Rising Stream, LLC

Have you done a recent search for your firm in the three main search engines? I’m talking about a basic search on your firms name. I’ve had good success branding my website for the term rising stream

. A fundamental tool for accomplishing that is to include your key words in your domain name. I rank #2 in Google, #4 in Yahoo and #3 and #4 in Microsoft. Add associates to the search – rising stream associates - and I hit #1 in all three search engines.

What about someone searching for business, marketing or technology consulting, a perfect fit for me? Reaching the first page for any one of these services will be a long term commitment and require regular content updates on this site, especially when you look at the number of firms that rank high now. Notice the domain names? The keywords I’m using here are part of the domain name in the majority of the cases.

There is another way to address the problem. For both Yahoo and Microsoft, the main page of their search pages include the “Local” option. Google is a bit different – use Google Maps to search for local busineses.

An important component of your Search Engine Marketing strategy should be to rank high in these local searches as well. Consumers are looking for ways to improve search results and the Local component is a simple method to achieve that goal.

Google makes it simple for you if you are not showing up in the local listings. Look at the bottom left of the search page and you’ll see a link for Business Owners – Add/Edit Your Business. The sign in process shows you what your listing will look like as you complete the information, including adding up to five categories for your firm. Confirmation is by postal mail or a phone call.

Yahoo Local Listings is the method for ensuring your firm will be found in their City Guides. The process also goes smoothly and confirmation is noted as taking 3-5 business days. An email confirms your listing request has been received and provides links back to the Account Center.

Microsoft is an interesting difference. The boys & girls from Redmond are using a third party service for adding business listings to their Local service. Submit your new business listing here. Microsoft was also the most annoying service I worked with, primarily because it insisted on using Chicago, IL as my default location, even though I was logged in with my Live.com ID.

Two final items. Google and Yahoo will tie your listing to your email address while Microsoft does not since it uses a third-party service. Finally, make certain that you include your address and phone number, in text format, on your website. A graphic will not be indexed by the search engines and make it that much harder for your prospects to find you locally!

As I work to improve my understanding of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a topic that Robert Scoble in particular likes to explore is the difference in results that can occur between the primary search engines.  My primary source for experimenting is the soccer blog that I maintain, SGFsoccer.com, that is focused on high school, club and college soccer in the Ozarks area around Springfield Missouri. 

I decided I’d try an experiment associated with the recent NCAA College Cup games that were hosted in St. Louis at St. Louis University (SLU).  These games are the “Final Four” of college soccer and the primary branding for the games is “College Cup”.  My goal is to see if I can rank high in searches for “College Cup Photos”.  I chose that route since I was granted an NCAA press pass for the games (woo hoo) and that is my primary outlet for sharing the experience of attending the games with the Springfield Soccer area.

 I took two primary steps.  The first was to title the three stories I wrote with “College Cup” in the title.  On Monday November 27th I wrote a short article highlighting the upcoming games.  On Friday December 1st, I wrote a brief article noting that the games had been postponed due to the weather.  Both of these used “College Cup” in the title of the article as well as in the body.  Then on Saturday and Monday, for the  two days of games, I used “College Cup Photos” in the title while including the name of the teams involved as well, anticipating searches such as “College Cup photos UCLA”.   

The second step I took was to label each of the 98 photos I uploaded to my Flickr account in a similar fashion as the game day articles.  I also created a set and titled it NCAA College Cup Photos.

The final step is to track the results in Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.  I use Internet Explorer v7 on a new PC with the Live Toolbar installed so it’s a simple effort to enter my search term and then discover the results for the three engines.  I added the competitive engines via a simple one-click process that Microsoft includes in the Live Toolbar set up.

I finished uploading the photos around 1am Monday December 4th after returning to Springfield MO from St. Louis and did the initial search when I came into the office around 10am today.  The results for “College Cup Photos”?

1. Yahoo has me ranked #1 and points to a photo from my Flickr photo set!
2. Microsoft ranks me on the 3rd page and points to my November 27th article
3. Google ranks me on the 9th page but points to my World Cup 2006 category listing

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An interesting sidenote is that Yahoo also points to another Flickr site with a single photo pointing to the College Cup.