SearchFest 2012: Universal Search

Speakers:

Marshall Simmonds, Define Media Group

Rhea Drysdale, Outspoken Media

Summary

Marshall and Rhea provided cutting-edge strategies and tactics to maximize your exposure in non-traditional results like News, Images, Videos, Blogs, and Maps in this presentation at Search Fest 2012.

Marshall Simmonds

Nov. 2011 – Google releases freshness update which includes trusted resources almost immediately.

25% of queries were fresh results

Fast-forward to Feb. 2012 and 45% of queries included ‘fresh’ results

What to do about freshness?

• Blog about a topic. Blog often (editorial calendar)
• Include Time stamp
• +1 probably a strong signal
• Watch Timely queries – thinks people ARE searching for (queries, what’s hot, real time, trending) not necessarily historical data
• Pay attention to the <lastmod> in your SML sitemap
• RSS Feed – feedburner.com for you blog

What about video?

YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. You HAVE to be on YouTube to get into universal results

• Google looks at YouTube likes, shares, favorites, comments, embeds, title to decide relevancy
• Include the word “video” in your title
• Include transactional kw’s for eComerce
• KW rich description, can include transcription in description using transcriptionservice.com
• Use annotation and caption feature to add links (interlink if you have multiple videos)
• Pick the right category
• Tags- DON”T waste too much time but add some
• Open comments – but buyer beware (negative comments are okay too many positive comments look fishy).
• Distribute! Tell everyone about your video – social, video sitemap, RSS

Images

• 20% of all searches on google are image-related searches, not optimizing images is a missed opportunity (alt text, caption, image name)
• Create separate SML sitemap for images (SEO friendly images – Wordpress Plugin)

Google+

• The big dogs (espn, npr) are paying attention, you should too, it’s early, build your circles, post relevant content (not necessarily yours)

Rel=author tag

• Users react to search results differently when they see an image (30%-400% increases in CTR have been seen)

Sitemaps (do them)

• XML, HTML, Image, Video, News, Blogs, Product
• Sitemaps increases indexed pages

Takeaway – pay attention to all digital assets and how you can leverage them. Rhea DrysdaleNews and BlogsWhere to start? Get mentioned in a News Source

• Be visible to reporters (know people who know people) if you don’t, use HARO, MuckRack, JournalistsTweets.com, Google Alerts
• Be a resource – be visible during their research (aka Content Marketing)
• Be active in your industry
• Be crazy good at something
• News doesn’t have to be mainstream

Get Syndicated

• Make sure you’re getting syndicated the “right” way
• Press releases
• Be a news source
• First make sure your aren’t one already
• Become a google news publisher

Submit and manage your XML news sitemapTakeaway - Don’t just cover the news, break it!