Businesses are constantly seeking innovative strategies to enhance their online presence. While conventional SEO tactics like keyword optimization and content marketing remain crucial, there’s a lesser known, yet highly effective, approach that can significantly amplify these efforts: Search Box Optimization (SBO).
What is Search Box Optimization?
The Search Box is the space where a searcher types in their query. When they do that, the search engines offer a list of suggested answers in the autocomplete/autosuggest drop-down.
Search Box Optimization is a relatively new technique that inserts your brand or business name with a highly targeted keyword.
This works perfectly for locally targeted keywords, and just as well for broader, nationally targeted keywords.
With Search Box Optimization (SBO), your business or brand is the first thing a person sees before they even click the search button or hit enter. You are effectively presenting them with your business or brand at this vital point of their search, while having 100% of their attention.
If you’ve been very successful with organic SEO efforts, you may be showing up on Google’s first page for a search term relating to your products or services. But you’re also surrounded by your competitors who are putting the same (or more) energy into getting seen on page one.
For example, let’s say you’re a heating and cooling company in Phoenix, and you’ve spent the past six months doing SEO to get on page one for the search term “heating phoenix”. That coveted spot on page one has taken a lot of work, but above and below you are a number of other heating companies in the area. With SBO, when someone starts typing in “heating phoenix”, your name now appears as the first autosuggest option in the drop-down suggestion box, giving you a powerful advantage over those competitors.
The beauty of SBO is that if a customer clicks on the Search Box suggestion with your company name in it, then it’s as if they searched for your company name and not just the service or product they are looking for — meaning the first page of search results turns into a personal billboard where you could own the entire first page, not just one spot on page one.
By leveraging SBO, businesses can tap into a treasure trove of interested, potential customers.
Benefits of Search Box Optimization
- 33% of Google users who search for specific local service-oriented keywords such as “car accident lawyer dallas”, “acting schools vancouver”, will use one of Google’s autocomplete suggestions to further their search. That’s one in three people.
- SBO works for any type of business; if you have a website, you qualify. But it works exceptionally well for companies that are already relying on the search engines (via SEO and/or PPC) to help them generate their leads, customers and sales.
- Once you’re officially in the search box autosuggestions for your chosen keywords, you “own” that spot. It is exclusively yours. No other business or company can come in and knock you out! This is a zero-competition proposition.
- SBO also works for YouTube. Imagine owning certain keywords in the native YouTube search box, and having your videos or channel show up as a Search Box suggestion, every time a user types in that search term.
Trust and Authority
By leveraging Google’s trust and authority factor, you gain more visibility and trust for your brand. By having your business or brand name appear so prominently in the search box every time a user types in your chosen keyword, you’re helping to create fantastic top-of-mind awareness in the user, arguably the best branding there is.
Featured Snippets & Knowledge Panels
Nearly 60% of Google searches end without a click in 2024.
Knowledge Panels and the A.I. answers at the top of the Search Engine Results Page generate direct answers by pulling information from various reputable sources and presenting them in a concise and user-friendly format. Knowledge panels like “People Also Ask” and “Featured Snippets” are revolutionizing the way users find direct answers to their queries.
So, when a user searches, they often find the answer they’re looking for without having to click on anything further. This is known as zero click search.
Zero click searches have been steadily increasing over the years. Between January and December 2020, 65% of searches conducted on Google, both desktop and mobile platforms, concluded without users clicking through to another website.
If you are relying on Google and/or PPC traffic to achieve any of the following goals, then you should appreciate the value of showing up in the search box as an autosuggest from Google.
- improve brand visibility
- increase top-of-mind awareness in your prospects
- generate targeted leads
- acquire customers
- create revenue
Google (and Bing) are the first places anyone goes to find information. Even with the rise of AI, Search Engines are still, and will continue to be, a staple in the way people seek out answers..
Bing and Google have more than 94% of search market share collectively, so leveraging their search box features can significantly enhance your online presence.
To rank on page one in a particular organic search is becoming increasingly difficult because of the extreme competition. And ranking on page one for some markets has pretty much become exclusive to just the large companies with huge budgets.
SBO technology levels the playing field. It gives a competitive advantage to anyone who takes the opportunity. And because it’s a relatively new technology, the field is wide open.
Contact MIke at Meritus Media for more information about how SBO can boost our SEO efforts.