The Future of Search has arrived. Or at least it’s arriving, according to a Google webinar held in late July.

Brian and I sort of attended. “The Future of Search” isn’t a bad name to put on the webinar, although to be honest, the material was really more about economy-driven changes to search behavior and new search tools than about some grand Metropolis-style vision of super-intelligent digital entities surfing for electronic nirvana.

We had a bunch of distractions but here’s my $.02 summary.

• consumers are using search a lot more to get better deals and coupons ‘cuz they’re poor and/or jobless
• the future of search is more intelligent web traffic, and consumers spending more time surfing (probably whilst underwear-clad and jobless)
• users are now using 2-3 keywords in their searches rather than 1, realizing that this results in more relevant results

In addition, Google has 3 new webtoys for our enjoyment:

Searchbased Keyword Tool: a cool new keyword research tool that suggests keywords and keyphrases based on the content on your site. Nice idea.

From Google’s help page on the “sktool”: “The main difference between the Search-based Keyword Tool and the Keyword Tool currently in AdWords is that the former generates keyword ideas based on your website, and identifies those currently not being used in your AdWords account. Additionally, the Search-based Keyword Tool provides more detailed data for each keyword, such as category information, suggested bid that may place the ad in the top three spots of a search results page, and ad/search share. Both tools, however, offer the option of browsing all keywords across all categories.

“You may also notice that some of the data (like such as the monthly search volume) may vary slightly between the two tools, which is due to different methods of calculation at this time.”

Website Optimizer: for super-intense conversion analysis of high-traffic pages.

With this thing, you make a zillion versions of the target page, playing with variables like calls to action, graphics, headlines, design, whatever, each at unique URLs. Website Optimizer randomly displays different versions to users. These URLs could be bookmarked by users, so after your experiment finishes, you want to keep these URLs valid. A WO “experiment” with 3 page variations will typically need around 300 conversions before drawing any conclusions.

and lastly, Google Insights for Search.

“With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties. Useful for comparing different keyphrases over different regions and timeframes.”

You can hear a full recording of the Google webinar online. It does require a password, but just contact us and we’d be happy to share it with you. (We don’t want to get in trouble in case the Future of Search is copyrighted etc.) Enjoy!

Global Internet information provider comScore released some fascinating data at the end of February regarding America’s search behavior and the financial crisis. The survey research showed an increase in people searching for terms related to the economic crisis over the past year.

The search term “unemployment” was up 206 percent to 8.2 million searches during the past year, along with “unemployment benefits,” up 247 percent to 748,000 searches. Other terms related to the economic crisis that were up:

• “Mortgage”: Up 72 percent; 7.8 million searches
• “Bankruptcy”: Up 156 percent; 2.6 million searches
• “Foreclosure”: Up 67 percent; 1.4 million searches
• “Coupons”: Up 161 percent; 19.9 million searches
• “Discount”: Up 26 percent; 7.9 million searches

Something else comScore’s research showed was that those who were searching for “unemployment” were generally younger, with the head of the household being 35 years old or younger and the household earning less than $50,000 per year. ComScore also found that these searchers were much more likely to use Ask.com, MSN and Yahoo! rather than Google or AOL Search.

ComScore’s research shows that, obviously, what people are searching for reflects Americans’ concerns and interests. Though the effects of the current financial crisis are apparent without looking at data like this, it’s interesting to see how clearly a nation’s worries are illustrated just by looking at general keywords in search trends.

What can we learn from looking at the search trends of large groups of people and taking into consideration their concerns and interests? If trends show that certain general keywords are being searched for a lot more now than they were just a year ago, that says a lot. Paying attention to trends like this can certainly be an essential part of successful search marketing as well as marketing in general.