Google SearchWIKI: A Grand Shift in SEO?

Thanks to Dave Fleet for inspiring this post. I’d been meaning to discuss this tool and Dave did it justice.

In his most recent post, Dave discusses the use of and reasoning behind Google’s newest tool, SearchWIKI. In essence, SearchWIKI is a customizable search engine. It’s estimated that nearly 80% of internet users interact with a search engine before any other website every time they log on to the internet. This trend tells us something– we know what we’re looking for and we need a way to find it.

It used to be that we’d find what we were looking for by punching in keywords and scrolling through the results. Website owners would pay thousands of dollars and invest hundreds of hours to boosting their Google juice through SEO efforts, ad campaigns and — as of late — social media involvement.

What SearchWIKI has done, though, is allow the user to rate and comment on their search results, thus customizing them for easy navigation in the future. As Dave points out, there are six implications to the new communications professional (“digital PR & marketing professionals”); I’d like to discuss the last, and least explored, one: SEO potential.

A few years ago, organization’s began recognizing a trend: the social media movement had formed entire online communities of people with similar interests, and these communities were far more than the stereotypical 40-somethings living out of their mother’s basement; they were soccer moms, hip teenagers, prominent journalists, business professionals. They were customers.

And so “social media marketing” was born.

But another trend was growing. Small business owners, bloggers, academics and experts alike began to recognize that along with all the other benefits of social media involvement — networking, establishing repoire, the free exchange of ideas — was the ability to boost your searchability through organized efforts– a process known as organic search engine optimization.

There are plenty of ways to do it:

1. Get “best answer” points on Yahoo!Answers and/or LinkedIn

2. Post insightful comments on different blogs in your social media circle

3. Run and maintain a blog

4. Make your URL’s searchable (tools like LinkedIn and WordPress allow you to edit your URL’s)

5. Get on lists (Best PR blogs, etc.)

What I see with SearchWIKI is another opportunity to shift your ranking organically (i.e. without paying for it!). Much the same way a “best answer” in Yahoo!Answers or LinkedIn would get you recognized, the more people ranking your site and commenting on it, the better your searchability. (Remember, the promote feature is only for your personal computer, but the comment feature is public).

As Dave mentioned in his post, SearchWIKI will have great effects on Google adwords. Keywords will become more expensive– but great comments are priceless.

~ by Brandon Carlos on November 24, 2008.