What is Google Personalized Search anyhow?
Google recently announced the expansion of personalized search to signed-out users. This means that anyone searching Google.com will be given the option of seeing customized results based on their search history. This will include sites that a user seems to have favored in the past, demonstrated by frequent visits and time spent on site. Check out the video below to hear how it works directly from a couple Google employees.
Previously, personalization was only made available to signed-in searchers. This included anyone searching on Google while signed into a Google service such as Gmail or YouTube.
While searchers can opt-out, they’ll only do so if they know about it and wish to do so. So chances are, most people will not opt out and the vast majority of people searching Google will now see personalized results.
For consumers, personalization provides value as it will increase the chance that the search results they see include sites that appeal to them. If a consumer has visited a website in the past there is a good chance that they’ll want to visit the same site in the future when searching a similar term.
When an individual first queries a keyword, however, the results will be open game (i.e. there is no history Google can rely on to present a personalized result) and the results will not be personalized.
5 Tips to Optimize for Google Personalized Search
Given Google’s algorithm change, here are a few tips:
- Know your customers. Who is your target customer? What are they looking for? And what is their preference in terms of user experience, design, tone, content? Generally, if you meet their needs, your site will move up in the search results. If your site doesn’t appeal to someone, the next time they do a related search, your results will go down.
- Be exposed to more search queries by having more targeted content. Think of every page on your website as a landing page. The more content and pages you have, the more keywords you will be able to target and the more closely you’ll be able to match the searcher’s intent, which will give you a greater chance gaining first time visitors.
- Capture new visitors with a targeted meta-description. By targeting your meta-description to closely match the user’s intent you are more likely to entice a clickthru. Again, another way to attract first time visitors.
- Keep people coming back with well written content & a great user experience. After you’ve been indexed by the search engines across many terms and enticed new visitors through a great meta-description, ensure that you “wow” visitors with the content and user experience they are looking for. If users visit your site and stay for a while, your site will rank even higher for that user the next time they do a related search.
- Invest in your brand. Branding becomes more important in the world of personalized search. Brands users recognize will gain a greater share of new visitors and will naturally move up the rankings.
Personalization will favor sites that do the best job of meeting the consumer’s need with the best content & best user experience. Optify can help evaluate and track your SEO efforts–start your free trial today!
Any thought and comments? Share them with us
