Search isn't just for web pages any more. In the past year, Google, Ask, Microsoft and Yahoo have all developed their services to offer listings based not only on web pages with text, but also on rich media such as blogs, videos, images and maps.
For example, if you type in "Girls Aloud" to look for the band's latest single, a search engine results page will now provide images of the band, a link to its official site, blogs, reviews, interviews and online videos, rather than just a link to a list of websites.
This technique, known as universal or blended search, is a clear sign of how natural search is becoming more sophisticated, offering improved levels of indexing.
Such developments in search are also raising the potential of online PR, as brands are building links to podcasts and videos into their sites, all of which have viral potential and can attract attention from bloggers and other forms of user-generated content. This technique can help to lift rankings and ensure that a stream of interactive and fresh content is posted on a regular basis.
Mel Carson, Microsoft AdCenter community manager for Europe, says: "If a brand were launching a new car, for example, the first thing it would want an online searcher to see would be a link to a dealer website with positive reviews of the car and videos of a road test. With the internet, and in particular search, becoming such a popular way for people to find information, online PR is becoming more and more important."
According to Jon Myers, associate director and head of search at MediaVest Interactive, universal search introduces rich-media content to the natural search engine results pages, creating a results page that is more interactive and sticky.
He points to research undertaken by search engine marketing company Enquiro, which looked at how people interact with a universal search results page. The study showed that universal search pages generate twice as many interactions as standard search results pages, and that the time spent on the results pages doubles.
"Universal search creates opportunities to integrate high-quality branded content into the natural search results pages, adding an extra string to a search engine optimisation (SEO) campaign," Myers says.
However, while the potential for natural search is certainly on the rise, no one is under the illusion that it will significantly dent the impact of pay-per-click (PPC) search, or ever replace it. Microsoft's Carson likens reliance on natural search alone to winning a lottery in which the whole world is taking part. Experts advocate a combination of the two.
Richard Gregory, chief operating officer of search engine marketing agency Latitude Group, says: "Search needs to be viewed as one channel as a whole, and SEO can support more prominent and expensive positions in paid search. The most successful search advertisers are those that blend their SEO and PPC campaigns together."
According to Stuart Small, Google's industry leader for business and industrial markets, most advertisers tend to use a combination of the two, with evidence suggesting brand uplift if listings appear in both paid-for and natural search.
Universal search may not be restricted to natural search for much longer. Some industry figures believe it could begin to appear within the sponsored links sections of search results pages, providing marketers with the ability to use images or video ads instead of, or to supplement, text-based ads. For example, Google is already trialling video ads within its paid-search offering.
With this in mind, it is increasingly important for clients to integrate natural and paid-for search. Gavin Sinden, digital strategy director at Equi=Media, says brands need to understand the customer's position in the sales cycle, from awareness to purchase.
"Generic key words are often used to raise brand awareness, but they are usually expensive and conversion rates can be low," he says. "By developing a search engine optimisation strategy around the most expensive generic search terms, brands can secure more prominent positions in the natural search rankings. Paid-for search budgets can then be allocated to keywords that produce the most cost-effective sales leads."
Tracking is therefore essential to weigh up how each method is performing. As natural search has come a long way, so too have the tools to track its activity, and most tracking systems can now separate natural search traffic from other channels.
In February, DoubleClick launched its DART natural search platform, which enables brands to view both traffic and conversions generated by natural search, and to de-duplicate those conversions against their paid-search advertising campaigns.
Andrew Girdwood, head of SEO at Big Mouth Media, explains: "The simplest model is to subtract tagged traffic, such as paid-search or affiliate traffic, from the site's traffic totals to discover the natural search total."
Brands also need to understand the implications of visitors using multiple sites.
For example, a user might initially visit a site as the result of a natural search, but then return a few days later and buy through a PPC link. As Lucy Allen, managing director of SEO agency LBi Netrank, outlines, the main focus areas when measuring natural search are the positions for key search terms, traffic figures, conversion rates and referring web addresses.
"By examining the referring URLs, you can see where traffic is coming from, such as whether it's from a blog, forum or search engine," she says. "This metric is useful to see whether a user has clicked on a natural or paid listing in the search engine results page."
Each search technique has its pros and cons. For example, PPC can ensure you get your message out quickly, making it suited to promotions and price-led creative,
whereas natural search requires a longer time for changes to appear on search results. On the positive side, there are no ongoing click costs attached to natural search, although search engines can change their ranking priorities at any time.
According to Andreas Pouros, managing director, SEO, at search agency Greenlight, natural search also offers access to a wider pool of consumers, as four out of five search queries result in a click on a natural listing, as opposed to one in five on a paid one.
Furthermore, with PPC, bidding on keywords can be an expensive business, so in competitive areas such as travel and finance, some brands will struggle to hit targets.
A further incentive for brands to refine their natural search strategies is Google's decision to scrap advertisers' exclusive rights to bid on keywords for their own brands. Jeremy Hill, founder of digital consultancy Circus Street, says that opening up brand bidding will inflate these terms to a point where it becomes unrealistic to bid any more, and that the price increases could prompt brands to focus increasingly on natural search.
