The bulk of holiday shopping has yet to hit which means there is still time to market your products before the holiday shopping season officially begins. BrightEdge research has found that shoppers are not only spending more online, they are buying more items when they do. Because of this, including smaller ticket items might be a good idea to encourage consumers to purchase more items from your business per visit. Now could be the best time for sales, discount codes, and email marketing campaigns to encourage consumers to buy as much off of your sites as possible. 

We investigated how these shoppers may be changing their behavior. This chart shows a shift starting around March 2020, of users increasing the number of purchases per visit.

Keep in mind that many consumers receive cash or gift cards during the holiday season so there will likely continue to be spending even after the holidays are over. While some stores leverage a semi-annual sale yearly immediately following the holidays, others use digital marketing strategies to increase spending at their businesses. 

• Promote your brand as much as possible on social media platforms. Use your presence on social media to boost promotions, discount codes, sales, specials, etc. Your social media will be important to your brand over the next couple of weeks. Be sure to add a link to your profile where consumers can easily get to your site. 
• If you’re on Instagram and your brand is eligible for the Instagram Shopping feature, use it! Instagram has 200 million users and you have the ability to reach them with your products. This allows consumers to shop right from your social media. Each month, 130 million Instagram accounts tap a shopping ad at least once and 36% of Instagrammers in the US love to shop and see it as a hobby. 
• Make it easy for consumers to make purchases. While your site is hopefully already optimized, you’ll want to be sure your pages give your audience what they’re looking for. Be sure your website loads quickly, is responsive for mobile and desktop, and your products are easy to navigate around.  
• Give consumers an incentive to keep buying. For example, practice email marketing strategies by sending a “Thank You” email following a first-time purchase that offers a 10% discount code off of their next purchase. 
• Leverage “people also buy” or “shoppers that buy this also tend to buy” queues on your site to guide consumers to other products they might be interested in. Because shoppers are purchasing more items, linking related products of similar prices could encourage them to buy suggested items as well.

Our research suggests that consumers are browsing more because they’re stuck at home majority of the time. Because of this, they’re purchases more items and spending more overall but the purchases cost less. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to drive sales without discounting a few products here and there. Happy holiday shopping! 

For small businesses to be easily found by users searching for your products or services, your site needs to rank well in the local listings. While studies show that 28.5% of clicks come from the first organic SERP, and drop significantly after that; the local 3-pack has the highest percentage of clicks overall at 44% CTR. 

In order to maximize visibility and increase your opportunity to ranking well, it’s important to own your local listing, otherwise known as a Google My Business page. 

Claiming your business profile using Google My Business

A business profile can be added to Google by anyone. A profile is a listing of your business – or a local citation. Any place added to Google Maps is given a profile, because of this you may not have control over your business location. In order to manage your business profile, you’ll need to have a separate Google My Business account for your profile’s page. You cannot manage your business profile without a Google My Business page.

You’ll need to claim ownership over your business profile and once it’s approved by Google, you’ll have a business profile to properly manage the accuracy of information consumers see.

Essentially, Google My Business is a tool used to increase the visibility of your profile. It is important to maintain accurate and up-to-date information on your business profile as other channels including Yelp and Bing get their local business information from Maps and Search as well. If possible, maintaining consistent NAP information through local directories and your site’s location information is essential.

Interacting with consumers on Google My Business

Within GMB, you can manage how your business appears in local searches and Google Maps. You can manage your NAP, images, videos and more – including reviews.

We’ve found that 93% of users are influenced by reviews regardless of whether they’re positive or negative. Therefore, it’s important to have as many positive reviews on your GMB listing as possible. 

Through GMB, you can interact with consumers and engage with them when they leave you a review. This is a great way to show other consumers that you’re interested in what users have to say about your products and services. You can also enable direct messaging via your Google My Business page to be contacted directly by consumers.

It is important to know that you cannot turn off GMB reviews. If you have negative reviews, decide with the rest of your marketing team a good strategy to address them as they are likely to impact sales down the line. 

Harvard Business Review found that businesses will increase sales and ratings if they respond to reviews, good or bad. Forbes recommends moving the situation offline by providing contact information of a specific company representative. By responding, you have the opportunity to increase ratings and also show potential customers that you care about your consumers experiences.

