The future of search engine marketing goes far beyond paid search or optimizing plain-old text.
Search engine results pages are changing, especially in response to the growing prevalence of multimedia and user generated content.
Historically, search engine result pages have been relatively simple. In the days of dial-up connections, bandwidth was low and so search engine results pages (SERPs) were primarily composed of ten blue links and some descriptive text from target pages.
Search engines gradually began including different types of search verticals, such as images, news and local results. But the big breakthrough came in 2007, when Google introduced its universal (blended) search results.
Universal search incorporates a vast spectrum of content and file types, ranging from images and videos to stock quotes and PDFs. It also takes into account the growing influence of user generated content, whether it is comments on blogs, videos uploaded to YouTube or tags and ratings on social media sites.
As a result, there have been two major changes in the way search engines operate:
- One, search engines can now include a wealth of new material, information and file types on SERPs, creating a much richer end user experience.
- Two, while ranking algorithms still rely heavily on linkage and keyword data, end user "votes" (i.e. user comments/feedback at social media sites) also factor into the equation.
Because of this, traditional SEO is shifting to a new form of digital asset management. This new SEO places a greater emphasis on optimizing a wider range of files types, not just text.
Specifically, universal search means search marketers must aim not so much for top ten rankings but for pure visibility. For example, take a look at the screenshot below -- the result of searching for the movie "Iron Man."
As you can see, this is not your traditional "ten blue text links" results page. In fact, there's only one organic result above the fold! Look closely: a movie trailer pops up first, followed by a news link. Only then does an organic result show up. Number one (in the traditional sense of SEO), therefore, isn't really number one at all.
As such, it's important to reanalyze your SEO Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Your SEO firm or consultant might tell you that you have 200 top ten keywords or phrases at Google, but if these ranking keywords don't actually send you traffic, what's the point? If these top ten rankings in actuality place you below the fold or even on the second page of results, are you really being effective?
To examine this further, let's take a look at a SERP for the phrase "bed and breakfast new york":
Once again, organic results have been pushed down below the fold. The page is instead dominated by ten local results. The kicker, though, is that none of these local results have come from a crawler. In fact, making it into the local results doesn't even require having a website; all it takes is subscribing to Google's Local Business Center (which is free, by the way).
Optimizing for Universal Search – and making sure potential visitors find you – therefore requires a new set of rules. Fortunately, there are specific, actionable ways to keep up with the search curve. Here are just a few:
1. Widen your perspective.
- Get creative about your digital content. Take stock of what you have and brainstorm how many formats you can provide it in.
2. Start with your images.
- Name each file in a descriptive way. Do the same with the alt attribute.
- Include a descriptive caption next to each image.
- Make your images available everywhere. Set up Picasa and Flickr accounts, upload your images on social networking sites, and get good pages with good pictures bookmarked by social media sites.
3. Target local results.
- Open a Google account and go straight to the Local Business Center to enter your free listing.
4. Think newsworthy.
- Optimize your press releases. They can get picked up by major publications and bloggers and then show
up on SERPS. - Become an expert commentator on your industry. That way, you might not even need press releases –publishers and bloggers will already be after your thoughts.
5. Behold the power of blogs.
- Embed audio, video, and images in your blog, and be sure to optimize the title tag, description tag, and publishing date tag. Popular blogs can surge to the top of search engine results charts.
6. Get into the movie business.
- Share your movies with the world – upload them to Google Video, YouTube, and Metacafe and bookmark them at social media sites.
7. Take advantage of Google Finance.
- Your own stock quote can pop up on SERPS if your business is large enough and has some presence in financial markets.
8. Sell, sell, sell.
- Upload everything you want to sell – whether it's a single item or a huge catalogue to Google's Product Search (formerly known as Froogle).
These practical changes can significantly change your SERP visibility. Need proof? Try searching for "dove campaign for real beauty," and you'll see how a company can take over an entire results page:
So what does this all mean for marketers? Essentially, information retrieval has taken a new turn with Universal Search. Textbook SEO (which we discussed earlier) is still the "bedrock" approach to optimization, but new opportunities for digital asset management are emerging. It's no longer just about a crawler trying to figure out words on a page; it's about finding that one thing that is most relevant to end users, regardless of the medium.
Therefore, it's time for marketers to expand their outlook, to move beyond static web pages and embrace a myriad of file types and multimedia combinations. This new arena inherently presents new challenges, but the fundamentals behind search engine marketing are still relevant and can guide marketers in making smart optimization decisions. Keyword and customer intelligence are just as applicable, even as search engines evolve, and can provide the roadmap you need to navigate a constantly shifting landscape.
Farah Sadiq is General Manager - Asia of Acronym Media.