Seems the world isn’t waiting for anyone to catch up.

In a recent ClickZ column, long-respected SEO (define) guru Mike Grehan suggested we search Ask.com for “Spider-Man 3.”

There we glimpse into the future of search engine results. Welcome to universal search.

Mike speculates: “With the three-column approach, I can’t imagine why I’d ever scroll down the page, let alone click through to a second (did people really click through to the second page in the Fred Flintstone SEO era?).”

How’s that for a punch between your peepers? Grehan continues:

End users are lazy and don’t have a clue what they expect to see when using search engines. I know. I’m an end user, and I’m as stupid as the next one when it comes to using search engines. But think of my delight when I throw in a vague two- to three-word query and find a page that answers even more of my potential questions before they’ve been asked.

What does it mean for SEO professionals moving forward? It means we’ve finally reached point where better marketing counts — and not H1 tags.

Yeesh, and you thought optimizing for those pesky text and link spiders was hard. How are you going to optimize now? (Do I even need to mention what’s happening to online traffic costs?)

It’s telling when search engine results answer more questions and give a superior visitor experience than the majority of so-called optimized pages. Search engines have been doing one thing most SEO efforts and marketers refuse to do: they’re aggressively focusing on end searchers. What a concept.

These new algorithms try to anticipate their wants, needs, and time, possibly even pique their imagination. Search engines are merely a reflection of what people want; complex algorithms and crawlers are only a means to that end. Search engines are bigger visitor advocates than most sites.

Sad.

So what’s the answer to the challenge ahead? In his column, Grehan asks my brother and me to come up with fresh descriptions to replace the tired SEO/SEM terms people love to churn out in decks and at seminar parties.

I don’t want to change things too much. So let’s keep it simple. Instead of SEO, let’s try ESO, for “end searcher optimization.”

Continue reading my column on ClickZ…