Hi, you're back. That's great. We always like it when our readers come back to see what's going here at WebCare. Why not sign up for the RSS feed and you'll get auto updates.

About 24 months back Google implemented its Universal Search, and its impact has been felt ever since. Unfortunately for most website owners the impact has had negative results for their position on the search engine results page (SERP).

Google Universal Search page

Universal Search now shows results for products, local, blogs, videos, images, paid,  books , news — and of course the organic results — all on one page. Although this has enhanced the searcher’s experience, it has also bloated the SERPs to the point where solid SEO rankings of 7, 8, or 9 are now pulling in less traffic than before Universal Search was introduced. If you want to overcome these losses, you must take advantage of some of the other categories in Universal Search.

Boost your site’s SERP ranking!

Online marketers have always had about a 60% better chance of getting a click on their listing from a searcher if marketer was listed in both paid and organic search results. This percentage will go even higher and you will take back some of the lost traffic you have been missing due to Universal Search by also listing your product or service in the supplemental categories.

• Use target keywords to name all of your images and keyword -centered anchor text.
• Include keywords in captions, and make sure your robots.txt file will allow spidering your images.
• Add a short how-to or instructional video that optimized by keyword tagging.
• If you have brick-and-mortar locations you want to be sure they are listed in the local and map section. Use keyword anchor text to link them to your web site.
• Get your news listed by sending out press releases on a regular basis. Include targeted keywords throughout your releases and make sure any images have keyword alt tags attached to them.

Well optimized combinations of organic and supplemental searches can be highly beneficial to any marketer.

The world of web search engines is constantly changing and growing. The competition for a click is greater now than at any time in the past, and this level of competition is going to continue to grow over the next few years. Competing for videos, news, blogs, images, and products will soon be just as heated as organic results and paid listings. Marketers need to fully optimize across all areas of Universal Search to maintain a healthy search marketing presence, and now is the time to start this optimization. Needless to say it is nearly a full-time job to keep your web presence at the top of the list.

Post by guest blogger Hal Major of I’m Just Sayin’

Improve Your Search Engine Rank

Tags: Anchor Text, Brick And Mortar, Captions, Google, Google Search, Map Section, Marketer, Online Marketers, Search Engine Results, Search Page, Searcher, Serp, Serps, Target Keywords, Universal Search