Usman Patel, SEO manager at The Search Works, adds: "The change won't stop brands bidding on their brand keyword terms; it will increase cost-per-clicks as brands compete with their rivals for visibility in paid-search listings. Natural optimisation efforts will become more focused on providing honest, long-term value."
Scott Gallacher, head of online and partner marketing at Sky, says Sky's investment in natural search will grow in the coming months. "Natural search remains our priority, and we expect other companies are following in this direction," he says. "The trademark changes by Google may boost PPC spend over the coming year, but every year we've learnt more about search, and our spending has become more efficient."
Google's Small maintains that users in the US, where this model was introduced in 2004, have found the changes useful. However, it is still too early to say what implications the trademark changes will have on the search marketing industry in the UK.
What is clear is that the growth of universal search means that getting to the top of the natural listings will become more and more challenging for brands. Clients will need to continually test and refine their use of natural and paid search, in order to secure the best positions against the right search terms.
Hotel Chocolat: integrating paid-for and natural search
Gourmet chocolate retailer Hotel Chocolat launched its brand through catalogues and tasting clubs, before expanding its presence online and on the high street, where it now has 22 stores.
It has been working with search marketing agency Ambergreen for the past two years to expand its online presence and integrate its paid and natural search.
Hotel Chocolat's busiest periods are around Easter and Christmas, and special occasions such as Mother's Day. Ambergreen aimed to increase sales and maintain a high search engine ranking for the brand during seasonal fluctuations, while reducing the cost of customer acquisition.
Chris Bishop, online marketing manager at Hotel Chocolat, says: "We wanted to raise Hotel Chocolat's search engine profile and boost online sales. It's essential that we ensure strong prominence during our key seasonal periods, while keeping a year-round presence."
Ambergreen implemented two short-term pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to maximise sales in the run-up to Christmas, alongside a natural search campaign, focusing on key dates such as Valentine's Day and Easter. This ensured the site was optimised for generic searches such as "easter egg", "milk chocolate" and "dark chocolate".
User-generated content was also created to increase visibility on search engines and to capture a wider audience. For example, since some of Hotel Chocolat's products are used in cooking, the brand created a series of videos showing recipes that could be made using their products, and posted the videos on YouTube.
According to Hotel Chocolat, the search campaign has enabled it to increase online revenue by 720% in two years. With more than one million unique visitors last December, total transactions have also increased 946% over two years.
"We had a particularly strong Christmas pay-per-click performance in line with our busy seasonal period, proving PPC to be a highly cost-effective acquisition medium," says Bishop. "We've also learnt the importance of focusing on our organic placements in search engines, through technical housekeeping and by building external links."
For example, if you type in "Girls Aloud" to look for the band's latest single, a search engine results page will now provide images of the band, a link to its official site, blogs, reviews, interviews and online videos, rather than just a link to a list of websites.
This technique, known as universal or blended search, is a clear sign of how natural search is becoming more sophisticated, offering improved levels of indexing.
Such developments in search are also raising the potential of online PR, as brands are building links to podcasts and videos into their sites, all of which have viral potential and can attract attention from bloggers and other forms of user-generated content. This technique can help to lift rankings and ensure that a stream of interactive and fresh content is posted on a regular basis.
Mel Carson, Microsoft AdCenter community manager for Europe, says: "If a brand were launching a new car, for example, the first thing it would want an online searcher to see would be a link to a dealer website with positive reviews of the car and videos of a road test. With the internet, and in particular search, becoming such a popular way for people to find information, online PR is becoming more and more important."
According to Jon Myers, associate director and head of search at MediaVest Interactive, universal search introduces rich-media content to the natural search engine results pages, creating a results page that is more interactive and sticky.
He points to research undertaken by search engine marketing company Enquiro, which looked at how people interact with a universal search results page. The study showed that universal search pages generate twice as many interactions as standard search results pages, and that the time spent on the results pages doubles.
"Universal search creates opportunities to integrate high-quality branded content into the natural search results pages, adding an extra string to a search engine optimisation (SEO) campaign," Myers says.
However, while the potential for natural search is certainly on the rise, no one is under the illusion that it will significantly dent the impact of pay-per-click (PPC) search, or ever replace it. Microsoft's Carson likens reliance on natural search alone to winning a lottery in which the whole world is taking part. Experts advocate a combination of the two.
Richard Gregory, chief operating officer of search engine marketing agency Latitude Group, says: "Search needs to be viewed as one channel as a whole, and SEO can support more prominent and expensive positions in paid search. The most successful search advertisers are those that blend their SEO and PPC campaigns together."
According to Stuart Small, Google's industry leader for business and industrial markets, most advertisers tend to use a combination of the two, with evidence suggesting brand uplift if listings appear in both paid-for and natural search.
Universal search may not be restricted to natural search for much longer. Some industry figures believe it could begin to appear within the sponsored links sections of search results pages, providing marketers with the ability to use images or video ads instead of, or to supplement, text-based ads. For example, Google is already trialling video ads within its paid-search offering.
