Facing unfavorable content on page one in the search engine result pages (SERPs) for your brand terms can be a challenge. Today’s article discusses a strategy that allows you to mobilize all of your company websites to jump to the top of the SERPs so that your company dominates page one for your brand phrases… leaving unfavorable content nowhere to be seen.

Which sites to mobilize

To start dominating page one in the SERPs with your company-owned websites, consider any company-owned website that is either on a separate domain or a subdomain. Here are a few examples of company micro sites that are ideal for this strategy, provided they are on their own domain or a subdomain:

• Larger divisions and subsidiaries
• Large products
• Corporate “about” sites
• Corporate charitable foundation
• Recruiting websites
• Customer forums
• Affiliate program overviews
• Sites that were created for special PR campaigns
• Company blogs

If your company has everything sitting on a single domain, unfortunately, it’s unlikely that you will dominate page one because search engines do not like to display more than one or two pages from a given domain. If this is your situation, ensure your website is listed at the top of page one for your brand terms, and then link to favorable content to push the favorable sites above anything unfavorable.

Ideas for getting your company-owned websites to rank

Just like any other SEO campaign, you’ll want to optimize each website you are trying to boost. Typically, you only need to optimize a few pages for your brand terms, and execute a good link building campaign to get the lift you need. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

On-page optimization ideas:

• Include at the bottom of the page, near the copyright information, text that indicates “XYZ is a division of ABC Company”. This gets your company name on the homepage of each website
• In the about sections of each site, cross-link to other company-owned websites, including the main corporate website
• In the about section, add an overview page that is about the parent company
• In the about section, add a history page that focuses on the brand phrases you are targeting. You could write about how this division/site is affiliated with the brand. One of my clients added a page to each subsidiary website that described how the parent company started this division and how they work together today
• Ensure that the main corporate website links to all division websites (you would be surprised at the number of companies who do not link to each of their separate websites)

Link building ideas:

• For each corporate site you are trying to boost to page one, you’ll want to obtain links that pass on relevancy for the brand terms you are targeting. To do this, find sites that talk about the parent company, and see if they will also link to the websites you are targeting
• Look for directories that have a category devoted to your company as a whole; for example, the Yahoo Directory has a corporate categories for large companies (Hewlett Packard and Dell are prime examples)
• You will also want to do a general link building campaign. Sometimes smaller divisions’ websites do not have the resources for thorough SEO and link building, leaving low hanging fruit that will easily give the site a nice boost

Setting expectations

Be prepared for this to be more difficult than it sounds. I find that mobilizing the internal troops to march to the same beat can be a challenge because these smaller websites have been up and running completely autonomously. In the beginning, everyone will be on board, particularly upper management; however, when they look at the proposed changes there will be resistance because you are suggesting they write using brand terms that are not a priority for each particular site’s messaging.

Bear in mind that the stakeholders of these separate sites probably know less about SEO than the stakeholders you normally work with, so operate as though you are back at square one and need to educate and get buy-in for SEO tactics.

For optimal results, I have found that it’s best to get everyone bought in conceptually, and then prepare my recommendations. I walk into to discuss recommendations with a full set of changes ready for approval, fully aware that they will rip it apart and say, “This won’t work.” To which I reply, “That’s OK. We can incorporate the phrases in any way that you want. We just need X repetitions on the page.” This allows stakeholders to actually see the types of changes needed, yet they feel completely in control of the wording and messaging on the site, which is what they truly want in the end.

As you get started, strap on your thinking cap and get creative to make the keywords sound just right, flow naturally and start boosting your rankings.

Jessica Bowman is the Director of SEO for Business.com and an independent consultant and author of the SEM / SEO In-house Blog. The Brand Aid column appears Wednesdays at Search Engine Land.

I’ve written previously about Google Custom Search Engines.  These vertical Googlettes let anyone create a search engine with results based on Google’s index, with an added layer of human editorial selection. Put more simply, you create a Google CSE; you select the sites you want in it, and then you let anyone search your CSE from your site. New Google CSEs appear almost daily. You can see examples at Google here, and there’s even a directory of them being maintained here. Google CSEs offer a couple link building opportunities, one of which might be described as affinity linking.

What is affinity linking and how do Google CSEs impact it?  As always, it best to illustrate by example. How’s this for verticality (no pun intended): Soaring Search. This search engine is oriented towards glider pilots, students, and instructors. This search engine gives higher rankings on glider-related results than other similar sky sports such as hang glider, para glider, RC glider, etc.

The first link building opportunity is to look for Google CSEs in your niche. If you run the Soaring Society of America site, then it’s a pretty good bet the folks over at Soaring Search will have an affinity for your content and include your site if they haven’t already.  Have they? Yes. But that’s an easy one. The Soaring Society of America is a non profit association-type site. Of course the folks at Soaring Search have heard of it and included it

I did a little more looking and found this soaring content that was not included at SoaringSearch. Zero matches equals opportunity lost. 

