WebProNews

Tag: Universal Search

  • Google Universal Search Trends You Should Be Paying Attention To

    Google Universal Search Trends You Should Be Paying Attention To

    The appearance of Google’s Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in search results grew by 118% throughout last year, according to a new study by Searchmetrics. The study also found that video results are blended into 55% of keyword search results ‒ with four in five of the videos coming from YouTube.

    Have you been seeing more results from Google services lately? Let us know in the comments.

    “Overall a key takeaway is that Google’s own products (Google PLAs, YouTube videos and Google Maps) are becoming more prominent in Universal Search,” a spokesperson for Searchmetrics tells WebProNews.

    The company looked at search results for “millions” of keywords and analyzed the appearance of Shopping, Video, Image, News and Map integrations. Overall, they found that four out of five keywords produced at least one Universal Search integration. Video was the most frequent, appearing in search results for 55% of keywords analyzed. Images appeared in 40%, while PLAs appeared in 16%. News results appeared in 13% and Maps results appeared in 7%.

    Searchmetrics put out this infographic illustrating its findings:

    The Growing Presence of PLAs

    The biggest story here is the increase PLAs have seen, particularly as this has been a hot topic with Google’s European antitrust investigation situation.

    “In the case of Google I am concerned that the company has given an unfair advantage to its own comparison shopping service, in breach of EU antitrust rules,” said EU Commissioner in charge of competition policy Margrethe Vestager last month. “Google now has the opportunity to convince the Commission to the contrary. However, if the investigation confirmed our concerns, Google would have to face the legal consequences and change the way it does business in Europe.”

    According to Searchmetrics, “The share of Google Shopping PLA integrations more than doubled over the year, with the proportion of keywords for which at least one Google Shopping integration was displayed rising from 7.5% to 16% between January and December 2014 (there was a dip in the summer months, possibly because of the seasonal retail market slowdown). In total, Google Shopping PLA integrations account for 44% of all integrations shown across the millions of keywords analyzed – more than any other integration.”

    “The growth in the proportion of keywords for which Google Shopping Integrations are displayed represent increasing opportunities for retailers to buy Product Listing Ads and for Google to generate income from the now paid for Google Shopping service,” said Marcus Tober, CTO and founder of Searchmetrics.

    Video

    The firm’s video findings continue to to validate an increased focus on the medium on the part of businesses and marketers. While the percentage of search results pages showing video results actually fell over the course of 2014, videos appear more often than anything else by far.

    80% of videos displayed in Universal Search results came from YouTube. This certainly illustrates how important YouTube still is to marketing as Facebook has become a huge rival to the service.

    We recently looked at a study from Visible Measures, which found that for brands posting video campaigns to both channels, Facebook dominates viewership in the short term, but YouTube continues do so over the course of the video lifecycle. Search is obviously a big part of that.

    “If something is hot and of the moment, such as a newly released campaign, the Super Bowl, or even a cultural phenomenon like Fifty Shades of Grey, Facebook and similar social media sites are incredibly effective for driving the spread of timely content due to the trending nature of the News Feed,” said Visible Measures CEO Brian Shin. “But the strength of Facebook to promote trending content also highlights how powerful YouTube remains as a platform for continued viewership.”

    “Content discovery on Facebook is very much dependent on the Facebook News Feed, which is a function of what a user’s friends are sharing, as well as recommendations based on trends and a user’s interests. Because discovery is so dependent on sharing, viewership soon after content gets hot’ is strongest on Facebook,” Visible Measures added. “Conversely, YouTube acts as a depository for video and millions of users go there first, or arrive via Google search, to find video content. This user paradigm enables videos to have a much longer shelf-life on YouTube.”

    Meanwhile, a study from Advertiser Perceptions and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) found that 68% of marketers and agency execs expect their digital video ad budgets to increase over the course of the next year.

    Maps

    While the number of results returning maps content in Universal Search integrations is still much smaller than the numbers for videos, images, and PLAs, it’s worth noting that there’s significant growth here. In January 2014 only 2% of search terms delivered map integrations, but it was at 7% by December.

    “The more frequent appearance of map integrations in search results may be due to the fact that Google is skewing search engine results pages in favor of localized results which are becoming more important as search results become increasingly individual and more searches are conducted on mobile devices,” said Tober.

    Indeed, Google said in a blog post on Tuesday that more Google searches now take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.

