Although the change may seem subtle, The Search Agency’s Richard Schneider explains that the change will make measuring landing page success easier. “I have been waiting a long time for Google to offer this new option within the landing page reports,” explains Schneider. “Before, if I wanted to find the conversion rate associated with a specific landing page, I would first have to build an advanced segment targeting users who entered on the specific page and then navigate to the Goal reports. Now everything is visible within the Landing Pages section.”

Android represents 52% of smartphones sold in Q3- According to a new study from the research firm Gartner, Google’s Android operating system ran on 52 percent of all smartphone devices sold in Q3 2011. “Android benefited from more mass-market offerings, a weaker competitive environment and the lack of exciting new products on alternative operating systems such as Windows Phone 7 and RIM,” explained Roberta Cozza, Gartner’s principal research analyst. ”Apple’s iOS market share suffered from delayed purchases as consumers waited for the new iPhone. Continued pressure is impacting RIM’s performance, and its smartphone share reached its lowest point so far in the U.S. market, where it dropped to 10%.”

Google introduces Google Music- Google introduced its long anticipated music service on Wednesday, Google Music. The service will allow users to buy individual tracks and full albums from Google, and store their purchases in the ‘cloud.’ The service will be embedded into Google+, so that users can share their purchases with their friends. For an in-depth look at Google’s new music service, check out Alan Henry’s post “Google Music vs Amazon MP3 vs iTunes: Which Online Music Store Is the Best for You?” Henry provides a comprehensive look at how Google Music will match up against its competitors Amazon and Apple.

Google introduces Verbatim Search- Google introduced Verbatim Search this week, which only searches for exactly your query. The new service removes personalized, corrected, suggested, related and non-inclusive results. Verbatim search doesn’t correct your spelling, change verb tense, or form (e.g., “running” and “run” remain unique).

Facebook tracking under federal investigation- Facebook’s legal privacy issues were looking up last week, when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) offered the company a massive settlement over a complaint that Facebook had harmed its users by not informing them prior to changing its privacy policies. The settlement would require Facebook to receive explicit permission from users before sharing any information.

Now Senator Jay Rockefeller plans to hold a hearing to better understand how Facebook uses its cookies.  “No company should track customers without their knowledge or consent, especially a company with 800 million users and a trove of unique personal data on its users,” Rockefeller explained. “If Facebook or any other company is falsely leading people to believe that they can log out of the site and not be tracked, that is alarming.” No date has been set for the hearing.

New Google algorithm update targets content “freshness”- On Thursday Google announced new changes to its search algorithm, focused on making search results “fresher.” The changes are expected to affect 35% of all searches, making it one of the biggest changes to Google’s search algorithm to date. (Google’s Panda Update affected roughly 12% of results.) Building off their Caffeine structure, Google’s latest changes will enable Google to serve fresher results at a faster rate. As Amit Singhal, Google Fellow, explained in a blog post announcing the change:

“We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness.”

Of course Google isn’t only concerned with content “freshness.” “Different searches have different freshness needs,” explains Singhal. “This algorithmic improvement is designed to better understand how to differentiate between these kinds of searches and the level of freshness you need, and make sure you get the most up to the minute answers.”

• Check out Claire Cain Miller’s article “Google Changes Search Algorithm, Trying to Make Results More Timely” on the NYTimes Tech Blog for an insightful explanation on how growing competition from Facebook and Twitter is putting pressure on Google to improve the timeliness of its search results.
• And before you start manically refreshing your site’s content, make sure to read Grant Simmons’ article “Does Your Web Content Have an “Expired by” Date?” Grant points out that what’s most important is generating quality content that adds value to your user’s experience.

Google revamps Location Targeting- Google unveiled several changes to its location-targeting tool in AdWords, aimed at making location targeting on paid ads easier and more accurate. By linking Location Targeting in AdWords to Google Maps, Google hopes to provide advertisers with “more information about locations, make relevant location suggestions, and improve the level of accuracy of our location targeting.” Here are the key changes to location targeting:

• Easily discover locations- Start typing your location into your Campaign Settings tab and Google will start suggesting other locations that are (1) similar to your city, (2) locations that encompass your location (e.g., state, county) or (3) related locations that may be near your location, that have a similar name or are enclosed in an area with a similar name.

• Location on maps- Now you can view and edit your location on Google maps.

• More detail on locations- “We now offer reach numbers to help you estimate the audience within your selected target. These reach numbers are based on the number of users seen on Google properties and may differ significantly from census numbers. Reach should be used only as general guidance to help you determine the relative number of users in a location target compared to other locations. For example, you can see from the screenshot below that targeting the Dallas metro area could result in three times the reach of the city of Dallas.”

