In-app search: the dawn of a new SEO era?

[jrineakter]

It seems as if the developments in the SEO landscape are a bit stagnant: I don't hear much that is really innovative anymore. Until I recently read a few English blogs about in-app search. In this article I want to take you to this, in my opinion, underexposed SEO development.


Few new SEO developments?
Traditionally, December and January are the months in which blogs about SEO trends pop up. And 2016 is no different. I skip many of these blogs, read a few of them and even fewer of these blogs actually stick. Often because you simply hear little that is new. Of course, that does not mean that what is written in these blogs is not true. For example, this article on MarketingFacts summarizes all trends and developments in my opinion in broad outline. And Jason DeMers also comes up with a great overview on Forbes. Still, it almost seems as if there are few truly new SEO developments in the pipeline. But last week I read a number of blogs that really made my SEO heart beat faster.

What I, certainly in the Netherlands, still hear very few SEO professionals talking about is in-app search and social search . In fact, according to this article by Bart Warrot, SEO still revolves benin telegram number list purely around Google ( I wrote earlier about the possible rise of Bing as a search engine ). And of course, Google is by far the most important search engine in the Netherlands with a market share of almost 93 percent , but aren't we ignoring the fact that search engines are also used outside of the traditional search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo?

Search in apps
Just think, how often do you use the search engine in apps like Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, TripAdvisor, Yelp and Twitter? If I want to watch a movie, I search on YouTube. If I am looking for a pizza place or a good hotel in a specific place? Then I search for it using Yelp or TripAdvisor.

Tripadvisor in-app search
Image: Bloomua / Shutterstock.com

And now, when I look back at my last online purchase (a pair of sneakers), I realize that I didn’t use Google at all to find what I was looking for. I found a picture of a pair of sneakers on Instagram. This fueled my shopping frenzy and, on the advice of a friend, I decided to get some sneaker inspiration using Pinterest. I used terms like ‘New Balance 998’ and ‘New Balance reengineered’ and scrolled until I found the sneakers I liked. I clicked on the link of the person who had pinned the shoes and ended up on a page that explained in detail where and from when I could buy the sneakers. Then all I had to do was wait for them to be released and place my order.

Online search behavior is changing
Now I understand that for many people this is not yet the way to ultimately purchase a product, also because in my case it was a pair of sneakers that were not even out at the time of searching. But with the ever-increasing use of social media, I think something is really changing in online search behavior. In the example I just outlined, I was not looking for new shoes at all. I was triggered by photos on Instagram and then used Pinterest to gain further inspiration and ultimately even find the sneakers. Another example and completely in line with this trend I read on MOZ.com . Here someone describes the purchasing process of a pair of furniture from start to finish:

First, Pinterest was used to gain inspiration for living room layout. She searched for 'loft decorations' on Pinterest and based on these results made a selection of furniture pieces that she liked.
She then continued her search on Amazon. For this she used searches based on the furniture names she found on Pinterest. She was looking for country furniture, but she could not find it on Amazon.
She then repeated step 2 on Ebay, because she knows that Ebay offers cheap second-hand furniture. However, she did not find what she was looking for here either.
She eventually ended up on Etsy.com because she had seen that Etsy, among other places, had pinned some furniture and because she knew that Etsy is known for its unique handmade items.
In this example too, no use was made of Google or any other traditional search engine. Pinterest is eminently suitable for finding inspiration. In short, especially in the orientation phase, alternatives to standard search engines are increasingly being used.

Especially in the orientation phase, alternatives to standard search engines are increasingly being used.

Little data on in-app search behavior
Unfortunately, there is still very little data on in-app search behavior. In any case, companies do not seem very eager to release in-app search behavior. That is perhaps not so strange, because this type of data is a goldmine for the outside world. However, there are some figures that show that consumers do not only use Google to search online. For example, Facebook now handles 1.5 billion searches per day. That does not only sound like a lot, it is a lot. For comparison, Google handles approximately 3.5 billion searches per day and is widely seen (also by me) as the search engine. Although the lion's share of searches on Facebook are aimed at finding people, a substantial part of these are aimed at finding content. More about this later.