SeoAlchemist

There’s more than one way to get organic search traffic. That’s the message that you should be hearing from your search engine (SEO) optimizer these days. With the advent of Universal Search, the traditional organic search result is getting pushed further and further down the page and this effect will only get more pronounced. You might also be failing to get any benefit from a whole range of highly targeted content on your site that isn’t being presented to the search engines in such a way that they can understand it and present it to searchers.

Image Optimization

Image search is among the highest growing sectors in search. Google has taken image search very much to heart and will now present image results intermingled and even above standard organic results if it thinks they are more relevant. For example, try this link: http://www.google.com/search?q=mona+lisa

Of course, Google can’t read and understand images on its own. You need to add information to the alt attribute tag connected to the image, optimise the image filename to use relevant keywords and make sure the image is surrounded by relevant content. The Gizmodo page returned in the search above is a good example. Image optimization is especially effective in the e-commerce sector where product images can be matched to product numbers to target highly specific terms that have good conversion rates. Image search results are changing the way we interact with the search results (see MediaPost) and there is significant competitive advantage to be gained with these simple optimisation tactics.

Video Optimization

Videos are the new images. YouTube videos are prevalent and prominent within Google’s search results, and given the strength of the YouTube domain this is another opportunity to promote content to the search engines. You can optimize videos using the same principles as in image search, i.e. add a keyword-rich title and description to your videos, whether you post them on YouTube, your own site or both. There are also options to create video-specific sitemaps if you have that level of content available.

However, there is also a viral element to video optimization as this can be a very social medium. So once you have a video, make sure you promote it to relevant online communities in order to build your backlinking profile as well as increase traffic. (more…)