Google Universal Is A Double-Edged Sword

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Google Universal is getting a lot of attention right now. SEOs all over the world are speculating about how the latest change at Google will affect the way is SEO is done.

If you don’t know by now, Google has changed the way it returns results for search queries. Calling the new search model Google Universal, the search engine incorporates all of its technology in the search results. In other words, when you go to Google and type in your search query you are likely to see results from Google News, Google Videos, Google Images, Google Blog search, Google Local, and who knows what else. I see this as a positive for searchers and for SEOs. Here’s why:

Google Universal Will Mean Fewer Outdated Results

We all know that Google has had a problem with returning results that are a bit outdated. That is, you could go to Google and search for “search engine optimization” and find at least one or two web pages that on that topic that were created in 2001. Even though SEO has changed since then, you wouldn’t know it if you were knew to SEO and wanted rock solid and relevant information from the latest up-to-date play books. With Google Universal you should see much less of that. However, you will see a lot more of different kinds of search results that you haven’t seen before.

What you’ll get in your top results are more news items, local listings, videos, images, blogs, etc. You may not be looking for a blog but the result will be there. The information itself might not be totally relevant to your search but it will match your search query. In other words, if a blogger addressed search engine optimization techniques that are relevant to European peat moss manufacturers and optimized her blog post heavily for the search term “search engine optimization” then you could conceivably see that result appear in your search results. Unless you are a European peat moss manufacturer, however, you might not be interested in that post.

Google Universal Will Make SEO More Important

>What Google Universal will force SEOs to do is optimize every single element on their web pages, in their blogs, and even during their social marketing strategies. You should be doing this already, but if you aren’t then now is the time to start. You’ll have to include more images in your blog posts and use your alt tags. You’ll have to ensure that your viral videos use the properly SEOd alt tags as well. All of the images on your website should already contain alt tags.

Many people don’t know about alt tags. With Google Universal, alt tags will become extremely important. They’re already important, but Google Universal will make them more important. If you own a local website in any industry you’ll have to optimize your website for local search terms as well as for important industry keywords. It should be easier for your local clientele to find you if you have optimized your website correctly. It is conceivable that you could have your images and videos found through local search as well as through universal search.

Bottom line: If you aren’t doing detailed SEO work the way it should be done right now then you likely will fall in search engine rankings, especially at Google. However, if you are doing it correctly then you should rise in the rankings for your important keywords and may actually even do better.