The Week in Search & Social for November 2

• Google’s New Location Targeting For AdWords – Google just announced a revamped location targeting interface for AdWords. The improvements include an easier way to discover locations, a new “reach number” column to show the number of users seen on Google properties, and increased the location target limits from 300 to 10,000.
• Improved transparency and choice with ads on search and Gmail – Starting today Google is placing a “Why these ads?” link on Google search results and Gmail.  They make it hard to find, but users can now opt-out of personalized ads in Gmail and search.

Analytics

• Export in .pdf & email scheduling released in new version of GA : The long awaited features should reappear in the next week. Also note that the old version of GA will sunset in January of 2012 – so start getting used to the new version now.
• Awesome mobile analytics custom report in GA from Avinash: Links directly into GA reports, check it out for your own clients.

Link Development

• Five Ways to Check the Quality of a Link Directory
• The Ten Commandments of Link Building (Infographic) – This infographic outlines the main tenets of link building, including the need for deep links and varied anchor text, while steering clear from link buying.

Social Media

• Klout Upsets Users With Score Change – Klout, the site that gives users “scores” based off social media influence recently changed their algorithm, lowering scores significantly prompting a backlash from some heavy users.
• Google+ Adds New Features – Continuing to develop the social media platform, Google has added new features to G+ including a What’s Hot section, Ripples (a graphical representation of how posts spread, and advanced photo editing.

Local Search Engine Optimization

• Google Raises Local Search Stakes With New Places SERP – Google formally announced some changes in the presentation of local results on Google.com SERPs. The right rail has been turned into a rich display of Places information – this will virtually eliminate any right column ads “above the fold,” when the new SERPs appear.
• How To Find Local Influencers with Google+ – With a  few advanced search techniques, you can find influencers in your local area to reach out and connect with.

Conversion Optimization

• 5 Quick Conversion Optimization Tips for the Holiday Season – Make sure to A/B test offers, split test a holiday themed landing page versus generic, and test gift messaging on landing pages.

B2C

• How Much Money Will Americans Spend This Holiday Season? – Infographic from Mashable based on an October survey of 545 social media users. Interesting stats: 38% of people have already started to shop for the holidays, 34% plan to start their shopping on Black Friday and last year the average shopper spent $107.50 on themselves.

B2B

• New LinkedIn Lead System: What You Need to Know – LinkedIn has released a new feature that allows prospects who click on your LinkedIn Ads to request to be contacted by your company through LinkedIn.
• 5 Essential Features of a Marketing Automation Platform – With all of the new marketing automation vendors popping up, it can be difficult to find which one is the best fit. Read this list to make sure that the one you chose has essential features.
• 9 Tips to Reduce Cost per Lead – Overview of tactics for reducing the cost per lead of your B2B PPC campaigns, including geographic targeting and day-parting.

Web Design

• WebRTC – Real Time browser communication makes it to the w3c.
• Image Search Ranking – The main factors contributing to image search engine optimization.

Mobile

• Mobile devices will be key for holiday shopping this year – Nearly 53% of smartphone owner-respondents said they will use their phones in holiday shopping in some form (research products, purchase products, redeem coupons, etc.)
• The most valuable digital consumers [INFOGRAPHIC] – Nice set of infographics from Neilsen illustrating key statistics on social/local/mobile in the US.