Users all over the world have been using Google to search for answers to anything; and those who have been using it since 2007 may be familiar with the Universal Search Results. To adapt to the users’ changing need for a wider multimedia support, Google returns a multitude of choices for every query—including images, news, maps, shopping results, and videos.
Not every search enables Universal Search Results, but in a new study conducted by Searchmetrics, videos appeared most of the time at 65%. About 54% of the video results are YouTube videos.
There’s no surprise that YouTube is the main source of videos, as Google owns it and trusts its algorithm to return the results users need. They are confident that the same results are going to satisfy users on the main search engine.
YouTube is Losing Market Share but Still Outranks Others
While YouTube’s contributions to all the video results in the Universal Search significantly declined from 80% to 54%, no other video sharing site crossed the 10% threshold. It still outranks other providers, but slowly losing market share.
“At the end of the year we can see a 25% decline for YouTube. Nevertheless YouTube still returns approximately every second Video in Universal Search.”
Queries with Universal Search Results Increased
Searchmetrics looked into each type of Universal Search Result from the search engine results pages (SERPs). The results generally showed that the proportion of keywords with at least one Universal Search integration increased in 2013, after it decreased temporarily in the previous year.
“The growing share of search results with Universal Search display also seems to be partly due to the growing proliferation of Videos and Images in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). For more and more keywords, Video and Image results are displayed.”
What This Means to You
People are paying more attention to videos and images. Visuals have the ability to quickly communicate messages, which is useful for digital marketers who continuously compete for the short attention span of web users.
People are looking for podcasts, infographics, images, and videos—we can help you with these popular content types through our content marketing strategy. Talk to your account manager today or sign up for free to get started.