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The Emergence of Universal Search Engine Optimization
September 28, 2007
In May of this year, Google announced its new Universal Search System which blended traditional search results with news, video, music, images, local and book search engine portals, as well as Blogs on a single page to help users find information with greater ease. Universal Search, a new platform which represents a major shift in information display and retrieval, is causing search engine optimization companies to rethink how they conduct service offerings. So what does this mean for SEO professionals?
For those who conduct Search Engine Optimization services for clients, “Universal Search” is yet another marketing opportunity worth considering. Our industry is already known for dealing with extreme change on a monthly basis, and as a result of being able to adapt to this ever-changing market, this has enabled us to thrive in the industry. With these changes, we must re-invent or enhance our offering to meet the growing changes presented by Google in order to stay ahead of the curve. The emergence of Google’s Universal Search now forces SEO professionals to look outside the box for providing their customers with bleeding edge Internet marketing solutions.
To be able to help our clients rank in the top Google search results, we now have to look towards creating effective SEO strategies that involve RSS, news, videos, audio files, images, local and book search engine portals, and Blogs. With so many new things being displayed in Google’s search results it will be much harder to attain a top ten search engine listings for clients. However, this doesn’t mean that the world is coming to an end for SEO’ers. Nevertheless, it means that we must look towards existing Google search platforms and integrate them into a new strategy called “Universal Search Engine Optimization.”
Universal Search Engine Optimization encompasses traditional SEO (on-site & off-site) methodologies as well as combines Web 2.0 marketing tactics, i.e., RSS, Online Optimized Press Releases, Podcasts, Vodcasts, Blogs, Social Bookmarking, Social News sites, Image and Book listing optimization, as well as Local Search, that aids clients in gaining a greater market share within Google’s Universal Search results.
The following Internet marketing activities make up a large part of Universal SEO:
"Definitions in parenthesis taken from Wikipedia"
RSS -- “RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts.”
Online Optimized Press Releases -- Tailoring a company’s news in such a manner to gain greater visibility online through optimizing elements within the press release.
Podcasts -- “A podcast is a digital media file, or a series of such files, that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers.”
Vodcasts -- "Video podcast (sometimes shortened to vidcast or vodcast) is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand or video clip content via Atom or RSS enclosures.”
Blogs -- “Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.”
Social Bookmarking -- “A way for Internet users to store, organize, share, and search bookmarks of web pages. In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share.”
Social News Sites -- News aggregation (social network) sites that gain stories from community members online.
Image Optimization -- Effectively optimizing image file names, alternate text, and the utilization of photo sharing sites such as Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, etc.
Book Listing Optimization -- Optimize Book company Web site pages to enhance placement in search engines for the titles of books for sale.
Local Search Listings -- Create local business listings and optimize Web sites to better perform amongst local search engine (Google Local, Yahoo Local, etc) listings.
To stay competitive in the ever-changing SEO industry, we need to create strategies for our clients that focus on all aspects of Universal Search. I believe this new form of search results presented by Google will open many doors for companies seeking to embrace the evolution of search.
see all posts by Brett Lane
posted by Brett Lane at September 28, 2007 03:57 PM
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