Universal Search Optimization | Seo Algorithm Solutions

- Rand Fishkin The Wizard of Moz, SEOmoz

VIDEO

d n a e l b i s s e cc a t n e t n o c r al n r e t n i “Make you d o o gg n i r u s n e y b s, e l optimized t i t e u q i n u s, e r u t c u r t s g linkin ing d n u o r r u s d n a s n o i t p i r c s an d de l i u b n a c u o y f I . t n e t n o t c i f f a r text co t r u yo r o f r e g g i r t r a f e emotional v a h l l ' you , t n e t n o c e share th s.” s e c c u s e r o m

Video results are constantly gaining visibility in search results, so making sure video content is optimized is becoming more important for top rankings. Some tips for video optimization include: "Adding vid • Titling a video file with target keywords. eo to your search engine opt imization s • Submitting one video to multiple video sharing websites. trategy is one of the (YouTube, Video Jug, Vimeo, etc.) easiest way s websites have to pe n etrate diffic • Keyword-centric tagging. ult search terms. Putt ing out a sh • Link building with keyword focused anchor text pointing to your video. ort "how to or "instruct " ional" vide o around • Building a video site map and submitting it to Google Webmaster Tools. your top keyw ord terms c you get int an help o or get a s econdary listing for y our websit e."

NEWS

GO LOCAL

News results and the most recent press releases for a company or subject will definitely begin to show up more frequently on the first page of search results. A few tips to get your company news results in Universal Search:

Being listed in Google Maps and Google Local has quickly surpassed the importance of being in the yellow pages. Make sure your business shows up when someone searches your business name and keywords related to your business. • Establish a business address in the city where you want your site to rank. • Join a local Chamber of Commerce and request a link from its site. Do a search for your target city, like “City, State.” Get links from the top pages associated with your target city. • Link to your Google listing from your site using your target anchor text.

• Send out your press releases on a regular cycle. • Include target keywords in the title of your release and throughout its copy. • Use PRWeb and other top press release submission sites for online distribution.

UNIVERSAL SEARCH OPTIMIZATION

• Include localized anchor text in your link building efforts. • Include keyword terms in your business description. • Have loyal customers publish reviews about your business on your Google Local listing.

“Google likes revie ws. And Belkin showed the y can be had for as little as 65 c ents. Encourage custom ers to review your products & s ervices publicly to boost r ankings and provide social pro of of value.” - Aaron Wall Author, SEOBook.com

IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT CONTENT ANYMORE! Get ready SEOs... in 2009, it's not all about search engine webpage rankings

anymore! According to Google, they will officially be launching their Universal Search model in early 2009 to make users' search experience as simple and straightforward as possible.

So what does that mean for the SEO world? The search game is not all about ranking #1 in the results anymore. Considering that there could be 2 videos, a series of images, and a map of local businesses ABOVE your top (SERP) webpage ranking, it's time to turn those optimization efforts to new fields.

As Google incorporates Universal Search into its results in

r o f e u l a v t s e the b s i e s a B e l g o “Go year, r e t f a r a e Y . r aile an online ret es to u n i t n o c e s a of B e r u s o p x e e h t e to u n i t n o c s e l a s increase and tion i t e p m o c a e it increase desp oom b n a c s s e n i s p u t increase. Bu e s s i d e e f fter a a y l k c i u q y t s." t e g pre n a h c d n a If a company or website offers any type of product tests w e f a y l n o with for sale - shoes, car parts, even podcasts - they will be showing up more frequently in related search results. Want your products to show up in front of online customers? Here are some things to do to make that happen.

PRODUCTS

• Create an optimized data feed - don't be skimpy on the details and number of custom fields. • Include keywords in the title and description of your product. INTERNET MARKETING 2009 : UNIVERSAL SEARCH OPTIMIZATION

CUSTOMIZED INTERNET MARKETING STRATEGIES ©2009 PROSPECTMX, LLC

• Model your feed after a ranking competitor, but improve upon it by applying SEO best practices. • Refresh / update your product feed at least 3 times a week. Daily if possible.

• Anchor text target keywords in the press release to your site and other sources. • Include keyword-centric alt tags with any submitted images.

IMAGES

2009, all types of web content will begin to appear on page one - not just web pages. Before you know it, whitepapers, images, news stories, products, and videos will permanently infiltrate search results.

- Brian Mark CTO, Toolbarn.com

- Michael Gray CEO, Atlas Web Service

e h t d e g n a h c s a h h "Universal searc s will lt u s e r w o h in ly n o game. Not o in ls a t u b , le g o o G be shown in e the in m r e t e d n a c le g o how Go ep s f o y c n a v le e r d popularity an at h w f o e s u e h t h it cific websites w tors'." a ic d in l a s r e iv n 'u I like to call - Rae Hoffman CEO of Sugarrae, Inc. and MFE Interactive, Inc.

Images will be infiltrating more search results in 2009. It will become more important this year to optimize every image on your site if you want your pictures to rank. • Use target keywords to name all images and describe an image in the alt tags. • Include keyword-centered anchor text pointing to an image. • Include keywords in any captions. • Make sure an image is placed next to relevant text in page copy. • Make sure your robots.txt file allows the spiders access to images. • Tag images appropriately and host them on websites like Flickr or PhotoBucket. • Include width, height, source, and alt tags in all image code. • Enable image search in Google Webmaster Tools. • Take down old images and re-load them to increase relevancy.

"Google now will super-size the search results and go beyond 10, if it feels that's approp riate, which means more room for content. So a few optimization improvements ma y bring your video o r images to the first page of the ‘re gular’ search results even when your website isn't ."

- Danny Sullivan Editor-In-Chief, SearchEngineLand.com Designed by

Adam Perry Creative Director, ProspectMX.com Content compiled by