Is Context Bigger Than Content?

Is Context Bigger Than Content?

Anyone who has been around search engine optimization very long knows how content is the cornerstone of building solid search rankings.

Generally speaking, the more high-quality blogs, videos, infographics and pages you produce, the more traffic, links and social shares you will get. This combined with various technical on-page factors can propel your site to the top of page one rankings for your target keyphrase.

The future of search, especially mobile SEO, is going to be much different according to Aaron Friedman, director of Innovation at Five Blocks

Many marketers think mobile SEO will not be too different than traditional SEO — build quality content and study search signals from Google. Friedman disagrees, and says the future of mobile SEO will be based around “contextual understanding” since people mainly use apps on their phones rather than search in a browser.

Contextual understanding “is about giving people the information they want when they need it most,” Friedman wrote.

Rather than using a search to find things you need in a given situation, Friedman wrote that a contextual app discovery engine will “recommend relevant apps based on location, behavior and other factors.”

Let’s take a look at an example:

Data from your fitness app can be used to make predictions based on where you’re at and how fast you’re going, and deliver an ad relevant to your current situation.

Or, let’s say you have dinner reservations. You currently may search for the restaurant’s address and try and determine the best route using your Google Map app. In the contextual world, your phone will be able to display a route to the restaurant, traffic conditions and more before you get it out of your pocket.

This contextual search already exists to some degree, but there currently isn’t integration between different apps. At some point, someone can take all of this data from various apps and develop a “decision engine” based on a user’s online and offline behavior, Friedman explains.

Many companies, including Google Now, are already developing these “decision engines”

All the big players — Google, Apple, Yahoo and even Twitter — are betting big on contextual search.

The goal of contextual search is to provide relevant information to users at the right time using location and behavior as signals.

Everything.me is a mobile startup in Tel Aviv, Israel, that has put more than $37 million into the revolutionary idea. Their data collection app essentially replaces the smartphone home screen with one customized based on your location, your search history, the apps you use, your calendar and more.

So rather than having the same home screen each time you get out your phone, Everything.me will show options based on your current situation, or the “context” in which you find yourself. If it knows you’re traveling in a new city, Everything.me can recommend apps to help you get around, find a place to eat and so on.

This new context-based software and search are still in the beginning stages, but competition is fierce. Google has a pretty good head start with its Now interface and already has a close relationship with Everything.me. If they can be successful with developing a home screen (Android) app based on the context of what the user is doing, the basic iPhone may seem much less useful in the future.

As Friedman explains, the future of mobile search and SEO is likely to look much different and may not even be based on the internet, content and more, but rather the user’s experience and the context of their current location and situation.