social success will increase.

On a different note, Lieb also tells WebProNews that she is encouraged by current developments taking place regarding net neutrality.  She believes the U.S. is on the right track to improve the necessity of high-speed and open Web access.

Although most businesses understand the need for measuring analytics, unfortunately, that is as far as some businesses take it. As Eric Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified explains, marketers need to actually use the data they collect in order to see true benefits.

There are many tools that are useful such as Google Analytics and Omniture, but Peterson says that these solutions cannot do everything. In other words, marketers have to act upon the data the solutions provide.

According to Peterson, many businesses do not dedicate resources to analytics. He believes this is one of the most common mistakes businesses can make in regards to analytics. If someone could focus all his time and energy on analytics, Peterson says good things would happen.

The next big challenge marketers have is determining which data to pass where within the company. For this, he recommends that a business have a strategy since each department will need different metrics.

Once all these elements are in place, Peterson says companies will be able to make better use of their data.

Marketers who are trying to figure out how to allocate credit for clicks and sales should understand that their choices are pretty limited if they want to take an accurate approach.  Attendees at the Online Marketing Summit conference- along with Dana Todd, who spoke to Mike McDonald – feel the attribution model must be used.

Todd, who’s the cofounder and CMO of Newsforce, stressed in an interview, “The attribution model is the only model, frankly.”  Which is an endorsement that’s about as strong as they come.

Then, with respect to how everyone else at the OMS conference felt that performance and branding should be balanced, Todd said, “Most of the marketers . . . are absolutely convinced that blended is good and there has to be a certain amount of branding stuff that feeds the top of the funnel or you’re never going to get anything at the bottom of the funnel.”

And finally, although Todd also pointed out that the theory has been around for decades, she touched on the fact that the marketing “rule of three” has been confirmed, meaning it takes three exposures for individuals to remember a person, brand, or just about anything.

Take these matters into consideration as you move forward with any marketing campaigns, then.

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