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Mar
28

To Niche or Not To Niche: Guidance from Creators on Picking A Lane

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To Niche or Not To Niche: Guidance from Creators on Picking A Lane

To Niche or Not To Niche: Guidance from Creators on Picking A Lane

What do creators like Mr. Beast and Ali Abdaal have in common? Not much, actually, other than the ‘Creator’ label and being YouTubers. They serve distinctly different audiences and create very different types of content. However, no matter how you look at it, they’re both pretty successful in their own rights.

For content creators , one of the biggest debates is whether or not to “niche down” and focus on a specific topic or audience. Some argue that niching down is necessary for success, while others believe that it’s better to have a broader focus.

In this article, we’ll explore both sides of the argument and provide guidance on (with input from expert creators) how to pick a niche that works for you.

Arguments Against Niching Down

On the other hand, some argue that niching down can limit your audience and opportunities. If you only focus on one topic, you may miss out on potential followers who are interested in other areas you have knowledge about. Additionally, if your niche becomes oversaturated, it can be difficult to stand out.

Not niching down can also allow you to be more creative and versatile with your content. You can explore different topics and experiment with different types of content, which can keep your audience engaged and interested.

Certain creators feel more comfortable without labels – including Toni Bravo, who says, “…I will never have a niche. [T]here’s a million things that I’m always doing at once. So I would post like knitting stuff. And then I post beauty stuff. And then I post up about my dog. And then I just post random trending sounds. So I never put myself in like a box but what I do pay attention to is how things are received.”

@bonitravo

yes, i’m a sagittarius

♬ original sound – lucia <3< a> 3<>

Jayde Powell, content marketer and creator, adds to this by saying, “I’ve always been really hesitant to establish a niche because I have a lot of interests. So I’m not going to call myself a vegan influencer or a fashion influencer because maybe I like style and I also like to eat vegan food on occasion. I have a variety of interests and things that I can speak to. So for me, not classifying myself in one way does hinder me from getting opportunities but I’m a big believer that the opportunities that are meant for me will come to me when they’re supposed to.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by jayde powell • content creator (@jaydeipowell)

Arguments for Niching Down

One of the primary arguments for niching down is that it allows you to become an expert in your field. By focusing on a specific topic, you can provide more value to your audience and establish yourself as a go-to resource. This can lead to more opportunities, such as speaking engagements or consulting work.

Josh Ho, founder of Referral Rock and podcaster, thinks about niching down like this: “I agree with niching down because there are a lot of things I’m interested in that I don’t write about. If I wrote about all my interests, no one would understand who I’m trying to speak to. It’s hard to separate your interests like that, but it’s worth it when there’s a particular message you’re trying to get across.”

Amanda Natividad, VP of Marketing at Sparktoro, also shared her perspective on niching down.

Them: How do I grow my following?
Me: Say you’ll write about a thing, then write almost exclusively about that thing for 3+ months. Add valuable insights in others’ replies. Lift up others.
Them: Hmm… I don’t want to do that. Is there another way?

— Amanda Natividad (@amandanat) March 15, 2023

Niching down can also make it easier to create content. When you have a clear focus, you know exactly what topics to cover and what type of content to create. This can save time and reduce the stress of coming up with new ideas. If you want to establish yourself as an expert in your field and provide value to a specific audience, then niching down may be the way to go.

So, how do you decide whether or not to niche down? The answer is that it depends on your goals and preferences. For Lloyd George, content creator and founder of Cre8tor Hub, niching down has helped him find a more valuable audience as an entrepreneur. “As someone that has a niche, having a niche has made it significantly easier to grow and I think I’ve grown faster. Also I will say tangibly speaking, having a niche increases the value of your audience,” he says.

@lloydnotgeorge

Maybe your company can do the same??

♬ original sound – Lloyd | Podcast tips

If your goal is to build a business from your content creation, then Lloyd’s advice is pertinent. However, if you prefer to have a broader focus and build a platform based on your personality and not any one category, then not niching down may be better for you.

To Niche or Not To Niche: Guidance from Creators on Picking A Lane

How to Pick a Niche

If you do decide to niche down, it’s important to pick a niche that works for you. Here are some tips for choosing a niche:

Consider your passions and expertise

Start by thinking about the topics that you’re passionate about and knowledgeable in. Your clear interest and expertise will help you create better (consistent) content and connect with your audience more effectively.