Generation App: new demographics on smartphone users- Nielsen released its third quarter survey of mobile users, revealing 62% of the 43% of US mobile users who own smartphones are between 25-34 years old. The smartphone penetration rate is roughly 54% for owners between 18-24 years old and 35-44 years old. Android remains the most popular smartphone operating system with 43% of the market vs. 28% of Apple iPhone users.

Facebook expected to grab 72% of social advertising in 2012- New data from eMarketer’s report “Worldwide Social Network Ad Revenues: A $10 Billion Market by 2013” suggests that social media ad revenues will exceed $8 billion in 2012. “As more companies build out their marketing presence in social networks, they are also increasing their focus on spending ad dollars there,” stated Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer principal analyst and the report’s author. The report also predicts that Facebook will be the largest benefactor of increased social media ad spending. As Williamson explains, “Social networks have cemented their place in advertising, not just marketing. With $7 of every $10 in social network advertising flowing to the company, Facebook is taking not only a greater share than ever of social network ad spending, but also an increasing proportion of total online ad spending. Although its ad offerings and metrics aren’t perfect, marketers still feel they need to be there to reach their target audience.”

New Ad Placements on search- Google announced on Wednesday that some of its paid search ads that previously appeared to the side of the organic results will start appearing below them. The aim, as always, is to provide users with the best SERP experience possible. As Google’s Jerry Dischler, Director, Search Ads Product Management, explains “In many cases, we have found that displaying ads below search results fits better into the user’s flow as they scan the page from top to bottom. On average, this placement performed better than side ads in terms of click-through rate in our tests.”

This Week’s Must Reads 

The Great Tech War of 2012- Last week Farhard Manjoo authored an article in Fast Company on the growing competition between tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook. The article itself is incredibly interesting, as Manjoo has such a precise understanding of where digital media is heading and the role Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook are playing in the progression of that technology.  But I would also suggest listening to Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air interview with Manjoo this week on the waging war between today’s tech giants. It’s worth a listen.

Your Facebook Comments, Coming Soon to a Google Search Near You- Scott Gilbertson from Wired online investigates Google’s new plans to index Facebook comments and present them on the SERP. Gilbertson predicts mixed reactions from users and webmasters alike.

Google’s Ron Gorodetzky: Making YouTube more social- LATimes’ Nathan Olivarez-Giles takes a closer look at how Google’s Ron Gorodetzky, co-founder of Digg, plans on incorporating YouTube into Google Plus. (Also check out Olivarez-Giles’ article “Google+ gets new YouTube and Chrome integration”)

• Google Sites Revenues – Google-owned sites generated revenues of $6.23 billion, or 69% of total revenues, in the second quarter of 2011. This represents a 39% increase over second quarter 2010 revenues of $4.50 billion.
• Google Network Revenues – Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.48 billion, or 28% of total revenues, in the second quarter of 2011. This represents a 20% increase from second quarter 2010 network revenues of $2.06 billion.
• International Revenues – Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $4.87 billion, representing 54% of total revenues in the second quarter of 2011, compared to 53% in the first quarter of 2011 and 52% in the second quarter of 2010.
• Paid Clicks – Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 18% over the second quarter of 2010 and decreased approximately 2% over the first quarter of 2011.
• Cost-Per-Click – Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 12% over the second quarter of 2010 and increased approximately 6% over the first quarter of 2011.
• TAC – Traffic Acquisition Costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google’s partners, increased to $2.11 billion in the second quarter of 2011, compared to TAC of $1.73 billion in the second quarter of 2010. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 24% in the second quarter of 2011, compared to 26% in the second quarter of 2010.

Google Plus reaches 10 million users- Google CEO Larry Page confirmed earlier rumors during the company’s quarterly earnings announcement on Thursday that its new social networking site Google Plus has reached over 10 million users. Page also stated that the site’s 10 million plus members share over 1 billion items a day.

Pew Research releases new data on the smartphone market- Pew Research Center released a new report last week as part of its Internet Project, which is dedicated to documenting how smartphone and internet technology impacts our lives. According to their latest research, which surveyed 2,277 adults nationally, 87% of smartphone owners access the internet or check their email on their device at least once a day. 25% reported that they access the internet more often from their smartphone device than from a PC.

Microsoft’s new social search engine (RUMOR)- Microsoft seems to have leaked what appears to be a new social search network, nicknamed Tualip. The details of the service were found on a Microsoft owned domain, Socl.com, and were quickly swapped for the following message: “Thanks for stopping by. Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn’t mean to, honest,” reports Mashable.

