Have you tried the new Google Search Options?

Google announced some new search options recently. Have you tried them yet?

 

 

New options included:

Video Only

OK, so this isn’t totally new but its now available with all the new tools. The search results that are pulled are different from those on video.google.com and you have more power on narrowing your search. Want new videos? Want short or long ones? You now have the option to tell Google what you are looking for.

So, do you have videos to attract clients? You need to! And you need to have them tagged with keywords that will get the attention they deserve. And don’t settle for a single video posting. You need to keep new videos rolling so you are in the recent postings listing.

Forums Only

You can now pull results from various forums only. In some cases, it shows the number of posts from an author and when they posted last so you can see how active the posts were.

Do you have an SEO team that is posting your info to relevant forums with return links to your site? Looks like those backlinks are going to be worth more than just increasing page rank… Once again, post with relevant keywords and post often.

Reviews

This is a big one for those businesses with product reviews available. A person can now search for an item they want to buy and instantly see all the reviews available for that product.

We have always advocated adding product reviews to a retail site. Now, its more important than ever. Google is handing you an easy way to get traffic to your site for people who are searching to buy the product being reviewed. It doesn’t come much more highly targeted than that!

Timeline

This search option has some flaws. It has pulled data from the 1700’s on certain searches. But for an overall view of how traffic trends have been for a certain keyword, it does a fairly good job.

Have you experienced a sudden drop in traffic? Do certain months seem to do poorly for you? Check out the timeline feature to see if its more than just your imagination. Traffic can ebb and flow with the seasons or with other market trends.

Wonder Wheel

I think this is fast becoming a favorite tool. Its not a new idea but the presentation of data is appealing for users. For every keyword entered, you can click on related keywords, which brings you to more related keywords, and on and on. Everytime a new keyword is clicked, the search results on the right change to reflect the new keyword.

This is great if you have keywords with lots of impressions or clicks but no conversions. Sometimes keywords have many meanings that we don’t realize. Seeing what Google deems as related in search can show you where your keyword is or isn’t relevant. This is also a great tool for long tail keyword research. Start with what you think a user would type in as a basic search and keep drilling down to see what other things they are looking for related to their original search. Remember that the important keywords you are finding need to be optimized on your site so you show up on the new results screen.

So, go and play with the new options. Its very cool and powerful for getting the exact information you want (both doing searches and collecting data on your potential leads!).