The key is to “become the niche,” a concept created by Katie Xu, who has a unique perspective on niches. The TikTok creator shares, “You don’t have to eliminate niches or categories – but you shouldn’t hide behind them.

@katiexsocials

Replying to @cybergirl.online becoming the niche is a mindset that prioritizes YOU. that’s all #katiexsocials#becometheniche#nichedown#futuremillionairekatie#creatorindustry#socialmillionaire#tiktokmillionaires

♬ original sound – Katie Xu | Future Millionaire

People are trying to learn specific things from you, which is why you might stick to one category. But there are probably thousands of other people in the same category. In order to figure out how you can pick a niche that you’re passionate about, ask yourself:

  • Why should they learn from you instead of someone else?
  • What makes you, your content or your perspective unique?
  • What knowledge or expertise do you have that will make you stand out in that niche?

An example of a creator who has successfully niched down based on their passions and expertise is Pat Flynn, the founder of Smart Passive Income. Focusing on his passion for helping others create passive income streams, Flynn has grown his brand to include a popular blog, podcast, and YouTube channel.

Research creators within your category

Before committing to a niche, it’s important to research your competition and make sure there is an audience for your content. Look for gaps in the market or areas where you can provide a unique perspective.

For example, Tom Frank of College Info Geek started his blog as a response to the lack of personal and relatable content for students. By analyzing the existing content and identifying a gap in the market, he was able to create a successful blog with over 1 million monthly visitors.

Be flexible with your niche

Remember that your niche may evolve over time as you learn more about your audience and your own interests. Don’t be afraid to pivot if you feel like you’re not reaching your goals or if you want to explore new topics.

It took Jason Levin, creator of the newsletter Cyber Patterns, took eight months to figure out what his newsletter would be about. He just wrote what he thought was cool until he landed on content strategy, the main topic of the newsletter.

Time to niche down.
Cyber Patterns is zooming in on Content Strategy:
· Patterns across famous creators
· Case studies on brands’ strategies
· Developing your long-term content strategy
Expect the same wit and irreverence with a deeper focus.https://t.co/rvSnufQONe

— Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin) December 8, 2022

He says about picking a niche: “Picking a niche, in the beginning [of your creator journey], is very silly because you’ll probably end up switching. You should definitely pick a niche but don’t rush it until you’re ready. Start out following whatever you’re curious about and make cool content.”

This flexibility allows creators to adapt and grow as their interests change, ensuring their content remains engaging and relevant to their audience.

Niching comes down to where you are in your creator journey

Picking a niche means that: you have a lot of expertise or interest in one area and you can identify your ideal audience quicker and find your 1,000 true fans easier.

Ultimately, it is a personal choice that depends on your goals and preferences. Whether you choose to niche down or not, the key is to create high-quality content that provides value to your audience.

????Check out this article for ideas to inspire your next piece of high-quality content.

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Mar
15

What is Search Intent and Why Is It Fundamental to SEO?

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What is Search Intent and Why Is It Fundamental to SEO?

What is Search Intent and Why Is It Fundamental to SEO?

Search intent and why it's fundamental to SEO hands at holographic image

When you googled “what is search intent,” you had the informational intention to seek out an answer to your question and learn more about a topic you’ve been hearing about.

As you can see, we understood that intent and wrote this blog post to answer your question. In other words: you’ve clearly come to the right place!

Search intent isn’t a “new” concept in SEO, but it is a surprisingly overlooked concept, especially in B2B. This is a problem for a couple reasons:

First and foremost, there’s the scary reason. As SEO becomes more and more competitive and third-party cookies go the way of the dinosaur, B2B businesses really have their work cut out for them if they want to stand out. Just targeting high-volume keywords isn’t going to cut it anymore; we’ll need to reach the right audience with the right message using the right keywords.

Which brings us to a less scary, more exciting reason why it’s so great that you’re looking up search intent right now: because it’s a huge opportunity. Marketing with intent is the way for today’s marketers to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace and reach their audience more effectively than ever.

