The Gervais Group Discusses the New Opportunities of Google's In-Depth Article Blocks
Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) September 27, 2013 -- The Gervais Group, a leading provider of internet marketing solutions for businesses of all sizes, recently discussed the new opportunities that have been presented by introduction of an in-depth articles block on Google's results pages. The new feature is designed to put the spotlight on long form articles which provide deeper and more detailed information than the shorter articles that are normally found on the front page of search results.
Searches for individuals, companies/organizations, and many general topics now show a block labeled "In-depth articles", usually located below the fold, which carries three listings for articles ranging in length from 2000 to 5000 words. Jason Gervais, Senior Project Manager at the Gervais Group, sees this development as a new and important opportunity for small to medium sized businesses to increase visibility and authority on search engine results pages. He said, "Long form articles provide the opportunity for businesses to display their expertise on a subject by developing high-quality content that provides comprehensive information. He added, "Prior to Google introducing this feature, this type of content was difficult to find using standard search parameters and the rewards for generating high quality articles in longer formats were minimal."
The In-depth articles boxes found on search engine results pages cover three broad subject categories:
- Broad and news-related topics - Articles in this category cover a variety of topics including general subjects such as health, family, divorce, etc. and news related topics such as Syria, the NSA, and the deficit ceiling.
- Companies/organizations - The articles that are ranked in this nascent feature are heavily weighted toward larger companies at this point, with Fortune 500 enterprises claiming a large percentage of the long form rankings.
- People - These are generally historical and/or well-recognized names along the lines of what one would expect to find in online resources such as Wikipedia, though far more limited in scope at this point.
Regarding these categories and the types of articles which are appearing in the In-depth articles blocks, Mr. Gervais observed, "What we are seeing from Google at this point is a careful rollout of the feature with ranking long form articles covering relatively safe topics that are authored by established publishers." He added, "Our thinking is that authorship and topics will gradually spread out to allow the surfacing of content produced by lesser known publishers."
Regarding article authorship, early statistics support Mr. Gervais' stance, with the top three publishers in terms of the percentage of ranked long form articles being The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New Yorker magazine. The remaining percentage of ranked long form articles behind these top three publishers is dominated by other large news organizations and media powerhouses.
The Gervais Group builds and executes company-specific strategies for e-commerce websites to facilitate higher targeted traffic volumes, increased customer retention, and substantially improved conversion ratios.
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The Gervais Group, headquartered in Atlanta since its launch in 2001, delivers cost effective results for e-commerce websites for businesses of all sizes across a broad scope of industries. For more information, visit http://www.gervaisgroup.com/.
Jason Gervais, Gervais Group, http://www.gervaisgroup.com, +1 (800) 381-9358, [email protected]
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