A hot topic at this year’s Search Engine Strategies Expo in Chicago was the emergence of Blended Search Results and how they can help improve your positioning in search engines. Blended results have been around since 2007, they just hadn’t made as big a splash as they are now.

What are blended search results?
Blended search results combine the typical blue text link and the two line description with many other types of results including image, video, news, wiki, social media and more. For example, I did a web search for “Tiger Woods,” which returned:

Image Results

Video Results

News Feeds

Wikies

Social Media

How will blended search results affect my business?
With more than 20 different types of blended search results, the top 10 search engine ranking positions are becoming more competitive. Before blended search was created, there were ten results listed on the first page in a search engine. These listings were driven by search engine optimization elements such as page titles, meta tags and inbound links. Now, the typical blue text link results are fighting for position with image results from Google Shopping or video results from YouTube.com, and even Twitter has found its way into the top ten.

How can my business take advantage of Blended Search?
Similar to the search engine results of the past, you must optimize. Blended search is primarily based on keyword rich content and relevancy to the other content on your site.

To read my Top 10 Tips for Blended Search Optimization, visit our blog on Tuesday, December 22.