Utah Search Engine Optimization | SEO

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It’s almost Valentine’s day and love is already in the air. I’d like to announce one of the biggest, if not one of the first, SEO hookups. Sure there are already married couples in the Internet Marketing business like: Aaron Wall and his wife, Chris Winfield and his wife, David Harry and his wife, Jeff Quipp and his wife. But this particular couple met via search engine marketing and I ask you “How cool is that?”.

So without further adieu I bring to you the search world’s dynamic duo, Bill Slawski (SEObytheSea.com) and Kimberly Block (learningSEObasics.com) aka SpostareDuro. The scoop is Bill flew out to Virginia to see her recently and they had a marvelous time. Kimberly is now flying out to Deleware soon to visit. Congratulations to the both of you and I hope you have a successful and prosperous relationship together.

If these SEOs were to mate, below is what their “Super SEO” daughter might look like: (forgive the really bad Photoshop work)

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An Introduction to Universal Search

Gone are the days where organic or paid listings were all you had to worry about. We now are in the times of Universal Search. Google coined the term Universal Search as it’s culmination of search methodologies. “It’s essentially the largest revision we’ve made in the past two or three years,” Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder and president of technology, tells TIME magazine. Yahoo, Microsoft Live, and Ask have also implemented similar results into their organic listings. Some of the results you might find are:

1. Image Results
2. Online Video
3. New Results
4. Blog Listings / Results
5. Book Listings
6. PDFs
7. Local / GEO Search Listings
8. Traditional Web Search
9. Product Search
10. Catalog Search
11. Movie Search
12. Music Search
13. Map Search
14. Health Search
15. Celebrity Search
16. Job Search
17. Recipe Search
18. Financial / Stock Search
19. People Search
20. Comparison Search

What Does This Mean for Search Results?

Search results now are seen different by users. Eye tracking studies have been conducted by companies like Enquiro that track eye movement on search result pages. In the past, with Google search results, the hot spots of the search results page formulated an eye pattern of the letter “F”, also known as “The Golden Triangle,” that was positioned in the upper-left corner of the organic results. Now with Universal Search we have seen this pattern start to change. With thumbnailed images and video incorporated into the results, the “F” pattern has morphed into an “E” pattern. (SEE IMAGES BELOW)

This means Universal Search has had a dramatic impact on how we scan the page. With thumbnailed images being put in the limelight you might just steal that click away from the #1 positioned organic result if you have an enticing and relevant image. Have a sticky page for that user once they come to your site via Universal Search and you’re in. Typically, Google will keep a header bar on top of your page if they came through Google’s image search, but find some JavaScript to remove any framed bars from referring sites and you don’t have to worry about sacrificing aesthetics or your carefully crafted and positioned messages being pushed below the fold.

Are the Search Results More Relevant Now?

While that has yet to be determined, my humble opinion is “Yes.” It’s now easier to find what you’re looking for right off the bad. When conducting a search for “Britney Spears”, a fan may not be looking for informational articles or news but may be looking for enhanced media instead. Integrated YouTube music videos as well as thumbnailed images of Britney Spears combines the right mix of information, multimedia, and news results for that particular query.

Are Internet Marketers Taking Advantage of Universal Search?

Yes, but not as much as they should be. Internet marketers underestimate the traffic potential they can bring to their site by search engine optimizing their multimedia content. With proper naming conventions, accessibility attributes, and unique characteristics all embedded on a Web page with relevant content encompassing the enhanced media the traffic results can be well worth the efforts.

Not only do internet marketers now have to promote their Websites but they have to promote their content as well. In addition, links to images, videos, and syndication on various social platforms is the key to Universal Search success.

Stoney deGeyter recently wrote a great post on when usability is more important than SEO. Stoney ends by stating “By fixing usability issues you can sell more while without having to spend a lot of money always trying to bring in a lot of new traffic. A little goes a long way. Once you are able to increase your conversion rates, every dollar you spend on marketing and SEO will be more effective and have a much bigger impact on your profit margins.” Stoney is absolutely right. Rather than spending more money or efforts for the #1 position, try improving the usability, accessibility, and marketing communication of your current site. Exponential growth is derived from such improvements and will equate to higher conversion.

With this article in mind I got into a conversation with a great and well-respected Flash developer, Dan Decort, about Flash and the caveats it places on usability and search engine optimization. My problem with Flash is that the increased load times make for larger file sizes, longer waiting periods, inaccessible content, inability to bookmark, print or deep link, no screen reader and mobile device support, uncrawlable architecture, and overall problems with accessibility, usability, and SEO.

Sure, Google can crawl a limited amount of Flash now, but that’s just Google. Other search engines don’t have that technology implemented yet. I’m sure Google places less weight on Flash content due to the inaccessibility of it to other users. We started talking about technologies like SWFAddress and SEFFS that almost serve as a cloaking mechanism for Flash. SWFAddress does “address” some of these usability and accessibility issues but I’d still choose static/dynamic pages over Flash pages any day. Yes, if you’re serving the exact same content to search engines as embedded in your Flash movie then you should have the green light to go ahead and do so, but you might be looking at running the site through a spam filter with Google to check your site with a fine-toothed comb.

Aside from SEO, let’s get into the meat and potatoes of this discussion. After my ranting and raving about Flash, Dan made the comment that user-experience is more important than usability, although he didn’t discredit usability. To define the difference for you:

• Usability - a property of websites (and other systems and products) that relates to ease of use. Usability is commonly defined as having three core components: effectiveness (how well a task can be completed), efficiency (how easy or quick it is to complete the task), and satisfaction (the user’s perception or opinion of the system).
• User-Experience - a concept that places the end-user at the focal point of design and development efforts, as opposed to the system, its applications or its aesthetic value alone

It’s important to note that usability and accessibility both DO contribute to the overall user-experience as well, but while user-experience is an important element of information design it really should be the icing on the cake not the foundation of the skyscraper. Usability is what drives conversion on a Website due to the efficiency in of usage, findability of desired content, and ability to navigate through site architecture with ease. Flash user-experience provides bells and whistles to be admired by people like myself and Dan, but your average user isn’t going to care about the feedback of the site (animation, graphics, sounds, actions) as much as he or she is going to care about information retrieval and timely satisfaction.

I invite you to join the oratory of our discussions and leave your feedback.