With this in mind, it is increasingly important for clients to integrate natural and paid-for search. Gavin Sinden, digital strategy director at Equi=Media, says brands need to understand the customer's position in the sales cycle, from awareness to purchase.
"Generic key words are often used to raise brand awareness, but they are usually expensive and conversion rates can be low," he says. "By developing a search engine optimisation strategy around the most expensive generic search terms, brands can secure more prominent positions in the natural search rankings. Paid-for search budgets can then be allocated to keywords that produce the most cost-effective sales leads."
Tracking is therefore essential to weigh up how each method is performing. As natural search has come a long way, so too have the tools to track its activity, and most tracking systems can now separate natural search traffic from other channels.
In February, DoubleClick launched its DART natural search platform, which enables brands to view both traffic and conversions generated by natural search, and to de-duplicate those conversions against their paid-search advertising campaigns.
Andrew Girdwood, head of SEO at Big Mouth Media, explains: "The simplest model is to subtract tagged traffic, such as paid-search or affiliate traffic, from the site's traffic totals to discover the natural search total."
Brands also need to understand the implications of visitors using multiple sites.
For example, a user might initially visit a site as the result of a natural search, but then return a few days later and buy through a PPC link. As Lucy Allen, managing director of SEO agency LBi Netrank, outlines, the main focus areas when measuring natural search are the positions for key search terms, traffic figures, conversion rates and referring web addresses.
"By examining the referring URLs, you can see where traffic is coming from, such as whether it's from a blog, forum or search engine," she says. "This metric is useful to see whether a user has clicked on a natural or paid listing in the search engine results page."
Each search technique has its pros and cons. For example, PPC can ensure you get your message out quickly, making it suited to promotions and price-led creative,
whereas natural search requires a longer time for changes to appear on search results. On the positive side, there are no ongoing click costs attached to natural search, although search engines can change their ranking priorities at any time.
According to Andreas Pouros, managing director, SEO, at search agency Greenlight, natural search also offers access to a wider pool of consumers, as four out of five search queries result in a click on a natural listing, as opposed to one in five on a paid one.
Furthermore, with PPC, bidding on keywords can be an expensive business, so in competitive areas such as travel and finance, some brands will struggle to hit targets.
A further incentive for brands to refine their natural search strategies is Google's decision to scrap advertisers' exclusive rights to bid on keywords for their own brands. Jeremy Hill, founder of digital consultancy Circus Street, says that opening up brand bidding will inflate these terms to a point where it becomes unrealistic to bid any more, and that the price increases could prompt brands to focus increasingly on natural search.
Usman Patel, SEO manager at The Search Works, adds: "The change won't stop brands bidding on their brand keyword terms; it will increase cost-per-clicks as brands compete with their rivals for visibility in paid-search listings. Natural optimisation efforts will become more focused on providing honest, long-term value."
Scott Gallacher, head of online and partner marketing at Sky, says Sky's investment in natural search will grow in the coming months. "Natural search remains our priority, and we expect other companies are following in this direction," he says. "The trademark changes by Google may boost PPC spend over the coming year, but every year we've learnt more about search, and our spending has become more efficient."
Google's Small maintains that users in the US, where this model was introduced in 2004, have found the changes useful. However, it is still too early to say what implications the trademark changes will have on the search marketing industry in the UK.
What is clear is that the growth of universal search means that getting to the top of the natural listings will become more and more challenging for brands. Clients will need to continually test and refine their use of natural and paid search, in order to secure the best positions against the right search terms.
Hotel Chocolat: integrating paid-for and natural search
Gourmet chocolate retailer Hotel Chocolat launched its brand through catalogues and tasting clubs, before expanding its presence online and on the high street, where it now has 22 stores.
It has been working with search marketing agency Ambergreen for the past two years to expand its online presence and integrate its paid and natural search.
Hotel Chocolat's busiest periods are around Easter and Christmas, and special occasions such as Mother's Day. Ambergreen aimed to increase sales and maintain a high search engine ranking for the brand during seasonal fluctuations, while reducing the cost of customer acquisition.
Chris Bishop, online marketing manager at Hotel Chocolat, says: "We wanted to raise Hotel Chocolat's search engine profile and boost online sales. It's essential that we ensure strong prominence during our key seasonal periods, while keeping a year-round presence."
Ambergreen implemented two short-term pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to maximise sales in the run-up to Christmas, alongside a natural search campaign, focusing on key dates such as Valentine's Day and Easter. This ensured the site was optimised for generic searches such as "easter egg", "milk chocolate" and "dark chocolate".
User-generated content was also created to increase visibility on search engines and to capture a wider audience. For example, since some of Hotel Chocolat's products are used in cooking, the brand created a series of videos showing recipes that could be made using their products, and posted the videos on YouTube.
According to Hotel Chocolat, the search campaign has enabled it to increase online revenue by 720% in two years. With more than one million unique visitors last December, total transactions have also increased 946% over two years.
"We had a particularly strong Christmas pay-per-click performance in line with our busy seasonal period, proving PPC to be a highly cost-effective acquisition medium," says Bishop. "We've also learnt the importance of focusing on our organic placements in search engines, through technical housekeeping and by building external links."