Don’t depend on the people running the many Google CSEs to stumble across your content. Be proactive and look for them. Use the Google CSE directory and see if there are engines that fit for your content. If you find one, contact the owner and suggest inclusion.

The second linking opportunity offered by having a Google CSE is from Google themselves.  Look at Google’s CSE picks again.  I bet those sites are getting several benefits from that inclusion, among them a little Google-centric link love.  Remember also to submit your Google CSE here of course. And here. And you might want to look through the results for the search "Directory of Google Custom Search Engines." They should yield a few links for your new CSE.

Lastly, forward-thinking link builders might plan for the possibility that Google could incorporate existing topical Google Custom Search Engines into regular Google results. It’s certainly logical. The people running topical Google CSEs are a secret army of human reviewers adding a layer of editorial oversight to what are normally spam-heavy results. Google’s CSEs are genius in that regard. I don’t know if or when the tipping point will come when CSEs are so prevalent that every subject has one, but as I love to say, the web is self organizing.  People find ways to make it better.

I also wonder if one day someone will use Google.com and search for "Soaring instructors", and among the results will be this entry

Try this search again at the topical Google Custom Search Engine Soaring Search.

If Google’s goal is to provide a better searcher experience, then wouldn’t a well maintained vertical Google CSE be a logical place to steer the searcher?  

I walk the walk as well.  I have my own Google CSE for the three sites I run. You can use the box below to search EricWard.com, URLwire.com, and WardReport.com. Give it a try.

Remember, don’t ignore the other players in the custom search engine space, like Rollyo, swicki, Gigablast, and Yahoo Search Builder. They offer similar opportunities, as well.

Eric Ward has been in the link building and content publicity game since 1994, providing services ranking from linking strategy to a monthly private newsletters on linking for subscribers, The Ward Report. The Link Week column appears on Mondays at Search Engine Land.

Pandia is offering a free custom search called the Search Engine Detective, a meta search engine which lets you do specialized searches for anything search engine related. Search Engine Detective give you two options: “All the best sites about search engines” searches a wide variety of sites and blogs on search engine optimization and the search engine industry.

If you want to search just the very best sources — the search engines’ own blogs and those of the top industry experts and old timers, select “Top 25 sites about search engines”.

What’s included in the top 25? We’re flattered that Search Engine Land makes the list. We’re part of a pretty august group:

• The Ask.com blog, Ask’s official blog.
• Google Blog, the official one.
• Google Blogoscoped, unofficially covering Google (and the search scene in general).
• Internet Marketing Monitor, Internet marketing strategies, SEO tips, and case studies.
• John Battelle’s Searchblog, thoughts on the intersection of search, media, technology, and more.
• Live Search’s WebLog from Microsoft.
• Marketing Pilgrim, Andy Beal keeps his finger on the pulse of Internet marketing news.
• Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO, the famous GoogleGuy himself — the view from inside the Googleplex.
• Pandia Search Central, yes, searching our top 25 sites you also get hits from Pandia.
• Phil Bradley’s Weblog, Internet searching, web design, search engine developments and anything that will interest librarians.
• ResearchBuzz, news about search engines, databases, and other information collections from Tara Calishain.
• Search Engine Guide, a site that’s been around forever and has lots of useful info.
• SearchEngineJournal, Search Engine News on SEO, Search Marketing, Blogs, and Web 2.0.
• Search Engine Land, Danny Sullivan, Chris Sherman and friends. Thorough research by the industry experts.
• Search Engine Lowdown, the search industry queries new media.
• SearchEngineWatch, still good without Danny Sullivan.
• The SearchEngineWatch blog, large amounts of great posts.
• SEO by the Sea, in depth Internet marketing and search engine optimization research.
• SEOmoz Blog, news, tips and highlights from the search marketing industry.
• Search Engine Roundtable, news from the search engine marketing community.
• Traffick, search engine enlightenment from Andrew Goodman.
• Threadwatch, points out forum threads and other links of particular interest for SEOs.
• WebmasterWorld, news and discussion for Web professionals.
• Yahoo! Search Blog, a look inside the world of search from the people of Yahoo!
• Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog, official news, tips and strategies.

According to Pandia, the broader search also includes:

• Search engine weblogs (a huge list)
• General search engine news
• Search engine news for librarians and researchers
• Blogs on Google
• The search engines’ own blogs
• Blogs on Web 2.0 and social media marketing
• Blogs on spamming
• Sites in pay per click advertising and paid inclusion
• Podcasts featuring search engine news and interviews.
• Non-English sites presenting search engine news and articles.

The Pandia Search Engine Detective looks like a great resource for anyone interested in search.

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that they have added a box to the home page in order to promote user generated search sites. Yahoo will feature selected sites that use the Yahoo Search Builder tool. If you want to ask Yahoo to feature your site, you can use this form to submit your site. In addition, Yahoo has given us the option of a smaller search box, specifically 192 pixels wide – to fit into smaller areas.