Let’s talk about why:

What is Search Intent?

Simply put, search intent is the reason why a user types a query into a search engine. Yoast breaks search intent down into four broad categories:

  1. Informational: The user is looking for information, such as the answer to a question. If you found this blog by googling “what is search intent?” or even just “search intent” with the hope of learning more about this topic, then your intent was informational.
  2. Navigational: The user is trying to navigate to a particular website. If you searched “TopRank” or “TopRank Marketing” with the intention of finding our website (thank you!), then your intent was navigational. Or if you ever type “Twitter” into Google rather than typing out Twitter’s URL, Google will understand you’re probably trying to navigate to Twitter and provide that website at the top of your search engine results page (SERP), rather than, say, the Wikipedia page for Twitter.
  3. Transactional: When the user has transactional intent, they’re trying to buy something on the internet immediately. This often means they’ll type in the exact brand or product name of what they want to buy, or attach “for sale” or “buy online” directly into the search query.
  4. Commercial: Commercial intent occurs when the user may be interested in buying a product or service, but they want to know more about it first. “Commercial” intent is primarily for buying research.

If you googled “search intent marketing agency” with the intention of finding an agency to do search intent marketing for your organization, for instance, your intent would be commercial (and we’re excited to help!).

“Marketing with intent is the way for today’s marketers to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace and reach their audience more effectively than ever.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMNClick To Tweet

Why search intent matters to modern SEO

For search engines, intent is the be-all, end-all. Google became as successful as it is today because at the time it was created, its algorithm was much better at accurately assessing intent than other search engines. That meant when people used Google to conduct their searches, they actually found what they were looking for. The rest, as they say, is history.

Search engines are still all about trying to read their user’s intent and provide them with the best answer to their query. And that means they’re all about rewarding anyone who helps them do that. By understanding your own audience’s intent and servicing it effectively, you can earn relevance, reputation, and respect just like Google did. In fact, Google will help you do it!

Search engines notice which links users click on in the SERPs they provide. The more users click your links from SERPs, the more search engines will raise your brand’s “authority” on a given subject.

The higher your authority, the more likely your content is to appear higher on related SERPs. The higher your content appears on related SERPs, the more likely more highly relevant and qualified users are going to click on it organically. The more relevant clicks your content achieves organically, the higher your authority continues to grow… and so on.

Perhaps most importantly, improving your understanding of your audience’s search intent won’t just improve your site’s search engine optimization (SEO), either. As you optimize your on-page content not just for keywords but for actual audience intent, the process also optimizes the real value the pages you’ll point your audience can offer to that audience.

In other words, SEO-optimizing for intent isn’t just essential for modern SEO optimization; it’s a way to unite all of your organic marketing efforts around the most important and pertinent goal for any business: serving your customers better.

Why keywords alone are not enough

Historically, search intent has been overshadowed by a somewhat myopic focus on keywords in SEO. This has led to many B2B companies targeting keywords with very high search volumes that seem relevant to their tech solutions — regardless of the intent users have when searching for that term.

Unfortunately, this tends to lead to B2B businesses pursuing keywords that are applicable to an extremely wide variety of intents. A keyword like “what is digital transformation,” for instance, is searched 3,600 times every month in the U.S. If we’re only considering search volume in our SEO strategy, that would make it very attractive. However, when thinking about intent, there are two problems with pursuing a keyword like this one:

  1. It’s a very competitive keyword (88% difficulty according to SEMrush), because of how broad it is… and because of how many other companies are after it for the same reasons we would be
  2. The quality of the traffic this keyword would bring in, even if we could beat the competition and land on page one, would likely be very low. This is because the intent of the keyword is very likely “informational,” meaning users aren’t necessarily looking for a tech solution, but simply want to know what the term means.

By paying attention to intent when selecting keywords, on the other hand, we would know not to pursue an informational keyword this broad and with search volume this high.

Winning organic search traffic is only becoming more and more competitive as more and more companies utilize SEO best practices on their sites and content strategies. As third-party cookies are phased out, we’re also losing one of our main ways to identify who audience members are — which will make relying on keywords alone to target them even more difficult.