Optimizing your Google My Business page

Having a well-optimized Google My Business page can attract visibility to your site and is a crucial part of local optimization efforts. 

1. Add and claim your business's Google My Business page to Google Maps.
2. Add a unique and detailed description of your business that encourages people to learn more. Use relevant keywords for products and services to increase rank opportunity for those queries. 
3. Choose a specific business category to better connect you to consumers. Some category options include grocery store, beauty supplies or fitness center. Use a category that describes your business as a whole. If your beauty supply store offers in-house services like haircuts, create a separate business profile for the services.
4. Use high-quality images and videos of your products and business.
5. Make sure your NAP – name, address, phone number - is completely accurate for potential local consumers.
6. Encourage positive reviews from consumers. You can provide a CTA for after a purchase is made, send a thank you email requesting a review, etc.

You can leverage Google My Business to both increase visibility and your chances of outranking competitors. Manage how your business is seen on search engines and correct as much NAP information as you have control over with GMB.

What are Google Quick Answers?

Google Quick Answers are highly-visible text snippet answers and links placed at the top of the Google SERPs and were observed to provide a huge boost in organic traffic. Quick Answers appear up to 40% of the time for some types of queries.

In September 2014 Google introduced a new method of presenting content relevant to “how to…” or “what is…” queries, where Google answer box takes content from specific web pages and features it in the “Quick Answers” box just above the first organic result in SERP and just below paid listings. 

In addition to the content, Google Answers also provides a link to the page with this content. In its 2018 reintroduction to featured snippets, among which it includes Quick Answers snippets, Google defined them as a tool to "help people more easily discover what they’re seeking, both from the description and when they click on the link to read the page itself." When users click on a featured snippet such as a Quick Answer, Google will take the user right to the answer text on the page.

In some instances, the answer box also adds an image or several images from the page.

Find How You Rank For Featured Snippets

Appearing in Google Quick Answers

Pages that Google finds and selects for Quick Answers on our site are high authority pages with quality, well-structure content that is theme-relevant and optimized for a great user experience and answer specific questions closely matching the query for the Google answer box. Below is a sample page that is featured in Google Answers.

This page was created to answer specific questions that users might have about a particular feature and has variety of quality content relevant to the theme of the query. The page was optimized for a great user experience: a well-structured “How-To” guide (marked in red), a video tutorial, detailed explanation of the feature and its applications, links to related features, PDFs and other resources like help and support.

From the technical SEO standpoint, we need to ensure that page is a part of a site structure, is referenced from other pages with theme-relevant linking and is included in XML Sitemaps for better crawling (use HrefLang XML Sitemap if pages are present in multiple geos).

How high does the page need to rank in order to be featured in Quick Answers?

Usually a page that is ranking in the first position in organic results would also be featured in Quick Answers. However, we also observe instances when our pages are in the Google Answers box, even when these pages are not top ranking pages in Google and ranking on positions two to four.

In such cases our pages are preferred for Quick Answers listing when they compete with authority pages that don’t have theme-relevant content and are not well-structured. Google has recently noted that it plans to change the way featured snippets like Quick Answers work by introducing more than one featured snippet on a single SERP. This could potentially shift the strategy, as certain Quick Answer SERPs may now have several slots in which to appear, instead of just one. 

Google Answers Geo targeting

Google Answers is making its way to Geos. Thus far we saw a rise in answer box appearing in countries with English as a primary language, for example, Canada, UK, India, Australia.

It’s interesting to note that when pages are positioned well for Geo targeting (with implementation of HrefLang Sitemaps and localization for local English), Quick Answers features content and local URLs in corresponding Geo SERPs.

Measuring the impact of Google Answer Box in BrightEdge

When Quick Answers were just introduced and we started to see our pages appearing there. We measured the impact in terms traffic and CTR from SERPs using Adobe web analytics and Google Webmaster Tools, and, not surprisingly, we saw solid increase for Google Answer box. What we needed to add was a more formal and easier tracking method that would allow us to understand how many of our keywords in the “how to” theme are ranking in Google Answers.

BrightEdge platform is now enabling us to do just that to score a Google Answer box or two. Quick Answers ranking report is now a part of the Keyword report, where we can measure aggregate rankings of a particular keyword group. The same report also provides details for each keyword in the group.

