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Boogaloodude
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« on: January 27, 2010, 09:35:29 AM » |
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I post a lot on the Sitepoint forums (in fact I just got asked to become a 'mentor' on them, but despite that it's a bloody good forum) and there's a discussion going on at the moment about whether or not Google is actually trying to eliminate the need for people to go to websites at all.
In favour of this argument are the features Google have added in recent years: (cut and pasted from someone ele's post)
* Comparison shopping, no more need for Google to point you to a comparison shopping site if they can show you all the prices in the search result
* Local business listings, no more need for Google to point you to local business directories if they can show you the same scraped contact info and reviews in the search result
* Video search with the videos embedded in the search result pages, no need for Google to point you to the video sites themselves
* Real-time search results, no more need to go to Twitter to see what people are saying about real-time events when Google can show the tweets in the search result
* Definitions, no more need for Google to send you to dictionaries and encyclopedias when Google can make a whole page of the full definitions scraped from a dozen sites on its own
Against that is my view that there are many more reasons for having a website other than providing short bursts of info that can fit into snippets or content that can be crawled for a snippet answer, my average client needs a website to promote themselves and I can't see that need ever changing for example.
What do you guys think?
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www.ImgWebDesign.co.uk - Web site design, Buxton Derbyshire "Scientists have proof but no certainty, religions have certainty but no proof"
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Seo'ers - UK SEO, Internet Marketing and Webmaster Forums
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« on: January 27, 2010, 09:35:29 AM » |
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hawkwind dave
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« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2010, 10:50:15 AM » |
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when I read about Google starting to highlight answers in the results on the WebProNews article yesterday I thought a similar thing... no need to click into whatever page to find out anymore. I agree that the need for clients to have a website, however if their potential clients no longer need to click into the website for contact details, reviews, prices, etc... it's going to be even harder from our point of view. My clients are already seeing different results to me due to Google's localised and personalised search results... which isn't a bad thing. However if Google moves ever closer to the yellow pages (as in, a list of plumbers in XXXX town with contact details, etc) showing in the results, our client's traffic will drop. so what do google want? faster loading pages and RDFa mark up so it can display more accurate info in the results. this could mean that a tiny, text only website with nothing but "plumber, reading, tel 555 XXXXXX, 4stars rating." with Google friendly RDFa markup (a web business card in essence) will rank higher than a 5 page website with nice images of Bob's work that the likes of us have become proud to provide. Just a thought  |
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Matt Inertia
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« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2010, 05:28:10 PM » |
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hawkwind dave
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« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2010, 10:13:54 PM » |
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...more and more people use Google to find local businesses, services, answers etc. So you should still be able to improve traffic...
yeah but if people get the info they need (location, phone number, **** rating, etc.) from the serps themselves, no click through to the website means no traffic recorded, even tho somebody (you, me, whoever) has put in the time and effort to get to site on page one, to get info displaying as google wants, etc... and our clients ring up saying, "enquiries are up but traffic is down... what are you doing wrong?" "well yes I know your traffic is down but your enquiries are up because nobody needs to visit your site anymore because fecking google have thrown a massive spanner in the fecking works making click throughs a waste of time...blah blah" LOL, and this is me sober! I wonder how long it takes before the only way we can prove to our clients how good a job we're doing for them in google will be by using Google analytics... and then how long will that tool be free? GG may have been warm and cuddly once upon a time, but these days they're becoming yet another massive corporation, and will go on to act all er... corporationny... and er... corporate  |
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Matt Inertia
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« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2010, 11:25:12 PM » |
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"enquiries are up but traffic is down... what are you doing wrong?" Havent they answered their own question there? "I'm doing nothing wrong, your enquiries are up!" Mate, you seriously need to educate these clients (and maybe the sales team). I know where youre coming coz ive worked for an agency where the boss promises the wrong thing. You cant base progress on traffic or rankings. A client wont hang around if the phone isnt ringing or the orders arent coming in, no matter how much traffic the website's getting. Base progress on sales, ROI, enquiries, conversions etc. If you've got a company on to the top page with its contact details displayed and people contact them without even visiting the site, you've done the job required. How else was that going to happen without the client paying you? "well yes I know your traffic is down but your enquiries are up because nobody needs to visit your site anymore because fecking google have thrown a massive spanner in the fecking works making click throughs a waste of time...blah blah" And if they were getting loads of traffic but no enquiries would they be happy then? A local plumber might get 50 hits a month, get 10 enquiries from that and make 10K. Or you could do some link baity thing for his site about a plumber getting trapped in a boiler and get 50K social media hits, of which non turn in to enquiries for him. See my point? When you get a customer moaning, if you've done your job properly, you should be able to explain that to them and make them understand. BTW, you can setup Google Analytics to track phone calls using a specific site telephone number. Not tried it myself yet, but it might be worth checking out how to do this. |
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« Last Edit: January 27, 2010, 11:28:45 PM by Matt Inertia »
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Boogaloodude
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« Reply #5 on: January 28, 2010, 08:24:40 AM » |
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So you think this might actually be happening? Dave, Google have always been a corporate business and their primary goal has always been to make a profit so no change there. We don't have an inalienable right to make a living off google and so if they make changes that put us out of business or change the nature of the internet (which won't be for the first time let's face it and all the innovations they've made so far have been good) so what, it's their business and they can do what they want with it. Their primary concern is their own users, not us, we're just along for the ride. I guarantee you this though, whatever they do, they'll do it ethically.
