Just around 3 years ago, the major search engines began to incorporate
material other than straight-text Web pages in their results listings,
in pursuit of a nirvana they dubbed “universal search.” Today, you’ll
see anything from video, images, and maps to news, podcasts, books,
products and user reviews popping up in search results.
Previously, we’ve urged our B2B readers to supplement their textual
content with video and images …although we came at it mainly from the
perspective of what will best engage and educate your human visitors.
The old adage says a picture is worth a thousand words …and it’s
definitely more interesting; many moving pictures (as in video), even more so.
But with the advent of universal search, there’s now another equally
compelling reason to deploy such richer media: they can help you
greatly increase the chances of your page(s) being found by prospects
via the search engines. Posting on ClickZ, Crispin Sheridan (Senior
Director of Search Marketing for SAP) points out two reasons why…
Multiple Rankings.
Currently, any one domain is able to rank for only two URLs on any
given search query. But universal search optimization grants you the
potential to greatly expand on that limit. By using the social media
platforms now included in universal search, companies can show up
multiple times in a given search …thereby becoming more visible in
the results pages, thus improving brand recognition and online
visibility. Think of it as increasing your “shelf space” …or owning
more properties on Park Place.
Cross-Linking.
Once you’ve placed content on third-party sites, you can focus on
cross-linking that content back to your main branded site. Adding
links on those third-party sites which point to relevant pages on your
main domain can provide you with…
- additional sources of referred traffic
- inbound links from trusted or reputable domains, which of course the engines will notice in due course and reward you with higher pagerank
It’s really another one of those cases of, what’s not to love?
You may be thinking, “probably this is one of those gimmicks mainly
designed for B2Cs” …but au contraire: it’s equally available to –
and effective for – B2Bs as well. Now, there’s no question that our
SMB B2B clients usually have the hardest time getting plain text
content together for their websites; so things like video, podcasts,
images, etc., may feel a bit out of reach. But in fact, these days
those once-exotic content types no longer require rocket science to
deploy. And if you are an SMB B2B who happens to have your text
content pretty well together …well, this next logical step makes a
really great way to steal a march on your competitors!