How to optimize for and rank in Google Quick Answers:

1. Select a topic that is interesting for your users. You can use Data Cube and Instant to find keywords with high search volumes that your audience is interested in learning more about. 
2. Create quality content relevant to the topic. If your content doesn't answer the question the user is looking for, you're likely to miss out on the answer box.
3. Structure the page with user experience in mind. If your page isn't easily accessible or doesn't load quickly, users will leave your page and move on. This is a signal to Google that your page isn't a quality page.
4. Implement SEO best practices to achieve higher rank for Google Answers box.
5. Provide useful information that can include videos, PDFs, details and links to other relevant topics. Don't leave your visitors hanging on one page. Offer other information throughout your page to drive them to remain on your site.
6. Add a how-to list, a numbered list or bullet points. If your audience is searching how to complete a task, be sure to make the answer easy for them to understand with a short list of steps to take. An example is the list you're reading right here, right now!
7. Measure the impact. Track your page rank with Page Reporting.

For more information, download the free BrightEdge white paper on Quick Answers.

Structured data is a mark up that provides information about pages to the search engines and Schema.org is a vocabulary that can be used with many different encodings supported by HTML that can help boost organic search performance. There are hundreds of different schema.org entity types, and you can locate a full list of schema.org entity types at schema.org.

While some types of entity types are used often, other types are underutilized and underrepresented. Some of the most commonly used entity types include CreativeWork, Book, Movie, TVSeries, Person, Place, Restaurant and more. But what about breadcrumbs schema, FAQ schema, Review and all the others that may be useful to your pages? Let’s take a look at some of the more important entity types that are undervalued by SEOs.

Underrepresented schema markup

• Course: In the EDU structured data space, there is a lack of course and educational info being marked up. But using the Course type and related properties here would enhance search result listings. Typically, you will find that small trade colleges are some of the only to utilize education schema. Why? Larger colleges and universities expect their school name to carry a lot of weight therefore, they don’t feel they need schema.

Supported by Google for Rich Results 

• Podcast: Podcast is a new and recent extension. As new podcasts go live on a daily basis, markup for them is becoming increasingly relevant and should be used.

Supported by Google for Rich Results 

• Article/BlogPosting: For as many blogs as there are on the internet, blog markup is underutilized. If you’re writing educational, informational and unique content, you’ll want to use schema simply to help your content be more easily understood by search engines, which may help your content with keyword relevance.

Supported by Google for Rich Results 

• Guides: Schema.org vocabulary for guides is underutilized. In today’s digital world, the quicker a user can find the answer to their pain point, the better. A guide is a great way to give snippets of information to a searcher quickly.

Not yet supported by Google for Rich Results.

• HowTo: You’ll find that HowTo markup is not frequently used, though growing in its adaptation by websites. Recipes were the first “how-to” content that Google and other search engines supported with rich results, making recipe structured data a must include to be competitive in organic search. One can expect a smilar trend for the expansion of recipe into the much braoder How-To/DIY space.

Supported by Google for Rich Results 

• FAQPage and QAPage: The vocabulary for FAQs is one of the most underutilized forms of markup currently. While FAQ and QA markup might be similar they serve different functions. FAQ tells Google “I am an organization providing the answer to a question” while QA is for a user to ask a question to a community, and the community members answer and/or rate the answers to determine the best response to the question – like Quora.

Supported by Google for Rich Results 

• Event markup: Event schema is partially underutilized. While SportsEvent and ComedyEvent are used often, other important ones like SaleEvent and MusicEvent aren’t used as often as they could be.

Supported by Google for Rich Results 

• Fact Checking markup: You will rarely see fact check vocabulary, even at such a unique and important time of disinformation. This could be because fact checking websites are still a small niche, but if you are in a publication space acting as a fact checker, this entity type and properties could be useful in helping searchers cut through the noise and find reliable information sources.
• Home Activities markup: This entity typeis new but it’s extremely relevant today and will likely continue to be during COVID-19 and stay at home orders. Stay at home mom blogs and site’s like Martha Stewart’s DIY projects are relevant pages to include home activity vocabulary.

Other vocabularies that are underutilized include Contact pages, Search Result Page, Profile page and real estate listings.