Luckily, search intent is the solution to these twin challenges. By becoming more focused and strategic with SEO intent, businesses can target audiences based on what they’re trying to accomplish, not just who they are. This will help you find users who are qualifying themselves for your content via the questions they ask… instead of pursuing broad targets and hoping some of those users happen to be looking for what you’re providing.

“By becoming more focused and strategic with SEO intent, businesses can target audiences based on what they’re trying to accomplish, not just who they are.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMNClick To Tweet

Why search intent is particularly useful in B2B marketing

One more big reason to invest in intent-based marketing: it’s especially effective in B2B marketing.

Because the average B2B tech service or solution is relatively complex, the people looking to invest in it have a lot more knowledge about what they’re looking for and why. This means they know what to search for… and know which questions to ask about it, in search engines and otherwise.

If you can identify these questions via intent, you can design an SEO-optimized content strategy that can answer them — and nurture your customer every step of the way in the process.

How can I use intent to improve my SEO content strategy?

As a B2B search marketing agency, TopRank Marketing specializes in developing SEO content strategies guided by search intent and audience intel.

In our newest guide, “Marketing With Intent: A Guide to the Future of SEO and Qualified B2B Search Traffic,” we break our process down into data-backed steps in order to demonstrate exactly how your B2B business can create an intent-driven content marketing strategy of your own and how you will benefit from doing so.

You can download the guide for free right now. And if you need any help making your content strategy a reality, the experts at TopRank Marketing are always ready to help.

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Feb
27

An AI Text Generator will Revolutionize Your Content Marketing

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An AI Text Generator will Revolutionize Your Content Marketing

An AI Text Generator will Revolutionize Your Content Marketing

Content marketing was an obscure term that I stumbled upon while reading the book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” by David Meerman-Scott in 2008. It revealed a new creative digital marketing tactic that turned my old ideas of lead generation on its head.

Instead of chasing customers (outbound marketing) they would chase you if you created online content that solved their problems and informed them (inbound marketing).

Nowadays, the term “inbound marketing” is a common phrase in the digital marketing world and has given rise to a whole industry known as “content marketing”.

As a salesperson that had done the hard yards, it was a revelation. Now we can attract leads and sales rather than chase them.

But the game is about to change again as A.I. text generators change the rules of engagement.

Content Marketing has entered a new phase with AI text generators

The emergence of AI text generators is poised to disrupt traditional practices and paradigms. To understand the significance of this shift, it’s worth noting that we’ve already gone through three phases of content creation.

In the past, content creation involved laborious research and poring over books and other sources to extract insights. However, this process is on the brink of being upended by the advent of AI-powered content creation.

The librarians are not happy.

Phase one: Analog content

Writing content in the past involved researching for information in libraries and weaving your ideas and creativity into the mix. It was slow and laborious and involved paper stuffed between book covers and waiting for the borrowed book you were seeking to be returned a week later.

When I started using the Internet and the Netscape browser in 1994 my first thought was “I no longer need to go to the library”. But the interface and search function was clunky and messy. Often  I didn’t find anything useful until page 20! Also the crackling beeping modem was so slow that waiting for it to download a web page involved making a coffee and coming back a few minutes later. And the information was ugly.

But despite the frustration it was a game changer. It was the wild west of the Internet; built for humans rather than geeks. I was in love.

Phase two: Digital content

Google’s emergence in the late 1990’s (enabled by the internet) allowed us global access to humanity’s superconscious that was made usable, faster and friendly.

We now had a connected digital world brain that was searchable and made sense. Their mission was to  “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. And they delivered on that promise.

This has been our content playpen for just over 20 years. Phase three made its presence felt on November 30, 2022.

Phase three: Artificial intelligence text generators

A.I. has been the plaything of white coated scientists that created scientific theory and delivered crap. But generative artificial intelligence is now real.  And the text format and delivery platform of that tech is ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is powered by A.I. and now provides content marketing professionals and writers with a powerful tool to make them more productive and creative.

A.I. has been given a friendly face (a user interface on the platform ChatGPT) for creating content rather than just links to websites.

The result?

We now have an application that is “Google on steroids”. Content marketing has been supercharged by artificial intelligence.

We are at the tipping point of “Content marketing 2.0”.

