Tell your clients about Web History

If you provide an SEO service you really need to let your clients know about Personalised Search and Web History. This post is for mine.

Personalised Search has now officially been launched by Google and from now on when you search for something the results that YOU see will begin to rank the websites you ‘usually’ click on higher than they ranked before.

This means you may see your own website ranking higher for more and more search terms. Or it could be your competitors website. It’s important to remember that what you see is not necessarily what your target market will see.

Web History controls personalised search results. Previously, web history was something that you could opt in or out of only when logged into your Google account. Now, web history is enabled by default whether you are logged into your Google account or not.

You can disable Web History. See: How to Sign out of Web History

The affect that personalised search will have on visits to your website remains to be seen. I will be monitoring that for my own clients and where necessary suggesting a change to the current strategy.

Food for thought:

1. Personalised search means different search results for everyone
2. Don’t let your Internet Marketing/SEO provider fool you into thinking your ranks are better than they actually are
3. Existing customers will also likely see you ranking higher too, therefore more likely to click you again when searching for your product.
4. Equally, your competitors existing customers will probably see their current provider ranking higher – even if you usually hold the #1 spot!
5. The snippet of information that displays on the search engine results pages are even more important – include a good call to action that is more enticing than the others that rank around you.
6. Keep your existing customers interested and visiting your website. Even it it’s just to read an announcement or informative article (but be careful not to annoy them with useless/boring/irrelevant emails!).
7. If you aren’t using other forms of marketing to retain customers or attract new business you really need to consider it: Email newsletters, advertise on external relevant websites, communicate on relevant forums, PPC campaigns*

*Will clicks on PPC ads affect personalised search results? I don’t know, but it is worth monitoring.