Google structured data guidelines

In order for your pages to be included in Google’s SERPs, you have to follow their structured data guidelines as you implement schema on your site. Google states that they will penalize your pages and take “manual action” if guidelines are not followed. Be sure to become familiar with and follow Google’s guidelines. You can find technical, quality, relevancy and more guidelines straight from Google.

Some of Google’s guidelines are simple. Don’t markup spammy data, fake reviews or fake content, misleading data and more. Other guidelines are slightly more complex. When considering using FAQ schema, people want to leverage it to sell. Google specifically responds negatively to using FAQ markup to sell and emphasize that sites cannot use FAQ schema for selling purposes. FAQ schema has to be factual and if it’s used for sales, you will have rich results removed from search results.

Schema.org and structured data are extremely valuable to your pages for organic search performance purposes. Begin using schema markup by first deciding which entity types are most relevant to your content and then add it to your code.

While schema.org vocabulary may seem extremely complicated, once you begin to understand how to align your content with existing entity types and how to implement it into your webpage’s HTML, you will more easily understand how valuable a tool it can be in your SEO workflow.

A CMS, otherwise known as a Content Management System, is software used to develop and manage your content through various marketing channels. While most content management systems mainly focus on content management for your website, some also grant marketers the ability to manage content across multiple channels such as web apps, social media and more. A CMS allows for multiple users across your organization to collaborate on marketing efforts without requiring them to have deep technical or coding skills. 

How does a CMS work? 

A CMS helps guide content creation in an easy-to-use application by allowing users to create, manage and publish content with a few clicks of the mouse. Rather than building a website or landing page from scratch, a CMS removes the need for heavy development and simplifies content creation through drag and drop or WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors. This allows marketers to control more of the website, streamlining workflows and bringing both the business and technical teams together to collaborate in real time. 

Evaluating what CMS you should use

Start by identifying the problems your team is currently facing and whether you’d benefit more from a SaaS or a hosted CMS solution. Be sure to fully understand your site and content management needs and the basic features you’ll require from a CMS before you begin your evaluation. We recommend making a list of need-to-have and nice-to-have features to assist with your evaluation.  

Most CMS platforms will allow you to build web pages, save your favorite page templates, store and deliver content, allow you to collaborate with teammates and even create workflows, calendars and processes to help keep your team organized. 

When evaluating the price of a CMS solution, you’ll need to consider more than just the upfront cost of the product. Not all CMS solutions come out-of-the-box with everything you’re looking for, some will require additional features or integrations and may have add-on costs for large support requests or SLAs, WYSIWYG editors and more. Consider all your business needs and be sure you’re aware of the CMS’s limitations and other costs that may come up. 

Consider what kind of upkeep and daily management will be required. What will the creation and upkeep of the site look like after the initial migration and set up is completed? Will you need a developer to assist with your day-to-day tasks? How will this solution work with your team’s skillset(s)? Does the solution offer WYSIWIG or drag-and-drop type editors for your non-technical (non-developer) team members? Look at what kind of support is included or available as well and consider what would be best for your business. Do they offer 24/7 support, or will an SLA be required? 

Be sure to evaluate whether this CMS can easily integrate with your current tech stack. If the out-of-the-box solution can’t solve some of your needs, how much customization is needed or available and what is able to be integrated? This is where you should consider all features (the need-to-have and nice-to-have features you listed out earlier) and see what will require additional integration or may have additional costs. 

You’ll also want to make sure the CMS software is scalable. Find a solution that meets your current requirements, but always be thinking about future goals and where your site and company are heading and find a CMS software that can grow and adapt with you. What features will you need moving forward to assist with your company’s growth? 

CMS software features for SEO & digital marketing 

Not only will a good CMS allow you to create outstanding web content with ease, it should give you the ability to manage your site’s SEO as well. Basic SEO features include page titles, meta descriptions and image alt text. Think about how much control your team would like to have over more of the technical SEO features such as updating sitemaps, robots.txt, adding schema, canonicals or setting redirects. Being able to quickly make these changes without waiting for development can be critical for SEO success. 

Have questions about schema and structured data? Learn more here. 