Blogs to check out:

• Is Google Panda Munching on Ad Revenues?- Google report incredible Q2 earnings, but why? Ryan Singel from Wired.com asks the questions to what extent Google’s Panda updates are responsible for Google’s stellar earnings report and for the growing discrepancy between Google sites’ revenue and that of their partner sites.
• Data Visualization & Infographic Search Engine Visual.ly Launches- Greg Finn at Search Engine Land authored a post introducing Visual.ly, a new service that aspires to become  “the largest community for sharing, creating and promoting data visualizations.”
• Google adds achievement badges to Google News – Geoff Duncan has the latest on Google’s new Google News Badges, which will enable users to earn badges for reading articles on a specific topic and share their achievement with their social circle.

Microsoft announces Q3 earnings- Microsoft reported a 13% Y/Y earnings increase this week of $16.44 billion with a net income of $5.2 billion. Online ad revenue improved 17% Y/Y, however the Bing/Yahoo partnership continues to fall short of market expectations.

Although Microsoft’s overall profits are up 31% from last quarter, the software giant still failed to beat out its nemesis Apple, which recently doubled its profits to $5.99 billion. While Microsoft’s profits still increased, Sam Gustin explained on Wired.com, “This event is symbolic, because it points to the diverging fortunes of two of the most famous tech companies in the world. Apple, quite simply, is the hottest company on the planet, with break-through mobile products like the iPhone and iPad, as well as its revered line of Mac desktop computers and laptops. Microsoft, by contrast, is seen as a plodding, hide-bound behemoth, struggling to keep pace as the locus of computing moves off the desktop and into the mobile space and “the cloud.”

Facebook snatched talent from Daytum- Facebook acquired the data-collection startup Daytum this week, and with it its two talented cofounders Ryan Case and Nicholas Felton. Case and Felton spoke about the acquisition on the Daytum’s blog, stating, “We’re thrilled to announce today that we just started a new phase of our careers: we’ve moved to California to join the product design team at Facebook. Building Daytum — and seeing how people use it — has been one of the most satisfying things we’ve done. We’re excited to start the next chapter, working with the rest of the design team at Facebook to help people express themselves and share experiences with friends. While we’ll be working full time at Facebook, Daytum will live on and will continue to work the same way as it does today.”

Founders of YouTube acquire Delicious- YouTube founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, purchased the bookmarking service Delicious this week from Yahoo for an undisclosed amount. Hurley and Chen will reportedly use Delicious as part of their new tool-building startup Avos.

Nielsen’s releases its ‘U.S. Smartphone Market: Who’s the Most Wanted?’ report- On Tuesday, Nielsen released its January 2011- March 2011 survey data on U.S. mobile consumers. The report revealed several changes from the report they released in September 2010. Back in July-September 2010, 33% of consumers planning to purchase a new smartphone preferred Apple’s iOS, compared to 26% who preferred Google’s Android.  With this latest report,  Android has surpassed iOS, with 31% citing Android as their preferred device, versus 30% who cited Apple iOS.

With this growth, mobile has become a critical player in the digital marketplace.  If you’ve already started managing a separate account for your mobile paid search, you’ve likely also thought about device-optimized landing pages for your mobile ads. Traditional desktop pages will not be as effective on the small, touch-screen displays of mobile devices.  And the mindset and engagement style of mobile users are different. It will become increasingly necessary to create a customized experience for your mobile users.

To start you off, here are a few tips to keep in mind while building your mobile page. I recently had a chance to hear Amy Africa’s mobile seminar at the 2011 Conversion Conference in San Francisco.  It was, by far, one of the best mobile optimization talks I’ve attended.  Here’s my take on the top 10 tips to optimize your mobile site for conversions:

1. Optimize  for Speed

Page load speed matters on all web sites; they matter even more on mobile. This is probably one of the most important user experience facets to assess when building your page. Mobile users do not have the patience to wait for over 15 seconds for anything to load. So make sure to prioritize low page weight when designing your mobile page. Less is more.

2. Focus on One Goal

Unlike your traditional website, your mobile site does not have the space to provide multiple functions. You will have to pare down your content to just a precious few. Figure out the single most important purpose of your mobile site: branding, acquisition, engagement, retention, customer service, etc.  For example, your mobile page may need to be devoted primarily to checking reservations as opposed to booking reservations. What users look to accomplish on your mobile page could be vastly different from you traditional homepage. Assess what pages receive the highest mobile traffic, and prioritize your content, function, and design to what users are seeking.

