Earlier this week Google held its annual Search On event, where the search giant shared news and updates on the latest features and tools that will be launching across Google Search. Here are some key features covered during the event that marketers need to be aware of.
New shopping features
Google’s eCommerce potential is constantly growing, and the latest shopping features only bolster the search giant’s capabilities. The first new feature will make Google’s Shopping results easier to find, by simply adding ‘shop’ before any search query. This will return visual results of products, research tools, and shopping information such as nearby suppliers.
Google’s shopping features are being further rolled out across all categories, not just clothing. As a result, these features will be available when shopping for other products such as electronics.
Finally, Google is adding a new ‘shop the look’ option, very similar to the one that is available on Pinterest. This will allow users to find similar products, displayed as images, whilst also adding a new trending feature that will display popular items.
The expansion of multisearch
Google’s multisearch functionality allows users to use their phone’s camera to utilise Google Lens to search using an image while allowing you to add a text query on top of the image search. Currently, this feature is only available to English, and US based queries however it is now being expanded to 70 new languages.
In addition to the above, a new ‘multisearch near me’ feature was announced. This new addition allows users to use the multisearch functionality while displaying local results near the user, hence the name. A great example of where this feature will be useful is if a user snaps a product, it should then find local retailers that stock the product.
Discussions and forums
Forum and Q&A sites such as Reddit and Quora can be a great way for users to find important information and answers to questions, from people with first hand experience. As a result, Google is going to start showing a new section of SERPs for ‘discussions and forums’ from such sites.
These sites have always held great potential for marketers as they provide alternative ways to share information, however, their importance might be on the rise with this latest development. Be sure to keep an eye on the SERPs for your key search terms, and if the new element is starting to feature, you might want to add forums to your strategy.
Improved autocomplete search queries
This could be arguably one of the most important updates for SEOs, Google is looking to update autocomplete searches to provide more direct matches for queries. From the below graphics released by Google, you can see that while searching Google will aim to predict what the users might be looking for. This further cements the importance of appearing on Page 1, shocker I know. However, it does potentially devalue Page 2, which while not ideal, can currently provide some benefits for sites at the moment.
Advanced search tools
Google is aiming to make Search simpler with new advanced tools that will help users find exactly what they are looking for. The new search options will display under the main Search bar in the Google app and will provide searchers with prompts to help them quickly search. These are based on examples such as shopping results, translating text, identifying songs with hum to search, and more.
The updates are coming…
While in the past Google Search On events have been focused on major breakthroughs, this year the event seems to be centred around smaller feature developments. That being said, with so many new features being rolled out, teased, and tested, the effects could be quite significant. For those who are looking to boost their own, or their clients’, SEO performance, these updates could be the answer.
For more information on all of the features and tools that were announced at this year’s event be sure to check out Google’s blog.