Page speed and mobile responsiveness are important factors to keep top of mind as well. Your site may look great, but it won’t perform well for users and may not rank as well on search engines if the site loads slowly or isn’t mobile-friendly. A faster site not only helps your search rankings, but increases user engagement and conversions as well as lowering your site’s bounce rate. If the CMS you’re considering comes with CDN capabilities, be sure it’s lightning fast with proven page speed performance. 

Read more about the effects of page speed 

Other features to consider include social media marketing/integration, site chat to assist inbound sales, e-commerce features, A/B testing, dynamic content for personalization, blogging capabilities, SMS functionality, CRM and sales features or email marketing. Will your team benefit from using features like content calendars or structured workflows?  

In conclusion  

As you review solutions, think about what will be most useful and relevant to your business. Does this solution meet all/the majority of your needs or will you need to add on products and features or need to integrate with other technology?  

Every website will have different needs – some may require event registration while other sites may require e-commerce features or a site chat for inbound sales.  Most platforms will allow users to sign up for free trials, or sandbox versions of the CMS software to get a hands-on experience to truly see if a CMS is right for you. 

Update: This blog has been updated with 2020 data and information.

The buyer’s journey used to be a simple circular route from Awareness to Consideration to Purchase and (hopefully) back around again. Digital has transformed the buyer’s journey into a complex maze of multiple touchpoints and increased the potential for crossed wires.

With 4.57 billion people using the internet in July 2020 alone, the buyer’s journey now begins and, for many industries, ends in the digital landscape. 87% of consumers begin their journey digitally. This is a huge percentage jump since 71% in 2018. By focusing your attention on how your brand appears in search results, you can reduce the overwhelming nature of the modern buyer’s journey, and make sure you are targeting the right content to the right audience at each moment in their journey to minimize poor bounce rates.

Naturally, you're going to want your content to rank above competitors. If prospects have discovered pain points and begin searching for solutions to them, this is your opportunity - right at the initial stages - to grab your prospects attention. If your content isn't optimized to rank well, prospects are finding your competitors resources at the beginning stages of their journey and therefore not finding yours.

What buyers discover in searches along their journey

A simple Google search has become complicated. Buyers no longer get the same results with the same search terms. Instead, each individual’s buyer’s journey is personalized based on the type of intent, device, location, time of day and any other past search history.

The layout of the search engine results page (SERP) is also up for grabs. There are now 50 different SERP elements and an infinite number of combinations where Google is understanding the intent of each search to present the most relevant and helpful information during the buyer’s journey.

For example, if the user asks a question during a micro-moment search, Google might prioritize a Quick Answer, the highlighted section that appears at the top of the SERP whenever a user asks an information seeking question, like “How to…” or “What is…”. Or when a location seems like the most appropriate result, the buyer will see a Local 3-Pack view showing nearby businesses who offer what they’re looking for.

The four micro-moments of the customer journey

Micro-moments are when users leverage their devices to search for solutions with the intent to do something whether they're looking to do something, see something, buy something and more. You'll need to know the different moments as they're a crucial part of the customer journey and aid you in being there for prospects during these moments when they're looking to reach you via content. The four micro-moments include the following:

1. I want to know. During this type of search, users will search for a topic without a specific business in mind. Simply put, users are looking for their questions to be answered at this stage.
2. I want to go. Here, users are looking to go somewhere. This can include a vacation destination, a local business or any other physical place a user is looking to go to.
3. I want to do. At this stage, users are looking to learn to do something. During COVID-19, search engines saw a huge jump in searches for baking bread and at-home workouts. These are two examples that fall under "I want to do" moments.
4. I want to buy. At this moment, users are looking to purchase. Queries including "near me" or an actual product like "65" smart TV" indicate users are looking to solve their pain point with a purchase.

Buyers are expecting the straight-forward answers they're looking for

All of this has transformed the buyer. They now expect to see only the most relevant search results linking to dynamic content that reflects where they are in their journey. If your brand is still reciting the same stock answers, you’re missing out, especially as millennials – now “the world’s most powerful consumers” – are more loyal to brands that provide a personalized approach.

When the majority of every buyer’s journey starts with search, you need to ensure buyers see signs for your brand on that first results page. Here are three ways to ensure you earn their attention.

