The (Very Near) Future of Search Engines:

Is Your Website Ready for This?

In just a few short years we’ve seen the web evolve from geekdom to grandma’s shopping arena. The changes that have taken place in search engines in just the past few years have improved the relevance of SERPs, delivering higher quality search results and many more search options.

Web Hosting Provider Explains The Advance of Local Search

Local businesses, legal and medical practices and community associations aren’t trying to reach web users in Vladivostok. They’re using the web to pull foot traffic to the brick and mortar on Main Street – using websites as online billboards.

That’s why many sites offer a “Find a Provider” feature. If you’re looking for a local optometrist, simply enter your zip code and up pops a list of local eye specialists. These eyeball professionals pay a fee for inclusion on the “Find a Provider” list, a nice secondary revenue stream to further monetize your site. Also, exclusive brand sites offer a “Find the Nearest Store” feature. This option is a great marketing tool for well-branded retailers that employ multi-channel marketing – companies like LL Bean, Patagonia, Lands’ End and other deep pockets retailers.

Web hosting provider explains - Local search is already a function of key search engines. All users do is enter the location – a town, state, county or region. And to pick up this local search traffic, all a site owner has to do is add the name of his/her community and state and today’s search engines handle the rest.

Local search is SOP for web users who are comparison shopping before heading to the box store to make the purchase (Just enter your zip code and we’ll have the order waiting for you at the store!!!), and for families new to a community looking for a family dentist, pediatrician, accountant, lawyer and other service providers in their new home towns.

The Blended Search

Part of the search engine’s evolution is its ability to conduct a variety of searches based on parameters set by the search engine user. Today, unless you specify a product name, geographic place or some other qualifier, search engines default to universal search mode. Put up every reference that even comes close to the users’ queries. Google can deliver 16.5 million links for the keywords “plasma TV” and you know that, of those 16.5 million links, most are utterly superfluous to your search for local deals on plasma TVs in your region. A white paper on HDTV’s relationship to eyestrain isn’t exactly relevant to your search.

So, the search engine of tomorrow, which is today on the web, will produce a blended search, automatically deleting links that it intuits lack relevance while increasing SERP’s relevance through the delivery of links to local outlets. As such, search engines will not only deliver relevant links, it will recommend outlets, whether those outlets are actual retail outlets or online outlets based on product name, type and other user-defined search parameters.

Search Engines as Content Providers

It’s already begun and the technology to aggregate content in a variety of formats for display on SERPs is already being used by Google.

Check out the SERP for Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer.” The first two links have a “Watch video” option. This enables search engine users to view the cool video developed for this cool song right on the results page.

Get the point? Right now, web users can access content directly from the SERP – no link involved.

And shortly, search engines will be able to collect content in Flash, JavaScript, PowerPoint and every other media format, super-simplifying the user’s search for goods, services and information. Just click and view the link without leaving the SERP.

This growing practice is, of course, a double-edged sword. On the downside, the ability to access site content without actually visiting the site could put a serious hurtin’ on sales when search engines do the comparison shopping for the web user. On the other hand, this technology provides the opportunity to present more information to the web user than the current content contained in an HTML description tag. A commercial site can use the technology to display the sale du jour. A DV how-to manual is just a click away, providing another potential point of sale.

Expectations of Increased Functionality

As search engines grow in sophistication, expectations of users to see expanded functionality will follow. Here’s an example: You own a restaurant. You also have a website that displays the menu, talks about wedding receptions and other benefits of eating at your restaurant.

Now, a user logs on. Doesn’t want to book a wedding reception and doesn’t want to slog through the daily specials menu. All s/he wants is a map to the restaurant. A quick click on print map and that user has what she needs without wasting time. And you, the restaurant owner, have a new customer coming in. That’s an obvious example of the increased functionality new search engine technology delivers. You may have a “Print Map” feature on site, but why visit the site when all the user has to do is click on a Print Map button?

Future Content

Tomorrow’s SERPs will look different from today’s universal SERPs. With blended search, a Google page might contain links to user reviews of a car model, a list of local car dealers selling that car model, a link to the car manufacturer’s huge, glitzy web site right next to a local classified placed by someone selling the make and model you’re looking for two towns over.

Search engines will also deliver more directory listings, association membership lists, social media, local/national/international classified ads, local newspaper content and a lot more video. In fact, just this morning a piece on CNN expressed concern about the cable industry’s ability to meet the growing demand for bandwidth with the expansion of heavy content like videos, audios and movies to websites and search engines – a topic for another day.

The Continuing Evolution of Search Engines

Not only will search engines display a variety of media in a variety of formats from a variety of sources, tomorrow’s search engine will learn user preferences based on past search experience, providing truly dynamic search results that differ from user to user. This “intuitive” ability will deliver more diversity to the user while increasing the actual usefulness of the link or the “Play video” button that keeps the user on the SERP.

It’s time to move ahead of the pack. You can create a nice, 30-second DV that’ll play when you upload to YouTube. And from YouTube (now owned by Google, don’t forget), your DV can be played whenever your site link appears on SERPs. Think of it as a quick introduction to you, your store, prices or whatever it is you want to highlight.

Think of it as yet another means of reaching your customers.

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