Google claims to be the ultimate online entity, offering free software and tools, but it all comes at a cost to the consumer.

In today’s age of social media, search engine optimisation & search engine marketing, there is a misconception that anyone can do it.

If you know how to edit some meta tags, insert alt tags in images and stuff your content full of relevant keywords you can carry out SEO on your website.

If you create a group for your company on Facebook and get 50 members, you are a Social Media expert.

If you can setup your own PPC account in Google AdWords and broadcast your ads to the nation, then you earn the title of Search Engine Marketing Manager.

The truth is that this is all a misconception. Because there is so much information floating around about SEM, SEO, PPC and the like, both bad and good it is difficult for anyone to know if they are really doing a good job or not. I can say for a fact that a lot of people are doing a bad job, and Google is not helping in this area because all they are thinking about is their revenue stream.

99% of Google’s revenue comes from Google AdWords. Without this revenue stream Google wouldn’t exist as it does today.

As a specialist in this field it upsets and frustrates me that Google project the misconception to it’s AdWords advertisers that anyone can open and successfully run their own account. Of course, it is possible to open and start a new account quite easily, just as it is possible to do SEO on your website with a few META tag adjustments and keyword placements… not.

With basic help on how to run your own AdWords campaign, Google makes it look easy for the average person to run a successful campaign.

When you think about it, Google is the next Microsoft. Microsoft make it easy for anyone to open a new spreadsheet, word document or powerpoint presentation. While this is great, it doesn’t mean that you are an expert in any of these programs, it just means that you can spend a lot of money on a program in which you are going to use maybe 5% of it’s total features.

This applies equally to Google AdWords. AdWords is a fantastic platform and offers advanced analytics and adjustments to the ads run on this platform. The average user will use 5% of AdWords capabilities. A specialist in the field will use 90%+, giving their client maximum Return On Investment (ROI) and maximum benefit through Google AdWords.

Just because you can open and appear to run your own account in Google AdWords, doesn’t mean that you are not flushing your money down the toilet in overpriced keyword bids and under-optimised account setup. The basic user will lose out big time with their 5% knowledge and 95% ad spend. Don’t be fooled into thinking your are an expert just because you know the basics.

Remember that AdWords amateurs spend 95% of their money as they only use 5% of the programs features. Professionals use 95% of AdWords features, while spending only 5% of their money.

After some Family time-off, we are back with the launch of the Hong Kong Jewish Community Centre Website and Social Media Marketing campaign for Hiking Hong Kong.

Hiking Hong Kong recently embarked on a Social Media Marketing campaign to increase their Facebook Fan numbers and to make their website more interactive. Fan numbers increased dramatically from about 200 to now almost 1000 fans in just one month. This was achieved by creating Facebook Ads creating brand awareness and by placing Facebook Social Network Plugins on their website. Hiking Hong Kong went to town by engaging in multiple social networks including Bebo, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg, Flikr, Picasa, LinkedIn, orkut, Squidoo and Twitter. The launch of their new blog and live pollution and weather updates have increased visitor number to the point of exceeding their bandwidth limits for the month of November 2010.

The Hong Kong Jewish Community Centre have also launched their new website complete with News page and Google Calendar integration.

Hong Kong Jewish Community Centre Website

We look forward to interesting new projects in the year ahead: 2011.

Google have added a new feature to their advanced search which allows you to select the reading level of the articles that you would like returned. From a searchers perspective this is an advantage for those seeking higher quality articles or websites.

From a webmasters perspective this can be a very useful tool in determining the reading level of your own content. You will want to and perhaps expect to have a more basic level for social sites where user/member interaction with the website is encouraged (except perhaps in niche situations).

Take for example Hiking Hong Kong, which reviews hiking trails in Hong Kong for the average outdoor enthusiast. As the webmaster for this site, I would expect to see a basic reading level for a good portion of the website, with some intermediate content for some of the more technical articles. When performing a site search in Google we can see exactly what Google thinks of our content:

Google Reading Level Site Search

Thankfully this is exactly the result that we get in return. As for our website Semtek on the other hand I would expect to see more of an intermediate reading level as we attempt to ‘dumb down’ some of the more technical SEM information so that our clients can actually understand what we are talking about.

Google Site Search Intermediate Reading Level

Which again is exactly what we can see. This information can also be very useful in determining where Google places you against your competitors.

A specific search on “search engine optimisation”, being a technical subject will more than likely return higher reading level results at a higher position in search engine results listings. This would be true for other specific technical subjects.

Doing a search on “search engine optimisation” (or any other subject) in Google will also show reading levels of websites for that query as well as the reading level below each result returned.

Google Search Website Reading Levels

On this specific query, it is not until page two that we see some basic reading level websites appearing in the search results. It must be noted however, that Google being Google, will still return results that it thinks are the most relevant to users overall – that is taking into account many other features of a website to determine it’s relevance in search engine results listings.

