Taking advantage of Google Places, Video, Image and Product Search

by Andy Carroll, 20 Oct 2011

Googles integrated search means users are now presented with much more tailored results for their search terms. Google's search engine tries to predict the type of results you are looking for based on the phrases you use. For example if your search includes a town or city you will be presented with results containing "Google Places" results. Or if your terms include "video", "photo" or a product type your results might contain YouTube, Google Images or Google Shopping results. For very generic single word terms Google will usually provide a selection of suggested content types.

To take full advantage of this feature you should prepare your marketing strategy to include a local search listing, engaging targeted video, optimised images and product feeds.

Google Local Business Listing

For businesses trying to attract local searchers it is important to ensure you have a listing in Google Places. Google Places show results as part of google maps and once listed your company profile can be returned as results in local searches. Google Places is free and just requires businesses verify ownership and provide address and phone details. It is also important to encourage your customers to provide good ratings and positive feedback on your Google Places Page. This will help boost your listing to a higher position for local searches as well as increase the liklyhood of new customer contact.

Google Video Search

Video hosting sites such as Youtube, Metacafe, and Viddler are indexed in google video search. Your video should be properly tagged and titled. It pays to research high search volume keywords perhaps with little competition in the video results. Google trends tool can give you comparison data for search volume or for more specific data Google Insights tool.

Google Image Search

Getting listed in Google Images is straight forward to set up. You just need to ensure you have alt text applied in your html markup for all your important images. These images should also be in context with the content surrounding them. You should also have a keyword based file name and directory path. This filename should have alpha numeric with hyphens to replace spaces. eg "my-search-friendly-photograph.jpg" might eventually get picked up for the search phrases "search friendly photograph". Use the same research tools as advised in the video paragraph above for selecting the keywords

Google Product Search

Google product search is currently not available in New Zealand but that may soon change given the aggresive changes Google is in the process of implementing. If you sell goods in the US, UK or Australia I highly recommend looking into Google Product Search. It will require some technical involvement and you will need a Google Merchant Account but it should be well worth the effort. After confirming your business fits with Google's Product Search policy you will need to create the "Product feed" a data file containing your product inventory. This will be published on a schedule to your Merchant Account. Many e-commerce systems have in built facilities for generating feeds in the correct format or you may be able to download modules and plug-ins. If you already have a feed set up, you should take a special look at the current feed contents as many new required fields have been added. This means even recent e-commerce installations might now require updating. You can check this in your Merchant Account as your products will no longer be approved for product search. The new google product feed specifications is available here.

Taking advantage of Google Places, Video, Image and Product Search

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Andy Carroll