Google and Bing revealed their integration to real-time search and social media by announcing their agreements with Twitter during the Web 2.0 Summit on October 21. Google is aiming to give a better real-time search experience by including real-time Twitter updates in their search results hence users will be able to learn what others are saying about what they’ve been searching for under the same roof. Consider you perform a search about “x brand of freezer”. You will not only see relevant search results but also public opinion about your topic that will give you quick and better understanding about your query.

On the other side, Bing didn’t go far beyond than developing a Bing Twitter search facility similar to the other Twitter search engines in the market. Bing’s new Twitter search feature is currently available in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Indonesia, Ireland, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Arabia, South Africa, and the United States. Those guys are aware of the power of real-time web and took their step in to the social media not later that Google.

All these changes are tangible success of social media. In terms of SEO, companies should socialize, use social media channels like Twitter, Facebook and keep an eye on what others tweet about themselves. I believe there is no better tool on the web that Twitter to monitor the real-time reputation of a company. Both Google and Bing index tweets and updates so it’s our job to explain our clients the importance of each comment and the consequences they might bring. Keep yourselves open to changes….

Last week, I read Michael Arrington’s interesting interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt on TechCrunch regarding the future of search. The questions were simple and cool. The answers were inspiring. I just can’t wait to read the rest of the interview.

So, what people on internet business would ask or tell to Eric Schmidt regarding Google and internet if they are given a chance to do so. If you have questions or anything to say, write them down here now.  I will bring all comments together and maybe we might get the answers of our common interview later.

First question is coming from me: What do you think about the future of SEO?

Come on, say your word.

According to comScore, 113 billion searches were conducted in July 2009 globally.

Google sites had 58 percent increase compared to last year and ranked as the leaders within search engines in global search market with 76.7 billion searches conducted and 67.5 percent market share. Google sites are followed by Yahoo sites with 8.9 billion searches and 7.8 percent market share. Yahoo had just 2 percent increase compared to last year and closely followed by Chinese search engine Baidu sites with 8 billion searches 7.0 percent share. Microsoft sites ranked forth worldwide with a 41 percent increase compared to last years data which seems promising for next year.

The overall July 2009 data represents a 41-percent increase versus July 2008 in global search market that is a positive indicator for future search marketing opportunities and e-business.

Last week, on 25th of June I went to Facebook and saw one of my friends flash post about Michael Jackson’s cardiac arrest. What a shock! As a fan of M.J. since I was a teenager, I felt so sad and hoped he was happy in his last minutes.

Anyway, I made a search and found out there were not many posts yet on the internet, especially in Google.com.tr news page. There was only one news about Michael Jackson’s death so I thought it is a good time to implement some tests on line.

I create a post on my Turkish bookmarking site Linkopedi and avoid using the main keyword for M.J. death “Michael Jackson öldü” and used synonyms instead. Next day, my post ranked #1 for “Michael Jackson vefat etti” term in Google.com.tr, which is another synonym of “Michael Jackson öldü”, although I never used that “exact match” in my post but used other synonyms instead. I guess if I have used both terms in my post and used the most common terms “Michael Jackson öldü” in my title, I would have traffic coming from the main keyword and synonyms.

After one day, I created another post with the main keyword and content but it did’nt get any traffic from search engines cause it was too late!

From this experience, I came up to the result that timing is very important for SEO. If you want to rank high for any upcoming event or news, make sure your website will feed search engines before other websites does. Secondly, using synonyms generates good traffic. Use your main keyword as the king but apply your synonyms whenever possible.

Rest in Peace Michael Jackson! I love you.

If you use Twitter as a tool in catching up with what’s going on in the world, probably you all experienced “have no clue” moments and it becomes a pain if you are planning to create content related with trending topics to drive high traffic to your website, you need to spend some time on finding out what they are all about.

I came accross to a website today which I found so useful for understanding why trend topics in Twitter are trendy. What the trend is giving user edited short blurbs of each trend topic in top 10 explaining why they are popular. It gives you a list of latest tweets about each popular topic plus related Google news and Flickr photos as well. Check it out and let me know what you you think.

I love Twitter and tweeting in Twitter. Some good things about Twitter are: you don’t need to be a celebrity or anything special to contact with people that you always wanted to, you just say your words to everyone all over the world and people pick you up if they think that you are like-minded or they have an interest in your topics, products etc. It keeps you up-to-date with any topic you choose, helps you extending your network .

Twitter recently added 2 new features to it’s structure. Twitter search and trending topics. Both are in my opinion a must-to-have and will keep more users online.

Twitter search is enabling users to search across global tweets from all around the world, build a fresh timeline of updates based on a keyword or phrase.