3. Navigation is Key

Navigation makes up the majority of your success. “Word connect” is extremely important on mobile, so make sure you think carefully about how you title your navigation buttons and links (stay away from those esoteric terms).  And don’t use up space on pictures at the cost of navigation choices – especially on your top nav.

4. Ease of Use

Each individual page of your site should keep to low content volume. Successful sites segment their pages with more granularity, especially when considering the option to only offer 5-8 choices on one screen. For example, “t-shirts” and “sweaters” deserve separate pages to allow users to reach their destination easier and quicker. Also, functions such as breadcrumbs, filters, and jump links can really improve the user experience on your site.

5. Use Large Fields

Manipulating the size of your fields and the space between them is critical. This is the most important thing in capturing leads. Larger fields will help users more easily see and complete the fields. They will impact completion rate, and also mitigate error rates (remember, error rates are much higher on mobile at around 20%).

6. Reflect Your Brand

Most users already have an idea of what your mobile page should look like even before they arrive. Remember to transfer over the most visually significant elements from your traditional site to your mobile site. Things like color should reflect the color palette of your homepage. If users don’t feel an instantaneous brand match when they arrive on your mobile site, they will most likely bounce. And remember, 85% of a user’s view is spent on the top section of your page, so make sure to get the essentials at the top.

7. Mobile Site vs. App

A mobile app is not a mobile site. Actually, if you are planning to have both – they should have clearly different functions. Or, if you are having to choose one, definitely start with building the mobile site – this is what users will be looking for first.

8. Work Your Click-to-Calls

Browsing a site on a mobile device makes it that much easier to turn that action to a phone call. Grab your users while their intent and interest are there. Call leads can show higher quality traffic than from form leads, since it requires users to jump deeper into the funnel. Click-to-Call should be enabled for all phone numbers on your site, and is especially crucial for lead gen pages.

9. Collect Mobile Numbers

We’re still in the precious early period of open-minded users, who are curious to try out new methods of connecting. People won’t always be as open about sharing their mobile numbers as they are now. Collect them whenever you get a chance – even if you don’t know what to do with them. Don’t forget about the opportunities to collect from your non-mobile channel as well: your website, social profiles, sign-up forms, etc. If you’re feeling gutsy, maybe try out a text messaging appeal.

10. Full Website View

It’s very important to always offer the option for your users to switch to your full website view. Users accustomed to specific content on your homepage may feel disoriented when they cannot find the same items on your mobile page. Typically, this switch-to-full-site link is placed on the bottom of the first page, but if you find your users struggling with your mobile site, consider moving the link to the top of page.

To learn more about mobile site optimization, check out a recording of The Search Agency’s recent webinar with the American Marketing Association and Google on mobile paid search.

And for more on the latest trends and best practices in mobile paid search, be sure to register for our March 30 webinar with the American Marketing Association.

Forrester releases new mobile revenue forecast- The market research firm Forrester published a report on Monday, which estimates that mobile app revenue will hit $38 billion by 2015. What’s more, the author of the report, John C. McCarthy, expects the combined revenue of mobile apps (production, services, business management, etc.) to reach $54.4 billion by 2015. For more insight into the role of tablet devices in mobile app marketing and for further information about Forrester’s study, check out Nick Bilton’s article on the NY Times technology blog.

Bing introduces new local deals to mobile- Bing introduced a new deals service for their mobile and PC search engine. The deals are not being generated directly by Microsoft, but are the result of a new partnership with The Dealmap. The Dealmap is currently available on Android and iPhone devices, and connects Bing with “more than 200,000 offers in over 14,000 cities and towns across the U.S.”  According to The Dealmap’s co-founder Chandu Thota, “The DealExchange is the most comprehensive platform for sourcing, distributing and monetizing local deals.  Working with a technology leader like Microsoft bolsters our leadership position and highlights a period of explosive growth for The Dealmap. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with Microsoft in ways that will deliver value to consumers and continue to rapidly grow our business.” How do you think Google will respond to Bing’s latest move in local search?

Smartphone race still raging- A new reported from Nielsen revealed this week that the smartphone race is still alive and competitive. The report revealed that Android has passed the iPhone as American’s most popular smartphone operating system. The Android currently accounts for 29 percent of all active smartphone users, while Apple and Blackberry follow closely behind with 27 percent. To read more, check out Nick Bilton’s article on the NY Times technology blog.

