SEO And The Power of Google Universal Search

If you are a business owner with a website, you are aware of how important it is to connect with people interested in the products or services you offer. You also know the power of search marketing, and how useful a good position on a search term can be.

Bing, Yahoo and Google algorithms contain hundreds of factors, they change search criteria frequently, and never disclose what the parameters are.  So SEO is, and always will be, an inexact science.  It’s the nature of the beast. People use search engines to source information, products, and services, therefore, if your website has content people should find, you should still be optimizing your website. But ask 10 SEO firms the best approach, and they will give you 11 different answers. Understandably, with the rules constantly changing it becomes more difficult to manipulate top positions (Google aggressively goes after Black Hat tactics).

But here's something they rarely, if ever, talk about.

Understanding Search and The Powerful Advantage of Universal Search.

Search engine bots index a wide variety of content types, including web text (blog/news/update posts), landing pages, articles, white papers, etc), relevant news articles, videos, images, maps, even PDF’s. Google has drawn conclusions about user-behavior in search, realizing that searches prefer to see a variety of media formats for any given search query. Which makes sense, because for some search queries, a video or PDF download may answer a user's question more accurately that a local business listing or blog post, and vice versa. The indexing and

inclusion of these varying media types is referred to as "Universal Search", and it is an attempt by the search engine to best answer a specific search query by a user by serving the content it determines is most appropriate, regardless of type. 

Years ago Google added the "universal search" bar above the search box.  Its configuration for search A can read “web” “news” “images” “maps” “shopping” and “more”.  For search B it might read “web” “video” “images” “news” “books”, and “more”.  The selections and the order change depending on the search term.

And if Google deems it relative, other media types get dropped into the "web" listings as well.

Most people know this already, even if they don't understand how Google works or what this process is called, or even realize that the selections change with every search. What most people don’t know is that website owners have the opportunity to include multiple types of media in their website, and harness Universal SEO to have a solid presence across the media types in search. Because there are so many types of media formats available on the web, and for any given search, it is important to have a variety of these types of media content on a website.  That is if you desire to compete with the other types of media for their given search query. The key here is understanding the search environment in which one is trying to compete, in order to use the best suited content assets on a given page, or website, to effectively and efficiently satisfy users, as well as the search engines.

In its elemental form, If someone googles your business name directly, “web” should have your business on the first page. If not, you’re in serious SEO trouble.  And Unfortunately, that is what SEO folks want to talk about...web listings.

But if they click on “images” is that your product or service picture from your website in the first row?  Is the photo crisp and clear?  That could be as important as the web result for some businesses.  Image placement is SEO as well.  Clicking on a picture gives a button to "visit site", so now tell me "image" placement ranking in universal search is not important.  

Worse, I'd be willing to bet that all 10 SEO experts you talk to never even go there.  And I'll never understand why.

Taken a step further, it is effective in satisfying search engine algorithms to mix content types in your website; for example, a text-based article illustrated with images and enriched with video content or links to a PDF download. The is known as "rich media", and such content helps websites rank highly on search engine results pages (SERP) because the multiple media format combination indicates a valuable resource for potential visitors.  The plus side is with proper SEO that information can rank highly when visitors click on "web",“images”, "maps" or “videos” or anything else in the "Universal Search" bar.

So keep in mind, SEO isn't always about the "guaranteed top rankings on all search engines" hyperbole that permeates the industry, You're better off looking at the bigger picture of "Universal Search" SEO to make sure you have a solid presence over more than just the "web" listings.

TABB Solutions focuses on helping small/medium businesses with web presence and government/commercial marketing strategies. For a free consultation, call us toll free at (844) TRY-TABB