Roberto Hortal Use Universal Search To Your Advantage
1. Use Universal Search to your
advantage to optimise the User
Experience and enhance your
Online Visibility
Roberto Hortal, Head of eBusiness
2. Universal Search
• Launched May 2007, Google's attempt to deliver the best result for a particular
user query by including video, images, news, podcasts or any other form of
digital content.
Model graph: http://searchengineland.com/search-30-the-blended-vertical-search-revolution-12775
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3. Universal Search principles
• Comparative ranking
– Before: web results ranked in isolation, given priority. Other types ranked
separately
– After: web results compared directly with other types, more relevant wins
• Blending
– Before: 10 results per page, any media results added to top or bottom
– After: media results may appear anywhere on the page, blended with web
results
– These may displace web results or add to them, resulting in more than 10
results per page at times.
– Blending is informed by usage – Google showing types of results at certain
positions where they are more likely to be used
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4. What does Universal Search change?
• Encourage Browsing attitude on visitors
– Watch a video
– Read a review
– Explore latest news
– Find where to buy
• Break the Golden Triangle
– Provide visual anchors across the
page
– Much more engaging User
Experience
• Return to SERP a lot more frequently
• Product Portal across the lifecycle
– Consider, Buy, Use...
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5. Implications of Universal Search
• Expand your definition of SEO
– From site-centric content and tags
• to multimedia, multi-site
– From content pages
• to video, pictures, news, geographic information...
– From protecting your brand and product info
• to seeding the ecosystem: local listings, Google Base, reviews sites,
Video sites, Photo sharing sites, good blog coverage, online PR...
• Most importantly
– From Direct Response
• to Hybrid Brand + DR metrics and KPIs
• Brand Advertising as content creation, social media participation
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6. Blending rules – hurry, they change fast!
• Images
– Typically top of the page, sometimes bottom
• News
– Frequently top of the page but may appear anywhere
• Video
– Fully blended, anywhere on the page
– Can be played right on the SERP (YouTube)
– Subtractive (they’ll replace a normal result for a total of 10)
• Shopping
– Top typically, sometimes bottom
• Blogs
– Bottom
– Instant (if blogs ping Google Blog Search)
Original research by http://searchengineland.com/
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7. Use blending rules to inform your SEO
• Images and Google Shopping results appear at the top
– Assume most likely to be clicked
– Ensure you have both types of results for key terms
• News and video appear anywhere
– Become a news source
– Use video to pull eyes down, push competitors to lower pages
– Ensure video remains relevant in SERP player
• Blogs appear bottom, update instantly
– Assume dedicated searcher
– Great for timely content, offers; remember to ping
– Must remain relevant, blog will join normal results and stay
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8. Becoming Universal: the MORE TH>N Business Knowledge Centre
• An information resource for small business owners, covering all aspects of life
in the business world
• Risk management content abundant, but not exclusive
• Aim: become an authoritative source
– In-depth pieces – relevant over time, useful, exclusive
– News – timely, engaging, personality
• Impressive SEO results
– Sustained higher positions for key insurance terms
– Top positions for wide range or business-related keywords
– Fused into the conversation: frequent references from 3rd parties, links, etc
• Listening and evolving
– Design evolution informed by user feedback
– Video featuring members of our business audience
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10. Impact of Universal Search on MORE TH>N Business Site Traffic
• Overall traffic to MORE TH>N Business since news went live in May 2007
• News has generated regular spikes for M>B, driven by Universal Search
Visitors
Visitors
from
Search
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11. Becoming a news resource = long lasting impact
• News story about what motivates people to
work published 4 June 08
– Sustained traffic, peaked 13 June 08
drawing significant attention over 2 weeks
– Currently the most read news story on site
– Average time on this page: 3mins 11
– Average time on site overall: 1min 32
• Traffic came from a range of sources – there
was lots of email traffic and links from blogs
and Delicio.us
– Many of these people found the article
through Universal Search
– As a result, M>B seen as authority on
Business topics by Google
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12. Google News is your friend
• News story about triple science GCSEs
was published 11 August 08
– Currently second most read news story
on site
– Average time on this page: 2mins 20
– Average time on site overall: 1min 32
• Traffic for this story driven primarily by
Google news result embedded on
Universal Results page.
• Residual staying power – now appears as
standard result next to BBC
• It also helped generate incoming links
from blogs, impacting pagerank
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13. Knowledge Centre next steps - Video
• Video launched days
ago
• Business profile format
for wider appeal
• Hosted on YouTube for
SERP support
• Raises potential links
on SERP to 3
• May help displace
competing results
• Transcript for
accessibility, traditional
SEO
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15. MORE TH>N’s Social Media Centre
• Applying the lessons from M>B, Living
• Online newsroom redesigned to maximise social
and community elements
• Visual design and Tech platform
• SEO optimisation for findability
• Blog platform, instant ping
• Goal: be recognised as news source, appear
in Google News results
• Photos, video and podcasts for further SEO
effectiveness (remember, photos appear top!)
• Engaging stories that people want to talk about
(i.e. Car Aerobics)
• Every news piece is optimised for use online
• Links, Tags, Comments
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16. Thank you
Roberto Hortal, Head of eBusiness
rhortal
roberto.hortalmunoz@uk.rsagroup.com
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17. Use Universal Search to your advantage to optimise the User
Experience and enhance your Online Visibility
• How are consumers responding to the new era in asset optimisation
• Discover how your business can benefit from the rich media search
experience and develop tactical strategies to improve the quality of your
clickthroughs
• Understand the different elements of your search strategy
• Interact and learn cutting-edge techniques for adapting website’s content to
the new “system”
• Different approaches – Google “inline” vs Yahoo “PPC”
• 14:25 – 14:45
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