Google’s Android app developers are more popular than Apple’s- This week, engineers developing apps for Google’s Android system became even more ‘sought after.’ According to information from the online job board Dice.com, there were 987 employer job request postings for Android developers, compared with 970 job listings looking for engineers with Apple expertise. According to Douglas MacMillan from Business Week, “Demand is swelling for Android programmers as Google woos makers of mobile applications to keep up with the growing popularity of its software. Android became the world’s best-selling smartphone platform last year, according to researcher Canalys, yet it trails in total number of apps, with more than 120,000 compared to the 350,000 programs in Apple’s App Store.”

Conversation around Google’s farming continues- Last week Google updated its search engine to address the growing problem of content farms, or what Google perceives to be low-quality content sites, which often outrank more relevant, original content in Google’s SERP. The change is one of the most dramatic Google has made to their algorithm, affecting an estimated 12 percent of all its search results. Stephen Levy conducted an interview with Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts, who announced the change in a blog post last week, to discuss the change and the impact it will have on search results. For more insight, check out Rick Egan’s POV on The Search Agents’ blog.

The Massachusetts based location information firm, Skyhook Wireless, filed a lawsuit against Google on Wednesday. The software company claims that Google used its industry standing to get Skyhook Wireless’ software removed from Android-based mobile phones and violated four of its patents. For more on the lawsuit, check out The Economist’s blog.

You’re So Coal

Greenpeace International took a swipe at Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg this week with an animated mini-film this week called “So-Coal Network.” The video criticizes Facebook’s use of coal energy to power its data center in Prineville Oregon, while making several backhanded commentaries about Zuckerberg’s character. Check it out and let us know what you think: So-Coal Network

Google Introduces First Entrepreneur-in-Residence

Google Ventures, Google’s venture capital wing, appointed Craig Walker this week to be their first ‘entrepreneur-in-residence.’ Walker co-founded GrandCentral, i.e. Google Voice, which the search giant purchased for $45 million in 2007. The notion of an entrepreneur-in-residence is sort of a murky concept. As Claire Cain Miller describes it in a post on the NYTimes tech blog, “Entrepreneur-in-residence is one of those only-in-Silicon-Valley jobs. Smart people get paid to sit around and think about new ideas, and investors get the chance to join an entrepreneur early in a new project, betting that lightning will strike twice.”

Yahoo Releases Products

Yahoo held a press conference this week at their headquarters in Sunnyvale to announce number of new features set to launch in the coming months. More than anything else, the press conference served to reminded everyone that, after Google’s launch of Instant search, Yahoo is still relevant in online marketing. The press conference served to remind the industry that Yahoo still occupies 17% of the search market and acts as the world’s most popular email service. To read more, check out Ryan Singel’s article on Wired.com.

How do people use their smartphones?

The Nielsen Company released a report this week that explores how people use their smartphones and the state of mobile apps. According to the report, which surveyed 4,000 people, 59% of smartphone users downloaded a mobile app in the last month, 61% bought and used a game within the last month, and 55% used applications to check the weather. For more details, check out Nielsen’s report “The State of Mobile Apps.”

The Pew Internet Project also released a similar study this week entitled “The Rise of Apps in Culture,” which found that 35% of mobile-phone users have apps on their phones, but only 24% actually use them.

Until recently, mobile marketing was limited to opt-in text messages, banner ads on WAP-generated web pages, and paid search ads.  That’s changing with the recent uptake of smartphones.  Research firm Gartner indicated smartphone sales to end users represented 13.5 percent of worldwide mobile device sales in the first quarter of this year, up from 11 percent in the first quarter of last year. And Gartner predicts that the mobile advertising market will grow from approximately $3 billion in 2008 to over $12 billion by 2011.

Through its current AdWords interface, Google provides targeting functionality to identify iPhone and smartphone customers.  This enables advertisers to create unique mobile campaigns with targeted landing pages and one-click calls to action, such as text and phone calls.  Advertisers can also serve ads based on the location of one’s mobile phone.  The popularity of smartphones, combined with Google making it so easy to customize and serve ads to customers on the move, will likely drive a good portion of this expected growth in mobile.

But Google, very quietly, announced another component of its mobile monetization strategy — text and image ads served with mobile applications. This inventory has been dominated by AdMob until now, but Google brings a huge advertiser base with self-service and easy opt-in. With more than 1 billion Apps downloaded from the iTunes App Store, there is a lot of inventory out there waiting for just such an easy in.

I recently authored an article in iMediaConnection entitled “Google’s Role in Finding Mobile’s Tipping Point” to consider the possibilities and potential of targeted advertising in mobile applications.  Have a look and let me know about your experience with mobile advertising as it exists today, and whether or not AdSense for Apps will be an inflection point in the growth of this channel.