Our last post of 2018 brings us to the heart and crux of what we do. You may think we have a self and vested interest in promoting how important search is, but please don’t just take our word for it – a recent report backs this up well.
For quite a while now people have been speculating on the demise of search and search engines in relation to finding data, arguing that many people now turn to social media as the first preference when information gathering. Yet we know that Google constantly posts growth and profit quarter-on-quarter and year-on year so how can this be so?
An independent study commissioned with SurveyMonkey looked into this and although it is yet to be fully validated it is still an interesting find.
The research found that that when many people who tried to information gather (i.e. search for something new, or find an answer to a question) the biggest platform people they were likely to turn to was friends and family. We know from previous research that ‘word of mouth’ is very powerful and this study would seem to bear further evidence for this. Behind turning to friends and family the research show that 36% of people would turn to a search engine which is a high figure.
There has been consensus in the industry that social media is or has replaced search engines for finding out information, but they study would seem to not prove that correct, with only just a small 5% of people using social media for this purpose. The research ‘digged’ further on looking at social media V search engines and considered age demographics. There is a perception that younger people and millennials were more likely to use social media to find information as they were more in-touch with these kinds of platforms. Again the research did not support this with it showing that just as many younger people would be more likely to turn to a search engine verses social media and follow the same patterns as everyone else. That said, the use of social media continues to rise and is very healthily, but this is far from the competition and the notion of idea that search is declining.
The study also found that search was extremely popular by mobile devices for all ages groups but especially younger people – this would also seem to be in line with our previous articles and other research showing that mobile has overtaken desktop search.
One of the other interesting areas from the research was that of AI – what most people know as voice data. AI doesn’t appear as popular as perhaps we are led to believe. Only a slim amount of people use AI to search on a daily basis, and well over a third of people have never used AI at all.
It will be interesting to monitor how this changes in the coming months. Will AI eventually overtake social media and come close to rivalling that of search? There is no doubt this is growing in popularity too.
When people say search has declined we think about reminding them to stop and think what they do (or people they know) on a daily basis and consider how they search for and get information. It’s often not a conscious thing we think about which is why it isn’t often considered, but you will overwhelmingly find that search features quite high when thinking about this question.
When we look at and think about our own clients, we know from analytic data that organic search results are consistently strong and we therefore can add our seal of approval to validate this report as giving an accurate reflection of the status currently. If you are reading this and haven’t placed much emphasis or thought on the power of search, then now really is the time to do it to make 2019 your most successful year yet.
On behalf of all the team we wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and prosperous 2019.
Thanks for reading all our postings this year and we hope they have provided with you inspiration and knowledge in the digital marketing field.
Over the holiday, why not look at our case studies page and find out how we can help you in January with your project.