How to Succeed in Today’s Evolving Search Landscape
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are redefining the online search experience for both users and brands. Increasingly, customers are finding information about businesses directly through maps, apps, and digital assistants—before ever visiting a company’s own website.
Consumers are also seeking out more targeted answers than ever before. Search queries that include “near me” have increased 900% in the last two years.1 This explosive growth signals rising usage across mobile and voice devices—and indicates that increasingly more users expect personalized search results based on their location and preferences. To meet these evolving consumer needs, search results no longer feature just links to other sites for information, but now include direct answers in the form of knowledge cards, rich snippets, local packs, customer reviews—the list goes on. And the manner in which this content is displayed is constantly evolving.
So, in this ever-expanding digital universe, how can you compete?
To show up in search today, Digital Knowledge Management is key.
While you can’t control the UI of search services, or the AI that tailors search results to each individual user, you can control the information that they know about your business. By taking control of your digital knowledge—the factual assets and attributes about your business—you can ensure consumers find accurate and consistent information about you, everywhere they search. And by leveraging an effective Digital Knowledge Management (DKM) strategy, you can serve prospective customers a lot more information than just the basics (like name, address, and phone number). With the right strategy in place, you’ll be able to update rich, location-specific information, including hours of operation, professional bios (e.g., doctors, agents), menu items, and other product offerings—structuring that data so it’s optimized to show up in search.
Managing the public facts about your brand across hundreds of intelligent services and devices (like Google Maps, Apple’s Siri, or Amazon Alexa) may seem daunting, but it’s also a unique opportunity to own your online presence. Here are some tips to help you get started.
1. Take Control of Your Company’s Data.
The foundation of a strong DKM strategy is an internal knowledge base that includes all the key information about your products, locations, and people that you want customers to find—like your address, opening hours, logo, or services offered. Centralizing and organizing all the public facts about your business will make it easier to implement updates (like when you change your hours for a holiday) and maintain consistency, so consumers don’t see contradictory or confusing information. This knowledge base makes it easy to ensure the information on your website and app is up-to-date, which signals to search engines that you are the authoritative source. Then, claim and update your business’s listings on third-party sites and apps like Google, Yelp, and Facebook. Owning your position as the authority on your business is critical to delivering accurate and complete information across multiple sites and services.
2. Use a Mobile-First Approach.
Nearly 60% of all searches happen on a mobile device,2 and 88% of high-intent “near me” searches are queried on mobile.3 Google’s index is now mobile-first, and pages with slow mobile load times are dropping in search results. Your website’s mobile experience is essential to its discoverability. So, use responsive design (or dynamic serving, or separate URLs) to ensure your content adapts to the different devices on which it may be viewed, keep your digital resources crawlable, and test your page load times.
3. Structure Your Data.
Once the facts about your business are complete and current on your mobile-friendly website, you need to leverage Schema.org markup on your site and digital assets. Structured data will help you associate your digital knowledge with the correct categories and labels used by search engines—improving the quality of your public information and giving search engines more confidence that the information on your website is accurate and authoritative.
4. Manage Your Data—Well.
You cannot rely on technology alone for your digital knowledge management—you’ll also need solid talent and a clear process. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, you should consider having a dedicated employee who can ensure your business information is accurate on every consumer service and platform available today. This Digital Knowledge Manager should also look ahead to the intelligent future, identifying new trends and technologies that will keep your brand ahead of the curve and maximize the value of your digital assets.
5. Measure Your Performance.
Identify key performance indicators to measure your share of intelligent search, understand consumer behavior, and monitor your competitors. With the right tools, you can go far beyond organic search ranking and keep up with changes in result types and algorithms. (Even if your business appears in the top organic search result, that result may actually appear below a local pack, which traditional rank tracking solutions cannot assess.) Tracking your share of intelligent search for relevant keywords and geo-modifiers (e.g., “near me”) will help you to catch changes in search algorithms that affect your discoverability, and to notice shifts in your competitors’ search strategies. The more you understand about your performance on an individual search channel, the better you will be able to identify opportunities for investment and optimization. And, the more third-party channels on which you can measure customer engagement with your brand, the more holistic a view you’ll have of your true presence.
1 Meeker, Mary. “2018 Internet Trends Report.” Kleiner Perkins, May 30, 2018.
2 Sterling, Greg. “Report: Nearly 60 percent of searches now from mobile devices.” SearchEngineLand, August 3, 2016.
3 Southern, Matt. “Google Shares Interesting New Mobile Stats.” Search Engine Journal, March 8, 2016.