Is Google’s Personalized Search Going to Change SEO Efforts?

As with any new change on the Internet, Google’s Personalized Search has definitely set the SEO world a buzz. In February, Google launched it’s new personalized search and now that the dust has settled it is time to really take a closer look and see how it will affect our search engine optimization efforts.

Let’s back up for a minute and explain exactly how personalized search works.

Google's personalized search re-orders search results based on your history of past searches, giving more weight to topics that interest you.

Personalized search also maintains a history of your searches on Google, allowing you to revisit pages you previously viewed by scanning through your history. Of lesser importance are any favorite sites you have bookmarked and things you have added to your personal homepage.

Google says that their main focus for personalization is to reduce spam and provide more relevant results.

Marissa Mayer from Google told Matt Cutts in a March interview that personalized search won’t make that much of a difference in many of our searches. She told Matt that personalized results only show up in about one of every five searches and would only lift two results into the top 10, never replacing the number one organic result.

Knowing this we do know that personalized search will affect us in one way or another just by showing 2 of those results in every 10. The clue is learning how to handle the changes Google has set in place and still become a good SEO.

The biggest change I can see from a SEO stand point is what you see in your SERP’s may be different then what your client sees in his SERP’s. You may have to give your customers a mini lesson on how personalized search works so they understand that the ranking they saw yesterday in #2 spot may now be in a #5 spot. I am glad Google is only lifting 2 results into the top ten for now it will give us time to adjust our SEO efforts to this new search behavior.

As a current SEO we know that the trend is turning away from optimization for keywords and algorithms as in the old days and concentrating more on optimizing for the end users social pattern, search history and web history.

Theme optimization is going to become even more important as personalized search really takes off. Basic search engine optimization techniques will still be important and always be a basis for any SEO approach, but optimizing for your visitors is truly the way of the future.

We really need to start thinking about how the Internet is changing and try to foresee into the future where a search engine is providing better results because it knows a little more about our interests. Personalization is aimed at bringing the user closer to the final click.

Let’s think about how all the new social media marketing is going on today and how this is following the same path as personalized searchers. By optimizing your site to be interesting to your user and not concerning yourself with algorithms you are preparing your site for the future when these types of searches will become more prevalent. A site that naturally attracts visors also attracts back links and repeat visitors. SEO’s that concentrate their SEO efforts on creating sites like this will benefit as we move forward.
Here are a few things you need to keep in mind when optimizing for personalization:

• Build sites that are sticky

• Develop good quality content rich text

• Make your site a research bases for your industry

• Include RRS content

• Add Google Bookmarks, Google Reader or Google Gadget Tools

• Work around themes instead of keywords

• Long term link building strategies from vertical directories

• Use Social Media sites to distribute content and encourage link building

• Integrate SEO efforts with PPC, Branding and Awareness

• Start Blogging

This change may scare some of you but it really is good news for today’s SEOs and for site owners with good content. If you have already been developing content rich, themed based Web sites then these changes will only reward you with visitors.

Keep in mind that good quality Titles and Descriptions are more important then ever. You need that click though more then ever now.

Get on Google's personalized home page searches by offering your visitor a feed, gadget or bookmark tools on your site. Making it easy for your visitors to add your site to their personal home page, feed or bookmark just makes sense.

Here is the link for Google’s Add on Buttons http://www.google.com/webmasters/add.html
http://www.AddThis.com  offers Google Bookmark buttons for FREE.

So when it is all said and done it boils down to this…optimize your website for your visitor, make it a site filled with industry related information, a site that they will want to come back to time and again and one that they will want to add to their bookmarks and feeds.
 
Author – Tracy Fredrychowski – SEO Instructor
Search Engine Academy of SC
Looking for local Search Engine Marketing and Optimization training in South Carolina? The Search Engine Academy of SC holds workshops in Greenville, Columbia and Charleston. Check and see when we will be bringing our 5 Day SEO Hands on Workshop to your area.

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