Go back 10 years and search results on Google were vastly different to what they are today. Gone are the days of page after page of bland text; instead searchers are now bombarded with an assortment of results - from news to maps, images and videos. Google refers to this as “universal search” as it combines their separate search tools to provide improved results for searches.

However, universal search is just the tip of the iceberg with regards to maximising your brand’s exposure within the search results. Whilst not all options may be relevant to your brand, there are many which are easy to implement and allow you to increase visibility and traffic (whilst helping to bury your competitors further down the page).

Below, I explore some opportunities around achieving more (and bigger) listings across both natural and paid results…

Maps

Whether you’re a small florist or a nationwide chain of shops, Google local listings are a must have if you have a physical presence on the streets, especially since Google claim 1 in 5 searches are with local intent.

Easy to setup, ranking is considerably easier compared to the main results (providing you’re located near the searched for location). Just ensure your description and categories contain relevant terms and next time someone searches you could find your map listing appearing.

News

If a search is performed for a term which has seen a recent surge in traffic, then Google often displays news results which provide relevant up-to-date information (see the below example which is displayed when searching for “BAA Strike”).

However, in addition to traditional on-page SEO, there are other ranking factors at play, such as the freshness of the article, the number of citations, local/personal relevancy and whether it’s a trusted source.

Google don’t just allow anyone to submit news stories. Ideally, you should be an established source (such as a local paper or radio station), but if you’re reporting original news (possibly on a niche industry) then there’s potential for you to be approved, which could lead to increased traffic, especially since a recent survey by Oxford Internet Surveys found that 75% of internet users now go online for their news.

Images

Images are quite often overlooked for SEO, yet depending on your site these are a good way of gaining more visibility from very little work. By simply using descriptive file names, the alt tag and some relevant surrounding copy you’re in with a chance of appearing.

Video

This has massively taken off in the past few years, helped (in part) by the launch of YouTube in 2005.  Now anyone with a website can embed content hosted by YouTube, although hosting your own and having your videos rank means that you can drive additional traffic to your site.

If a video is on your site then you’ll need to consider standard on-page SEO principles, such as the title tag, internal links and copy surrounding the video itself. However, you can also point Google in the right direction by uploading a video sitemap through Webmaster Central. Within the sitemap are tags specifically created for you to give as much information about the video as possible, i.e. the title, a description and keywords etc.

A study by Forrester Research found that videos were about 50 times more likely to rank on the first page of results than standard SEO techniques, so if you’ve already got the content it makes sense to attempt this now before it becomes increasingly competitive!

Products

If you’re a retail site then a good way to jump ahead of the competition is to rank well in Google Products Search and to do this you’ll need to register with the Google Merchant Center and submit a data feed.

There are lots of factors which can influence your ranking, but some of the obvious are using key terms within the title and description fields, plus if you’re cheaper than the competition this will also help. Another important ranking factor is reviews from trusted 3rd party review sites, such as shopzilla.co.uk.

According to Verdict Research, UK online sales were up by 13.3% in 2009 and 10.9% in 2010, so if you’ve thousands of products then this is a great way to suddenly increase your visibility.

Rich Snippets

In the past Google has only shown a snippet of a couple of lines, however the introduction of rich snippets now give you the opportunity to increase the size of search listings by structuring your data using microformats. This is a lot more eye-catching and not only helps click-through-rates, but can also allow visitors direct access to more relevant pages on the site.

For example, you can now display structured information on upcoming events, reviews or even recipes, all of which provide a more enhanced listing…

Ad Sitelinks

Whilst Google has been providing sitelinks automatically within the natural results for some time, this has now been rolled out to AdWords campaigns providing they have a high enough quality score. This allows you to select up to four internal links, effectively doubling the size of your ad and allowing visitors more choice of where they land on your site.

Product Extensions

Similar to the above Ad Sitelinks, this is another new AdWords ad extension, however it’s currently only available in the US, although there are a few big spending UK companies currently trialling it.

Providing you have a Google Merchant account with a feed set up, you can link it to your AdWords account. Now, when you’ve relevant products which match a searcher’s query these are shown in an expandable box underneath your ad. One US agency claims this improved click-through-rates for some clients by over 10%!