Google Just Turned 20! Let’s Recollect The Top 5 Search Marketing Trends Over The Two Decades

Google, the internet’s most popular search engine marked its 20th anniversary in September 2018. Considering the unconventional achievements that the giant company has achieved over the past decades, Sergey Brin and Larry Page surely did a good job by dropping its original name, BackRub. “Let me BackRub it real quick” would surely raise many eyebrows among any group of people across the world.

Talking about the growth of the biggest search engine around the globe, it quickly grew from just helping people explore the internet to becoming the most powerful and sought-after tool to discover purpose and serve ads to prospective consumers. From individuals and societies to businesses, it has served everyone with something exceptional. Apart from being an internet search engine, Google products such as web email, web browser, YouTube, a suite of productivity applications, cloud storage for consumers and businesses, and etc. have been extensively used around the world for their respective benefits.

Let’s have a look at the top 5 search marketing trends from the past two decades.

Evergreen format– The current worth of the search advertising market in India is INR 2128 Crore, which is the second biggest type of digital ad format that advertisers put their money on. Irrespective of the slow growth of Search in comparison to the other digital ad formats, it remains a significantly relevant tool for advertisers as the journey of most consumers begins with Search.

Companies in the retail, e-commerce, and BFSI sectors are the largest spenders on Search advertising, which proves why Paid Search is an evergreen tool for advertisers.

SEO – With a combination of SEO, SEM, and new tools like click-to-call, Search Engines become a great destination for brands. Considering the immense focus of brands on strengthening their SEO and SEM practices, they can have omnipresence across Search on various platforms.
While many companies have realised the importance of SEO for businesses empowerment, there’s still a considerable section that is yet to enter the realm of SEO. Experts in the industry advise small and medium-sized companies to understand the importance of SEO and invest in building optimised websites and web pages for better results.

New Search Destinations– Google paved a way for the whole new format of paid advertising on the internet. Today, after 20 years, paid search has transcended Google as Amazon and Facebook have also joined the league.

Evolving consumer behaviour has led Search to a number of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and even Whatsapp groups. In addition to this, search on the go through mobile is continuously increasing and coming out as an entirely new sub-category.

Video Content– Humans depend on visual information for authenticity as opposed to text on a page. The growing demand for videos can be estimated from the fact that nearly 55% of the world’s population watches videos on a daily basis. As per Google’s assessment, half of the internet users look for videos related to a product or service before buying it from a physical store. YouTube as the worldwide used video sharing platform helps engage customers in a more effective way.

Voice Search– It is another significant search marketing trend that has gained huge popularity in the past few years. Considering the quickly shifting consumer behaviour, 50% of all searches will be voice search by 2020. The human voice recognition technology is continuously improving and as per Amazon’s 2017 Annual Report, over 25% of Alexa’s spoken language understanding improved in the year 2017 alone.