What does the Introduction of Universal Search mean for SEO?

When Google makes a big change to its search listings, then we all take notice. This happened earlier this month with the introduction of Universal Search; the way that Google “blends” results from “vertical” search engines like Google Images or Google News into its web search listings.

Google’s recent switch to “Universal Search” is a big change and one that affects all web site owners that depend on Google traffic for their business.

In the past, when a search term was entered into Google’s search field, it returned the web sites that best matched the query. This was pretty straight forward. You need to ensure that your website ranks for those search terms. Now the search engine results pages are augmented by additional information, organic search results, especially on the first pages, will be pushed further down the results.

Even if your website ranks highly for a specific search term, it may only appear towards the bottom of the first page under the shopping results, images or local search results.

For website owners, Universal Search provides lots of opportunities. Instead of just creating websites to promote content, digital content across a variety of formats can be created and then appear on the main pages of Google, rather than on just an image search or a video search.

There will be a first to market advantage for those business owners that jump on these opportunities.