This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Bing Network. All opinions are 100% mine.
Millions of people rely on search engines for finding important information to solve both personal and business problems. How we interact with search engines has significantly changed. Search engines have evolved into tools we use everyday to find almost everything we want or need.
People are interacting with search in a lot of new and powerful ways. Search has proved to be a very important tool for businesses and consumers, and it is still growing at an incredible rate every year.
The influence of mobile devices
The rapid spread of mobile devices has changed everything. Intelligent personal assistant apps like Cortana and Siri provide contextual data and functionality for daily tasks. These apps are gradually becoming better at predicting our next moves.
Millions of people expect information to be instantly available no matter where they are. Search engines are constantly being improved to cater for our heavy reliance on mobile devices. Most search apps offer better content recommendations that are aligned with consumer needs and wants at any given time.
The shift toward voice search
200 billion searches per month will be done with voice by 2020, according to comScore. As demand for voice apps intensifies, your business can ride on technologies and networks that make it possible for you to reach millions of targeted consumers everyday.
Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google provide voice-driven assistant technologies for free, enabling a new generation of apps to drive user adoption. Mobile and voice search are increasingly becoming popular. Search is more entrenched in our lives than ever before. Voice inputs will gradually catch up with keyboard entry, especially on mobile devices.
How to get ahead of the new search trends
Running ads on a search network is one of the most common, form of paid advertising. Marketers need to adapt tactics for reaching people conducting on searched on various devices using different platforms.
The importance of knowing your prospective customer cannot be overemphasised. Understanding the demographics, behaviors and interests of your target market improves your your marketing efforts.
Identify the audience segments that matter to your business and take into consideration various platforms, applications and virtual assistants your target audience are using.
Begin to broaden the factors that influence your search marketing. Start including all aspects of content discovery, including web, mobile, voice, social and location. It pays to focus on the consumers of tomorrow. Your marketing strategies need to be proactively managed and adjusted to adapt to the changing relationship between humans and search.
How Bing is leading the future of search
Bing Network’s new vision is now less about words and links, more about meaning and intent. The network pulls together current and up-to-date data from across its mobile, global and local partners to support products people use daily.
Bing Network is a lot different than it was six years ago and is much more than a search box confined to a webpage. It now offers connections between technology, information, people and knowledge in ways that are more relevant and more in the moment. It’s growing fast. Bing is one step ahead.
Combined with Bing’s syndication partners such as Yahoo, AOL, WSJ, adMarketplace amongst others, the Network reaches 1 in 3 PC searches in the U.S. That’s 170 million searchers in the U.S., 60 million which are exclusive to Bing network. 2.5B questions asked to Cortana.
And these searchers spend 22% more than the average internet searcher. A full 25% of clicks on Bing Network are queries only searched on Bing. That’s exclusivity that can’t be beat.
Bing powers some of Microsoft’s most exciting innovations, from Cortana to voice search in Xbox One, from the search experiences in Windows 10, to searching directly in Office so you stay focused on doing, not finding.
Bing is in phones, in PCs, and in new devices every day. Many of the industry’s leaders trust their most valuable assets—their users—to Bing, whether it’s search inside Amazon’s devices, Twitter’s translation, web results for Siri and Spotlight Search on Apple devices or maps on thousands of leading websites.
Bing’s technology is increasingly being adopted across the industry. Bing is investing all of its efforts into expanding its reach across the platforms people use every day.
Digital marketers should absolutely consider expanding their targeting to include the Bing Network as it expands its presence through new partnerships and integrations.
Opportunities for your business
Search ads are incredibly effective for any type of business looking to attract targeted audience. Not only are paid ads more robust, they directly connect your business to people actively looking for products related to what you sell. If you are restricted to a small budget and want to drive direct conversion, we recommend starting with a search network.
The wealth of data feeding search today makes it an intelligent platform that better understands human intent. This makes search experience much more personal and impactful, hence your targeted users can take action more efficiently.
The next generation of content discovery is here to stay. Your search marketing efforts should change with time to attract and retain prospective customers whose needs keep evolving. As search technology continues to improve, search will become integral for consumers.
As search moves toward anticipating user needs and providing intuitive results, marketers should invest in resources that can help them understand consumer behaviour. Your business should get a better understanding of how people use their mobile devices and what apps they use most. With more insight into people’s information consumption behaviour, you can make meaningful connections and create better consumer experiences.
The future of search is about understanding user behaviour both online and offline to better serve them with information and products they will actually need. By knowing more about consumers—their location, likes and dislikes, their recent purchases—the marketer can more effectively deploy targeted messaging and calls to action.
The humanization of search is inevitable. Search is adapting to become a more human experience. You can make the most of the new search technology to reach millions of consumers searching for information related to your business every day.