At the end of October, Google launched their latest attempt to crack the SME market, Google Boost. In recent times Google has dedicated a lot of resource to gaining more of a foothold as a small business marketing channel. The Google Reseller scheme, Jumpstart, GBBO and Google Adwords Vouchers have all been aimed at getting more small businesses using Adwords and their efforts have often seemed confused and convoluted as I have documented in the past. So is Google Boost going to be the answer they are looking for?

The Lowdown

So what is Google Boost all about? Is it the answer to the SME prayers?
Google Boost ads are basically paid search listings linked to a Google Places with management automated and simplified. These ads appear, as normal paid search listings, on Google.com (and variations) and Google maps in the sponsored links sections.

Google Boost Example

The SME provides a description of their business, which is used as the ad copy, selects the category and sub category their business falls in to, picks a budget, and away they go! The business location is pulled from the Google Places information and Google takes care of the rest. Google selects the most appropriate keywords for your advert to appear on, manage your bid prices, your daily settings and the SME sits back and waits for the business to roll in.

What problem is this solving?

Google is making serious in roads into local search at present and Google Boost forms part of this attack. It appears from the outside that there is a clear focus on local search internally at Google, so to them, this provides the ideal solution for further monetising both local search, and Google Maps.

But what about the SME?

Google Boost is a stripped back, simplified version of Adwords with a local twist, so Google is obviously hoping its simplicity and local targeting will make it appeal to the SME.

Does this fit the SME need?

In my opinion, no. I’ve worked extensively in the SME search market in the UK and simplicity and leaving it all to somebody else, are on the whole, way down the list when it comes to priorities around paid search. Most SMEs want to know where and when their ads are going to be appearing, and are less than pleased if they can’t see them. With Google Boost they are reliant on software to choose their keywords and on Google for their ad-scheduling, a significant lack of control from the SME perspective.

They are also not going to get the support they need should something go wrong with Google Boost or if they just have a question. It is a core SME need to know they can pick up the phone, or send in an email, and they will receive response and support for the service they have purchased and with Google Boost they won’t get this.

So what is it good for?

I’ve no doubt that in the US, where local search is more prevalent, and Boost is currently in beta, they will get some level of take up. High ticket value services with local appeal such as solicitors, dentists and vets ill probably see quite high take up (solicitors is one of the key markets in US SME search) but it isn’t going to be any sort of magic bullet and will probably just take up some slack from their cancelled reseller programme. Many, more developed markets will see Boost as unnecessary and too basic for their needs. And in the UK (despite recent attempts to force maps into the results) local results are not as relevant and generally accurate enough to be useful. Where they are, the advertisers available will be limited to the point it won’t reach the penetration Google will need to keep it running.

So what next?

I predict Google Boost will make it out of beta n the US, with reasonable success, but fail to reach penetration in the UK and Europe without a major SERP shake up. Then Google will be back to the drawing board trying to find their next product to take over the SME world.

They claim it is the evolution of communication, the best bits from email and microblogging, “an unbelievable, powerful demonstration of what is possible in the browser”. The world of twitter was abuzz with talk of invites, delays and initial reactions. But is Google Wave going to live up to the initial hype and revolutionise Internet collaboration and communication? Lets look at the good points and the draw backs:

Whats Good about Google Wave?

I have only played around with it a little, but here is what I would say are the good points:

• Collaborative Group Communication:  Very useful for collaborative group work.  The ability to invite people to conversations, drop in files, links, maps and gadgets, all make for a useful conversation tool.
• More flexible than messenger: Remains available once you close your browser, can easily drag and drop files, links and users.
• More Real Time Than Email: Pretty cool to be able to see people typing in a conversation in real time.  But more than cool it is actually useful.  Also in comparison to group emails this is a much more efficient way of communication as you have a real time dialogue and aren’t waiting for responses.
• More Privacy Than Twitter: Only those invited see the conversation, therefore has the conversational feel without the mass broadcast of information.

Why Won’t Google Wave Take Off?

• Who’s Using It?: OK so a short term one until uptake and invites grow, but not everyone has access to Google Wave, which limits its usage.
• Do We Need Another Tool?: Ive noticed already that very few people who I have a connection with who are on wave are ever logged in.  Twitter, Messenger, Facebook, Email, Yammer, do we need, or have we got time for, another tool?
• What Do We Use It For?: Nobody I have spoken to seems to have a solid use for it.  Yes, collaborative working, but not everyone had an invite, or stays logged in enough to collaborate!
• Its Not Different Enough: This is going to be the key.  It doesn’t do anything I cant get done through another tool.  OK so it might be smoother and cooler, but it doesn’t have a significant advantage which would want to make me change.

What do you think of Google Wave?  Will it take off or wipe out?

Heres oneof the better videos I have seen about its uses, one which covers the main features and one where somebody got a bit creative with it, enjoy.

Ive seen some matching errors in my time in search engine marketing. It used to be one of the best sales tools, and still is in a less obvious way, to take screenshots in advance of a pitch, or sales meeting, of a prospects PPC ads appearing on keywords which are unrelated to their product or service.

But if there is one company you would expect to be able to understand and control their matching system, it would be Google themselves. But apparently not! A search I performed on Google recently for the phrase “marketing jobs” brought up a PPCad for Google Adwords. At first I didn’t realise what had happened, but then it clicked, and a search on the single word phrase “marketing” brought up the Google ad also. Google are broad matching and haven’t included the term jobs as a negative keyword!

Now you argue that they don’t really need to as they wont be paying for the clicks anyway, but surely they should be practicing what they preach!?!

And while I am at it, the ad text isn’t to impressive either. Disappointing effort Google, shame on you!

…..or at least its search box does. as announced on the Official Google Blog yesterday Google is increases the size of its search box, and also the text font of your search query and its own search suggestions. A slightly strange thing to do given there ws little wrong with it in the first place, so what could be the reasons for doing this?

• Aesthetics – It could be a purely aesthetic change.  Anybody involved in web design (or any other form of design for that matter) knows how picky designers can be.  So it could just be that Google’s design team got together and decided that it looked a lot better a font size up.
• The Bing effect - Lets face it the Google homepage (unless you are using iGoogle) is pretty bland.  This has been made even more apparent by the Bing design and the user love for the daily background image.  Is this the start of a Google move to combat this?
• Search Suggestion Focus – Although Google have increase the size of the whole box, and search font and the search suggestions font, it could be the latter which is the driving force behind the move.  Google could be looking to place more emphasis, and promote the use of, its suggested search queries.  In theory the more these are used, the more accurate they should become (if Google is doing the smart thing and tracking their usage).  The more accurate they become the more useful for Google users, so perhaps this move is aimed at emphasising them more.

Before and after image below (click for larger image), any other reasons they could be doing this?

Google have enhanced their image search functionality this week with the inclusion of a colour selection option which filters the image search results based on the colour you select.  It should be a useful little enhancement for filtering the results displayed in Google image search as it will enable you to source images which fit the colour scheme of a particular document.  These are the sort of enhancements which I believe we will see more of in the fight for search engine supremacy (if anyone decides to put up a real fight anytime soon!).  Every major player should have the basis of a solid search algortihm nailed down by now, but an algorithm is only ever going to be so accurate, it can only work on the data inputted.  By allowing the user to refine the results which are displayed you are removing the need for that element of complexity in the algorithm and putting the control in the hands of the user, allowing them to build their own, bespoke results to their particular needs.