Spreading your Corporate Footprint using Google Universal Search
Filed under: Reputation Management, SEO on Monday, July 9th, 2007 by Simon Heseltine
It used to be that you would have ten text search results in Google, of which only 1 or 2 could come from a single domain. So if you wanted to dominate your SERP (Search Engine Results Page), you’d need to get at a minimum 5 domains ranking well for your name. Why would you want to do that? Well, if there was an uncomplimentary result out there, you’d most likely not want potential customers to see it, so by dominating your SERP you can push those uncomplimentary results ‘below the fold’, onto the second page or even lower. Sounds easy doesn’t it? Of course, you then have the challenge of getting those domains to rank for your name, which involves link building, unique content, etc.
So what’s changed? Google. No longer content with just returning text results, Google has rolled out Google Universal Search. This now combines the results from the various searches that you previously had to do individually, such as image and video. So a search for your brand name may now show images, videos, news, patents, etc, along with the old-style text results.
How can you take advantage of this? The answer is to get out there and take advantage of those different search result mediums. Work with videos, push out images, get your company in the news, etc. By spreading your corporate footprint in such a way, you’re not only pushing your message through the main search, you’re also pushing it through these specialized searches, which still exist. As Tamar points out on Search Engine Roundtable, you should be proactive about your reputation management strategy, as if you’re reactive, the negative news / post / video / etc, will be out there and visible to your customer base until you can push it out. After all, the goal is that you want to have your potential customers know all the good things about your company and your products / services, not the negative things - perceived or real…
A proactive approach is certainly the best way to go. All organizations should have an active program for developing enterprise generated media to sew up shelf space in the rankings. However, if there is a real problem — like bad customer service — drowning out negative CGM can turn into a never ending game that may take more time and cost more money than simply addressing the real problem. Bottom line: Rule #1 is don’t screw your customers. If you make them happy, your chances of dealing with a nasty reputation management problem are greatly reduced.
↓ Quote | Posted July 9, 2007, 4:27 pm[...] Universal Search, and other search engines likely to quickly follow suit, spreading your corporate footprint through search results is quickly becoming a necessity. Videos, images, podcasts, blogs, news [...]
↓ Quote | Posted July 23, 2007, 12:14 am[...] to buckle down and work at it. Of course, it’s much better to be proactive than reactive, so work on getting those listings, videos, images, podcasts, blogs, etc optimized now, and the naysayers will have a much harder time breaking into your search space in the first [...]
↓ Quote | Posted July 27, 2007, 7:03 am[...] If you’re an advocacy group that is looking to get attention for your cause on the web, then Universal Search gives you a great opening that you can take advantage of, if you’re fast enough! Universal [...]
↓ Quote | Posted July 30, 2007, 9:07 am[...] over half the total searches that take place each day on the Web. Google’s new practice of “Universal Search” means that results from vertical channels such as Google video and Google images, (heavy social [...]
↓ Quote | Posted July 31, 2007, 10:58 am[...] developing a social media strategy, they run the risk of lagging behind, especially in these post Universal Search days. But what is social media, and how do you market to [...]
↓ Quote | Posted August 6, 2007, 3:25 pm[...] Engines change their display format. Google now has Universal Search, that incorporates images, videos, news results, blog results, patent applications, and much more [...]
↓ Quote | Posted August 13, 2007, 1:51 pm[...] be one facet of an ongoing positive reputation management campaign that can help spread your footprint. Creating content (that you have the power to edit) on a highly visible social media site can [...]
↓ Quote | Posted August 15, 2007, 8:01 am[...] Ok, so how is this relevant to Search Marketing? Search engines live and die by the relevancy of their results. If Google were to suddenly become less relevant than other engines, people would, most likely, eventually drift away to the more relevant sites. After all, if you frequently can’t find what you’re looking for on one site, but you can on another, you’ll eventually stop looking on the first. This is Google’s big fear, and why the continue to work on and improve the relevancy of their search results, by such methods as Universal Search. [...]
↓ Quote | Posted August 20, 2007, 7:42 am[...] = “http://rbdrodeo.com/2007/08/20/universal-and-blended-search/”; Having covered the topic of Universal Search on this blog, this session is going to be interesting, as there should be a lot of insight from [...]
↓ Quote | Posted August 20, 2007, 3:18 pm