When consumers today search online for the products and services your business offers, you are not only competing with other web sites, you’re also competing with social networking profiles, online videos, blog posts, Twitter tweets, photo sharing sites, online news outlets, etc., all blended together on the search engine results pages (SERPs). So how can your business optimize for all these different types of media now being included in the search results? By getting vertical. Getting vertical is simply another way to think about your search engine strategy. Yes, you still need to effectively optimize your web site to do well in the search results. But in addition to that, you now must also optimize for the search â€verticals†that contribute to blended search results as well. For instance, Google determines its blended results (in part) by analyzing what ranks well in its search verticals, including image search, Google News, video search, and social networking information from Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed. That’s a lot of verticals to consider! But optimizing for blended search means that you need to have at least some sort of presence on these verticals to get Google’s attention and boost your position in the search rankings. Social Networks Since the major search engines now include real-time information from popular social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, your search engine rankings can definitely benefit from implementing a social networking strategy. By participating on social networking sites, you contribute a constant stream of fresh information that not only benefits your customers and followers, but also helps get (and keep) the attention of the search engines as they gather new information from these real-time sources. The key to being successful on the social networks, however, is to implement an integrated strategy that combines all of your social marketing efforts together with your web site and with the other marketing activities you may already have established. (See our web site or blog posts on Integrated Social Marketing (ISM) for more details on this concept). Online Videos Videos can be optimized for blended search, whether on a web site, in a blog post, on a social networking site, or uploaded to a video sharing site like YouTube. In fact, video sharing sites already have built-in features that make it easy for users to share videos with friends and followers. They also allow viewers to leave comments or forward video links to their lists of contacts. When using videos in your search strategy, be sure to add relevant descriptions and title tags to your videos, and rename the video files to include your targeted keywords in the filename for an added boost. Re-use your videos in as many places on the web as you can, including embedding them in your web pages and integrating them with your Google Place pages to help build authority for the videos as well. News Content Another source of blended search results comes from content found in online news from mainstream media outlets, in Google News, and on a variety of online newswire services. One way for small businesses to get online news coverage is to submit press releases to online media outlets, both paid and free, as a way to build quality inbound links and get additional exposure online. You should also try to include video and images in your press releases whenever possible. Multi-media content tends to do well †especially in Google News †and it provides additional press release content that can be indexed in the search databases. Images and Photos There are several ways that you can use images to contribute to your results in blended search. First, your images and photos should have keyword-rich file names, such as â€keyword.jpg†or â€my_company_at_eventname.jpg†whenever possible. Also, be sure to use keywords in your HTML image alt tags and in the descriptions and captions of the photos as well. Then, you can share these photos on your web site, on your blog, on your Facebook page (and other social profiles), and upload them to photo sharing sites like Flickr. Encourage your visitors to leave comments, and also leave your own comments, since this type of participation will also help provide fresh content and gain attention from the search engines as they gather real-time search information as well. Think Vertical So if you are serious about improving your business’ positions in the search engine rankings, you will need to expand the way you think about optimizing your entire search profile online. The more you can do to optimize the search â€verticals†(like social networking, video, images, etc.), the more influence you will have over what the search engines know about your business and its relevance to searchers today. Thinking vertical can help you stay competitive now that blended search means competing with more than just other web sites.
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