The document presents an overview of universal search, or blended search, which integrates non-web results like videos and images into web search results. It discusses optimization strategies for various content types, including images, videos, products, and blogs, aiming to enhance visibility and engagement through better search engine results. Best practices are provided for leveraging digital assets and improving click-through rates, along with tools and resources for optimizing content for search engines.

1. Universal Search
John Shehata
Director of SEO & Social Media
Advance Internet
Feb, 2011
John Shehata SEO Blog
Follow me on Twitter: @JShehata
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2. CONDÉ NAST
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3. Advance Internet
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4. Newspapers
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5. What is Universal Search?
Universal search, also known as “Blended Search” or “Search 3.0″, is
incorporating results from non-web sources (like videos and images) into
the regular web search results.
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6. How Universal Search Work?
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7. Universal Search History
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8. Universal SERP
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9. Universal SERP
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10. @JShehata Universal Search Slide 10

11. Social Universal Search
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12. Why Universal Search?
 Command greater SERP real estate
 Excellent for online reputation management
 Leverage your unique content
 Take users directly where they want to go
 Better for Users, Sites, and Engines
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13. Stats
 Higher Click-Through Rates
38%
Blended
12%
Regular
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
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14. Stats
 Especially Images & Videos
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
Images
40%
30%
20%
Video
10%
News
0%
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15. Images
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16. On-Site
 File Names: Match the name of the file to the
content
 What’s better?
» DSC0103.jpg
» Dog-drinking-soda.jpg
 Alt Tags
<img src=“/images/dog-drinking-soda.jpg” alt=“dog
drinking soda” width=“30px” height=“20px”>
 Allow robots.txt access
 Include keywords in caption
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17. On-Site
Optimize Surrounding Text
Submit XML Sitemap
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/b
in/answer.py?answer=178636
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18. Off-Site Flickr
 http://www.flickr.com/
 Make public
 make sure you tag and describe them, organise into sets
» decide on copyright and Creative Commons licenses
 Embed your photos in your web site, blog, etc.
 Google alternative http://picasaweb.google.com/
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19. •www.rba.co.uk •19
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20. Flickr photo information
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21. Videos
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22. On-Site
 Separate page for each
video
 Choose a good
thumbnail.
 You need textual
content too: transcripts,
tags, titles, comments,
translation, etc…
 Regular SEO for the
page.
 File names
 On-page optimization
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23. Video Player optimization
 URLs
 Branding
 Call to action
 Sharing tools
 Embed code with hard coded links
Hard Coded Link | Your Brand
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24. On-Site
 CollegeHumor formatted its videos so that Google understood they were
videos.
 Once they did, and thumbnails began being displayed in the SERPS, CTRs
went way up.
 Include “video” in page title
 Google Video XML Sitemaps
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80471
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25. Google Videos XML Sitemaps
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26. Why YouTube?
 Potential audience:
 In 2010 YouTube surpasses 75
million video views per day
(that’s over 13 billion a month)
 Hundreds of millions of videos
are watched every month on
mobile devices.
 YouTube player is embedded
across 10s of millions of
websites.
 Over 3 million people are
connected and auto-sharing to at
least one social network.
 Driving traffic to website • Source: website-monitoring.com May 2010
 Branding/exposure
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27. YouTube Video Optimization: Key Factors
Video Title
Video Description
Video Tags
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28. YouTube Video Optimization: Other Tips
 Length of videos maximum of 3
minutes. If longer, cut it down.
 Categorization: “News & Politics”,
“Sports”, …
 Link to the video. Acquire external link
to the video.
 Build Playlists by topic
 My Videos > Playlists to create
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29. YouTube Video Optimization: Tips
 Watermark/brand/URL each frame of your
video
 Put call to action at end of video.
 “Find more videos on site.com”
 “watch complete video at site.com”
 “visit our site”
 “send to a friend,” etc.
 Make your default thumbnail image
compelling
 Allow comments and community features
 Talk about your video at Social
Bookmarking and Tagging Sites
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30. Video
 Consider uploading also to Vimeo.com and Dailymotion .com
 Check copyright of all material that you use in a video!
 Use tubemogul.com to distribute your videos across multiple video portals
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31. Video
 Once uploaded to the video sharing site tell the world about it!
 Don’t just put a text link to it, get the embed code so that you can display it
within your web pages and blog etc.
 Tweet it
 Blog it
 Put it on your Facebook wall
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32. Video Responses
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33. Products
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34.  Submit feed to Google Merchants
» Google.com/merchants
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35. @JShehata Universal Search Slide 35

