Is Traditional “Search” Rapidly Going Out of Style?

Karen    Opinion, SEO Revisited    

A question for you – has the traditional “one size fits all” version of search results now well and truly been confined to the dustbin?

With the recent rapidfire launch of new online assets and functionality by uber-adserving-platform Google (no longer really simply a search engine giant), are we seeing an ‘end of days’ … not for life as we know it, but for old style search and what it means?

Evolution has been integral to the web since day one, and evolution in our ability to find stuff online has been dramatic over the years as well. Just a backwards glimpse towards Alta Vista and Ask Jeeves will remind you of that, in case you had forgotten.

Over the years we have seen various major algorithm shifts from Google – which are really only the sort of thing that SEOs obsess over as we try to guess the new rules of engagement.

But of course every one of those changes has been about two relatively simple things – providing better (read more relevant, more accurate, more timely) results for people searching for information, people, places and entertainment, and delivering outcomes to Google’s revenue stream – the advertisers who keep the whole empire ticking over.

We have seen the addition of personalised search, real time search, localised search, search segmented into different content types – images, video, blogs, news, maps, shopping, places, discussions, recipes … even patents.

And the addition of previews, snippets, review stars and the integration of various social media elements – not just Google + and +1, but also Facebook like integration through the social graph… and on and on.

Having worked in an SEO team, I always find it key to remember that any inconvenience we experience as Google (and other search engines) continue to innovate and evolve is really our problem. Google itself doesn’t exist to serve us, or even our organic traffic focused clients.

They don’t mind if we do some stuff, following their guidelines, to ensure good sites are not buried beneath the trivial, irrevelant and spammy. But otherwise, the SEO industry is actually just a by-product of the fact that search doesn’t always deliver what our clients would like it to.

Winds of change are blowing …

So my question remains – have we almost seen the end of standard search as we know it, and perhaps even of “organic vs paid” traffic as we know it?

My gut tells me yes. And you know? Perhaps that is not at all a bad thing. After all, we are (or should be) in the business of getting the right kind of traffic to our clients’ sites. Traffic that converts.

And organic search results through a traditional search engine are no longer the predominant way to make that happen. For example, optimising for local listings may mean that bam! your client is on the first page of results for their most important localised keyword. And it is driving traffic – web and mobile. Not too complex to get that right, as long as you can manage to write down a PIN when the Googlebot calls.

The silver lining to this possible death of organic traffic, from my perspective is, that this level of shift may well achieve what Google has been trying to deal to for such a long time … namely, deal to the spam meisters who create junk sites purely to generate revenue from Adsense placements.

If they can no longer rank, then surely they will no longer provide PPC revenue for their creators … and no revenue surely removes their reason for existing.

Well actually – I don’t think these unimaginative spammers will quite give up at that point, and we are already seeing the rise of social spam, and massive amounts of comment spam – all attempting to send traffic to their non-original websites – just to garner the occasional advertising click through.

What does all this mean for genuine content creators, and genuine businesses?

I am interested in your feedback as to what you think this evolution is going to lead to. I have thoughts of my own … basically from a business consultancy perspective, I think the key going forward is a world of specific search options.

Every site we go to – be it a “normal” website, an Amazon sized site, a social media platform, Wikipedia or YouTube – they all have their own, custom search engines.

Old style search results become a blunt instrument (of sorts) vs specific types of search and check in type results. YouTube is already the second most searched site after Google itself, while for many information based searches people go directly to Wikipedia.

People wanting recommendations – ideally from people they know and trust, will be turning to their various social networks to ask questions and give their own recommendations.

And far be it for me to predict what Google is evolving into, but my guess is, that effectively it is becoming a kind of search portal, segmenting your results page in a far more sophisticated way, pulling in data from all those different types of search and delivering it in one place. Already that is starting to happen, but I have a feeling that it will continue to head more and more in that direction, to the extent that we will no longer be able to recognise the traditional SERPs, or run keyword ranking reports that have any relevance whatsoever.

So from a business perspective, perhaps the most important thing you can do for yourself or your clients, is to sit down with them and work out what kind of search result your site is most likely to be a good fit for, then work towards optimising your presence for the various types of search that would be most likely to deliver your site as a result.

If you have a product or service that can be best represented by videos – perhaps a How To … or tourist related content, then put energy and resources into your Youtube channel.

If you have a tourism business, you need to optimise for TripAdvisor, Foursquare, Facebook Places and probably YouTube as well.

If you are in local retail, then definitely you need to be optimising for local Google search, places, Foursquare – or the other location/review based networks like Yelp if you have them locally.

If you have a food business, again you need to optimise for local Google results, as well as the food review sites, Facebook Places, Google Places and TripAdvisor as well.

You get the picture?

At the same time, I believe we will see a full on resurgence of display advertising delivering traffic, because in a funny way, straight up ads have a kind of honesty – we know they are ads before we click on them, we know companies are paying every time we click through. And done well, they work.

So you still need to ensure that any ads you are paying for are showing on pages that contain relevant content to your business … then ensure that those ads are delivering visitors to an optimised landing page. Everything from that point on should relate to the potential customer’s experience once they get to your site – so we are talking about user focused design, and conversion optimisation.

And that is a post for another day.

I would love your feedback about where you think traditional search has got to, and where it is going – feel free to leave your thoughts below.

If you enjoyed this article please consider sharing it!