Google Remakes Search Again ­– This Time for “Omnibuyers”

Google announced major changes to its search experience this week, catering to the rise of “omnibuyers” by making search more visual and commerce-focused. How will this search future affect content marketing?

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Aired: May 27, 2022

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Hello everybody, Robert Rose here with the news. It’s what’s new and what’s important in the world of Content Marketing. It’s the news you need to lead in the practice of content marketing and content strategy.

And for the best in best practices – you can always go to contentmarketinginstitute.com

This week’s news item is all about changes coming to Google and content.

Google’s Annual Marketing Live event kicked off this week – and the search giant is unveiling a whole bunch of new updates to its advertising products. But it also talked quite a bit about organic search and the experience of finding content on the Web.

Related: How To Find SEO and Keyword Ranking Success on Google in 2022

(As a side note: Google seems to offer “Login with Google” for just about every site on the internet these days. So I’m not sure why I had to register completely separately for this event with my email address and name. Especially for a marketing event, It’s the thing that makes you go hmmm…. But I digress.)

Never one to shy away from inventing a new marketing buzzword that absolutely no one asked for, Google introduced us to the term “omnibuyers.” These are apparently consumers who search and browse on their shopping journeys both online and in-store. Or, you know, what you and I might call “everybody.”

In any event, with people having more sophisticated needs when it comes to searching and consuming content, Google is looking to become much more journey-driven and visual media-driven as it starts to understand that we are really leveraging multiple aspects of searching for things such as voice, video, imagery, and of course text.

As Google put it, it’s looking to move beyond a search results page of 10 blue links.

The makeover for search will begin immediately but will, of course, take quite a while to fully evolve. But a more visual return on search with more journey-focused visual ads and content is almost certainly coming soon.

As Google itself said, businesses that have 3D models of products will be able to run augmented reality through search. In addition, companies that have loyalty programs may be able to indicate that with an icon in search so businesses may start to market those more effectively through Google Ads.

And, of course – of course – it wouldn’t be a marketing conference without a mention of AI. Google says that AI-driven advertising is the future, talking about its Performance Max platform that aims to convert customers more intelligently across YouTube, display ads, search, Gmail, and Maps.

Our take: Well – the announcements from Google are confirmation of trends we’ve been seeing for quite a while. Last year, what the Content Marketing Institute said about the evolution of SEO and content strategy was that Google really doesn’t want to be the place for you to find an answer. Especially when only 8% of Google searches are now questions.

Related: Providing the Best Answer May No Longer Be the Best Strategy for SEO

As content creators, we have to be much more journey focused – and have the ability to connect our digital content experiences much more holistically. Google is really going to start responding to not just WHAT you are looking for, but WHY you are looking for it.

So – yes – there are eight ounces in a cup, and Google will confirm that for you. But it’s going to share that next best recipe that you need that information for. Yes, it’s going to map the closest Mexican restaurants near you – but our new “omnibuyer” is going to expect it to tell them the availability of the closest one with availability for two people on Monday night.

The aim of content-driven experiences will NOT be to simply answer questions. It will be to provide the whole solution to challenges that haven’t been posed yet.

Google is confirming that the future of search is slowly removing the need to actually search. There’s a lot more to say about that.

But, for now, that’s three minutes of the news you need to lead in content marketing. I’m Robert Rose.

Remember, it’s your story. Tell it well.