1. Know the queries users are searching for 

New York sports center Aviator Sports created a new webpage to promote its figure skating rink and classes. When it didn’t generate the anticipated traffic, the company used BrightEdge’s deep learning SEO technology to analyze the relevant keyword landscape. This revealed that while “figure skating” is the widely-accepted term in the sports world, regular people typically search for “ice skating.” By optimizing this term on their webpage, Aviator boosted its potential search volume by more than five times.

Don't assume that buyers use the same language as you. It’s critical to establish which relevant terms people actually search for the most. You should also explore which terms your competitors are ranking for and find out if there are any important categories where your brand does not rank.

Using Instant, you can easily discover real-time insights into the relevant queries users are searching for. You can also use Data Cube to locate the terms where your brand ranks and what language is used. You can also quickly compare your domain to any competitor to see what terms they rank for in the first page of search results that you are not.

Not only will you need to know which keywords you're ranking for, not ranking for, and which your competitors are ranking for, but you'll also want to find the searches that are most relevant to your prospects when solving their pain points. You can do a search for the queries you want to appear for. Look at what Quick Answers and People Also Ask results appear and ask yourself if your content is answering those questions consumers are looking for.

Demo Instant For Real-Time Search Results

2. Create unique content for different search types

When cosmetics brand Kiehl’s noticed that lots of people were searching for advice on using skincare products, it produced content to specifically answer the most common questions. As a result, the brand saw a 30% increase in its Quick Answer ranking. Are your prospects downloading resources from your site? Are they checking out blog content or watching videos? Discover the content your prospects are looking at on your site and create more of it for every step in their buyer's journey to help them move along.

Words used in a search are often an indicator of where a buyer is on their journey and you need to create relevant content for each type:

• “How”/“What” – The buyer starts their journey by searching for information about a category. This is your opportunity to become a Quick Answer and produce interesting category content.
• “Reviews”/“Best” – The buyer is interested and now considering their options. Help them by creating brand comparison content and promoting your good reviews and case studies.
• “Buy”/“Order”/“Download”/brand term – The buyer is ready to make a purchase. Close the deal by showing them product pages and ensuring your brand features on Google Images and in the Local 3-Pack.

Using BrightEdge Keyword Reporting, you can easily organize and strategize on all of the terms where your brand is ranking on informational, consideration, or purchase terms. Keyword Reporting will also help you identify which terms have universal rankings, such as a Local 3-pack or Quick Answer, to help you optimize your pages for the right intent to secure those prized search spots.

3. Optimize your content to rank for different search types

Digital Media Publisher targeting athletes Stack.com discovered 120 keywords initially and narrowed down their target list to focus only on terms with the highest organic potential. The brand then created targeted content for this subset, which increased site visits by 61%.

Once you understand the intent of each targeted keyword, you can maximize your organic effort by grouping keywords into three categories:

• Defend – terms whose high ranking you need to maintain
• Optimize – terms where you can achieve a higher ranking with some minor tweaks
• Create – terms you are not ranking for and need to boost with new content

Leveraging BrightEdge’s Visual Parser, the Intent Signal dashboard template will automatically do this analysis and categorization for you. Or consult Insights, which automatically scans your site for pages with errors that affect ranking or those where additional content like an image or Quick Answer might boost results.

Adjust your strategy if your content isn't resonating with buyers

In order to understand whether your content is resonating with prospects, you'll want to measure and track your data. You can use Data Cube and Page Reporting to understand how your pages are ranking and for which keywords they appear in the SERPs. BrightEdge integrates with Google Analytics, therefore you can uncover all the necessary data to alter your strategy or keep it the same.

By keeping track of conversions, you'll be able to uncover whether or not your pages are working for users. If you notice a page isn't converting well, investigate the content and decide next steps. Why aren't prospects converting? If there isn't a CTA, add one and track whether or not conversions increase. If your page offers a CTA but it's not converting well, consider your options whether repositioning the CTA, choosing a more relevant one, etc. 

Keep pace with technology

The world’s leading search engine never sits still, therefore the buyer’s journey will continue to change. Using a leading industry technology like BrightEdge will give you the ability to automate these processes and it is how the best SEO marketers keep pace for SEO reports. With all the tools you need to stay on the same path as your buyers, BrightEdge will keep you two steps ahead.

