“Perspectives” in Google search: what can marketers expect?

Google Search keeps changing. It has a long history of algorithmic updates. As a result of the virality of ChatGPT and its integration with Bing, Google decided to integrate its conversational generative artificial intelligence Chatbot Bard into its search engine and is working on it. And, indeed, people are not far from receiving crispy AI-generated answers from Google searches. Brands and marketers are already wondering what kind of impacts they will need to face as a result of these new changes.

Alongside many other updates, the search engine giant announced in March 2023 that it was working on introducing a new way for users to search for information by adding a new Perspectives feature. Recently, the company announced some interesting updates on this.

Perspectives:

Along with news, images, and shopping options, the perspectives feature will be added as a new section at the top of Google search results.

When users click on Perspectives, it will display videos from YouTube, comments from Reddit, Stack Overflow, and other community-focused sites, posts from personal blogs and social media, and other content that Google's ranking systems consider to be the actual perspectives of actual humans.

Through this move, Google wants to make it simple to find individual people's perspectives on topics from all over the web.

Besides, Google added that when people use the Perspectives filter, they’ll be shown more detailed information about the content creators and the popularity of their content.

The company is also working to enhance how it counts "review content" on search by giving greater importance to higher-quality sites that include original content. That could become ever more crucial in the age of AI, and a search engine that understands the distinction could be very useful.

Google’s data shows 40% of Gen Z prefers using TikTok and Instagram to search for their queries over Google.

Given this, it is quite understandable why Google is so vigorous in introducing new features to its search engine.

While incorporating AI into Google Search can have a significant impact on businesses' ability to achieve their desired results, the Perspectives feature is likely to take it a step further.

For brands and marketers:

As Google sheds more light on word of mouth, it is time for brands to go more beyond their websites.

They must strive to strengthen their overall digital presence, from blogs to social media pages to community forums to YouTube videos. Otherwise, brands can easily go unnoticed and lose their high-value audiences.

For example, suppose brand X operates a hotel in city Y and has its own website. When your target audience uses Google to search for the best hotels in city Y, they are likely to click "Perspectives." If they do not see your brand name in any of the discussion forums or social media comments, they may end up not knowing that your hotel even exists in the city. And, indeed, they will select the ones they see in the comments. As a result, failing to intensify the brand's digital presence will lead the brand to easily lose valuable audiences to their competitors.

On the other hand, once Google added this feature, marketers may also notice a decrease in website visits and traffic as more people are likely to embrace it as it is the actual human perspective and not the particular brand's voice.

For users:

In this digital age, everything revolves around the consumer. Brands that make business decisions based on consumer preferences and needs can only compete in this space.

And what do you think people will consider most while making their choices, whether it is choosing a hotel, buying a new product, clothes, or anything else?

Others perspectives.

Since it is something people are going to share from their real experiences, it has huge value.

Thus, we believe people will embrace this new feature, and there is no doubt about that.

And by making it easier for people to get it, Google is making a wise move to keep audiences flowing towards them.

In a nutshell, it is high time for marketers to focus on enhancing their overall digital presence and encouraging more people to say good things about the brand in order to improve conversions.