How can we use A.I text generators to amplify our content marketing?

Most writers use search results to find information and verifiable resources. Then you need to add that to your content and link. But an AI text generator can write almost all of it for you.

Optimized and accelerated

ChatGPT can write a 700 word article in less than a minute. Then you simply optimize and verify. Currently it doesn’t provide links but Bing’s new search engine is proposing to blend the two.

AI-driven content marketing strategies can help businesses improve their content creation and curation processes, personalize content for their audience, and optimize their content for search engines.

Here are some AI-driven content marketing strategies to consider:

Personalization

AI can help businesses create personalized content for their audience by analyzing data about their preferences, behaviors, and interests. By using AI-powered recommendation engines, businesses can deliver content that is more relevant and engaging to their audience.

Automated content creation

AI can also be used to generate content automatically. This can include using chatbots to create content for FAQs, or using natural language processing (NLP) to generate articles, social media posts, and other content.

Content optimization

AI can help businesses optimize their content for search engines by analyzing keywords, analyzing the performance of similar content, and suggesting improvements to optimize for specific search queries.

Predictive analytics

AI-powered predictive analytics tools can help businesses forecast trends and identify patterns in user behavior, which can help them create content that resonates with their audience and drives engagement.

Visual content creation

AI can also be used to create visual content such as images, videos, and infographics. AI-powered tools can analyze the content, identify relevant visual elements, and create customized visuals that are optimized for social media and other platforms.

Content curation

AI can help businesses curate content that is relevant to their audience by analyzing data about their interests and preferences, and identify relevant content from other sources.

A caveat when using an AI text generator

Just blindly using ChatGPT‘s AI text generator will make your writing look bland and boring.

It’s not a perfect solution or every content marketing writer’s wet dream. Because it doesn’t have a human writer’s “voice”, it lacks personality and is a bit robotic.

Strange about that.

Also it doesn’t understand the nuance of writing rhythm.

It’s free (at the moment), new and raw.

But it is the future.

A.I. text generators also need to be optimized with the technicalities of SEO. These include headlines, URL’s that Google loves, keyword density, hierarchical topics and much more.

But by implementing AI-driven content marketing strategies, businesses can improve the quality and relevance of their content, personalize their marketing efforts, and optimize their content for search engines, all of which can drive engagement and conversions.

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Dec
20

The Future of Search in 2023: Google Goes Multi-Modal

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The Future of Search in 2023: Google Goes Multi-Modal

The Future of Search in 2023 Google Goes Multi-Modal

In recent months, Google has been slowly acclimating the public to a new way of thinking about search that is likely to be a hallmark of our future interactions with the platform.

Searching the internet has been, since its inception, a text-based activity, based on the concept of locating the best match between the intent of the searcher and a set of results displayed in the form of text links and content snippets.

But in this emerging phase, search is becoming increasingly multi-modal — able, in other words, to handle input and output in various formats, including text, images, and sound. At its best, multimodal search is more intuitive and convenient than traditional methods.

At least some of the impetus for Google’s move toward thinking of search as a multi-modal activity comes from the rise of social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, all of which have evolved user expectations in the direction of highly visual and immediate interaction with content. As a veteran internet company, Google has moved to keep pace with these changing expectations.

The Emergence of Multisearch

Representing the next evolution of tools like Google Images, the company has focused immense development resources into Google Lens, Vision AI, and other components of its sophisticated image recognition technology.

Google Lens is fairly well established as a search tool that lets you quickly translate road signs and menus, research products, identify plants, or look up recipes simply by pointing your phone’s camera at the object you want to search for.

This year, Google introduced the concept of “multisearch,” which allows users to add text qualifiers to image searches in Lens. You can now take a photo of a blue dress and ask Google to look for it in green, or add “near me” to see local restaurants that offer dishes matching an image.

The Image Icon Joins the Voice Icon

In a further step toward nudging the public toward image-based search, Google also recently added an image icon to the main search box at google.com.

The Google Voice Icon
New Google homepage with microphone and image icons for voice and photo search

The image icon takes its place alongside the microphone, Google’s prompt to search by voice. In the early days of Amazon Alexa and its ilk, voice search was supposed to take over the internet. That didn’t quite happen, but voice search has since grown to occupy a useful niche in our arsenal of methods for interacting with devices, convenient when talking is faster or safer than typing. So too, hearing Google Assistant or Alexa read search results out loud will sometimes be preferable to reading text on a screen.

