Google Introduces Brand New, Up-to-Date Design for Desktop Search

SUMMARY: Google has made changes recently – and they mean the potential for major improvements to the way consumers perceive your brand! Here’s how.

This year, Google updated the way they present search results to users. These changes are small, but they are expected to make big waves when it comes to the way consumers and businesses interact online.

Keeping Pace with the Well-Received Mobile Design

The decision to change the layout and design of Google’s search engine results page is partly due to the popularity of the mobile version of the page. The mobile version was revamped in October of 2022. Users have reportedly high rates of happiness with the new design for its sleek, easy-to-use layout and more visually impactful information.

This visual impact has been achieved by featuring more important information in easy-to-spot locations, as well as bolded text. Site names are featured alongside web addresses, and favicons are also now used to help further highlight what sites users are clicking through to. This has helped people use the Google search feature to get the results they’re looking for more quickly and easier. It is also helping consumers to have more faith in the websites that they visit.

Given the popularity of this design change for the mobile version of Google’s search engine, it only makes sense that the same changes have been implemented with the desktop version. Favicons now bring visual interest and impact to the returns page, while more descriptive information is now easier to find and read right from those search results.

Why Visual Impact Matters

Why would it matter if search returns had visual impact? It is all about setting brands and organizations apart from their competitors.

No matter what field your organization operates in, there is a large pool of competitors in that same field. You have many peers competing for the same consumers’ attention that you are vying for. When it comes to advertising your goods or services, visual impact helps you to set yourself apart from the rest with bold colors, logos, and other designs.

Also Read: Google Page Experience Guide: All You Need to Know

What chance does your search result have among the sea of competitors if you cannot use these same techniques? Even if your company is already well established and loved by consumers, not being able to recognize it in a long list of options can hurt your web traffic. That is why the addition of familiar logos and more through Google’s new featured favicons is so important. It uses familiar marketing science to further enhance both user experience and companies’ chances of being seen and chosen over the competition.

Clearing the Air on Ads

If you have ever entered a search term and received results near the top of the page that didn’t seem entirely relevant, you are not alone. This has traditionally been the result of site owners paying for priority placement on the results page. That means that those results you didn’t want to see were likely just another form of advertisement – and a sneaky one at that!

Thankfully, the new update to Google’s search returns page does something to address this issue. While companies are still allowed to advertise through prioritized placement on search result pages, these advertisements are now much easier to spot.

Labels to clearly distinguish advertisements and paid promotions from organic search results will now be visible on every Google search return page. For search result advertisements, a label will be visible in the top left corner of the ad. This label will have its own line so that the text will be obvious to the user and not easily confused with other text.

Mobile advertisements will receive a similar treatment. They will be highlighted and labeled with the word ‘sponsored’ in dark, bold text. This will help to differentiate them from other types of content found on Google’s pages – and keep consumers informed about the content that they see.

How Can You Improve Your Site’s Appearance in Google’s Returns?

With all this information in mind, you might be wondering what you can do to harness the power of Google’s new search result presentation. As with many things related to the success of your business’s online presence, it all starts with SEO.

The new method of displaying your website’s name alongside the web address and favicon uses a sophisticated system of auto-generation. This crawls the pages of your site and uses the information there to create a title. Many times, this is the correct title, but not always.

The key to ensuring that Google gets things right when presenting information about your website and brand is to have that information readily available. You can do this by utilizing strong search engine optimization – or SEO – to let Google and any other search engine know what your page is about. This way, you will see fewer errors in search returns – and more high-quality web traffic as a result.

If you aren’t comfortable outfitting your website with adequate SEO yourself, worry not. There are plenty of options for affordable SEO companies who can help you get the ball rolling without busting your marketing budget. Partner with a professional and see how easy it can be to show search engines and consumers alike what makes your brand different from all the rest!