The reason why this was implemented and that page speed matters is that according to studies delays in loading have a significant impact in your business metrics. It is a known fact users respond negatively towards slower loading pages. Google is trying to limit the impact on search behavior which isn’t such a bad idea.

Googler, Amit Singhal says: “When we slow our own users down, we see less engagement”. “Users love fast sites. A faster web is a good thing all around.”

Although Google’s algorithm has over 200 different ranking factors, quality should still be the first and formost concern for website owners. Page speed is in place now as a ranking factor and has been for a couple weeks. If your site was going to be impacted, it probably would’ve happened already.

The benefit of this is being able to reach consumers, throughout the Google content network who came to an advertiser’s website but didn’t transact. Google explains how it works:

Let’s say you’re a basketball team with tickets that you want to sell. You can put a piece of code on the tickets page of your website, which will let you later show relevant ticket ads (such as last minute discounts) to everyone who has visited that page, as they subsequently browse sites in the Google Content Network. In addition to your own site, you can also remarket to users who visited your YouTube brand channel or clicked your YouTube homepage ad.

You can also run a number of remarketing campaigns at the same time. For example, you could offer discount game tickets to users who’ve previously visited your tickets page, advertise VIP hospitality packages to users who clicked on your “How to get to the arena” page, and advertise a sale on team merchandise to users who previously visited your YouTube brand channel.

Google believes Remarketing should entice more local and small businesses — which make up a huge chunk of Google’s search advertising based — to try more display campaigns.

However, what’s most interesting is that internet advertising actually increased 7.3% in 2009. Now it does not surprise me that this is the case because Internet advertising is one of the best avenues to get the word out. It is highly trackable, and you have the ability to narrow down exactly who you want to advertise to. Unlike most avenues where it is extremely difficult to determine the effectiveness of your ads, internet advertising can pinpoint ROI unlike any other sector.

One of the least surprising findings was that print media was hit hard, with ad spending in the Newspaper sector plummeting by 19.7% in 2009.

Here is a breakdown of the change in ad spending.

What does that mean for Twitter which has deals with both search giants to let them index their content and serve them up in their results?  Only time can tell but for the moment it isn’t looking good. Google apparently invested $15 million and Bing added another $10 million to produce these results. What is the return on investment for that? Apparently it’s not more eyeballs.

Here is a image map of the eye tracking study:

It’s looking more and more likely Google – and Bing – will need to have a rethink about how results are presented. Until then consumers will continue to ignore and get thier updates from Facebook and Twitter accounts!!

But what is the next big trend? Apparently you’re only as good as your ability to make educated guesses and a recent video posted by Trend Watching proves this theory.

So what is the next big trend in online marketing?