SEO Mentor

I recently had a question from Mike Florence about Universal Search and what it is. Blended Search or Universal Search, whichever you call it; both are changing the online world. Google was the main pioneer of Universal Search and of course all the Major Search Engines (of course I mean Yahoo & MSN) soon followed.

Here are a couple things changed in the search engines when Universal Search came to fruition:

Digital Content syndicated in search results such as -

• Video Content
• Images
• Press Releases
• Articles
• News
• Local Listings
• Books
• etc.

Let me show you a quick image example of what I am trying to explain in words:

As you can see from the screen shot above, images and video are part of the organic search results. I don’t see any better explanation of blended search than the above image.

So how is Universal Search effecting the SEO and Search Engine Marketing industry? Well think of it this way, at one point you were competing with 10 other results to be on the first page of Google. Now with universal search, if there is a news and video result within the search query your website now only has a 80% chance to be listed on the first page of the search engine.

So you might be asking, “What does this mean for me and my business?” Well no need to worry. IF!!! You are taking advantage of video, press releases, image optimization, news, etc. Sites such as the well know YouTube.com, PRWeb.com, and Flickr.com just to name a few will help you take advantage of Universal Search.

Now you also need to know about the latest Social Media, also called Social Marketing, Social Networking. Search engines are picking up content from Social Networking sites such as Hubpages.com, Zimbio.com, and Gather.com, and these are just a few examples. Stay tuned for more about Social Marketing in future posts and podcasts.

Hope this answers your question Mike!