    What do you think about the direction Google’s search results pages are heading in? Discuss.

    Image via Searchmetrics

  • Looks Like Google Is Showing Shopping Results Less These Days

    Searchmetrics has put out a white paper analyzing Google’s use of Universal Search results for its various vertical offerings, finding a “dramatic reduction” in the number and proportion of shopping integrations displayed in results during 2012. The reduction, according to the study, coincides with Google’s switch to the paid Google Shopping model in the U.S.

    Interestingly, the number of video integrations has been reduced as well. Historically, video results have been the most frequently displayed form of Universal Search in Google’s results. On the flip side, there has been an increase in news integrations, in addition to an increase in news sources.

    The study examines videos, images, maps, shopping and news in Universal Search.

    Universal Search

    “Turning to the analysis, there was hardly any change to the distribution of market shares before the spring,” the study’s authors write. “Video has long been the most important form of Universal Search integration, followed at some distance by image integrations and shopping results. Nearly all of the curves remain very stable until March/April, with one exception: the integration of videos peaked slightly after March, before falling back gently in July through August to the starting figure of the spring. Since then the percentage share of video integrations in Universal Search has fallen continuously.”

    You can see an infographic about the study here.

    [via Search Engine Land]

  • Video and Images Dominate Google Universal Search Results

    Video and Images Dominate Google Universal Search Results

    Searchmetrics has released a new study showing how universal search can help marketers in search visibility. This certainly isn’t a groundbreaking concept. We’ve discussed this plenty in the past, but the firm shares universal search data, which it has used to try and identify which sites are dominating the top 10 positions of video, news, shopping, images, and map results.

    The study is based on the analysis of th top 100 search engine results displayed by Google for a database of about 28 million search terms over a four-month period, Searchmetrics says. The timeframe was February to May.

    Video results appeared in over 60% of all searches where universal search results are included in the top 100 listings.  Images (coming in second behind videos) appeared in 30%, followed by shopping results at about 20% and news at around 10%. Judging from the following graph, it looks like Books were ahead of news, before dropping off in April.

    Searchmetrics data on universal search

    “For a few years now Google has been bringing specific shopping, news, image, video, blog and map-based results into the general search listings it presents to searchers as part of what has been termed its ‘universal search’ strategy – it’s intended to help searchers find what they’re looking for more easily,” said Searchmetrics CEO Dr Horst Joepen. “We found that video and images are highly visible in Google searches when compared with other types of universal search content. So it makes sense for marketers to increase the volume of video and image content they’re creating and to optimize it both on their own sites and on third party sites such as YouTube and Flickr.”

    “Interesting videos and images aren’t just good for your SEO, they’ll obviously also help make your site more engaging for visitors,” added Dr Joepen.

    He says marketers should be thinking about creating things like client testimonials, interviews and product demos for video content.

    Google has not made things easy on SEOs over the years. They are always changing so many things, it’s hard to keep up. Add Google’s personalization into the mix, and you never know who’s going to see what in their results for any given query.

    Universal search, though surely not its intended reason for existence, has proven to be something of a bone Google has thrown to websites. It’s a shortcut to from page search results. If you can rank well for videos or images, for example, there’s a good chance you will find your way onto the front page of Google’s web results for some searches.

  • If You’re Not Local, How Can You Compete in an Increasingly Local Google?

    Update: Looks like there is likely to be a lot more local action coming Google’s way soon. 

    Original Article: There’s no question that Google has been putting a lot of focus on local results lately – from the release of products like Google Places and Hotpot (the company’s personalized and social recommendation engine) to an increasing amount of queries simply retrieving local results – often above other organic listings. 

    We had an extensive conversation about this with industry veteran Bruce Clay at PubCon a couple months ago, and webmasters and SEOs have been stressing about it all over the web. In fact, just today, one consulting firm ran a press release talking about the competitive advantages local business owners have as a result of recent changes with Google. 

    Do local businesses have the upper hand in Google? Tell us what you think. 

    Consultant (and founder of the firm, LocalMarketingProfitFaucet says there’s a new type of Google Gold Rush. He’s referring to getting the prime listings from Google Places, which Google will often place at the top of the SERPs. 

    "This change is having an immediate and positive impact on the local businesses shown in these Page 1 listings," says Adams. "The Internet-savvy business owners who understand how to take advantage of this are generating new customers for next-to-nothing. Meanwhile, a surprising number are still oblivious to the significance of this change. In fact, Google has revealed that only a tiny percentage of local businesses have even claimed their Google Places listing, let alone optimize it."

