As SERPs Get More Complicated, Focus on Relevant Elements

March 9, 2010

At SES Chicago last year, Yahoo VP of Consumer Products, Larry Cornett suggested that blended search results bring businesses a broader range of SEO opportunities, a chance to take control of their brand, and a potential increase in qualified clicks. While these blended results can tend to divert users away from organic listings, as SEO Dave Naylor pointed out at that same conference, Cornett does have a point.

Blended search results offer ways to get to the front page of search results beyond just the highly more competitive organic rankings. Sites have opportunities to show up for:

- real-time results
- news results
- image results
- video results
- shopping results
- local results (customers don't even need to go to your site in some cases)

At the recent Online Marketing Summit in San Diego, WebProNews spoke with Conductor CEO Seth Besmertnik, who says companies should still build a foundation in organic rankings before trying to conquer other areas:

tips for image search optimization, for example. Here are some for video. Here are some for real-time search. Here are some for news search.

Back to Cornett's point about qualified clicks - focus on what makes the most sense for your site. Is focusing on real-time search worth your time? With Google, at least, even if you show up here, your presence will quickly give way to the next in line, and you will be off the page momentarily (although there still may be times when it makes sense to be seen here).

If you don't have quality video content, video search optimization is not bound to be a very practical use of you time. However, if you do have some good stuff, perhaps you should be heavily focused in this area. I think you get the point.

Of course there are plenty of other factors of today's search results page that drive users away from the "ten blue links" of organic results. It's not just the blended search elements discussed above. You've also got search suggestions, related search links, location, mobile use, paid listings, search options, and various other elements of the user experience that compete for user attention. This is one reason why the lines between search marketing and other types of marketing continue to blur (consider that users of Google or Yahoo can customize their home pages to accomodate many of their favorite sites, making those just a click away).

Still, that foundation in natural search that Besmertnik mentioned is definitely a big part of the overall picture. I suggest taking advantage of your listings here, and maximizing those, regardless of how well you rank. Things like site links and breadcrumbs come to mind.

Filed Under Review and Story, SEO · Leave a Comment

Google Chrome Extensions Not Limited to Gallery

February 2, 2010

Google recently launched its extensions Gallery for Chrome, but today the company is reminding users of the browser (which continues to gain popularity) that there are a lot more things you can do with it beyond just what's in the gallery. Google Chrome 4 supports Greasemonkey user scripts.

Chrome users can use Greasemonkey, which is a Firefox extension that allows developers to customize web pages using javascript, to install any user script with a single click.

"Ever since the beginning of the Chromium project, friends and coworkers have been asking me to add support for user scripts in Google Chrome," says software engineer Aaron Boodman. "I'm happy to report that as of the last Google Chrome release, you can install any user script with a single click. So, now you can use emoticons on blogger. Or, you can browse Google Image Search with a fancy lightbox. In fact, there's over 40,000 scripts on userscripts.org alone."

"Installation is quick and easy, just like installing an extension," adds Boodman. "That's because under the covers, the user script is actually converted into an extension. This means that management tasks like disabling and uninstalling work just like they do with extensions."

Boodman notes that scripts have full access to private data on sites, so you would want to be careful about what you install, and use caution when trusting them. Not all of the scripts work with Chrome yet (Boodman estimates 15% - 25%).

According to data from NetMarketShare, Chrome made market share gains in January, taking share away from both IE and Firefox. The browser gained .6% for the month.

Have You Read This?

> Chrome Cruises By Safari

> Chrome Ad Campaign Nets Positive Results

> Digg Launches New Extensions for Firefox and Chrome

Filed Under Review and Story · Leave a Comment

Google Gives Mobile Users a Link to Popular Images

January 29, 2010

Google has introduced a new feature for its mobile Image Search offering. The feature is "Popular Images," and lets Android and iPhone users browse popular images (go figure).

The Popular Images feature comes in the form of a link just under the search box on the Google Image Search page. When clicked, it brings up a categorized list of image searches and corresponding images.

"We have organized popular images across a few categories like Movies, Sports, Cars & Bikes, Music, and Cartoons," says Google's Mobile Engineering team in a blog post on the Google Mobile blog. "You can click on individual categories to see related images corresponding to what's popular on Google Image Search."

The queries are categorized automatically with an algorithm, which Google says will continue to improve over time. There is a "Trends" category that shows image queries based on Google Trends.

The feature is only available in the U.S. at this point. There is no word on when this will expand to other countries.

Have You Read This?

> Google Puts More Images (And One Big Pic) On Results Pages

> Google Experiments with a New Image Search Feature

Filed Under Review and Story · Leave a Comment

The Things People Looked for Pictures of on Twitter in 2009

December 17, 2009

Earlier, we looked at Twitter's top trending topics of 2009. They broke it down into several top ten lists based on various categories.

Yfrog, a site that hosts images and videos for people to share on Twitter, has shared its top ten image searches for 2009. In other words, this is a reflection of what people are looking for images of on Twitter. Granted, Yfrog is not the only service that people use to share pictures on Twitter. TwitPic is an obvious one. Still, Yfrog is a reasonably popular one, and it would be hard to believe if TwitPic's list was too different.

Here's Yfrog's Top 10 of 2009

1. New Moon / Twilight
2. Jonas Brothers
3. Tiger Woods
4. Michael Jackson
5. Halloween / costume
6. iPhone
7. Adam Lambert
8. Kanye West / RIP Kanye West
9. Iran election
10. Miley Cyrus

"In 2009 posting pictures and videos to sites like Facebook and Twitter became standard practice for the tech savvy," a YFrog representative tells WebProNews. "Instant media sharing defined not only a new form of citizen journalism, but revolutionized how pop culture, politics and current events are captured and shared globally."

This is only one of the many top ten of 2009 lists we have covered, and don't be surprised if there are more. Check out some of the other 2009 lists in the related articles and get ready for a new year.

Have You Read This?

> What the Most People Watched on YouTube in 2009

> The Most Searched For Terms of 2009

> Death, Disease, Money, and Twitter on Bing

> The Definitions That People Didn't Know in 2009

> What People Talked About on Twitter Most in 2009