BTW, you can setup Google Analytics to track phone calls using a specific site telephone number. Not tried it myself yet, but it might be worth checking out how to do this.
Cool! Didn't know about that but here's the page explaining how it works. |
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« Last Edit: January 28, 2010, 08:26:27 AM by Boogaloodude »
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www.ImgWebDesign.co.uk - Web site design, Buxton Derbyshire "Scientists have proof but no certainty, religions have certainty but no proof"
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Matt Inertia
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« Reply #6 on: January 28, 2010, 06:10:39 PM » |
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Cool! Didn't know about that but here's the page explaining how it works. Cool as fuck! Especially for the sort of businesses whose website is purely about getting someone to ring in. Seriously, Dave I think this could be a big help to the sort of clients you deal with. It came out in the US first, but when I was at Piranha with Caravan we had a look into it and it was expensive and tricky to setup here. I havent really looked at it since. |
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Boogaloodude
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« Reply #7 on: January 28, 2010, 06:20:28 PM » |
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Cool as fuck!
Isn't it, thanks for posting it. Don't know how I'm going to explain to clients that this came out last February and I didn't know about it till now.... oops. |
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www.ImgWebDesign.co.uk - Web site design, Buxton Derbyshire "Scientists have proof but no certainty, religions have certainty but no proof"
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Matt Inertia
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« Reply #8 on: January 28, 2010, 06:37:02 PM » |
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Isn't it, thanks for posting it. Don't know how I'm going to explain to clients that this came out last February and I didn't know about it till now.... oops. If and when you give it a go be sure to let us know how it went... |
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Seo'ers - UK SEO, Internet Marketing and Webmaster Forums
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« Reply #8 on: January 28, 2010, 06:37:02 PM » |
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hawkwind dave
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« Reply #9 on: January 28, 2010, 10:52:09 PM » |
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on a similar note, we have been considering giving our clients and 0845 (or similar) number as part of the package, so we can track their phone enquiries as well as their emails.
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MayaLocke
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« Reply #10 on: February 08, 2010, 03:06:07 PM » |
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I don't think Google is trying to stop you from visiting a website. I think its more likely they want to provide as much information as possible so it decreases the bounce rate.
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Matt Inertia
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« Reply #11 on: February 08, 2010, 03:41:12 PM » |
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Can someone get rid of this ass hat above?
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Boogaloodude
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« Reply #12 on: February 08, 2010, 04:46:52 PM » |
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Isn't their comment a valid point? We know that the desc can influence clicks throughs and maybe that's what they're doing rather than trying to remove the need to actually visit the site?
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www.ImgWebDesign.co.uk - Web site design, Buxton Derbyshire "Scientists have proof but no certainty, religions have certainty but no proof"
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Matt Inertia
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« Reply #13 on: February 08, 2010, 05:25:27 PM » |
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15 two liner posts, drops a sig and does one... I stick by my ass hat remark.
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Boogaloodude
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« Reply #14 on: February 08, 2010, 10:12:41 PM » |
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15 two liner posts, drops a sig and does one... I stick by my ass hat remark.
I wasn't aware of the other 14 posts at the time.... They did the same thing on Sitepoint too. In fact Mayalocke is a busy busy boy... |
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« Last Edit: February 08, 2010, 10:15:22 PM by Boogaloodude »
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www.ImgWebDesign.co.uk - Web site design, Buxton Derbyshire "Scientists have proof but no certainty, religions have certainty but no proof"
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March 18, 2007, 02:13:30 AM