36. Best Practices
 Update your data feed 3 times a week
 Include keywords in your products titles
 Include as many fields as possible
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37. Blog Posts
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38. Why Blog?
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39. Setting up your own blog
 Host on the blogging service’s own server or install
on your site
 Wordpress - free
» host on http://www.wordpress.com/
» or host on your own server - software for loading onto your own site at
http://www.wordpress.org/
 SEO Plugins
» All in one SEO
» Automatic SEO Links
 Submit your blog to Google
» http://blogsearch.google.com/ping
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40. Google Insights
Saturday, Sunday
 Celebrities
 Adventure Travel Saturday
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41. Google Insights
 Movie Reviews
Saturday
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42. News
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43. Press Releases
 OR Produce frequent Press Releases
» Prweb.com
» Optimize similar to on-page optimization
» Include links back to your site
 OR Produce frequent Press Releases
» Prweb.com
» Optimize similar to on-page optimization
» Include links back to your site
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44. Google News
 Submit Site to Google News
» Multiple authors
» Unique content
» Etc
 Suggest News Source to Google News
» http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=191208
&rd=1
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45. Google Hot Trends
http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends
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46. Google News
 In The News
 Google News Suggest
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47. Getting into Google News
 Read Google News Help for Publishers
http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/
 Have original content
 Have multiple authors
 Unique and permanent story URL
 All links to articles should be simple HTML text links
 Don’t use frames or put articles in PDF’s
 Decide how you want Google to deal with subscription/registration sites
http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=40543
 Submit news site to Google
http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/request.py
 Read Google News Blog
http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/
 Watch this video
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/
09/tips-for-news-search.html
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48. Optimize for Google News
 XML Sitemap
» Google News Section Names (keywords) in News XML Sitemaps
 “Most Popular” and “Breaking News” sections
 Be faster and fresher
» Update your stories as the news unfolds and place them on new URL’s
 OWN your local stories
 beginning of article = meta description
 Consistent internal links anchor text
 Separate press releases and UGC sections
 Did I mention IMAGES
 Clean your LEGACY code
 Write optimized INTERESTING headlines ( = High CTR + Rankings)
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49. Optimize your images
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50. Other Ideas
 Podcasts
 Rich Snippets
» http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/05/introducing-rich-
snippets.html
» http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=99170
- Reviews
- People
- Products
- Businesses and organizations
- Recipes
- Events
 Slide Shares
 Social Profiles
 etc
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51. @JShehata Universal Search Slide 51

52. New Marketing Philosophy
Get found by your best customers by creating an online presence that attracts
qualified web visitors and leads.
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53. I Don’t Have Content?
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54. Digital Assets
 Turning everything into content” and utilize
all different types of digital assets to
optimize for Universal Search.
 Some content examples may include but not
limited to interviews, conversations, product
DVD’s, personal opinions, support emails,
etc.
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55. @JShehata Universal Search Slide 55

56. @JShehata Universal Search Slide 56

57. @JShehata Universal Search Slide 57

58. @JShehata Universal Search Slide 58

59. @JShehata Universal Search Slide 59

60. @JShehata Universal Search Slide 60

61. If the dumpster people can do it, so can you.
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62. John Shehata
Follow Me
 @JShehata
 John-Shehata.com
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