1. Google Enhanced Campaigns:
Google announced their new Enhanced Campaign - the biggest change to the AdWords platform which enables advertisers better manage their campaigns in a multi-device world. One key feature is bid adjustments to help advertisers manage bids across devices, locations, time... All campaigns will be automatically upgraded starting in July 2013 and become mandatory for merchants.
In this new campaigns, Some changes can easily reach but some updating maybe have more difficulty to implement. For building an SEO plan for this year, Marketers should prepare accordingly to upgrade campaigns on specific devices and platforms.
2. Google Shopping
Google Product Search is getting a new name: Google Shopping. This will be a new business model where only merchants that pay will be listed, google will shut down a search product that previously listed companies for free.
Merchants maybe continue to be listed without charges within Google’s free web search results. But those wanting to appear in a dedicated shopping search engine and in the Google Shopping boxes that will appear as part of Google’s regular results will need to pay.
Google shopping enables to target customers on the SERP with high-converting ads. Merchants should consider should or not using this new service or choose a different strategy.
3. Mobile
Mobile devices are gradually becoming more popular, many people are using hightech gadgets such as smartphones, IPads, Iphone, to access the web.
Discussing enhanced campaigns for mobile app advertisers, Oestlien says, “Apps have become a significant part of people’s everyday mobile experiences. In fact, US consumers spend an average of 127 minutes per day using mobile apps. Advertisers can now reach app users, with ads in apps, based on people’s context like location, time of day and device, with enhanced campaigns. For example, if a certain mobile app has the most usage on Saturday evenings, you can increase your bid adjustments for mobile and this time of day to reach these users. You can also adjust bids across the key display signals like demographics, interests, topics and remarketing at the ad group level. All of these powerful bidding tools will enable you to reach the right people with the right ads.”
Google also added social annotations and availability for mobile app advertisers.
So if the merchant don't have a plan about search optimization in the context of mobile phones, they will lose a lot a major source of mobile traffic.
What should merchants need to do?
In order to tap on this ever-growing market, it's essential to make sure your website is mobile friends and compatible to the various mobiles devices. Responsive design is a key component of mobile search optimization, merchants must also think about tying keywords to buyer behavior and tailor the experiences based on the customer’s intent and the products and they sell.
4. Using Social Media
With the strong development of the online Social Communications, Social media plays an important role in a site’s SERP performance and it now a must-have in any SEO strategy. More than traffic, marketing in social networks is connecting your customers in the circle, building brand and trust between your business and the relevant stakeholders.
When developing a social media strategy, it's not only focus on Social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Google. Remeber that YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world with an extremely wide video-sharing social community, using YouTube for media campaigns will significantly increase traffic. Further, photo-sharing social networks such as Instagram and Pinterest are gaining momentum, Instagram has overtaken Twitter in terms of daily mobile traffic. It’s an opportunity for marketers become creative and innovative with their own social media strategy.