    "From our experience," Adams continues, "Google has always given preferential treatment to unique, multimedia content that is kept fresh and up to date. And of course, stay away from any black hat tactics that try to game the system. Google always catches up to these shenanigans. When they do, your listing could be banned with no warning and no second chances."

    If local businesses have the competitive advantage now, then some non-local businesses are wondering how they’re supposed to compete with that. After all, the far reach of the web has historically been an attractive reason to start a business in the first place. 

    In a new video uploaded to Google’s Webmaster YouTube channel, Matt Cutts (head of the company’s webspam team) addressed a user-submitted question: "In a search environment where local is becoming increasingly important (and more full on the SERP), how can an out of town company compete with the local based (and locally housed) competition without lying to show up in these results?"

    Cutts responded by saying, "The entire page of web rankings is there that out of town people can compete on, so the idea of the local universal results is to show local businesses, so in some sense, there’s not really a way where if you’re out of town, you can sort of show up (within our guidelines), and show up as a local business."

    "Now, if you are a mobile business – so for example, maybe you’re a plumber, and you get into your pickup truck, and you drive around in a particular area – so if you’re a mobile business, then in Google Places you can specify a service area, which is roughly 50 miles around where you’re based, but that’s only if you actually have some base of operations there," he continues. "You can’t be based in Topeka and claim that you have a service area in Wyoming if you have no physical presence there."

    "I think that that’s a good idea. You do want to have local businesses show up, and I know that the team has really been paying a lot of attention to try and improve Maps quality, make it more robust, check on the authenticity of businesses, and that will only continue," adds Cutts.  

    In other words, if you’re not a local business, there’s nothing much you can do about getting the kind of visibility the local businesses are getting, should Google deem the user’s query worthy of the local results. I might suggest finding queries related to your business that aren’t returning local results and giving these some more attention, and of course there’s always AdWords. 

    If there’s a particular geographic market that you’re after, but you’re not based there, you may want to consider setting up shop. In the end, Google is just going to do what it thinks will help users. Whether or not you buy that is up to you, but they’re not going to deviate from that stance, and if it encourages more people to buy AdWords ads, then so be it.   

    You can expect there to be a great amount of focus continued to be placed on local. The company even moved former VP of Search products, Marissa Mayer, to this area of focus, and with mobile becoming such a big part of the way people search, local is by default going to be a bigger part of what people are actually looking for. 

    Has Google’s increased focus on local hurt your search rankings and visibility? Let us know in the comments.

  • Google Suggest For Mobile Gets Universal Answers

    More so than when a nice, big keyboard is at hand, every moment and character counts when someone is trying to search using a smartphone.   It’s rather significant, then, that universal search features have been introduced to Google Suggest for mobile.

    Universal search features met Google Suggest on the desktop in December, and although not revolutionary, they’re useful.  It’s thanks to them that you can see a five-day forecast after just typing "weather," or see the results of a zip code query or currency conversion without going near the "enter" key.

    Now the same sort of stuff (including stock quotes, time zone info, and flight data in addition those other universal suggestions) is available to people who are on the go.

    It’s available to lots and lots of people who are on the go, too, considering that Google’s supporting Android devices, iPhones, iPods, and Palm WebOS devices in America.

    This may help Google become more popular than ever in the U.S. mobile market; it probably won’t take people long to realize that the second or two that’ll be saved per search will add up over time.

  • Conversions Rely on Usability of Both Search Engines and Your Site

    WebProNews talked to a lot of interesting people at Search Engine Strategies in New York this week, and one theme that ran through more than one of these conversations was the relationship between user attention and usability and how this relates to search marketing.

    Note: There is plenty more useful information in the videos embedded in this article than the points I have referenced. I suggest watching the interviews in their entirety for some helpful advice.

    Chris Boggs of Rosetta talked about digital asset optimization, or optimization of non-text content within web pages, and how they can affect rankings (things like video, images, rich internet apps, Flash, etc.).

    "It really becomes a matter of resource allocation," says Boggs. "We’ve found, especially within specific verticals such as consumer product and retail, or healthcare, there’s closer needs that align to the development of such content, whether it’s a video that explains how to replace a printer cartridge, or what the bumps are on your five-year-old son’s arms."