As with SEO, there is not one solution to get you ranked in first position on Google, there are literally hundreds that when added together, create that one solution. In this example however we see that Google is becoming more open with the ranking techniques, something which will surely follow in the other top search engines as time passes if they want to have any chance at competing with Google.

For a long time Google Search had restricted search results to only two listed URL’s per domain. Usually the homepage will be listed first, and one other most relevant page listed also depending on its relevancy to the user’s query.

That has finally changed back to (and better) the way that it used to be. Now, if any domain shows significant value over other websites, up to four different URL’s will be displayed along with an option to display even more results so that users may get to the exact page that they want in one click.

For example, lets take hiking in Hong Kong. If we search for the term, “Discovery Bay hiking”, we are given three highly relevant results from the website Hiking Hong Kong, with the option to display further results.

Hiking Hong Kong relevant result listings.

Showing more results from this domain, results in another 5 relevant results being displayed, with a further option to show all results from the domain, should you agree with Google’s observation that this domain is the most relevant against all other domains.

Show more results for Hiking Hong Kong.

I have personally felt that the two URL listing was inadequate as it limited relevant results from being displayed for specific queries. If one website, such as Hiking Hong Kong in this example can display up to eight relevant results with the option of displaying all results, then surely this is more user friendly and gets visitors to where they want to be, quicker.

So providing that you can make your domain appear to be (or actually be) the most relevant amongst your competitors, then you have a really good chance at dominating the organic search results and taking in the most referrals from any one relevant search query.

Well done Bing! Before long Bing will be the second most popular search engine behind Google, however use is sure to drop off once the excitement has dissipated.

I could see Bing getting up to a potential 20% (blatant guess) market share, perhaps until dropping down and settling at around 16-18%. Current Bing just passes 10% market share.

Bing, Microsofts new search platform, with is visually appealing home page has some hope to give in competing with Google, however with Google’s advances and investment in search it is unlikely that Bing will make that much of a dent, considering Microsoft’s previous search efforts.

Google Fast Flip is a Google Labs application/style of search that is currently in testing mode. Read more about Google Fast Flip in this article by Greg Sterling.

Google Fast Flip lets you browse news articles and the like as if you are browsing through a newspaper. This visual representation makes it quick and easy to look over different articles, without actually having to check out each one until you find what you really want.

It adds a new dimension to search that is very welcome.

With mobile communications advancing at the rate they are, it is likely that we will see more and more websites adapting to mobile formats as well as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising catering for this market also.

Mobile advertising is poised to grow 74 percent this year to $913.5 million. It’s then predicted to accelerate in 2011 and then reach $13 billion in 2013.

Mobile Search 101 by Ron Jones at Search Engine Watch explains where we are with mobile phone technology and where we are likely to go in the future.

Linda Evans from Search Engine Watch explains the important link between search and social media and why you should not be afraid of social media – particularly of social media being beyond your control.

Social media is becoming the corner stone of the web, evolving every day and challenging the search engines at their own game.

People no longer only use search engines to find products and services. They listen to Twitter, browse Facebook, check out online reviews and surf on their mobile phones.

Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz explains how the long tail works and why it is so important to target the long tail in this video below:

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Ignore the Tail at Your Peril! from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

The long tail can be applied to both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) management alike.

I have seen many clients and SEO/PPC agencies alike who target the “fat head” and/or “chunky middle” (see the video for an explanation), even sometimes just the “fat head” – but they do not consider or even recognize the long tail.

As Rand explains, up to 75% of all traffic can come from the long tail. Therefore if you are only targeting the “fat head” and/or “chunky middle”, you are missing out on most of the traffic that could be coming to your website, and the most relevant traffic at that!

Hitwise data for January 2009 shows that Google continue their upwards trend to grab most of the searches carried out in the US. Google are now grabbing 72.09% of all searches in the US which is up 9% over the previous year.

Yahoo have lost 15%, MSN have lost 21% and Ask has also lost 21% over last year.

Searchers are also now using longer search queries when searching for what they want on the web. What does this mean? This means that the average searcher now knows (better) how to use a search engine to find the results that he/she is searching for.

Longer search queries are becoming more popular as year over year increases (and decreases) show just that.

• 1 word search queries have dropped by 3%
• 2 word search queries have dropped by 5%
• 3 word search queries have remained stable
• 4 word search queries have increased by 2%
• 5 word search queries have increased by 6%
• 6 word search queries have increased by 8%
• 7 word search queries have increased by 12%
• 8 word search queries have increased by 22%

This means that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) management have become a lot more difficult as search queries become longer and therefore more varied.

Paid advertising using keyword targeting will become more difficult as accounts become larger due to increased keyword numbers. As keyword phrases become more targeted, so too must paid advertising campaigns such as Google AdWords, in order to maximise quality score, reduce Cost Per Click (CPC), and thereby increase Return On Investment (ROI).