This brings us to the vision of a multi-modal search interface: users should be able to search by, with, and for any medium that is the most useful and convenient for the given circumstance.

A voice prompt to “show me pictures of unicorns” might work best for a child still learning to read; an image-based input potentially conveys more information than any short text phrase regarding the color, texture, and detailed features of a retail product. It’s safe to assume that any combination of text, voice, and image will soon be supported for both inputs and outputs.

Marketing in the World of Multi-modal Search

What does all of this mean for marketers? Those with goals to increase exposure of businesses and their offerings online will do well to focus their attention on two priorities.

The first is to provide content for consumption in search that is not just promotional but also useful. With consumers being trained to ask questions of all kinds and receive responses that help them stay informed and make better decisions, marketers need to compete to provide answers and advice, in addition to promoting the availability of their products or services. Google uses Featured Snippets, for example — the answers showcased at the top of search results — as content to be read aloud by Google Assistant when users ask questions, offering a great opportunity to increase brand exposure and to be recognized as an authoritative industry voice.

Google Assistant Read Featured Snippet
Here, Nike wins prominent placement as a Featured Snippet for an informational query; Google Assistant will read this answer when a user asks the same question via voice interface

Image Optimization is Key

The other major priority for marketers in the age of multi-modal search is image optimization. Google’s Vision AI technology provides the company with an automated means of understanding the content of pictures. With its image recognition technology — an important facet of Google’s Knowledge Graph, which creates linkages between entities as a way of understanding internet content — the company is transforming search results for local and product searches into immersive, image-first experiences, matching featured images to search intent.

Marketers who publish engaging photo content in strategic places will stand to win out in Google’s image-rich search results. In particular, e-commerce websites and store landing pages, Google Business Profiles, and product listings uploaded to Google’s Merchant Center should showcase photos that correspond to search terms a company hopes to rank for. Photos should be augmented with descriptive text, but Google can interpret and display photos that match a searcher’s query even without text descriptions.

A search for “handmade jewelry in Sedona, Arizona,” for example, returns Google Business Profiles in the result, each of which displays a photo pulled from the profile’s image gallery that corresponds to what the user was searching for.

Google search image gallery
A search for “handmade jewelry sedona az” showcases matching photos pulled dynamically by Google from the image gallery of each business profile

Rising Up in Search

The new shopping experience in search, announced by Google this fall, can be invoked by typing “shop” at the beginning of any query for a product. The results are dominated by images from retail websites, matched precisely to the search query entered by the user.

Food and retail are on the cutting edge of multi-modal search. In these categories, marketers already need to be actively working on image optimization and content marketing with various media use cases in mind. For other business categories, multi-modal search is coming.

Wherever it’s more convenient to use pictures in place of text or voice in place of visual display, Google will want to make these options available across all business categories. It’s best to get ready now for the multi-modal future.

About the Author

With over a decade of local search experience, Damian Rollison, SOCi’s Director of Market Insights, has focused his career on discovering innovative ways to help businesses large and small get noticed online. Damian’s columns appear frequently at Street Fight, Search Engine Land, and other publications, and he is a frequent speaker at industry conferences such as Localogy, Brand Innovators, State of Search, SMX, and more.

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The Future of Search in 2023: Google Goes Multi-Modal

The Future of Search in 2023: Google Goes Multi-Modal

 

In recent months, Google has been slowly acclimating the public to a new way of thinking about search that is likely to be a hallmark of our future interactions with the platform. 

Searching the internet has been, since its inception, a text-based activity, based on the concept of locating the best match between the intent of the searcher and a set of results displayed in the form of text links and content snippets. 

But in this emerging phase, search is becoming increasingly multi-modal — able, in other words, to handle input and output in various formats, including text, images, and sound. At its best, multimodal search is more intuitive and convenient than traditional methods.

At least some of the impetus for Google’s move toward thinking of search as a multi-modal activity comes from the rise of social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, all of which have evolved user expectations in the direction of highly visual and immediate interaction with content. As a veteran internet company, Google has moved to keep pace with these changing expectations.

