Being bumped off the front page by video, news and local results?

23May

Being bumped off the front page by video, news and local results?

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You have been bumped by YouTube (video), Local (Google Maps) and News (Google News) but don’t feel bad millions of others are feeling the pinch. I have been deciphering the new Google Universal Results and thought I would share my findings with you.

1. Video just got VERY important.

You may say well that holds true sites geared toward celebrities or bands etc. but wait look at these results. Here is a search on the particular car model Mclaren F1. Here is another example, caveman .

2. News just go important as well.

Here is a Dallas Cowboys search with the News results in the middle of the page and here is a Tennessee Titans search with the results at the top.

3. Local listings are probably more important to small local businesses than anyone else. What this is doing is giving small businesses the ability to compete with larger companies that have larger and deeper pockets. I was actually thinking about developing a search engine exactly for this purpose but declined when I saw Google offering the ability to connect you with the local business by simply inserting your phone number and pressing submit.

Ok what am I talking about? This Gatlinburg cabin search will give you the ability to expand several results to show them on the map. However if you have done your homework you will know that adding the state abbreviation will usually bring in better results as well as higher search count. We have also added rental since it is one of the more popular phrases. So when we do the same search WITH the state abbreviation, Gatlinburg TN cabin rental, you will get a local map automatically being returned with the top three results that have local business listings.

Now PAY ATTENTION, if you learn anything from this post it should at least be this. Those listings that were just displayed in the Gatlinburg TN cabin rental search were NOT in the top 10 natural listings for that search. How is that and how did they pull that off? They had a FREE local business listing with reviews. Again how much did this cost them? Nothing except for the time that it took to sign up for the listing! Now, I know for a fact that there are some campaigns that are paying a $100 or more a day for their adwords campaigns for these keywords. I can only imagine how many small companies that are spending heavily on particular keywords not knowing this.

The next question we need to answer is how to get listed in the top three of the local results :). I’m number one for anything related to Internet in Rogersville TN but that is not surprising since there are only a couple of us in this small town. I will explore that question when I have more time.

BTW the reason why I still live in this small town and have not moved to California or New York is because I love the view from my back yard. The pictures below are views from the top of my hill, in my backyard. I will try to find and add a video later as well. I can see NC, KY, VA and the Smokey Mountains (which is 90 minutes away) on a clear day. It’s a nice view to say the least.