It looks like Google is already in the process of launching a new design and layout of Google Search Results Page. If you have noticed carefully, Google has been experimenting and testing many layouts, making subtle changes here and there, to make the process seamless for the average user. These include font size, a neater look and feel, and removal of underlines for hyperlinked content. Take a look at the image below (courtesy Search Engine Land) and see for yourself.
Google ads in particular will appear to be different. You can see it in the image below. The word ‘Ad’ is just mentioned once at the top and not before or after every ad. So the user may forget it is an ad and click on it.
While reading up on these changes, I came across an interesting article on Forbes, that highlighted four crucial areas that will be impacted by these changes. Here’s a gist of it.
| Google Ads | Google ads are expected to become subtler, making it difficult for the user to distinguish between organic search results and Google ads, thus, giving advertisers more exposure. |
| Knowledge Graph | The Knowledge Graph is expected to gain prominence and appear as much as possible, to give users as much information possible about that specific query. However, this also means that traffic to certain sites, that might have been helpful in providing answers, may reduce. |
| Authorship | As mentioned time and again, authorship is becoming more and more relevant and important for marketers. In order to provide the best and most relevant content to users, content of well-established organisations and authors will be given preference over regular content. In other words, Google will try to push content from experts in that field rather than regular content available online. |
| Personalization | If you haven’t got a Google Plus account yet, now is the best time. Google will be pulling in data from your social activities and past searches, maybe even your location and other favourites, to provide the most relevant search results and create a customized Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Participation in Google Plus and Google Authorship is particularly important if you are a marketer. |
The biggest changes will be seen in mobile SERPs. More and more people are accessing most of their online content, using their mobile phones. Since mobile device usage is on the rise, it has also become a very important platform for advertisers as well.
Google is trying to push quality content to the top and provide users with information most relevant and useful to them, in a manner that is effortless and rich in quality. Users can expect a better and richer Search Results Page. As for marketers, only time will tell how these changes have affected your revenues.
