Search news roundup October 2020

To help you make the most of all of these new advances, read on for our round up of the biggest search news from the last few weeks…

One of the standouts of this year for many brands has been the demand for online and virtual efforts. Born out of necessity as lockdown was imposed, everyone from cooking schools to PTs seems to have transitioned their services online. LinkedIn has obviously been keeping tabs on this trend as it has recently announced the expansion of its own virtual events function which it says has already welcomed more than 10 million attendees. The network has been taking steps to make it easier for users to find and participate in virtual events – even more promising, it’s also now possible for businesses hosting a virtual even to capture lead data. 

If you had an event planned which has been cancelled, such as a trade show or networking event, why not take it online with LinkedIn instead? Thanks to the changes made, you’ll be able to pull attendee data from the sign up form, post details of your event on your company page for it to be included in discovery tabs for LinkedIn users and, promote it with Sponsored Content. 

We’ve heard many times that the pandemic has forced buyer habits to shift. According to the ecommerce platform, Shopify, one of the biggest new trends to emerge from these changes has been soaring demand for click and collect from online shoppers. It says that the number of orders placed for click and collect has grown a huge 443% since March alone. It expects that there will be a 60% year-on-year growth in the US alone by the end of 2020. If you haven’t added this checkout option to your ecommerce offering, now would be a great time to do so.

Google’s Shopping tab is undergoing some changes in the run up to the festive season to help consumers locate the best deals. It will now allow advertisers to showcase their best deals and promotions with a more prominent label in search results. In addition to showcasing product promotions, Google says it will also make it easier for brands to attract new customers and access improved insights to help tailor ad strategies. 

Google’s advanced algorithm known as BERT is now being applied to almost ever search query handled by the search engine in the English language it has disclosed. BERT was developed specifically to help Google better understand web page content and context so that search results could be closer aligned to user intent – something it says improves the results returned for 7% of all searches made.