Merging Google Places and Google+? The Semantic Web is Nigh.

Early reports and tests from my SEO collegues shows that Google+ buttons may outclip Twitter and Facebook sharing in search engine results pages – or as one collegue put it “SERP Control, Baby. SERP control.”

What was also announced by Google VP of Local and Commerce Jeff Huber earlier this week at Mike Blumenthal’s Blog is, yes, there will be Google+ Business Pages available soon. The conversation progressed to discussing Facebook’s gentle nudge to merge brand pages and Facebook places pages, which brings us to the Google product in question.

What is happening to Google Places during the launch of Google+? The answer: lots. A whole bowl of semantic, social, SERP control lots.

Google Places used to allow businesses to input all their own information, including custom fields, which could broaden their search footprint and (hopefully) deliver that location to potential customers looking for their product or service.

Google has changed the way Places work to a more aggregate semantic use of the web and provided a broader scope of services offered.

I used the example search “restaurants ann arbor” and clicked in the first listing: Zingerman’s Deli. (Which, if you haven’t had yet, you should. Tasty stuff.) Their Places page is partly what we have come to expect in 2011; the page aggregates reviews and information from other sites like Yelp, Trip Advisor and Zagat:

What is drastically different is how Google now handles details – or rather, the details provided by the business owner. Simply put, what was once the ubiquitous information for potential customers and for Google to determine search relevance, is now a footnote.

Hover a cursor over any of the details and Google will show the source of the information. A quick check shows that almost none of the information is provided by the business owner. It’s mostly 3rd party reviews and information. A pop-up allows viewers to click-thru to the source material:

We don’t need to speculate long why the change occurred; according to a Retail Online Integration study, 83% of people are influenced, if only a little, by reviews and information from real people. If peoples’ opinions and not sales pitches drive the whole web, of course Google would collect as many opinions as possible to give a richer and more useful experience.

Enter the semantic web: a confluence of aggregated content voted up or down by users constantly, wiki-esque, ever evolving and therefore harder (dare I say nearly impossible?) to game. Making Google Places more descriptive using mostly aggregate social content while also launching Google+, a social platform that is demonstrably affecting search results already in the beta stage, is just too coincidental.

Will there be integration between Google+ Business Pages and Google Places? Nearly simultaneous steps in both Google products may suggest a move to a more socially driven search engine experience and (possibly) more control given to the business again. As always, we are waiting for Google.

Solving Problems in Today's World

Last Sunday my garbage disposal stopped working. My sink started to back up, the disposal would just hum, then it stopped doing anything.

The Problem

"Here's something I've never had to try to fix", I commented to my wife as I crawled under the sink. Not knowing where to start, I disconnected the disposal from the sink and plumbing and pulled it up on the counter. I unclogged as much as I could, tried fruitlessly to disassemble it, and finally reinstalled it hoping my "unclogging" had worked. Unfortunately, it hadn't. The disposal was still dead.

Old School vs. New School

Luckily, there was a sticker on the disposal from the company who obviously installed it years ago, with a phone number to call for service. I got up to call the number, but then thought twice about it when I remembered some recent bad encounters I've had with non-referred contractors. Instead I grabbed my laptop with the intention of reaching out to Facebook friends for a plumbing referral. But before I did that, I jumped on YouTube and typed "fix garbage disposal". I watched the first video that appeared, and it easily explained a solution for my exact problem. One simple twist with an allen wrench and my garbage disposal was back in business.

 The Takeaway

We don’t use the Yellow Pages anymore. Why call someone blindly and hope (fingers crossed) to happen upon a reliable service provider, when it takes just a minute to get first-hand feedback from trusted friends on Facebook or Twitter? Better yet, why burn a couple hundred dollars on a service call when your solution is a Google search away? This is how your customers are finding the answer that your product or service solves. Are your past and current customers evangelizing your service to their online networks? Is your product showing up when someone searches Google or YouTube for a fix to their issue-of-the-day? You better be, because that’s where your customers AND competitors are hanging out.

Search Marketing: Evolve or DIE

If your digital marketing agency doesn't have it's finger on the pulse of the interwebs, your brand will always be the new kid in school. Kinda awkward, wearing clothes that were in fashion last year, still trying to get laughs by saying everything needs "more cowbell". Noooobody wants to be that guy. Do you think you'll get better results this year using last year's tactics? Your web marketing strategy needs to be fluid, ever-evolving and damn near perfect if you want to connect with your audience and convert them into customers.

A digital marketing agency that understands this will continually offer new services as those services develop, and discontinue tactics that won't bring MAXIMUM results. In case you haven't been following the news on planet Nerdtron, Microsoft's Bing is supposedly in talks with Facebook. The details are sketchy, but speculation from on high whispers that the two are trying to organize search results by Likeablity instead of Linkability. For digital marketing agencies that create pure awesomeness such as ourselves, this buzz is incredible.

For those thinking Google's search domination is indomitable, this news should be very sobering. The 8th immutable law of marketing states that in the long run, every market becomes a two horse race. In recent times it's often been pointed out that Google is the exception to this rule. Since as of this writing the GOOG is only 11 years old...I often wonder what long run means to these people. Regardless of the medium, the message is always the same: if you're running behind, you'll never be able to stop running. Plan accordingly people.