Conference Buddies

We have had two years to adjust to the major search engine results page changes. It is clear those links that searchers first see aren’t at all what they used to be. The SERPs are more complex, and that means optimization is more complex, too. This session will examine search engine results pages with the images, videos, stock quotes, weather and other snippets included, and address the changes that marketers must make.

Moderator: Christine Churchill
Speakers:
Amanda Watlington, Ph.D., Searching for Profit @amandaw
Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc. @bruceclayinc
Brian Combs, Principal, ionadas local @BrianPCombs
Scott Polk, Director of Operations, Search & Social Media @scottpolk

Amanda Watlington @amandaw

Clues from News Articles:

• Focus is on scale
• Better local, such as more UK sites in UK results
• Fresher and faster results

Clue 1: Scalability

• More efficient crawling
• Test Scalability: YSlow or other speed tests
• Use robots.txt and parameter handling settings in webmaster tools to avoid duplicate content
• Keep Sitemaps up-to-date

Clue 2: More Localization

• More local results by country
• Claim your push pins through local business center
• Optimize for local searches
• Multi-nationals, now is the time to reconsider how you are going to search market

Clue 3: Fresher Results

• Very rapid indexing is in the future
• Old, unvisited content will not do the trick
• Better, harder working content
• Keep content up to date
• Expire old, dead content
• Mind your link rot
• Look to social media as an adventure for getting marketing results

Clue 4: More Precise Results

• Use experience when searching
• Real long tail queries often are unique
• Head queries are imprecise pizza
• The fat middle is “pizza del las vegas’ chase the more precise results

More Precise Results

• Optimize all kinds of files and watch traffic grow
• Images – avoid dsc10257.jpg, rename it into something more meaningful
• Video – provide complete info, consistent best practices
• Product images and price alone won’t do
• PDF – optimize them fully

Bruce Clay @bruceclayinc

Engagement Objects

• Image Indexing
• Video Content Indexing
• Content is not just text, it’s video, images, maps, etc.

Bruce took a newspaper article, scanned as an image, then put into PDF, now that will rank for works in that image. This means Google now is starting to read text in images.

Bruce took a video, transcribed the audio and put back into the video as a separate audio track. Google has audio indexing, and can pull up the audio where it appears in the track. This means Video content can now rank and add to SEO. This also means you now have to write scripts for video presenters with SEO in mind.

Remember Video is content, therefore you need to optimize content for SEO if you want to rank.

XML Sitemaps for Google

• No XML file for Images
• You can create an XML file for Video
• More info can be found here: http://www.bruceclay.com/newsletter/volume67/xmlsitemaps.html

Key Points:

• Google can scan images and audio for keywords
• Content is not just text, it’s video, audio, images, maps, etc.
• Google is redefining what is content

Brian Combs @BrianPCombs

Google Maps

• Rank higher than natural listings
• Less competitive

Step 1:

• Claim your listings
• Use your keywords and locations within your listing
• Don’t overuse them (penalty)
• P.O. Boxes may be depreciated
• Upload images and/or videos
• Encourage happy clients to write reviews (on google, city search, yelp etc.)
• Tag your business with Google My Maps

Step 2:

• Optimize your Website
• Optimize for locations as well as keywords

Step 3:

• Citation Building
• Citations are similar to links
• Trusted pages that list company name, home number, and address
• Link not required!
• Get listed in major IYPs
• Local directories
• Vertical directories

Google Maps Developments

• 7-Pack listings replaced the 10-Pack
• Cleaned up the interface
• Provides space for local listing ads (current testing in 2 markets SF and San Diego)
• Still lots of bugs
• Implied local intent

Scott Polk @scottpolk

• Populate your content (meta cafe, YouTube, Flickr)
• Put onto your own site
• Build links to your content to build authority