Users have the functionality to save their favourite search terms by pressing “save this search” button. Those search terms will be displayed as a link under their search box so they only need to click on the link to execute results.

Another new feature is Trending Topics which displays real-time top-ten tweet topics.  giving an insight to what people are searching for. Very helpful if you are looking forward to catch-up with real-time trends. Current top trends while I am writing this post is “Happy May Day” and “Swine Flu”.

Wash your hand often, see a doctor if you feel like you have any syptoms and have a very happy May Day!

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on Search
• Google Custom Search Cuts uTorrent Off | TorrentFreak
• Proximity search in Google and Live? « Jon Udell
• Japanese Search Engines – Yahoo! Japan « AltSearchEngines
• Visualization and search – elearnspace
• Slow News Day: GMail Gets Search and Twitter is a Triumph of …

• Related Blogs on Trends
• Analysis of emerging trends affecting the use of technology in …
• Search Box and Trends Appear on Twitter « Screenwerk
• Google releases experimental flu trends data for Mexico [Gizmos …

• Related Blogs on Twitter
• The Mudflats » Major Announcement! Sarah Palin is on Twitter!
• Apple and Twitter in Slick Reciprocal PR « Screenwerk

If you have a website or blog, I know that you want to drive big traffic and bring leads, generate some ad revenue or just increase your Page Rank and websites’ value.

One way to drive traffic to your website is following trends and generating posts related with search phrases. There are several ways you can monitor real-time (delays are always possible) search trends such as Google Trends, Twitter and Yahoo Buzz.

Google Trends

Google trends give you approximate popular search patterns. You can see a list of most searched 100 queries. It gives search volume index for each pattern, news articles, blog posts, related searches, peak times and locations. I believe it gives great insight for popular search trends as majority of people use Google for search.

Trend topics by Twitter

Twitter is a “a real-time short messaging service” and has recently added search and trend topics features to users homepages. It gives top-ten popular tweet topics and a great global insight as they say:

“As public tweets fly in from around the globe, we analyze them to detect when certain words or phrases occur with higher frequency. These trending phrases are surfaced in the Twitter home page just under the new search box and they’re updated throughout the day.”

Yahoo Buzz

Yahoo Buzz analysis most popular search terms in Yahoo then it displays popular buzzed up stories on those topics based on activities like voting, commenting, and emailing stories to friends. Popular stories may be published on the Yahoo home page which means a lot of traffic for your website. You can monitor top search terms updated hourly in Yahoo Buzz and give direction to your content.

If you have a niche blog or website, I recommend you to take a look at search trends and pick up the topics related with your niche to create new content for highly targetted traffic.

What is your opinion on driving high traffic to websites?

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on Google

• Related Blogs on Search
• Google Custom Search Cuts uTorrent Off | TorrentFreak
• Proximity search in Google and Live? « Jon Udell
• Japanese Search Engines – Yahoo! Japan « AltSearchEngines
• Visualization and search – elearnspace
• Slow News Day: GMail Gets Search and Twitter is a Triumph of …

• Related Blogs on Trends
• Analysis of emerging trends affecting the use of technology in …
• Search Box and Trends Appear on Twitter « Screenwerk
• Google releases experimental flu trends data for Mexico [Gizmos …

• Related Blogs on Twitter
• The Mudflats » Major Announcement! Sarah Palin is on Twitter!
• Apple and Twitter in Slick Reciprocal PR « Screenwerk

• Related Blogs on Yahoo
• Japanese Search Engines – Yahoo! Japan « AltSearchEngines

Google has created experimental flu trends for Mexico after the Swine Flu outbreak.

The data in Mexico flu trends represents aggregated search data but has not been validated against confirmed cases of flu unlike Google Flu Trends for U.S.

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on Google

Search Engine Strategies 2009 New York is taking place between 23-27 March 2009. Each year Chief Marketing Officers, Search Engine Marketers (SEMs), Search Engine Optimizers (SEO), Pay Per Click Managers (PPC), Webmasters, Internet and Digital Marketing Specialists, Media Planners, Buyers and Corporate Decision Makers attend SES New York to learn new trends,  topics and strategies rising in the market in order to keep up-to-date and be one step forward from their competitors.

In it’s 10th year,  some topics covered in SES New York are how search engines rank websites and how you should optimize to out-rank your competitors, methods of link building, how to increase traffic via organic listings, avoiding spam and search engine guidelines, fine-tuning Pay Per Click campaigns and improving conversion rates, user experience, tracking analytics vie free or paid tools…

Here watch views of Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz, on the future of SEO in 2009, importance of link building and social search.

For those who can’t attend these digital marketing shows, go to WebmasterRadio.FM. They are live-streaming highlights of the show as the official online radio/podcast network of SESNY09.