Optimizing for a single search channel is foolish in today’s search environment. Google isn’t one search engine; it’s multiple search engines. Neither are Yahoo or Bing; they’re multiple search engines too.

All large, modern search engines offer multiple search engines. Think of these multiple search engines as channels. Ranking on the main page of a Google poker related search might provide a lower ROI than ranking on several other search channels.

Here are some poker search channels in Google you might consider optimizing for. I’ve also include tips about how to optimize for them.

The Poker News Search Channel

In Google’s main search engine, the phrase “WSOP” has 10 million competitors with that phrase in their title tags. (I like to do an allintitle: search to gauge the competition.)  But the phrase “WSOP” in Google News only has 238 competitors with that phrase in their title tag. (I do an allintitle: search in Google News too.)

Which channel do you think it’s easier to compete in?

Google News undoubtedly sees fewer “WSOP” searches. But if you can be the #9 result on the news page with a little effort, you’ll see a bigger ROI than if you rank #91 in the main results. Volume of searches is only one way of deciding which phrases to target; competition is another (equally important) factor to consider. Volume and competition are also ways of considering which channels to target with your searches.

How do you optimize for Google News? First get accepted as a Google News publisher. Google News has technical requirements, like including a 3 digit number in each of your URL’s. Google also only wants to include legitimate news sources in this channel. How do you make your news source legitimate?

1. Include bylines for your news contributors.
2. Publish on a schedule.
3. Have multiple contributors.
4. Distinguish between editorial content and reporting content.
5. Remain independent of the companies and individuals you cover.

You might  get accepted as a Google News publisher even if you do none of those things. But having professional standards couldn’t hurt.

The Poker Video Search Channel

Google’s video search is popular,  so learn how to optimize for video search. Creating video content comes first. Using your target keyword phrases in the title, description, and file name for the video comes next.

With 19,100 allintitle results for the “WSOP” phrase, Google video search is more competitive than Google news search. Some of this is because there’s a timeframe attached to the Google news results. Expand the default timeframe in the news search, and the number of competitors increase.

But competing against 19,100 pages is still easier than competing against 10 million pages.

The Poker Blog Search Channel

Google also offers a blog search channel. An allintitle:WSOP search in Google’s blog search brings back 125,000+ results for “WSOP”, but that’s still a heckuva lot less competitive than 10 million. Optimizing for the poker blog search channel begins with having a blog. You can launch a blog on your regular site in a subfolder or on a subdomain, but you can also launch a blog on its own domain. Either will work for getting into the blog search results.

Having a poker blog offers so many different advantages to a poker SEO that I’m startled by anyone who doesn’t have a poker blog or two. Some of those advantages:

1. Blogging forces you to publish content on a regular basis.
2. Blogs get indexed fast.
3. Blogs can get links from blog directories.

The poker SEO trick for poker bloggers is getting link love from other poker bloggers. If you want poker links from poker bloggers, develop the following three traits:

1. Sincerity
2. Transparency
3. Generosity

The Poker Image Search Channel

Don’t swipe other sites’ images as part of your poker image search optimization strategy. And don’t use stock photos as part of your poker image search optimization strategy.

Get yourself a digital camera and start practicing some poker photojournalism. If writing poker content is hard for you, then poker photojournalism might be a hidden strength that you haven’t developed yet. If you’re not good at it, you can always hire a photographer.

Or hire a poker cartoonist to write and draw poker cartoons for your site. You could devote an entire site to poker cartoons, or you could create a subsection of your site for these cartoons. And if you have talent as an artist, you can be your own poker cartoonist.

Play to your strengths and focus on creating unique poker images for your poker image search campaign. Poker image SEO basics include using your keyword phrase in poker image filenames, in poker image alt text, and in the text surrounding the poker image. Building links is still part of your SEO campaign, and poker images can attract unsolicited poker links as easily as other poker content.

Other Poker Search Channels

There are more poker search channels you can optimize for. Here are some more ideas:

• Poker Map Search Optimization – People play live poker in specific locations. You can  leverage the map search results.
• Poker Shopping Search Optimization – People buy poker chips, poker tables, World Series of Poker collectibles, etc. You can leverage the shopping search results.
• Poker Discussion Search Optimization – People can search Google Groups for discussions of poker. Are you participating in these discussions? Participation is the first step of optimizing for that search channel. (See my articles about poker social media optimization.)
• Poker Book Search Optimization – You have written a poker book, right? An allintitle:wsop search in Google Books only brings back 4 results, so the competition here is nonexistent.
• Poker Scholar Search Optimization – Unless you have an academic background, optimizing for Google’s scholar search channel is going to be tough. But it’s not impossible, and it’s not competitive. A plain old “poker” search in Google Scholar only brings back 96,000 results.
• Poker Finance Search Optimization – You could launching a public company which publishes poker content. I think this channel might have a low ROI, but the strategic concerns related to going public are broader than just poker search engine optimization strategy.
• Poker Patent Search Optimization – What? You mean you haven’t already filed for a patent for some brilliant poker invention? Create some software, or hire someone to. Then patent it.

Google is only one example of a large, modern search engine offering multiple search channels.

• Optimizing for the “answers to common questions” channel at Ask.com would be a great poker SEO strategy for a beginner poker SEO, and it might even have a better ROI than trying to optimize for Google Video search. The content would definitely be easier to produce for that strategy.
• Yahoo has a jobs search channel (HotJobs). A creative poker SEO could find a way to leverage that, but I’m not going to go into detail on it here.
• Bing has almost all of the search channels available at Google, and if they continue to grow, they’ll launch unique channels you can leverage.

Expand your poker search engine optimization efforts into different channels. If you’re doing poker SEO consulting, consider specializing in optimization for specific search channels.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 8:41 am and is filed under Google, Poker Blog SEO, Poker Content, Yahoo . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.