The basics of search optimization results are often talked about. Generally speaking, when you find articles that refer to search results they are written with the assumption that people understand how the results are displayed and why specific results are displayed.
1) Search Results – Sponsored Results
The three major search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) all include “sponsored results” in their search listings. This means when you type in a search for something the results that appear will include some sponsored listings.
Sponsored listings are paid listings. You can compare these sponsored results to advertisements in a magazine. The only reason they appear on the results page is because the websites paid to appear there. The cost to appear in sponsored results can be quite expensive and is based on how many people click on the link. These are called Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. Most web users know that those ads are paid.
2) Search Results – Local Listings
Recently, the three major search engines started adding local listings to their search results. They are able to tell what part of the country you are accessing the Internet from or what part of the country you are trying to find information in (by search term selection). They use this information to display local websites that meet your search criteria. Google Places is the big one to focus on and a properly optimized Google Places account can drive 1/2 of your website traffic.
Local listings are important and you definitely want your website to come up on top of local listings.
3) Search Results – Organic Listings
The organic or natural listings are those that appear in the center of the results page. These listings are determined by the search engines based on a number of different factors. Basically a website is ranked against all other websites based on how relevant they are to the search you entered.
The goal for the search engines is to have the most relevant websites come up higher in the search results.
The goal for a trade show, convention or event website owner is to get their website ranked as high as possible in these organic listings. Consumers mistakenly equate a website’s ranking in the organic results with the quality of the business or website.
4) Search Results – News, Images and Video
Starting in 2010, the search engines started to show news results, image results and video results along with website results. Prior to this you had to do a specific search for news, images or video.
Google started integrating the results in 2009 and it became essential for businesses to try to have images, videos and news stories posted frequently on the web. For some industries it is rather easy to come up with videos and images, for others it takes a little more creativity.
5) Search Results – Where Should my Focus Be?
If you are trying to figure out where to focus your trade show marketing efforts, the answer is try to get in the local listings and the organic listings as quickly as possible. You have to register with Google and Yahoo to become part of their local listings.
In order to get listed in the organic listings you need to engage in search engine optimization (SEO). SEO includes some tools and practices which help your site outscore the competing sites in order to rank well in search results. For the most part, you will want to hire an SEO firm to do this for you as it is rather complex and time consuming.
With this basic understanding of how the search engines show results you can make a determination of where you want your site to appear and what it will take to get it there.
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