Universal Search
Bringing the whole universe together
Google doesn’t quite bring the whole universe together, but they are damn sure trying! They've recognized that text is only one method to show information. People looking for content aren’t always looking for a web page. With Universal Search, Google tries to offer other information too, such as videos, news stories, stock exchange indexes, geographical information based on Google Maps and the list goes on.
Something happened a while ago. For years, the only visual element on the Google result pages was their logo placed on top. But all of a sudden, the search engines result pages showed images, screenshots of videos, Google Maps applications and other visual content. All this new content together is named Universal Search. It’s called Unisersal Search because one result page shows snapshots of all the information Google has about a certain topic. In one view, people may decide if they are looking for an image, a video, a news item or the weather in a certain place. All this information is stored in so-called Oneboxes.
This isn’t completely new. Google already offered ways to find images for instance. Unfortunately, not many people knew the way to that vertical search engine. And of course, people might go to YouTube to find the movies they’re looking for, but there were no ways to show your funny movie based on a ordinary query in Google.
For your business, new opportunities arise. Back in the old days, Google Image search didn’t have any influence on your search engine rankings. Today you want to rank first in Image Search for high converting terms because a lot of people will click on your image. Do you sell products? Optimize your images for the Google Image Onebox. Did you create a viral video related to your products or services? Optimize your video and try to rank to increase your traffic. Do you ‘sell’ news? Use XML Sitemaps to optimize your news stories and receive loads of traffic for the benefit of selling more CPM banners. As you see, new opportunities are born based on the rise of Universal Search.
Key Takeaways
- Universal Search is changing the result pages of Search Engines very fast.
- Universal Search offers new ways to attract relevant traffic towards your website.
- Universal Search is in an ongoing, changing process. Let us keep you up to date!
So, how can we help you?
The implementation of Universal Search is an ongoing movement within Google. Onetomarket has an up to date knowledge of the current state of Universal Search and all the elements involved. Please give us a call so we can talk about the relevant traffic you could attract in the near future!