    "There’s a lot of reasons that people may look to the Internet and do a type of search that lends itself better to a video result or an image result, or even an interactive application," he adds.

    This is essentially why the search engines now deliver blended (or Universal) search results. Marketers should take into heavy consideration, that in addition to the old-fashioned SEO for organic results, that Universal Search not only takes up a good deal of that SERP real estate, but commands user attention. Google has released eye-tracking research efforts on this in the past. What captures a user’s attention on their screen can play a large part in whether or not they click through to a search engine result.

    In another conversation at SES, Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive talked about recent eye-tracking research, which she says, "endorses universal search". This is why you must consider the elements of blended SERPs that are relevant to your content.

    WebProNews also discussed eye-tracking with Dr. Susan Weinschenk (aka The Brain Lady), who talked about research from a more biological standpoint:

    The information obtained from eye-tracking research means more to marketers and business than simply how you may attract the attention of search engine users. It should also be taken into consideration within your own site (and landing page) design. Google’s own research was basically aimed at enhancing the usability of Google. While Google’s usability is ultimately important to how searchers may find your content from Google, your own site’s usability is  even more important to you.

    Ultimately, your goal is to get traffic to your site, and get the conversion. In fact, Tim Ash of SiteTuners.com even started a whole conference based upon this principle. "You really need to consider the efficiency of your landing page first, regardless of how you get traffic there," he tells WebProNews.

    While user attention (as highlighted by eye-tracking research) may play a significant role in that efficiency, it is not the only element. As Shari Thurow touched on in her interview above, architecture is also a key. Long time usability expert Kim Krause Berg talked about this more with us as well.

    "What happens is, first they design the website, they achieve search engine results and rank, then when the conversions take a nosedive, they come back and they say, ‘I need some help with my usability. Let’s improve the user experience…’", she says. "So the next thing we start to look at is the foundation of the website. We find that there’s a lot of problems in the navigation…"

    Search engine rankings don’t mean much if the traffic doesn’t convert. Users must be delivered an ideal experience once they click through to the website. This is why Google is talking about taking site performance (or speed) into consideration as a ranking factor.

    It’s about giving users the best experience possible. If that experience is not there, customers will be less likely to convert anyway.

  • As SERPs Get More Complicated, Focus on Relevant Elements

    At SES Chicago last year, Yahoo VP of Consumer Products, Larry Cornett suggested that blended search results bring businesses a broader range of SEO opportunities, a chance to take control of their brand, and a potential increase in qualified clicks. While these blended results can tend to divert users away from organic listings, as SEO Dave Naylor pointed out at that same conference, Cornett does have a point.

    Blended search results offer ways to get to the front page of search results beyond just the highly more competitive organic rankings. Sites have opportunities to show up for:

    – real-time results
    – news results
    – image results
    – video results
    – shopping results
    – local results (customers don’t even need to go to your site in some cases)

    At the recent Online Marketing Summit in San Diego, WebProNews spoke with Conductor CEO Seth Besmertnik, who says companies should still build a foundation in organic rankings before trying to conquer other areas:

    That said you can break these different elements of blended results down one by one, and look at ways to have your site perform well in each particular one. Here are tips for image search optimization, for example. Here are some for video. Here are some for real-time search. Here are some for news search.

    Back to Cornett’s point about qualified clicks – focus on what makes the most sense for your site. Is focusing on real-time search worth your time? With Google, at least, even if you show up here, your presence will quickly give way to the next in line, and you will be off the page momentarily (although there still may be times when it makes sense to be seen here).

    If you don’t have quality video content, video search optimization is not bound to be a very practical use of you time. However, if you do have some good stuff, perhaps you should be heavily focused in this area. I think you get the point.

    Of course there are plenty of other factors of today’s search results page that drive users away from the "ten blue links" of organic results. It’s not just the blended search elements discussed above. You’ve also got search suggestions, related search links, location, mobile use, paid listings, search options, and various other elements of the user experience that compete for user attention. This is one reason why the lines between search marketing and other types of marketing continue to blur (consider that users of Google or Yahoo can customize their home pages to accomodate many of their favorite sites, making those just a click away).

    Still, that foundation in natural search that Besmertnik mentioned is definitely a big part of the overall picture. I suggest taking advantage of your listings here, and maximizing those, regardless of how well you rank. Things like site links and breadcrumbs come to mind.