Taking advantage of universal search, part 2

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Universal search and personalized search were two of the hot topics at
SMX West
last month. Many webmasters wanted to know how these evolutions in search influence the way their
content appears in search results, and how they can use these features to gain more relevant
search traffic. We posted several
recommendations on how to take advantage of universal search
last year. Here are a few additional tips:

1. Local search: Help nearby searchers find your business. Of the various search verticals,
   local search was the one we heard the most questions about. Here are a few tips to help business
   owners get the most out of local search:
   • Add your business to our
     Local Business Center
   • Make sure your business is listed under the appropriate
     categories
   • Make sure your business name, address and phone number appear on your website, and that
     they’re accessible to search engines
   • Add your business hours,
     images,
     coupons, or
     additional information
     to help searchers determine whether your business meets their needs
2. Video search: Enhance your video results. Several site owners asked whether they could
   specify a preferred thumbnail image for videos when they appear in search results. Good news:
   our Video Sitemaps protocol
   lets you suggest a thumbnail for each video.
3. Personalized search basics A few observations from Googler Phil McDonnell:
   • Personalization of search results is usually accomplished through subtle ranking changes,
     rather than a drastic rearrangement of results. You shouldn’t worry about personalization
     radically altering your site’s ranking for a particular query.
   • Targeting a niche, or filling a very specific need, may be a good way to stand out in
     personalized results. For example, rather than creating a site about “music,” you could
     create a site about the musical history of Haiti. Or about musicians who recorded with
     Elton John between 1969-1979.
   • Some personalization is based on the geographic location of the searcher; for example, a
     user searching for “needle” in Seattle is more likely to get
     search results about the
     Space Needle
     than, say, a searcher in Florida. Take advantage of features like Local Business Center and
     geographic targeting
     to let us know whether your website is especially relevant to searchers in a particular
     location.
   • As always, create interesting, unique and compelling content or tools.
4. Image search: Increase your visibility.
   One panelist presented a case study in which a client’s images were being filtered out of search
   results by
   SafeSearch
   because they had been classified as explicit. If you find yourself in this situation and believe
   your site should not be filtered by SafeSearch, use this
   contact form
   to let us know. Select the Report a problem >
   Inappropriate or irrelevant search results option and describe your situation.

You can post in our
forum
if you have other tips to share!

Posted by Susan Moskwa, Webmaster Trends Analyst