Businesses have had to make drastic changes this year to accommodate the new normal. Likewise, consumer needs and concerns have also zig and zagged this year. This dynamic is quickly creating new market realities and navigating them requires businesses to put a greater focus in their agility. They need to know what the customers care about, how their environment is impacting their intentions and where opportunities are to meet their needs and create meaningful interactions. This will require re-imagining how they gain market and business intelligence to be faster, more accurate and actionable in new environments.

At Share 2020, a key theme we hit on is the convergence of search data and business intelligence. How consumers search and how search engines are serving up trillions of historical search results reveal a rich portrait of what consumers want, how they want to consume it and what messages are resonating with them. For many marketers, the challenge is turning what we see in search results into macro trends that can serve as an input into your broader marketing and omnichannel strategies.

Using a combination of AI and trending billions of searches, BrightEdge provides digital marketers with the technologies to elevate search data into macro consumer insights with Market Insights. We built this platform because we believe when organized and positioned correctly, search represents the most accurate and agile representation of consumer behavior.

There are three key aspects of macro consumer behavior that search data can help your organization uncover:

1. Who is changing purchase and discovery patterns?
2. What are your opportunities?
3. How should you realize these opportunities?

Who is changing purchase and discovery patterns? 

Let’s say you’re a business with an e-commerce component selling thousands of products online. You need to understand across your categories what trends are emerging across those consumers looking for your products and be able to answers to these questions:

• What product attributes are becoming more important?
• Are they becoming more price sensitive?
• Do they have strong brand preferences that inform purchase?

With over 75% of shoppers doing a search before making a purchase, your search data is the perfect consumer measurement. Market Insights aggregates granular search data into consumer categories that empower you to answer these questions. Beyond the search and content value, you are now armed to:

• Inform product strategy for what inventory needs to be prioritized
• Help shopper marketing and retail teams understand where price sensitivity is on the rise
• Inform branding and omnichannel teams on how consumer brand preferences are changing faster than any focus group or lookback data with real time search data. 

What are your opportunities?

Core to the convergence of search and business intelligence is the chance to become even more agile in opportunity identification. Granular search data reveals a lot about what consumers care about and how they think. Market Insights consolidates granular search data into meaningful macro trends. Insights revealed in this data can help businesses:

• Determine what represents an actual trending change in consumer preferences vs. an anomaly. Move quickly on emerging ones and avoid costly investments chasing the wrong ones. 
• Identify blue ocean trends—where are net new behaviors emerging that your brand has a right to win?
• Determine how macro trends are impacting existing sales. Correlate negative conditions or consumer attitudes to impacts on sales. 

Armed with this data, marketers have an agile way of observing the market that is fresh and reactive to current events and conditions. Using search in this way helps brands:

• Make strategic omnichannel decisions faster and determine what opportunities are significant enough to warrant an orchestrated omnichannel approach. 
• Get ahead of new market opportunities faster than competitors and organize your branding, messaging and product teams.
• React faster with your branding, content and media teams to prevailing macro trending needs and frustrations.

How should you realize those opportunities? 

Once we understand what the opportunities are with our consumers, Market Insights also tells us how we need to orchestrate content and build our omnichannel strategies to realize the opportunity. One of the benefits of search is that we are marketing with the most powerful arbiter of intent the world has ever known. Search engines like Google use powerful search algorithms to receive trillions of results, reflecting on what users really want.

Market Insights harnesses the real-time search results from search engines to help businesses better plan their macro strategies. This help you to:

• Prioritize what pain points being expressed with search behavior warrant broad communication. Anticipate market opportunities fast. 
• Determine what content is resonating with consumers across multiple screens.
• Identify the formats and content delivery methods that align to how consumers prefer to engage.

Demo Instant For Real-Time Insights And Results

Armed with this data, marketers have a near-real time method for measuring what consumers want when they engage. Beyond search, this data helps brands: 

• Build their macro communication strategies across channels through their content teams.
• Address new consumer trends by enhancing your content team’s ability to be agile and pivot messaging when needed.
• Define the formats they need to create in order for that content to resonate with the intended audiences. 

When we start thinking of search as both a channel and a real-time audience listening platform and scale the insights across our business, we make decisions faster and more accurately.