This document summarizes search engine trends from 1994 to 2012 and provides recommendations for health care companies. It discusses how search engines have evolved from focusing on keywords to personalization based on search history and location. It also describes how search results now include knowledge graphs, social media integration and direct answers. The document recommends that companies target their audience through language and location, create quality content using customer terms, and optimize for mobile as people increasingly search on phones.

1. Being Found
Online Today
&
Predictions for
Tomorrow
July 16, 2012

2. Today’s Mental Journey:
• Why search & social matter, and are important for health care
companies.
• A little search engine history.
• Discuss how search engines and search activity have significantly
changed over the years.
• Focus on where search and social is now, and how that impacts how
consumers are finding your information online & via their mobile
phone.
Key takeaway: Know your audience
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3. Consumers Rely on Search Engines
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4. Doctors Demand Mobile
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5. The Most Important Transition
From Keywords Entities and Connections
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Cartoon on left by Peter Steiner © 2012

6. Quick Search
Engine History
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7. Search Engines - 1994
• Built on a thesis sharing system.
• Keywords and labeling mattered.
• Search engines needed links to find
and crawl your site.
• You needed in-bound links to get the
few people online to find your site.
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8. Search Engines – 1996-2007
• Introduction of PageRank, some links
matter more than others.
• Introduce verticals:
- Google News (2002)
- Book search (2004)
- Scholar (2004)
- Blog search (2005)
- Google base (2005)
- Google video (2006)
• Combine the verticals together with
Universal search (2007).
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9. Search Results – 2008-2011
• Search Results become
Personalized (2008).
• Matt Cutts (head of Web Spam
at Google) states that
“rankings are dead.”
- Behavior Intent
- Universal Search
- Geographic location
- Previous Search History
• Google announces that it makes
a change a day (2009).
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Photo © Copyright 2012 Search Engine Journal

10. Search Results – Personalized in 2012
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11. Facebook “Like” Buttons REALLY
Do Increase Traffic
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12. Search Results Today
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13. Google Search – 2012
Knowledge Graph
Images from Google+
Paid Ads
My brother
Geo Local results
All personalized to me.
Direct answers are now
displayed in search.
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14. Google – Powered by Your Google Data
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15. Bing Search - 2012
• Similar to Google, but has interesting Facebook and Twitter
integration features.
• You can ask your friends questions directly from search.
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16. Bing – Powered by Your Microsoft Data
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17. Recent Google Algorithm Changes
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18. Being Real & Relevant Online
• Build traffic to your website or social profile by creating quality
content that speaks to your target audience (by using their words),
and building links that are natural.
• Panda Update
• Removed low quality content from the search engine. Based on
algorithmic learning from human raters.
• Penguin Update
• Removed sites with links pointing to them from low value sites, or
from sketchy domains. Any links that looked “weird.”
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19. Human Intelligence and Review
There are real life people that review and evaluate search results!
A sampling of the questions that they are paid to answer:
1. Does the page provide substantial value when compared to
other pages in search results?
2. For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
3. Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend,
or recommend?
4. Would users complain when they see pages from this site?
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20. Target Your Audience by Language
US Search
UK Search
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21. New Google Language and Country Coding
New href=Lang Tag
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22. Search Engines Know You
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23. Google’s Knowledge Graph
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24. Google Health Searches
Rolled out in Feb 2012:
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25. Schema.org
What is it?
Enhanced code in the html that creates richer snippets in search.
Supported by all search engines.
Increases rank and click through.
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26. Schema Updates – Health and Medical
The proposed new schema markup focused on “surfacing the existence
of and relationships between entities described in content”:
• MedicalCondition
• Drug
• MedicalGuidelines
• MedicalWebPage
• MEdicalScholarlyArticle
To learn more: www.schema.org
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27. Mobile Intelligence
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28. Mobile App vs Mobile Landing Page
• 4.5 listings in search
results screen.
• Top rankings driven by:
- Daily usage
- Overall downloads
- Reviews
- Likes
• Users have to download
app to see information.
• Only 5% of users keep an
app after the first month.
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29. Page Load Speed
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30. Google Now – Serving You Info
without Searching
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31. Two Parting Thoughts….
1. Know your Customer
• Use their language.
• Have them test your message.
• Create search personas and measure against assumptions.
• Provide online information they want to share.
2. Be Mobile
• Do keyword research to find your mobile customer.
• Mobilize your online properties.
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32. Additional Reading….
Ketchum Resources:
• http://blog.ketchum.com/author/katherinewatier/
• Ketchum’s Digital Living Index: http://www.digitallivingpr.com/
• From Health.Ketchum.com:
- FDA’s New Social media Guidelines - How do I handle unsolicited
inquires for off-label use?
- Is Your Web Domain in Order for Responding to Unsolicited
Requests?
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33. Contact
Katherine Watier
Ketchum
202-729-8355
@kwatier
www.linkedin.com/in/katherinewatier
gplus.to/katherinewatier
Katherine.watier@ketchum.com
www.ketchum.com