The Emergence of Multisearch

Representing the next evolution of tools like Google Images, the company has focused immense development resources into Google Lens, Vision AI, and other components of its sophisticated image recognition technology. 

Google Lens is fairly well established as a search tool that lets you quickly translate road signs and menus, research products, identify plants, or look up recipes simply by pointing your phone’s camera at the object you want to search for. 

This year, Google introduced the concept of “multisearch,” which allows users to add text qualifiers to image searches in Lens. You can now take a photo of a blue dress and ask Google to look for it in green, or add “near me” to see local restaurants that offer dishes matching an image. 

The Image Icon Joins the Voice Icon

In a further step toward nudging the public toward image-based search, Google also recently added an image icon to the main search box at google.com. 

New Google homepage with microphone and image icons for voice and photo search

The image icon takes its place alongside the microphone, Google’s prompt to search by voice. In the early days of Amazon Alexa and its ilk, voice search was supposed to take over the internet. That didn’t quite happen, but voice search has since grown to occupy a useful niche in our arsenal of methods for interacting with devices, convenient when talking is faster or safer than typing. So too, hearing Google Assistant or Alexa read search results out loud will sometimes be preferable to reading text on a screen. 

This brings us to the vision of a multi-modal search interface: users should be able to search by, with, and for any medium that is the most useful and convenient for the given circumstance. 

A voice prompt to “show me pictures of unicorns” might work best for a child still learning to read; an image-based input potentially conveys more information than any short text phrase regarding the color, texture, and detailed features of a retail product. It’s safe to assume that any combination of text, voice, and image will soon be supported for both inputs and outputs. 

Marketing in the World of Multi-modal Search

What does all of this mean for marketers? Those with goals to increase exposure of businesses and their offerings online will do well to focus their attention on two priorities. 

The first is to provide content for consumption in search that is not just promotional but also useful. With consumers being trained to ask questions of all kinds and receive responses that help them stay informed and make better decisions, marketers need to compete to provide answers and advice, in addition to promoting the availability of their products or services. Google uses Featured Snippets, for example — the answers showcased at the top of search results — as content to be read aloud by Google Assistant when users ask questions, offering a great opportunity to increase brand exposure and to be recognized as an authoritative industry voice. 

 

Here, Nike wins prominent placement as a Featured Snippet for an informational query; Google Assistant will read this answer when a user asks the same question via voice interface

 

Image Optimization is Key

The other major priority for marketers in the age of multi-modal search is image optimization. Google’s Vision AI technology provides the company with an automated means of understanding the content of pictures. With its image recognition technology — an important facet of Google’s Knowledge Graph, which creates linkages between entities as a way of understanding internet content — the company is transforming search results for local and product searches into immersive, image-first experiences, matching featured images to search intent. 

Marketers who publish engaging photo content in strategic places will stand to win out in Google’s image-rich search results. In particular, e-commerce websites and store landing pages, Google Business Profiles, and product listings uploaded to Google’s Merchant Center should showcase photos that correspond to search terms a company hopes to rank for. Photos should be augmented with descriptive text, but Google can interpret and display photos that match a searcher’s query even without text descriptions. 

A search for “handmade jewelry in Sedona, Arizona,” for example, returns Google Business Profiles in the result, each of which displays a photo pulled from the profile’s image gallery that corresponds to what the user was searching for. 

A search for “handmade jewelry sedona az” showcases matching photos pulled dynamically by Google from the image gallery of each business profile

 

Rising Up in Search

The new shopping experience in search, announced by Google this fall, can be invoked by typing “shop” at the beginning of any query for a product. The results are dominated by images from retail websites, matched precisely to the search query entered by the user.

Food and retail are on the cutting edge of multi-modal search. In these categories, marketers already need to be actively working on image optimization and content marketing with various media use cases in mind. For other business categories, multi-modal search is coming. 

Wherever it’s more convenient to use pictures in place of text or voice in place of visual display, Google will want to make these options available across all business categories. It’s best to get ready now for the multi-modal future.

via The Future of Search in 2023: Google Goes Multi-Modal

 

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