The Yahoo Featured Search Builder box looks like this:

As an FYI, Google also features their Google Custom Search Engine engines in their Google Picks.

Boxxet is a new service which combines aspects of computer automation with community and social commentary and ranking systems to create “box sets” of web based content for specific topics.

It’s an interesting idea—sort of a multimedia directory of links to web, news and blog content, photos, forums, online bookmarks and “stuff,” products available for online purchase that relate to a particular subject. The idea is to filter the mass of information available online, presenting only the best or freshest content. While the resulting “box sets” are generally on topic, ironically, I found myself a bit overwhelmed more often than not.

Boxxet launched just yesterday, so it’s still very much a work in progress. Currently, Boxxet is heavy on sports and entertainment, with a smattering of collections on other subjects like cars, fashion and technology. Over time the quantity and variety of boxxets should grow. But don’t bother looking for collections on anything other than mainstream, popular topics at this point.

I checked out a few boxxets on topics I’m familiar with, to see how well they represented what I felt are the best sources of information and other content.

Major league sports are well represented in boxxets, so I looked at the Colorado Avalanche hockey team boxxet. The “best” page told me the top news sources, blogs and bookmarks, and also displayed headlines from the past week or so. While Boxxet does try to aggregate stories by subject, similar to the way Google News operates, it also displayed a lot of different headlines covering the same story. While many of the sources seemed good, my favorite source of Avalanche news, the Denver Post, wasn’t represented in headlines (it was ranked #49 by Boxxet users and included as a “bookmark,” however).

Also, the sheer number of links to stories from sources I have absolutely no interest in reading, such as OregonLive.com, the Houston Chronicle and “Ang’s Weird Ideas” (what do they know about my home team?) led to a definite feeling of information overload—exactly the opposite of what Boxxet is trying to accomplish by filtering sources of information.

The photo selection was awful—pictures of mountains, the Chevy Avalanche truck, several others I have no clue about, and a handful of pictures of actual Avalanche hockey players. Boxxet has three buttons to let you select “good,” “better,” or “best” photos and to be fair, clicking the “better” button increased the number of hockey pictures (though clicking “best” got rid of all pictures but one showing a two-week old photo of Avalanche player Andrew Brunette).

The merchandise selection in the “stuff” category seemed OK, though it was all offered by Amazon Apparel, from what I could tell.

I checked out other boxxets for science fiction author Neal Stephenson, the band Radiohead, and the Apple iPod, and in each case found some really great content that I was unfamiliar with—but also some really dubious stuff that was either off-topic or junk.

In part, this is because the Boxxet user community is still comparatively small, and the filtering based on votes and tagging doesn’t have enough of a sample to make good judgments about content. This is one of the most significant challenges faced by all systems that attempt to enhance algorithmic suggestions with human judgments.

Despite the drawbacks, I like the idea behind Boxxet and am willing to give it a chance to grow and evolve, and hopefully to improve as more and more people contribute their knowledge and opinions to the service. I’ll check back with it in a few months to see how it has grown.

You can find more info about Boxxet and its creators here.

Eurekster have quietly rolled out some interesting improvements on their swicki system. Swickis are search engines created by individuals and used by groups which learn from their users and deliver more focused and targeted results. There are currently over 40,000 swickis in operation on websites and weblogs, with over 13,000 unique publishers, delivering 21,000,000 searches in November, according to Steven Marder (Eurekster CEO), who I spoke to earlier this week.

The improvements to the service allow much greater input from each swicki user community, to let publishers leverage the knowledge of each community in order to better understand their traffic and drive more searches per swicki. The new features improve relevancy by allowing users to add content to the searches than they have been able to up until now. For example, once a search has been run a user can add information to the search result – perhaps pointing to other sites, making comments about the results and so on by clicking on the ‘write your own result’ button. Users can also ask the community for help by posting a question that the rest of the community can try and answer by using the ‘Ask the community for help’ option. Finally, individual results can be vote for or against. Unsurprisingly the publisher or moderator has complete control over these functions, so the danger of spamming results is kept to an absolute minimum, and people who have not registered can view the results, but can do no more than that.

The improvements are being rolled out now, and you can see examples of them by taking a look at Eurekster’s own swicki, or mine for example; try a search for search engine land and as well as results you’ll see a comment from me.

I think it’s an interesting move towards integrating search into individual communities and is building on already popular concepts such as Q&A resources and user voting. Obviously it’s not something that everyone is going to want to get involved with, although everyone will have some opportunity for getting involved, but without it becoming onerous. Future developments will I’m sure have fine tuning, related searches, lists of questions and so on. There are of course other options available, and I wrote about some of them back in September so I’m looking forward to seeing how they will respond to the challenges set by Eurekster.