If there was one winner in 2020, without a doubt, it was TikTok.
This app won the hearts and minds of people, and had a pitch-perfect marketing plan that was executed brilliantly!
A few weeks ago, SE Roundtable made a post of how videos from the app appears in the SERPs.
This got me thinking…
Will this app be featured in the SERPs the way Twitter is featured in the SERPs…?
I’m going to say ‘yes’ to this.
It’s still a little too early to say for sure but I believe TikTok will have an increasingly large presence in the SERPs throughout this year.
Here’s why I say this…
We’ve seen this sort of thing before.
When Twitter first came about, Google was very biased towards it.
At the time, Twitter was probably the best platform, the best website, that got QDF right!
Now, very quickly, QDF stands for Query Deserves Freshness.
It considers the freshness of content – i.e. the latest information on a given topic.
QDF consideration is one of the reasons why blogs and blogging platforms blow up in the mid 2000s.
Twitter was the platform to have and show the freshest content on any given topic.
Now, why was this important to Google…?
Oh, and by the way, I’m using Google as a stand-in for all search engines, simply because they are the leader in most markets.
Why did they have a heavy bias towards Twitter in their search results?
Well, let’s revisit their mission statement – what they aim to achieve.
Their mission is to organise the world’s information and present it to users quickly!
When Twitter has the latest, freshest information on a given topic, how can they not feature this site in the SERPs?
They have to, right?
In line with their mission statement, they have to.
Twitter had information, and presented it to the world quickly.
Regardless of whether the information was substantial, it was information, i.e. content, shown quickly!
Isn’t this what we’re seeing with TikTok…?
This new platform has been established, in record breaking time, it seems. I mean, this app pretty much only blew up in 2020.
It’s won people over, to the point where the platform is where people are, where you can find an audience – any audience.
Now, I realise it’s an app but let’s look at TikTok as a website, for a moment.
Content is created on it at an outstandingly high rate.
If each profile was a webpage, there are millions of pages from the brand, worldwide.
The vast majority of these pages are updated on a daily basis.
Looking at this as a website, this site has an incredibly high authority, both across the entire domain, and per page.
Haven’t we seen something like this before?
Remember forums?
Early 2000s, forums were highly valuable sources for search engines.
At the time, pretty much every website wanted to have a forum.
Why?
Because forums created engagement on a website, which translated to pages being created on the site.
This translated to freshness of the website, which translated to the website being favoured by the search engines for relevant queries.
We have a similar thing with TikTok.
It’s attracted people to it.
It has an audience.
It has fresh content on a daily basis.
It has the attention of search engines.
What does this all mean…?
I think we could be seeing an evolution of keywords.
Hear me out for a moment…
Currently, Google seems to be testing how to display in the SERPs queries that warrant short-based videos.
And, it’s pretty much only on mobile.
I haven’t seen any TikTok videos on Google on desktop. I don’t expect any to be shown on desktop because, well, TikTok is app-based.
But, here’s the thing…
If people search for something on mobile and end up seeing TikTok videos from a certain profile, after a while, that person, that profile, that brand, will be queried more.
We could see a rise in keywords relating to online personalities, or as they’re commonly known as, ‘influencers’.
In other words, Influencers may wield more power in being the driving force behind both keyword intent and keyword volume.
Just like TV drives search interest, Influencers, particularly on TikTok, may drive people to search.
Now, I don’t think this will be anywhere as impactful as TV, yet!
However, think about how quickly TikTok has grown.
Think about their core demographic.
And if you’ve been on the app, you know it is already more addictive than TV, both within and outside of their core demographic.
TikTok could evolve the way we think about search, keywords, and targeting.
Profiles on TikTok could be an extension of the equity pages we have on websites.
Quite possibly.
